Longboard (Desk Surfing Series Book 1)

by Davila Eggert

  My sleep was off-and-on but my morning alarm clock wasn't trying to hear that. I had to peel my back off the mattress like a pancake and do the morning. I ran to the kitchen naked because I needed the coffee to be hot. I took a morning shower just to wake up. The water was hot again but I still didn't feel clean. I felt cleaned. I washed off the night before but I had to get the me back. Water running over my face always woke the me up. I put my face directly under the shower head and let the water spar with my face. My eyes started to feel sore so I threw in the towel and stopped the fight. I dried off, then went to get my coffee and slipped two frozen waffles in the toaster. I didn't always eat naked but I never ate breakfast in my work clothes. That was a disaster waiting to happen. When I'm still waking up, I'm uncoordinated. That's why I drink my coffee, dress and pee all before getting into the car. I have to focus when I'm driving early. I focused all the way back to downtown Honolulu. The drive from Paalea St. to Ward Avenue took about fifteen minutes, the way I drive. The entrance to the building was on a one way street. One way streets were always extra narrow in Honolulu. But the sun was up, so I had a hard time not thinking it was going to be a good day. I found a good parking spot on the second level. It was difficult not to think about having my own spot at some point. Promotions brought along perks and perks were good. As I stepped in the elevator, I could feel my coffee kicking in. I had that bright spot that was excited about the prospects of getting to work. I didn't know if Longboard would be in his office but he didn't have a direct line-of-sight toward my quad anyway. So I could go in and sit at my desk without Longboard seeing, even if he was already in. But I didn't think he would be. He never beat me to the office, even when we had a major presentation.

  I left my purse at my desk and let my keys drop. I went to the conference room with one thing on my mind. I was sure Longboard hadn't left my boob stains on the whiteboard. I walked a bit anxiously to the conference room. I had to go all the way to the end of the row. I went into the conference room to see what was what. The whiteboard was clean, no boob stains. There were some chocolates placed at every chair with the Key Way Insurance Logo on each. Key Way was an Anglicanization of Longboard's last name, Kiewei. And the logo had a skeleton key with the word Key Way substituting for teeth. It wasn't anything bombastic but it was a neat little logo. And it fit Longboard's style, classy. There were also Key Way pens with legal pads and bottles of water. Everything had the Key Way logo on it, even the water. I was thinking the committee members would think Longboard an ego maniac. That wouldn't be so far off.

  I went back down the row to see if I could get the assistant, Belinda, to also set some clean glasses and a few pitchers of fresh water. We had water bottles but I figured those were for the road. You always had to stay hydrated in Hawaii. Even the grass was always dry from being beaten by the sun. I went back to my desk and reviewed my PowerPoint. I emailed it to Camille, the bottled-blonde California girl, who was temping at our company. She was temp-to-perm but I didn't mind her. If they made her permanent, it didn't really bother me. I looked around for her but she wasn't in. I sent her the Where are you? text and got no response because she was in the elevator. She showed up about a minute after I sent the text.

  "Hey Cam." She saw me as she came in the front door. She was sweet with dimples to match. I couldn't stand her Barbie-doll antics for the first month. But she was punctual and did everything I asked her to do, so she pretty much killed me with kindness.

  "Hey Boss-lady," said Camille. Plus she called me Boss-lady, letting me know she knew where she stood.

  "So I sent you our PowerPoint for today."

  "Right," said Camille, "And I got it and sent you confirmation." I hadn't actually checked my email because I was riding Longboard's longboard, so I had to play it off.

  "Yep, I got your confirmation and wanted you to do me a quick favor 'fore the committee people show up."

  "What's that?" asked Camille.

  "Could you grab one of the laptops and set it up with a projector in the conference room?"

  "Yep," said Camille.

  "You know how to work the projector?"

  "Yep," said Camille.

  "Perfect, if you need anything just let me know."

