Chapter 16

Claire’s turn:

I was glad my voice was back to normal by Monday, since it seemed everyone wanted to know how my trip went. I just told most of those who asked that it was fun, and that it was great seeing Charley working with her team. Those at our lunch table, though, got more details.

“First, as far as I’m concerned, that entire area is Crazyville,” I said. “There are just too many people and too many things happening all at once.” Jane and Tom nodded.

Tom said, “When we went to Disneyland three years ago, the crowds creeped me out in a big way. It took a couple of days before I could relax and enjoy it.”

“I’m sure I could get used to it, but why bother?” I asked. “If I’m going to put up with millions of people, I’ll do it someplace worth the effort, like London or Paris. Anyway, other than the crowds, I had fun. I learned so much going into the office with Charley.”

After I recounted part of what I’d done in the office, Sean asked why Charley hadn’t taught me those things earlier. “She already told me she wants me to learn from others, not just from her. Like the stuff I learned from Jodie — Charley doesn’t do it the same way, but she wants me to understand how, and why, Jodie uses that method.”

Shelly was the one to ask about the party itself. “How was the party? Did you get to do any dancing?”

“It was a lot of fun. I got to meet more people that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to in the office. Mary, she’s the programming department’s engineering liaison, also introduced me to her husband, Mike. He’s a math professor at UCLA, and he offered to send me a test to see how I’ll do with the math I’ll need for a computer science degree at the UW. I’m looking forward to that.

“Yes, there was dancing. A lot of dancing. Mike caught some of it on video, even.” He’d sent me two videos, one of Charley and me slow dancing, the other of my dance with Jim.

“It was fun to slow dance with Charley. Her head’s at just the right height.” They laughed when I showed them the video, though Shelly and Trish also commented on how sweet it looked.

Before I showed them the other one, I said, “You remember that my Mom’s a stripper, right? Well, she would bop around the house to whatever music was playing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I must have picked some tips up from her.”

When Shelly saw that video, she said, “Damn, that’s hot! I’m dancing with you at the Prom!” They were still laughing when the bell rang, and we hurried off to class.

In the robotics class, I discussed what I’d picked up in the office. “I think the biggest thing I learned was that good software needs to be written so it’ll be easy to change. The way one of the developers said it was that the software needs to evolve, not be static. As our understanding of the problem itself, or even the capabilities of the hardware, changes, the program has to be able to change to meet the new conditions.”

One of the boys, Brad, raised his hand and asked, “Why’s that? I’d have thought you’d know what you need from the beginning.”

“In one of the examples I saw, the developers used the current standard for user interaction, where you select something on screen then do something to it. Most people are used to that by now, after all, that’s how Windows and Macs work. It turned out that some users were still trying to use the older method, where you pick an action, then select what it’ll act on.

“The thing is, Jeff, the programmer I was talking to, planned for the program to be easy to change. He didn’t know exactly what might happen, but he knew it would, and that the program would need to be adaptable to meet those new needs. Knowing that, he structured much of the program, including the selection method, to be flexible. That meant that when he wanted to allow them to pick the action first, he just needed to do a little work and plug it in.”

I nodded to the teacher and said, “The other side of it is that what we want the software to do may evolve over time. Mr. Johnson does this to us intentionally. He’ll ask for us to do one thing, then turn around and change it for the next assignment.

“One meeting I sat in on was about a part of the program that deals with a specific section of the building design code. The building code changed, now the program needs to change as well. In this case, the change is massive, since they basically added an entire part that wasn’t there before, and it doesn’t work in quite the same way.”

I blushed, then grinned. “Uh, is it okay for me to be proud of my wife? She’s the one who did the original work, and the people doing the new work found that all they need to do is write up the new behavior and drop it in place.”

“What’s interesting to me is that your code has been that way all along,” Mr. Johnson said. “If you only just learned this, why has all of your code been that way?”

“I’ve really just been using a couple of techniques that Charley showed me last summer. They’re pretty simple, but they allow me to do some fine-tuning,” I said. “What I learned while I was in the office was why those, and other techniques, are so important, and how to do it on a much larger scale. I plan to do better in the future than I have up til now.”

Mr. Johnson pinched the bridge of his nose for a minute, then looked up and said, “You should be glad I don’t grade on a curve. If I did, someone would try to poison you to protect their grade.”

Everyone laughed at that.

After French, I stopped by Miss. Green’s office and knocked on her doorjamb.

“Ah, Claire. How was Southern California?”

“Crowded. There are way too many people there for me to be comfortable.”

“I’m told you get used to it eventually,” she said. “Is there something I can do for you this afternoon?”

