End of the Road Read online

  She fully expected him to say what people always said, which was “How tall are you? Did you play basketball? How’s the weather up there?” But he didn’t. He didn’t register surprise at her appearance at all. Dan must have told him about her freakish height so he wouldn’t be shocked when he saw her.

  Jade acknowledged Nishant’s friends, who smirked at her. She wished she could disappear. As usual, it was three against one. They would speak as the hive mind. They would support each other and prop each other up and talk each other up. They’d be chosen. Not her. Of course. Because Nishant got the fellowship she’d coveted. Because Sauer had the final say, and Nishant was his golden boy.

  Martin sat on the cream sofa in front of a window with a spectacular view of the beautiful KU campus. “You four were listed as the top four KU CS candidates.”

  What a load of crap. Crabbe and Goyle weren’t even in the top half. Jade knew Haruko Suzuki and Yeong Rhee, two of the other top CS students, weren’t here because Sauer wouldn’t have identified any of the women as the top students. She was only here because of Dan.

  “Before I explain the position to you,” Martin said, “may I offer you something to drink?”

  “Water, please,” she croaked out, crossing her legs.

  “Sparkling?”

  “Just—wet,” she said lamely, and Nishant tried and failed to keep from laughing. Her face flushed. How many times could this happen in a day before the capillaries in her cheeks burst?

  She counted to five as she inhaled through her nose. She held it then blew out through her mouth slowly. Jade ground her teeth, thinking of light to try to keep the darkness of anxiety at bay. The darkness circled the edges of her consciousness, always ready and waiting to take over, like a fog surrounding a lake. Sometimes it won, but in the past few years, endless self-help positive thinking books and blogs and lists and mindfulness meditation had helped.

  When she needed to conjure light, she thought of waking up as a kid in her childhood bedroom that first day of vacation, the early summer cast of light from the eastern horizon, the echoing birdsong, the green smells of the growing wheat, the turned dark brown earth—all the clean country smells she missed when she was away from them.

  She tried to picture her happy place in the morning prairie light, but all she could see were angry hornets’ nests and knots of worms and decaying roadkill. She blinked.

  Martin handed her a glass of ice water, but he seemed to have some sort of spatial-awareness deficit, because he nearly missed her hand, and it was so sweaty anyway the glass almost slipped right through. She caught the bottom with her left hand then took a big gulp before holding it in her lap.

  Martin scanned the group. “We’re interviewing CS grad students all over the country, so just being here says a lot about how highly esteemed you all are.”

  Nishant grimaced, and Jade could guess what he was thinking. They were up against the guys from MIT, and Cornell, and of course, the number one CS school, Carnegie Mellon. Maybe the fact that her BS was from CMU would work in her favor, but it wasn’t a fair fight. If American universities had been ranked by weight, the East Coast would sink beneath the ocean, flipping the entire country over, capsizing it. Jade’s heart dropped further.

  Nishant and his friends looked at each other, as if it had just occurred to them that they wouldn’t all be going together, that they were competing against one another. She watched as they subtly shifted away from each other. This gave her a tiny bit more confidence.

  Nishant raised his hand tentatively, his elbow stuck to his side as if unwilling to fully commit.

  “You don’t need to raise your hand,” Martin said. “Just speak up. This is an informal interview.”

  Sure it is.

  “Why are you even bothering to interview here?”

  “I assume you’ve heard the phrase ‘Silicon Prairie,’” he said. “The company is based in Kansas, and we’d like to hire at least one team member locally. If we can.”

  If we can. There was no way. This was just a token gesture.

  “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Martin said.

  “So what does the position entail?” asked Nishant’s bestie, the guy Jade thought of as Crabbe, even though his radiant green eyes and the squarest jaw she’d ever seen made it hard for her to look at him, he was so beautiful.

  Martin rubbed his hands together and crossed his legs. “The project will be getting underway by the end of May,” he said.

  “And what’s the actual project we’ll be working on?”

