The Woman Who Stopped Traffic Read Online Free Page B

Charleston, South Carolina – the respective hometowns of her parents – she’d always considered San Francisco to be the most exciting city on earth. A city whose optimism came in spite of (or perhaps because of?) its location on one of the world’s least stable geological fault lines (‘ live for today’ !) It prompted Nguyen’s funny response, when she asked him what it was like to have moved back down here from rainy Seattle. The irony referenced a freak Seattle earthquake in 2001 measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale:
    “Well, the weather up there was great. But boy, those earthquakes…”
    “But you never really told me the story,” she said, as they strolled down Union Street. “Of how it all happened. Getting the job at Clamor and all.”
    “Oh, pretty simple really. I came down here on a recruiting junket for our old shop. Found a bright young Stanford undergrad called Dwayne Wisnold. But instead of me recruiting him, he recruited me.”
    She laughed. “Don’t you have family here as well? That must be nice.”
    “My dad, but not exactly here. Nearby.”
    They passed Betelnut, an Asian eaterie decorated in fire-engine reds and lacquered bamboos. It reminded Natalie of a French colonial film set. Nguyen suggested a table in the inside-outside space spilling onto Union. After some good-natured debate, he ordered for them: Bein Pow firecracker chicken with szechuan chilies and almonds, seared scallops with Excellent XO sauce and two portions of the house speciality – minced chicken served with fresh lettuce cups. He ordered a bottle of Anchor Steam ale; she asked for a double Americano. She was wearing an Indian print summer dress with spaghetti straps, her hair loose around her shoulders. She wondered if the dress showed a little too much shoulder and cleavage but, looking around, she was hardly the most immodestly dressed gal there.
    “Still jet lagged?” Nguyen asked, with reference to her double Americano.
    “Yeah, nasty layover in Pittsburg. Not so used to it these days.”
    “And how’s that going? The yoga, in Barbados.”
    “In the Bahamas actually. Yeah, great …”
    “I was sure it was Barbados.” Nguyen looked away into the middle-distance as though seeking arbitration. How he hated to get his facts wrong, she laughed.
    “So you’re not missing Redmond?” he asked. It was where their old office was located.
    “Not so much,” she laughed. “You?”
    He wiped his brow with a long finger as though to say, ‘narrow escape’. The drinks arrived, the beer bottle beaded cold on the outside. He waved away an offered glass.
    “But I’m curious,” she said. “How did you know to jump to Clamor back then? The good folk in Redmond must have made it hard to leave.”
    “Oh yeah sure. And meantime, how many more years would I have had to endure thinking up new spreadsheet features? Features that ninety nine per cent of users would never even know about, let alone use. No thanks. Clamor just seemed to –”
    “– don’t tell me –”
    “MUST!” they said in unison.
    “Matter, be unique, sustainable … and what did the ‘t’ stand for again?”
    “Tedious,” Nguyen said with a withering look. “I just needed more, Nat. And it wasn’t a financial home run at the old place, at least not for the foreseeable future. I needed to make a move, and I’m sure glad I did. But what about you? How do you feel about it now?”
    “I wanna tell you about that, but first I have to ask you something.”
    The food started to arrive already, sizzling hot. Natalie waited for the servers to leave then leaned in:
    “What happened yesterday, at the end there Tom? That girl on the screen: her eyes!” and she shuddered.
    “Yeah,” Nguyen sighed. He speared a scallop with his chopstick then let them fall to the side. “Tell me about it.”
    “Tom, that didn’t look like any simple case of DNS poisoning or site spoofing. I’m guessing the page we saw up there really was on Clamor. The