“I didn’t know it could do that,” said President Ross.
“A lot has changed just in the last few years, Dr. Ross. The barriers really are falling. The Mac vs. PC debate is rapidly becoming a much simpler question of preference, not necessity.”
“I can see that,” he said. “Well! This has been a rather educational presentation. Does anyone have questions for Anna?”
Indeed they did, and it was another half hour before Anna was finally able to disconnect her laptop and pack it up. She offered her farewells to the group, detoured past the refreshment table for another cookie, and stepped out into the hall. The moment the door closed behind her, she let out a long, relieved sigh. Thank God that was over.
She bit into the cookie and smiled. Funny thing, though—it hadn’t been that bad. She’d actually enjoyed herself once she got past the slideshow and into the demos. And her own vice provost had smiled at her when she’d used his computer to illustrate cross-platform compatibility. That was worth some serious points.
With a swing in her step, she headed down the hall to the elevators.
* * *
Elizabeth finally called at a quarter to five. Martin had left long ago, teasing Anna for staying late and accusing her of turning into management, what with the suit and the overtime. Anna couldn’t have cared less; she’d have waited until midnight for this call.
“Well? What happened after I left?”
A chuckle came down the line. “Impatient, aren’t you?”
“If I were impatient, I’d have already gone home.”
“Oh—damn, I forgot you get off at four. What are you still doing here?”
“Waiting for you. Now will you tell me what happened?”
“What happened was that there was practically no debate at all. You didn’t really leave room for one, Anna. Congratulations.”
Anna put a hand on her tingling stomach. “You mean they’re changing the policies?”
“Presidential memorandum, effective as soon as he gets it off his desk. Probably a week or so.”
“Woo!” Anna shouted, grinning as she heard Elizabeth laugh. “That’s fantastic!”
“I agree. You did a great job. I knew you were the one to do it.”
“Thanks for believing in me.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for doing it, even though you were scared to death.”
“I wasn’t scared to death. Just to the point of immobility. And actually it got a lot easier once I started doing the demos. You were right; it was just like we were at the Bean Grinder. Except everyone was a lot better dressed.”
“And the coffee wasn’t nearly as good.”
They both chuckled, and the pause that followed swiftly grew awkward. Anna felt a stab of fear. Without the presentation project to keep them connected, what did they have to talk about? She couldn’t stand to see this fade away; it meant too much to her.
“Elizabeth…” She hesitated, trying to dredge up the courage she’d lacked for the last three months.
“Yes?”
“I have a personal question for you.”
“Okay. What is it?”
“Would you like to meet me at the Bean Grinder this Saturday?”
There was a long pause, during which Anna kicked herself for doing this over the phone, when she couldn’t see Elizabeth’s face.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth finally said. “I’m not sure that’s wise.”
“This has nothing to do with work,” Anna said in a rush. “It has to do with you and me. That’s why it’s a personal question. Elizabeth, I really screwed up last October, and I’ve been regretting it every goddamned day since, and I’m asking you to give me a second chance. Actually, I’m…I’m asking you on a date.”
“A date?”
“I could ask you out for dinner if you’d prefer. It just seemed like coffee at the Bean Grinder might be more…well, symbolic.”
“You’re asking me on a date.” This time, Anna thought she could hear a smile in Elizabeth’s voice.
“Yes. I’m just hoping it’s not too late.”
“No,” said Elizabeth, and Anna’s heart dropped into her shoes. “It’s not too late.”
“I’m—what?” Her heart rebounded with a suddenness that left her dizzy. “Does that mean yes?”
“It means yes. What time?”
“Nine thirty,” said Anna, for whom the hour held special significance.
“All right.” It was clear from Elizabeth’s tone that she understood. “I’ll see you then. And Anna?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t be late.”
CHAPTER 10
So terrified was Anna of being late that she walked through the doors at ten after nine. Kyung smiled at her and pulled out the scone he’d already hidden beneath the counter. There were still a few in the display case, though, so she bought a second one for Elizabeth—and upon further consideration, a third to take home with her. Today she deserved to splurge.
Juggling scones, laptop, and mocha, she made her way to her favorite table in the corner, which had been recently vacated but not cleaned. She didn’t mind; better to do a little work and get the table she wanted. As she carried the used cups and plates to the collection trays, Kyung dashed out with a wet cloth and wiped the table down for her. Soon she settled in with mug in hand and news up on the computer, but it was nearly impossible to focus. Every few sentences she’d find herself looking out the window, straining for a glimpse of Elizabeth even though it was much too early for her to be there.
As nine thirty drew near, her ability to concentrate fell to somewhere around zero, and she finally gave up after reading the same paragraph three times without retaining a word of it. With the remains of her mocha in hand, she stared out the windows, looking up and down the sidewalks in both directions, her nerves taut with expectation.
By nine thirty-five Elizabeth still hadn’t arrived. Ten minutes later, Anna was feeling like an idiot. If Elizabeth had decided to teach her a lesson by turning the tables, she certainly deserved it. But that would mean they had no future, not even for a friendship, and that hurt more than she would have imagined.
