Hita

by Anita Claire

  “Which one is it, break up, or let him emotionally cave for a bit? Maybe after this argument he’ll clean his place.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t think our problems are as simple as his dirty apartment. Things have stalled between us. Nothing bad, but nothing good either. He’s a nice sweet guy, our relationship just turned sterile.”

  “That happens. That’s why you have ex-boyfriends.”

  Shaking my head again, I feel a tear well up in my eye. “I talked to Juliette about my issues with David. She said I should talk to him. You see what talking did?”

  “Yeah, I guess you need to see what he does next.”

  “Yeah, I wonder what he’ll do.”

  Kristi looks at me and frowns. “I see one of three things happening. He’ll either come back and try to work things out, he’ll come back and pretend that nothing happened, or he won’t come back.”

  “Is that what happened with you and Tim?”

  “Sort of, Tim came back as if nothing happened. Until the next conversation came up, when I told him accept all of me or none of me.”

  “And?”

  “Well it’s not like we’re going out anymore.”

  “Yeah, breaking up is hard.”

  She shrugs. “It’s life, you need to kiss a lot of frogs before you realize you’re actually kissing a prince.”

  “I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.”

  “I think my saying is more realistic.”

  Chapter 40 – Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

  Savi was supportive on our call, telling me, “If you feel lonely and the two of you are not communicating, then the right thing to do is to talk to him. He now has a choice—to work it out or to break up. You’ll see how committed he is to your relationship.”

  It’s the first time in well over a year we don’t talk about Arav. After I hang up, I wonder if everything is still good with the two of them.

  ***

  At lunch Megan sits down at the table with a big smile on her face. Kami looks at her and says, “Something good must have happened, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this happy.”

  “Oh, this is a wonderful day. By the look of your glum faces I assume you haven’t heard the news?”

  “What news?” I ask.

  “Give us a hint, I have no idea what the news could possibly be,” Caroline pipes in.

  Megan gets all excited, “Terri turned in her letter of resignation. It turns out she got a job at some company in San Francisco. HR has already escorted her to the door.”

  Juliette and I make eye contact. Both of us have a huge smile on our face. Juliette innocently says, “This is so perfect. My friend Isabelle is doing a similar job at another company. She’s been talking about making a move. I think I’ll submit her résumé to Sid and HR.”

  “What a great idea. I think Isabelle will be perfect,” I reply.

  On the way back from lunch, Juliette says to me, “Damn, it took Terri long enough to get a new job, I was wondering if this plan was ever going to work.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure happy not to have to waste any more of my time sending out her dumb ass résumé.”

  ***

  Three days later, David shows back up at my place. After greeting him at my door with a big smile, he looks kind of sheepish as he starts off with, “Are you doing better tonight?”

  Surprised, I ask, “Doing better? What are you talking about?”

  Nervously, he replies, “You seemed out of sorts the other night. I figured I should give you some space.”

  “David, I wasn’t out of sorts. You and I have issues. We inhabit the same space, but we’re not having a relationship. Playing the same game and sleeping in the same bed is not a relationship.” Pointing my fingers back and forth between us, I explain, “We need to interact, we need to change what we’re doing.”

  He gives me a blank look. It finally hits me. He really never got past the preschool stage of parallel play. Or maybe he doesn’t want more than to parallel play. He was happy where we were. We had enough interaction for him. I’m the only one who’s unhappy. I guess parallel play is what he does with his friends.

  Shaking my head I tell him, “I think you like the idea of a girlfriend, but you really don’t want the responsibility of a relationship.”

  Looking at his confused face, I walk over and kiss him on the cheek as I head to my room to go to sleep. I’m not sure what he is going to do next. I figure if he comes to bed, then we have a lot of work ahead of ourselves. If he leaves, I guess we’ve broken up. As I sit down on my bed wondering what he will do next, I feel numb. As I hear my front door close, I feel relieved.

  Lying back on my bed, I stare at the designs in the popcorn ceiling. My entire body is wrapped in a layer of sadness. I feel tears leak out of my eyes and pool in my ears. My chest starts to feel so heavy I’m surprised I still can breathe. I hope Kristi doesn’t feel any need to check up on me. I want to wallow in my sadness, disappointment, and grief. David’s such a sweet guy; I hoped our relationship would have worked, but I have no desire to chase after him. I want him to want us enough that he’s willing to try.

  Chapter 41 – Isabelle’s On Board

  In the morning I stare at myself in my bathroom mirror. I wonder how my face can look the same while my soul feels shriveled and defeated. I force myself to shake off my lethargy and head to work.

  Before stopping at my desk, I decide to stop at Sid’s office—luckily he’s in. Handing him a print out of Isabelle’s résumé, I tell him, “I understand Terri resigned. This is the résumé of another friend from college. She’s really smart, easy to work with, and has a great attitude. She’s been doing a similar job as Terri, but she’s much more geeked out on analysis. She’s used her position to uncover a lot of different possible efficiencies in her current company’s processes.”

  He quickly looks over her résumé, “Why is she interested in leaving her current company?”

  “It’s really old school; they’re not open to analysis from a junior person. She’d rather work someplace younger and more vibrant.”

