by Jade Bitters
“No, not to our place,” said Ben. “I asked the doorman.”
“That beautiful bitch Roxanne is going to be the death of him,” said Mark with a sigh. Romeo could do so much better than some bottle service girl, some townie. Falling in love was a rookie mistake. “It’s all he’ll think about.”
“Ty, one of Stratford’s employees, sent an email to Caliban,” warned Ben.
Mark sighed, leaning back in his chair. This room was so perfect: people called it the “cigar room” for a reason, as the décor matched, but the damn smoking laws meant that he couldn’t light up a stogie in the building, at least not where there were cameras. Pyrymyn had a reputation, but it also had a reputation to protect. “I bet it’s trouble. It has to be trouble.”
“Romeo can deal with trouble,” said Ben. Mark didn’t give the kid enough trouble.
“Anyone who can reply can deal with it,” said Mark.
Ben rolled his eyes: Mark could be so slow when he was hungover, whereas Ben just had to deal with the headache. “No Romeo’s going to deal with Ty, and deal with whatever shit he plans on starting.”
“Well fuck,” said Mark, leaning back in the stuffed leather chair. At least it wasn’t one of those hippie-dippie hammocks they had over at Thisbia. “Romeo’s fucked...not that he wasn’t already pretty messed up by the whole Roxanne business. He’s been listening to all that emo music again, and it’s almost like he really has feelings for this girl or something. Feelings! Is he really man enough to deal with Ty?”
“You know more about Ty than I do,” said Ben. He’d seen Ty at the party and he knew who was who at Thisbia, but he hadn’t gone to school with Ty like Mark had.
“He’s...one tough bastard. He’s by the book, though, but I guess that’s what happens when you have a law degree. He fights like a programmer, though: organized. Precise. Accurate. Like a programmer, he knows those two things aren’t technically synonyms, not technically. He knows how to parse whatever you say and break it up and pull it apart, line by line, and knows every programming paradigm. He’s the hacker who can enter any system. A master of minds. He went to MIT, you know,” said Mark. “He knows the koans – the Jargon File – and the secret paths of East Dorm – check the Beast’s wiki.
“Wait, the what?” asked Ben.
“I hate these East Coast guys, who put on airs and talk in memes. I hate their weird behaviors and their weird voices, and I hate it when they say, ‘Wow, that was so epic, what an epic rig, what an epic scripter, what an epic SEO algorithm.’, isn’t it weird, bro?” complained Mark. “Why should we just...deal with it? With these weirdoes, these nerds, these boys who say ‘excuse me, let me just inject myself in here’, these guys who give such a fuck about being dorks that they can’t party without making it into a competition to out-nerd one-another? ‘Wah, my lines, my lines’, they wouldn’t know a white line of powder from one written in Python.”
Ben looked to the elevator and nudged Ben. “Yo. Yo, yo yo, Romeo. Romeo’s coming.”
“Ugh...he looks like such a manlet, like he doesn’t have any balls, and of course, he didn’t get the girl. Romeo? More like ‘oh, man’,” said Mark, rolling his eyes. “I can’t believe he used to lift. I guess now he can start that emo cover band he always wanted...but to be fair, Helena was nothing like Roxanne. Surely Roxanne has other beta orbiters to obsesses over her. Compared to her, I guess Romeo thinks the Mona Lisa, or Mona Lisa herself, was painted poorly. Compared to her, Delilah is some random. To him, any other hacker chick in San Francisco is some script kiddie wannabe. There might be tons of blonde haired, blue eyed, or is it blue haired, blonde eyed nowadays, girls at Thisbia, but that doesn’t matter, not to Romeo. Hello, Romeo, bonjour! That’s French, you uncultured fuck, for hello, as French as your cowardly attitude, giving that you ran away from adventure last night.”
“Well, hello to you two too,” said Romeo. “What do you mean I flaked?”
“You somehow got past our noses,” said Mark. “You know what I mean?”
“Well, excuse me, princess,” said Romeo. “I actually had something important to do last night and I didn’t have time to leave a note.”
“In other words...this ‘important business’ has left you pussy whipped,” said Mark.
