“Lexie, why you are waiting out there? Come in,” called Maria – that is, Mommy – from the room of the women. “These two desks are free, choose yours.”

Usually I would take any one, but after yesterday the idea to sit behind Grace didn’t appeal to me. I went to the one behind Vinnie. The desk turned out rather old-fashioned, no VR or AR installed, not even 3D glasses – just a depth emulating screen. However, the speed indicator showed it was surprisingly fast. I remembered well the lessons on working with old-ish technologies, I thought with pride.

“Okay.” Mommy tapped several times on her desk, and a group of green data files, accompanied by a yellow description file and a white tasklist appeared on mine. “We have here some genetics data about newborns for the twenty regions of Italy.” She came to me and pointed to the files. “Here is the list of the analyses you have to do.” She opened the tasklist and moved it at the front of the upper left of the desk vertical screen, “Can you manage?”

I read the list carefully.

“A two-way regression, a clustering, a correlation and an ANOVA to compare one to another, some result sorting, a control run… Yes, I can do these.”

“Great! I guess you have used StatWhiz in the university, it is this tool here. If you need anything, call me… Hi, Grace!”

“Hi.” Grace was about fifteen minutes late, and apparently not in a good mood. I could almost feel her eyes burning holes into me. What the hell did she want?!… Okay, let’s do the job.

Processing twenty regions in the same way called for a script instead of dialog work. I knew from the university that the dialog interface of StatWhiz was second to none on depth 3Ds, but its scripting system wasn’t so good. PSPP had almost no dialog interface, but its scripting was great, and my grade in it was excellent. Was it installed here?… Yes! I quickly created a new script and started typing.

In about three hours the script appeared ready. At running however, it spat a dozen of errors. Obviously I had forgotten the language a bit. Started fixing them one by one, using the data for Abruzzo as test input.

“Lexie, where you are? Did you manage one region already?” the voice of Mommy interrupted me. It took me a second to remember who Lexie was.

“Not yet.” I had one last bug to fix, near the very end.

“Umm… Will you be able to finish twenty in four days? May I help you?” She rose up and came to me. “Let me… Huh? Where did you get that script?”

“Wrote it. Almost finishing.”

“You wrote a script?!”

Suddenly there was a complete silence in the room. All heads were turned towards me.

“Ummm… These desks are productive. If we leave the script running overnight, it will probably finish the twenty regions by the end of the working day tomorrow, if not even earlier. It will be faster than processing through dialogs… Did I do something wrong?…”

They continued staring at me without a word. It suddenly dawned on me – and confused me further.

“Should it be a big deal? I had an exam on writing scripts in the university… Didn’t you?!”

The silence became even deeper. After several seconds, Mommy sighed.

“I was in the university almost thirty years ago. We didn’t study statistical scripting then. I have learned bits of it, but can customize written scripts at most. The Boss is God Himself at writing them. He usually would write one for every new protocol and leave it with the data, but probably hadn’t managed for this one. And it is urgent…”

She was obviously uncomfortable. I had to change the topic, but what to? What women would chat about?… I turned towards Lu.

“Umm, Lu… I… I mean, you…”

“I haven’t even studied statistics, sweetie,” she smiled sadly, interpreting my hesitation as a question. “A registered nurse, that’s what I am. The Boss hired me to evaluate the medical data, that is what we mostly process and I have a good eye for it, still do it. But then there were more orders for other data types, and I learned to do most statistical processing, too. Have always been a quick study…”

I didn’t know what to do. Turned to the desk screen, only to meet the eyes of Vinnie above it. She blinked quickly and slightly blushed:

“I-I-I’m an English m-major. Came to t-translate requirements and reports, but had to also learn the processing. The men all know E-English well…” Her voice trailed off and she turned towards Grace, probably hoping to pass the attention to someone else. Grace looked to the floor for a couple of seconds, then spat:

“I was dumb enough to marry instead of studying.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. The data processing team of the greatest statistician alive includes no statistician with modern knowledge?! Only one out of four is statistician at all?!… He appeared quite able to evaluate the applicants!… What the hell happened here?!

As if the damned bodysuit was not enough…

The clumsy silence was interrupted by Lu:

“Come on, girls. We do our job well, right? And with Lexie’s help now will be just perfect… I wonder what the men gossip about, eh? Wanna listen?”

Mommy quickly nodded, obviously relieved. Vinnie joined her, followed by Grace.

