by Susan Wolfe
He brushed his hand over the top of his inch-high red hair. “It probably is, though I don’t know how different that is from most companies. Boards are in a strange position. They pretty much only know what the people who run the company choose to tell them.”
Georgia tucked her hair behind one ear and tried to make her next question sound casual. “And what about the rest of us? If we know how to fix some little thing, should we just go ahead and fix it?”
“Absolutely. If each of us took that initiative, we’d be a very successful company. Why? You have something in mind?”
She shook her head. “No. Just curious. This helps a lot.” It really did.
“You’re curious about a lot of things, Georgia, and that’s good for the company. Next time we’re in a meeting and you have a question, feel free to shoot me a text message. Maybe I can help.”
“But won’t that distract you?”
He shook his head. “I won’t let it. I might not always see your message right away, but there’s some real dead space in those meetings, and I’d prefer to use it for something worthwhile.”
“Great, I’ll try it. Thanks.” She pointed at the photos on his desk. “Are those all your children?” One photo seemed to be of Ken’s family: a dark-haired wife with a son and daughter who looked about nine and eleven. The second photo was of Ken and two girls, slightly older.
“All mine,” he confirmed, glancing at the photos, “but my two older girls have grown up. Kristy’s twenty-four, and Jenny’s twenty-five.”
“Wow. You must have been young when you had them.”
“Nineteen with Jenny, and Kristy when I was twenty. Miracle they turned out okay. They stayed with their mother when we split up, and I ended up having to call them every night to make sure they were doing their homework and brushing their teeth.”
“You called them every night?”
He nodded. “Every Sunday through Thursday evening, if I possibly could. Occasionally I’d be on a plane or something, and then I’d ask my older girl to make sure the younger one did her homework. For a while I had to call in the morning, too, just to get ’em out of bed.”
“Sounds pretty hard.”
“Not as hard as it was for them, and I owed them all the help I could give. Tiffany wasn’t very organized, and I still feel guilty about leaving her and the girls. Catholic upbringing stays with you, even when you don’t believe the religion anymore.”
“If you’re so Catholic, I’m surprised you could leave at all.”
“I really couldn’t stay. We were both eighteen when she got pregnant with Jenny, so of course we got married. I was working two jobs, one in construction, and I also had to finish college. I wasn’t around much, and she got involved with someone else. You know, Tiffany’s a good person, but she really isn’t very practical. I’m not proud of this, but after all these years she still sort of irritates me.”
Georgia’s laugh seemed to surprise him. “You think that’s not very surprising,” he interpreted.
“I think there might be divorces where feelings run even stronger.”
“Well, but she’s the girls’ mother, and I always wanted to like her for their sake.” They heard a knock. “Here’s Zack now.”
Zack Sern didn’t look one bit like she’d imagined him on the phone, which shouldn’t have been a surprise but somehow always was. He had a blond buzz cut that made his head look triangular and exposed the jowls on either side of his big, disarming smile. He wore chinos and a shirt with narrow green stripes. Relaxed, friendly, approachable, ten years younger than Ken, but with a few more donuts and a lot less exercise.
Well. So much for lean shoulders. Good. Who needed the distraction?
“Hey, Georgia,” Zack said as they stood in the hall, waiting for Ken to speak to Maggie. “Welcome to Mission Impossible.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to get Archibald Moss to say something sensible about getting our patent issued.”
“Ah.” Interesting. Sarcasm seemed slightly at odds with that friendly, open smile. Ken rejoined them and they set off for the other building. “So what is Mr. Moss’s job exactly?”
“He’s the lawyer in charge of developing our patent portfolio,” Zack’s rich voice ricocheted in the narrow stairwell as she followed him down the cement steps. “He talks to our software engineers about the ideas they’re developing, and then gets their help on the patent applications.”
“So, he’s in our department?”
