by Sarah Gerdes
“Dad,” she said simply. He smiled.
“Hey gorgeous. Come give your pops a hug.”
She did, then sat beside him on the grass and they caught up on the last four days. The sun was going down and her stomach was growling when he suggested dinner. Over Chinese, the subject turned to how she’d been handling the last few weeks, her volunteer work, the office and Lani.
“I’m tired,” she admitted, something she hadn’t realized until the wheels of the plane lifted up and she fell fast asleep. “Like I’ve been going non-stop for four months strong. Now, all I want to do is very little.”
Her father chuckled which blossomed into a coughing attack. He claimed it had nothing to do with his kidneys, which she believed. Coughing wasn’t usually a symptom of bad kidneys.
“Bronchial issues,” he said. “My immune system isn’t what it once was.” When he could talk, he voiced his wishes.
“I’d like you to lay out in the sun while I garden. Keep me company. I wouldn’t mind you driving us to the coast. I’ve missed our day trips.”
Danielle smiled. “Deal.”
For three weeks, that’s what she did. She drove her father to the coast, booking stays at Salishan Lodge one week and Depot Bay another. Between laying on a lounger in the back yard sunning herself and day trips around the area, Danielle took her father to see the doctor twice, one for his regular check-up and the other for additional testing. His blood pressure was up, an indicator his kidneys were struggling to keep the minerals in his body balanced. Every few days, his ankles and legs swelled and his sleep was as poor and restless as ever, two more signs of his kidney disease, but they were nothing new. One day, he’d have more strength and stamina, another he’d experience shortness of breath. It was going to be his physical state for the foreseeable future. As long as he didn’t allow himself to become dehydrated, have a traumatic injury with significant blood loss or experience a random, potentially fatal event that could damage his kidneys further, he’d be okay.
Danielle was irritated her father kept his physical pains and discomforts to himself and refused to discuss her coming home after her year was up. He wanted her to build a life, one that was separate and distinct from him.
So be it, she continually told herself.
One afternoon, Danielle made a date to take David to lunch. It bothered her that David might think his former star employee had exercised bad judgement, and somehow sullied the same of his firm.
Over smoked salmon chowder, Danielle gave him the summary version of the events prior to, and after, Lars had called him. “Why in the world did he call you in the first place?” Danielle asked. “To tell on me?”
David’s look was one of mild scolding. “He wanted to know if this was a pattern. If you’d engaged in other compromising situations.” The visual of Lars checking up on her made her cringe further, but it was what it was. At the end, David shook his head in a knowing way. “Did you really expect you were going to get over there and just work?”
Danielle was affronted. “Yes! And don’t tell me you thought differently.”
Her former boss regarded her with eyes that now betrayed a deeper affection for her than she’d imagined. It wasn’t romantic, it was familial.
“Yes, I knew differently. It wasn’t just the time, it was the change in location. This place has too many memories, good and bad. Being in a new environment opens one up the opportunities of life that aren’t visible when everything seems the same.”
David asked about the Swiss culture, the schedule she kept and her co-workers and management. When it got to Lars, David remarked that even when Lars was clearly furious with her for seeing Andre, he never once wanted her to leave and in fact seemed to hold her in the highest regard.
Danielle thought of the look of fury Lars gave her on the boat. “Regard? I produce good numbers, which is all he cares about.”
David gave her a thoughtful gaze. “I think that Lars admires you, very much.” Danielle tilted her head, giving him her version of a reluctant acknowledgment.
“Like I said, he cares about the numbers. But I know I did the right thing. So his admiration is secondary.”
“And in the end, that’s all that matters. Friends are fleeting but respect is eternal.”
When her time in Oregon came to a close, Danielle was two shades darker, and her hair had honey gold streaks framing her face. She boarded the plane feeling like she was starting all over again with no emotional attachments, a good job and a nice place to live. No, she wouldn’t have Andre, but as her father said, he’d given her insight to a world where work co-existed with love and passion. Now she knew what to look for.
She closed her eyes. It was going to have to be pretty damn good to beat what she’d had.
CHAPTER 31
It was with that attitude that she opened the doors and windows to her flat, releasing the air that had been trapped during her absence. She enjoyed the cooler breeze of fall coming off the lake. The week after Labor Day, the heat dissipated and leaves turned from green to orange with the efficiency of a Swiss watch.
Monday she greeted Glenda warmly, and the two spoke more that morning than they had in the previous months. Johanne came by to ask about her holiday, and she listened to him recount his disgust at the clubs in London. When he started telling her about Tokyo, he told her the dance mixes were superior to anything, even topping Belgium, but then he started to do a dance interpretation of the locals and she laughed so hard Glenda poked her head over the cubicle to see what was going on.
At lunch, she heard the familiar two-tapping at the door. “Good afternoon,” she greeted Lars. He wore an imperial blue shirt with a muted yellow tie. He was really mixing things up post vacation. His eyes took her in like he was seeing her for the first time.
It’s my tan, she thought ruefully.
“Vacation must have been satisfying,” he said easily. “You got a lot of color, and I heard you laughing all the way down the hall.”
