Adjoining Rooms

A word to those concerned - there is no sex in this story. There is, at most, only a suggestion of it. This is a story of two people who find each other later in life after the trials and tribulations of youth when they are free to celebrate without the complication of still finding who they are.

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We had adjoining rooms. It only made sense. We were there to work. During the day we ran our tests, reviewed the development reports, and talked with everyone involved in the project. In the evenings we had reports to write, emails to send back to the home office, and plans to make for the next day. The more we worked and the better we planned, the sooner we'd get the job done and go home.

We were old pros at this. We'd done it many times. When things are going well, they send the young ones out to run the tests and verify performance, but when things are going badly, they send out the senior engineers who have seen it all. When you've been doing this for 30 years there isn't much you haven't seen and there aren't many lies you haven't heard. Despite that, we still had project managers who tried to bull shit us, but we saw through their crap pretty fast and shut them down. I mean, they didn't send us because the in-house test results were good; you know what I mean? At times it was downright amusing and we'd watch some newly minted manager try to polish that turd until we could see our reflection in its surface, but a turd is still a turd and we knew turds when we saw them.

We had scheduled a week for this trip and our return flights were open ended. The goal was to validate the poor test results that we were getting, inspect their processes from start to finish, find the problem, and get them back on track with as little fuss as we could manage. The local team never really knew the kind of power we had because we wanted to keep them talking to us, but we knew that the right word to the home office and heads would roll. That was never our objective. We felt it was better to educate and improve the team than to create the chaos that firings would cause, but we'd done it before when it was needed and we would do it again if we had to.

It was the third night and so far things had been going well. The team was cooperating and our discussions seemed open and honest. Years of doing this work had taught us the value of honest conversation between engineers. Our test results were confirming those we made in our own lab, which isn't good but it is what we expected. We'd worked through the design specs yet again. It was the practice of our company to keep the board layouts from prior to the chip design so that concept testing could be performed. We could go into the board and take measurements at every solder joint. By late afternoon we were finding things that didn't add up. The design looked good on paper (not that we still used paper, but "looked good on the computer screen" is an expression that has never caught on). However, we were getting some unexpected measurements and we were struggling to understand them. In other words, it was business as usual.

Grace and I grabbed dinner at a place not far from the hotel. The local team offered to take us to dinner, but we'd socialized enough and we had work to do. If we could resolve this mystery, we might get home a day early. Hotels and travel had long ago lost its appeal to us both. We enjoyed dinner and talked about everything other than work. What is it they say about "All work and no play..."? We both learned long ago that a break from work makes the work more efficient.

"Have you been keeping up with the local news?" That was the one thing that Grace loved to do on the road. She might hit a museum or a zoo if we stayed over the weekend, but the local stories fascinated her. She went straight for the seedy stuff. "A local politician got caught with his pants down!" She was giggling. Grace lived for this sort of thing.

"You know what they say, right? ...not a live boy or a dead girl."

"This one was a live girl, but his wife caught them. She hit him with a lamp. Apparently, she played softball in college and she had a solid swing. She walked in on them and she swung for the bleachers!" Grace was laughing hard now as she swung her arms at a fictitious pitch.

"You know what they say; if there aren't any pictures, it didn't happen!"

"It's better than that! The girl ran out into the hall naked as the day she was born yelling 'She killed him! She killed him!' There were a dozen witnesses and one of them was quick enough to catch her on his cell phone."

Now I was laughing just as hard. We both had a thing for liars and hypocrites, I mean politicians, and whether liberal or conservative it was fun to watch them fall by their own actions.

"I heard about this politician once. He was modest and truthful to the core."

"Yeah?" Grace knew my sense of humor all too well.

"He never got anything done."

Well, that earned me a smile and a chuckle at least, and she reached out to touch my arm.

Dinner continued in much the same manner and I was reluctant to see it end.

Back at the hotel we both freshened up a bit and I poured us two glasses of Jack on the rocks. That's another thing about Grace - she drinks like a man. Once on a long trip we took a Saturday and went to the beach. We spent the day in the surf and sand, then pulled our street clothes on over our bathing suits and found an outdoor café. That was the only time I've ever seen Grace order one of those silly drinks with a paper umbrella. She just looked at me, smiled, and said, "When in Rome..." How can you not smile at that?