By ten o’clock she felt tears pricking her eyes, and with a sigh she drained the last dregs of her now-cold mocha and got up to carry the cup to the collection tray. It was when she was returning to her table that she caught sight of Elizabeth running up the sidewalk. In jeans and an open leather coat, her face flushed and her hair flying as she ran, she looked absolutely beautiful, and Anna stopped in the middle of the coffee shop to stare.
Elizabeth burst through the doors, took one look around the shop, and came straight for Anna. “I am so sorry,” she gasped, then leaned over to put her hands on her thighs and suck in air.
“Are you all right?” Anna asked worriedly. “What happened?”
Elizabeth straightened long enough to walk to the table and collapse into a chair. “I’m fine, just a little out of breath. I ran all the way here from Haversham Heights. Oh, God, I’m going to pay for this tomorrow.”
Anna watched in concern as Elizabeth laid her head on the back of her chair, still panting. “Can I do anything?” she asked. It was a stupid question, but she felt helpless.
Elizabeth waved a hand. “No, it’s all right.” She lifted her head again and glanced toward the counter. “Actually, I’d kill for a glass of water.”
“You got it.” Anna practically leaped across the shop to the water jug and poured a tall glass. By the time she got back to the table, Elizabeth had stripped off her coat and her breathing had mercifully slowed somewhat. The water was accepted with a grateful smile, and the entire glass went down in several long gulps.
“Ahhh. Thank you, that’s much better.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“You’re not going to believe it,” said Elizabeth. “I took my dry cleaning in on the way over here. And when I went back to my car, guess what was sitting on my center console?”
“Oh, n
o. You locked yourself out?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Last time I did that, I think I was an undergrad! I never do shit like that. And this morning of all mornings. But I figured, it’s okay, I’m a member of AAA; I’ll just call and they’ll come take care of it. How long can it take AAA to get anywhere in a town this small?”
“Uh oh,” said Anna, who knew the answer from prior experience. “It can take them up to two hours.”
“I see you’ve had the pleasure. Yes, they told me it would be ninety minutes. So then I called for a taxi, at which point I learned that there’s some big convention in town this weekend, and there was a half-hour wait at minimum. And I couldn’t call you, because we never exchanged cell numbers. So I gave up and started running. I’m sorry, Anna. I can only imagine what you were thinking.”
Anna looked her in the eye and said, “I was thinking I deserved it.”
“No…” Elizabeth shook her head, but Anna stopped her with a touch to her hand.
“It’s true. And that’s partly why I asked you here today.”
“I thought you asked me here on a date.”
“I did. But I needed to get a few things off my chest before we started.”
Elizabeth began to say something, then thought better of it. “Okay. But can I get my latte first?”
“Will you let me get it for you? After all, I asked you out. This should be my treat.”
“All right. It’s a latte with—”
“Extra foam, I remember.” Anna stood up. “Oh, by the way, one of those scones is yours.”
Elizabeth looked at the two plates as if seeing them for the first time. “I’m half an hour late and you still haven’t eaten your scone?”
“I was waiting for you.”
The smile that earned her kept her warm all the way across the shop, and Kyung gave her a little wink as he whipped out the latte and a second caramel mocha. “You sure you wouldn’t rather have the IV? I hear it’s easier.”
“But it doesn’t taste half as good.” Anna overtipped him and headed back to the table. With Elizabeth’s gaze on her every step of the way, she considered herself lucky that she didn’t trip over her own feet.
“You didn’t have your mocha either?” Elizabeth asked as she accepted her drink.
“No, that much I couldn’t wait for. This is my second. I’ll be vibrating off the chair an hour from now.”
“As long as you can drive. Because in an hour I’m going to ask you to take me back to my dry cleaners so I can meet the stupid AAA truck.”
“I’d be happy to. But we’ll have to walk back to my house first, because I didn’t drive here.”
Elizabeth paused in mid-sip. “Please tell me you live close by?”
“Two miles.”
“Damn. I was hoping you’d say two blocks.” Elizabeth stretched one leg out to the side of the table and began massaging her thigh, an action that swiftly reduced Anna’s cognitive abilities as she watched.
“Closer than Haversham Heights,” she said absently.
“Everything is closer than Haversham Heights.” The second leg joined the first, and silence settled on the table until Elizabeth looked up from her massage. “You said you had something you wanted to get off your chest?”
Anna snapped back to reality. “Right.” She took a hefty sip of her mocha, set it down, and plunged in. “Three months ago you asked me for an explanation of why I stood you up, and I never really gave you one. I’d like to now, if you’ll listen.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said, though she didn’t sound entirely certain. “I’m listening.” She folded her legs back under the table and gave Anna her undivided attention.
