Page 12 of Heartwood and Hardware
"Creative destruction," I offer.
"Exactly." Her eyes meet mine with unexpected intensity. "You have to be willing to mess up a thousand times to get it right once."
Something shifts between us in that moment—a recognition, a connection deeper than small talk. We're speaking the same language, just in different dialects, as Parker would say.
We fall into an easy rhythm after that, trading stories about our creative processes. Riley describes debugging sessions that stretch until dawn, the satisfaction of solving a problem that's stumped her for days. I tell her about the time a hidden knot ruined a nearly-finished sculpture, forcing me to pivot and create something entirely different.
"That's the thing about wood," I explain, running my hand along the grain of the bear. "It has its own ideas. You can plan all you want, but sometimes the material dictates the final form."
"That's fascinating." Riley leans forward, studying the bear. "So you adapt to what the wood wants, rather than forcing your vision?"
"It's a conversation. I bring the idea, the wood brings its structure and character. We negotiate from there." I smile, realizing how odd this must sound. "That probably sounds?—"
"Perfect," she interrupts. "It sounds perfect. Like you're collaborating with nature instead of just using it."
I blink, surprised by her understanding. Most people think I'm being pretentious or mystical when I talk about wood this way.
"What about your code?" I ask. "Do you ever feel like it has a mind of its own?"
"All the time!" She laughs. "Sometimes I swear my programs develop personalities. This one algorithm I wrote kept finding the most convoluted path to the solution. It was technically correct but so inefficient. Like working with a brilliant but extremely stubborn colleague."
I laugh at the comparison. "So you debug personality flaws?"
"Essentially, yes." She smiles. "Though sometimes the flaws lead to unexpected breakthroughs. Like your knot problem."
Her smile widens, and something warm unfurls in my chest. Before I can say anything else, my phone pings with a payment notification. I pull it out, frowning at the error message on my screen.
"Problem?" Riley asks.
"My payment app is acting up again. Third time this week." I tap at the screen in frustration. "The credit card reader connects but then the app crashes."
Riley's expression shifts to focused interest. "Mind if I take a look? I might be able to help."
I hand her the phone, watching as she examines the app. Her fingers move deftly across the screen, navigating to settings I didn't know existed.
"When does it usually crash? When you open it, or when you try to process a payment?"
"When I try to process anything over fifty dollars," I explain. "Smaller amounts go through fine."
She nods, continuing to tap through screens. "That suggests a memory allocation issue. The app probably has a buffer limit it's hitting with larger transactions." She looks up. "How old is your phone?"
"Three, maybe four years?"
"That explains it. The app was probably updated for newer devices without proper backwards compatibility." She dives back into the settings. "Let me try something."
I watch, impressed, as she works. Her focus is complete, her movements efficient. There's something beautiful about seeing someone in their element, I realize. The same confidence I feel with a chainsaw in my hands, she has with technology.
"There," she says finally, handing the phone back. "Try it now."
I pull up a test transaction for sixty dollars, bracing for the crash. Instead, the app processes it smoothly, confirming the payment without a hitch.
"How did you do that?" I ask, genuinely amazed.
She shrugs like it's nothing. "The app was trying to use more resources than your phone wanted to give it. I just negotiated a better agreement between them."
"Like a conversation," I say, thinking of what I'd told her about wood.
She looks pleased. "Exactly like that. The phone and the app just needed to understand each other better."
