Chapter 15

Charley’s turn:

In addition to meeting with Steve, I spent time Friday morning visiting the members of the software development team. One of the changes I’d made when I took over the department was attempting to create a team mentality. With that, though, I pushed the idea that the other teams were just as important — I didn’t want us putting up walls and moats, trying to make development a little kingdom of its own.

I had been in all the meetings the day before, so I wasn’t surprised that people were impressed by Claire.

Mary Timmons: “Damn, that was a wonderful insight. Connecting logistical challenges in construction to an app designed to preview a lot was worthy of an engineer, not a high school senior.”

Mary Oliver: “I think I appreciate our process more now. Her question about ways to guide it a little better caught my attention, so when I got back to my desk, I put together a checklist that I can use to make sure I’m not getting in over my head.”

Michelle: “Her question about how shear gets transferred to the ground was pretty good, considering we were discussing the design of the shear wall itself. Her question about whether we remind the users to recheck the foundation for shear transfer when the walls change, though, really brought Mark and I up short. She’s right, we should already be doing that.”

Dave: “I loved the way she thought of the capabilities that the app could have, rather than thinking of the constraints we’d placed on it. As the project lead and should have seen it myself, but I was too focused on the original problem.”

I was so proud of my wife. I had to break the news to Dave, though, that we couldn’t hire her as an intern because she wouldn’t be old enough. The current company policy set the minimum age for interns at eighteen. He’d just smiled and said that he was going to have to talk to Steve about that!

When we got back to the hotel, we decided to relax until shortly before we went down for dinner. We played a little, but mostly we just lay in each other’s arms and fell asleep.

When the alarm went off, we got up and showered, separately to save time. After that, we helped each other with our make-up before putting on our dresses. Fortunately, neither of us was going for fancy hair, though we’d both had trims before leaving home.

Claire looked at me, licked her lips and said, “Uh, how about we skip the party and have one just for ourselves, right here?”

I laughed at her. “You wouldn’t want to disappoint all your new fans down there, would you? Don’t worry, though, I plan to continue the party when we come back up. You’re so gorgeous!”

We spent an hour and a half just mingling with everyone before dinner was served. One of the first people we came across was Maria Santos, one of the testers.

“Hi, Charley!” she said. “It’s good to meet you, Claire.”

I hadn’t seen her husband, so I asked, “Isn’t Angel here?”

She sadly shook her head. “No, he’s pretty traditional...”

I was puzzled by that and said as much.

“Let’s just say that when he found out that you’d gotten married to another woman, he tried to convince me to quit, to get me away from your sinful influence. He’s upset that I came tonight, but he’ll get over it.” Turning to Claire, she said, “That’s his problem, not mine. I’m thrilled for the two of you.”

“Thank you,” Claire said. “This is all pretty new to me, but I know some people aren’t going to like it. I just hope it doesn’t cause too much tension in the office.”

Maria smiled up at her, and said, “Don’t worry about that. Did you see the rainbow flag by the front desk?” She nodded. “It’s more than just a decoration. When Steve and Tom, who’s my boss, first talked to me about this job, they told me that the lead developer, one of the engineers and Tom himself are gay. If I had an issue with it, they suggested the job might not be a great fit. They didn’t tell me they wouldn’t hire me, just that it might not be the best job for me.”

“We actually had one person try to make an issue of it,” I said. “When he started harassing Tom, Steve took him aside and explained just how seriously he takes anti-discrimination laws. Told him that if he continued being abusive, he’d be talking to a nice policeman as well as facing fines for workplace harassment.”

“We all cheered when he stomped out the door for the last time,” Maria said. She gave both of us a hug, then wandered off.

Next we ran into Jeff and Cindy. Cindy spotted me, and said, “Finally! I haven’t even had a chance to thank you in person since you gave Jeff that nice bonus a couple of years ago, and now he’s being promoted!”

“He’s been in line for the promotion for a while — we just needed to get to the point where we’d be able to make two teams. As for the bonus, I’m glad I could do that for your family. When he stepped in to help, it made a world of difference for me, and I know he was working nights and weekends to do it.”

She nodded to acknowledge the point. “Sure, though he made every effort to be completely with us when he wasn’t working, which helped. Still, by the time we got back from Costa Rica, we were all feeling a lot better and very connected as a family.” Then she turned to Claire, and said, “Speaking of family, you must be Claire. Wow! Jeff wasn’t kidding about how tall you are. Congratulations on marrying Charley.”

Claire pulled me over in front of herself, and hugged me to her, which had the effect of placing my head right between her breasts, which cracked both Jeff and Cindy up. I was just thankful they weren’t large; otherwise, we’d have made quite the spectacle.

“So, Claire, have you thought about where you want to go to school?” Jeff asked.

“I’m planning on the UW, though I don’t know if I’ll make it into their CompSci program,” she said. “From what I’ve read, it’s very competitive.”

“Damn! I think you’d make a great Cardinal.” Claire must have given him a questioning look because he continued, “I went to Stanford, and I think you’d be great there.” Looking at me, he said, “Isn’t Mary a Husky?”

