Page 29 of The Hard Launch

“Did Glenn tell you all that?” I ask.

“He only said they suspected it was from the hypertension and would probably induce. I’ve been researching,” he confesses.

I tell him I’m not a stranger to obsessing in the face of things I can’t control, that I once became an internet-certified fake dermatologist in the three days it took to learn that a mole on my shoulder wasn’t cancerous.

“It’s usually better not to freak out until there is unquestionably a reason to do so,” I conclude.

He nods. “I can’t really think about anything else. I need her and the baby to be okay.”

We look at each other through the screen, Glenn’s fan club.

“You haven’t heard anything more?” I ask.

“Not since you asked twenty seconds ago.”

“Here,” I say, sharing my screen. “Let’s think about something else.”

We walk through the user stories together, adding details and making edits. He carries his laptop out to fill his water bottle, has me wave hello to Jonnie on my way back. Each time we complete a review, I see him pick up his phone and shake his head.

While he’s explaining with more information than I will ever need how the ads are served from the third-party vendor, I move to my kitchen to make tea.

“I like that,” he says while I’m pouring boiling water into a blue and white speckled ceramic mug.

It takes me a second to realize he’s looking at what I’m doing, not talking about an architecture decision.

“The mug?” I ask, holding it up.

“I meant the kettle,” he says. “But I like the mug, too.”

I point my camera at my bright green kettle. “This?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t know they make them in colors.”

I show him my matching toaster.

“I’m learning so much,” he says. “Is your dishwasher green, too?”

I come back on camera to explain that the dishwasher is me, Lacey.

“But I have a takeout problem.”

“Me too,” he says.

“And it’s not like I’m hosting Thanksgiving. I only have four hundred square feet,” I tell him.

“It looks bigger than that,” he says.

Then he checks his phone, shakes his head.

I attempt to distract us both by showing off my space-saving design hacks: that Instagram-famous pan you can allegedly cook anything in, my desk which is actually a drop-leaf table that could seat four, if I borrowed two chairs, the books stacked on a shoe rack under the loveseat.

“Only eighty percent about product management,” Jude observes. “I didn’t know you were so well-rounded.”

A small apartment makes for a short tour. We get back to the user stories, and once we’re through them all, I add links to the specs, UI, and test plans wherever applicable. Jude stays on the call silent, just watching me work. But then it’s all done. I stop sharing my screen.

“I guess we should go,” he says.

I try, but can’t come up with a reason not to.