I sat on a bench, watching Tinkerbell smoke a cigarette and pace in front of me. After I decided to go back to work and started driving for Harry again, I called her to a meeting so we could join forces. I didn't want to get distracted, but I couldn't watch her move without the blood pumping. It was no way to start a business relationship.
"Harry used you on me. Now I'm looking to return the favor." My hands were on my lap, fighting the urge to reach out and grab her. "I need the password to Harry's computer to get in contact with the Dude."
"Why? Explain exactly what you're hoping to accomplish."
I shrugged. "The nerds say there's code that'll let them talk through Ivan, the open communications subroutine."
"But Ivan would have been shut down when Harry changed the system to be about the new Mike program."
I nodded, ignoring the fact that she seemed to understand more about it than me. "I guess that's how it sneaks through. Harry won't pay attention to a program he thinks is shut down."
"Okay, but setting that aside, what else do you stand to gain?" The cigarette smoke trailed out of her mouth, a regular exhale too much of an interruption to the conversation.
"I want the programmers to experience a little freedom and decide they want more."
"Yeah, right." She shot me a bitter look. "That's not how this business works."
I spread my arms, showing off my smelly, dirty clothes, the exact opposite of her stylish ensemble. "Do I look like I'm in any kind of business?"
"I guess not." With one last drag, she dropped her cigarette in the dirt and stomped it out, grinding with her designer boot longer than she needed. Then she went back to pacing.
"Tinkerbell, is there something wrong? Do you not want this job?"
She stopped pacing. Her dark eyelashes fluttered. "No. It's nothing to do with your silly problems. How exactly are you planning on paying me?"
"Oh, with the stuff in my notebook, everything I know about the system."
She stared at me. "What about access? The details of your operation are fine and dandy, but that would only be the structure of the organization. If I get in there and find out how the system really works, that's something I can sell to the other companies working on the same kind of stuff." She sat down on the bench next to me, which made me warm inside.
"Like who?"
"Who? Google, Microsoft, Amazon. That's just for starters. Every service on the market wants to predict what their customers are going to do next. A computer program that understands how people think would change everything. They'll all want a peek at how this is done. I might even get a few shekels from Netflix, if I can show them it's going to help predict movie picks better. All I need is access to those servers." She wanted to get in there, and I didn't mind exposing the company if it meant getting people out of it.
"That password is the key. I can get you in with that."
"Okay, that I think I can get." She looked at the ground. She still seemed distracted.
"Something else on your mind?"
She gave a sly smile, staring at her crushed cigarette butt. "Secrets are my livelihood, okay?" She blushed and turned away from me. Her wavy blonde hair came around to block my view of her face.
I slid a few inches closer along the bench, until our hips were almost touching. I started to reach out and touch the golden waterfall falling from the crown of her head, but I stopped myself. "You can trust me with your secrets. Who'm I gonna tell?" My voice was upbeat but not enough to insult whatever was bothering her.
Her voice came from her hair. "There's this guy." My gut tensed. I was disappointed.
"It's not Roger, is it?"
She turned to me in shock, her distraction forgotten. "What? He's gay."
I shrugged. "It's just, I've never seen you with anyone else."
Her lips pulled tight. "Well, I try to keep my lives separate. There's a lot more to me than I would let someone like you into."
"What kind of someone am I?"
"We're just business associates."
I fought the urge to reach out for her again. "Maybe I want to be more." My voice went gruff.
"Don't bring me down to your level." Her voice was soft. "Treat me like a princess."
"But you're not a princess."
"You know that now." She gave a sad smile. "I want him to look at me the way you used to."
"Is this how you used to talk about me?" I didn't want her to tell me all about some other mark, but I had to know more about that smile.
"You were never on this guy's level."
"But we played spy, remember? That was fun."
"That wasn't -- I mean, well, when I was a little girl, I wanted to be a spy, like Boris and Natasha, but that never really existed. I fell in with the popular kids and..."
"That sounds really tough." I let the sarcasm into my voice.
"You see? Nobody ever took me seriously. All anybody ever saw were my looks."
"They're hard to ignore. I bet they get you places though."
She gave that sad smile again. "Yeah, it was easy to be pretty and take the opportunities that were handed to me." She pulled a phone from her purse. "But I missed my shot to end up with someone like him." She showed me a picture of some round faced guy with professional grooming.
"I don't see the big deal."
"He's rich, and he's shorter than me. He'd look up to me and not..." Her hand went to the scar on her forehead. "I just wish I wasn't so imperfect."
I rolled my eyes. "If you were perfect, you wouldn't be here. Perfect is boring. That guy's probably boring. I think you take that scar way too seriously anyway. In this community, you're a ten, easy."
"It ruined my career."
"You seem to be doing okay."
"Not this one." She took a deep breath. "I used to be a model, okay? That's where they first called me Tinkerbell." I didn't know that name was from before she tried to sneak into the company. She shrugged. "My life was all figured out. Girls I worked with back then have made it big, but after my... there were a million other girls where they didn't have to photoshop this thing out. I went back to pursue my other interests, ones they told me 'aren't for girls like you'. I worked hard for years, and this is as far as it's gotten me."
"Well, you're good at all this computer stuff, as far as I can tell."
"Big deal. If I could get this guy, I wouldn't have to be smart or work hard any more."
"Hey, if there's one thing I understand, it's not wanting to have to work." I smiled.
She smiled again, and the sadness was gone, but I knew it was still in there. I saw her as a person, and for some weird reason in that moment, I didn't care about sleeping with her.
"My real name is Oscar." I waited, but I knew it would be rude to ask for hers.
