Tropical Storm - DK1

by Melissa Good

  Kerry cocked her head. “It’s a bulletin board. I thought it was for posting things for sale, company notices, that kind of thing.”

  “No, no.” The woman looked frustrated. “It’s this…we’ve got all our social stuff on there, and Mary puts out these little poems, they really make everyone’s day. It’s like a community. We’re helpless without it. No one knows what’s going on!”

  Kerry folded her hands together. “Helen, what exactly is it you want me to do?”

  “Can’t it get fixed faster?”

  “It’s a server drive array. They have to custom-order it from Hewlett Packard, and it has to be configured. They’re doing it as fast as they can, believe me,” Kerry explained. “That’s not the only thing affected. Printing and faxing services are down, too.” The server crash had been an unexpected, yet welcome emergency, putting off Mark’s questionable questions until some undefined later time.

  Unfortunately, the workers had complained more about the downed bulletin board than if the mail servers had crashed. “We’re still trying to find out why it went down,” Kerry said. “That was a very strange failure.” She got an immediate guilty look from the woman, who stood hastily.

  “Well, I hope they hurry. I have a lot of things on there that I need.” She gave Kerry a distinctly unfriendly glare. “I’m sure Ms. Roberts would have resolved it already.” She walked out, leaving a bemused-looking Kerry, who shook her head in mild disbelief.

  “No, she would have told you to get your gardenia-smelling butt out of her office,” she informed the closed door wryly. Then she sighed and glanced 298 Melissa Good at the clock. “Speaking of which, where in the hell is she?”

  It was close to noon, and there was no sign of her boss. Kerry had set up a monitor that checked periodically for Dar’s login, and so far, the executive had been conspicuous by her absence. Kerry drummed her fingers on the desk, then picked up the phone and dialed. “Hi, Maria.”

  “Hello, Kerrisita.”

  “Any word from the boss?” Kerry tried to keep the concern out of her voice and make it only sound vaguely interested. “I have some documents I need to go over with her.”

  Maria sighed. “No, honey. You and everyone else in the world is looking for her…and nothing. I tried her cell phone, the pager, nothing. I hope she is all right.”

  Kerry felt a deep worry grab her guts. “Yeah, me too. That’s not like her,”

  she murmured, as if she were an expert after all of less than a month.

  “Si, ay. Wait, I hear her voice coming this way.” Maria sounded relieved.

  “Okay, great. Thanks, Maria.” Kerry hung up with a mixed sensation of relief and anticipation. “No running down the hallway, Kerrison. Let her sit down first.” She decided to get herself a cup of tea instead, so she opened her drawer and took out a blackberry teabag, then grabbed her cup and headed for the door.

  The kitchen was relatively quiet, and she smiled at the two other women inside as she put some Equal into her cup, then added boiling water from the dispenser over the teabag.

  “Hey, Kerry.” One of the women sitting at a small table looked up. “I hear you signed up for the gym. You going tonight?”

  The blonde woman nodded. “Yep. I sure did. I’m really looking forward to it. I put my name down for some light aerobics and that self defense class.”

  She casually walked over, dipping her teabag in and leaning against the wall.

  “Are you going?” The woman’s name, she recalled, was Candy, a uniquely inappropriate tag for the usually snippy administrative assistant.

  Candy leaned back with a sigh and nodded. “Yeah.” She patted her thighs and made a face. “I thought I could get away with just some treadmill plodding at home, but I don’t do it enough, and it’s showing. I put on ten pounds in the last two months, and it’s either go to the goddamn gym or spring for new clothes.” She glanced at Kerry. “Self defense, huh? That’s pretty funny, coming from Dar Roberts’ assistant. And what the hell happened to your head?”

  Kerry sighed. “Close encounter with a parked truck while I was Rollerblading last night,” she explained. “Yet another reason to pick the gym instead. Fewer obstacles,” she added wryly. “And it’s air conditioned, has a sauna…”

  “Oh yeah, and nice looking bodies running around,” Candy added with a smirk. “My boyfriend refuses to go in there. Says his gut makes him embarrassed.” The other woman, someone from Marketing, Kerry remembered, snickered.

