Night Watch, Part 20

(Author’s note: We left off, before our break for Katrina observances, on the morning after a long night of labor for Angela. Her parents, Natalie and Buddy, are at the house helping out, as is her sister, Olivia. At this point, Angela’s labor is somewhat stalled, as labors can be, and so David has decided to make a quick trip to his office, ostensibly to get his cell phone charger, but really to fax a business proposal for a project that Angela doesn’t care for and would rather they not bid on.)


Getting out of the house was easier than he had thought: Natalie had taken over the kitchen, and seemed anxious to have one less man around. Buddy declined an invitation to go along, saying he would wait for Tony to return from his sleepover at the neighbor's house. David didn't object; he knew Tony would be thrilled to spend time with his grandfather. David kissed Angela goodbye and left the house with an extra doughnut in his backpack.

David felt liberated as he walked in the cool morning shade beneath oak and elm trees. Ahead, where the trees ended, the sidewalk became a puddle of brilliant sunlight. He enjoyed this walk to his office, and looked forward to it on work days, which was almost every day. The route took him past other houses like the one he and Angela owned: small, wooden structures with tidy lawns and gardens. Most of the homes were built before 1920 and had been renovated during the boom of the past ten years; they sported fresh colorful paint and new trim and roof shingles. The houses had originally been lived in by railroad workers and their families. Now these classic bungalows with their plaster walls, radiators, pine floors and high ceilings had become the rage among well-to-do homebuyers.

At the end of three blocks, David reached Mount Vernon Avenue, the busy corridor that was the traditional retail center of the community. Its fortunes had risen along with the gentrification of the neighborhood, and now the old, quirky storefronts offered everything from premium coffee to Cancun travel packages. He turned right at Mount Vernon and walked the half block to the building that contained his office.

"Hello, David," said a woman's voice, pulling him back from his thoughts.

"Hi, Nancy," he said. She was a regular at the coffee shop down the street. Almost all of the workers within a three-block radius congregated there.

"How's Angela?"

"No baby yet. I thought it would come last night. But..." He shrugged.

Nancy had two children of her own. She groaned. "She must be so ready to have it. Give her my best."

"I will," he said.

David's office was a two-room suite above a computer networking company owned by Randall Hogue, a tall Georgetown graduate who had played basketball. David had always thought the synergy was perfect: Randall's clients needed software, and David's clients needed computers and networks. Randall had gotten a ten-year lease on a two-level row house situated in the middle of a block of small businesses. He sublet the upper floor to David.

Randall's office was quiet as David walked past it and climbed the steps to his own place.

"Good morning, Gwen," said David as he breezed into the suite. Gwen Hogue was the cousin of Randall Hogue: in addition to offering the suite he recommended his cousin. At first, David felt pressured to hire her. But after meeting Gwen, who had gotten her degree from George Mason University, in Fairfax, David decided she was sharp. It was Angela who cast the deciding vote in Gwen's favor. Although he didn't say so, David suspected it had more to do with Gwen's pale skin and plumpness than anything else. He thought there was some truth to the old stereotype that when husbands and wives own businesses, the wife hires women who are not likely to be a temptation to the husband. Gwen spent her days at the computer downing two-liter bottles of diet Pepsi and eating low fat muffins. Her desk held the contents of her extensive make-up kit along with programming manuals and paperwork. When David received a document from her it often contained a reddish smudge with a peculiar aroma. However, she came at a good price and was a killer programmer. Graphite couldn't stand working in the same room with her and so he volunteered to work nights. For the record, Gwen didn't care for Graphite's gloomy attire and monotone conversational style and incomprehensible jokes.

Gwen greeted him with a pink-faced smile and said, "Was it a boy or girl?"

"It's not anything yet. We're still waiting for it to come out," he said.

"You've got to be kidding," she said, momentarily abandoning a blueberry muffin in front of her.

David shook his head. "'Fraid so. Poor Angela's about worn out, I think."

"I can't even imagine..." She let the sentence hang in the air.

David continued through the front room to the second room, which was large and contained a desk and a conference table and a file cabinet. On the wall hung two whiteboards for drawing software designs during meetings. David sat at his desk and let out a long breath: this was the world headquarters of D&A Software. The name was Buddy's idea: David & Angela. David liked it because it sounded like "DNA" and lent an air of complexity and sophistication.

David opened his backpack and took out his laptop computer and slid the machine into it's docking station. He powered it up and then turned his attention to the clutter on his desk. He rummaged through a pile of paper for the RFP, or Request For Proposal, from Jessica Van Buren's office. He didn't find it. Paper control was not a strong point at D&A Software.

"Gwen have you seen the Van Buren RFP?"

"I think Graphite was looking at it," she said.

He found it on Graphite’s desk and carried it back to his own desk. After reading just a page or two, while eating his doughnut, he remembered that he had already prepared most of the proposal. It was simple: in addition to the new mailing list program, they wanted a new campaign donations page and a better database for creating profiles of donors. That was the task Angela didn’t like. Van Buren's staff was going to use that feature to expand her base of supporters. Angela feared the media would say that D&A Software was itself a supporter of Ms. Van Buren and Angela didn’t want to wear the label of "conservative ally."

David pulled up the proposal on his computer and reviewed it. He adjusted a few numbers and task descriptions and sent it to the printer. David didn’t see any harm in providing some simple tools to a local politician. "If you're a hardware store you sell shovels to anyone who walks in the door, right?" he had argued.

The proposal came off the printer; David signed it and then faxed it to Van Buren’s office. He then tidied his desk and read email messages, not being in any particular hurry to leave. It was quiet in his office, except for the clicking of Gwen's nails on her computer keyboard. After a bit of sorting and shuffling, the papers on his desk were stacked into neat piles. His work would be ready for him when he returned. After lingering as long as he dared, he turned off his computer and packed it away. At the last moment before leaving his office he remembered the cell phone charger, his excuse for coming to the office in the first place. He stuffed it into his backpack. As if Angela would be fooled by such a flimsy story: he knew that she knew he was going to submit that proposal.

"Back to the delivery ward?" said Gwen brightly as he walked past her desk.

"Yep. How's that adoption site coming?" he asked. Gwen was creating a web site for couples seeking to adopt a child.

"I've got the database created and about half the scripts we need. I'll be able to give you a demo by tomorrow."

"If I'm still conscious by tomorrow. I may collapse from exhaustion."

"You? All you have to do is stand there and hold her hand," said Gwen.

"But I get to do all the worrying," said David.

He waved goodbye and left the office.