By some miracle, an IT guy was sitting at his desk, using a screwdriver to open the battery cover of a laptop that looked exactly like mine.
“Hi! I’m Melody. My laptop won’t turn on. I’m hoping you can help.” I scanned his desk for his nameplate. “Damon.” I smiled, hoping a cheery version of myself might make him care more.
Damon was maybe twenty-five years old, superskinny, with blue, slightly bugged eyes. Ghostly pale with gingerish hair. Wearing a size XL Speed Racer shirt on a size S frame.
He shrugged. “Did you submit a helpdesk ticket?”
“No, I didn’t. How do I do that?”
“Um, you send an email to helpdesk about your problem.” He rolled his eyes and went back to working on the computer battery. He shook his head and softly muttered something under his breath.
“Hmmm . . . my computer won’t even power on . . . so not sure how I’d be able to email you.” Don’t you shake your head and roll your eyes at me, mister!
He put down the screwdriver and held out his hand. I passed him my laptop. “I tried to reboot it by holding down the power button, I checked the docking station and the power cord, too. Not sure what happened. I didn’t even get the blue screen of death.”
He scoffed at the purple, oval “Grrl Powr!” glittery sticker on my laptop cover that Candace had bought me for my first day at Seventeen Studios. He flipped the machine over and tinkered with the battery. Then he took the hard drive out and put it into another machine. “It’s your hard drive. I’ll need to get you a new computer, but none of the ones here have been reimaged. I can get you set up with a loaner, though. It’s a little beat-up.”
He opened the laptop he’d been working on and typed a few things on its keyboard. Then he said, “Okay, I’ll need you to enter your password.”
I typed in the ten-character alphanumeric combo I’d been issued when I arrived. Note to self, remember to change that.
When I got a closer look at the keypad, I noticed that the space bar was missing. Damon noticed that I noticed it was missing. “Yeah, the space bar isn’t there, and it’s not something we can replace.”
“But . . . everything I type will be one giant word.”
With a halfhearted shrug, he gave me a not my fucking problem look. I glanced at the shelf behind his desk. Two new Macs in boxes! “Hey, are those employee computers?”
“Sorry, you aren’t authorized to have a Mac. One is for Ian, the other is for one of the designers.”
I sighed. “The intern has a Mac.”
“Well, he’s a special case.”
Right. Nepotism. “Okay then. You think my computer will be ready tomorrow?”
He rubbed his head of gingery hair. I fought the urge to smooth it all into one direction. “I’ll come by with your new one as soon as it’s ready.” He opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something else, but then closed it. He went back to his screwdriver and battery, so I took the loaner computer and walked back to my office.
Asher took the earbuds out of his ears and smiled at me coyly with that smug-ass face of his. “In case you were wondering, I didn’t sabotage your computer.” Actually, I hadn’t thought he was involved at all. But now I did. He added, “Good luck with that.” He put his earbuds back in and then went back to ignoring me. Ignoring seemed better than strangling each other. The current state of disregarding each other was as harmonious as we could get.
A couple of hours later Damon appeared with a Mac. I raised my eyebrow when he handed it to me.
“Um, one of the designers got fired this morning and I wiped his hard drive. This computer is better than that new one you’d be issued. You should take it.”
A MacBook! “Oh, wow, so this one isn’t missing any critical keys?” I flipped it open and all the keys were accounted for. Yay! One hundred percent of keys!
He took the loaner from me and clutched it against his chest. “Same login and password on this computer. It has more RAM and more memory, too, and I can get you an external hard drive if you need it.”
I swayed in my chair with excitement. “Okay! Hey, thanks, Damon!”
He left briskly and no longer blocked my view of Asher’s stupid head. Damon had temporarily eclipsed Asher from my view. It had only been a short-term reprieve, unfortunately.
Asher eyed my laptop like a dieter observing boxes of Girl Scout cookies for sale: with deep desire and hatred. He gritted his teeth and side-eyed me, and I totally knew what he was thinking: Melody got another “free pass” at this company by getting a coveted MacBook. But you know what was unfair? Being on a tight deadline and having a shitty computer that died. And then getting issued a loaner computer with a missing space bar. Writing-sentences-with-no-fucking-spaces-for-a-few-hours. That’s pretty unfair if you ask me. And it was an older, used Mac, not a new one. Asher could go eff off.