Lu got up, went to the door and locked it. Then opened the top drawer of her desk and took out a medical stethoscope. Spat out a piece of chewing gum in her palm and plugged one of the stethoscope earplugs with part of it. Glued with the rest the other earplug to the microphone of her desk, turned the sound on, dialed the volume to max and put the head of the stethoscope against the wall next to her. To my surprise, the voices of the men in the next room could be heard well:

“You can’t imagine how lucky you are,” the voice of Nicola said. “I’ve known him for thirty years already, and have never seen him so angry. Can’t believe that he didn’t fire you.”

A sign was clearly heard.

“Frankly, I deserved to be fired.” That was the voice of Filippo. “For being stupid enough to listen to Tony, to start with.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that you don’t have a sense of humor! How could I know that you would actually go and try it! Don’t blame your stupidity on me!”

“Okay, calm down, both of you!” said Nicola. “A beauty like her can rattle the reasoning of every man. Heck, I wonder why she went into statistics than into modeling. She would be rolling in money now.”

“More likely in the bed of some politician or mafiosi,” Filippo noted. “A good reason to go into statistics instead.”

“You’d like her in your own bed, right?… Hey, I’m just joking!” Tony suddenly sounded scared. Don’t know about Filippo, but the blood was rushing into my head. It might be a good idea to find this jerk during the weekend and kick his ass… Then remembered what I said to the image in the mirror when I saw it for a first time, and suddenly wanted to sink in the ground. Was I the same kind of scum?!

“Sweetie, that is just how men talk when no women are around, no need to be embarrassed,” Lu whispered towards me. “I see you are embarrassed by it, but don’t worry. Your mom surely warned you about it.”

“She died when I was born,” I sighed, still trying to absorb the revelation I had stumbled upon.

“Oh, dear! My sincerest condolences!… And you I guess that don’t have a bigger sister, or an aunt?”

I snapped out of the thoughts. That was a great idea for explaining why I know so little about all things female!

“No, just a father… A mountain climber and rescuer. I grew with him and the rescue team, in the mountain and homeschooled… There were no women around…” I hated myself for lying, but…

“So that is why you are such a tomboy? Was yesterday the first time you donned a skirt?” The laughter of all of them told me that this is a joke just a moment before I would confirm it. Again, risked to unmask myself!…

And I still felt a ton of embarrassment when thinking about wearing a skirt. To hide it, I focused on the script. The last bug was quickly fixed and I started the script over the group of raw data files. Meanwhile, Nicola Petruccio finally managed to hush the argument between the men by suggesting going to a lunch. Lu sighed and disassembled the makeshift eavesdropping device:

“Time for lunch for us too, girls! Lexie, there is a nice and cheap eating place down the street. And I believe you owe something to the tradition.”

I was about to ask what tradition when it dawned on me.

“Of course!”

The place turned out to be a mix between bistro and restaurant. Finally having some money, I ordered for myself a mountaineer-sized three-course meal. The women – I almost thought “the other women” – exchanged puzzled glances. That changed to kind-hearted smiles when it turned out that the damned suit constricts my belly so badly that I was barely able to eat the appetizer and the soup. Only then I guessed that they had ordered just a soup and a salad each not only to be easy on a bill I had to pay. And that most women didn’t eat too much not only because of diets. Their narrow waists apparently just didn’t have much room inside… I tried to concoct an excuse that I am taking the rest for dinner, but that only widened the smiles around.

There is only one thing I hate more than lying – lying and being caught…

When we returned, the desk had already processed the data for Abruzzo. For a couple of hours, I carefully investigated the output. Everything appeared done properly.

“May I take a peek, too?” asked Mommy. I sent the results file to her desk and excused myself to the restroom. Luckily, it was only one – I didn’t risk entering the wrong one by mistake.

Behind the toilet bowl, there was a plastic curtain. My curiosity took over and I carefully pulled it aside. Nothing special, just several shelves, stocked with toilet paper, cleaning supplies and similar stuff… Suddenly something attracted my attention.

There was an empty plastic bottle from disinfectant on the floor there. Five-liters, conical, with a small opening on the top… A crazy idea came to my mind. I grabbed it, pressed its flat bottom against the wall on the left, and put my ear at the opening… Yes! I could distinguish the voices of the women.

“— surely hasn’t been eating properly for some time,” said Lu. “Ordered enough to feed a strong man.”

