Chapter One The Phone Call of Doom #2
In a software company like ours, AI was huge—more lore at this point than highly useful—but either way, what I’d said was a betrayal.
We were supposed to enthusiastically celebrate the coming onslaught of AI, regardless of how it would impact our jobs.
With only two hundred people at the company, we were spoken of like a family with the mission to knit together communities of people, but I knew if Tempo could replace me with AI, they would.
At the end of the day, every company wanted to save money and I had the least seniority of the four accountants at Tempo.
Worse, I didn’t have any other marketable skill.
I couldn’t make a living as a book blogger—believe me, I’d tried.
It was what landed me back in my parents’ house.
“You’re not going to be replaced by AI,” Sara said in a soothing tone.
“That’s easy for you to say.”
Her usually playful hazel eyes darkened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Not like that—”
“You think I only got the job because Ed is my uncle?” She tucked a strand of hair behind an ear and frowned, waiting for my answer.
“No, I meant because you’re in marketing. Marketers are much savvier at incorporating AI while still setting the vision. Even if online ads are augmenting, someone needs to plan the strategy.” It was a winning argument because I’d heard her say it herself.
“It’s a tense time,” she finally said. “But lots of great things on the horizon.”
Truth be told, I’d love to give AI my workload if that meant I got to do other things, real things. Sara might have said those kinds of hobbies were silly, but baking scones or crafting leather armor was a lot more real than moving little numbers around on a screen.
When I first started at Tempo, I replaced a woman who was retiring and we overlapped for three days so she could train me.
The spreadsheets outside their accounting and payroll programs were simple; they hardly took advantage of any shortcuts.
I found it especially odd at a software company.
After one afternoon of adding functions and streamlining things, I’d shown the retiree my work on a forecasting spreadsheet.
“No.” She had shaken her head as if I’d made a major mistake. “Definitely not. Look at that, you can’t hardly see what is adding with what. Who would ever know if you had a mistake in there somewhere?”
“But I don’t.” I had been confused. “My functions are sound.”
“This isn’t going to save you any time.”
Though I kept the streamlined processes, my mentor had one thing right—it didn’t end up saving anyone any time. I only got assigned more work to fill the time my work-arounds had saved.
But the company was Sara’s uncle’s. What was I going to do? Tell her everything her family built was to keep us spinning our wheels to justify a livable income in this society?
I stowed my beeswax wrappers in my satchel. “I should get back. Did you want me to take their food upstairs?” I pointed at Ahmad’s and Gemma’s unfinished trays.
Sara shook her head. “I’ll be down here a bit longer. Have a good afternoon,” she said kindly, as if to smooth everything over.
“Yeah, you too. Good luck on the press release.” I walked away awkwardly, eager to get back on my own. It wasn’t exactly a restful sort of lunch and I didn’t get to finish that chapter.
It was a good thing I had an epub file I could read on my phone. I wondered how many bathroom breaks I could take that afternoon without being noticed.
––––––––
“GINGER?” I CALLED.
My red tabby didn’t appear from the shadows of the basement steps.
She hated my parents, hardly liked me enough to come out to eat twice a day.
I’d been trying to get her to associate my voice with her food, but she only emerged for the snap of the can opening.
I took one from the cupboard and punched it open.
“Oh, there you are, sweet girl.”
Ginger blinked at me with dreary eyes in the doorway of the kitchen, as if willing me to move faster. I dumped the sticky food in her bowl and stepped away so she could approach. Her back to me, I rinsed the can and put it in the recycling.
Mom and Dad were out so I had the whole house—their house—to myself for a few days.
It was the same single-story ranch I’d lived my whole life in except for college and a year or two after.
Over the years, Mom and Dad redid the kitchen to replace the laminate counters with granite and added a sliding door to the patio, but overall, the house remained cozy and well lived in.
Besides Ginger’s careful chewing, it was dead quiet.
I’d never hosted a party there, not even when my sister, Fern, and I were high schoolers left home alone for the weekend.
While I had moved back in with Mom and Dad, Fern was several states away with her fiancé.
These days, a night in the house, by myself...that meant one thing.
I made myself some leftover rice and stir-fry, and quickly ate and washed the dishes. I often watched TV while eating dinner but not tonight.
I gathered my supplies—book, quilt, phone—then dimmed the lights and settled myself on the couch.
The TV hung on the wall, the room a little too small for the size of it, but it was perfect for nights like these.
I set the TV to play season one, episode four of Landsome Roads on low volume, which mirrored the chapter I had finished reading that afternoon in the bathroom at work.
I selected an ambient soundtrack on my phone.
Finally, ensuring my hands were clean from dinner, I took my special edition of volume one out of its book case.
Sprayed edges. Metal-covered corners. Pale pink ribbon bookmark sewn right into the binding.
It was glorious, one of the few indulgences I had allowed myself.
I opened to chapter four and glanced up at the screen.
It was a wide shot, dark, grassy hills with a bleak forest backdrop, castle far in the distance, Sir Ironclaw on white horseback.
