by Melissa Good
“Dar Roberts.” Dar took her hand and released it “This is my partner, Kerry.”
The woman half turned. “This is Marcus Tisop, he’s the owner of the building. He wanted to meet you.”
The man stepped forward. He was tall, and had dark, short cut hair with an arrow shaved into his head on both sides pointing backwards. He looked to be in his thirties, and was wearing a short-waisted black corduroy jacket and jeans. “Hello, ladies.”
“Hi,” Kerry responded. “Nice to meet you.”
“So,” Marcus said. “Sally tells me you’re up for signing a lease today? I know it seems like we’re in a rush, but, actually, we’re in a rush.”
“I see,” Dar said. “Want to sit down and talk about it?”
They went into the little garden area and sat down. Sally pulled a plastic folder with a rubber banded cover out of her briefcase and laid it on the table. “I had these drawn up,” she said. “I know you said you wouldn’t have your incorporation documents for a few days, but that’s okay.”
Dar and Kerry exchanged looks. “Okay.” Kerry put her elbows on the table and folded her hands. “So what’s the deal, Mr. Tisop? You about to declare bankruptcy on this place, or is it haunted, or...”
Marcus chuckled. “Seems like that, huh? Place has been vacant for a few months so you might be close on your first guess, and it’s been around a while, so maybe you’re close on your second,” he added. “Last tenant only lasted three weeks. The ones before that were here a long time, but they lost their business after 9/11. Travel agents.”
“Ah,” Dar said.
“So I’m stuck at this job,” Marcus said. “And I can’t leave it until I get a tenant ‘cause I won’t be able to pay the mortgage. You know?”
“Got it,” Kerry said.
“So when Sally told me she had someone interested, I’m all over it. You folks passed the checks, and seem like nice ladies, and I would love to have you as tenants.”
“I’m guessing you’d love to have us as tenants even if we were Darth Vader and Yoda opening a nail salon,” Dar said, dryly. “But let’s talk about it for a minute.” She folded her hands. “We talked yesterday to Sally about using the space, and how much liberty we’d have to do construction and changes.”
Marcus chuckled. “Touché,” he said to her former statement. “She told me you’re doing something with computers?”
“That’s right,” Kerry said. “It’s a technology consulting company. Or it will be when the papers are finished. So we’ll need power and air conditioning, a place to put in servers, that sort of thing.”
“Cabling upgrades,” Dar interjected. “I liked the hardwood floors, but we’ll need to put in work spaces for staff and conference facilities.”
Marcus’s eyes lit up and he looked at them in visible delight. “You’ve got carte blanche. Do whatever you want to the place. The travel agency had some computers, but I think they were older than I am.” He tapped the folder. “I put that in there when Sally told me you were some high tech people. It’s all to my advantage, right? If you do leave, that makes the property a lot more rentable.”
Dar smiled. “Now that’s a mercenary attitude I can respect,” she said. “How did you get into the landlord business?”
“Ah.” Marcus sighed. “My grandmother owned property all over the Grove. When she died it got split up between me and my five brothers and sisters. I’m not really into being a landlord, but I had to do something with it. Would have been different if it was houses...but she was into commercial property.”
“What do you do?” Kerry asked.
“Marketing and sales, for Sedanos supermarkets,” he said. “I’m tired of it. I want a change. You know what that’s like?”
“Yes,” Dar and Kerry answered at the same time.
“Right, so if you’re really interested, let’s do it,” he said. “I’ll even give you a signing bonus. We do a deal today, I’ll hook you up with my brother’s electrical company with a fifty percent discount on all the work.”
Dar started laughing. “Nice.”
Kerry regarded him with wry amusement. “We’ll sign, but the final paperwork on it will need to wait until the ink’s dry on our corporation, and we have a company bank account to pay you out of.”
“And that’ll be?” Marcus was already grinning, jiggling his knees.
“End of the week, most likely,” Dar said. “My lawyer’s due here tomorrow.”