  “Well, that’s self-defeating,” Kerry protested. “If he’d go in there for a while, he wouldn’t have to worry about it.” She disposed of her bag and took a sip of the sweetened tea. “But I know how he feels. I’ve put on a few pounds Tropical Storm 299

  myself since I started working here—all those daily specials downstairs,” she commented casually.

  Candy snorted. “Kerry, you’d have to double yourself before anyone would notice, let me tell you. But, um…” She glanced around, then up at the blonde woman. “I hear through the grapevine your boss is joining the gym gang. True?”

  Kerry hesitated, then picked her words carefully. “As a matter of fact, I think I heard her saying that the other day. So yeah, I guess she is. Why?”

  “Interesting, that’s all. First she participates in Global Day, now this. She trying to change her image or something?” Candy asked slyly.

  Sensing dangerous waters, Kerry merely shrugged. “She said it was her turn to do Global. And as for this, who knows? I sure don’t. She said she wanted to use some climbing thing or other that they have. Maybe that’s it.”

  “Maybe,” Candy purred. “Guess we’ll find out tonight, eh? C’mon, Drucie, break time’s over, let’s go feed the press.” She glanced at Kerry. “See ya.” They got up and sauntered out.

  “See ya,” Kerry mouthed after her, making a face. She sighed and sipped her tea, then slipped back out of the kitchen and down the hall, opening the door to her office and stepping inside. She was several paces into the room before she realized there was something sitting on her desk. She stopped, one hand raised with the cup in it and the other at her side, and just looked.

  Squarely in the center of her desk rested a small, crystal vase containing one single crimson rose. Kerry let out a tiny gasp and moved closer, putting the cup down and circling the furniture, sitting down in her chair and resting both arms on either side of the vase.

  The flower was beautiful, large and full with thick petals that gave off a wonderful scent, and the vase was slim, and faceted, and glittered in the light coming in the window. “Oh my god, that’s gorgeous.” Kerry breathed, touching the flower with a lightly shaking finger. “Did you do this, Dar?” she whispered.

  The unexpected romantic gesture touched her deeply, and she sighed, resting her chin on her fists and letting a smile appear as she absorbed the delicate scent. Flowers had never been a particular focus of hers, but who in their right mind could resist a beautiful rose half the size of your head? In a crystal vase? Kerry reached out and touched one of the petals, feeling it soft as silk against her skin.

  Finally she sat up and gently put the vase at the front of her desk, centered neatly, before she stood and ran her hands through her hair. “I think I need to go say thank you,” she told her computer screen, just before ducking out the back door and down the utility hallway.

  “SO WHAT, EXACTLY, is the problem?” Dar leaned her chin on her fist and regarded Mark with a tolerant eye. “I thought you ordered a new RAID

  array.”

  “I did.” Mark sighed, rubbing his eyes. “But HP said they can’t get a duplicate unit. If we want to replace it, we’ve got to go bigger.”

  “Okay. So do it.”

  300 Melissa Good Brown eyes blinked at her. “What?”

  “What part of that didn’t you understand?” Dar shot back. “I’m up to my ears in whining secretaries who can’t get to their love poems, Mark. Get the goddamn array in here before I start taking pot-shots at them with a pellet gun.�
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  “Dar, we’re talking big bucks, here,” Mark protested. “It’s not a critical server.”

  “Maria tells me Kerry spent at least half the morning listening to people tell her just how critical the damn thing is, and I’m not going to waste her valuable time in dealing with it!” Dar roared. “Get the damn thing in here. I don’t care what it costs!”

  “Jesus!” Mark jumped out of his chair and backed off. “All right, all right.

  But when that bill comes in, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

  “Just do it,” Dar ordered. “And by the way, how in the hell did the damn thing crash anyway?”

  Mark paused in the doorway and pursed his lips, glancing around.

  “Um…they ran a… Well, it’s a streaming multimedia clip that got out of hand.” He cleared his throat. “It chewed up all the resources, then corrupted the allocation table. When the server went to shut down, it blew the drive controller card.”

  Dar sat there, her hands resting on her desk. “You’re not telling me something one of these technogorps did crashed an array.”

