Yes, London replied, and sent a heart emoji
OK. I love you, buddy!Fran stashed her phone in her bag. Even though she found the whole thing kind of creepy from a privacy perspective, Fran had downloaded the Pokémon Go app on her phone so that Hale could use it while London used RJ’s. They were forever running around the park, holding their phones in front of them, and screaming about which imaginary creatures they had captured.
After four more panels and then a dinner in the same ballroom, Fran made her way out to the front of the conference center where a car would take her back to the hotel. As she waited on a bench, she pulled out her phone and opened the game, logging in as Hale and immediately capturing a “Sandshrew” and a “Squirtle.” She sent London a Poké Ball gift, knowing he’d be excited when he woke up in the morning.
“Oh nice, you got that Sandshrew.” A voice startled her, and she looked up. A guy her age grinned and waved his own phone. He was skinny, with his long, black hair in a ponytail, and he wore shorts and a loose linen shirt.
“It’s for my kid—” Fran started to explain.
“Mm-hmm, right,” the guy teased. “He looks like he’s having fun.”
Fran laughed. “Are you part of the engineering conference?”
“I am. I’m Cal.”
“Fran.”
Cal worked for another contractor, his specializing in unmanned underwater vehicles. His company did work with the Navy and with scientists at Woods Hole. He was also staying at the Mauna Kea, and as they rode back to the hotel, they tried to count how many women had been at each of their panels. There were women who worked inmarketing, women who worked in HR, but Fran was a unicorn among the engineers, the ratio something like nine to one.
As their car pulled in front of the hotel Cal slid out and Fran noticed something fall from his pocket. She bent down and scooped it up from the footwell. It was a vape pen.
“Hey—”
“Oh shit.” Cal covered his mouth.
“Weed?” Fran asked, widening her eyes.
They spent theeveninggetting high on the beach and running around in the sand catching Pokémon, and it was the most fun Fran had had in months. Cal was unabashedly geeky, obsessed with online role-player games, George R. R. Martin, and Lord of the Rings. He had a tattoo of a dragon on his shoulder, and he confessed that for his last vacation he’d gone to Disneyland and visited the Star Wars park three days in a row.
“How much does that cost?” Fran asked, aghast.
“It’s like two hundred bucks a day.”
“So you spent six hundred dollars going to a theme park?”
“Oh no, with flights and hotel it was way more than that.” Cal laughed. “But that’s why we work, right? I’m single, so I don’t have to save for my kids to go to college, I don’t have to fly to some terrible small town to visit my in-laws at Christmas, I can just spend my money however I want.”
“Whoa.” Fran tried to imagine a world where she could blow that kind of cash purely for her own entertainment.
“Oh, don’t get jealous,” Cal teased.
“I am jealous! But I’m also mentally trying to decide what I’d do ifI didn’t have to spend all my money on kids’ summer camp and orthodontics and speech therapy.”
“You could send yourself to the Harry Potter theme park,” Cal joked.
“Nope. Here’s what I’d do if I didn’t have kids: I would get a massage once a week, I would order takeout sushi every night, and I’d throw out every single pair of socks that had bad elastic and just buy all new ones.”
“Fran.” Cal looked at her in mock disappointment. “That is the most depressing thing I have ever heard. You’re going to use your newfound disposable income to buy socks.”
“Shit, oh my God, you’re right.”
“Dream bigger. Buy a toy. Like a motorcycle or a fast car.”
“I’m not a motorcycle person.”
“A yacht?” Cal suggested.
“I’m not a yacht person either.”
