Page 5 of Technical Advances

“Come on, Benji. I’ll take you to your real interview.”

It was a short trip down another unassuming, quiet hallway to a room at the dead end. I pictured the rest of the building as we walked, bustling with scientists, coders, and engineers, using state-of-the-art equipment to solve the world’s problems. People who could speak my language, people doing amazing things to help humanity. I don’t think I’d ever wanted anything more, not even my place at MIT, except to have my mom there to share in my excitement.

Erin tapped lightly before opening the heavy wooden door at the end of the hall.

We were at the entrance to a conference room with a long sleek table, surrounded by high-backed chairs. A smaller desk or cabinet sat against the wall behind the table. Behind the furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows framed a peaceful-looking green space outside.

The man at the far end of the table stood up, and the calm demeanor Erin had exuded since she’d introduced herself to me evaporated.

“Anson! Forgive me. I didn’t know you were using this room. Morgan has an interview, but we can … I’ll just …”

Anson Day, the Anson Day, interrupted his head of HR, and he was looking right at me as he did so. I’d been nervous, walking into the New Day Tech offices, my heart pounding and my palms sweaty. I’d manage to relax during my chat with Erin, and I had thought I was ready for my next conversation. But as Anson fucking Day stood at the opposite end of the room, my heart palpitations returned. and it felt like I could barely breathe. I was in much more of a heightened state than I had been when I walked into the building. I was possibly in more of a heightened state than I had ever been in my entire life.

Anson Day spoke, his eyes quickly leaving mine to focus on a folder on the table.

“B … Benjamin Warren.” His voice caught in his throat. and he stuttered as if he were the one who should be nervous. With his eyes back on me and his hesitant voice ringing in my ears, I felt a jolt pull through my whole body, like lightning had come down and struck me, emanating out of me like an explosion, only to coalesce and explode once more. I wished we were further into the room so I could steady myself with a hand on one of the enormous chairs. At least I had sense enough not to rest a hand on the flummoxed woman standing next to me.

It took all my concentration to keep myself steady. Had I had the ability to take my eyes off the man in front of me, I may have been better able to compose myself. I did not have that ability, taking him in while his eyes danced between me and Erin before landing again on the folder situated on the conference table in front of him.

“Yes, sir,” Erin responded before I could do more than pick my jaw up off the floor. Dumbly, I nodded in confirmation, which I think he sensed though he wasn’t looking directly at me.

“Great,” he muttered before saying “good’” under his breath. He looked flustered, not at all the commanding presence I’d seen in clip after clip of him giving speeches or shaking hands with dignitaries. He’d met the King of England, for God’s sake. Like, really recently.

“Mr. Warren, please come in.” The man who rubbed elbows with kings awkwardly held out his arm, gesturing to a chair near his at the head of the long sleek cherrywood conference table.

“I can go get Morgan.” Erin’s tone made it sound like she was providing a suggestion to her boss. One she was encouraging him to take.

“No need. I’ll be conducting this interview personally, Erin.”

Erin worked to regain her composure though her voice still faltered. “Of course, sir. I’ll inform Morgan, then.”

“Already done,” he mumbled, his head down.

The head of New Day Technologies was elusive, hardly ever photographed outside of carefully curated events, like his visit to Windsor Castle when he was in England to meet with the owners of a software company that New Day was looking to acquire. So it was rare to see him dressed in anything other than an expensive-looking bespoke suit or looking like anything less than a man who knew he was on camera. It had been a long time since Anson Day had been seen by the general public outside of a staged setting, and even those glimpses were rare.

The version of the man in front of me was older than the photo of him that was most famous, the one I’d had as the background of my computer as a kid, which depicted him standing and smiling, a robotic arm suspended from above and hanging over his shoulder.

In that photo, his short dark hair was unkempt in stereotypic distracted-scientist fashion, his face a patchwork of five o’clock shadow. I’d studied the robot in that picture, but I’d studied the man too. He’d been slightly overweight, his khaki pants wrinkled and too big, draped over ratty sneakers, his nerdy T-shirt sporting a periodic table pun. The look was punctuated by a lab coat that literally held a pocket protector. He’d been beaming, whether in pride at his mechanical accomplishment or in jest at having the arm slung over him like a lover or a friend; I was never sure. I’d been a young teenager when that accomplishment had blown up the tech world. Seeing that image as a twelve-year-old, I remember thinking the tech was amazing, and that the man behind it was beautiful.

I may have been coming to realize I liked boys before Anson Day’s robotic breakthrough, but the first time I really knew for sure that I was gay was when I looked at a smile that somehow managed to hold pride, confidence, and shyness all at the same time. I related to that awkward exuberance as a young man, and I felt like I was witnessing it in real time as I cautiously entered that conference room, my head swimming, my body feeling like it might fall forward until I reached the Earth’s core.

His smile had my pulse quickening in a whole different way than the anxiousness I’d felt about giving a good interview. Until that conference room door opened, I’d been interviewing for my dream job. All of a sudden, I was standing in front of my dream man.

And I was as shocked to be standing in front of him as Erin seemed to be.

The man before me was so different from the man in that photo but just as beautiful. Day’s long hair was pulled back tightly in a ponytail that brushed between his shoulder blades, the dark strands now peppered with streaks of gray, one strand loose but tucked behind his ear. He sported a salt-and-pepper beard that appeared much more well maintained than the scruff he’d had in that picture. He’d trimmed down considerably though he still wore khaki pants on his narrower frame. This pair looked like they’d been made for him and were precisely pressed. His slip-on sneakers were an expensive brand, worn in and comfortable looking. The ratty T-shirt was replaced with a forest-green Henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, showing off a sleek luxury smartwatch and sinewy, hairy forearms.

He appeared nervous, his smile a cacophony of contradictions. I found it ironic since I was the one not only at a critical job interview and not only standing in front of the famous Anson Day, but I was standing in front of a man I had idolized and romanticized for years. While I could see the awkward, happy scientist from my adolescent memories in his slimmer face, the main connection to the man in the photo was his eyes, which shimmered a deep blue as they moved away from me and back to the folder resting on the table.

Erin stood at the door, apparently unsure what to do as I walked past, my arm extended, my confidence growing with each step I took toward him. “Dr. Day, it is an honor to meet you, sir.”

His curt nod and stiff handshake were like a thunderclap. The tech-world celebrity that I had worshipped as both a man and as an icon was right there, his hand in mine. My heart felt like it was fighting its way out of my chest. My breath caught. I wasn’t sure how many more shocks to the system I could take.

I’d imagined, if I got a job at New Day, that I would meet Day at some point, so I had ruminated on what it would mean to meet the man that held so much significance to me. It was important that I not come across as some raging fanboy but looking at the Day before me, so different from the young man I always pictured, didn’t feel like I was experiencing hero worship. His hand in mine felt like something else entirely. Something I couldn’t quite define or understand.

“Mr. Warren,” he countered as we continued to shake, up and down, up and down.

His inability to make eye contact should have thrown me off, but it just felt endearing as he stared at our pumping hands instead. It was an odd surge of emotion to be having at a job interview, and it took me right back to the twelve-year-old boy who had obsessed over his blue eyes as much as I had his work. This was a man, I realized. A man navigating a social situation, not the famous head of a technology firm. Of course, he was that, too, and I needed to remember that aspect of our encounter, needed to focus on my interview, not the beating of my heart or the worry that he could feel my pulse through my fingertips. Whatever the zing was that I was feeling, I convinced myself, was the result of years of hero worship. How could it possibly be anything else? I had to tamp it down and get to the business of giving a good interview to Anson fucking Day. I centered myself and smiled.