“Oh? How so?” Norma asked, picking the chairs off the tables.
“You will never, in ten million years, guess who it was who interviewed me,” Nell said.
Norma froze. Monica’s eye pencil stopped moving.
“No way, chica,” breathed Monica.
“You don’t mean to say…You’re putting me on, Nelly. I simply don’t believe it,” Norma said.
“Believe it,” Nell said.
There was an incredulous silence. Nell turned around. Norma and Monica were grinning at each other like fools.
“Did he ask you out?” Monica tilted Nell’s head back and brandished her mascara wand. “Did he come on to you? Did you kiss?”
The whole heated sequence in the stairwell played through her mind in a timeless instant, and her face went beet red. “As if,” she lied. “I’ve barely met the man.”
“Well?” Norma said bracingly. “Take the bull by the horns, honey!”
“It’s not that simple,” she hedged. “He’s my boss now, and I’m meeting with him after my shift here to discuss the—”
“My goodness, you mean he hired you? Mercy! Things move so quickly in this world for an old lady. And just this morning Kendra told me that she has Epstein-Barr syndrome. But all’s fair in love and war.”
“Norma, you don’t understand.” Nell wiggled as Monica brushed powder on her face. “Monica, that tickles!”
“Hold still, chica. You’re making me smear. Lemme put lipstick on you, and you can look at yourself.”
Nell headed to the bathroom afterward. Her reflection made her gasp. Her eyes looked big, luminous. The lipstick was a deep, sexy red. With her hair fluffed into that luxurious mane of black ringlets, she looked…
Just like her mother. She stared at herself. Swallowed.
“What do you say, chica? Are you stunning, or are you stunning?”
Nell forced herself to smile at her coworker. “Yes. You’re an artist, Monica. Thank you.” She pulled her glasses out of her apron.
“Do you have to?” Monica complained. “It ruins the effect!”
“I’m blind as a bat without them,” Nell said regretfully.
“Oh well. You look better anyway. Strip Steak’s going to have a stroke when he gets a look at you.”
“His name is Duncan Burke, and it’s not going to happen,” Nell said resolutely. “He’s my boss. I wouldn’t compromise a paying job.”
“Oh, excellent! Taboo!” Norma stuck her head in the bathroom door. “The lure of the forbidden! Look at you, good enough to eat. Strip Steak’s jaw will hit the floor. Have you thought about contacts, Nelly?”
Nell swept past them, chin high. They giggled like ninnies.
Three-fifteen came and went, with no Duncan Burke, and the afternoon fell flat. Hanging in her garment bag was the oatmeal-cream sweater dress she’d bought for Nancy’s engagement party, the prettiest thing she had in her closet. She pictured herself walking into his office in that subtly clinging dress, and shivered.
Yikes. Problematic, for sure. He was her boss, after all. And he was rude, arrogant, and presumptuous. And he suffered from a profound lack of imagination, judging from his lunch habits. Plus, he had a weird, fetishistic thing for her chubby knees. So nothing doing.
Uh-huh. So why had she spent all that money she could ill afford on her hair? Why was her face painted? Why had she brought that clinging dress? She’d tarted herself up for exactly what? Get real.
She tried to drug herself into enforced calmness by mentally reciting the first sixteen lines of the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, over and over as she worked. The afternoon passed slowly.
At the end of her shift, she sneaked into the back to change. She needn’t have bothered sneaking, as both Monica and Norma were waiting outside the door when she came out. Monica grabbed Nell’s chin and freshened her lipstick by brute force. “Good luck, chica.”
“Be careful, honey,” Norma said, her eyes misty.
“And don’t forget these.” Monica held up a three-pack of condoms, and stuffed them into Nell’s purse. “Got ’em for you on my cigarette break. Be safe, always, you hear me?”
She was mortified. “You guys! It’s a business meeting!”
She grabbed a cab, despite the warm evening, in deference to the promise to her sisters, and took the elevator to the sixteenth floor. She stood in front of his office, gathering nerve, and reached for the door.
It flew open. She looked up, straight into Duncan’s eyes. Her throat clenched.
His eyes flashed down over her body. “It’s you.”
“You were expecting me, weren’t you?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said. “Come on in.”
She regretted the dress. It didn’t cling provocatively, but the way he looked at her made her feel as if she were reclining naked, draped in silk, like Bathsheba in an old painting. Come and get me. At your peril. Or hers, rather.
“You changed your hair.” His tone was disapproving.
“Why, yes,” she said, confused.
He studied her hair, eyes narrowed, and was about to speak again when a handsome young man strode out into the room. He flashed her a dazzling smile and shook her hand, continuing to hold on to it. “Wow. Duncan told me you were an excellent writer, but he didn’t say you were so pretty,” he said. “Can I call you Nell?”
