Several other pairs of eyes found mine as well: the round, bright eyes of children craning their necks to see around and over the huge computer monitors that filled the room, a neat array of tech interspersed with tousle-haired tweens distracted from their work.
I sank into a swivel chair in the empty back row, and the kids quickly lost interest, absorbed once again in their… whatever it was.
“Okay,” he said. “So now, if we go back to the console and run the app… Is everyone’s program running? Nobody’s unit tests are failing anymore? Passing? Passing?” he asked, pointing around at the students as he leaned against his desk, his sneaker-clad feet crossed in front of him. “Devon, passing?” A tiny girl with brown braids nodded. “Great.”
“Wait, Mr. Martin,” a student said. “I ran it and my table comes back full of zeroes, that’s not right.” A few other kids giggled, and a smile twitched on Charlie’s lips. He reached behind him on the desk, and held up a bright yellow rubber duck wearing what appeared from my twenty-foot distance to be a pirate outfit.
“You know what to do,” he said. “When in doubt…”
“Ask the duck!” the kid said, very seriously, catching the duck that Charlie underhanded to him.
“Sounds like you’ve got an edge case you don’t have a test for. Think about it this weekend and if you’re still stuck next week, we’ll walk through it together. But I think you can figure it out with the duck’s help.” The kid nodded seriously again, and Charlie spread his hands out wide. “If everybody else is looking good, then that’s all for this week, team.”
The sound of rustling backpacks eclipsed the end of his sentence, and then, the chime of the bell signaling the end of the period. There was a chorus ofBye, Mr. Martins as the students filed out from between their tables, leaving plastic swivel chairs spinning in their wake. I felt like one of the chairs myself, my perspective spinning, too. I watched Charlie pack his bag–the Veritech backpack he used in place of an adult’s leather briefcase–waving the kids away.
“See you next week, Emma. Bring that duck back, Angelo, I need him for my programmers at work, okay?” he said, and the kid–Angelo–nodded furiously.
“Of course, Mr. Martin, see you next week, Mr. Martin.”
“Mr. Martin,” I said as the last backpack disappeared out the door.
“Ms. Scott,” he said. “You were…quiteearly.”
“I heard you were teaching computer lessons,” I admitted. “I had to see it for myself. This is your part of the literacy campaign?”
He grimaced apologetically. “More like the literacy campaign is your part of this. I’ve been doing this part in some capacity for… a few years now.”
“You’re good at it,” I said simply.
“Well, I need to start them early if I want that yearly crop of unpaid interns.” I flushed. “I started with just the computers. We upgrade the office every year; I realized I could donate the old computers and take a tax write-off. Then this…” He shrugged, his lips finding that familiar grin. “It means I can leave the office early every Friday.”
“Right,” I said, watching as he switched off his computer and moved to the door, flicking the lightswitch, nodding his head wordlessly for me to leave. I fell into step beside him.
How had I ever believed that Charlie Martin was all bluster?
He’d saidhandsome, and charming, and rich, and I’d rolled my eyes.Sure, Charlie.His handsome good looks were undeniable: leading man material, I’d always thought, Tally had said, theNew York Weekagreed. Olive green eyes and wavy brown hair poured into a tight gray Veritech tee shirt or a perfectly tailored tux, topped with an ever-ready smile. And fine, I’d known he was rich, too. He had half the Martin money, and a company of his own, a successful one.
But I’d thought that his charm was just cockiness, the swagger that had socialites flocking to him, and it wasn’t that. It was in the easy, friendly way he interacted with everyone from an elementary schooler to the school superintendent. The way he’d given me a chance, and another, and another. The way he cared, deeply, about what he did–I didn’t believe for a second that he taught computer classes toget out of the office early on Fridays, having seen it with my own eyes. Managing a room full of kids was hard work, and he’d made it look easy: those kids knew Charlie, they respected him, and I wondered if he ran his business the same way. I hadn’t realizedjust how successfulit was because of the way he spoke about it, flip and self-deprecating. I scanned his faded khakis, his tee shirt, his backpack, his leather sneakers. He didn’t look the part of the billionaire CEO, not like this, but I was sure his employees respected him unconditionally, just like the kids did. I could picture him guiding them through a tricky process just as he’d done for Angelo.
Walking side by side through our old school, I had a thousand questions. Why hadn’t he told me he was teaching computer classes? Had he perfected that list of invitations for me, or just because he cared so much about fundraising? Why did he hide behind the shallow, superficial facade of Charlie Martin, and did he know he was hiding? Andhowdid he know, and could he tell me if I was hiding too, or if I really was that person, that mercenary, that ambitious, cold-hearted person that he’d known for the past decade?
And if I was…
Why did that feel so sad?
Or was he not hiding at all, and I just hadn’t been willing or able to see it?
And was that even worse?
We paused, Charlie holding open the door to the library. The question I asked wasn’t the one I wanted to ask, but it was the only one I could:
“Do you really bring that duck to Veritech?”
“Nah,” he said, shrugging. “I have another.”
CHAPTER18
Samantha