He stood up, slammed his laptop shut, and stormed out of our room. Good riddance.
I logged in to the network and downloaded my email and calendar. Dozens of overdue and upcoming meeting notifications took over my screen. I’d missed a Gartner game industry Outlook presentation an hour ago. Not a big deal. But I was also ten minutes late to a mandatory sexual harassment training in the Orson Scott Card large conference room.
Crap.
I slammed my laptop cover and dashed to the meeting. All eyes fell on me when I opened the door, looking disheveled and panting like I’d just had steamy, mind-blowing sex.
“Sorry,” I mumbled and scurried to the closest open seat at the large conference table. While the instructor handed out sheets of paper, I surveyed the room, counting twelve dudes, all but one of them white. Nolan was there, donning his signature J.Crew Outlet look, wearing a hunter-green plaid fitted shirt nearly identical in style and fit to the one he wore when we worked together. I looked away before he made eye contact.
Asher was there, too. He could have told me about this mandatory meeting, but he had been too busy purposefully ignoring me. I would have done the same thing.
“Excuse me, are you Melody?” The grandfatherly instructor, with a faint British accent, asked.
“Um. Yes?”
“Brilliant! We have perfect attendance!” He took a black Sharpie and drew a horizontal line on his pad of paper, presumably crossing off the final name of his participant list. “You just missed our group introductions. I am Charles Sword, your moderator for today’s professional training. I was just thanking Nolan here for bringing me in for this session.” Nolan ran his fingers through his hair and offered the instructor a sheepish grin. He glanced at me and gave me a tiny wave. Unable to resist, I offered him a lopsided smile. I had to give him some credit, at least he was doing his job.
Charles focused all his attention on me. “I’m thrilled you’ve arrived. Would you mind reading the lines of the female character in the script in front of you? You came just in time for the role-playing exercise.”
Oh, lucky me.
He peered down at his list of participants again. “And . . . Asher? Can you play the male character?”
Lucky me again.
Charles said, “I’ll be the narrator because I certainly have the voice for it.” The instructor chuckled. “Well, what a serious bunch we have here. All right then, I’ll begin.” He cleared his throat, not out of necessity, but instead for dramatic effect.
“Jack and Jill work in a relaxed office environment. Jill is typing a memo when Jack enters the room. Go ahead, Asher.”
Asher/Jack: Have you met that new chick?
Melody/Jill: You mean Caitlin?
Asher/Jack: Yeah. She has a great rack.
The room busted into laughter. What the fuck was this? An intense wave of heat moved through my body. The fire in my cheeks burned like I’d doused them in kimchi juice.
Charles the moderator said, “The language Jack uses makes Jill feel uncomfortable. What did you as listeners find problematic about his choice of words?”
Hands shot in the air.
“Yes? You, sir, in the red shirt?”
Red Shirt guy said, “Well, he calls that girl a ‘chick’ and—”
I cut in. “And you just called Jill a ‘girl.’ You’d never call Jack a ‘boy’ in the workplace.”
Someone muttered, “Daaaaamn, Jill. That’s savage.” All the dudes laughed.
Asher said, “I wouldn’t have used the word ‘rack.’”
Charles nodded. “Right-o! The choice of words was not appropriate for the office environment.” Right-o? Did people really talk like that anymore?
A guy in a Mariners jersey asked, “Should we use ‘chest’ instead?”
“You shouldn’t be talking about chests at all in the workplace,” I muttered. My fierce, crippling stare made him wince and look away.
Asher asked, “How about ‘jugs’?” He smirked at me as the room erupted in laughter again. Damn it! I wanted to kill him.
The instructor could sense my murderous intentions. He said, “Alrighty. Why don’t we move on to the second exercise? In this scenario, Jill is the night manager of the shipping department. One evening Jack approaches her to ask if he can leave early. Jill objects, and Jack offers a massage in exchange for permission to leave and—”