“M-maybe she is used to eating with mountain rescuers,” Vinnie replied. “With that job, they probably eat like you can’t imagine.”

“My ex also ate like a boar, but was good for nothing.” That was the voice of Grace.

“Men have some point about her,” interjected Mommy. “I too wonder why she didn’t get into modeling or the like.”

“What use does a fashion agency has for a girl that won’t sleep with the patrons? And if a patron forces her into some fun, he is a walking corpse? All the mountain rescuers around will unite to revenge for their daughter, and they are tougher than even the mafiosi.” I could clearly hear the bitterness in the voice of Grace.

“Tougher than experienced killers? Not everyone can become one of these.”

“In such things, not being afraid to die matters more than not being afraid to kill,” Grace replied. “The mountain rescuers risk their lives every day, for people they don’t even know. Do you think that you can just go up and join them, like the kids who join the mafia do? No way. People like them are really rare.”

Suddenly her words startled me. Was I really able to go and save unknown people every day? It was easy to help Filippo Mastroianni when I risked just some money. What if I risked my life, like the rescuers I knew? They had never let me go in dangerous missions, because I was underage…

“… and she appears really good at statistics,” Lu was saying. “Looks like she can do all our work alone. Hope The Boss won’t ditch us.”

“Don’t worry. Fabricia told me that we get more and more orders, and he not only writes the scripts, but for the last few months also processes a lot of the data, working from home even more than here… I am more worried that she might try to hit on the men. Or even just signal availability – they will fight over her like dogs over a bone.” That was Mommy.

Why all women think of such things first?! Can’t a guy… well, a girl just be a worker?!

I returned to the working room and tried to optimize the script, and to observe the women without being noticed. Grace was typing with impressive speed, completely concentrated on the screen. Lu and Vinnie worked a bit slower, but also didn’t waste the time. Mommy continued checking my results. About quarter to six Grace grabbed her bag, mumbled a goodbye and almost ran out. The others just nodded.

When the clock above the door chimed, Mommy turned to me and smiled:

“Looks like your script does a good work. All data analyses are there, the main and the control results match very well. Excellent!”

“Thank you, Ms. Rodolfo.”

“Um… Call me Mommy like everybody else. That ‘Ms. Rodolfo’ makes me feel old.” She smiled again.

“I will!” I hurried to reassure her. The last thing I needed was my direct bosswoman to hate me because of feeling old around me.

We exited the room and the other women – well, the women – went to change. While wondering whether to wait for them or to go, I suddenly heard the voice of Filippo Mastroianni behind me:

“Miss Manzoni, would you permit me to say something?”

I turned to him. He was standing at a respectful distance, with a very serious and somewhat tense expression. Except for us two, there was nobody else in the corridor.

“Of course.”

“I want to most sincerely apologize for what happened yesterday. I don’t understand how I could be so abusive. I’ve always have been much better than that… There is absolutely no excuse for what I did, and I will never repeat it.”

He was apologizing to me for what was my fault at least as much as his…

“Don’t worry, Mr. Mastroianni. I am sure that you are much better… If I hadn’t stepped back, nothing inappropriate would happen, so the guilt is mine too—”

“That is not true! Miss Manzoni, the fault is entirely and completely mine, and I must and will carry all the responsibility for it. Please don’t let your heart of gold make you take that burden. You already did for me yesterday so much more than I deserved. I will never forget it.”

This man was naive, but so sincere. Actually, I only returned yesterday some of my debt to him. It was his heart that was of gold, I was just an impostor next to him…

“Well, umm… Mr. Mastroianni… Filippo, could we just forget that? It never happened, you never did anything inappropriate… I am sure that you will never again do such a thing, I see that you are much better. Well, when you don’t leave Tony to goad you into stupid things.” I felt myself smiling, and the tension disappeared from the face of Filippo’s like wiped out. “Please don’t worry. You will always have my support.”

He blinked several times, obviously not expecting such an answer.

“Miss Manzoni, you are an incredibly rare girl.”

“Statistically speaking?” I smiled. He did too:

“It is a privilege to work alongside you.”

A slight noise behind my back told me that the other people had come out of the changing rooms and watched us.

“It’s a privilege for me to work with everyone here, Filippo. Including you.”

He blinked again. Then dropped on one knee, much like a movie Victorian gentleman.

“Miss Manzoni… thank you!”

I felt even more guilty. How to make him a bit more comfortable? He deserved much better than that.

“Ummmm… Call me Lexie, please.”