“Deal.” He held out his hand. “Sally, get them papers out. Want a real tour after that?”
Why yes, they would like that. A half hour later they were being let into the front door of the space again, and now they took their time in looking around.
“The nail salon only used this front section,” Marcus said. “What a mess that was. I had to have the floors resurfaced after they left.”
The entrance was a relatively square, open space that had a staircase behind it going up to the second floor. To the right and left were large open rooms, and Kerry wandered into one, turning in a circle inside it.
“Conference room?” Dar asked, examining the door.
“Mm.”
Behind the entrance past the stairwell was a large kitchen with windows that opened onto what might once have been a little garden but now was a roughly mowed and clipped space that had stone tables and benches along its perimeter.
The two-story building was in a square, with the open space in the middle and open walkways on the second level that linked the offices upstairs.
“We had jalousies,” Marcus said. “I had them taken out, and hurricane proof glass put in for these inside windows.”
Dar nodded. “Good idea. Outside ones have shutters?”
“Yup.”
Kerry leaned toward Dar. “What’s a jalousie?”
“Tell you later,” Dar whispered back. “Old Florida thing.”
They continued along the bottom floor, where besides the conference rooms on either side of the entrance there were long, open rooms with worktables down the middle of them, several storage closets, and custodial rooms. The short side on the other end of the building was a rear exit, and loading dock, along with another set of stairs.
They climbed up to the second level, which was mostly offices. On the front side above the main entrance there was a suite of them. Two decent size rooms that split the corner, a small utility space on the inner edge, and a large administrative area with a curved desk and a set of bathrooms.
Kerry eyed it, turning to look at Dar with a quirk of her blonde eyebrow.
“Yep,” Dar answered the unasked question, patting the curved desk. “That one storage space on the left side downstairs I think I can convert to a server room. It’s got a demarc.”
“We’ll need to have someone come in and check the power feeds,” Kerry said. “And verify the AC tonnage.”
Marcus regarded them. “You guys really are tech, huh?”
“Yes,” Dar said, as she wandered into one of the two offices and went to the window, looking quietly out at the leafy street that fronted the building, catching a glimpse of the marina in the distance.
Definitely not the view she’d become used to, but as she glanced around at the room surrounding her, imagining a desk, a design workstation, and a big white board, she saw herself working in it, almost able to hear the hum of activity around her, and the muted ringing of phones. “This’ll work.”
“There’s even an outlet in this corner for a refrigerator full of milk chugs, hon.” Kerry had entered and was exploring the space. “And eventually a big monitor on that wall so you can see your net health metrics.”
“Mm.” Dar turned and leaned against the windowsill. “You happy here?”
“I am.” Kerry indicated the door to the second office. “Much shorter walk,” she said. “We’re starting small, and spending our rent on real work space, not marble floors and a twelve story atrium.”
“It feels right,” Dar agreed. “Enough space to boot
strap, but not like I feel like I’m paying for image.”
“And there’s enough space out there for both Mayte and Maria,” Kerry noted in satisfaction. “We’re going to need systems, and software. Sheesh there’s a lot to do.”
“We already have some software,” Dar said. “I kept a copy of my code repository at home. I’ll have to recompile it for us, but it’s got my sizing and engineering prototypes and the base of what, believe it or not, ILS uses for their accounting and HR systems.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and I worked on it enough off hours not to feel bad about using it.” Dar pushed off the window and indicated the entrance. “Let’s get going, I hear fish calling my name.”
“Can we paint the walls something other than white?” Kerry asked, as they walked with Marcus outside. “Something like sea foam green or light blue?”
“Sure,” he said. “You can paint it bright red if you want to. I had to have it painted after the travel agency left. They had murals of Europe all over the place.”
They paused outside. “Let me walk you to your car,” Marcus suggested, while Sally stood by with her signed papers, looking extraordinarily pleased with herself.
