"No, no, no, no, no! This can't be happening again! Come on!" Annie Walker cried at her computer monitor to no avail. She moved her mouse around, trying to get it back to the arrow, but it stayed whirring, the little hourglass turning itself over and over. She began to pound on the keyboard. First the space key. Nothing. Enter? Nothing. Escape? Nothing. Not even a beep, not even a snatch of reply from her humming CPU.
She slumped back into her office chair, her hand to her mouth, as she stared at the Spanish text before her. She was nearly done. Just another paragraph, and she'd have this translation project finished. She looked at the clock at the corner of the screen. Just past noon. She needed to have this document printed and sent by FedEx Overnight at least by 5pm.
She wrenched her head away from the mocking monitor, turning in her office chair and letting out a primal scream into her empty house. Thankfully, she lived alone, so no one was witness to her meltdown. Why now? She thought. Her computer, though a handful of years old, had never failed her before. Sure, it was a tad slower than she'd like it to be, but it worked.
Well, most of the time.
God, she thought. What she wouldn't give to work in an office instead of freelance. Then she'd probably have an I.T. team, or whatever they were called, that she could summon on a moment's notice to fix her computer if it broke down. But that would mean giving up her independence. Giving up her freedom and the chance to travel at a moment's notice. Besides, working freelance meant setting her own rates and hours. And working in her own house meant no commute time, no travel expenses, no office wardrobe to drain her bank account dry. Nope, she did what she loved, working at what she loved, and using the proceeds to do what she dreamed: travel.
But now her current dream of traveling abroad next week seemed to be vanishing into thin air as her computer stared at her unresponsively. Tears started to spring to her eyes at the thought.
Suddenly remembering a commercial she'd heard on the radio that morning, she grabbed up the phone to dial a local computer service who did house calls. What was the number, damn it, she thought. Oh, yeah, 1-800-geeks-r-us. She thought it was goofy at the time and kinda ridiculous. I mean, come on, geeks might be "chic" and "in" now, but it seemed everybody was slapping the name on themselves, thinking it meant something.
Annie didn't care one iota whether or not the company called themselves geeks or hobos. As long as they fixed her computer and let her have the five minutes it would take to print the document to send off to her current employer, she'd be happy.
Hurriedly, she dialed the number. The voice on the other end sounded friendly enough, and she'd normally respond with a friendly greeting of her own, but not today.
"Hello, you've got to fix my computer. Today. Now, if possible. Please."
"Excuse me?"
"You fix computers, right? I called the right number, Geeks-r-us?"
"Yes. I take it your computer needs fixed?"
"Yes!" Annie nearly shouted into the phone. Her eyes were still brimming with tears, and she knew her voice was obviously husky and whiny, but she couldn't help it at the moment.
"Okay, okay. If you bring it over day after tomorrow, I can take a look at it."
"Day after tomorrow?" Annie wailed. "No, no, no, no, no. I can't wait that long. And I certainly can't bring it in. it's too heavy."
"Too heavy? I take it you have a server?"
"What's that?"
She heard laughing on the other end and started to feel a touch of anger mixing in with her sadness. "Don't laugh at me."
"Okay, I'm sorry. Let's take this slow. You have a personal computer, correct?"
"Yes, yes, a desktop." Finally, an answer she could give.
"Okay, and it's an older model, I take it, since you can't lift it?"
"Well, yeah, and all the cords and stuff. If I unplug everything, there's no way I'd be able to get it all back together again."
A few seconds silence on the other end before, "Okay, so you're requesting an in-home service then?"
"Yes, of course."
"Okay, then." A few more seconds of silence, and Annie could swear she heard pages rustling. "I've got an open spot next week. Will you be home in the morning?"
"Next week?" Annie squeaked. "But – but – it's all froze and stuff, and I still need to print out my document so I can overnight it to my client. Oh, please." Annie heard herself begging, but she didn't care. If she missed this deadline, she knew the company would just as quickly find another translator, and she couldn't afford to lose a client.
Swallowing quickly against the pain of losing the money she'd set aside for a pair of Christian Loubotins, she said, "I'll pay you whatever you want, in cash, if you can come over now."
"Are you sure? Emergency services aren't cheap."
The guy – she didn't even know his name at this point – sounded so unconvinced, that Annie felt her spirits fall, and the tears began to give way, starting with an audible sob.
"Please."
"Okay, okay. I guess I can close up the store for the afternoon. It's a weekday, and traffic's pretty light at this time. Give me your address?"
Annie felt a fresh spate of tears, this time out of gratitude, and she quickly rattled off her address into the phone. She hung up and went to the bathroom to grab some tissues to dry her cheeks. She couldn't believe she just cried over the phone to a stranger. Her emotions seemed to be on top of her of late, and she couldn't wait until this latest project was done, and she could leave. She'd allotted herself a week to travel, this time to Iceland, and she couldn't wait to soak in one of their mineral pools.
Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror above her sink, she gasped. In no way was she presentable to receive guests. Her clothing of a t-shirt and yoga pants were respectable enough, but her hair was pulled up in a scrunchie at the top of her head, and her face, free of makeup, was splotchy from her crying. She quickly pulled the scrunchy out and threw it on the floor. She never wore them outside the house, anyway. A quick brush set her blonde hair to rights, and she turned on the cold water and grabbed a washcloth. After pressing it against her face for a few minutes, the blotchiness and swollen eyes were gone.
She went back to her living room where she sat on the couch and waited, staring daggers into the computer screen, the mouse icon teasing her as its hourglass picture spun.
Half an hour later, a knock at her door broke her out of the trance the dancing icon had put her in, and she shot off the couch to answer the door.
"Oh, thank God you're here, I –" the words of thanks died on Annie's tongue as she took in the man standing before her. He was tall, that much she got from her first look at him. But her idea of what a computer geek should look like died right there. He had wavy, tousled brown hair, a tight, muscled body that she could see from the gray t-shirt and tight, dark jeans he wore. He wore Chucks on his feet, too. If she didn't know any better, she'd assume he was a college student.
"Miss Walker?"
His voice brought her eyes back up to his face, and only her manners were able to shut her fly-catching mouth and widen her lips into a smile. "Yes, I'm Annie Walker. Are you the computer geek?"
His face broke into a smile, and Annie nearly felt her knees give way. Her grip on the door handle increased enough to hold her steady, though. His smile. He had a smile that could light up the whole town. His face was angular, too, with just a hint of a tan. Wait, weren't geeks supposed to be pale and pudgy from sitting inside for too long?
The only thing that matched the stereotype of a geek in her mind were his black-framed glasses that he was now pushing up with one finger. The lenses were so thick that she couldn't see his eyes very well, but –
"Yes, I am the 'computer geek,' as you so blatantly phrased it. I guess I didn't introduce myself on the phone. I'm August Anderson, owner and proprietor of Geeks-r-us."
