Reboot Pt. 01

Sumita spent hours getting profiling data, reading articles about optimization, making little tweaks. She took a long walk outside, thinking in the fresh air. She spent some time explaining her problem and talking through solutions with Carl, who as it turned out really did know everything about everything. Even he couldn't provide much help. Sumita could shave five milliseconds off here, twenty there, but it was never going to be enough. She went home at eleven o'clock as frustrated as she had ever been in her life. She had spent weeks and weeks on this stupid project, doing some really good work, and now it was all going to come to nothing because she couldn't make it fast enough. She had let everyone down, especially Bhavesh, and she felt terrible about it.

The next morning, her last full work day before the big review meeting, she decided to look at the performance problem one last time. She cleared from her mind all the assumptions about how the code worked and asked herself one simple question: what is the minimum work needed to perform the operation, to transform the beginning state to the end state? When she answered that question, she found, much to her surprise, that it was possible to make it work and make it fluid. Probably twenty five to thirty milliseconds. Not perfect, but definitely good enough.

Sumita spent the entire weekend in the office, stopping only for dinners with Sangita. Sometime after three on Sunday night (Monday morning), she had something. Six important scenarios were horribly broken, but that didn't matter. She could fix them later. What mattered was that the basic stuff was fluid. You press a key and the display responds, fast enough that you don't notice.

Sumita drove herself home, collapsed into bed, and didn't go into work on Monday until sometime after eleven.

~~~

Sumita walked in on the end of the Monday status meeting. Dave glared at her, but she just shrugged, said something noncommittal about her progress, and then sat back in her chair as if getting in well after eleven was perfectly normal. She was hardly the first person to show up late to the status meeting. Not even Dave could dampen her excitement at her accomplishment over the weekend. Her mood got even brighter when she noticed the person sitting in the far corner, as far away from Dave as the room would allow. Sarah was back.

"Paternity leave?" Sumita asked on the way out of the conference room. "Seriously?"

"The company calls it 'parental leave'," Sarah replied, "but I didn't give birth, and I'm not the 'primary caregiver', so I get two weeks, just like all the other dads. So yeah, I'm calling it 'paternity leave'."

Sumita couldn't tell if Sarah was angry or amused. She decided it was mostly the latter.

The review meeting for Sumita's feature was right after lunch. Sumita showed up on time, like always, and she was the only one in the conference room for a couple of minutes, like always. Sarah and Carl rolled in next, followed by some other senior devs, a few PMs, and finally Dave and Bhavesh.

Sumita had set up her test box with Friday morning's build, where everything was checked in and working but slow, and her dev box with her performance work. She set up a remote desktop connection to the test box to demo all of the features, including some very complicated tables with difficult formatting. Everything worked flawlessly, and she got nods of approval from everyone in the room, even Dave.

"That's great," Bhavesh said. "Even better than I expected. It's really slow, though - I don't think we can ship like that. Is there anything you can do to improve the perf?"

Sumita smiled. "I'm glad you asked," she said. "I do have a solution for the perf issues. I did some profiling on Friday, and I found that like ninety six percent of the CPU cycles go to recompiling the full script after we make changes. We don't need to do all that work every time. I've found a way to only recompile the part that's actually changed."

"Partial compilation," Dave said dismissively. "The compiler team cut it from their last two releases. There's no way we can even think about trying to code that."

"No," Sumita agreed. "Generic partial compilation would be a huge work item, if I could do it at all. But I don't need to do it in the generic case."

Sarah and Carl, who had both been looking at their smartphones, perked up.

"We have something like eight hundred functions in our base script library," Sumita said. "Most formatting operations only change a few of those at a time, usually just one. All I have to do is cache the compiled script, recompile the changed functions into a skeleton script, and then replace them in the cache. Compiling the minimal script works out to something like a hundred times faster."

Dave got a sour look on his face and started to say something, but Sarah cut him off. "That could totally work," she said, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

Carl nodded his understanding as well. "You'd have to be careful about global operations," he said. "Changing the data set, stuff like that. Your approach wouldn't work in those cases."

"Just invalidate the cache," Sarah suggested. "Force a full recompile."

"Yup, that's the plan," Sumita agreed. "I just haven't had time to do it yet."

Dave finally got a word in. "Your idea does make sense," he said, "and it might even work, but we just don't have any more time in the schedule for you to code it. You've already taken too long as it is."

"But it's already done, except the cache invalidation," Sumita replied. "Let me show you."

She disconnected from her test box, connected to her dev box, and redid some of the demos. Every single mouth in the room dropped open. Everything she did was smooth as silk. It did crash once, but it was in a place that cache invalidation would fix.

"That was fucking amazing," Bhavesh said. "Thank you, Sumita. We are definitely shipping this. Please get the performance updates finished, reviewed, tested, and checked in as soon as possible. Really good work!"

Dave sank back into his chair in defeat. Sumita looked at his face for any sign of happiness, but all she saw was annoyance. She had really hoped he would be see the good in this. It was a win for everyone - the product, the team, Sumita, Bhavesh, even Dave - but he couldn't see past his stupid metrics.

Nothing, though, could dampen Sumita's mood, not even Dave. She had finally lived up to all the trust Bhavesh had put in her, finally proved she belonged on the team.

