Chapter 15
ELIZABETH
The sweet scent of cinnamon and sugar floats above the tray I'm carrying across the room.
Not everyone can have these muffins and cinnamon buns, but the nurse on duty has already given me a list of people who can. The senior center is well staffed with volunteers and we have a good ratio of retired doctors and nurses who help.
I do more than just take in my baked goods. Occasionally, I fix any issues we might get here. An elderly gentleman looks at me with doleful eyes.
“Lizzie, my phone's stopped working, can you take a look at it?”
And I gladly do. I love coming here and I've gotten to know every single one of the elderly people who come here. We're on first name terms. They call me Lizzie and their faces light up whenever they see me.
Here, I feel useful and grounded in a way I haven't for most of my life, because I've never had a home, not one that I remember much.
Here, I feel wanted.
I love all the small interactions, the familiarity as the regulars return week after week. But from time to time I also experience a deep sadness when someone stops coming, and I learn later that they've passed away.
I love the sense of community. The senior center adds a vividness to my otherwise solitary life. Of course, Arthur and Irene are always just across the hall, but stepping into this place gives me a sense of purpose in a way that work doesn't.
I walk around, offering napkins and sweet treats to everyone who's allowed one. I keep a list tucked into my apron pocket. There are so many dietary restrictions, allergies, and health conditions to keep track of.
As I weave between the tables, a familiar pair catches my eye.
Arthur and Irene are sitting together by the window, exactly where they always sit. Arthur is in the middle of telling some story, judging by the way his hands are moving, while Irene shakes her head fondly.
A smile spreads across my face and I make my way over with the tray balanced on one hand.
Arthur greets me with a cheery smile, his gaze falling to the treats.
“Careful, Lizzie,” he says. “You'll spoil us.”
“You’re already spoiled.” I set the tray down.
Irene beams at me, reaching for a muffin. “These look lovely. Are these the blueberry ones?”
“They are indeed.”
She takes a bite, closes her eyes, then makes a long, appreciative murmur just as my phone buzzes in my pocket. I whip it out.
“Hello?”
“Elizabeth.”
It’s Matteo.
My insides flip at the sound of his voice. Heat rushes through me and I straighten my spine instinctively, smoothing down my hair even though he can’t see me.
Why is he calling me on the weekend?
“Sorry for disturbing you today.”
“Not a problem.” Just hearing his voice sent goosebumps springing up along my spine. “What's wrong?” I figure it must be urgent.
“There’s been another technical issue.”
I lean against the wall, lowering my voice. “What kind of issue?”
“Lizzie!”
I whip my attention to Irene. “What’s wrong, Irene?”
“My teeth fell out!” she cries, a little too loudly. Arthur has stepped away, and is busy talking to someone behind her.
I blink, frozen for a few seconds.
“My teeth!” Irene cries, getting agitated, but luckily Arthur is soon at her side.
He shakes his head at me. “She’s taken her dentures out again and forgotten where she put them.”
“What the hell is going on?” Matteo asks.
But I’m too fixated on the commotion around me, and trying not to laugh. “We’ll find them, Irene. Don’t worry.”
“I hope so,” she says, entirely serious. “I rather liked them.”
“Just give me a minute,” I say to Arthur, before returning to my phone call. “Sorry about that.” I'm not sure if Matteo heard all that, but I step into the hallway, away from all the chatter.
“What was that all about?” he asks, sounding incredulous.
“Irene, my neighbor, has misplaced her dentures again.”
“What?” he cries. Then, “Where are you?”
“I’ll explain later. Tell me what happened?”
“We've got another backup discrepancy.”
“It’s the weekend. Do people come into the lab at the weekend?”
“No one but me, but people can access it.”
“What kind of discrepancy?”
He exhales. “The backup completed successfully, but the numbers don't line up. I thought it was a reporting error. It's not.”
“What's not lining up?” It's difficult for me to comment without being there. “I need to see it.”
“Okay, wait up,” he says, then, a few seconds later, “I’ve emailed you some screenshots.”
I pull the file up on my phone and scroll through it quickly, looking for something odd, a break in pattern. Entries stream past. Backup jobs. File counts. Verification reports. The usual stuff.
And then I see something that looks odd. I scroll back and look again.
The backup reports 1,248,322 files copied successfully.
The live system shows 1,248,117 files.
I check the previous report and see the discrepancy there, too.
Different numbers. Almost the same gap.
“That is odd,” I say slowly.
“Told you. What does that mean?”
