Page 87 of Ten Years and Then…
“I didn’t mean you guys,” Edward said. “I mean, not that you aren’t babes …”
Thankfully, Thomas stepped in again to defuse a potential problem. “Stop digging, Edward. You’re already six feet deep.”
That wasn’t why the Kristins—either of them—had been assigned to the team, had it? Daniel didn’t work too closely with them back in the office, but he’d been in meetings with both of them, and they were both really smart and always ready with an answer. If Mr. Kincaid only wanted them here to provide sex appeal to the booth—that wasn’t right.
Even if that was what his boss wanted, it wasn’t how things would be on the show floor. They’d be wearing the shirts Daniel had brought for them, and he’d made sure to get the right sizes. They wouldn’t be parading around in clothes two sizes too tight on his watch.
“Thanks, Thomas,” he said. “Let’s just get this straight. Every one of us is here because we’re good at our jobs, we know our products, and we’re hard workers. I don’t want to hear anybody suggest otherwise.” Daniel said it with a firmness he didn’t remotely feel, but maybe that didn’t matter—they heard him all the same.
On the walk back to the hotel, Thomas walked a few steps behind the rest of the team, and gestured for Daniel to join him. “You did a good job back there,” he whispered. “I don’t think Edward will do anything else stupid, but I’ll keep an eye on him.” Daniel nodded his thanks. “And one more thing. I know they gave you the company credit card. But I won’t tell the rest of them. Kincaid did the same thing for me first time I was Team Lead.”
Daniel had wondered why Thomas wasn’t the Team Lead this time, but now it made sense. It must be Mr. Kincaid’s way of slowly grooming young staff. Give them responsibility, but have an older, more experienced employee there to quietly support them.
When they got back to the hotel, while the team waited for the elevator to go up to their rooms, he whispered to Thomas, “Come back downstairs in fifteen minutes. I’ll buy you a drink in the hotel bar. With my own credit card.”
He was too focused on his teammate to notice the pretty dark-blonde woman chatting animatedly with the redheaded reporter from PC Magazine he’d seen escorted off the show floor by Security earlier in the afternoon.
Nora, around the same time
It was irrational to be annoyed at someone for eating neatly, but Nora couldn’t help it. It was really bothering her the way Annette had gone through a whole helping of ribs slathered with barbecue sauce and her mouth and hands were somehow completely clean.
It made her think of the beginning of Gone with the Wind, when Mammy tells Scarlett to eat before the big barbecue because young ladies weren’t supposed to eat in public. She wondered if Annette practiced how to eat perfectly, so she’d make the right impression at business lunches.
No, she was right. It was irrational. Annette was being perfectly pleasant. She’d asked a lot of questions about how Nora was doing at Livingston, how she’d gotten assigned to this conference and so forth, but that could have been normal conversation with someone you used to work with.
“How about you, Annette? How’s life at PC Magazine?”
“Great! It’s great. Like a dream.” Annette said it much too quickly, and too firmly. Like she knew it was a lie but hoped Nora wouldn’t notice.
Nora didn’t cooperate. She just raised her eyebrows and looked Annette in the eye, and it only took a few seconds for her former co-worker to give it up. “It’s not great. And it’s more like a nightmare than a dream.”
Nora wasn’t surprised, but she didn’t say that. “I’m sorry to hear it. I mean, I know we weren’t exactly best friends when you left Livingston, but I wished you the best.” That wasn’t true, but there was no need to rub salt in a paper cut. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here, and,”—she waved a hand towards the bottle of merlot on the table—“my advice sounds better after a second glass of wine.”
Annette told what Nora assumed was a sanitized version of her story. PC Magazine was much more fast-paced than Livingston, and everyone there was cutthroat; it was impossible to make any friends in the office. “This is my last chance,” she said. “I need to come back with something big, or I’m toast.”
Despite herself, Nora felt a twinge—more than a twinge—of sympathy. Maybe Annette had just been afraid during her three months at Livingston. Maybe she didn’t trust her own talents, or that her co-workers would be willing to help her.
She took a deep breath. She wasn’t at all sure this was the right approach, but how many people had taken chances on her? “Check in with me tomorrow, and if I see anything that might help you, I’ll let you know.” She gave Annette her pager number. “I should be on the show floor around lunchtime, but if you don’t see me, page me.”
“That’s really—that’s going above and beyond, Nora. I wasn’t sure you’d even have dinner with me.” She chuckled. “I didn’t even tell you the worst thing today. After I missed the Windows NT demo, I snuck into the show floor, just to see—I don’t even know what I expected to find. The only thing I did see before I got thrown out was this poor guy with Quantum Networking Systems. You know, the fiber optic people?” Nora nodded. She knew who they were; they were on her list of companies to check out tomorrow. “There was only one guy working, putting the whole booth together by himself. Skinny guy, dark hair, kind of cute, just working like a dog.”
Nora’s jaw dropped. Daniel hadn’t ever mentioned the name of the company that had hired him, only that they were in Chicago. Which was where QNS was based. And skinny, dark hair and cute was a fair description of him.
No. She shook her head violently. She had to clear these insane thoughts away. It wasn’t him. Obviously it wasn’t. How could Daniel be here? Coincidences like that only happened in movies, not in real life.
“Nora?” Annette was looking at her with something very much like concern.
“Sorry. I was just remembering something. It’s not important.” She finished her glass of wine in one swallow. “I’ll check them out tomorrow. I haven’t had a date in forever—I’ve almost forgotten what a cute guy looks like.”
She had forgotten nothing. Every detail about him was burned into her memory forever.
Chapter 27
First day of the conference—Kansas City, MO
Daniel, July 16
“I shouldn’t have had that second drink downstairs,” Daniel muttered to himself, staring at a bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror.