~~~

Sarah dropped by Sumita's office after the meeting, primarily to show off baby pictures. Sumita said "aww" or "how cute!" to every single one, and she meant it. Eventually, Sarah ran out of pictures and the conversation came back around to work.

"Don't mind old sourpuss, Sumi," she said. "His opinion doesn't matter anymore. Bhavesh loves you, and he's the one who matters. Now that you've proven yourself, Dave will back off and let you do your thing."

"Let's hope so," Sumita replied. "Thanks for the support in there."

"You're welcome," Sarah said. "Not that you needed it."

Sumita was on a happy cloud for the rest of the afternoon. She wrote the cache invalidation function - just ten lines of code - and then found the dozen places scattered throughout the codebase where she needed to call it. She was sure there were one or two more places she hadn't thought about, but they'd come out during testing. The whole thing was in code review by the end of the day. Just as she was getting ready to go home, her smartphone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the screen, and her heart did a little flip. Jenna.

"Hey you," she said, her lips curling up into a big, bright smile.

"Hey," Jenna replied. "You said to call when I was ready. I'm calling, so I guess that means I'm ready."

"Did you sort everything out?" Sumita asked. "Meaghan tells me you're going to do the catering thing with Rose full-time."

"Yeah," Jenna said. "Cooking for people is so much more satisfying than working in some stupid office. It's not exactly the safest plan, but we're going to try."

"Good for you," Sumita said. "Seriously."

After a brief pause, her voice shifted down a few notes, from bright and bubbly to warm and sultry. "Now does this mean you want to see me again?" Sumita asked.

"Uh, yeah," Jenna replied, a little flustered at the sudden change in Sumita's voice. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything." Sumita replied.

"You know how to cook traditional Indian food, right?" Jenna asked. "Like, learned from your mother growing up?"

"Of course," Sumita replied. She didn't know a single Indian girl who didn't.

"Could you teach me?" Jenna asked. Her voice was tentative, vulnerable. Sumita had never heard that from Jenna before.

"Wow," she replied. "Gutsy move, calling a girl out of the blue, asking for her help, inviting yourself over to her house. Somebody could get the wrong idea..."

"I'm sorry," Jenna said. "That was . . . I didn't mean to . . ."

"I'm teasing!" Sumita said. "I'd love to teach you Indian cooking. Do you want to come over on Saturday? My daughter will be out camping all weekend, so we'll have the place to ourselves."

"Really?" Jenna asked. "That would be wonderful. I wasn't trying to . . . I just . . ."

"I know," Sumita replied. "I want to see you too."

"Okay, then," Jenna said. "Saturday?"

