In the beginning, there is nothing.
–Fate decides the rest.
Owen only knew her as a classmate from years ago. He recognized her right away when he saw her in the food court. The hair was unmistakably Cassidy’s; bright natural blonde and full of thick curls dangling to almost her waist. Everyone at school used to say she looked like Sean from White Zombie, but he knew it was only because of the hair. Without the hair she looked nothing like the rock bassist.
He hesitated at approaching her as He wasn’t sure if she would remember him. It didn’t matter either way, this wasn’t school. This was better than school. He was in the real world, at a real job, in a new state and right there at the pizza counter was the “cool chick” from chemistry. The Girl with the smile. The one with that hair. Gorgeous, flowing, curly blonde hair. Most of all, the one with the goals. Cassidy was going places…and not on anyone’s coat tails. She would be damned if anyone ever gave her a free ride. She was going to do it on her own, and frankly, she could.
She was THE epitome of independent. No one ever told her how to do something in school. She was a strong woman, even as a freshman so many years ago. She earned great grades and never asked for help. She was quiet, yet always pleasant to anyone that she approached. She was never the type of girl to turn down someone who needed her help. However, if you crossed her, write it off as your loss because she was as wicked as they could come if you were on the opposite side.
Standing in the food court gazing across the room, Owen realized how much of a fool he looked like. As other workers would brush past him to eat their meals, he just stood motionless as he thought of approaching her and talking to her. He had just started the job a few weeks ago and hadn’t seen her until today. When he watched Cassidy among the workers with the smiles and welcoming mannerisms, he knew she had been her at the company for a while.
Then he saw it.
James walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Owen watches as she uncomfortably twitched her shoulder motioning him to remove his hand as he rested it there for just a few moments too long. He was clearly speaking to her about a work related issue that she didn’t agree with because the others at the table turned toward each other, or their food and ignored them in their moment. It was hard to tell if this was a peer-to-peer interaction, or a supervisor to employee discussion. Either way, it was a serious conversation that was definitely a revisit of an earlier encounter. It was her look that gave it all away. The look he had seen her give to classmates back at Warren Central. The look that was generally followed up with some sort of witty verbal response aimed to make the other party feel inferior to her intellectual scorn. It was sarcasm with a razors edge-known to cut deep, clean and leave a lasting mark.
Then there was nothing.
He smiled. She smiled. Then James walked away. Cassidy sat down, took a second or two to arrange her food and drink, and then proceeded to strike up conversation the others at the table. It wasn’t long before the laughter in that area continued as if the incident hadn’t taken place.
Owen knew of James.
James was the guy from Finance that interviewed him for the developer role. It was a waste of 20 minutes in Owen’s opinion. James had no technical experience whatsoever. He admitted it right away. When he asked Owen to explain his process a bit, Owen had to back up multiple times and simplify the conversation into rudimentary analogies. Like explaining how to set up a printer via the IP address to a 4th grader using flash cards or a song as a mnemonic device. There was no way James could honestly tell Susan in development if Owen had the chops to work in a specific SDK or set up a preprocessor for sass, or fork a git to alter a programming idea. He was oblivious. He understood that the Finance department would have a role working with him, but that was a mere formality in the process. Meeting James shouldn’t have even been a step in the interview process; he could have met him after the fact.
After he met James he got a sense about why his meeting with him was part of the interview. James was a control freak. He was smug. He had an air of “better than” with every condescension he placed on the table. He also seemed like a real asshole. Which would explain exactly why Owen though Cassidy was going to punch him in the throat.
Owen checked the time. 1:18. He had until 2pm before he had to return upstairs for the rest of his orientation meeting. He was on day 2 of a 4 day sprint, and then he was off for a 3 day weekend. He walked over to an empty on the side of the food pavilion that was less crowded. As weird as it was, he remained fixated on Cassidy trying to figure out if it really was her. He was nearly certain it was. But what were the chances? Here he was in Chicago, miles away from Bowling Green. The only way he could be certain was if he approached her and said something and he sure as shit wasn’t ready to do that. Things looked pretty tense for her a moment ago, the last thing he wanted was to send he rover the edge. Besides…how would she react? Would she even remember him? High school was like 5 years ago. They didn’t fly in the same circles and there were like 250 other people in their graduating class. Cassidy would never have known him among that school.
However, there was the Junior Prom incident. It felt like EVERYONE at the school knew him for that. Car sick or not, you don’t live an incident like that down. The photos passed around school. The posts online. The rumors around why he may have gotten sick. It was all too much. And definitely enough to tag him here, in Chicago, nearly 7 years later.