“No,” Ken replied from behind her. “He’s the only lawyer in the company who’s not in the legal department. Technically he reports to Andrea, but it was Paul Holder—you met him, Georgia, that tall, thin board member who got Archie hired—so Archie thinks he reports to the board. He therefore deems his cooperation with us completely voluntary, and I guess in a way it is.” The thick carpet of grass glistened in the sun as they crossed the patio, and the fountain gave off a cooling mist. “He’s a good person, but he occasionally has some challenges with the practical side of things.”
As he held the door for her to enter the engineering building, he lowered his voice. “I’m sure you know there’s a law against smoking in public buildings here in California, but Archie is considered uniquely valuable because of his ability to get along with our engineers. So he gets certain privileges, and one of those, I’m afraid, is that he routinely smokes cigars.”
“Cigars,” Georgia repeated. Cigars made her throat close.
“Just in his own office, of course. But just a warning, it can get a little close in there. Here he is now. Hi, Archie.”
Archibald Moss was short and squat, not fat exactly, but with a round belly sticking out in front of him, across which he had fastened a big, shiny buckle to hold up his pants. His corn-colored hair looked like a broom he had lopped off across the top so that short bristles stuck straight up above a cheerful face with thick red lips and a wide nose. One pointy felt hat, thought Georgia, and presto! Instant Gnome.
He closed his door after they entered, revealing a folded rollaway bed with My Little Pony sheets.
“Nice rollaway, Arch,” Ken said companionably. “Comfortable?”
“Very comfortable. One of the engineer’s wives lent it to me until I could get my own bed, and I haven’t gotten it back to her yet.”
“So you still cling to your bachelor ways.”
“Just haven’t met the woman who could make me want to give them up. Have a seat.”
No cigar in sight, but an acrid smell burned her nasal passages.
“What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“Archibald, this is Georgia Griffin, who joined the company a couple of weeks ago.”
“Right. So what can I do for you gentlemen?” Gentlemen. Nice to know she was invisible, introduction notwithstanding.
“We’ve come to see you about the ’401 application,” Ken explained.
“I’m very familiar with it. What would you like to know?”
“We’d like to know how we can speed things up so we have it in time for the SAP case.”
Archie shrugged cheerfully. “You can’t. This seems to be a common misperception, and I’m very happy to explain it yet again. When we file a patent application, what we control is how quickly we respond to inquiries. They control everything else. Simple as that.”
“Is there any way to track the progress through the different stages?”
“Sure, for all the good it’ll do you. Let me show you their website.” They joined him behind his desk, where he clicked the mouse a few times. “Here, this is us.”
Georgia studied the computer screen. “So our patent’s been on that desk for 104 days?”
“Correct.”
“Is that typical? None of the other applications seem to have been there for more than 60.”
“So ours will probably get done first,” he said breezily.
“For something this important,” Zack said, “do you ever call up a human
being at the PTO to find out what the hang-up is?”
“Completely pointless. The whole purpose of this database is to stop people from bugging them with useless questions. We’re all grown men here.” Except for little invisible me, Georgia thought sourly. “For months now I’ve assured Paul almost every day that this is a routine process with everything on track. I feel like I’ve become the patent shrink around here, but hey, whatever helps.”
“What I’d like to do,” Ken said, “is call one of the D.C. patent firms who deal with the PTO day in and day out, just to see if they have any suggestions for us.”
“Be my guest. Never hurts to hear the same answer twice. Just don’t use my name to pester the patent office.”
“No, of course not. And once we get someone, Arch, would you take a few minutes to give them the background?”
“Always happy to share my expertise with anyone. Feel free to call on me any time. Coming to the picnic this afternoon?”
“That’s right, it’s today, isn’t it?” Ken caught Zack’s eye and made a tiny head gesture toward the door. “I’ll definitely be there, ’cause I’m on hamburger duty with Laura and the kids.” Laura must be his second wife.
Archie smiled as he stood to say good-bye, exposing teeth the color of Vaseline. “Fulfilling your civic duty. Shows everyone your fun side. Speaking of which, I’m still waiting to see you down at the Saloon after work for a beer.”
