Page 8 of The Hacker
“A toast,” Derek said. “To best men and best friends!”
Leland raised his glass and let the smooth whiskey burn down his throat while he celebrated with his partners.
But part of his brain was still back at the Work It Out gym. He hated an unsolved puzzle. Even more, he would miss the little edge of fun in his email exchanges with Dawn.
Chapter 3
“Okay, that’s it for today,” Dawn said to her client, a high school tennis player who came after classes to improve his flexibility. She offered him her hand to get up from the mat.
“That was a good workout, Coach,” the young man said, wiping his face with his sweat towel. He draped it around his neck, grabbed his water bottle, and checked his cell phone.
Dawn sighed. Getting a kid to leave his phone in the locker room was nearly impossible, but she’d insisted that he put it on mute.
“Shi-oot!” he said with an apologetic glance at her. “I’m running out of data allowance again. I don’t get it because I’m on the gym’s Wi-Fi.” He tapped at the phone. “Mom’s gonna be pissed.”
“You’re the third person who’s complained about that today, so I don’t think it’s your fault.” She grinned at him. “Tell your mom I said so.”
“Thanks, Coach, I will.” He looked relieved as he started toward the door.
Dawn smiled as she picked up the mat to clean and rehang it. She got a kick out of being called Coach. Her smile turned to a frown as she remembered his complaint.
The customers were getting cranky about the ongoing IT issues at the gym. That was bad because people were often just looking for an excuse to cancel their membership. She didn’t want to see Ramón’s business get hurt because Vicky didn’t know what she was doing on tech matters. Ramón was more like an older brother than a boss to Dawn.
An image of Leland’s sharp, intelligent face flashed across her mind. She’d been thinking about him a lot, all because of a few emails. Those had ended a week ago and she still missed them.
So maybe this was her chance to connect with him again.
If just one more person mentioned the data usage to her, she would take it as a sign that she should offer Leland’s services to Ramón one more time.
She nearly danced a jig when her very next client turned off his phone because his data usage was blowing up his limited plan.
As soon as she finished with her session, she went in search of her boss. She found Ramón and Vicky in their shared office, which suited her just fine. Ramón worried more about keeping the customers happy while Vicky’s eyes were firmly on the bottom line.
“What’s up?” he asked, waving Dawn in. Vicky ignored her and tapped at her keyboard, her long, flashy fingernails clicking against the plastic.
“I’ve gotten some customer complaints about high data usage on their cell phones when they’re here.” She decided not to reference the earlier Wi-Fi problems. No point in rubbing Vicky’s nose in it. “It happens even when their phones are connected to our Wi-Fi. I thought you might want to know about it.”
Ramón glanced at his wife. “Querida, we’re having internet problems again.”
“Yeah, I heard about that,” Vicky said, still focused on her computer. “It’s not a big deal. Most people have unlimited data plans anyway.”
“Vick,” Ramón said. “If people are complaining, we need to fix it.”
That’s why it was good to have Ramón present for the conversation.
Vicky stopped typing and gave Dawn an irritated look before she smiled at Ramón. “Ray, sweetie, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
“Good.” Ramón nodded to Dawn. “Thanks for letting us know.”
Dawn walked back to the staff room unsatisfied. Vicky seemed dismissive but Ramón was now involved. That might get his wife to address the issue. Or she might drag her feet like she’d done with the Wi-Fi problem. It left Dawn with a dilemma, though. She’d asked Leland for his assistance previously, and then Ramón had turned it down. She didn’t want to be in that awkward position again.
After her last client, Dawn walked home and showered before dropping onto the sectional in her living room and flipping open her laptop. Could she justify contacting Leland or not?
She wrote and deleted four versions before she decided to send the fifth one.
Dear Leland,
We’ve got a new problem at the gym. The Wi-Fi is working fine but now people are complaining that their cell phone data usage is high, even though they are connected to the gym’s Wi-Fi. Any theories about that?