  Martin adjusted his security badge. “That’s the second layer of the NDA. We can’t tell you until you’re hired.”

  Goyle straightened his tie and said, “I’ve never interviewed for a mystery position like this.”

  “Here’s what I can tell you,” Martin said. “You’ll be part of a four-member cross-discipline team, working on a project that involves research, testing, coding, problem solving with shifting variables—but I can’t be more specific than that. I can also tell you if you’re hired, you will receive a signing bonus of thirty thousand dollars.”

  Goyle sank back down into his chair, his eyes fixed on Martin Felix.

  Thirty K? Up front? Jade was stunned. This was the amount her parents had been trying to raise for the wheelchair-accessible van to accommodate the electric wheelchair Pauline would soon need.

  “Our benefits package includes the repayment of all your college and grad school debt. We will also reimburse you for any expenses you’ve already paid, including books, living expenses, rent, tuition, travel, et cetera.”

  Nishant’s eyebrows shot up.

  Jade experienced a sweeping chill. She’d racked up $56,000 in undergrad debt, and $22,000 in grad school so far.

  “You had to pick one of the most expensive schools in the country, didn’t you?” her dad had said when he learned what CMU tuition cost. He’d sighed and signed the mortgage paperwork. Their Kansas farmland was leveraged to the hilt, and it was all riding on her shoulders. Pay her parents’ mortgages off. Pay off her student debt. Freedom.

  “But that’s not all,” Martin said, and Jade pictured him as a TV pitchman for ShamWow! or the Miracle Mop. “If you complete the project, you will receive a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus plus stock options worth another five hundred thousand.”

  “To split among the team?” Nishant asked, his voice dry and cracked.

  Martin let the question lie there before them, as each of the students held their breaths. Then a slow smile spread over his face. “Each,” he said.

  Crabbe whistled.

  Instead of elated, Jade felt bereft. This was so far out of her league, even a telescope couldn’t help her see it.

  “And finally,” Martin said, “if at the end of the project you’d like to move on, you’ll be given a research grant at the institution of your choice. Or we will guarantee you a lucrative, prestigious position in the industry. We’ve already talked to Google, Facebook, the Department of Defense, et cetera.”

  Who the hell were these guys?

  “You can’t guarantee something like that,” Goyle said, skeptical.

  “Oh, trust me,” Martin said, dropping into a lower vocal register. “We can guarantee it. In writing. We have connections.”

  “Universities?” Nishant said. “Associate professor-type positions?”

  “Absolutely,” Martin assured him. “Tenure track.”

  This time the boys didn’t look at each other, but seemed to be doing the same kinds of calculations in their heads that Jade was.

  She finally spoke up, her curiosity getting the better of her. She had to restrain herself from holding up a hand. “Mr. Felix? I wondered if you could tell us about the company itself.”

  He chuckled again. “I can tell you we are very well funded. Let’s say it’s a tech company and leave it at that.” He stood and rubbed his hands together. “Now, if you’ll leave all your things here and move on over to the table, we’ve got some la
ptops on which we’d like to test your algorithmic thinking.”

  Everyone rose, and Goyle said, “And then you’ll interview us?”

  “The coding challenges are the interview.”

  Jade seated herself at the head of the table, facing away from the window, and opened the laptop. A page of coding problems appeared, some she recognized from the practice interview questions she’d Googled earlier, several of which she’d already completed. Her shoulders relaxed, and she smiled, realizing this would be much easier than she’d expected.

  “You’ve got thirty minutes to complete five of the problems.” Martin said. He marked his watch. “Everyone ready? Begin.”

  Jade read the text at the top of the screen.

  1. Compute the nth Fibonacci number. Careful—the recursion can quickly spin out of control!

  Everything else faded away as she sank into the questions. There was no death here, no fear about the future, no autistic sister, no dying mother. Coding was poetry, poetry she understood and could manipulate to make things happen, unlike in the real world.