“I’ve got a question about the Prom. Can I bring Charley as my date?”

She winked at me. “I’ve already checked. Yes, you can take your wife as your date.”

At home that evening, I brought up the Prom to Charley. “Love? Do you have anything scheduled for the third Saturday in May?”

“Uh, I don’t think so,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

I got up and went to her, pulling her up out of her chair. Looking in her eyes, I said, “Love of my life, would you do me the honor of being my date for the Prom?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I contrived to look hurt. “Do you mean you don’t want to be my date? Do I need to ask Shelly?”

She swatted my arm and said, “You just surprised me, is all. If you’re going, and I’m allowed to go as your date, then I will be your date for the Prom.”

Christmas break from school was ... strange. It was the first time since our wedding that Charley was working while I was out of school for more than a day. She took a few days off, but she’d used most of her vacation during the summer and fall — which are the best seasons to be outdoors in the Pacific Northwest.

I spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa again, learning more about art and cooking, but also just relaxing and talking. It was nice, and I realized I’d been ignoring them a bit since the wedding.

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” Grandma said when I brought up it up. “It’s only to be expected that you’ll be taking a lot of time getting your life settled after such a big change. We still get to see you at least a couple of times a week, and I can see that Charley isn’t starving, so you two must be doing something right in the kitchen. This is an important period for your marriage — don’t shortchange yourselves.”

In the days between when I got out of school and Christmas, I finished my present for Charley, with a little technical help from Grandpa. I couldn’t think of what I might buy her, so just after Thanksgiving I’d dug out my charcoals to make her a present. Working from pictures, I did three drawings: the kayak up in its cradle, our bikes propped together, and our hiking boots and packs. To me, they’d always be important symbols of our commitment to one another and our love — a love that flourished even when the most we could do was hold hands and hug.

Mike’s test showed up a couple of days before Christmas. As soon as I picked up the manila envelope, I knew I was in for it — it was heavy! I put off taking it until after Christmas. Meanwhile, I spent some time brushing up on the more advanced math I’d looked at over the summer.

Christmas day itself was pretty low-key. We went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s for breakfast, then opened our gifts after we ate. They gave us a good selection of top-quality cookware to replace the odds and ends that Charley had collected, and then mostly not used, over the years.

We got Grandma a nice terracotta tagine after hearing her lament about not being able to get the dish just right with her makeshift solution. We gave Grandpa an articulated light with a magnifier for his studio, since he was starting to do more small work.

Charley gave me an Apple Watch after seeing me constantly pulling out my phone to check the time. She had me try it on right away, even though it wasn’t set up for me yet.

“If they still made their rose gold version, I’d have gotten you that,” she said. “I think the red looks good on you, though.”

When Charley opened her gift from me, she got misty eyed. “Those days were so frustrating, but I still loved every minute I spent with you. Thank you for fixing them in my mind.”

“They were amazing for me, too, sweetheart,” I said. “I loved being out there with you, doing new things. I agree it was frustrating, but it was better than I’d thought it would be when you proposed. It wasn’t as hard to wait when we were together, doing fun and exciting things.”

Grandma made dinner, but Charley and I helped as we could. We’d made the pecan pie the day before, so all we needed to do was whip up the bourbon-vanilla whipped cream just before serving. Charley riced potatoes for the mashed potato casserole. I made up the glaze for the ham, then helped Grandma prep the green beans. It was quite the feast for four people, but it was delicious, and we all loved leftovers.

When I took the test, I was glad I’d refreshed my memory. I was also glad I’d set aside an entire day for it. I didn’t have any problems with the three pages of linear algebra or six pages of calculus. The differential equations were where I started to sweat a little, but even then, those six pages went by quickly enough. The four pages of number theory were interesting, but I’d enjoyed that sort of thing for years, so they weren’t too bad. Even the five pages of numerical analysis were okay — I’d managed to wrap my head pretty thoroughly around those concepts when I was first going over it.

Complex analysis was another matter. Five pages and two hours later, I was done with the ones I could do. I felt pretty good about it overall, but one of the problems could have been in Sanskrit for all the sense it made to me. The last seven pages, though? Groups, rings, fields and the like? I’d touched on them, but only as they related to other things I’d studied. I knew enough to understand the problems, but by the end of the day, I’d answered fewer than half of the abstract algebra questions.

I was never so happy to finish a test in my life! That evening, Charley did her best to relax me, or at least wear me out. Afterward, I didn’t care about the test — the stress had all been washed away in the flood of love and happiness. I suppose the orgasms helped, too.