I thought for a second and realized he was right. “You know, I think you’re right.” I looked around and spotted her and Mike, and waved them over.

“Mary, you went to the UW, didn’t you?” I asked when they arrived.

“Sure, why?” she asked. Then she got it, and said, “Is that where you’re planning to go to school, Claire?”

“If I can get into the CompSci program, at least,” she said.

Mary snorted. “I’ve been checking out your code since Charley told us about it. They’d have to be complete idiots not to give you a slot. You know, maybe you should reverse my major, do CompSci for a major, and civil engineering for a minor.” Then she pulled Mike’s hand and said, “Claire, this is my husband, Mike. He’s also a Husky, we met in a calculus class. Now he’s a math professor at UCLA. Mike, this is Charley’s wife, Claire.”

“It’s good to meet you,” Mike said. “Mary’s mentioned you before, but last night she was excited about your suggestion for their program. How’s your math? If you’re doing CompSci or engineering, you’ll need to understand a lot of higher math.”

“I’ve always done well with it, though this year they let me test out of it for high school,” Claire said. “In fact, I get to take the AP Calculus test at the end of the school year to try to get some credits to transfer over.

“I’ve also done some on my own. Last summer I was doing some online courses for physics and found I needed more math, so I ended up doing some courses in partial differential equations, numerical analysis and complex analysis.”

His eyes widened when I mentioned the more advanced topics. “Wow! That’s great! I wonder if they’ll let you test out of the math you need at the UW?” He glanced at Mary who looked thoughtful then nodded. Turning back to us, he said, “If you’d like, I can rustle up some tests, so you can see how you’d do. Just take them when you can, and I’ll look them over.”

“That’d be great! Thank you so much!” Claire said.

“Since you’re planning to apply to the UW, would it be okay for me to share the results with their math department? If you do well, they may be able to get you a lot more credits than you’ll get for AP Calculus.”

“Sure, if you think it might help.”

Dinner was excellent! Claire and I had swordfish on a bed of jasmine rice, and it was just perfect. Conversation was also nice. We sat next to Maria and across from Jim and his wife, Carol.

“Jim told me last night about your promise to dance on his feet,” Carol said. “When he threatened to go find some steel toed dress shoes, I told him to just take his punishment like a man.” That brought a laugh to the whole section of the table that heard it.

“Well, he redeemed himself,” I said. “He had everything ready for me when I got there, which saved me a huge hassle.”

“It wasn’t as hard as it usually is,” Jim said. “Terry’s on vacation this week and next, skiing in Colorado. I just grabbed his setup and swapped in the docking station you need.”

“However you managed to do it, it was appreciated.”

Carol looked a little nervous, but she said, “Uh, feel free to tell me it’s not my business, but...”

Claire smiled at her. “But, how did we meet and how did we get married?” Carol nodded, so Claire went on, “I won’t go over the whole story, but I ended up in my grandparents’ custody and Charley lives next door. They’ve been friends since Charley moved up there.

“Grandma and Grandpa invited her over for hamburgers in the backyard a little after I’d moved in with them. I think I started falling in love with her when I first saw her coming over for dinner. She’s so incredibly beautiful, but it turned out she was also playful and funny. I didn’t think of myself as gay, but everything about her tripped my triggers.”

I said, “When I went over for dinner, I saw her sitting there, talking to her grandfather. Her hair was the first thing that caught my eye, but it didn’t take long before we were talking and laughing. Honestly, it didn’t take long before we were flirting shamelessly. I fought it because of her age, but I just couldn’t stop.

“I realized pretty quickly that I loved her, but she was way underage, which put a damper on things. Still, I wanted her to know I was serious, so I proposed, and we began the long wait until we could get married.” I then reached over and squeezed Claire’s hand.

Claire picked up the story, saying, “The only reason we got married so soon was that my mother was trying to regain custody and...” She shuddered a little, then took a deep breath before going on. “And I might not have lived through it if she had. The judge agreed with the danger and decided that letting us get married early was the most sure way to keep me safe.”

She kissed my hand, then turned back to Carol. “We were happy waiting, but we’re happier now. I went through a lot of pain before I met Charley, but it was all worth it since it brought us together.”

“Have you had any problems where you live now?” Maria asked.

We both shook our heads. Claire held up her rings and said, “No, it’s been great. We began wearing our engagement rings right away, and Charley always introduced me as her fiancée, so we weren’t trying to hide our love.

“One of the guidance counselors at school learned about it before I started, and she laid the groundwork for the teachers to accept me. She also got her niece to watch out for me, and the principal asked his granddaughter to do the same. So I’ve had a buffer of friendly people around me at school from the start.”

I said, “One of the reasons I moved up there was how open and accepting people are. I met Claire’s grandparents, Bill and Terri, when I was looking at the house. I told them I wanted to live someplace where I could be me and not have to stay in a closet. Terri was still teaching at the high school then, and she said that even the teenagers were accepting of people who were different. It’s been great that way.