Julietta shoves her hands in her overall pockets. “It’s nice to meet you, Zandra,” she says. Her blonde hair is pulled up into a low ponytail. “Don’t worry about John. The other bosses don’t have as much of a stick up their ass.” She doesn’t offer me her hand to shake, but it seems more like a personality trait than any personal vendetta against me.
“He’s fine,” I say. “I think we’re just very different people. What do you do here, Julietta?”
“I’m one of the computer programmers here. The main one, really.”
I perk up. “That’s great. Hey, do you prefer C++ or Python?”
“C++,” a man’s voice says from behind me. I spin around, not certain what I was going to see, but I’m pleasantly surprised to see the man with the t-rex/bacon shirt I had seen during my interview. Today, his shirt has a Monopoly-like board game on it, but instead of the usual properties, it has various coffeehouses on it. “It’s more predictable.”
“Python,” Julietta argues. “It’s better for apps and it’s simpler.”
The man offers me his hand. “I’m Aaron. From the programming lingo, I’m going to theorize that you’re Zandra. If you’re not, that’s just going to be your new name because I hate being wrong.”
I shake his hand. “It is Zandra.”
“Thank God. Or else we would have ended up with two Zandras,” he says.
In Manhattan, I’d felt like a dandelion surrounded by daffodils. I wasn’t bullied or excluded, but I had to continuously pretend to be the same as everyone else. After I went to college, I gave up on pretending and people. But Julietta and Aaron are my kind of people, so I might have to reconsider my choice to give up on the human race.
“We should find you a dog,” Julietta says. “Do you have a preference? There’s a lot of golden retrievers. At least some of these golden retrievers must be related.”
She pulls me past a German Shepherd, a Welsh terrier, a Border Collie, a boxer, and a few other breeds I don’t recognize. It brings back my anxiety, but as she settles us beside one of the golden retrievers, the dog licks my hand and I start to relax.
I get to know a few of the golden retrievers—Julietta wasn’t exaggerating about how many there were—and one of the Border Collies. The employees start taking the dogs for walks. After Julietta takes a leash and walks out with the boxer, John walks up to Aaron and me.
“We brought a surprise for the organization. Twenty new dog beds. They’re stacked in the moving truck in the back. Can you gather some people and start bringing them in?”
“You mean the four other people left in this room?” Aaron asks.
John nods. “Preferably, yes.”
Aaron and I wrangle together the four other people and go outside to the moving truck. John failed to mention that the dog beds were queen-sized mattresses. Aaron and I awkwardly take a side on each end. Angela opens the door for us as we carry it back into the building. Another employee opens the door into the back room.
The Welsh terrier bounds for the door before I can drop the mattress. It runs with a reckless elation. By the time I’ve started to run after it, it’s escaped out of the building.
The dog can run fast for its small size. I push by people as it dodges between their legs. It peeks behind itself to check on my proximity before it starts to run faster. Cars race by us on the road. Even when I was completely terrified of dogs, I never wanted any harm to come to one. This could turn into one of the worst first days on the job in San Franciscan history.
I spot its tan and black fur. It’s being picked up by a businessman on the street.
“Sir, I’m sorry, that’s my dog,” I blurt out. I stop in front of them. The man is gorgeous. His black hair is combed into compliance except for a strand that sways in front of his eyes. Even in a suit, it’s clear his body is constructed out of enough muscle to keep any woman awake all night.
When he glances up at me, I see his azure eyes.
Fuck.
“Zandra,” Mark says, still holding onto the dog. “What are you doing here?”
It’s an entirely legitimate question, which I wouldn’t want to answer even if I remembered what I was doing there. I cross my arms over my chest. “I…thought you lived in Britain,” I say.
“I did. For a short while,” he says. “But I live here now. Are you visiting from Manhattan, or do you live here now too?”
He acts so casually. I might as well be an old friend from school. It never meant anything to him. I bet he doesn’t even remember what happened. It hasn’t haunted him like it has haunted me.
“Could I just get the dog?” I ask. “It doesn’t actually belong to me. It belongs to a charity.” I open my arms for him to hand the dog back to me.
He doesn’t move, but a kaleidoscope of emotions rotate across his face. “Community Day,” he says.
My arms drop back down to my sides. “Uh, yeah,” I say. “Is that a San Francisco thing? How do you know about it?”
