Melany
My coffee had gotten cold, but I sipped on it anyway. I strolled up the Riverwalk back to where my condo was on the edge of downtown Rosebridge, my thoughts on the hot-as-fuck drummer I’d just met. I usually didn’t ask for numbers unless I was fairly certain they were gay, but I’d ignored my rules this time and went for it anyway. Something about her did give me the feeling that she was into women—call it my gaydar—but I couldn’t be certain. Either way, it didn’t matter. If she was, then I’d take her out, learn more about her awesome playing, and then see if she was down for me to throw something at her tits. Namely, my face. If she wasn’t queer then I’d be perfectly happy with the conversation. The girl was an amazing drummer.
It’d been a long time since I’d hooked up with anyone, let alone went on a date, and I was feeling a little lonely—more than usual, I mean. I actually felt excited for once. When was the last time I’d felt excited about something? A long time ago, too.
I tapped my key to the panel at the front of the building to unlock the door, and took the elevator up to my loft condo. Even though I worked from home, I still treated my workspace as if it were a real office. I made sure it was immaculately decorated and cleaned, stocked with the amenities I would expect in a corporate office, and I always dressed for work. I’d made it a habit even back in business school when I was writing code in the tiny, grungy-ass apartment I shared with three other Beasley students. I was convinced that feeling successful, professional, and produc
tive was a key to achieving those things, and two years ago, I saw my efforts come to fruition. Design a killer app, and it could turn into a goldmine. I had designed three, and it’d made me a millionaire in months.
I threw the rest of my coffee down the drain and sat at my desk, which faced the big floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over downtown Rosebridge. I woke up my computer, and pulled up the app I was working on. When I put my fingers to the keys, I found myself unable to type. Kendra, the hot drummer, filled my head and wouldn’t leave.
I usually liked to wait at least five hours before messaging a potential date, but it looked like I’d be breaking another one of my rules for this girl. I copied her number from my palm into my cell phone, and wrote her a text.
> Melany: Hi, Kendra. This is Melany. What are your plans for tonight?
I set the phone down and turned back to my work. I didn’t expect to get an answer back from her anytime soon, so when my phone chimed just two minutes later I couldn’t help but smile in surprise.
> Kendra: Hi, Melany. No plans.
> Melany: Then make some with me. How about the King’s Tooth on the Beasley campus? For memories of our school days.
A reply didn’t come back for a little while.
> Kendra: Okay. Not the King’s Tooth though? Would prefer not to be on campus.
Huh. What had happened that’d made this girl dislike Beasley so much? She’d gotten uncomfortable about the topic earlier, too. She’d said that she’d dropped out—maybe the school screwed her over in some way.
> Melany: Certainly. Let’s meet at the Riverwalk, then. I’ll be done with my work at 4PM. How does 5PM sound?
> Kendra: Great. Do you mind if I eat first? I’m a little short on cash.
> Melany: Don’t worry about it. It’s on me.
> Kendra: That’s really nice of you, but I can’t accept that from someone I don’t know.
> Melany: We’ll get to know each other over some food. It’s alright, really. Think of it as payment for allowing me to talk to you about your drumming.
> Kendra: Ok, sure. See you at 5.
I sat back in my chair, smiling to myself. Yeah, it didn’t matter where this went, or what her orientation was. I just wanted to talk to her again.
To get some of my productive juices flowing, I went over to my entertainment center where I had all my records, and I pulled out one of my favorite jazz records, All Star Sessions with Jo Jones, Art Blakey, the great Max Clarke, and Wes Landers on the drums. I put the vinyl onto my turntable and soon my loft filled with the warm swell of jazz. I’d always loved all kinds of rock ever since I was a little kid, but Dad introduced me to good jazz.
Clicking a finger in time, I danced barefoot across the stone floor to the kitchen where I poured myself a glass of Japanese whiskey—Yamazaki, 18 year—and returned to my desk. I took a moment to look out the window at Rosebridge spreading out in the distance, and reminded myself that life was good.
Only, there was one thing that had been constantly tugging at me the past month, and it was big.
My goldmines were running dry.
The three apps I’d made that’d hit it big were each starting to lose their customer base—something not entirely unexpected when you didn’t have complete control of the market—and not one piece of software I’d developed since then had broken four figures. I’d always told myself that having been a top graduate at Beasley’s business school gave me an edge over other developers without any marketing or business experience, but now I couldn’t help but wonder if my lack of official programming training was handicapping me. I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. By all rights, all of the new software I’d developed should’ve been winners.
Time was ticking, my income was dropping, and my funds were draining. Instead of trying to develop small mobile apps, I decided to put all my stakes into my current project—a new mobile operating system poised to compete against the big dogs. The leader in the industry, BluTech, had been destabilized with the departure of their CEO, so I saw an opportunity.
Yeah, it was a huge risk, not to mention an insane job for one person to accomplish, but I figured the only way to succeed and push myself over whatever block I had was to go big. To go for a challenge.
And fuck, what a challenge this was. Nothing about the software seemed to be going right. I’d completed two builds and scrapped both. They were good pieces of software, but they weren’t new. There was nothing exciting about them, nothing inspired. They might cause a couple ripples in the pond, but ultimately, I knew in my gut that they weren’t what I was looking for. And what was I looking for?
Greatness. Pure and simple.