“You mean you think some girl’s got me on a leash?” asked Romeo. It’s not like she’s some girl, anyway.
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Mark, making a whipping sound and doing a matching hand motion, flicking his rest up and down.
“Wow, real mature, guys,” said Romeo.
“That’s me, a real cool cat, daddy-o,” said Mark sarcastically.
“A pussy-cat,” said Romeo.
“Verily,” said Mark.
“I guess I’d know it when I see it, because it’s not like I don’t have tons of pussy in my room,” said Romeo. For his birthday, these assholes had papered his walls with porn, and when he took it down, they put it right back up, albeit with tamer cheesecake glamour shots. “This is getting older than that Fleshlight in your room, which you know, you should be cleaning out as per their instructions, but I guess for a guy like you, that makes it feel realer.”
Mark just raised his eyebrows. “You know I’m just busting your balls,” said Romeo.
Mark rolled his eyes. “Ben, change the topic, I’m getting bored with the company’s new toy.”
“Oh no, do keep playing, or I’ll get put away,” joked Romeo. At least, he thought he was joking. “Unless you think you can be beaten by a toy. Not even a gadget: a toy.”
“No, no, this is getting stupid, I’m done,” said Mark. “You’re younger than me, and I can make five references and you’ll only get one...we’re not even close to the same age.”
“You’re the only guy here who knows how to bust my balls right,” said Romeo. “You know how to beat the Pyrymyn company character into me.”
“Come closer, so I can slap that bullshit out of you,” said Mark.
“Oh, no, boss, please, don’t slap me, I’ll get so turned on,” joked Romeo.
“Such bitter jokes,” said Mark. “But you like your jokes dirty, don’t you?”
“Then isn’t that perfect for a dirty old man like you?” said Romeo.
“Oh, please, that’s so old, get creative,” ordered Mark. “I’m going to need ten better insults on my desk, yesterday.”
“I’m all out of new material,” said Romeo. “Dirty, plus man, that’s what you are though, isn’t it?”
“At least this is better than you whining about that silly girl,” said Mark. “Now you’re back to normal, back to being, well, you. Now you’ve figured things out, and know what’s important. You chased that girl like a stupid kid with a stupid kite at the Marina. You know, girls only like chasers after they’ve had a few drinks.”
“Yo, yo,” said Ben, touching Mark’s shoulder. Mark needed to check himself.
Mark turned, “Yo-yo? Play with yourself, because I’m not going to do it for you.”
“Right, because you’d like that too much,” said Ben.
“Oh, no, I’d hate it, it’d be terrible,” said Mark. “But I’m so close to making a sweet burn, but whatever.”
Amy entered the lounge and looked around. Mahogany walls with a plush red carpet? As much as she loved romance novels, it was weird that a tech company would stick with such an anachronistic aesthetic. Where was the color? The light? She hadn’t heard a laugh upon entering the building...until she saw the three men in the center of the relatively quiet room. Laughter! At Pyrymyn! Amy had heard of stranger things happening, though, including the thing that had driven her here.
Not the literal thing that had driven her here, though: Peter was carrying her Starbucks for her, because she’d had to enter the access codes into the elevator and check them in downstairs. Luckily, the HR departments weren’t full of as much bullshit as the engineering and programming departments, which took themselves too seriously, and so she’d had a friend that had given her th
e hookup and greeted them at the lobby, let her into the elevator, and from there, Amy was gold.
“Well, it looks like we have visitors,” said Romeo, frowning. Why did the woman look familiar?
“Hmm? A foreign ship, in our harbor?” asked Ben, not bothering to look and raising a single brow.
“There’s two people over there,” said Mark with a frown. “A man and a woman.”
“Peter!” said Amy.
“Yes?” said the bespectacled man.
“Give me my iced coffee, Peter,” said Amy. She took a sip from the chilly cup.
“Good, Peter, give the nice lady coffee to shut her up,” said Mark. “The sound of her sucking is better than that of her talking.”
“Morning, boys,” said Amy.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” said Mark.
“Oh, it’s afternoon now?” said Amy. The man in the dark suit looked familiar...almost like another man she’d seen in a dark suit at the party, but he wasn’t the one she was looking for.
