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therewillalwaysbeapril · 4 years

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Chapter 4: Sixteen Hours

6:30 AM The alarm rang abruptly in the stillness of the morning, a rude shrill noise, splintering our warm, nocturnal embrace and throwing us both into the coldness of the day.

“April, we gotta get up”, I said, mumbling as I shook off the last remnants of sleep. She groaned softly, rolling over and pulling the covers away. “Hey, get up. Geee-tta UGH-PUUUU! Get TU DA CHOPPAH!” I did my terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger impression loudly and poorly, adding in a loud grunt for full effect.

“Argh, I need muh clothes, my boots, my motorcykalll”, she said, in the same bad Austrian accent without opening her eyes. “Come ONN, do it. Do it Nah-OW!”

Stumbling out of bed, vision still blurry, and nearly tripping over the corner of the blanket now fallen to the floor, I reached over and grabbed from the basket the first item of clothing on the pile of clean laundry that we neglected to fold from the previous night. I pulled open the top drawer of her dresser and felt around for a bra. I threw both toward the bed as I made my way to the bathroom. April put on her top as she stood up. Hair a mess and eyes barely open, April exuded a dreamy, other-worldly quality as she floated from the bed to the sink wearing the dark red floral patterned shirt dress I had bought for her the weekend before. I blow dried my hair into a more presentable state and shaved as she washed her face and finished combing her hair.

I packed April’s belongings into her backpack for her, the both of us hurrying downstairs to my car. After stopping by a McDonald’s drive-thru on the way, we ate Egg McMuffins sitting in the early traffic heading toward Downtown LA. I looked at her as she opened a ketchup packet.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful!” she said, laughing as she carefully squirted the ketchup onto her hashbrown.

Briskly walking up the parking lot escalators and half-skipping across Pershing Square, April got to the bus stop just in time as the vehicle screeched to a halt. “WESTWOOD/SANTA MONICA” said the display. A quick kiss goodbye and she was off to class.

8:00 AM The office was dark as I stepped out of the elevator. Walking toward my desk, I was greeted by lights flickering on as motion sensors began to stir. Fresh cup of coffee in hand, I left the kitchen for the far side of the floor toward my favorite viewing spot.

The Los Angeles morning was peaceful when viewed from high above. Cars moved slowly down Broadway; I could hear their distant honking noises in the early rush hour. Construction workers below near Third Street walked carrying their equipment, passing by the shops just beginning to open in Grand Central Market. From my hawk’s nest I saw a cyclist zipping down Grand Avenue past the Museum of Contemporary Art, in front of which a food truck was beginning to set up shop. My breath and the steam from my coffee fogged the glass as I stepped closer to look at the crowd of people gathering by the Broad. The early light bathed my city in a warm amber glow, thawing its sleepy commuters as a new workday began. Flecks of gold and saffron twinkled as the dawn bounced from the stirring skyscrapers and automobiles, blinding me. I, too, was beginning to wake as I finished my coffee.

With my headphones on, back at my desk, I continued sketching out the wireframe concepts from the day before. Wireframes are the foundation of plotting out designs for interactive products such as apps and websites. They are a high level way of designing ways in which someone can use a product and the organization for which types of information and interaction appears on which screen, before a designer has to focus on the finer details such as animations, visual appearances, and the style of smaller items such as buttons. Even though the other designers created wireframes in programs I was also familiar with such as Adobe XD or Sketch, I always took great care in sketching out early ideas neatly on paper. I felt there was a purity in shaping ideas away from a computer, a kind of humility in making things with my hands.

8:30 AM The office is still dim as I make myself a second cup of coffee. This was one of those sluggish days; I felt slow to start, and was glad to still be the only person in the office. There was less pressure this way. I returned to my desk and cleaned up my lines with an eraser, reinforcing others with a Sharpie. Boxes with crisscrosses represented images, various other shapes representing icons and call-to-actions. Simple line patterns signified text, clearly showing the underlying grid to the layout. Adding final touches, I drew an outline of an iPhone over all of the screens before using a green colored pen to create the markings that showed how a user interacted and navigated from screen to screen. I felt pride for the cleanliness of my draft, as I never knew whether the second draft in the computer would be made by myself or a different designer. Finished, and satisfied with my work, I walked over to the simple Kanban board on the far wall and moved the task’s corresponding post-it note from the column labeled “in work” to the column labeled “done”.

