Chapter 1 #2
“Hey, you know your mom was also captain of the volleyball team, right?” Dad’s voice broke through my churning thoughts but not through my shock.
I wanted to hop on a plane, go home, and stare at the house two doors down that I had only ever avoided before.
As far as I knew, Elliot’s family still lived there, and who knows, the bully himself might continue to live with them too.
I knew he hadn’t gone to college, but I never paid any attention to him after I was big enough to either avoid him or defend myself, and I never paid any attention to that yellow house. Anson Day’s house!
Dad was still talking about Mom.
“She was so focused and so driven, just like you, Benj. A doctorate,” He said reverently, like he always did, making my chest swell with pride. “She’d be so pleased. So proud.” Dad was truly proud enough for both of them.
His tone was melancholy, and my thoughts drifted from Anson Day back to an image of my mother: tired, drawn, ashen, yet smiling brightly as if twelve-year-old me was some kind of toggle switch that flipped her to “on,” no matter how much pain she was in.
“You’re going to do such amazing things, Benji,” she’d said, ignoring the tears I was fighting to control.
“Just keep your head down, keep learning all you can. Then take the world by storm, Benji-boy, okay?” Right before she’d gotten sick, I’d asked Mom to stop calling me Benji-boy.
I was growing up, and it had begun to irk me.
In those last months, she started using the nickname again, and for some reason, I really didn’t mind it anymore.
I think I can take the world by storm, Mom. Or at least do some good and help people. Especially if a place like New Day Technologies hires me.
Maybe I did believe a little bit in that highly unscientific notion that my mom was looking down on me because I looked up as I thought it and smiled. Dad continued his reminiscing, and I tuned back in to the story he was telling about how Anson fucking Day and he had known each other as kids.
“Anyway, it would have been way before we played varsity sports that Anson lived next door. Middle school, I think. And I was never the captain of the team, son, just the quarterback. Now, your mom, on the other hand, was captain and had a volleyball scholarship before …”
Dad’s voice trailed off again, but I could hear rummaging, and I pictured him opening and closing drawers in the kitchen where I’d grown up. My dad had grown up there before me and had lived in the house most of his life.
“Hang on, kiddo. Yup, I still have it.” I could hear paper rustling as he said distractedly, “The Days moved to Upstate New York when Anson was, I’m gonna say, fourteen or fifteen. He only lived here for a year or two before that.” Holy fucking shit. Yeah, he did.
“Grandma and his mom were friends, and if I remember correctly, she told her they were moving because Anson was actually going to be taking a class at Hampstead University even though we were like, barely in high school. It should have been a big deal, but the Days asked Gram to keep it quiet. They didn’t want Anson to feel extra pressure.
I don’t think any of the other kids knew.
Gram didn’t tell me for a long time, and even then she asked me to keep it a secret.
None of my friends really knew Anson, so it was easy to keep the secret. I told your mom, of course.
“Anyway, I’m pretty sure your grandma stayed in touch with the Days, and last I heard, they still lived in New York, near the university. But that would have been a while ago.
“Let’s see,” Dad said. “Ah-ha! Yup, I’ve got your grandma’s old address book right here, and there they are. Howard and Beth Day, in Hampstead Valley, New York. This has cell phones listed and everything. Maybe his parents still live there or at least still have these numbers?”
I considered myself a fairly smart person, but for some reason, I was having trouble absorbing what my father was saying. Like, how had I possibly missed this crucial fact?
“Hold up, Dad. Are you really telling me Anson Day, the Anson Day, lived in that yellow house at the end of our block, and Gram is friends with his parents? How did I not know this?” I shouted.
“Well, I don’t know about the Anson Day.
But a quiet guy who liked to tinker and whose hair always looked like a mad scientist, even when we were kids, that guy lived down the road from me until he got into Hampstead University at a ridiculously young age, and his family moved to New York with him. ”
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. My dad knew Anson Day.
“How do I not know this!” I repeated even louder, still not quite believing my dad and I had missed this vital piece of communication over the years.
In my shock, at first I couldn’t come up with anything else to say, but just as Dad was starting to say, “I guess it never came up,” I suddenly had a lot to say. I interrupted him with a torrent.
“How have you never told me this? Day absolutely started taking classes at HU at age fourteen and got his undergrad there a few years later before coming here to MIT. And then he and his best friend started a tech company, and he created a robotic arm that changed the industry. New Day Technologies has been making technical advancements ever since. Like huge, groundbreaking advancements. And you’re telling me he lived in a yellow house on a random street in Gladewood, Arizona. Oh my God, Dad!”
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.
“No, kiddo, not a random street.” My dad laughed. “Our street.”
Dad laughed some more, and we talked a bit about my interview before turning the conversation back to travel plans while in the back of my mind I searched for any inkling that my parents or grandparents had ever mentioned living next door to one of the world’s preeminent scientists and businessmen.
We chatted one last time about logistics before saying goodbye, with the promise that we would see each other soon.
I’d like to think the impressiveness of my resume had something to do with me sitting in the New Day Tech waiting room, but I’d learned throughout my college career that a well-placed acquaintance never hurt either, so the fact that my dad reached out again a few days after our phone call to tell me he’d had a lovely conversation with Mrs. Day was welcome, if not surprising, news.
I knew my dad would do anything for me even if it meant I wouldn’t be going home to Arizona to live with him.
“So Mrs. Day said she’d reach out to Anson.
I did some research, son; that’s quite an impressive company he’s got there.
I know you’d be perfect for them, but you’re fresh out of school, and the internet says they only accept a miniscule number of new graduates.
These days it appears he and his partner prefer to just buy up companies doing interesting, or competing, work.
” Dad’s tone made it clear he wasn’t necessarily impressed with how he perceived New Day to do business, but technology is a cutthroat industry.
Dad’s philosophy of a rising tide lifting all ships didn’t really fit the race to the newest discovery model that corporate technology practiced.
“You put in a few, resumes, right, kiddo?” After asking Mom to stop calling me Benji-boy, I’d never gotten around to asking Dad to stop calling me kiddo. Even as an about-to-be PhD, I didn’t mind it so much.
“Yeah, Dad. I submitted twelve total,” I assured him, disappointed that he saw New Day in a negative light. Not wanting to dwell on it, I joked, “Why are you asking? Do you know any other famous tech guys you can put in a word with?”
Dad chuckled. “No. At least I don’t think so.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. I did some research, too, and I know some people who know him from MIT.
They do sometimes hire people right out of school.
I really think I’m a good fit and so do some of the professors in my department.
The tech world is really competitive. I know that’s not how you do business, but you don’t have to worry about me working at a place like New Day.
All that competitiveness can lead to some pretty amazing discoveries.
Take a look at that device you’re talking to me on, for one. ”
“Or those crazy vending machines!” Dad added.
“Thank you so much for calling Mrs. Day, Dad. It means a lot. It would be … I mean, I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but it would be my literal dream come true if I could work with Anson Day. I mean, if I could work for New Day Tech.”
Thinking about my dad, my mom, and the yellow house on our little Arizona cul-de-sac as distractions, I tried hard not to fidget or straighten my tie for the hundredth time as I sat in the unassuming HR office of one of the biggest tech firms on the planet.
I sat on my hands to stop myself from doing the thing where I tapped out math problems with my fingertips on the nearest surface. The New Day Tech receptionist returned my smile.
“Erin should be out for you shortly,” she assured me.
As she said it, a woman emerged from the hallway behind her, shook my hand, and led me down the hall.