  “Time,” Martin said.

  Jade emerged from the virtual world and regarded those around the table, having forgotten other people were present in the room for the timed thirty minutes. Martin walked around the table, making notes on a clipboard on each of their screens, while Jade and her competitors flexed their wrists and fingers, rolled their necks and shoulders.

  “We’ve already been talking to your professors about your work,” Martin said, tucking the clipboard against his chest, “so you won’t need to give us recommendations.”

  Jade caught Nishant watching her, a smirk on his face. His expression transmitted his unflagging belief he would be chosen. He had the fellowships, scholarships, awards. He was the guy with an assured future, with moneyed parents. She was just here to add some estrogen to the proceedings for at least the appearance of political correctness. Since it was a private company, they weren’t bound to affirmative action or EEOC. They could do what they wanted.

  “Well,” Martin said. He set down his clipboard, smoothed his tie, and rebuttoned his coat. This seemed to be the signal for them all to stand and prepare to exit the room. He shook each of their hands in turn. “I don’t need to tell you not to talk about this to friends or family. We take the NDA very seriously, and as you can imagine, we have some of the best lawyers in the country.” He used the lower register again on that last part so they all knew he meant business.

  Jade stood and drew herself to her full height, allowing herself to tower over Nishant. What the hell. He glowered up at her, and she smiled down at him.

  “It was so nice meeting all of you,” Martin said.

  Nishant turned away from Jade. “May I have your business card?” he asked Martin obsequiously.

  “No,” Martin said with a smile to soften the blow.

  Nishant tried to smile back but it more closely approximated a sneer, and Jade took comfort in this.

  “You will only be contacted in the event you are hired,” Martin said. “If you don’t hear from us by the thirteenth, you can assume you weren’t chosen.” And he ushered them out the door.

  Chapter Seven

  “I’ll bet you’d have liked to see Nishant’s face when he found out you were hired,” Berko said, his eyes gleaming. He’d been the target of far worse discrimination than she. He sat on Jade’s right at the Hungry Harrier, Dan to her left.

  “And Professor Sauer’s,” she said. “But I made it a point to be magnanimous, even though neither of them would have been.” Jade would love to see Sauer’s face once they finished testing and the Clementine Program successfully and completely created its own culture. She’d love to gloat and sneer at him like a schoolyard bully.

  “I’m glad I didn’t have to do a group interview,” Elias said.

  “You didn’t?” Jade said. “How did it work at Annapolis?”

  “Martin interviewed me over the phone. One of my mentors put my name out there, he said.”

  “We had a group interview at Hopkins,” Olivia said. “But there was none of that he-man woman-haters’ club bullshit there. Lucky me.”

  She had no idea.

  Dan turned to Berko. “What do your folks do, Berko?”

  “Mom works for a rental car company at Hartsfield-Jackson. I never knew my dad.” He said it matter-of-factly, but Jade ventured to imagine her own life without her father and couldn’t. She felt sympathy mixed with admiration for Berko.

  “And your sister,” Dan said. “What’s she up to?”

  “She’s a senior at Emory.”

  Dan nodded. “Nice,” he said. “What’s her major?”

  “Behavioral neuroscience,” Berko said.

  Jade turned to him. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “She could be working on this project with us—that’s right up our alley. Hey, Olivia, you should talk to her!”

  “Yeah,” Olivia said vaguely.

  An awkward silence followed and Jade sought to fill it. “I’d love to meet her, Berko. And your mom.”

  “You should come down to Atlanta,” Berko said. “You ever been there?”

  “No,” Jade said. “I’ve only ever been to Pittsburgh, and Lawrence, and Ephesus, and now Miranda, Kansas.”

  “You’ve never done any traveling?”

  “My dad’s a farmer, so we couldn’t go on vacation during the summer when we were harvesting, and my folks have never had a whole lot of money.”

  “Mine either,” Berko said. “But when we’re done here, I’m going to buy my mom a house, and I’m going to pay off my sister’s student debt.”