“Guess you should both put in an appearance at that picnic, too,” Ken advised as they headed back across the patio, with Georgia sucking in healing gulps of fountain-cooled air. “What do you think about what Archie said?”
“Predictably useless,” Zack replied. “I think one of us should call the patent office today and talk to a human being about what’s happening to our application.”
“Should we have our outside lawyer do that?”
Could she make herself useful already? “What if I call them up as just a little green pea,” she offered, “and find some friendly underling who’ll explain a few things? If I step on any toes, you can apologize later and say I had no business calling in the first place.”
Zack looked at Ken and nodded. “Great idea. She might learn something before we can even get our outside lawyer set up.”
By 4:30 the picnic on the patio was downright lively. There were a hundred people milling about, trying the face paint, the cotton candy, the ball toss. A line had already formed in front of the grill where Ken was flipping burgers, with the help of his willowy brunette wife who was wearing a yellow sundress and opening buns on paper plates. And that would be their 11-year-old dark-haired daughter, solemnly planting a pickle spear beside each bun before holding the plate up for her father to drop the burger in place.
“Great-looking family, aren’t they?” said a voice at her elbow, and Georgia turned to see Nikki, ponytail cascading out her Giants cap, gesture with her head toward the hamburger station. Was she that obvious about staring at Ken? Stupid to be standing around gawking like this when she had a job to do. Georgia murmured her embarrassed agreement and hurried on.
A few daredevil employees had donned red velcro suits and were jumping on a trampoline to stick as high as possible on a big velcro wall. How exactly did the company have money for this, when it couldn’t afford to hire Andrea’s software engineers? Georgia read a sign that said the guy who stuck highest on the velcro wall won a dinner for two at some fancy restaurant. The very thought of dinner in a clean, well-lit restaurant almost made her knees buckle. Stand back, boys. She’d jump like a bullfrog just the minute she completed her final task for the day.
She stretched to see if she could find Cliff Tanco, Don Juan of Finance, anywhere in the crowd. He was over by the tricycle race, leading the finance team in its last-minute decorations. Sure enough, Holly, Queen of Always Pigheaded, was right there with him, her magnificent auburn hair cascading down her back and almost touching the tiny white shorts that showed off her long, tan legs.
Georgia hurried past Sally, who was leaning over a delivery man and hissing “. . . assure you I don’t care what you . . . !” She waved at Cliff, and called, “Hi there, too bad you guys are wasting so much effort on a trike that has no chance of winning.”
“Booo!” cried the finance team.
“Are your kids here?” she asked Cliff.
“Just the youngest one. She’s the eight-year-old blond over there with my wife.” He pointed toward the soft drink line.
Bingo. She hurried over while she could get right behind them at the back of the line. Mrs. Tanco was blond, attractive and no-nonsense, with deep crow’s-feet etched in delicate skin.
“My,” Georgia sighed after a moment, fanning herself with her hand. “Warm today, isn’t it? I wish we could get this line moving a little bit faster. I’m just about parched.”
“You don’t mind the heat, do you, Sarah?” Mrs. Tanco said to her daughter. She clarified to Georgia, “Anything that gets Sarah out of piano practice into the sunshine is just fine with her.”
“Oh,” Georgia said to the girl, “Are you Sarah Tanco?” The girl nodded warily. “Nice to meet you. I’m Georgia. Your dad talks a lot about how good you are on the piano.”
The woman held out her hand. “I’m Katherine. Nice to meet you. Are you part of Cliff’s group?”
“No, I just work a lot with finance. Cliff’s put together quite a team there. They’re so loyal to him.”
“Are they really?”
“Absolutely. From the controller right down to the lowliest clerk, they’d just do anything for him. I mean, Holly Foxx, our accounts payable clerk? She’s so devoted she’s there working all hours with him, night after night. Now, you know that isn’t because of any huge salary they pay her. She’s just so committed to getting all those payments out.” God, this was rude, but you never knew how quick people were on the uptake, and she’d only get one shot. Just so the daughter didn’t catch on.