  He nodded. “Um…it was a streaming clip of Leonardo DiCaprio dancing nude.” Then he was gone, leaving Dar to stare at the door in disbelief.

  The phone rang. Dar punched the button. “Yeah?”

  “Afternoon, Dar!” Alastair’s cheerful voice filled the room. “Where the hell have you been?”

  Dar eyed the phone. “In Miami. Why?”

  “Lady, I’ve been calling you since last night,” her boss said. “Had half the company after my shorts for the payroll. Didn’tcha know?”

  Dar blinked. “What?”

  “Jesus Christ, Dar!” The voice took on a hint of frustration. “What in hell’s going on down there?”

  Dar had to admit she was dumbfounded.

  “Tell you what, good thing you picked that new little assistant of yours,”

  Alastair added. “ She took care of it, but good lord, lady! You had us in a hell of a twist.”

  Dar pulled out her cell phone and stared at it, looking at the blank display with an almost comical expression. “Sorry, Alastair,” she managed to cough out. “My cell’s on the blink.” She pressed the power button and watched the device light up. “Just got it back.”

  “Was it?” her boss queried. “Well, that’s a damned thing.”

  “Yeah.” Dar watched the message waiting light start up and flash frantically. “Glad Kerry was here and took care of it.”

  Alastair grunted. “Seems like a nice enough kid,” he allowed. “Glad to find out it was just a phone screw-up, Dar. You had me a little worried there,”

  he said. “Not answering the line all that time.”

  Jesus. “Yeah, well, sorry about that, Alastair,” Dar said with a sigh. “I was Tropical Storm 301

  at an appointment this morning, just got to the office. I’ll have to get a backup phone or something, I guess.” She folded the cell up and put it on her desk, shaken inside and out from the lapse.

  Apparently satisfied with the apology, the CEO changed the subject, “Did you get my present?”

  Dar glanced around at her desk and spotted a small comail envelope. She pulled it over and opened it, peering inside. “It’s a lovely thought, Alastair, but you know I don’t have time to go on a damn cruise.” She sighed. “I hardly have time to go swimming in my own damn backyard at night.”

  “Dar, I’m ordering it,” the CEO objected.

  She frowned, fingering the tickets. “Tell you what, I’ll trade it in for a long weekend down in the Keys.” She paused. “For two.” A quirky grin tugged her face. “How about it?”

  “For two?” Alastair’s voice oozed with curiosity. “Dar, I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

  A soft chuckle. “Did I say that, Alastair? I just said I wanted a weekend for two. Maybe I just want some company.”

  “Ho ho ho…. Wonder who you’ll take.” Alastair chortled. “All right, you’re on. I’ll tell Beatrice. You just let her know what you want.” A muffled voice could be heard in the background. “Whoops, gotta go, Dar. Talk to you later.”

  Dar regarded her desktop and smiled, turning the tickets over in her hands, then glanced up as the inner door opened, and Kerry peeked in.

  She didn’t deny the jolt of emotion this time, she just accepted it, watching as Kerry pushed the door open and walked across the carpet, enjoying the blonde woman’s intriguing walk. “Hi.”

  Kerry knelt down at her side and balanced with a hand on her knee. “Hi.”

  Her voice was slightly husky. “Was that surprise from you?”

  No excuses. No explanations. Dar nodded. “Uh huh.”

  A delicate blush colored Kerry’s face. “I’ve never gotten anything like that before. It’s amazing.” She exhaled. “Thank you so much.”

  Dar gazed at her, reaching out and moving a bit of blonde hair out of her face. “You’ve never gotten flowers, Kerry? I find that very hard to believe.”

  A hesitant shake of her head. “No, it…” She paused to collect herself.

  “No, I never did.” Aware of their intimate position, her eyes flicked across to the door. “I was kind of concerned. You didn’t think the appointment would take very long. Maria was worried, too.”

  “Ah.” Dar gracefully accepted the change of subject. “I had a few things to take care of, and I left the pager and the cell phone in the car. I should have called in.” She cleared her throat. “Hell, I should have put the damn phone on.