  "Will do," said Camille. I went back to my desk to go over my slides. I didn't want Longboard to think I was preoccupied with the night before. My part of the presentation had to be smooth. I mentally took myself through the steps of the presentation, but I stopped myself. I remembered one thing, the name cards. I hadn't put the name cards in each place. We had it pre-organized who was to sit where. Thankfully, I wasn't sitting next to Longboard. I had the seating chart in my desk along with the name cards. I walked straight toward the conference room. I tried to hide the name cards in my underarm. I didn't want anyone in the office to think I was so last minute. In the conference room, I saw that Camille had set everything up. The laptop was connected. The projector was on but in standby mode. And the drop-down screen was dropped down.

  I felt something. It made me think of that look Longboard had when I told him to work it from the back. It was that dog with the perked up head kinda feeling. I was in the conference room alone. But I felt something. I could feel his hand moving up the back of my thigh. I turned around and heard a squeak. Thank God I was in the conference room alone or someone would have seen me and thought I was a pill-popper or on Molly. I looked around for a wild fifteen seconds trying to find out where the squeak came from. It took me longer than it should've to realize it was my own squeak.

  But I did feel something. It made me think maybe women's intuition was, in fact, a thing. I was in the same room where I last saw Longboard. And I was feeling him. My best guess was that Longboard had just showed up. I felt like hiding in the conference room but that was unprofessional. I left the conference room and walked back down the hall to my quad. I saw the light was on in Longboard's office. Only one way that happened. Longboard was in. I didn't want to make eye contact. But we had to see each other eventually. I kept the task at hand front and center. Our front desk secretary, Romy, was just bringing the mail up from downstairs.

  "Hey Romy, have you seen Malia?"

  "Not yet," said Romy.

  "She should be here by now. She's supposed to open today."

  "Try her cell," said Romy.

  "Good call." I went back to my quad and dialed Malia on my cell.

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm downstairs in the lobby," said Malia.

  "Why?"

  "Hank told me to come down and escort the committee members up," said Malia. Hank was Longboard's name, Henry "Hank" Kiewei.

  "Ok. Can you go ahead and text me when they arrive? I'm going to set up your part first."

  "Great, thanks," said Malia before hanging up. Malia was too much of a yes-chick for me. She always tried to get everyone to like her. Even though we were about the same age, my experience told me it was a failed strategy. Maybe it was that she seemed to be making it work that made me hot under the collar. That, and the fact that she was almost pure Hawaiian and could get that golden brown that I couldn't. I couldn't get the perfect tan without fillers to help me cross the valley that I couldn't cross naturally. My mom was Hawaiian and Chinese mix and my dad was Japanese and Slovenian. So I got a lot of the pale skin from the Japanese/Slovenian side and the flat chest from the Asian blood on both sides. Pale skin and unbent bikini tops didn't look right on any beach but especially in Hawaii. Malia's skin was naturally golden and when she sunned it up, it got that perfect golden brown. The most I could manage was olive skin. I had to put on tanning oil to do real damage. And Malia and I probably had the same cup size but Malia was au naturel. Camille, on the other hand, was fake as fuck. She was about 5'1" and a buck-ten soaking wet, yet she had these plush-looking DDs popping out from under her blouse. She was a Cali-girl. We kept it a bit more subtle in Hawaii but I guess she had that to learn. She was only twenty-two years old.

  As I walked back toward the conference room I
saw her.

  "Hey Camille, good job on the conference room."

  "Thanks," said Camille. I figured it was time to put on my Big Girl Pants and go to Longboard's office to let him know we were all set. The door was open so I gave it two knocks to get his attention. He looked up. That was it. No verbal recognition. No hey.

  "We're all set in the conference room."

  "Thank you," said Longboard. He looked back down at his laptop, like that was all he needed from me. I didn't like it. I don't know why. Maybe I wanted him to need something from me or I felt he was working hard to play everything off. But he ran a big company that he had built over the course of almost twenty years. I'm sure a first time booty call wouldn't change twenty years-worth of fight. He wouldn't let a night of cutting loose disturb the normal flow of business. I decided it was a mature reaction from both of us, so I got back to business. I went back to my quad to wait for my phone to buzz. It wasn't long but always shorter than it seemed. It was just a text message. They're here is all it said. But my heart seemed to slide downward. It hurt. I had done a fair share of presentations before. I was the assistant marketing manager in charge of investor branding. Malia did retail branding. But we had investment products, so I had to explain that side of the business: products; stats; figures.

