Smooth Sailing
Page 1
Table of Contents
By Susan X Meagher
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
By Susan X Meagher
SMOOTH SAILING
© 2011 BY SUSAN X MEAGHER
ISBN (10) 09832758-1-5
ISBN (13) 978-0-9832758-1-7
THIS ELECTRONIC ORIGINAL IS PUBLISHED BY BRISK PRESS, BRIELLE, NJ 08730
EDITED BY: LINDA LORENZO
COVER DESIGN AND LAYOUT BY: CAROLYN NORMAN
FIRST PRINTING: JUNE 2011
THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAME, CHARACTERS, PLACES AND INCIDENTS ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR'S IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY. ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING OR DEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALAES IS ENTIRELY COINCEDENTAL.
THIS BOOK, OR PARTS THEREOF, MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION.
By Susan X Meagher
Novels
Arbor Vitae
All That Matters
Cherry Grove
Girl Meets Girl
The Lies That Bind
The Legacy
Doublecrossed
Smooth Sailing
Serial Novel
I Found My Heart In San Francisco
Awakenings
Beginnings
Coalescence
Disclosures
Entwined
Fidelity
Getaway
Honesty
Intentions
Journeys
Karma
Anthologies
Undercover Tales
Outsiders
To purchase these books go to
www.briskpress.com
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Stef for her advice on all things Dutch
Dedication
To Carrie. Always.
Chapter One
A LIGHT FOG descended upon the room. Fog? In her tightly sealed, air conditioned office? Laurie Nielsen blinked and tried to ignore what had to be some unfunny trick her mind was playing on her. She was too swamped to pay any real attention to anything but the six windows open on her monitor. She rapidly switched among them as small brushfires burned all around her. Metaphorical brushfires, of course, but each had the potential for a lot of real damage. The fog would just have to wait.
Another instant message popped up, signaling a fire bigger than all the rest. She mumbled, “Hang on, Hiroshi, incoming,” before hitting the mute button on her cellphone. She then hit the mute button on the desk phone jammed into her neck. “Give me another minute, Andrea. Don’t hang up.” At the same time, she tried to find the numbers her boss was demanding in his instant message.
She opened another window and scanned her recent docs, finding the staffing needs projection for Osaka’s food and beverage. The fog began to lift, only to be replaced by a tunneling sensation. There were the numbers that Fernando needed. They stood sharp in raised relief as everything else on the screen faded. Now only a single line of numbers grew and grew until a buzzing made everything disappear in a gray snow…
*
The next thing she was aware of was Wendy, her admin, gently holding her hand. Strange, they’d never held hands before. Laurie started to pull away when she realized she was lying on the floor and Wendy was kneeling next to her, looking down with alarm.
She tried to sit up but Wendy hovered over her. “No, no, don’t try to get up until we know what happened.”
“What…? When…?” Why was she lying on her office floor and why did Wendy look so worried? She hated being out of the loop, especially when something major was going on. But something was missing. How much time had passed since she’d…what had she been doing? Then her last conscious act came back to her, crisp and fresh. “Is Fernando still on the line? He needs some numbers ASAP.”
Looking even more concerned, Wendy said, “He called me when you didn’t respond.”
Laurie tried to get up again, but her limbs failed to cooperate. “Why am I on the floor?”
“I think you had a stroke or a heart attack. Please try to stay still.” Wendy’s lip quivered and she began to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks to fall onto Laurie’s tailored blue and white striped shirt.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She focused all of her muscles and started to push herself up when two men with a gurney trotted into her office. They were on her before she got very far.
One of them gently eased her back to the floor and started taking her vital signs while the other helped Wendy up and questioned her.
“Was she unconscious when you got here?”
“Yes, yes,” she sobbed. “She was just ly…lying there. I thought she was dead.”
“I’m not dead!” Laurie growled, insulted by the very idea. “I must have tripped or something.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“I was looking for something on my computer.” She stopped and thought hard. “Then the room was foggy or something. It was odd.” She shook her head and kept going. “Then everything got out of focus and… Wendy was here.”
“Do you remember falling?”
“No.”
“Okay,” the paramedic said. “We’re going to take you to Glendale General.” He turned to Wendy. “Notify anyone who needs to know that, okay?”
“Wait!” A board was being slid under her, but Laurie wasn’t going easily. “I’ve got work to do!”
The paramedic gently restrained her with light pressure on her shoulder. “Work can wait. You need to get checked out.” Then they loaded her onto the gurney and she closed her eyes, unwilling to see the looks on the faces of her staff as she was wheeled out of her office, feet first.