“We didn’t drive,” Kerry said. “If we get all our paperwork in place, I think we might want to get in here as early as Wednesday to start making some plans. That okay?”
“Sure.” He held his hand out. “You live around here that you walked? I thought you had an address out on Fisher Island?”
“We do.” Dar took his hand and released it. “We took our boat over here. We’re going diving now. Have a good rest of your Sunday.”
KERRY WAS SPRAWLED, dressed in her dive jacket, savoring the westering sun as they bobbed at anchor just off the reef. If she opened her eyes she could see Biscayne Bay, and when the wind shifted she fancied she heard snatches of music off the beach.
On the table at her left hand was what was left of a platter of fresh seafood, and she picked up her glass of white wine and sipped it.
Dar was lying on her back on one of the cushioned benches, her bare feet draped over the stern, white cotton sweatpants covering her long legs. “What a nice day,” she drawled. “Great seeing those hammerhead sharks, huh?”
“Great getting you silhouetted against them,” Kerry said. “I can also see us spending time at that raw bar near the new office. That platter was awesome.”
“It was.” Dar turned her head and regarded Kerry sleepily. “I have to call Bridges tomorrow. What the hell am I supposed to tell him?”
“No?”
“Agreed, but how do I say no to him and not piss him off to the point he blackballs our nice shiny new company?” Dar asked. “I’d like to pick up Gerry’s new contracts. That’ll be a pretty good bootstrap for us.”
Kerry pondered the question. “Can you say no to his czar idea, but still do the programming for him?”
Dar half sat up. “Ker, that’s the part I don’t want any part of.”
“Mm...yeah I know.” Kerry got up and picked up a lonely looking oyster, bringing it over and offering it to Dar’s lips. “But you know, I was thinking. He’s going to get that program done no matter what you say. Could you do it so that it wouldn’t be so scummy?”
Dar swallowed the oyster, and licked her lips.
“I mean...” Kerry sat down on the edge of the bench and leaned her arm across Dar’s hips. “Think about it, hon. What he’s talking about might have caught those guys before they blew up those planes, you know? Is there a way to do it that protects everyone but the bad guys?”
She saw the wheels turning behind those baby blues. “No one else he asks is going to give a crap.”
“That’s probably very true,” Dar answered slowly. “I don’t know. Depends on how much control he allows over it. Let me think about it.”
Kerry leaned over and pulled up her sweatshirt, giving her a kiss on the navel. Then she put her cheek down on the spot and gazed quietly up at her partner, knowing a moment of surprising content, given everything going on. “I know there’s a lot of unknown in our path right now, but I’m really excited about it.”
Dar smiled gently at her, reaching over to push a bit of thick, blonde hair out of her eyes. “I’m kinda jazzed about it too,” she admitted. “All this time, I had to deal with whatever it was ILS decided to do. Now...it’s scary, but interesting to know we have to make our own decisions and live with what happens from them.”
“Angie sent me a note after we came back up,” Kerry said. “She said my mother’s extremely pleased we got fired.”
Dar’s eyebrows both twitched and lifted.
“She said ILS got me into too much trouble.” Kerry watched and felt Dar start to laugh. “Angie said after she heard about the board wanting to let Alastair fry, she decided they were horrible.”
“Hm. Forgot she heard that when he was telling us,” Dar said. “Your mother’s growing on me, a little.”
“Yeah, me too,” Kerry admitted. “I remember seeing Alastair there, when we got up to the exchange, and he looked so pale, and so upset...I thought right then that whatever it was we had to go through was worth it just because it might help him out. I didn’t care a squat about the stock exchange.”
“Me either,” Dar said. “I was so caught up in the fix, for about ten minutes there I didn’t even think about what the hell it was I was doing. Just banging out those commands and then relief when it was over. My hands hurt.” She flexed one. “But the coolest thing? It was those guys from NASA.”
“Rocket scientists.”