  He nods his head slowly. I then walk over to the new director of marketing, giving her Isabelle’s résumé, and the same line. I talk to our recruiter in HR, and hand her the résumé.

  She tells me, “Can you send it to me via e-mail?” Then she says with a chuckle, “I see you’re on the fast track for finder’s fees.”

  At my company you get a finder’s fee if they hire someone you recommend. I split Juliette’s finder’s fee with her. If they hire Isabelle, it will be a three way split.

  ***

  It only takes a couple of days for my company to call Isabelle and ask her to come in for an interview. Beforehand, the three of us meet up at Juliette’s place.

  The first thing out of Isabelle’s mouth is, “I don’t even know what your company does.”

  Juliette and I give each other the eye, as we smirk, “Big data solutions for companies and governments.”

  “What does that even mean?” Isabelle asks in confusion.

  Juliette answers, “Companies and governments are storing all this information on users. Not really on people, just on their movement through their website, where they go on the website, and what other sites they visit. It’s lots and lots of information that means nothing. Managers can’t make decisions from it, and marketing organizations can’t sell any more from it. They’re saving all this data hoping that someday it will make sense.”

  I continue with, “Our founder developed some algorithms that can be used to look at site data and figure out where people are on a site, how long they spend on a page, and where they go next. He created an API and a user interface, so it’s real easy for someone in IT to hook these algorithms up to their data. Our company also created visual reports that make it easy for managers to identify trends, so they can see what’s happening and to be able to make decisions from the data.”

  “Oh, like the data I gathered on our non-revenue cost of e
ngineering related to sales at my company, and then all the charts and venn diagrams I created to visually highlight to my management what the actual cost and profit was by product?” Isabelle says as she processes what we’ve been telling her.

  Juliette nods as she answers, “Same identical thing, your data sets have about a thousand variables, while the data sets we’re dealing with have a terabyte, or even a petabyte of data. It’s too much information for a person to analyze, and the variables are too large and random for traditional computer analysis.”

  “That’s what you do, website analytics?” Isabelle asks.

  “That was the first application,” I explain. “Now we have additional applications having to do with buying patterns and website patterns. Once you can identify what people are doing on a website, and where they’re going, the next thing is to figure out what you want to lead them to do next. For instance, if someone’s looking at cars, do they want to buy a car, have they already bought a car, or are they trading in a car? Each of those are very different scenarios. How do you identify where someone is in the cycle? Based on that, what options do you show them to sell more?

  “Oh, I get it, if they bought a car, you don’t want to show them cars anymore, you might want to show them accessories, or trips they can take in a car,” Isabelle says.

  “Precisely,” I respond.

  Juliette and I then work with Isabelle on the best way to present her current situation. After a couple of hours I don’t know if we’ve hurt or helped since we’ve made her so nervous by wordsmithing her every thought.

  After Isabelle’s day of interviews, Juliette and I check in with all the people she spoke to, casually asking them what they thought and making sure to put in a good word for her.

  The following week at ping pong, Colin comments, “I hear another of your friends is joining us.”

  I joke back, “It’s a take over from the bottom. Before you know it, all my friends will work here.” I chuckle to myself. We’re the princess mafia.

  ***

  It’s fun having Isabelle at work, we don’t have any reason to interact with her during the day, though she does manage to wind her way over to our area to get either Juliette or me to explain what everyone is talking about. The acronyms feel so commonplace to me; I forget how daunting they can be to someone new. She also manages to join our lunch group. There are now seven women who eat lunch together. I guess seven is a lucky number for me.

  Chapter 42 – Open Water Swimming

  Juliette asks me to ride down to Santa Cruz with her. There’s a big open water swim race she signed up for.

  “Why didn’t you drive down with Nate?”

  “He works every other Saturday. He always says he’ll be done by two, but shows up at four. Anyway, he’s working. I could ride down with some swim friends but….”

  “Zach?”

  She nods before explaining. “Zach and I are cool. But Nate doesn’t know that Zach and I went out a few times last fall.”

  “You don’t think Nate would be cool with you hanging with Zach?”

  She flashes me a look before saying, “I wasn’t cool knowing his ex was in town trying to get back together with him. I don’t think he would be cool knowing I’m hanging with a guy I once dated.”

  “I take it you believe you made the right choice.”

  She smiles and nods before saying, “I’m lucky how things turned out. Zach’s a good guy. But Nate’s a great guy. I can’t imagine being happier.”

  We drive for a bit in silence as I realize I’m happy for Juliette, though I feel a pang of jealousy that she has what I want. After parking we walk to the beach where everyone is registering for the swim. Half the people are in wetsuits, half are only wearing swimsuits.

  As Juliette hands me her sweats and puts on a thermal swim cap I ask her. “Why aren’t you wearing a wetsuit?”

  “Real swimmers don’t wear wetsuits.”

  “I thought you hated cold water?”

  “I do, but in the fall I challenged Kevin and Zach to do this swim.”

  “So you’re going to freeze your butt off to prove some stupid point?”

  She smiles and shrugs as she answers, “It appears so.”