“There’s no way it’s any earlier,” said Mark. “I can’t get a boner before noon, and the only thing striking twelve right now...is in my pants.” Mark pointed up, in case Amy didn’t get it.
Amy got it. “Are you fucking serious? What is your damage?”
“I’m damaged, honey,” said Mark. “Have been since birth.”
“Of course you are, but at least you’re able to admit it,” said Amy. “And acceptance is the first step towards change. Can any of you tell me where to find the young intern Romeo?”
“I could, but that Romeo will be older when you meet than when you asked,” said Romeo. “That’s me, and there’s nobody else at Pyrymyn with my name.”
“You...have a way with words,” said Amy. This kid sounded like he had popped straight out of one of her romance novels.
“A poor way with words,” corrected Mark. “Good of you to be able to recognize it.”
Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. If Romeo was the hero, Mark was the rake. “If you’re the one I’m look for, I’d like to have a meaning with you.”
“She’ll define lately like that,” said Ben, making fun of Amy’s slip.
Define lately, definitely, what a witty boy. Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes and just grit her teeth instead. She was hung over from the party, there was an excuse for her accident.
“A recruiter! That’s what she is, a recruiter! I knew it,” teased Mark.
“Knew what?” asked Romeo, confused. How much had Mark had to drink with Ben at the apartment the night before...or this morning? Was that regular coffee in their cups, or Ben’s special Irish coffee?
‘She’s not a recruiter, unless she’s being cute to hide that,” said Mark. “Romeo, don’t you have a lunch meeting with Caliban? Let’s go.”
“I’ll meet you guys there,” promised Romeo. These guys had no idea when to leave.
“See you, sweet cheeks,” said Mark, blowing a kiss to Amy and shooting her a wink. “See you, sweet heart, heart, heart.” Ben and Mark staggered off, arm in arm. How they got away with it, Romeo would never know. Was that what an MBA afforded them? The privileges of day drinking?
“Romeo, do me a favor: who is that guy, the one who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut?” asked Amy, taking a seat. Peter followed suit.
“Amy, right? Well, he’s some guy who just talks because he loves how his voice sounds. He’s all talk, but says nothing,” said Romeo.
“If he tries that shit again, I’ll take him down,” promised Amy, a glint in her eyes. “Even if he was handsomer – and he had twenty friends like him. If I can’t do it, I’ll ask someone at the office to do it. What a rat: I’m not an intern, I’m not an exec.” Amy turned to Peter. “And you! You just let him talk about me and make a joke out of me!”
“I don’t think he was trying to make fun of you,” said Peter. “If I’d heard him doing that, I would’ve fought for your honor, mi’ lady, and tip my fedora for you, hard, as any man who knew how to treat a lady would.”
“No, I’m pissed, and now I ran out of coffee,” said Amy, narrowing her perfectly manicured brows. “That motherfucker.”
She turned to look at Romeo. “Now, can we finally talk? Juliet sent me. What she asked me to say, I’ll get to, but I have something to say myself first. If you do anything to my Juliet, and I mean anything, I will take you down. I will make sure you never work in this industry again.”
“Don’t get it twisted, listen –” started Romeo.
“No, you listen,” said Amy, having absolutely none of Romeo’s interruptions. “You’ve got good intentions, and I’ll tell her that, trust me, and she’ll be happy.”
“Wait, what? Listen to me,” said Romeo.
“I’ll tell her that you mean to delete with her, which I think is the right thing to do,” said Amy. Fuck, there it was again: delete, meet.
“Tell her to figure out a way to quit,” said Romeo. “And tell her to come to the coffee shop this afternoon. At Lawrence’s coffee shop, Wattage, she can resign from her laptop and we can run away,” said Romeo. He pulled out his wallet and from inside it, took out a sparkly bauble. “Take this: it’s a thank you gift.”
“Oh, I can’t,” said Amy...but her outstretched hands said otherwise.