Aside from a few coworkers from accounting, the floor was still mostly deserted. Sitting back and listening to the rest of Bach’s Goldberg Variations on my headphones, I fidgeted at my desk for a while. Impatient, I walked back over to the job board and grabbed one of the tasks from the column labeled “backlog” and moved it to “in work”. This should keep me occupied, I thought.

10:00 AM Standup was always kind of fun. Normally I have always preferred to work alone, with headphones on, lost in thought as I built designs and mockups, in an almost-meditative state of flow. However, I liked my coworkers very much, and it was also nice to see everyone at the beginning of the day and update one another on our work progress in the morning as we created the pieces of our product together. I enjoyed this kind of organized interaction that afforded me boundaries and space to create.

<Walalala..>, texted April. It was her way of greeting. Warm and cheerful, albeit at times a little silly, it was a greeting that I had come to love. It would also be a salutation I would receive less and less over time until I would not see it at all. <What you doing?>, she added.

<Lol. You should pay attention! I’m pretty tired too. I don’t think I woke up yet>

<Haha, I miss you a little too.>

<Pfft, you still need me to remind you?>

<Ha, you should pay attention in class. Your mom will kill me if you fail because of me>

11:00 AM Sketches spread out on the table before me, I began to create the second round of digital wireframes. As much as I enjoyed sketching, this step was also one of my favorite things to do. The useful aspect having hand sketches was their looseness — from a high level perspective, during this stage there were still so many possibilities. Creating the first digital wireframe versions, despite their inherent roughness, narrowed down those possibilities. To do so felt like taking a camera lens and turning it slowly into focus. At this stage, it was not a crisp focus, but much more recognizable as a coherent direction. The process was therapeutic as it was methodical; moving through it step by step, there was room to make improvements on the fly, perfecting each idea. However, today, my process of refinement would be interrupted by a different task.

There needed to be a version of our project for a new client, said marketing. A simple mockup of our app must be made in the style of our new client, a baseball team. The refinement of the new screen designs would have to wait. Grumbling to myself a little, I closed the program and neatly piled the sketches into my drawer.

<Heyyy, why u ignoring me?>

<Sorry, some other stuff came up at work>

<I’m sorry. Would you feel better if you ate something? What are you gonna get for lunch?>

<Expensive grass, haha>. “Expensive grass” was April’s name for salad. They always cost more than they should, she would remark.

<btw…>

<what’s wrong?> Nothing good ever happened when April said “by the way”.

<We’re not breaking up. We can make this work>

12:00 PM It is lunchtime. Mood now sour, I didn’t feel like leaving the building. After informing my deskmates that I was taking my lunch break, I grabbed a stale bagel from the kitchen and microwaved it with a slice of cheese. Taking that and a diet soda from the fridge, I returned to my viewing corner.

We had only recently moved into the forty fourth floor of the building from six floors above. The company had now grown bigger and the fiftieth floor was not enough space. However, it was only the design, marketing, and accounting teams on this floor, leaving most of it empty. In fact, we only occupied one corner, leaving the other three quiet and deserted. I enjoyed taking walks around the empty areas, sometimes even bringing my cello to work and practicing in one of the empty rooms during breaks. Today though, I only wanted to look outside and think.

Now midday there was visible smog in the Los Angeles air. Protestors were forming on Grand Avenue. I looked closer, curious as to the reason for this group. I could not make out the writing on their signs. A car accident was visible further down on the 2nd Street intersection, blocking it off. The authorities closed off one of the lanes, backing up traffic. A bus awkwardly took up both lanes as it attempted to merge into the available space. An adjacent driver made a rude hand gesture out of his window. I sighed, feeling exhausted as I learned against the wall near the window. I sat on the floor as I drank my soda and looked out of the floor to ceiling window, thinking. The conversation I thought of was not with April, but one with someone else, from a different day, in a different language.

