California Dreamin
Lena makes out
Photo by David McElwee
Introduction
We meet Lena.
Bob meets Alice.
Lena makes out
They danced until Yelena said she had to be up early tomorrow for a class.
He walked with her through the crowd outside the club, then along Lenin Avenue to the bus. He was in his twenties, laid-back, and didn't come on with any singles-bar bullshit. They had cooled off by the time they reached the bus-stop and he took her hand and gave her a peck on the cheek and said he hoped to see her again.
That was fine with Yelena. He said “Ciao”, and walked away.
They were born and raised in Tomsk, Siberia.
Tomsk's claim to fame was being a Soviet science city with 6 universities and 100,000 students. Both of their parents were professors at Tomsk Polytechnic University.
Yelena studied propulsion engineering. In her third year. Not sure she really liked the path her mother had laid down for her. But, she was a good daughter.
Sergei, who decided that he was too smart to join the university prison system, became a professional gamer.
A week later they decided to leave Siberia and move together to California.
Yelena liked him.
She liked his soft brown eyes that looked right at her. She liked his easy-going ways when he talked about making a killing as a professional gamer in America. He liked her sharp blue eyes and direct manner.
He was single, 2 years older than Yelena, he lived in a ground floor two-bedroom apartment - one of the bedrooms full of computer gear. Sergei said he was ready to move tomorrow to America, close to where the action was. They both had relatives in Brighton Beach. The plan was for their relatives to sponsor them. They would make some money and then move to California and become rich in the land of golden opportunities. Yelena was into it.
Brighton Beach
Five months later, they were in Brighton Beach in Sergei’s uncle’s house. The old wood house had a view of the beach and the ferris wheel in Coney Island. They didn’t need to speak English. Everyone spoke Russian. The stores and restaurants all had Russian signs.
This is where the American reality gives their American dreams a hard brush-off.
Without green cards, they could not work legally.
This was not generally a problem for the Russian emigrants in Brighton Beach. But their options were limited.
They worked as orderlies in an old-age home in Brooklyn and lived in a 1 room hovel in Brighton Beach. Yelena would buy 2 potatoes and a bone twice a week and make bone soup for the next 3 days.
They scraped money together. After 2 years of bone soup, they had enough money to buy gaming gear. Sergei started networking into the American professional gaming event circuit, and joined a team with with Russian friends.
San Jose
They bootstrapped their way out of Brighton Beach and moved to San Jose, California.
With Sergei’s gaming earnings, they had enough money to pay rent for a small apartment in a crappy neighborhood in San Jose. Yelena enrolled in San Jose State in computer science. Gaming events financed tuition.
Yelena said: “You won’t be able to be a gamer forever. You need to get a real job.”
He said, “OK, I’ll enroll at San Jose in electrical engineering”.
Four years later, they both graduated summa cum laude.
She asked, “Where will you work?”
“Apple”.
“What kind of work?”
“RF design”
She shook her head.
“How the fuck do you know they’ll hire you?”
“I just know. I saw they’re looking for RF engineers at jobs.apple.com.
He asked, “Where will you work?”
“Google”.
He shook his head.
“How the fuck do you know they’ll hire you?”
“I just know. I heard they’re looking for infrastructure engineers from Alex. His brother Yevgeniiy works in the infrastructure group. He’ll get me an interview. They’ll hire me like that.”
Mountain View
Bob was at his office at Google in the AI infrastructure engineering group in Mountain View. Yevgeniiy knocked on his door and walked in waving a CV. Literally waving it at Bob.
“Hey Bob - we have an opening for an entry level software engineer, don’t we?”
Bob said, “Yeah - what ya’ got, lemme see?” He takes a quick glance at the CV. Summa cum laude San Jose State. “I hear they have a good CompSci department. Interview her. If she gets past you, we’ll bring her in for an in-office interview loop.”
A week later.
Bob and Yael are sitting in a small conference room with Yelena. Yael is Israeli. Her dad is a professor of terror studies at Stanford. Yael works for POPS - People Operations.
They see a petite brunette with laser-blue eyes and an ice-calm manner, like an F-16 pilot.
Bob would recall later that the interview went really fast.
Yael - “Can you introduce yourself?”
“Sure. I’m Lena Kofer. I’m looking for a software engineering job.” Lena says her name with what sounds to Bob and Yael like a Yiddish pronunciation - “Lena Koifer”.
10’ later they were finished.
Yael escorts Lena out of the building and says that they would be in touch. She comes back to the conference room. Bob was waiting for her.
“What do you think?”
“Hire her now.” “Why?” “Did you see how bright she is? How calm? And those ice-blue eyes”.
“She’s the best we’ve seen in years. Make her an offer before AWS hires her”.
Lena comes home. Sergei is back from his interview at Apple.
They look at each other. “How did it go?”
Lena, “It was very short. There was an American manager, and an Israeli woman. They would be fools not to hire me”
Sergei, “Same here. The guys at Apple were really smart and the offices are amazing.”
A week later, they were official employees of Apple and Google.
Living the California dream after 2 years of bone soup and potatoes.
Bob and Alice
Bob is back in the gym doing circuit training.
Tuesdays with Alice.
Alice is working on a machine in front of him on the circuit.
They finish the circuit and take a break.
Alice is leaning back against a pillar in the gym, drinking from her water bottle.
The old USC sweatshirt and tennis shoes are her trademark.
Bob smiles and says “So Alice, do you have a last name?”.
She smiles back. “Of course. I’m Alice Fogelman”.
He smiles back. “How random is that? I’m Bob Fogelman”.
“Actually, Fogelman is not my maiden name. My maiden name is Stein.”
Bob looks at her and smiles.
She smiles back. “Actually, I’m divorced. I kept the name for my kids”.
They both smile at each other.
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I loved writing this. Thought it came out pretty good.