Chapter 12Special Life
San Francisco, 1999
It was the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, the very last day of the 1900s. Crazy auspicious, right? Teetering on the edge of a new century? And Jackie Carlisle was – drum roll – still at work. No, not still at work accepting thanks from her grateful colleagues before heading out for a dazzling night on the town, but still at work working her rear off.
She had wrapped up a half dozen projects this morning and had another bunch to go. All these places with their calendar year deadlines. Some long term clients, sure, but also not a few obnoxious last minute jobs. Companies with enough funding that no one dared tell them what they could do with their ridiculous requests. Her small company’s bottom line, once all these places finally got around to paying up, would be looking pretty damn good in the year 2000.
Earlier, though, Jackie had been barely short of chucking herself out the window at noon, when the downtown execs dumped out their page-a-day calendars. The office manager had pulled her into the conference room for a few minutes, and pushed a paper cup of champagne into her hands. They all toasted their most successful year yet, and whooped and high fived. Laughed at the spectacle of the lawyers across the alley flinging things out and random papers cascading past the wide window.
Then most everyone had left. Jackie, in charge of the larger accounts and responsible, really, for the whole operation, stayed on to finish up. Someone obviously had to be on hand until five o’clock in any case; Jackie would do well to get out before six. Maybe she wasn’t the owner, her name wasn’t on the door, but everybody knew who was really in charge of this place.
Jackie emailed out, double checking the time and date stamp, one, then another completed job. Just making sure deadlines were met. There had been all this Y2K talk, weeks, months of it. Most of the tech people Jackie knew pooh poohed it. The actuality of anything serious happening that is. In fact, it had been quite a boon for programmers, all the systems and software that needed a revision or a patch to make sure the internal dates didn’t revert to year 0 or crash everything down. And Jackie was okay to go along with the ride – they all needed to be written up so that the everyday user could operate them, of course.
By midday in California, it was pretty clear nothing major would occur. Planes didn’t crash down over Europe, the internet kept functioning as normal as the clock wound ahead and the dates shifted forward. All that effort, and for what? So all the little digital clocks could have four digits instead of just two. The year 2000.
Jackie slowed down enough to heat up her lunch in the microwave. She brought it back to her desk, sighing afresh at the sight of the piles still accumulated there. All she would do today was the urgent stuff. Y2K or not, there were dozens more jobs on the way – everyone with new software, requiring new descriptions, new updates. Everybody behind, they had all just gotten used to that by now. The programmers were behind, the product managers making excuses, begging for more time, the writers and designers backed up, printers going crazy from the false starts and last minute edits.
Things had been spinning out of control for awhile now, Jackie thought. It had become acceptable – the stacks of files, the backed up work, missed deadlines. Even somewhat shoddy work. Because there was just so much of it, so many more jobs lining up like planes on a busy runway. You just had to get them launched.
She took another bite, opened another file. It took a quiet day like this to notice. When it was just her chaos, not all her co-workers too, it seemed kind of nuts. Really, how long could this all go on before everybody burnt out? She knew of people who had gotten out. People, younger than Jackie even (who was hardly old at 36), who managed to cash out when their companies went public. AOL millionaires. Lucky secretaries who had been in the first dozen employees at some little place that got bought by Microsoft.
Her own brother JJ could be on the way to that lifestyle, she thought. Wasn’t that something. It was kind of ironic that the guy who lived in t-shirts and jeans could afford a designer wardrobe. Who could probably afford a nice place down in Palo Alto or even Atherton, but would prefer a loud neighborhood in the heart of the city. Jackie tried to tamp down the bit of resentment that flared, even thinking about it.
It’s just that she and Tony had really struggled to come up with a down payment on their house after already ruling out the tonier towns they would have chosen if money were no object. They were doing well, certainly, and anywhere else they would be able to afford several bedrooms on a good sized lot. Not in the current rush in the Bay Area, though. Jackie at least felt glad they had bought when they did, almost a year ago now.
Tony loved the place. It was quiet and out of the way, and they had a little yard. No one right on the other side of the wall, like the place on Nob Hill. Jackie still considered it an investment property though. Something they could sell at a big gain in a few more years when things were settling down. When they presumably had a growing family.
