How Do

Friday

By 4:00pm on Friday afternoon, Daniel Fratzke had solved six problems nobody had asked him to solve, answered nineteen emails, prevented a server from having what he privately considered a nervous breakdown, and eaten half a granola bar for lunch. The other half was still sitting beside his keyboard, he had nearly forgotten it existed. Daniel noticed it when he reached for his coffee.

He stared for a moment.

"You're not lunch," he told it. The granola bar remained silent.

"You're a snack." he nodded. "Important distinction." He ate the remaining half in one bite. Daniel was an attractive man, he simply didn't know it.

At twenty-seven, he had the sort of face that became more appealing the longer someone looked at him. His features were clean and pleasantly balanced, with dark brown hair that never quite behaved, no matter how much he tried to flatten it in the morning. It tended to fall forward over his forehead by lunchtime. His eyes were a warm hazel brown, framed by lashes that were considerably better than anything he had done to deserve them. His coworkers had occasionally told him he had nice eyes, Daniel had always assumed they were being polite.

He was tall enough to blend into a crowd without standing out, with broad shoulders and a lean build maintained mostly by forgetting to eat until he was starving and walking everywhere when he couldn't find his car keys.

He wasn't muscular or lanky, simply pleasant to look at. Unfortunately, Daniel dressed like a man who had been informed that clothing was mandatory but had not been given further instructions. His button down shirts were usually some variation of blue, gray, or white.

His slacks were dark paired with comfortable shoes. He owned several identical belts because he had once decided that making decisions about belts was an inefficient use of his time.

His knowledge of fashion could be summarized as: Clean. Appropriate. Doesn't smell weird.

Behind the glass wall of his office, the IT department was beginning to empty. It was Friday and people were leaving. Daniel understood this concept intellectually, he just didn't participate in it very often. Daniel was the youngest department manager in the company by several years. He had earned the position through a combination of obsessive competence, an alarming willingness to work weekends, and an apparent inability to recognize when a normal person would go home. His employees had not been consulted about any of this and they were not thrilled.

Daniel couldn't really blame them. Being told what to do by a peon who still occasionally got asked for his student ID at restaurants wasn't exactly a recipe for workplace harmony.

His predecessor had been fifty-three..

Daniel had been promoted into the position, there was apparently enough of an age difference to make some people feel personally insulted.

He noticed the difference immediately.

Conversations stopped when he walked into rooms, people suddenly became very interested in their phones. If he entered the break room, someone invariably remembered an appointment that had apparently become urgent.

It reminded him of high school, except in high school, people had been mean to his face.

These people were professional mean. Daniel looked through the glass at three employees near the break room, talking.

They saw him looking and all three immediately found something else to do.

"Subtle." Daniel smiled faintly. He turned back to his computer, his inbox had another message.

URGENT — AUTHENTICATION FAILURE

Daniel sighed. "Of course."

He opened the ticket. He could deal with this.

That was the nice thing about problems: problems had causes, and causes had solutions.

People were considerably less cooperative. He was halfway through checking the authentication logs when someone knocked on his open office door.

Daniel looked up as Carl stood in the doorway.

Carl was 46 and had been with the company longer than Daniel had been legally allowed to drive.

"Hey," Daniel said.

"You wanted this changed?" Carl held up a printed configuration request.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Daniel blinked. "Because it's causing the authentication failures."

"We've always done it this way."

"I know."

Carl stared at him. Daniel waited. Carl waited.

Neither appeared interested in losing the waiting game. Finally, Daniel turned his monitor slightly toward him. "See these?"

Carl leaned closer. "The failed requests?"

"Yeah. They're hitting the old authentication path. If we redirect them, we should cut down the failures."

Carl frowned. "You sure?"

"Pretty sure." Daniel nodded.

"Pretty sure?"

"Extremely sure. I just don't want to sound arrogant." Daniel smiled.

Carl snorted. For a second, Daniel thought he might actually be smiling.

"Fine." Carl turned to leave.

"Hey," Daniel started.

Carl looked back, his fingers tapping the pocket of his slacks with impatience.

"If you want to test it before we push the change, I can do that."

Carl hesitated. "Yeah. That'd be good."

"Okay." Daniel nodded.

He wasn't sure whether that counted as a successful management interaction.

Probably not, but at least Carl had stopped looking irritated and Daniel considered that a win.

His phone buzzed with a message from Cole.

COLE: You working late?

DANIEL: Probably.

The response came immediately.

COLE: That's not an answer.

DANIEL: It's the most honest answer.

Daniel set the phone down. A second later, it buzzed again, he ignored it. The authentication logs needed him. That was easier. He could fix things, he couldn't fix the fact that half his department disliked him.

He couldn't fix the fact that he had no idea how to talk to women or the uncomfortable feeling that he was somewhat young and somehow already living like a man who had given up on having a life, but he could fix a server.

Servers were reasonable. They told you when something was wrong. They didn't expect you to read between the lines or ask why you were still single. They didn't ask when you were going to settle down or tell you that you were wasting your twenties. They simply broke and Daniel fixed them. He leaned toward the monitor.

"Okay," he murmured. "Let's make you useful."

A burst of laughter came from the break room.

Daniel glanced toward it. He smiled despite himself. At least they were having fun, even if they didn't like him. He wanted his employees to enjoy working there. He wanted them to have weekends, to take vacations, to go home at a reasonable hour and see their families. He just had no idea how to give himself the same permission. The thought lasted approximately three seconds, then he found another error in the logs.

"Oh, you little bastard."

He sat forward and went back to work.

At 4:37, Daniel finally emerged from his office.

The department was nearly empty.

