Devon left the office and headed to the subway ahead of Merritt. He thought he’d get to the job—a small office complex—early and grab coffee while Merritt wrapped some things up.
The morning had been good. Will had 2 tickets to the ballet on Friday and had done a drawing from the techs and interns; there were 4 techs including Hannah and Merritt and 2 interns: Devon and a girl—Devon thought her name was Issa or Izzy or Alisa or something like that.
The girl intern, Devon thought, could have been considered attractive but for the fact that she seemed to go out of her way not to be. Devon was a big admirer of the world’s rich and famous “nerds.” Tech moguls like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had literally changed the world. He thought that “nerds” would be the ones who pushed the boundaries of society forward.
Issa (or Izzy or Alisa) sabotaged what Devon thought could be innate cuteness by her selection of outfits, hairstyles, accessories and mostly mannerisms. Devon slightly felt bad that he had a negative view of her and he recognized that she was under absolutely no obligation to respond to his opinion. Still, he couldn’t help but think she went out of her way to fulfill every cliche of being a nerd.
One of the other techs, though—Clifford J. Witman who insisted everyone call him Jay—exceeded her nerd efforts by at least an order of magnitude. Devon had thought that, if Issa (or Izzy or Alisa) drank a big mug of nerd-juice each day, Jay drank the rest of the pot. Devon had overheard Will telling Jay that his hygiene needed much more closely conform to societal norms if Jay ever wanted to get out of the office and work directly with customers.
Devon was not particularly proud about his thoughts regarding Jay and the girl—and that he didn’t actually know her name made him feel even more guilty. Still, he saw no reason to almost completely disregard what society expected.
With regard to the ballet tickets Will was giving away, Devon’s name had been drawn, so the two tickets went to him. He’d never been to the ballet. He immediately arranged with Hannah to make an evening of it.
Their fling that had started on Saturday had been fun. On a whim, he’d suggested that, since they both had the night before broken off dating relationships, they should start dating each other. Hannah surprised him by playing along. They had plunged into a laugh-filled day that ended up with a little cuddling and kissing, then laughed about that and smiled themselves to their own apartments.
Looking back over the days, Devon decided the whole relationship was somewhere on a continuum between frivolous and gratuitous. He hoped it was closer to frivolous; he’d survived a couple of gratuitous relationships in his past and had left them with a bitter taste.
He’d already talked to Hannah about taking a step back and she had not protested. Devon had come to think that deciding to be a couple and actually becoming one were different. He wouldn’t complain if time drew them closer to each other, but in reality, they had declared something to be a thing well before it actually was a thing.
The evening before in the apartments’ common area, they had sat close and he’d put his arm around her. She’d leaned into him, but that was as far as the affections went.
Devon had thought it felt like an echo of what had been that preceded the quiet that would follow. It was nice and seemed to be a move in the right direction.
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