The beach hippies were leaving, and Jodi thought her heart might actually break.
For five days she’d watched a group of twenty of the most gorgeous, poorly dressed human beings she’d ever seen walk through Google’s front door, disappearing into the inner sanctum as if they worked there. They didn’t, because Jodi’s job was to check, even though they would have needed employee pass cards to get into the main lobby and make it to her desk.
But they did get in, so maybe they were employees? Although Jodi would have remembered these people. Regardless, they approached her where she sat at reception and each day poofed some sort of fabulous mojo her way. So she let them pass and felt euphoric doing so.
She didn’t know their names but didn’t care. She would have given them anything, followed them anywhere.
They were supposed to flash her their identity cards. Instead they took her hand or caressed her hair and walked away, and they left delightful gifts behind. Flowers, a bracelet made of silver and sea glass, her favorite miel cappuccino from the corner café. This morning they’d left an entire cooler filled with sushi grade tuna. Yum.
Their endearments rang in her ears throughout the day and sometimes made her cry, because every time she thought of them she was seized with longing. She had to steel herself to remain at her post when she wanted badly to find them in the back offices even if just to look at them.
Individually and together they appeared distinctive enough to cause a stir, a feat in this environment. Google headquarters was a polyglot visited by as diverse a population as one could find; from the more laid back, slovenly geniuses in tech to the polished internationals on the professional side. Her hippies, while beautiful, were appallingly ungroomed, looking great but like they got dressed at the last possible minute. Also, their attire, while nice enough for the beach or Sunday coffee indoors, was too casual even by California business standards. Didn’t any of them own an iron? And was that sand trailing behind them?
No matter. She loved them, would have promptly given them the keys to her bungalow or Mercedes convertible, could have with little effort been persuaded to hand over her elderly parents to be eaten.
Their CEO even came out to wave them off each day, blowing kisses and clasping his hands to his heart in what should have been an embarrassing display of sentiment. It wasn’t, because they all did it. Each morning a crowd gathered in the parking lot to greet them, responding with sighs and applause when they appeared.
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