“That is impressive,” Katherine acknowledged, a faint flush darkening her pale skin. “Which one is Holly?”
“I don’t know if she’s here . . . Oh, there she is, getting ready to start the trike race.” Holly’s bare legs were protruding out the sides of the tricycle like wings as Cliff leaned over her, adjusting her handle bars.
“That’s great,” Katherine said evenly. “I must remember to thank Holly for her steadfast devotion to my husband.”
“Oh, she might prefer if you didn’t, actually. She’s kind of a shy person, to tell the truth.” At that instant Holly shrieked with excitement as the gun went off, and pedaled furiously, hair flying, toward the finish line.
“Is that so?” Katherine said lightly, watching Holly.
“Mom,” Sarah called. “Mom! The man’s trying to give you your soda.”
Do your job, and then step back, her father always said. Georgia downed her Odwalla and headed for the trampoline.
CHAPTER 6
Nikki’s migraines (unfortunately for Nikki) were proving Georgia’s greatest ally in her quest to increase her value to company big shots. This morning she was keeping minutes for the executive team, those very top employees the board relied on to run the company day to day. When she snapped on the lights of the executive team meeting room, she saw a room just similar enough to the boardroom across the hall to emphasize the lower status. Was that deliberate? Same frosted-glass swinging entry door, but into a more cramped space with no windows. Generous white paper napkins, to be sure, but no linen. Tragically, even the food was scaled back: Instead of those fragrant, glistening strawberries, the cafeteria had delivered rubbery, fork-resistant melon cubes that gave off no scent whatever.
She dropped the least dry-looking sweet roll onto her styrofoam plate and noted with satisfaction that she already recognized several of the executives who were entering the room. Andrea Hancock, with her black turtleneck and swimmer’s blond hair. Cliff Tanco, finance Don Juan, his pager and iPhone in their six-shooter holsters, to whom Georgia offered a smile and a
little wave. Ken, of course, with military posture and bow tie firmly in place, who politely introduced her to Glen Terkes, head of worldwide sales.
Glen shook her hand firmly, cufflinks glinting, his gray-eyed gaze traveling frankly down and up her body before focusing slightly over her right shoulder to see who else was coming through the door. Tall and tan, slouching easily in his perfectly fitted European suit, Terkes reminded her of the guy from the Tanqueray ad, the one who believes drinking expensive gin really does demonstrate depth of character. When Terkes sipped gin, he probably felt more urbane than Hugh and Cary Grant combined.
Ken also introduced her to Mark Balog, who was in charge of maintenance and support. “Hi, Georgia! Welcome!” he called across the table with a bright, tense smile. As she watched him pull his laptop from its case she suspected it wasn’t easy to be Mark Balog. He looked like a man who’d decided many years ago to look alert and positive, and who executed perfectly on this and every other intention. He was the right weight (165 lbs.) in the right tie (gold and blue paisley today) to match the right shirt (sky blue, starched, to match his eyes). Those wide eyes and very white teeth completed a careful, unassailable package that somehow exuded terror, as if he were determined to stave off for one more day the disaster and humiliation that threatened to crush him.
At 8:01 Roy and Sally swept into the room.
“Good morning.” Roy walked briskly to the far end of the conference table, where he pulled out a chair and stood in front of it with legs planted in a wide boxer’s stance. Sally sat down in the adjacent chair and tilted her face up to him with beaming admiration. Whoa, little early in the morning for the Big Beam. Georgia averted her eyes and sipped her steaming coffee, wrapping her hands around her cup. Cold in this room. Was it her job to manage the heat?
“This morning,” Roy began, staring down at them over the tops of his narrow oval glasses, “I want to congratulate Charlie Reebuck, who just closed a deal with Harmer Industrial for $1.2 million. Glen, please give Charlie our congratulations.” Glen nodded once, urbanely.