  “What are you going to do with your share, Elias?” Jade said.

  “I’m going to pay my parents’ debts off first thing,” he said. “And then I’m going to buy a Dodge Challenger Hellcat.”

  “Oooh,” Jade said. “I wouldn’t mind having one of those.”

  Dan looked like he was enjoying this conversation immensely, his kind eyes crinkling at the corners, smiling between bites of fried chicken.

  “How about you, Olivia?” Jade said.

  “I want to travel,” she said. “Take some time and see the world. Maybe you’ll come with me, huh, Jade?”

  Jade held her smile, but she would not be going anywhere. She had responsibilities. Taking an autistic young adult on a world tour didn’t seem likely. She stretched her arms over her head and Dan’s eyes lit on her tattoo.

  “New ink?” he said, and held out his hand.

  She held out her forearm for him to examine. He considered her quizzically, and she explained.

  “I told her she should have got her mom’s face on there instead,” Elias said.

  “Ah, but this is much more personal,” Dan said. “It’s her heart instead of her face.”

  Jade breathed deeply to keep the ever-threatening tears at bay. Pauline had to take medication because of what the doctor termed “ALS-caused emotional incontinence.” Jade didn’t have ALS, but her emotional incontinence was nearly as bad, and it was undeniably caused by ALS.

  “Plus most face tattoos look like bad cartoons,” Olivia said, buttering a roll.

  “She has beautiful handwriting,” Dan said.

  Had beautiful handwriting.

  “How’s she doing, Jade?” Dan asked.

  “Pretty good,” Jade said. All eyes turned toward her and her face reddened.

  “And speaking of which,” Olivia said, shooting Jade a “better to ask forgiveness than permission” look. “Dan, have you heard of the experimental stem cell treatment they’re using with some pretty great success for ALS?”

  He nodded. “I have.” He addressed Jade. “I read about the man in Alabama who’s lived nine years past his diagnosis thanks to the treatment.”

  Jade nodded, trying not to look too hopeful and desperate. Although what did it matter? She was hopeful and desperate.

  “You seem to know everyone,” Olivia went on, “and I wondered if you have any connections, any
strings you could pull to place Jade’s mom in one of the research studies. We all know it’s impossible to get into one of those things if you don’t know someone.”

  “What’s the word on the street at Hopkins?”

  “I’m just a student,” Olivia said. “I don’t have any pull. But I know you do.”

  Dan winked at Jade. “I know some people working on it at Harvard and a couple at Emory.” He pointed at Berko with his fork, emphasizing he remembered Berko’s sister was a student there. “Let me see what I can find out.”

  Jade clamped her teeth together to prevent her chin from quivering. “Thanks, Dan.”

  Dan paid for dinner then led the team out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk.

  “Does it ever cool down here?” Dan asked, tugging at the neck of his shirt.

  “Nope,” Jade said. She hugged him and promised to call the second they made a breakthrough. Then he got in his rental and drove toward the Salina airport to catch a flight back to Virginia.

  Jade scouted up and down Main Street. While it shouldn’t have been teeming with crowds, it shouldn’t have been this empty either. Again with the alarm buzz in her head, and she had a sudden urge to walk to the baseball diamond and see if everyone was congregating there. Or in the city park. Or anywhere.

  “You guys want to go for a walk?” Jade asked everyone. “Take in the sights?”

  “The ‘sights’?” Elias said. “Maybe another time. Let’s go back to the house and watch some Bruce Campbell.”

  “Evil Dead again?” Olivia said.

  “Army of Darkness,” Berko said.

  “I’d really like to go walking,” Jade said. “Olivia, you want to walk the town?”

  “You think we’re going to let you two girls go walking alone after what happened today?” Elias said.

  Olivia bristled. “First of all, we’re women. And second of all, you don’t ‘let’ us do anything. And third, I’ve got my pepper spray with me.”