Jackie sighed. Made herself slow down and eat a couple more bites of lunch. This level of stress certainly wasn’t helping in that department. She didn’t like to think how long they had been trying. More than a year, closer to two really. And in all that time she had had one miscarriage, very early on, just days after the initial test. Nothing more. For all the time she had insisted on waiting, wanting their financial situation to be secure, waiting for Tony’s new position to gel – they might as well have been trying the whole time. God, everything she read about it referred to women over 35 as if they were ancient and barely functional.
Jackie dug back into her work. She wasn’t worried about it. Not yet. Tony, like the supportive guy he always was, backed her up regardless. Happy to discuss baby stuff, plenty happy to give it a go whenever she said the time was right. And supportive when her period showed up again, like clockwork, on the 27th day. She flipped on the overhead light as the sun sank down beyond the back windows.
She should be thankful for Tony, Jackie thought an hour or so later, taking up her spinning thought track at her next little break. And yet – she had to admit to herself another stab of annoyance. Irritation because of everything he was willing to simply sit back and accept. Like tonight. They had both been so busy, they hadn’t made reservations and it seemed like not the best night to just wander downtown without plans. Just in case something happened. But surely they could have managed an invite to a classy party? Or joined up with one of their client firms at some swanky place, gotten dressed up and enjoyed some superior food and wines?
The fact was, Tony was just as glad to stay home and have a quiet night. When here they were, living close to San Francisco, center of the biggest tech boom in history. Here they were smack in the middle of their lives, biggest night of the decade, and here she was alone in her office, working. Not even doing important work, just finishing up and shoving out other people’s projects.
The only marginal scheme she had come up with, having JJ and a few friends over, had fallen away. People hemmed, made excuses. JJ had better plans. Her brother, who generally couldn’t be counted on to remember to go to work in the morning, had a ticket to an exclusive gathering of some sort, hosted by his new hotshot best friend’s workplace. He hadn’t said it out loud, but Jackie understood that he wouldn’t want her to come too. That he’d be, what, embarrassed? Or just that they both knew she wasn’t really part of that world. It was one of those firms with the strange names, dots or caps in the middle of a made up word, but a place with money oozing from anything associated with it.
Like JJ these days. He was considering working there. He had said it like that, last time they had talked (her phoning him, leaving several messages before he could even be bothered to return the call). Mulling it over, as if there were so many competing demands for his services that the salary and options, the free gym and gourmet meals and God knows what other perks hardly registered.
No
, what impressed JJ was that one of the guys there had co-founded Burning Man. This weird art festival that took place in the Nevada desert, a week long event that JJ assured her was already passe by the time she had even heard of it. And somebody else had a patent on some piece of technology that swear to God sounded like a mechanical pencil and paper, but that JJ’s friends thought was short to revolutionize the world.
Maybe she really didn’t understand tech applications much better than the hapless readers they wrote their texts for, Jackie thought. I just need everything user friendly. I can’t see the potential in things anymore. Or I see what’s not there instead of what is there. Decent job, but little recognition for my hard work. Married four years and all I focus on is not having a baby. Living in an exciting place at an exciting time, but too boring to spend New Year’s Eve with my genius baby brother.
Maybe that was the root of the problem, Jackie realized. Hearing JJ talk made her understand all the more just how average she and Tony were. Growing up, Jackie always liked being in charge. She felt like a leader, someone cutting edge, important. But she was just a regular person, no more, no less. If anyone in the family was destined for something special, it was JJ. The most graceful thing she could do was back him up, she supposed. Be supportive, be the big sister she had always aimed to be.
It was dark by the time Jackie closed up. She pulled the firm’s door shut and tested the lock. Everybody else in the building was gone, it appeared. Alone in the elevator, then through the small empty lobby to a weirdly deserted street. Jackie turned toward the BART station. Just a few people were on the street, far fewer than a normal workday, everyone walking head down, hurrying away.
Several store fronts had plywood covering their glass windows, and the guy from the corner store was pulling in his displays, locking up already. One homeless person sat forlornly on the curb, not even panhandling. There was hardly even any traffic. Jackie pulled her coat close around her. It wasn’t cold exactly. Not the temperature. But there was something strange and eerie down here. The usual night of celebration transformed into deserted streets.
Jackie thought about the people she’d read about, who had hoarded food and weapons in preparation for Y2K. Anyone on the street even now was probably suspect, could be a paranoid nut job. Apparently everybody else was opting for private parties or quiet nights home, away from the crazies. Great. Middle of my life, middle of the city, what should be the biggest night of the year – and my brother is the most important person I know and he won’t even be seen with me.
She walked, faster now, back towards her not so special life.
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