  The fog is starting to break when the swim starts. I watch as everyone swims around the pier. Juliette’s friends Zach and Kevin are the first two out of the water. Their finish is so tight I don’t know who won. Damn, Zach is a beautiful man. Nate’s a big, good looking guy, but as I watch Zach walk up the beach in only a speedo I wonder how Juliette turned Zach down. Now I’m wondering if it’s the sun or Zach’s body that’s making my temperature rise as I strip off my hoody and sweatpants.

  Juliette gets out of the ocean with blue lips. She grabs my hoody and the towel I have for her. As we wait for Kevin’s girlfriend to finish the race I think I hear my name being called. I look around and don’t see anyone I know. Out of the corner of my eye I see a guy approaching. He’s got a wetsuit pulled down to his waist. He looks real good. He’s kind of tawny colored, with the body tall slim guys get when they lift weights -- well-built arms, shoulders, chest, and flat stomach that ends in a lean V. I can’t help but noticing he also has a big friendly smile. I figure he must know Juliette.

  When he gets close he says, “Hey, Hita, I thought that was you.”

  I keep staring, perplexed, that voice is so familiar. Finally I spit out, “Colin?”

  He chuckles, “I saw you yesterday. What, you forgot what I looked like already?

  I hope my jaw didn’t drop to the ground. I had no idea that under those T-shirts he wears his body was so spectacularly nice. Or maybe I realized it, but it never registered.

  “Why are you here?” he says casually.

  “Juliette did the swim. I’m her back-up team.” As I point to shivering Juliette.

  He smiles and says, “sweet.”

  I can tell he’s checking out my bikini clad body, which suddenly makes me feel exposed and naked. I feel at a loss of what to say next.

  He tips his head, “Juliette who works with us?”

  Nodding my head, I find the words to talk. “Yeah, you’ve met her.”

  He looks at her and tips his head as she gives a little wave.

  He looks back at me. “It’s nice running into you.” Looking me up and down again, he quirks his lips into a smile, “I should get back to my friends.”

  He starts turning, then says, “Hey, I haven’t seen you or David at the Underground in a while.”

  “Oh, yeah, David hasn’t been there?”

  His eyebrows go up. “No.”

  “We broke up.” Shrugging my shoulder I explain, “I was avoiding it since I thought it best to give him some space.”

  “Yeah, sounds like both of you had the same idea.” With a smile, he looks over at some guys who are waiting for him. “My friends are waiting. I’ll catch you at work.”

  As he walks towards the parking lot, Juliette elbows me, “I never realized Colin was so hot…and?” Juliette says.

  I shrug, “What?”

  “You’ve known this hot guy for what, two years. He sure went out of his way to say hello.”

  Looking at her questioningly, I explain, “We work together.”

  “Hita, you work at the same company. He’s not your boss; he doesn’t even work in our group. How many lunches do we talk about hot guys?” As we watch him retreat, she continues, “Damn, I’d put that boy number one on your prospect list.”

  As I start walking with Juliette over to where Zach, Kevin, and Amanda are, I can feel my mind in a swirl as I move Colin from the guy I play ping pong with to the guy who might be my new fantasy.

  Amanda asks, “Who was that?”

  Juliette gets a real scheming smile on her face, “Hita’s ping pong buddy who sure went out of his way to say hello to her.”

  I can feel the blood rush to my face, thank the Gods I’m too dark for anyone to tell.

  Chapter 43 –News

  At around five in the
evening, Juliette walks up to my desk. She opens a new browser window on my computer and types in TechCrunch. The page opens up with an article on Google buying a young company for $1.3 billion dollars.

  She then says, “Isn’t that your old boyfriend?”

  The first article is all about Anil. He owns sixty percent of his company’s stock. There’s a picture of him standing next to Jennifer’s old boyfriend, Carter.

  I gasp as Juliette leaves me stunned. I dated that guy, he liked me, he also thought I almost poisoned him and he had no sense of humor. But this guy liked me, he’s Indian, he would have married me. I, too, would be a billionaire now.

  Picking up my phone, I text Jennifer: Did you hear the news?

  She texts me back: That’s rather vague.

  I text her the link to the article as I stand up and start walking back to the supply room.

  In the room I stare at my phone. It takes about one minute before she calls.

  Shrieking into my phone she says, “Shit, can you believe those guys did that?”

  “Shit, that guy liked me,” I say.

  “Shit that guy liked me too,” she says.

  “Shit, we could be living in the hills with a fancy car and a black credit card,” I say.

  “Shit, we could be traveling anywhere, buying anything we want,” she says.

  We both stay on the phone, I can hear her breathing, neither of us saying anything.

  As thoughts of what I would do if I had a bottomless bank account run through my mind, I then think of Anil.

  “I’d be married to a humorless guy who didn’t get me.”

  Jennifer answers, “I’d be married to a guy who thinks my career is nebulous and beneath him.”

  “I’d be miserable.”

  “Yeah, so would I.”

  “Man for about three minutes my brain went into overdrive thinking of all the possibilities wealth would bring.”

  “Yeah, so did mine.”

  “I could do so much with that money.”

  “Yeah, not just for me, but there are all kinds of programs I could fund.”