  The meeting was two-fold. The committee members wanted assurances that our finances were solid, so they felt safe with us reinsuring part of their portfolio. But Longboard also wanted us, and by us I mean me, to market our investment products to them. Longboard wanted to cut out the middle man. Instead of reinsuring an insurance company that the committee was invested in, Longboard wanted the committee to turn over some of that pension fund money directly to us. Specifically, he wanted the committee to invest in our KW Queen Assets Fund. It was registered with FINRA and most people in the industry thought it was a good fund. The only drawback was that it was only invested in Hawaiian companies. Even the name was a reference to, Queen Lydia, the last Hawaiian monarch. Pension funds usually liked diversification and the State of Hawaii was small when comparing investment products. It was going to be an uphill battle to try to get more money into our Queen Assets Fund, especially if we wanted more pension money. Pension funds were always conservative. So you had to show them your investment products were more conservative. And there were rules on how much they could have allocated to any specific company. I had to convince them our fund was diversified enough to meet their guidelines. If it wasn't, we could always get the money upfront and add more companies to the fund later, to keep the pension fund in compliance with regulations. It would be a win-win for them and us. That's the way Longboard saw it.

  I stood up and looked for Malia to be coming in the door with the committee members. There were supposed to be five of them but sometimes there were no-shows. And sometimes there were add-ons. So it was always a surprise to see what happened at the eleventh hour. But as Malia stepped in, I counted five in suits: three in men's suits; two in ladies' suit skirts. I could hear Romy greeting them and Malia explaining that we would try to keep everything on schedule, so she escorted them toward the conference room. Longboard always wanted us to have a team approach, so I shouted hey to Malia first. She replied. I stepped forward to meet all the investors shaking hands, making eye contact and memorizing subtle details so I could categorize the name with the detail. You had to do it that way. Even with name cards, you couldn't always be searching for a name. That was one principle to being a marketing manager. Your clients were your family, so long as they were around. So I got the names down and did my best to keep them at the forefront of my memory.

  I lead the committee members into the conference room and asked them to sit down. I told them that Longboard would be in soon to greet them. But it seemed like Longboard was avoiding me, so I didn't know what soon meant. I let Malia lead them in a round of her usual chit-chat. She was better at the small talk than me. But I was better at the long con. Longboard walked in and shot a look in the opposite direction from Malia and myself. The one difference with how Longboard walked into the room was that he had an espresso complete with saucer in his hand. There were five committee members sitting across the table from Malia and I. Longboard took his place next to Malia. She was in the middle. Longboard was nearest the door and I was nearest the window. I guess I had to give Longboard points for not grabbing me and doing me on the conference table. I'd always have to wonder if I dripped on the damn thing. I just didn't want that thought in my head. But then I remembered getting on the table, so I might have actually dripped on it. But it looked clean. The table had the same shiny glow that it had every time we had a presentation. I guess Longboard wiped it down before he left. I'm just glad he didn't fuck me on the table. Something about acting professional when less than twelve hours before, I was ass naked getting my boss off on the table. And now I was sitting with my arms crossed trying to look like a career woman.

  "Would anyone like an espresso?" said Longboard. Both Malia and I knew that was for the committee members, not the two of us. Two out of five committee members were interested in an espresso. And guess who had to make them.

  "Dawn," said Longboard, "Would you please?"