“No, you can’t,” Duncan cut in. “Let go of her hand. Ms. D’Onofrio, this is my younger brother, Bruce. Please excuse his unprofessional behavior.” He turned and marched past the goggling Derek into the conference room. “Let’s get started.”
They sat in the conference room. Bruce began. “Ms. D’Onofrio—”
“Nell is really okay,” she broke in.
“I prefer that he use ‘Ms. D’Onofrio,’” Duncan said.
There was an uncomfortable pause. “Ah,” Bruce murmured. “As I was saying, Ms. D’Onofrio, Duncan showed me your writing sample. I was impressed. I take it you’ve looked over our outline?”
“Of course,” she said. She’d been too rattled to think about it last night, after that charged stairwell incident, but she’d glanced over it while drinking her morning coffee, and had been pleasantly impressed.
“So?” Duncan prompted impatiently. “What do you think?”
Nell leafed through the folder. “It’s great. The story is involving, and the graphics are beautiful. It’s just that I think the choices the player needs to make seem too, uh…” She hesitated, reluctant to criticize.
“Too what?” Duncan snapped.
“Too logical,” she gasped nervously.
The two men looked at her blankly.
“If you want to appeal to language-oriented, literary types, I think you should play up the romantic, magical elements,” she went on.
Duncan grunted. His chair creaked in protest as he pushed himself away from the table. Nell pressed on. “It would be interesting to develop some plot twists based on leaps of faith, to deepen the feeling of mystery, create a sense of wonder. The game’s title, for instance. ‘The Dagger and the Thorn’ sounds so, um…”
“Pointy?” Bruce grinned. “Phallic?”
“Um, warlike,” Nell temporized demurely. “Masculine. I would recommend something more evocative, more magical. When I read about the sixth-level forest sequence with the lake and the magical swans, I thought of ‘The Golden Egg.’”
“‘The Golden Egg,’” Bruce mused. “That has possibilities.”
“I like it,” Duncan announced.
Bruce whipped his head around, incredulous. “You do? You’ve never liked anything imaginative or evocative in your whole life!”
“No, not that,” he said impatiently. “I mean her hair.”
A shocked silence followed his announcement.
Duncan frowned. “So? What are you gaping about? I didn’t like it at first, but I’ve decided that I like it. Is that so hard to understand?”
Bruce spoke up gallantly, after another half minute of shocke
d silence. “Ah, Ms. D’Onofrio, I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing how you wore your hair before, so I can’t offer any comparisons, but I can certainly say that it looks lovely now.”
“Uh, thank you,” Nell said. Her face was on fire.
“And if you’ve gotten the approval of anybody as resistant to change as my brother, believe me, it’s a compliment,” he added.
“Shut up, Bruce,” Duncan snapped.
“You’re acting unprofessional, Dunc,” Bruce murmured.
Nell knotted her hands together. “I’m glad you like my hair, Mr. Burke, but I’d rather talk about what you think of my ideas.”
“I don’t like them,” Duncan said abruptly.
Nell swallowed. “Ah,” she murmured. “I, uh, see.”
“I don’t want an interactive fairy tale. I want a fantasy quest. What you’re proposing would be impossible to reason your way through,” Duncan explained.
“But that’s just it! Reason isn’t the only tool people use when they’re problem solving,” Nell argued. “There’s an enchanted princess to be won! It should be romantic, surprising.”
“He hates surprises,” Bruce muttered.
“Shut up, Bruce,” Duncan snarled.
“Sheathe your claws, Dunc, you’re scaring her,” Bruce warned.
“Not at all,” Nell lied. “I don’t scare easily.”
Duncan got up with an abruptness that shot his chair against the wall with a bang. He stalked out of the room.
Nell watched the door fall shut behind him, alarmed. “Did I say something wrong?”
“Oh, not at all,” Bruce assured her. “He’s just that way. Don’t worry. He likes you. Your ideas are fascinating. It’s all good.”
“Uh, thank you,” she said, confused.
“Don’t mind him. Duncan’s just twitchy because there’s been so much change in his company since we started working on my game. Everything’s all shaken up. He’ll calm down.”
“But if he hates my—”
“Nah, he doesn’t hate anything. He’s just being a dickhead for the pure fun of it. Pay him no attention at all. He can’t help himself. He’s just programmed that way. He used to be a spy, you know that?”
Nell was startled. “Um, no. I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah. Intelligence and analysis, for the NSA. Spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, and other nasty hot spots. I’d like to say being a spy was what made him such a tight-assed bastard, but the truth is, he’s been like that since we were kids. So don’t expect it to change.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything of the kind,” she murmured.
“He’s a genius when it comes to algorithms for intelligent database design,” Bruce went on. “His biggest client is the U.S. government. Everything’s always so damn serious. National security. Terrorist threats. Blood and guts. Something as frivolous as a computer game drives the poor guy nuts.” Bruce rolled his eyes. “But he’ll feel better about it when the money starts pouring in. He likes money just fine. You just keep coming up with ideas, and you’ll be golden.”
