“Yes, we have some trouble, I remember, and you help us.” The trouble she referred to was when the app prompted her to enter a username, and she entered in all caps, “I.DO.NOT.HAVE.USER.NAME.SORRY.” Luckily, Liftr rejected it because it had too many characters.
“Have you guys used that app recently? I got some feedback from a driver that there had been some recent passenger activity that I wasn’t aware of.”
“Melody! What you blame us for?” In a flash, I had triggered my mom’s anger. You could hear it in her shrill, antagonistic voice, and she would soon detonate if I didn’t diffuse this hostile situation right away.
“A Liftr driver informed me of some unusual activity on my account, and apparently my passenger rating is really bad.”
My parents, having a muffled sidebar conversation in Korean, whispered words like cheongmal (really), aigoo (oh geez), ssawoseo (argue), and then in English, “black person driver.” Uh-oh.
My work commute moved faster than the GPS had predicted. I needed to wrap up this conversation before I entered the no signal parking garage entry ramp. “Hey, Mom? Dad? I’m pulling into my building now, so I have to go. I’m going to remove you from my Liftr account today, okay? My car is dying and I need Liftr. If you want me to set up your own account, I can help you with that, but not now. Maybe this weekend.”
I had every right to remove them for their questionable conduct. So why feel so bad about deleting them from my account? I was a few steps away from being banned from the service, and I needed that riding option in case of an emergency. Like my car not starting. Nope, you will not feel guilty about this, Melody.
Rather than raise hell, my mom said without any fight in her voice, “We don’t use it much anyhow. Just few time when we going around downtown. Why you drive to work? You should walk. You need more exercise.” Was this one of her proud you need to be healthy like your dad and me moments, or one of her let’s talk about your weight segues? Since I’d moved to Seattle a few years ago from Chicago I’d gained about ten pounds. And she noticed, because she mentioned it every few conversations.
“I’ll call you later!” I zoomed down the garage ramp and took my pick of widely available parking spot options. The only other car here? Ian’s fucking new Tesla.
Before I could put my stuff down in my office, I heard Ian bellow behind me, “Melody! You’re here. In my office, NOW.”
I had been quiet, how did he know I was here? With my overstuffed computer bag, old raincoat, and worn-leather purse hanging off my arms like a TJ Maxx last-chance clearance display, I padded over to the executive corridor.
Ian scooched out of the doorway to let all my schlepped belongings and me through. On the wall monitor were my forecast and budget PowerPoint slides I had put on the shared drive the night before. Seated in one of the guest chairs was Nolan, running his hand through his wild brown bedhead hair, scrunched flat on one side, sticking straight up on the other. His gray plaid shirt was covered in “left in the dryer a few nights” wrinkles. He had a rolled-out-of-bed-after-being-with-a-gorgeous-woman-all-night look about him.
“Nolan and I have been going over the forecast and budget numbers you both prepared for the board.”
I bit my bottom lip and stared hard at the screen. I never told Mr. Intern I’d be doing everything without his consultation.
Ian continued. “For the most part, it’s correct. But your assumptions aren’t spelled out, and most of your calculations aren’t shown in detail. The board gets super in the weeds and really gets off on rolling around in data.”
I waited for an apology for his crass remark. Of course, it never came. “I need you to do all of this over. Show the work this time with a bottom-up granular approach instead of a top-down one.”
My brain finally woke up. “Do it all over? That took hours! I don’t have time—”
Nolan leaned forward from his chair and adjusted his glasses. “Not a problem. I’ll work on the number crunching, and Melody can review the final version. We’ll send it to you this evening.”
A grimace flashed across Ian’s face. “Okay, but this afternoon we have the nine-hole tourney at the country club. Who’s going to be my caddy if you’re working on this?”
My mouth opened to respond, but Nolan’s no, don’t you dare glare made me bite back my words.
Ian sighed. “Send it to me by one P.M. today so we have time before the tournament to review it if I have questions.” Then he shooed us away to make a call.
