Chapter 4

Still Claire’s turn:

At breakfast the next morning, I said, “Grandma, while you were cooking last night, Charley offered to show me a bit about her job. I’ve enjoyed all of the programming classes I’ve been able to take in school, and I’ve sort of been thinking it would be a good area to get into.”

“Of course, that was before you two started flirting,” Grandpa said. “She might be a little nervous now.”

I grimaced a little, knowing he was right.

Grandma thought for a moment before she said, “I think it’ll be okay, though you’ll need to be good. Tell you what, give me a hand cleaning the house this morning, and we’ll take lunch over and see if she has time today. Deal?”

I think I surprised them when I laughed. “Oh, Grandma.” I said. “The idea of helping someone take care of the house rather than doing it all myself makes me so happy! I’ll be happy to help, but you’ll need to let me know how you do things.”

She hugged me and we were joined by Grandpa. After that, he headed out to his studio while we did dishes, vacuumed and started laundry. It’s not like I’d ever really enjoyed doing housework, but working with Grandma was kind of fun. We soon had the house looking great, then we went to the corner grocery store to get a little deli meat before she prepped some hard boiled-eggs.

I really did want to learn more about programming as a profession, so I started off trying hard to be reasonably professional. Calling Charley ‘Miss Black’ was apparently a bit of a faux pas, though. Grandma snickered, and Charley rolled her eyes. She smiled when she said, “It’s ‘Charley’, or even ‘sis’ for you. I try to leave ‘Miss Black’ for professional use only. Okay? If you’re my sister, you can be informal.” It turned out the timing would work, though.

Just before we sat down, Grandma said she’d forgotten the ranch dressing and asked me to go back and get it. I smiled as I left. I thought she was overacting a little and probably just wanted to talk to Charley without me there.

Everything seemed relaxed during lunch, but I was finding it hard to be anything like professional. Just being around Charley made me squirm.

After lunch, Grandma offered to clean up while we got started, so I figured she was going to stick around as a chaperone. Not a problem for me, and it would probably help keep me from doing something stupid that would scare this gorgeous woman away.

What Charley showed me was way interesting. She explained why she felt some code she was reviewing for someone at the home office was really clean, but also how it could be cleaner still. “We like to call it software engineering, but a lot of it’s still almost an art,” she said. “We have guidelines, you could even call them rules, for how to do all of this, but in the end you can usually do it multiple perfectly valid ways, which is where the art comes in.”

“That’s cool.” I said. “I like art, even if I’m more interested in computers, so learning the art of it seems like it’ll fit me. I’ve also read that there didn’t use to be so much stress on separating art and science, so maybe keeping the art in it is a way to bring it full circle.”

She nodded and said, “That’s a good point, and you’re right — it’s only been recently in history that we’ve tried to hammer the art and beauty out of things like engineering. I’m trying to do my part to keep it alive in our little corner of the engineering world. One way to do that is to not force my style on someone else. If there’re good reasons, then I’ll point them out, but I need to be willing to accept that they may have good reasons as well, and learn from them — letting them express their view of the art.

“Honestly, if I give the same problem to three different people, I’ll get three different answers, and mine will be different than any of theirs. Except in fairly rare cases, all of those solutions will do the job, but one might be more compact, another may be easier to read, still another might trade legibility for slightly better performance. Each person will be expressing their view of the art of computer programming, and we don’t want to stifle that. I’ve taught everyone on the team various things, including about making a design easy to change, but I’ve learned things from everyone I’ve ever worked with, too.”

As fascinating as I found the work, I had a problem. When she showed me things on the three huge monitors she used, I naturally leaned in for a better look. When I did, I put a hand down for a little balance and, it ended up on Charley’s thigh. I had to fight myself to not move it all the way up. It felt so nice. When she talked about designing a new app and her part in it, she had a diagram up on the monitor that was furthest away from me. When I leaned in to look at it, I put my hand on the back of her chair. I could smell her shampoo, or maybe conditioner, and had to fight myself again to not start kissing her behind her ear. It was a really good thing Grandma was there.

When we got home, Grandma quizzed me. “So, was her work more interesting than Charley?”

I shook my head. “Uh, no. No, Charley was still more interesting, but her work is really interesting, too,” I said. “The way she talked about how creative the process is, and how she’s always learning from the rest of her team as well as teaching them, was just amazing.

“I’d read about doing what she was showing me at first, but her explanation of why she did it and why someone else might do it differently, just seemed to click.”

Friday afternoon I was sitting on a deck chair in the backyard, reading one of Grandpa’s art history books, when I heard a familiar ratcheting sound from next door. Looking over, I saw Charley pushing a nice looking bike into her backyard. She looked tired, but the good type of tired that you get from an intense workout. She also looked incredibly sexy in Lycra bike gear.

Then she leaned over the bike with her legs straight and her butt facing me. I gulped and stared. I was suddenly hornier than I could ever remember being, even when I was playing with myself. She had a perfect butt. When I found my voice, I just went with it. “Wow! That’s a great view.”

She seemed startled when she turned her head to look at me, but then she wiggled her gorgeous ass. I wanted so badly to touch her right then. Instead, I took a breath and tried to tone it down. I stood up and said, “Wow, sis. You look like you were really working out there.”

“That’s because I was,” she said. “I took out some frustrations on the hills.”

Part of me didn’t like the idea that she was frustrated, so I went over and hugged her, then kissed the top of her head again — sweaty.

“So, why are you frustrated?” I asked.

She hesitated for a moment then said, “Uh, I really need to go clean up. Can I put off answering you until I’ve cleaned up?”

I playfully wrinkled my nose and joked, “You’re right, you do need to clean up.” Sure, I could smell her a little, but it mostly just smelled like she’d been working out, and that didn’t bother me a bit.

She took a mock swipe at me, then said, “Why don’t you see if Terri wants a night off from cooking? We have a pretty good pizza place in town, and I’ll treat you all. We can talk then, okay?”

I nodded and said I’d check with Grandma and Grandpa while she cleaned up. I turned to go, but a naughty thought hit me and I turned back.

“And, uh, sis?” She turned to look at me. “Lycra looks great on you!” She blushed so prettily.

Grandma was all for it and said she’d let Charley know when and where to meet.

“Great! I’m going to get ready for dinner,” I said. I knew just what I wanted to wear, too. When Grandma had taken me shopping the other day, I’d gotten a couple of cute, above the knee, full skirts. I’d wear one of those.

Grandma looked intently at me and said, “What you have on is fine, really. This isn’t a very formal place.”

I blushed and tried to stammer something out, but she just laughed and told me to go pretty up if I felt I needed to. It wasn’t just that I wanted to change clothes, though — I was still so horny that I needed to get a few minutes alone to take care of myself.