I couldn’t help but smirk as I started skimming the chapter, glancing up from time to time.
Four was one of my favorite early chapters.
It wasn’t smut like Sara said though. It was dark and complicated and political. The author, Sherry Whitehorse, was a genius. The very heart of the human soul was etched on those pages.
Valorie opened her window, the night air settling on her shoulders, the thin slip of her nightgown doing little to keep her warm. “Get in,” she hissed, pulling on Ironclaw’s forearm, trying to urge him in, “if my father catches us...”
I mean, there was some smut. This scene was a one-off romance, made all the better for me because the brief love interest, Valorie, didn’t linger in the book. Her character was shallow enough that I could supersede myself upon her in my fantasies.
“I wouldn’t have had to climb through your window, Valorie, if you had just told me the news in the great hall. It was noisy enough tonight with the feast.”
“My father’s advisors can read lips. The lengths to which that man will go to catch a secret in midair.”
Ironclaw was fully in the room now. As Valorie latched the window, he quirked an eyebrow. “Secrets that have built your inheritance.”
Instead of a witty retort, as their usual cadence required, Valorie lunged at him. Her lips were on his in moments. She gasped a breath as she went to work on his bottom lip.
Ironclaw’s hands went automatically to her hips to push her away...then, they paused. Valorie? The same girl he swam in Elm’s Creek with as children? The one who caught frogs and planted them in the stablemaster’s bed?
The thoughts vanished as suddenly as they came. He was afraid he was like the stablemaster who had promptly fried the frogs for dinner—he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Instead of pushing her away, he pulled her close and worked his hands down her back. She felt good. So natural. He couldn’t help it. His fingers dappled her backside and she let a soft moan escape.
“‘Oh, Ironclaw,’” I said aloud when the character in the show did.
They had changed very little dialogue in this section between the book and show.
“‘Lay me on the bed.’”
That was the reason I couldn’t host these reading sessions when my parents were home. They were a bit more interactive than regular book reading.
I was laying back on a pillow now, book on my lap. I read Valorie’s lines aloud, imagining Ironclaw’s raspy voice in my ear, letting my words mingle with his from the TV, the ambient music serving to cover enough of the actress’s response that I could ignore her presence.
I could never do this with scenes past book three when the main love interest appears, the queen of Landsome.
Even in my imagination, I couldn’t compete with her.
Then in book five, the character arcs completely broke apart and the romantic scenes dropped off altogether—almost as if book five was written by a different author.
And scenes like this were a big draw of the series.
Even as Ironclaw pushed Valorie onto the bed, taking what he wanted, he was gentle.
His body was graceful in a way I never saw in real life—muscled but lean, beard grizzled but kempt.
I would do anything to make this my reality, but this read-aloud session was as close as I’d ever get.
I would never have a strong warrior take me to bed—I’d never even had a boyfriend longer than a couple of months.
“Do you want me to stop?” Ironclaw asked.
“‘Don’t stop, Ironclaw, or else my heart will burst,’” I echoed the script.
I didn’t notice the ambient music had switched off, the start of the end—my end.
“Dottie?” The voice was tinny. Most definitely not Ironclaw’s.
I froze. It was immediately clear what had happened, though I didn’t know how. My phone had called, or accepted a call, from Sara.
“Dottie, is that you?”
Holy Landsome hells.
I sat up and closed the book quietly, oh so quietly. This couldn’t be happening.
“Hello, this is Dottie,” I said professionally.
“Dottie, I think you butt-dialed me—”
“Sara? Oh my goodness, it looks like my phone called you while I was watching TV. Sorry to bother you,” I said all in a rush. I scrambled to push mute on the remote, but I dropped it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Are you watching that show?
“Oh yeah.” I forced a laugh. “Landsome Roads. You know,” I said lamely, “because I’m reading the series?”
There was a pause.
Oh, great gods of Landsome, please hang up.
Then Sara spoke, “Why did it—” don’t say it... “—why did it sound like you?”
My head spun. I couldn’t breathe. I could barely croak out a lie. “Aww, no one’s ever said I sound like Mara de Guardo,” I said, naming the actress who played Valorie. “I can hear it a little bit now. Well, see you tomorrow—”
“Dottie.” Sara’s voice came cold and cutting. “I don’t know what’s going on or what you were doing, but your...your obsession with this silly show is bizarre.” She paused for a beat, both of us wondering if she was really going to say it. “Did you really call me during a self-care session?”
Oh no. She said it.
“Sara—” I needed to explain as weird and embarrassing as it was, I really was just reading aloud, pretending to be in the scene.
“This is just too much. I’m going to have to report this to HR.”
I jumped off the couch and snapped the TV off. My entire brain was overloading. “No, no, no. Let me explain—”
“First you get pushy at lunch telling everyone they have to watch this series, and now this...call? I gotta say, I’m feeling very violated right now. Don’t come in tomorrow until I talk to Ed.”
“Sara, you don’t understand—”
The line went dead.