*
The next morning, Fernando knocked quietly on her hospital-room door and entered. Laurie looked at her watch. It was five thirty. “I can’t believe visiting hours start this early,” she said, trying to sound as normal as possible. “You didn’t have to waste the trip. I’m fine and I’ll be in as soon as I can get my clothes back.”
“No, you won’t.” Fernando lowered his very tall, very thin frame into a chair that seemed made for someone three times his width. His dark eyes scanned her quickly, and she could see him assessing her and making a decision even before he spoke. “I called your parents last night and they told me some things. Some things that have me worried.”
“Oh, shit.” You couldn’t trust anyone with personal information. Even your parents would sell you out.
“They say you’ve been having problems with your vision and with your heart for months now.”
“That’s ridiculous. My heart races a little, but that happens to everyone when they’re keyed up. And my doctor thinks the vision problem is just a form of migraine. They did every test in the world on me yesterday and they all said there’s nothing wrong.”
“That’s not true,” he said, his voice clear and strong. “They said you’ve been working too much. And that’s my fault. I’ve been driving you too ha
rd.”
“No harder than you do yourself.”
“That may be true, but that’s my problem. We’re talking about you. When was your last vacation?”
“Uhm…I…Christmas,” she said, certain of her facts. “I went to see my family. I had a whole week.”
“You weren’t gone a whole week. I remember you going to Osaka just a day or two after Christmas.”
“Yeah, but I had the weekend at my parents’. Including travel from here to Cincinnati and then back here and on to Osaka, I was out of the office a whole week.”
“Travel days aren’t vacation. Besides, that was almost a year ago. When was the last time you took a week to go somewhere relaxing?”
“Uhm…I guess that was Spring Break.” Her gaze strayed from Fernando’s face and she nodded. “College.”
“You’ve never had a real vacation?”
“Sure I have. I visit my family three or four times a year. That counts.”
“No, it really doesn’t. You go on the worst travel days of the year and you’re never gone long.” He held her gaze for a few seconds, an expression on his face that showed he’d made a decision. “You’ve got to relax, and you’ve got to do it now.”
“You can’t be serious! I’m up to my ass in alligators, Fernando, and you, better than anyone, knows just how true that is. How can I relax when I know everything I ignore will be waiting to bite me when I return? Trust me. I’m much better off being at work than worrying about it.”
He seemed to think this over for a minute. “What’s your next deadline?”
“Since we’re one hundred and ninety-four days from open, we need to have key personnel for every division online by the end of next week. Everything looks good from a hiring perspective, but then we have to start training them. I’m going to Osaka in two weeks to meet everyone.”
“No go. You skip that trip and take a vacation. Two weeks.” His thin mustache was almost completely horizontal, an undeniable signal that his mind was made up. When his mouth was set, his mind was too.
“No! I’ve got to make sure Hiroshi hires the right people. You know he’s still green.”
“You can send Aaron. He’s your backup. Let him back you up.”
“But Aaron’s swamped. He’s battling all of the problems going on with the government approvals of the rides. You know the build is full of issues.”
“Then don’t send him. Learn to trust Hiroshi.”
“Oh, God, please don’t do this. Please?” She’d never begged Fernando for anything, but the situation called for desperate measures.
“You’ve got to go on vacation, Laurie. It’s time to take the training wheels off and trust the people you’ve hired. I did it with you, and now it’s your turn.” He squeezed her shoulder, then headed for the door. “Now get some rest, but try not to be late for the eight o’clock. Warren’s gonna be there.”
*
Two hours later, Laurie sprinted for the conference room, mildly chewing out Aaron, who was running right beside her. “You brought me slacks? For a meeting with Warren?”
“I didn’t know what you wanted. I’m sorry, I don’t pay much attention to what women wear at work.”
She scowled at him. “This blouse looks stupid with these slacks. I asked you to get me a dress.”
“It took a long time to get the locksmith to open the door and I didn’t have time to look around. I grabbed the first thing I saw.”
It wasn’t easy, but she forced herself to be civil. None of this was Aaron’s fault. Selecting an outfit for his boss was miles outside of his pay grade. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you a key. I’m sure you’ll need it again at some point.” She stopped outside the room, took a deep breath, flicked her hands through her hair and asked, “Do I look well?”
“You look great,” he said with enthusiasm.
“I meant physically. I don’t want my health to be an issue.”
His brow knit as he gazed at her. She’d never seen him look at her in an assessing manner, and it was strangely uncomfortable. His eyes darted around her head a few times and she almost snapped “What?” while she pushed her hair around with her hand, trying to fix what he seemed unable to define.
He made a motion near the side of her head. “Your hair looks a lot longer.”