“Please, I insist,” said Romeo. He’d picked this out for the woman who he knew was close with Amy, the one who had come to find him by the cars before he’d had a chance to leave but whose face he’d nearly forgotten because the lights in the club had been so low. If it wasn’t for her, and the business card with the address on it, he wouldn't have had a chance to see Juliet again, and oh, seeing her...there hadn’t been a better moment that summer.
Amy pocketed the sparkly bracelet. “This afternoon? Wattage? I’ll make sure she’s there.”
“Wait, Amy,” said Romeo. “In about an hour, one of my friends will come meet you in the alley near the coffee shop and give you some papers for Juliet to look over, the resigning papers, and I’ll get a copy myself. I’ll meet Juliet at the coffee shop. Bye, and if we all make it out of this, I’ll never forget what you’ve done for us. Goodbye, and please, put in a good word for me with the missus.”
Amy laughed. This kid was really too much, but almost enough for her Juliet. “Bless you, you sweet, naïve child. But really, you do need to listen,” she warned.
“What is it?” asked Romeo.
“Are you sure you can trust this friend of yours? Haven’t you heard the phrase, ‘too many chefs spoil the sushi’?” warned Amy.
“You can trust me, I trust him,” said Romeo.
“Well, Romeo, my little intern is the best. Gosh, when she was an intern last summer – Oh, so, there’s this guy. Paris. He wants Juliet to transfer to his company. Juliet would rather live in the middle of nowhere than do that. I’ve told her that it’s a smart choice, better than running off with some boy, but when I say that...she basically shuts down. Don’t ‘RAM’ and ‘Romeo’ start with the same sound?” asked Amy.
“Yeah, so?” asked Romeo. “The ‘R’ sound is the one you’re thinking of.”
“That’s a pirate’s sound,” teased Amy. “No, ‘R’ is for...fuck, I’m forgetting. But Juliet compares you and RAM all the time. I’m not an engineer or a programmer, but if you heard her talk, I’m sure it’d make you light right up.”
“Please, make sure...she knows I know she’s special,” asked Romeo.
“Of course, I’ll tell her that a thousand times,” said Amy. “Peter!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Peter, who felt extremely bored by such an exciting conversation.
“Let’s go,” she said, passing Peter her empty iced tea as they got up. “Let’s leave. Now.”
Chapter Ten: Act Two, Scene Five
Juliet looked at the clock on the wall of the lounge. Usually, she came here to relax and to get away from the hustle and bustle of the engineering floor, but today, she was here on something more serious than business: love. I sent Amy at nine...m
aybe she couldn’t find Romeo, but that’s not like her, but wow. This is taking forever. Juliet sighed: If only he could read my thoughts, instantaneously and completely.
They’d fly through the foggy clouds to his head, and that’s the way that texting works, the reason emails work, but no. She looked out and up into the sky. The grey clouds that had covered the campus had burned away sometime during the day. It seemed like she always missed that point, the point where the sun burned the gray away, because she was always working on her program, which allowed for easy deletion of files on multiple servers or computers at once. Her work was fulfilling and exciting, at least, to those that knew what she was talking about, but it consumed her life...until, at least, Romeo had showed up in her life. Now, it’s almost lunch and that’s...three hours. Three hours since Amy left. If she wasn’t so hungover, maybe she’d be faster, and yeah, she’s my messenger, but...it’s just not the same.
Speak of the angel, thought Juliet as she saw two people enter the lounge. “Amy, you have good news, right? Did you see him? Let’s talk...in private,” said Juliet, swiveling her legs off of the couch’s arms, shooting a shrug and a smile to Peter. This was girl stuff and it’d be weird to talk about it in front of Peter, who, as usual, was carrying a brown worn wooden clipboard that Amy had picked up for him once. It was heavier than it looked, handcrafted by his father back home in Montana. It was one of the few personal things Peter had shared with her.
“Peter, meet me at your desk,” said Amy, sipping from a fresh iced coffee. It was basically pure sugar, caffeine, and ice, a.k.a. energy, energy, and something to cool her down, all necessary for Amy to survive in the California summer, with all her running around. Once the autumn came, she’d trade in her iced macchiatos for hot pumpkin spice lattes, but right now, it felt like the summer was going by far too quickly.