  "Of course." I was professional. As I got up, I glanced across the table. Even the committee members looked bewildered. Why would you send someone who is part of the presentation out to get coffee? It was the question on my mind and the committee members'. The espresso maker was in Longboard's office but the coffee was in the kitchen. I didn't want to slow myself by going into Longboard's office first, so I went to the kitchen and got coffee, whole bean. The whole bean was for guests. The rest of us drank pre-ground coffee. I liked mine with a bit of coconut oil but I was alone on that. I took the coffee to Longboard's office and I packed the coffee into the machine, looking out the window. Longboard had a view but it wasn't such a good one. It was an OK one. The office had old world styling. Black-and-white pictures of different Hawaiian beaches hung on the wall. All the furniture was hand-carved. IKEA was the only four-letter word Longboard didn't use. His office was all heirloom pieces. Good for him. His desk had a calendar on it, along with expensive writing utensils. The one thing you didn't find on his desk that you found on others was a computer. He had one, just not on his desk. His wide laptop was on the back wall buffet. Longboard handled a lot of business on Skype so he didn't like having the window in the background because it blacked out his face. So instead of having it on his desk, he had it behind him while he sat at his desk. Then he would wheel his chair around for a vid-conference or chatting with his daughter. He had a lot on that back buffet. An assortment of syrups for Italian sodas stood on a silver serving tray. He also had branded whiskey, vodka, rum, cognac and liqueurs. The Alpha male among the bottles was a large glass mesh siphon bottle. He knew how to treat his guests. It was an atmosphere. He led by example. The rest of the office was likewise hospitable. The hospitality came from leadership and filtered its way down through the company.

  That was part of the reason I didn't mind being made into a stewardess, woman-ing the espresso machine. Hospitality toward guests was one thing we did well at Key Way. I came back with two espressos in hand. The stage lights were already dimmed, as if the presentation was about to start. I walked around the table to set each espresso in front of the two women who ordered them. I walked back around to the opposite side of the table.

  "If you find a better espresso in O'ahu, let us know and we'll invest in the chain." I thought that was a good lead in. But I didn't know how well my joke went over. No one on the opposite side of the table cracked a smile. But they were all older and committee members. I guess jokes weren't their thing.

  "It's true. We do our due diligence," was all Longboard had to say. I don't know if he tried to rescue my joke or if he was trying to make a point.

  "Malia, will you go ahead and start us off," said Longboard. I felt a bit shafted. I knew Malia would be opening up but every meeting had a round of introductions. If the introd
uctions were without me, Longboard did it on purpose. Malia pulled the laptop closer to her. And started off with her first slide. I held my pen to my tablet and scribbled a word every so often. I wasn't really paying attention. My mind was working on the Rubik's Cube that Longboard had tossed me. Less than twenty-four hours before, I was working late on my slides when he called me into his office to look at something. He showed me a few new logo designs because he said our current logo of the skeleton key was fourteen years old and outdated. While I was studying the designs, he put his hands around my waist and slid them down my butt. And then he carried on. And I ended up literally desk surfing. Pretty much the only thing I said was for him to close his laptop. It was on the table behind his desk and the little webcam bulb was pointed directly at us. After that I didn't say much. Longboard took off everything he needed to get at what he wanted. And he was old school. He actually unbuttoned my blouse carefully. Having a guy respect the fact that you don't want to buy a new blouse is a bit sexy. After that, I just rode the wave.

  But he was acting like it was something he had to get out of his system, which clearly he did, because it was back to business as usual. He wasn't bothered or bothered by me at all. He didn't look in my direction once. The nice thing about having Malia sitting between me and Longboard was that I didn't have to look up at the drop-down screen. The thoughts in my mind were too heavy for my neck to hold my head up. But I could just look at the laptop screen itself and pretend to be paying attention to what was said. My ear drowned out Malia's voice. I could only hear inflection points. But staring at a computer screen felt like being in my quad without the privacy of being in my quad. It was an explosive feeling. I had to find a way to contain it. Excusing myself wasn't an option because my presentation was next. I wasn't about to jeopardize my standing with the committee or Longboard for sake of some lack of explanation eating at me. Longboard was playing Boss. So I decided to play badass investment marketing manager. I refocused all that nervous energy into excitement. I was about to get Longboard that phone call. The investors wouldn't make a decision right away but they would remember what I gave them. I had to give them enough to make them pick up the phone. And that was the period on the sentence. I wasn't worried about anything passed that. I just funneled that energy into my presentation. The energy was so backlogged I couldn't focus on anything else. My side vision grew dark. I just wanted to show Longboard I could keep my head in the game. If it was some kind of challenge, he was going to get his and then some.