He stopped beside one of the desks and noticed a small stack of paperwork sitting there.

He picked it up. A vacation request, approved. He put it in the outgoing tray, then he noticed a Post-it note beneath it.

THANKS, BOSS.

Daniel stared at it and smiled.

It was ridiculous how much that little note affected him. He peeled it from the desk.

For a moment, he considered throwing it away.

Instead, he put it in his desk drawer.

He had no explanation for why. It simply felt nice. Then he went back to his office, there was still work to do.

At 5:12, he heard two employees talking in the hallway. He wasn't trying to listen. He was simply walking past with a laptop under his arm, then he heard a name.

"Marianne Bell."

Daniel slowed.

One of the employees lowered her voice.

"The realtor?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

Daniel stopped just outside the break room. He shouldn't listen, he knew that, but he listened anyway.

"She disappeared Wednesday."

"What?"

"She was getting that old estate ready for an open house."

"The one in Lake Forest?"

"Yeah."

Daniel's expression tightened. He knew the property. Everyone who worked in the area knew it. Huge, old place, and expensive. The kind of house that had too many rooms and probably a basement nobody wanted to explore.

"What happened to her?"

"No one knows."

"Did she leave?"

"Her car was still there."

A pause.

"So?"

"Her purse was inside."

Another pause.

"Her phone too."

Daniel looked down at the laptop in his hands.

Something about that made his stomach tighten.

"Police searched the property," someone said.

"Did they find anything?"

"No."

"What about her?"

"Nothing."

Daniel's fingers tightened around the laptop.

He didn't know Marianne Bell, not really.

He'd met her once. She had helped one of the company's executives sell a house.

Daniel remembered her because she'd been unusually nice to him.

She had asked his name and actually remembered it. She'd joked that everyone assumed IT managers were either 25 or 65 and she couldn't tell which category Daniel belonged to. He'd laughed, she'd laughed.

It had been a perfectly ordinary conversation, except Daniel remembered it. He remembered most moments when someone was kind to him.

"Maybe she ran off," someone suggested.

"Without her phone?"

"Maybe she met someone."

"She's divorced."

"Exactly."

Daniel frowned.

He didn't like that explanation, not because it was impossible, because it was convenient.

He'd spent enough time troubleshooting systems to know that when something didn't make sense, you didn't pick the easiest explanation just because you wanted the problem gone, you investigated. He almost stepped into the room, then stopped.

This wasn't his business and he had work, so he kept walking.

By 6:03, the building was nearly silent.

Daniel sat alone in his office. Chicago outside his window had begun changing colors. People were leaving work, going to dinner, meeting friends, heading home. Daniel looked at the clock.

6:04.

He looked at the unfinished ticket, then at his phone. There were three messages from Cole.

COLE: Danny.

COLE: Seriously.

COLE: Don't make me come to your office.

Daniel sighed.

He typed:

DANIEL: Why?

The answer came immediately.

COLE: Because it's Friday night.

Daniel stared at the screen.

DANIEL: I know.

COLE: Do you?

Daniel smiled.

DANIEL: Technically.

COLE: You're coming out.

DANIEL: I have work.

COLE: You always have work.

Daniel looked around his office. Cole was right and he hated that.

He typed:

DANIEL: I don't want to go somewhere loud.

COLE: It's a nightclub, Danny.

DANIEL: That's exactly what I mean.

COLE: Neon Pulse. Eight o'clock.

Daniel stared at the message. His first instinct was to say no, his second instinct was to find something else to fix. He looked at the authentication ticket, everything was stable.

The backup system was functioning, there was nothing on fire. Nothing needed him.

That realization made him uncomfortable.

He could feel the familiar urge building in his chest. Open another ticket, check another server, find something... Anything.

Daniel leaned back in his chair.

Maybe Cole was right, maybe working until midnight wasn't actually solving anything. His phone buzzed again.

COLE: And wear something that makes you look like you have a pulse.

Daniel looked down at himself. Blue button down, dark slacks, comfortable shoes.

He frowned.

DANIEL: What's wrong with this?

COLE: You look like you're about to tell someone their password has expired.

Daniel looked at his reflection in the darkened window. Cole wasn't entirely wrong.

His hair had fallen over his forehead again.

His shirt was wrinkled at the elbows. He had loosened his collar hours ago, and one side of it had folded underneath itself. Daniel attempted to fix it and it somehow looked worse. He stopped.

"Good enough."

He didn't own anything better, at least, nothing he knew how to wear.

He typed:

DANIEL: I don't think I own anything else.

The typing indicator appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.

COLE: Oh my God.

Daniel smiled.

DANIEL: What?

COLE: I'm coming over.

DANIEL: Why?

COLE: Because clearly you've been unsupervised.

Daniel laughed. He hadn't realized how long it had been since he'd done that. He shut down his computer. The process felt strangely unnatural. He checked it twice, then once more. Finally, he stood.

On his way out, Daniel passed the break room.

The conversation from earlier came back to him.

The realtor. Missing in an old house with her phone left behind. Daniel paused.

He wondered what could have happened to her.

The thought made something uncomfortable tighten in his chest. He didn't like that feeling.

So his mind did what it always did when something bothered him.

It went back to work. Had he closed the authentication ticket? No. He still needed to document the configuration change and Carl would probably want the test results before Monday.

Daniel took two steps toward the elevator before stopping. He pulled out his phone, maybe he could finish the documentation tonight, then he remembered the text from Cole.

COLE: I'm coming over.

Daniel sighed.

"Right."

He put the phone away. Work could wait. He turned off the lights, locked the office, and headed toward the elevator. For once, Daniel wasn't going to work through the night. He was going out, even if he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.