“Listening to them talk about how they got this thing done with high tech duct tape and brain cells...” Dar smiled. “Made me understand how the hell we managed to get to the moon.”
Kerry blinked a few times. “Did you know there are people who think that was a scam?”
“Yeah. Some guy once said that to me when I was overseas at a conference.” Dar shook her head. “I mean, I get it. There are people who think the government is hiding aliens from space too, and people who think Jesus rode dinosaurs. It’s always tempting to recreate your most comfortable world view regardless of facts.”
“So you don’t think the moon landings were a government conspiracy?”
Dar eyed her. “Ker, based on your recent experience with the government, you think they could have spoofed those landings?”
Kerry started laughing.
“I mean, really?”
“Bwahahaha. No.” Kerry continued chuckling. “Even my father, who let me tell you, was no fan of any Kennedy, used to pop a cork whenever someone suggested that. He said it was one of the prime examples of the ability of this country to define a goal and do it, regardless of how impossible it seemed at the time.”
“I remember seeing the inside of the VAB for the first time,” Dar said. “Seeing those rockets. Seeing the roomfuls of computers that they used, most of which had less power than my cell phone. We should take a drive up to Cocoa and tour the Cape.”
“We should,” Kerry said. “And now, we can. Maybe on our way up the state heading to Vegas?”
“After we finish setting up our new company in our new offices with your new name.” Dar grinned. “Never figured retirement to be this exciting”
Kerry reluctantly got up and tickled Dar’s navel. “How about some coffee? I think it’s time we go in. Waves are coming up a little.”
“Sure.” Dar swung her legs over the edge of the boat and stood up, grabbing hold as the boat rolled from side to side. “Let me go retract the anchor, and get us moving. I don’t want to lose those oysters.”
“You never get seasick.”
“There’s always a first time.” Dar climbed the ladder up to the flying bridge and took her seat behind it. She started up the engines and engaged them, moving the boat forward and disengaging the anchor before she started the chain retracting. The breeze was stiffening, and she was glad she had her sweatshirt on as she heard the anchor seat and she brought the bow arou
nd to head them back toward home.
Kerry came up to join her after a few minutes, with a thermos jug hung around her neck. She poured out some coffee into the mug in Dar’s swinging holder and took the seat next to her, curling her legs around the bolted steel frame. She regarded the whitecaps. “Rough water.”
“Yeap, think we have a storm coming in,” Dar said, pointing to the northwest. “Cold front. I heard it on the radio earlier. Glad we got out when we did.”
“Cold front? How cold?” Kerry asked. “Enough to call for our flannel PJs?”
Dar snickered.
“Speaking of PJs, can we have a casual dress code at our new office?” Kerry asked. “As in, nice jeans and khakis?” She leaned her elbow on Dar’s shoulder. “And flex time?”
“Sure.”
“This is going to be really cool.”
Chapter Eight
KERRY LEANED BACK in her home office chair, answering yet another phone call. “Hello, Kerry Stuart.” She paused, then removed the phone and looked at it before she put it back. “Uh. Yes, yes, that’s me, thanks. I didn’t expect you to...yes, no, that’s fine.” She scribbled a note. “Yes, I can be there. Thanks.”
She hung up and shook her head. “Make time for a trip to the courthouse on Thursday. Got it. Like this week wasn’t crazy enough as it is?”
She checked the clock on her desktop. Eleven a.m. and things had been, to put it mildly, jumping since about eight. Richard Edgerton had arrived and he and Dar were downstairs in her office, busy putting together the filing paperwork for their new corporation.
So that was in the works. She’d already signed her name to the papers, and retreated upstairs to work on the logistics of bringing their new company to life, glad she’d spent the past couple of years reconstructing new and acquired firms and setting up operations for them.
She already knew the steps to take, knew the contacts to call in, bringing in everything from temp workers to telephones, contacts that were surprised and in some cases dismayed to hear from her outside ILS, but interested and happy to work with her in this new venture.