"Saturday."

~~~

The details worked themselves out over email, and Sumita got more excited each day. She had work to do, but nothing terribly urgent, so she allowed herself fifteen minutes every day to plan, right before afternoon coffee with Sarah and the guys. She made up a menu and changed it a dozen times before settling on a final version. She compiled a shopping list from the menu, for the Indian market and the regular supermarket on Thursday after work, and then for the dairy in Bothell on Friday before work. The biggest chunk of her time went into a playlist of Indian music to set the mood, from Bollywood soundtracks to Ravi Shankar's masterful sitar to the odd Indo-Celtic fusion of Delhi 2 Dublin.

Walking to coffee on Friday, Sumita was feeling good about the upcoming cooking adventure. She was smiling and humming to herself, and half-listening while Sarah alternated between baby stories and technical stuff about her latest feature.

When they turned the corner into the hallway that led to the cafeteria, Sumita let out a little gasp and stopped dead in her tracks.

"What's wrong, Sumita?" Sarah asked. "You're white as a sheet. You look like you've seen a ghost."

She had. Rajeev was there in the hallway, walking straight toward her. She wanted to run over and hug him, or run from the building, or scream, but she couldn't. She couldn't do anything at all; she was frozen in place. And this strange Rajeev-person just kept walking, not even noticing Sumita, chatting with a young Chinese guy.

It was only when he passed by that Sumita recovered herself. The guy was an inch shorter than Rajeev, he didn't have the same acne scars on his cheeks, and he was a little heavier. He wasn't Rajeev at all, though the resemblance was spooky.

"Nothing," Sumita said to Sarah, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. "I just thought . . ."

Sarah looked up at Sumita, waiting for her to continue.

"Who were those guys?" Sumita asked as the shock wore off. "The tall Indian one looked just like my husband."

"I don't know," Sarah said. "I heard some new team was moving into building twelve next door. Must have reserved a conference room in our building or something. You okay?"

"Not really," Sumita replied, "but I'll get over it. Let's go for coffee." The two of them walked off to the cafeteria.

That night at home was Sumita's hardest in months. It had taken her a long time to make peace with Rajeev's death, and seeing his ghost in the hallway brought back a lot of the pain she thought she had learned to ignore.

The worst part was thinking about Saturday, about Jenna. Sumita had invited a woman she was attracted to over to her house. To Rajeev's house. She was going to spend most of a day with Jenna, sharing her kitchen, one of the most personal, intimate parts of her life, and she was going to do that with Rajeev's ghost looking over her shoulder. She did not sleep well, when she slept at all.

Sumita woke just after sunrise on Saturday morning. She thrashed about in bed for an hour or so, trying to get back to sleep, but it was no use. The combination of nerves, excitement, and a vague unease was too much. She got up and fussed about in the kitchen for a while, setting out all the pots and pans and implements they would need, as well as all the vegetables and spices. She went through the drawers in the dining room to find her favorite placemats and napkins, and then pulled her best thali set out of a cabinet.

After that, she sat down with her laptop and her cookbooks, fussing again over the menu and the playlist. It wasn't like her to worry so much, but she wanted everything to be perfect for Jenna, and being busy calmed the cauldron of feelings swirling in her stomach.

By ten o'clock, there was nothing left over which she could even pretend to obsess, so she went to her bedroom to shower and dress. In keeping with the traditional Indian theme of the day, she wore her shalwar kameez, pink with blue trim on the sleeves and neckline, and the dangly gold earrings Rajeev had given her as a wedding present. She was a little overdressed for a day of cooking, but the outfit was very comfortable, and her apron would protect it from spills and splatters.

When she was all set, she sat down on the couch for a breather. There were a few more things she needed to do before Jenna arrived at two, but she had some time before they needed to get done. Sumita closed her tired eyes for just a moment . . .

~~~

Bing! Bong! Sumita woke with a jolt to the doorbell, fighting through the fog of sleep to remember where she was and what she was doing.

"Shit!" she cried to herself when she realized who was ringing the doorbell. "Shit shit shit!"

She got up, smoothed her unruly hair into place as best she could, and opened the door. No time left to fuss.

"Hi," she said to Jenna, and suddenly her heart was beating so hard she thought Jenna would hear it.

"Hi to you," Jenna replied. She was in her standard outfit of blue jeans, white button-down shirt, and cowboy boots. Sumita noticed the missing button, worn sleeves, and cooking stains on the shirt - a comfortable old favorite that was well past its prime. Sumita was oddly touched that Jenna would wear it rather than one of her crisp new ones.

When Jenna didn't come into the house, Sumita realized she hadn't actually invited her in. She was just standing there like a dumbstruck teenager at a high school dance. "You should, ah, come in," Sumita said. Jenna did.

"I'm sorry," Sumita said. "I meant to have everything ready, but then I dozed off on the couch, and now I'm all disorganized and ..."

"It's fine," Jenna said, cutting off Sumita's nervous babbling. Her voice was warm and slow, like cognac after dinner. "We have all afternoon."

And then Jenna leaned in and kissed Sumita, lightly on the lips.