“Have you ever seen Johanne dance when he’s doing the interpretive movements of a foreign culture?” She didn’t wait for an answer as she laughed out loud. Lars smiled broadly in return. “You?” she asked him. “Did you stay here or leave?”
“I went to my home in the country.”
“Aren’t you way too young to have a place in the country?”
Lars’ grin spread. “I think you might have an incorrect perception of those who have country homes.”
She shrugged, adjusting her earphone. “Perhaps. So leave me to my blissful ignorance as I get back to work.” It wasn’t Lars’ fault she’d gotten involved with a client, and any animosity she’d felt towards him for being her boss and a professional had long since gone.
“There is one thing you didn’t comment on,” Lars said, his tone of voice altering. Danielle waited expectantly. “Your numbers.”
“For today?”
Lars shook his head slowly. “No, the total under your management.” For the first time that day, Danielle had a sinking feeling. It must have reflected in her face, for Lars told her to go ahead and look. She pulled her eyes from him, but felt him watching her as she typed out the query.
She unconsciously leaned forward. “How is this possible?” she asked, staring at him. He only smiled. Her total was up another $1.6 billion dollars. Lars turned to leave, and she asked him to wait. Six hundred million was from a variety of clients, but a full billion was assigned to a single entity.
“What’s MRD 1? Is that another internal pooling of money?”
Lars put his hand on the doorframe and looked over his shoulder. “That’s me,” he told her, his eyes lingering a split second more, then he left.
No big deal, Danielle told herself. Her fingers felt thick as she moved them across the keyboard. Placing funds under the direction of another trader in the firm wasn’t technically a conflict of interest, and was actually done all the time in the States. Her discomfort came from the pressure of the enormous amount of money bei
ng Lars’ own funds. She thought of what David would say, and she heard him as clearly as if he were in the room.
“It’s just more zero’s.”
It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m no longer with Andre. Lars was too objective to make a decision involving money based upon…emotion, of any sort.
After work, Danielle went to Lani’s apartment and sampled the recipes for the fall menu. She loved the squash soup and pot roast, but felt the flavor of the macaroni and cheese fell short. Danielle refrained from asking about Andre until she was at the door.
“Did he…come to the restaurant?” she asked with the hesitancy of someone who really didn’t want to know the answer. In one of the few times during their acquaintance Lani’s mouth turned down.
“Was he there with someone else?”
Lani answered with a look of distaste. “The blond who was in the group that used to come in.”
I asked for it, Danielle scolded herself. Still, going from wanting to marry one woman to dating another in such a short time was pretty harsh. Well, maybe not. It had been five weeks since they’d last been together. She certainly didn’t mind looking at Lars with an appraising eye, so why should she be bothered by Andre doing the same? She was in no position to be casting emotional stones.
Even so, Danielle erred on the side of caution. “Can I just come by to see you and Stephen or do I have to schedule it in advance?”
“Just come in,” Lani told her. “It’s more your restaurant than his.”
Danielle was just going to have to be brave and face the situation like the trader she was. If she could handle nearly seven billion dollars, she could handle seeing Andre with a blond on his arm.
The Friday before the annual MRD client event in St. Moritz, Danielle attended an employee-wide meeting. Lars gave details on the discounts the company was providing at the local hotels in case the two hour drive or train ride back wasn’t conducive to those who had been drinking.
Danielle did her best to stare straight ahead and look interested. Technically, Andre was the account contact point, and it would be him, not Georgy and Layda who would be in attendance.
As Danielle rode the Gondola above the town of St. Moritz, the narrow streets meandered underneath, and the magnificent fall colors of the Maple trees made her miss the Northwest.
Glenda was sitting next to her and touched her arm.
“I have some bad news,” she said in an undertone. “Andre did confirm at the last minute and he’ll be here with a guest.”
“Of course he is welcome to come,” Danielle said, reciting the only diplomatic line she could think of.
“I took the liberty of changing around the seating arrangements so you won’t have to be beside him however.” Danielle awarded Glenda a glance of extreme thanks. Later that evening, Danielle was seated between Glenda and her physician husband, the conversation easy and the food wonderful. Danielle had glimpsed Andre and his date through the crowd, and sure enough, it was the same blond from her first night at Monroe’s. To use Lani’s words, it was clear they were ‘a thing.’ The woman held herself with all the posture of a beautiful person who knew that every man would glance her way, as would a good many of the women—Danielle included.
It appeared to her that Andre was going out of his way to be overly—touchy—with his date. First his hands on her back. Then in her hair. Every time Danielle glanced his way, some part of him was invariably touching some part of the blond next to him.
She did her best to ignore his part of the room, giving her complete attention to those at her table. When dinner finished, the group moved into the large lounge area where a man at the piano was already playing jazz.
“Benny!” Danielle exclaimed. He looked up from the piano, waving her over. “Did MRD hire you?”
The big man nodded. “It’s a good gig.” She leaned against the Steinway. His eyes looked down at the keyboard, but he was only pretending. “I see your boyfriend here, but it looks like he’s with another date.”
“Proving that your eyes are working,” she said dryly.