Looking back on the years, I couldn't help but think of all the days I'd spent working and relaxing with this woman. She was that one constant in my life when every other relationship was in turmoil. When my kids were sick, she covered for me. When my parents passed, she was there with me. When my wife of almost thirty years wanted a divorce,... Well, let's just say that Grace has a mouth on her and she can curse in a way that will make a sailor envious of her alliterations.

Through the years, I tried to do the same for her. Grace had never married. Truth be told, I never knew her to have any kind of romantic life. She was an only child, and a bit of a daddy's girl, so I was there for her when her parents died. Thinking back, my wife was a bit jealous at the time, although I never gave her reason to be.

I was deep in remembrance of our various adventures when Grace made her appearance. She knocked as she stepped through the door and called out "You decent?" a full step later. As usual, her knock was more of an afterthought than a courtesy.

Any answer at that point was superfluous, so I just smiled and nodded to the rapidly approaching figure of my partner and her laptop. As was our custom, we sat shoulder to shoulder and began working through the files and notes we'd accumulated. When writing reports, we often wrote as a team. It was our custom that one would write while the other would edit, and we rarely completed a sentence without the other making changes, but the end result was better for it.

She sat at the small hotel table next to me, brought her laptop to life, and took a sip of her Jack.

"Good stuff! I needed that." She was savoring that first sip and was soon spinning the ice with her finger.

"Best get started. I'm two good sips ahead of you."

She chuckled at our running joke. "It's a marathon, not a sprint." Neither of us ever had more than two and most often just the one, but a glass at the end of the day had become a tradition of ours.

I was making notes on our day's efforts while Grace worked over the numbers. We finished our notes and set about trying to understand the measurements. What seemed puzzling in the lab became crystal clear just thirty minutes later. There were two problems with the layout and five minutes later we were convinced that those problems had found their way into the chip design. There was a voltage irregularity in the analog board that only occurred when two capacitors drew charge at the same time and the result led to collisions in the processor. It wasn't a constant problem, but it was persistent. We felt confident we had it and tomorrow we would prove it.

We decided to celebrate, poured ourselves a second glass of Jack and retired to the couch to relax and celebrate our success.

"I don't think it's going to be a hard fix, do you?" I speculated.

"Not hard, but time consuming. They need to stabilize the current supply to those capacitors, confirm that the collisions in the processor go away, and then carry those changes into the chip design. Then they need to schedule a new run of chips. I figure two months at least?"

"It's so much easier to get it right the first time!"

"Yeah, but then they wouldn't need us and we wouldn't get to spend a week in lovely... Where are we again?"

"Texas."

"Oh, right! ...a week in lovely... Nope, I just can't say it."

I enjoyed working with this woman. Did I say she is irreverent? She was equally likely to make the same joke about any of our destinations.

"We'll be home soon."

"Back to the land of water and woods. I can't wait."

We sat and drank our Jack slowly. We were no longer in a hurry. The problem was solved. One more day and we'd be headed home.

"John, I don't think I ever properly offered you my sympathies and support during the divorce."

"Yes you did, many times."

"It seems like I didn't. I never knew what to say. You loved that woman, although God help me I don't know why?"

That was a puzzling remark. I looked at Grace and said, "Why do you say that?" There was no accusation or judgment in my tone. I was genuinely curious.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, seriously, I'm curious why you would say that? You and Meg were never tight, but I've never heard either of you knock the other."

"Never?" She was looking at me with disbelief.

"What are you getting at?"

"You never heard the backhanded remarks she threw at me, all the little slights and jabs?"

"Well..."

"You didn't hear her ask if I wanted to take the leftovers home because she knew I hated to cook?"

"I didn't know you hated to cook!"

"I don't, you clod! I love to cook! How many times did I invite you two over for dinner and Meg had something scheduled?"

"Well, it was just bad timing..."

"John, she never had anything scheduled until I invited the two of you."

There was really no arguing the point. Meg was insecure, although she would never admit it. "Can I tell you something without you getting mad?"

"Okay."

I wasn't convinced of her answer, but I said it anyway. "Meg wondered why you didn't introduce us to your girlfriend. You never even told me you were gay."