“It means the backup thinks it copied data that the live system says doesn't exist.”
We fall silent again, each of us mystified.
“Could it be a software glitch?” he asks.
“Maybe.” I scroll through the report again. “But glitches are usually irregular. This is consistent.”
“Consistent how?”
“The discrepancy is almost identical to the one from last week.” I’ve been checking the weekend logs.
“You checked them?”
“I am very thorough,” I tell him.
“I can see that.”
Silence crackles over the line. I shift my weight, focusing harder now. Thinking about him being on the other end of the line, him in the tech lab, on a Saturday. I wonder if he has any other plans.
“I don’t understand what this means,” he says, finally.
I’m still trying to figure it out. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's a bug buried somewhere deep in the reporting system. But patterns are what matter. One discrepancy is an accident. Two identical discrepancies start looking deliberate.
“I don't know yet,” I answer honestly. “But I know I need to see more than this.”
“Why?”
“Because right now I don't have enough information to tell whether the system is making a mistake, or whether something is making the system lie.”
“Uh …” he pauses and I hear a heavy sigh. “Can you come in?”
I was about to offer the same thing.
“I can come in and take a look,” I reply, quickly. But I’m surprised that my request is met with silence. It’s not the response I expected. A part of me thought Matteo would jump at the chance.
He didn’t.
Here I am, digging his tattoos, digging his dress sense, noticing the chains around his neck and the leather bracelets wrapped around his wrists, while the man himself has nothing to say even though I’m willing to give up my weekend and traipse over to the lab.
The longer the silence stretches, the more I start to doubt myself.
Maybe I have this all wrong.
Maybe he has a girlfriend.
“You don’t have to,” he says, slowly. “It’s a Saturday.”
I glance back into the room. Arthur is now helping Irene retrace her steps. “I was almost finished here anyway.”
I hear a low noise from the other end of the phone, like he’s contemplating my offer. I’m offering to help, and he sounds like he’s struggling just thinking about it.
“All right,” he says, begrudgingly. “Come over.”
***
Approaching the workplace feels different. Because it's a Saturday. Because I'm in my faded jeans and sneakers, even though I’ve stopped wearing business attire at work, I still wear something remotely resembling smart. Today, I’m dressed down completely.
I head down into the tech lab, and this looks different, too. The lighting is dim, and most of the overhead lights are off, because there’s no one around. It's empty and lifeless. There's no sign of Matteo, so I head into the server room, and find him standing at one of the consoles, staring at it.
He turns when I walk towards him. “You came.”
“I said I would.”
He gives me a once over, and I know he's judging my dressed down outfit. I wear casual clothes to the lab these days, I lean fully into comfort. Today that’s faded black ripped jeans, battered combat boots and an oversized charcoal sweatshirt that could qualify as a blanket.
He’s one to talk. His hair is messier than usual, like he's been running his hands through it all morning in a fit of panic.
His clothes look slightly rumpled, and he has this just-out-of-bed look about him, even though, I'm guessing he's been here working for hours.
“What were you doing?” he asks, his question confusing me.
“When?”
“When I called you.”
I drop my bag onto the floor. “Helping out.”
He watches me, bemused. “Someone said their teeth fell out.”
I giggle. “I was at the senior center, the place I told you all about.” I say.
“You didn't tell me.”
I blink, trying to remember if Matteo was there when I told the others. I guess he wasn't. “I help out at a drop-in center for seniors.”
He's staring at me like I've completely confounded him. “You volunteer there?”
“Yeah. I bake muffins, and cookies, and things, and take them in. Arthur and Irene go there. It's a nice place for them to spend some time out of the house.”
“Arthur and Irene?”
“My neighbors. They live in the apartment across from me.” I smile just thinking about them.
“Old people?” he asks, like he doesn't understand why I’d want to hang around them.
“Elderly people. They just need somewhere to go and hang out,” I say, softer now. “People to talk to, things to do. Life seems to get lonelier the older you get.”
He cocks his head, like he's studying me again. I wonder what he's thinking.
“It’s good of you to volunteer at a place like that,” he says, after a while.
“A place like what?” I ask, curious to see where this is going.
“Where … old people hang out.” His tone shifts, like he’s mildly irritated, like he doesn’t understand what would possess me to do something like that.
“Why’s it weird?”
“I never said it was weird.” He rubs the back of his neck, before folding his arms, showing off his biceps and his tattoos. My heart begins to beat faster again. Always the same reaction around him. Always.