Once we were out of earshot, Nolan muttered, “He woke me up before sunrise so we could go over the numbers. You know, the ones you worked on yourself and didn’t even have the courtesy to share with me.”
“It was easier to do myself,” I huffed. “I had too many meetings so I had to work on it whenever I could find spare time. Plus, I’m sure you had your hands full last night. The last thing you probably wanted was to work on budgets and revenue forecasts.”
Confusion flashed on his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” I muttered. “So why does Ian want another pass at the numbers?”
He sighed. “Well, you could have had me do the work, or at least let me review yours before you uploaded it. Some of your assumptions are too conservative, and some of your revenue projections are way too optimistic. You need to clear your calendar so we can get this finished by the deadline.”
“Fine.” I declined all my day’s meetings on my phone calendar. “Let’s start now. Maybe if we finish early you can still make it to your treasured golf game with your uncle,” I said flatly.
He rolled his eyes. “And I’ll book a conference room for the whole day just in case. The small one at the end of the hall is usually free.” It was the freezing conference room that had a wobbly table and was littered with broken chairs. One look at my facial reaction and he burst into laughter. “Look, it’s not THAT bad. At least it’s available. And there’s no Asher to deal with there.”
Well, we both hated Asher. At least we had that in common.
We walked to the always-empty Ernest Cline conference room in silence. The motion-sensor light took a few extra seconds to register our presence. When the overhead fluorescents flicked on, we could see that some evil bastard had uncapped all the dry-erase markers and scattered them on the floor, removed the rickety table, and left a graveyard of broken chairs in our midst.
Nolan inspected our seating options and wheeled a seemingly normal chair over to me. “Okay, here’s one of the least messed-up ones I could find.” I sat, and it hissed as I slowly shrank down to the shortest setting. “Oh, I guess the height adjustment mechanism is broken,” he said, stating the obvious.
When I stood, the seat hissed again, moving the seat back up to the original position.
Nolan pushed another chair in my direction. This one also looked “normal” but didn’t swivel, which was fine, given the alternatives.
For himself, he sat in one that was stained with black, brown, and white splotches. I never understood how seats could get that dirty from everyday work use. Maybe they got that way from after-hours recreational use? Gross, Melody, don’t even go there. Mind out of gutter, please.
“Shit, we need a table.” Nolan disappeared and came back a minute later with a small circular metal bistro table that he stole from the kitchen.
Asher messaged me as Nolan propped open the door. Just saw your ex-boo N in the hallway and grilled him about that hot girl. She was a drunk hot mess when she arrived and he put her in a cab. He also said she was boring??? Idk who cares?
I couldn’t fight the smile forming on my lips.
Nolan cared.
Holding the heavy tabletop with both hands, Nolan shimmied through the door like he was holding a very large steering wheel. It was the first time I had the opportunity to take in all of his tall, athletic physique. He breathed heavily as he placed the table in the middle of the room, and I wanted so badly to push away the swath of his hair that fell onto his tortoiseshell frames. Did he notice my gaze when I followed the outline of his shoulders and chest as they strained against his button-down fitted shirt? No, no, no, Melody. It’s Nolan Fucking MacKenzie. I distracted myself by pulling my laptop from my computer bag and signing in to the network. My cheeks prickled with heat, even though the room was meat-locker cold.
Remember, he’s your intern. “Okay, let’s get started,” I said in a clipped, businesslike tone.
He unbuttoned his shirt a little. “That was some good strength training.”
My eyes stared at where his fingers had just been.
“What?” he asked, noticing my intense interest in his upper-chest area.
My cheeks flushed with heat. “What? Oh, I was just . . . thinking I liked your shirt. Big fan of plaid.” Oh god. “It’s a good cut, too.” I couldn’t stop talking. “It’s not too baggy.”
Over our opened laptops, I peeked up from the screen and caught Nolan watching me. His mouth curved upward as he looked back down and typed.
“What?”
He smirked. “I was just thinking about how you tried to do this without me. Big mistake.”