"Oh, you are so thick sometimes!"

"What? I'm not judging. I'm just surprised you told her and never told me."

"That's because I'm not gay!"

"What? Then why did you tell Meg...?"

"I didn't. She made it up!"

"Why would she do that?"

"Oh! Sometimes..."

I was confused and my partner was annoyed. Come to think about it, my marriage had been a lot like this.

We sat quietly and sipped our Jack for a time and then she asked, "Did you ever find out why she filed for divorce?"

"She never admitted it, but she took up real quick with a guy she works with. Too quick! I figure they had something going for a time, but I never knew."

The quiet continued for a bit until I asked, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

She chuckled and looked at me like I was an idiot. "You mean like I just asked you?"

"Well, yeah, but this one is a little different."

"Ask me."

"Why have you never married?"

"No man ever asked me. Well, that's true, but not entirely true. I never met anyone I wanted to ask me."

"Never?"

"Well, there was one, but he was already married and I don't do that. Cheating with a married man is no different than cheating on your husband and I won't do that ever!"

"I wonder if he knows what he missed?"

"No, I doubt it."

I was looking at my partner. Such a kind face, such a bright mind, such a good heart, and so much to give.

"What?"

"Just looking." She should have been uncomfortable with my staring, but she never broke my gaze. We kept looking in each other's eyes as I thought about the years and all our shared experiences. What did Meg know that I never knew? Why did she always keep Grace at arm's length? How many years had we shared and how many more did we have? Who was that married man?

I felt myself slowly falling forward and her gaze never faltered. Our breath mingled, our noses touched, and then I kissed her, and she kissed me back. It was no chance kiss that ended as soon as it began. It went on and on, neither of us willing to part. We gently moved from kiss to kiss, repositioning our lips, ending and beginning anew, until finally we parted.

I looked into her eyes not knowing what to say. Was she offended? Had I crossed a line? She took my breath away. My mind was flooded with questions, but all I wanted was to kiss her again.

If ever there were a woman who was professionally confident and personally insecure, Grace was it. However, with me she had always known to express her thoughts. She grabbed my shirt and pulled me to her again. To hell with the line! I wrapped my arms around her and I drank her in.

We kissed and I stroked her side. We kissed some more and my hand passed gently to the side of her face. We kissed and our tongues dueled.

When we separated to catch our breath and I gazed into her eyes, I said, "That married man has no idea what he's missing!"

"You idiot! You're the married man! It's you! It's always been you."

Now she took my breath away in a whole new way.

"I never knew."

"You weren't supposed to know. You were married. You were off limits."

I let this new realization sink in. She had loved me? I was the one?

I was emboldened. "Grace?"

"Yes?"

"I think I love you. I think I always have."

She had tears running down her cheeks. "I love you, too, John!"

For an hour we kissed and we fondled. We gazed into each other's eyes and we whispered our innermost thoughts. I took liberties with my partner that I had never dreamed of taking before and all the while she encouraged me with her kisses and her words. In time, she laid her head under my chin and I breathed in the scent of her hair. I was discovering my partner, my friend, in new ways for the first time in years.

"John?"

"Yes?"

"I think we need to go to bed if we're going to make it into work tomorrow."

"Who cares about work?"

She chuckled. "John, it's time."

"Okay." I was momentarily saddened.

We got up from the couch, embraced and kissed again, and finally broke our hold on one another. She walked to the door, turned off the light, and walked back toward me.

"Grace?"

"Yes, John?"

"What...?"

"I'm not a child, John. I know what I want. Do you know what you want, John?"

I'd never felt more certain. "Yes, Grace, I know."

I suppose that some would say that night was the beginning of our love affair, a love that would carry us through the remainder of our lives. In a greater sense, I had loved this woman for many years. She had been the one steady friendship, the frequent and innocent companion, through so many struggles and successes. I had simply been too married and too faithful to recognize it. Now freed by a wife who always seemed to want what she didn't have, I could see what was before me all that time.

That night we celebrated together what we had finally admitted to each other. We loved and made love, and when our desire was sated, we slept in one another's arms.

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I considered adding a sex scene to this story, but that isn't what it's about. This is about discovering what was in front of you all the time. The rest you can easily imagine.