God, this was hard. “First of all, I want to apologize for my behavior that day. I managed to justify it to myself then, but my excuses were shit and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted a do-over. I know I hurt you, and if how I felt when I thought you were blowing me off today is any indication, I probably hurt you a lot.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “You did,” she said. “That day we had together was one of the best days I’d had since I moved here. I was so excited about finding someone I clicked with, someone that I thought had real potential as a—” She hesitated, an unfamiliar look of nervousness on her face, and Anna finished the sentence for her.
“A romantic partner.”
Elizabeth broke their gaze and looked out the window. “Stupid, isn’t it? On one day’s acquaintance.”
“It was a special day,” said Anna. “And no more stupid than me coming up with the same conclusion four days too late.” She watched as Elizabeth turned back with a surprised expression. “Yes, I figured it out an hour after I told you it wouldn’t work. Now that was stupid.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because my main reason for thinking it wouldn’t work still applied.”
“My job,” Elizabeth said flatly.
Anna nodded. “Your job. And mine, too. And…this is the part where I owe you a couple of explanations.” She took a gulp of her mocha and closed her eyes as the heat seared down her throat. “Okay. First confession. I made a judgment on you that was completely wrong. I thought your Dell laptop was university property, bought for you when you first hired on.” She saw Elizabeth start to shake her head and held up her hand. “I know it was your own personal laptop. But I didn’t know it then. So when you decided you wanted a Mac instead, it looked to me like you were a twit. That’s what we call the high-powered people on campus who go through top-of-the-line gear like it costs nothing, even while people in the same department are doing much more processor-intensive work on far crappier equipment. We’ve got people on that campus using computers that are so old that when they’re finally replaced, I can’t give away the old equipment. Not even the elementary schools will take them. Not even the Salvation Army! They’re so outdated that all I can do is recycle them. But up in the higher levels, cost doesn’t seem to be an issue. It’s not fair, and it really pisses me off, and…I thought you were one of them. And it colored my perception of you.”
Elizabeth set her mug down and leaned forward. “Even if that laptop had been university property, you had no right to judge me that way. My getting new equipment does not mean that someone down the line is getting cheated out of theirs. For God’s sake, Anna, you should know better than anyone else how the trickle-down system works. How can you be so judgmental when there’s no actual fault?”
“Because just once, I’d like to see some poor research assistant who’s crunching huge data sets for her lab get a nice, shiny new computer before her lab director does. The lab director who does zero data analysis and doesn’t need the processing power. The system isn’t fair, and yes, there is fault, Elizabeth!” She stopped, realizing that she was going down a road she’d had no intention of traveling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get into this, and it’s not your responsibility. Anyway, what I was trying to say was that I misjudged you, and that played into the whole picture.”
“Which is…?”
“I’m getting to that.” She needed another hit of her mocha and took a moment for a gigantic swallow. “Okay. For this part I have to give you a little family history.”
“Oh, good.” Elizabeth reached out to break off a corner of her scone. “Now this I’ll look forward to.” She gave Anna an encouraging look as she popped the piece of scone into her mouth.
“Well, I’m the daughter of a phone company lineman and a mom whose job was raising three children. My brother works for the same phone company, and my sister followed my mom’s example—she just had her third kid and has never worked anything other than a part-time job here and there. I’m the only one in the family who went to college for more than a year, and practically the only one from my high school who left Kansas and made a life somewhere else. I launched myself into the white-collar world, but I still felt like a blue-collar worker.”
Elizabeth was watching her with a look of concentration. “This ties in to t
he part where you judge me for having new equipment, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. I grew up being very aware of my family’s place in society. We like to think the US doesn’t have a class system, but that’s bullshit. Blue and white collar don’t mix—not in high school and not as adults. The perception among my family and friends was that blue collar works its collective ass off getting things done, while white collar doesn’t do squat and gets paid ten times more. We resented those people. The irony is that I was still operating from this line of thought when in reality, I’m now exactly the kind of person I used to resent. I don’t do anything physical, and I get paid quite well for it. But I didn’t figure that out until Christmas.”
“Did something happen?”
Elizabeth actually sounded concerned, and Anna felt warmed out of all proportion to the question. “No, nothing like that,” she said. “The only thing that happened was that I sat at our kitchen table with the extra leaf in to accommodate the whole family, and everyone around me was talking about all the usual topics, and I suddenly realized that I don’t fit there the way I used to. I fit better with you.”
Elizabeth’s face lit up. “I’m really glad you feel that way. About us, I mean. Three months late, but at least you got there.”
“Yeah, but not before I caused both of us a whole lot of hurt. I loved that day we spent together. Heck, I was practically floating around campus afterward. And I looked for you, Elizabeth. I couldn’t remember your last name, so I couldn’t look you up in the directory, but I tried every other method I could think of to find you, including lying in wait for you right here. And then I found out who you really were, and all of my prejudices came crashing over my head. Blue and white collar don’t mix. I thought you were completely out of my league, and it hurt to realize that, so to keep myself from feeling hurt…” She trailed off, having a hard time saying the next part.
“You found a way to turn it into something else,” Elizabeth said. “So you judged me.”