so it’s still over me. Then he runs his fingers down my side as I shiver, smile, and fall asleep.
***
My mom is standing over me with a disapproving look. In her sing-song voice she says, “Hita, is this how a good Indian girl behaves?” I’m rolling my eyes as I wake up, and look around. My mom of course is back in Chicago; Gray is gone, and I’m naked, in Juliette’s backyard. Shit, what if someone had come home? I quickly wrap myself in one of the towels, grabbing my clothes as I run into the house to take a shower. Now I wonder where Gray went. Damn, I don’t even have his number, and what do I say to Juliette? Do I tell her he came over? Do I tell her we had sex? I let the water from the shower run over me as my emotions run, totally confused.
Chapter 8 – The New Job
My new roommate is Kristi. Conveniently for me, her roommate is in the process of moving in with her boyfriend. Even better, Kristi’s apartment is only a couple of miles from my new job.
Kristi lived on my floor freshman year. She has light brown shoulder length hair, caramel colored eyes, and a slim build. She was a computer science major; I still can’t figure out how she put up with all the brogrammers. She’s now developing iOS apps at some company that’s doing some kind of disruptive technology. Though I have no idea what it is, since she’s under a non-disclosure and can’t discuss anything.
Since I haven’t yet bought a car, I ride my bike to the office. No one in my group shows up before ten while they all stay until after eight at night. Since our cafeteria is open for dinner, it’s a lot easier to work late and eat at work, saving me from buying or preparing any food at home. After getting home, I wind up staying up till one as I meet up online with friends to play games.
At work I sit next to Chris and Avery. It’s kind of hard to believe that they’ve only known each other since joining this company last year. They’re like twins separated at birth. They’re always talking about sports. When it comes to programming, Avery has an amazing memory and can write a lot of code, while Chris is much slower, but much more accurate. He also is better at debugging all the mistakes everyone else makes. He likes to wear headphones when he works, then munches really loudly on chips. I’m thinking of getting headphones just to cancel out Chris’s chewing noise.
I’ve started taking a midafternoon break to play ping pong against some of the other engineers. Growing up we had a ping pong table in our basement. My brother and I used to have these crazy tournaments. Two Chinese guys who are regulars play well, though everyone else plays a lot better than me. The ping pong guys are nice enough, using me as their easy warm up. I figure if I keep it up I’ll improve. I hope that making my afternoon break ping pong instead of dessert will save me from putting on the dreaded fifteen.
My third week of work, Sid, our engineering VP, holds an all hands meeting taking over the cafeteria. There are probably seventy people in the room. He introduces all the new employees, having each of us stand up while everyone politely claps. Looking around the room I only see three other women. A third of the men are Indian, another third are Asian, and the remaining third are White. The only Black guy is our Chief Legal Counsel, who gives us a talk at the beginning of the meeting on , copyleft, and freeware, detailing what code we can use.
Stopping at the dessert bar after the meeting, I debate if I should get something. Colin, a tall, lean, nice looking guy with olive complexion and a hint of blond in his dark hair comes over. “Hey Hita, will you be at the tables at four?”
With a big smile I say, “Yes.”
He nods and a pleased smile spreads across his face. “Sweet, I’ll see you then.”
It makes me feel great that the ping pong guys actually want me to show up. Deciding against a dessert, I head over to the table set up with company swag—all the company merchandise. They actually have good quality bike helmets with our company logo emblazoned into the plastic. This