Benny shook his head, puffing up his cheeks a bit in the classical sad-jazz-piano-playing man look. “That’s too bad. You want to tell me about it?”
Danielle gave him a smile, asking him to scoot over. “Sure, we can belt out some sorry woes-me song and get the audience to cry.”
Benny threw his head back and laughed, purposefully changing the song to Porgy & Bess’s Summertime. “Oh, you’re killing me,” she said.
He continued playing the Gershwin tune, expressing serious disappointment. “I could have sworn what you two had was for real.”
Danielle hummed along before answering. “It was. He wanted to get married.” Benny’s dark eyes glanced up at her, but his head stayed down. “Unfortunately, there’s this little rule about not dating clients. It was either the job taking care of my family back home, or staying with Andre and being unemployed.”
Benny shook his head low, the sorry wag of a man who was hired to convey emotions with a word and the touch of an ivory key. “Aw man. That’s brutal.”
She sighed. “I wanted him to wait until I had a year under my belt. He wanted me to quit. It ended with a lot of tears for me and a lot of anger for him.”
“You don’t think that man shed tears?” his bushy eyebrows lifted up in doubt.
Danielle shrugged, glancing up from the piano. “Does he look like a man in pain?”
As they both watched, Andre bent to whisper in the blond’s hair. A huge smile appeared on her face, then he and his date walked across the room to the outdoor patio.
“A man’s gotta have some lovin’ somehow,” he drolled. Danielle sighed with the truth of his words. He’d made peace with the end of their relationship. So should she.
“So Benny. You want to sing that duet now?”
His eyes positively jumped out of their sockets, and he struck the chord. “Do these people know you can sing?” She shook her head shyly. “Well, then…” he said mischievously. “Time to enlighten ‘em. You ready m’dear?”
“Hit me baby,” she said enthusiastically. It was time to move on.
CHAPTER 32
The conversation of the crowd lessened as Benny changed the chord and it died entirely when Danielle hit her first notes. It was a song she’d learned in college, the soulful approach requiring breath control, good intonation and focus. Periodically, Benny added his voice which mixed it up, giving the moving piece a flare of modernism, which made her smile, in turn changing her tone, making it brighter. When the piece was over, the crowd clapped, much to her embarrassment, but she simply looked at Benny, giving him a hug of appreciation.
“He might come around,” Benny murmured in her ear. “Just hope it’s not too late for him, ‘cuz this man sitting here doesn’t think you are going to remain single very long.”
Danielle nudged him good-naturedly and stood. She chatted with Glenda and her husband, then joined Johanne who introduced his partner Dario. Johanne complimented her on her singing and Dario gave her a hug. “That will show him,” he mumbled, causing Danielle to giggle.
“You two are the best-looking men here and clearly taken with one another. Thanks for that.” The men grinned and they bantered back and forth until Johanne was drawn away by another friend. Dario obligingly followed, and Danielle was left without someone to talk to.
She made her way to the bar, sitting on the last stool on the far end until the bartender came her way. She ordered an orange juice, but a voice behind her suggested that she might try something a little different for a change.
Danielle smiled easily. “Hi Lars.”
“Do you have additional talents that we will learn about in the future?” he asked her.
She cocked her head, chin up. “Maybe. What about you?”
Lars propped one foot up on the brass foot holder and leaned his elbows on the bar. “I race cars.” Danielle raised her eyebrows. “And I like to cook.”
“Reall
y?” Lars took a drink in response, his lips curling in a smile. “What do you like to cook?” she questioned.
“Just about all kinds of food, except Asian. Too many obscure spices I can’t get around here.”
They made small talk about his cooking preferences, and Danielle learned Lars liked recipes with a lot of wine because of the robust flavor. She also asked where he liked to cook. “In your country home or your city home?” she teased.
The bartender took her empty glass and Lars repeated his suggestion. “Get creative,” he told her, referring to her drink.
“I don’t want to get creative. I like to be boring and in control. You know that.”
Lars glanced up at the rows of bottles behind the bartender, pointing to one on the top shelf. “There’s one up there that is so smooth, you wouldn’t even know its alcohol.”
“It’s not the taste I’m worried about, it’s the health repercussions that I’m afraid of.” Lars was surprised to learn she abstained from alcohol and said so. She smirked. “Lars, I abstain from a lot of things. Why should alcohol be any different?”
Danielle waited for a quick comeback, watching Lars expectantly.
“I think,” he slowly began, “that you should experiment with not always being in control. One or two drinks is not going to hurt your health. In fact, washing it out with eight ounces of water dissipates the effects of the alcohol.”
“But what if I don’t like it?” she said.
“I would counter that there are some things in life you need to experience before you make that determination.”
“Fair enough,” she replied. She realized she was tired of always being in control. Look where it had gotten her. Alone, at a bar, with her boss. “Since I have never had a drink of any kind, what do you recommend?”
Lars began by asking her if she liked sweet or sour, milky or clear and what flavors she preferred. It was exactly like cooking, which begat a conversation about various culinary method they each used. Ten minutes later, Lars told her he felt confident he had enough information. He called the bartender over and spoke in German. A few moments later, the bartender put a small glass of white in front of her, with a layer of dark underneath.