YES! a jubilant voice screamed inside Sumita's head, and her whole body thrummed. It was just a brief, light, friendly kiss, but it felt so right. Forty five years on this planet, and Sumita had never felt a kiss the way she felt that one.

"Wow," Sumita heard Jenna say as she opened her eyes.

"Yeah," Sumita agreed, a huge smile on her face. "Wow."

Sumita put her arms around Jenna's shoulders and kissed her again, a fierce, exhilarating physical connection with this intriguing new person in her life. When she opened her eyes, she saw Jenna's intense blue staring back at her, filled with the same excitement and anticipation she felt for herself. This was going to be fun.

"I'm really glad you're here," she said to Jenna, all her nerves forgotten.

"Me too," Jenna replied.

Sumita released Jenna from her embrace, took her hand, and led her into the kitchen, where Jenna dropped off the apron she'd brought with her, her chef's knife strapped into a pocket, and then Sumita showed her around the house.

"It's beautiful," Jenna said. "The lake is just gorgeous."

"You should see it at sunset," Sumita replied, and then added with a wink, "Tonight, you will."

The cooking started with paneer - a homemade fresh cheese like Italian ricotta - and ghee - Indian clarified butter.

"I normally use a good vegetable oil for cooking," Sumita said, "but you wanted traditional, and you can't do traditional Indian food without ghee."

Jenna stood watch over the saucepan of ghee, careful not to let it burn. "So you're a total vegetarian?" she asked.

"Yup," Sumita replied. "I don't eat meat at all. I try not to be too crazy about it, though."

Jenna smiled. "What does 'too crazy' mean, exactly?"

"I eat eggs. I try to be careful when I go out, but I don't worry too much. Sometimes they don't tell you about things made with a little chicken stock or fish sauce," Sumita said. "And cheese is fine."

"Cheese?" Jenna asked, one eyebrow raised. Sumita pointed at the saucepan and Jenna scraped down the sides.

"My marriage almost broke up because of cheese," Sumita said, with a twinkle in her eye that said there was much more to the story. Jenna's eyebrow arched even higher.

"The first time Rajeev's parents came to visit after we got married," Sumita said, "I made a Mexican casserole covered with cheddar cheese, and my mother in law freaked out at me."

"Seriously?" Jenna asked. "Nobody uses actual rennet anymore."

Sumita laughed. "Try telling that to my mother-in-law."

The laugh faded, and Sumita's voice fell. "Anyway," she said, "she made me feel terrible about myself, and how I wasn't good enough for her son. The next day, I snapped at Rajeev, we got into a big fight, and I ran out of the house."

"All that over some stupid cheese?" Jenna asked.

"Not really," Sumita replied. "That was just the last straw. I was supposed to be a good wife and mother, and I wasn't either. Rajeev was this really wonderful man, and I couldn't love him the way I was supposed to."

Sumita glanced down at the saucepan and pulled it off the stove. "It's done," she said, and carefully poured the ghee into a jar. "We'll use quite a bit today, and the rest will stay fresh in the fridge for a few weeks."

Jenna took the saucepan from Sumita and put it in the sink to wash later.

Sumita smiled a weak little smile. "Sorry, Jenna," she said. "I really shouldn't be going on about my husband with you here. My fault - I brought it up."

"It's okay. Really," Jenna replied. "You can talk to me. What happened with you and Rajeev?"

Sumita looked into Jenna's deep ice blue eyes, and the understanding she saw there made it okay to open up to her, even with Rajeev's ghost fresh in her mind.

"It was an arranged marriage, sort of," she said, "but Rajeev and I chose each other. I met and rejected a lot of men, but when I saw Rajeev, I knew it could work. I knew he was a good man that I could love."

"Okay," Jenna said, sounding skeptical.

"No, really," Sumita said. "He was really sweet to me, smart and fun to be with. We got engaged the first time we had dinner together, and we got married a couple of months later in India. It was magical."

"I'll bet," Jenna replied. "Indian weddings look absolutely insane, at least in the movies."

Sumita handed Jenna a bag of potatoes to wash and chop and picked up an onion and a head of cauliflower for herself to do the same. "The movies don't even come close," she said. "It lasted three days, and then we went to Goa for a week for a honeymoon."

"Nice," Jenna said.

"It was, but then we came home," Sumita said. Her shoulders tensed up and her voice tightened. "I really liked Rajeev, and I kept waiting to fall in love with him, but it just didn't happen."