He could have made a less important observation, but it was hard to think of what that might have been. “I didn’t have a blow dryer or a curling iron.”
“I didn’t realize it was that long. It’s past your shoulders.”
Damn straight men and their long-hair hang-up. “Warren’s not a hair stylist. I just wanted to know if I looked sick.”
“No, you look good.” His eyes slid to her hair again and she wanted to bean him.
“Don’t speak without giving me a quick look for permission. Warren hates for meetings to go long, and he doesn’t know you well enough to know he should listen to you.” She put on a confident smile, nodded quickly to Aaron and boldly opened the door.
*
Later that afternoon, Fernando called her. “Talked to HR. They tell me you’ve waived over three months of vacation since you’ve been here.”
“How much have you lost?” She knew the best way to get him to see the error of his ways was to point out that she was merely following his lead.
“Not that much. I take my kids to Puebla to see their great-grandmother for a week every year. And we go to Florida every spring break.”
“How much vacation did you take before you had kids?”
The few moments of silence showed she’d won the point. She was feeling pretty smug.
“Well, that was in the past. HR says they’re worried they’ll be sued if one of us drops dead from stress and our families prove we weren’t allowed to take vacations.”
“We’re allowed to,” she protested. “We just can’t. It’s our choice. Larry Simkowitz took a month this year.”
Fernando let the silence build for a few seconds, until Laurie said, “Okay, so he’s hanging on by his fingernails and he wanted to get paid for the time he was job hunting. Still…no one complained.”
“Warren was happy to have him gone. I think he’d have let him take our vacations just to be rid of him. But that’s not the point,” he said, all businesslike again. “HR is like a dog with a bone when they get on something, and they’re on this. Go on your vacation and play the game.”
“Fine.” She sighed. “Maybe I’ll go to Australia. I’ve always wanted to see it. Then, since I’ll be halfway there…”
“Where did you learn geography?” He chuckled to himself. “I’m serious about this. You have to take a real vacation. No working. No side trips to Osaka.”
“All right. I’ll go see my family.”
“Do something for yourself this time. How about Europe?”
“I’m not interested in Europe. It’s all churches and museums. I hate that stuff.”
“How about something outdoors? What do you like to do?”
“I run on the treadmill at the gym. Other than that…”
“Oh, come on. You don’t have any interests?”
“What are your interests?”
A longish silence followed. “I like to be with my kids.”
“Well, I like to be with my nieces.”
“Aren’t they in school?”
“Yeah, but they’re home by four. I could…”
“No way. You’re going to work all day while the house is empty, and call that a vacation. I’m going to plan this vacation for you, Laurie. Block off the first two weeks of December and leave it to me.”
Her gulp was loud enough for him to have heard it.
*
Laurie was so busy for the next two weeks it barely crossed her mind that she was going on a mystery vacation. But the Friday before she was to leave, the mystery was solved when she received a fat packet via interoffice mail. Wendy delivered it intact, tentatively offering it up. “I think this is your vacation information.”
/> Scowling, Laurie took it from her, opening it while she continued to talk to Toshi in Osaka. “Yes, I understand that. But the rides won’t be fully operational until February—if we’re lucky.” She got the packet open and couldn’t stop herself from exclaiming, “Oh, fuck!”
She stared in amazement and disgust as the contents of the packet poured out onto her desk. Her stomach turned when she started to read about her two week cruise to seven exotic, fantastic Caribbean islands on Teddy Bear Cruises, where all your days are as sweet as honey.
Chapter Two
AFTER HER SIX-HOUR flight, Laurie waited in a room the size of an airplane hangar for a chirpy, chipper woman to give the assembled masses their departure information. “We’re going to send you in, one row at a time. Be ready when I call.”
“I’ve been ready for an hour,” Laurie mumbled.
“The kids got us up at five a.m.,” the woman next to her said. “They were hyperventilating.”
Laurie dragged herself out of her funk to focus on the family next to her, a fairly handsome dad, a fit, athletic-looking mom, and three cute kids: a boy, a girl and a baby of indeterminate classification. “I bet they’re excited.”
“Oh, it’s bigger than Christmas. It’s all we’ve talked about for three months. We had a big countdown calendar, didn’t we, Lindsay?”
“Yeah!” the girl said, her voice filled with enough high-pitched excitement that she could have used it to etch glass. “It’s today!”
“It sure is.”
“You’re alone?” the mom asked.
“Yes. My boss ordered me to take a vacation.”
“Ordered you?” The woman looked skeptical.
“Strange, but true. I’ve been working on a massive project, and he found out I haven’t had a vacation since I started working for Lux…the company.”
“Do you work for Luxor?”