Page 24 of Derivation

“A necklace?” Gabi asked with a little laugh.

“I don’t know.” Sarai laughed, too, and shrugged. “Just something to make it different than the other wearables out there since ours will only focus on languages while the rest of them let you watch movies, play games, check your email, and probably even shave your legs.”

“There’s something to be said about having something that does one thing really well. If you can pull it off, it might be worth it.”

“That’s what we’re hoping for anyway.”

“You know I’m in hardware, right?”

Sarai turned to her and said, “I thought you worked in software.”

“Right now, yeah. But my degree is literally in hardware design.”

“I feel like I knew that, but that I forgot. I’m getting old, I guess.”

“You’re thirty-three. You’re fine,” Gabi said and patted her on the knee, which drove Sarai’s eyes down to where Gabi’s hand had landed just before it was removed. “I planned on building things, but I couldn’t find a job in hardware, and my software skills are good enough. I’m sure I’m not as good as Arlowe, but I can hang. Anyway, that’s the reason I do what I do now: the jobs were available. I do love hardware design, though. It’s what I’ve wanted to do for a while. I could maybe help out.”

“Help out?”

“Work up a design. A mock-up.”

“Oh, Gabi, we can’t pay you. Every dollar we got from the investors has either been spent or is budgeted for something. We’ve put a lot of eggs in the Cerebral basket, hoping that launches us onto more people’s phones, and we figured we would work on partnerships with companies that have the hardware already. Violet has been talking to one for the past month or so.”

“You don’t have to pay me. And I don’t mind doing it. It’s fun for me. You know how you love to kick everyone’s ass at Monopoly?”

Sarai laughed and said, “I’m not that bad.”

“Sarai, you reached over the board and took Marvin Gardens from me instead of waiting for me to hand it to you.” Gabi laughed.

“You were taking too long. I wanted to put houses on the properties during my turn.”

Gabi laughed and asked, “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Are you going to call me dark-side Sarai if I say yes?” she asked back as she squinted at her.

“No, because I don’t think you have a dark side.”

“How do you know that?”

“A girl on a semester abroad in college, in a party town, who already has friends and a life there, volunteers to help show some eighteen-year-old brat around town for the weekend for a friend of a friend of her dad’s – that person cannot have a dark side.”

Sarai smiled and said, “You weren’t a brat. And I really didn’t mind. I had fun. Besides, you haven’t seen me since then. I could’ve developed a dark side.”

“Have you?”

“I hope not.”

“Then, you haven’t. Anyway, I can work on it in my free time. It will be fun for me, like Monopoly is for you.”

“I have hobbies, Gabi. I don’t sit around and play board games all day. And I don’t think we’ve played games like that in years.”

“What are your hobbies?”

“Oh.”

“Oh, what?” Gabi asked.

“I didn’t think you’d actually ask me about them.”