•••

<Yeah, I took her to the airplane museum the other day.>

<Well, she kept asking me to stay over, and then I had to stay with her after she crashed her car. Lately though, she tells me she just doesn’t like it when I’m away. It feels weird, but I’m really happy with her and I love her, so I guess I’m not complaining. She’s been coming to work with me and taking the bus to school too>

<Hey, you should pace yourself. All couples need their space from time to time.>

<Maybe? Sometimes I go to work and five minutes after I leave she texts me that she misses me. I think she’s very sweet.>

<Okay, I’m just looking out for you. What if she turns out to be one of those possessive types?>

<Hey! I knew it!! Is that why you didn’t answer any of my calls or texts last winter in China?>

<Sorry. I guess it’s just weird, what happened between us.>

<Well, nothing happened between us!>

<I know! Well, I don’t know. You are one of my best friends, and what happened affected me very deeply. It may have been nothing to you, but it was definitely something to me.

<I’m sorry about that. I really am. I was as confused as you too. I never meant to be cruel. I hurt you, and I ended up hurting myself too.>

<I’m glad we’ve moved past it and we’re still friends>

<Yes, I remember. And I will keep my word. I just need to figure this out. She’ll come around eventually. I really think the two of you would become great friends.>

<Well, you gotta figure it out eventually, because this is just awkward what you’re doing>

•••

1:00 PM I snapped back to reality as my phone alarm went off. It was time to go back to work.

The caffeine was beginning to wear off. Still debating whether or not I should have a third cup of coffee, I flipped through the Android Material Design Guidelines online, pondering what visual branding treatments were acceptable within Google’s design parameters. Writing down the correct color hex values on a notepad, I began to change colors on app elements in Photoshop, reskinning the interface. The phone beeped again, as another text message arrived from April.

<I’m sorry. I want to stay with you too. But I’m so worried>

<About what?>, I answered.

<Yeah, but what if we DO break up eventually? You’re not a doctor and I’m supposed to marry a doctor.>

I stopped working. Taking off my glasses, I sat back in my chair, rubbing my forehead. I was getting very tired.

, I texted back.

<There’s nothing wrong with what I do. I am a designer and I’m good at it. I make a decent salary and I like my life>

<It’s different>

<Well that’s just your viewpoint. We’re just different, I guess>. I saved my work and walked to an empty conference room.

<Why do you even love me?>, I texted. My thumbs began to sweat. Typing was becoming difficult.

<I’m getting back to work>

I stomped back to my desk, angrily chucking my empty soda can into a nearby wastepaper basket. A couple of coworkers stared.

3:00 PM For the next two hours, I tried my best to focus on creating more animations. More interactions. I compared the mockups I made against the Android and Apple guidelines. So far, so good. Sending the finished mockups back to marketing, I went back to the kitchen and made myself the third cup of coffee.

I chugged the hot beverage, nearly searing my throat. I went back to designing the wireframes. There were only three hours left in the workday, and I originally wanted to have had this perfected at the end of the day.

<Are you done with class yet?>. There was no answer from April.

Frustrated, I placed my phone face down on the table and returned to the designs. These have to get done, I thought. So little time. Fuming, I angrily threw the boxes together on the computer screen, connecting the button hotspots together as violently as someone could inside a digital space.

“Hey are you ok?”. It was Julie, who sat across from me behind my monitor. “I can hear you breathing from here”

“I’m fine”, I said. I sat back in my chair and looked at what I’ve made. It was sloppy and nowhere near the level of detail that I have been known for around the office.

“Take a break man. I just got an email that we have until the end of the week for these screens now”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. You can just chill”

“I think I’m gonna take a walk then.”

4:00 PM I looked at my watch as I waited in the elevator. Who does she think she is, I thought. So what if I’m not a doctor? Life can’t only be about status. I was so mad. That is such a shallow way of thinking! And it wasn’t me who started all this. I was just minding my own business working. She was the one who had to bring up Taiwan, and her parents’ crazy expectations for who she should be dating.

I walked outside briskly in the shade of the tall buildings. It was much louder now that I left the lobby. A street performer was beating a drum across the intersection. A crazy person was yelling about the end of times on the other corner. Good. Noisy enough that no one could see how angry I was.