  I hear we had a screwup.”

  Kerry made a face. “Let’s say you were really conspicuous by your absence,” she demurred. “It wasn’t too bad. They knew what do to but they were too chicken to do it without your say-so.”

  Dar snorted. “I didn’t even realize my damn phone was off. Alastair was trying to call me.” She pushed the phone across the desk. “I just had other things on my mind.” She leaned back and let her head rest against the leather.

  “Everything was fine at the doc’s.”

  302 Melissa Good

  “Great.” Kerry smiled. “What was on your mind, then?”

  “You.”

  They looked at each other in silence. Kerry glanced out the window after a long moment, her cheeks coloring. “Ah. Well. Likewise.” She looked shyly back at Dar. “Wish I’d gotten you a rose. All I have to offer is a kiss.” She held up a wrapped item.

  She looked up at the blonde woman, one hand idly resting on Kerry’s leg.

  Dar smiled. “You had lunch?”

  Kerry shook her head. “No, I’ve been too busy listening to everyone complain about that stupid server and ask tactless questions about where you were.”

  “C’mon.” Dar stood and offered her hand up. “I hear a cheeseburger calling my name.” She hauled Kerry up and unexpectedly gave her a brief hug. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-four

  THE GYM WAS a typical one, smelling of chlorine from the pool, oil from the several groups of weightlifting machines, and the overwhelming scent of macho that seemed to settle over everything like a coating of grease.

  Dar finished a round of the Nautilus machines, wiping the sweat off her face and ignoring the sidewise stares from fellow employees who seemed to be caught between amazement and disbelief at her presence. Her mind wasn’t really into it, she acknowledged, so she kept it fairly light and easy, letting her thoughts wander as she went through the various motions. It had taken her a few hours, that morning, of wandering down the beach and letting the wavelets wash against her bare feet, before she settled down and tried to figure out what to do.

  First and foremost, she had to figure out how Kerry felt about her.

  Coming out and professing a love for the blonde woman if she didn’t share it would be embarrassing at best, and irreparably destructive at worst. So how to do that? Dar had decided on a subtle campaign of attentions, of which the rose had been a part, to see if she could get an indication of what was going on behind t
hose green eyes. She knew Kerry liked her, but more than that?

  Dar sighed, resting her chin on the crossbar of the pull-down machine she was using. She felt a little nervous and a little uncertain, but twice now, twice, when the blonde woman didn’t think she was looking, she’d caught Kerry watching her with a gentle, emotional look that made her hopes emerge timidly, wondering if this time…

  If she were honest with herself, she would admit that it was mostly fear that made her cautious, fear of exposing her most sensitive vulnerabilities to someone she’d known for less than a month. Sad prudence dictated caution, demanded she wait to see if Kerry’s obvious affection for her was something more or merely the superficial involvement of her tentatively emerging sexuality.

  But…she’d liked the rose. Even Dar realized that.

  The self-defense class was meeting in the large open area just in front of the circuit machines, a group of a dozen or so people—ranging from two young boys to an older woman with a grizzled, pugnacious jaw. The instructor was a large bearded man, self-importantly hitching up his black-belted gi and proclaiming to his audience in tones that were grating on Dar’s nerves.

  Kerry was seated near one end of the semi-circle, her elbows resting on her crossed legs, her head cocked in intent attention. Dar could see the faint 304 Melissa Good tension at her brow as she listened, and she suspected the blonde woman was finding some problem with whatever it was she was being told.

  “Well, well. What have we got here?”

  Dar almost jumped at the loud, pseudo-friendly voice. She turned her head and gazed at José.

  “Nice headband,” she commented dryly, noting the South Park characters on it. “Funny, but I always think of Cartman when I see you.”

  José stared at her, then touched his head. “Mierda. My kids got me this. I don’t watch that crap.”

  That struck Dar as funny, and she lifted a hand, rubbing her jaw to disguise a grin. “They’ve got good taste,” she replied, eyeing his outfit. They must be adopted, her mind continued . José was dressed in tight purple bike shorts and a lurid, orange T-shirt that clashed so badly it made Dar’s eyes hurt to look at it.