And I hated the way she texted. How am I supposed to always be at her beck and call? I have a job to do; I can’t be there to simply answer every time she worries about crazy hypotheticals. I was doing fine today, I should’ve simply not answered. And now that she’s finished ruining my day, she’s stopped texting and has gone back to whatever she’s doing leaving me to pick up the pieces. Every single month, we have to have some fight about something completely stupid like this. Every single month —

Oh.

April had complained about being tired. April had experienced stomach pains during class. I counted the days since the last time I remembered similar complaints. There were many things I remembered for her. April could be so forgetful.

“Twenty-seven, twenty-eight….”, I counted in my head. I knew what she was going to need.

I stopped at the Rite Aid on 5th and Broadway. Quickly making my way through the aisles, I picked up a pack of Ibuprofen, a box of what appeared to be feminine pads, and a bottle of water. The cashier handed me the items in a paper bag after I made my purchase. Strolling further south, I began to think about what transpired.

Did she really mean all that she said? Perhaps a deeper question was, WHICH of what she said did she actually mean? You can’t tell someone you love them for who they are but also want to change them, I thought. Girls just say crazy things during their time of month right? I checked my phone.

Still no answer.

This is bad, I thought. Perhaps I was too harsh. Her car is in working condition. She chose to take the bus because she genuinely wanted to spend time with me. And now she’s probably on the bus home, in pain. All for me. I’m such a jerk, I thought.

Ducking into Bottega Louie on 7th, I bought a box of half dozen French macarons. They were rather pricey, but came in a beautiful box and were, I had heard, delicious. The small rigid box was not unlike jewelry packaging, with beautiful calligraphy and gold speckles dotted throughout its powder purple surface. It was a small gift that was sure to brighten up anyone who was having a less than perfect day.

6:30 PM The workday was now over as I closed my work laptop and packed away my things. The bus from UCLA arrived as I waited on a bench in Pershing Square.

“Hey what took you so long?”, I asked as I took April’s bag from her.

“I had the most horrible day!” she said.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize I sounded so mean—

“No, not you! My period started and I forgot to bring pads so I had to use tissues. And my phone died, and then the bus had to take a detour. So I needed to get off and wait for another bus, but I couldn’t use Google Maps and I’m so tired and I just want something to eat”

“Well, first things first I guess”

I handed her the box of macarons and discreetly showed her what was in the paper bag. “Let’s find a bathroom,” I said.

She looked into the paper bag. She looked at me. She started giggling, the happiest I’ve seen her all week.

“What? What is it?”

“Have you never bought pads before?”

“Well, no, but I figured you needed them. Was I right?”

“Those are panty liners, not pads!”

“Oh.”

“It’s okay, I’ll be alright. Cmon, let’s eat”

•••

8:30 PM After April had a chance to change, I took her to a nearby Hong Kong styled cafe. It would be nice to have some porridge, she said.

As we sat down and waited for our food, by reflex I folded April’s chopstick wrapper into an origami chopstick stand, as I have always done since our first date. I looked out the window into the dark.

The San Gabriel traffic outside was a lot calmer compared to the city. It was quiet and I could just make out the sounds of crickets. A high school couple walked out of the boba shop across the street, laughing to themselves, carefree. An elderly man picked out a newspaper from a box near the entrance. I felt a soft caress on my forearm.

April handed me a crudely folded flower made from a chopstick holder.

“I’m sorry about today. I keep forgetting how to fold that fancy origami, but I want to thank you for taking care of me.”

She smiled the familiar funny smile.

•••

9:30 PM As we walked in the darkness at a nearby park, digesting our meal, I stayed quiet. How can I make all nights like tonight?, I thought. Is there really an expiration date to our happiness?

Perhaps reading my mind, April said, “I don’t know what we’ll do if I really have to leave…”

I looked at her and kissed her forehead.

“Whatever”, she added. “If I have to go back to Taiwan, I guess I’ll just get another boyfriend, and it’ll be a doctor this time! HA HA!”

I did not laugh.

I let go of her hand and walked a few paces ahead, sullen.

“I’m kidding!” April grabbed my arm. “I really do love you, alright?”

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