“Okay,” she said. “And you really can call me Nell.”
Bruce grinned. “You’ll do.” He got up, came around the table, and sat down next to her. “So, here’s where I think we should start.”
A half hour of intense concentration ensued, in which the two of them worked out a prioritized schedule of the texts she needed to churn out first. It looked like fun. She was actually getting excited about it, even if she was probably going to have to skip pesky little details like, say, sleep, in order to keep up with Bruce’s schedule. He needed twelve hours’ worth of work done by tomorrow evening, with a long waitressing shift cutting right into the middle of it. But hey. What else was new.
Just one thing still perplexed her. “But what about your brother?” she asked, hesitantly. “If he hates my ideas—”
“Ignore him,” Bruce advised. “Really. Suit yourself. But work fast, whatever you do, because I’ve got programmers and graphic artists working on the sixth level, and we need to catch up with the texts.” He looked over his shoulder with exaggerated caution, and dropped a gallant kiss on her hand. “Our unprofessional secret,” he whispered.
Nell was laughing at him when the door opened.
Duncan stood there, scowling. “What the hell is going on?”
Bruce looked guilty. “Uh, nothing.” He glanced from Nell to Duncan and back again. His face took on a thoughtful, calculating look. “Maybe you have the wrong idea,” he said. “I’m not…say, Duncan, did I tell you about the new girl I’m seeing?”
“No,” Duncan said icily. “Nor is it in any way relevant.”
“Her name’s Melissa,” Bruce went on, undaunted. “She’s a knockout. I’m totally in love. I’ve got to introduce you. She’s a poetry fan. The ultraromantic type. Speaking of which, I need some personal poetry advice.” Bruce slanted a sly smile toward his brother and winked at Nell.
Nell was bewildered. “You need what?”
“Melissa loves poetry, and I want to impress her. What would be a good poem for me to memorize? To, ah, you know, melt her?”
“That depends on her tastes. Before I recommend anything, though, there’s one thing I want to know. What’s your purpose?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Bruce said, with a roguish wink.
Nell frowned. “Not necessarily. If you mean to genuinely court this woman, then I caution you against presenting yourself as other than who you really are. She’ll just be disappointed when she realizes the truth. Which she will. Don’t fool yourself.”
“I’m not a total Neanderthal,” Bruce said indignantly.
“But if, on the other hand, you’re not serious, and mean to simply use this woman to, uh…”
“Slake his lust?” Duncan offered helpfully.
“To slake your lust, leaving her crushed and embittered, then you’re a dirty dog, and don’t deserve my help. Either way, I don’t want to participate. So forget it. Go read some poetry for real. Expand your horizons. Take a night class. Go to the public library. Good luck.”
She crossed her legs and looked at him sternly over the lenses of her glasses. Bruce stared down at her for a moment, bemused, and started to laugh. “You’ll do,” he said. “You’re perfect.”
“Thank you for sharing your opinion, Bruce,” Duncan said. “That’ll be all.”
Duncan’s voice cut through the laughter.
Bruce choked off his chuckling and nodded hastily. “Uh, yeah. I’m gone. I’ll let you guys, uh, work your stuff out, then. Bye.”
He left the room, still snorting with muffled laughter. The door clicked shut. The room was profoundly silent. Nell stared out at the cityscape without seeing it, tongue-tied and intensely nervous. Bruce was pleasant, and his enthusiasm heartening, but Duncan was a problem. She didn’t have the kind of brazen self-confidence necessary to simply ignore his disapproval. That took brash nerve, and she was coming up short on that commodity, with the Fiend at large. She needed all her brash nerve just to walk out her apartment door every morning. She didn’t have any left to spare for wrangling sexy, difficult men. For God’s sake. She didn’t even have the courage to talk to the guy.
Well, whatever. She sighed. If it didn’t work out, she would be no worse off than before. Time to go home, eat a TV dinner, and get to work writing epic poetry about goblins and demons and holy quests. God knows there were worse night jobs. At least it wasn’t telemarketing.
She got up, cleared her throat. “Well, I’ll just, um, be on my—”
“No. Don’t go yet. We need to talk.”
Nell’s heart thumped. “Okay,” she managed. “We do?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry I was rude. My brother was bugging me.”
“I could see that,” she offered tentatively.
“I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” he added.
“No, that’s true. You shouldn’t have,” Nell agreed.
A smile came and went on his face, so quickly, she w
ondered if she’d imagined it.
He smiled, briefly. “The situation makes me crazy.”
Nell cleared her throat delicately. “What situation?”
He shrugged. “This project. I design specialized data sorting and analysis programs. I’m good at that. I understand what they’re good for, whom to market them to, what they’re willing to pay. Then Bruce waltzes along, with his game idea. I couldn’t talk him out of it, and God knows where he would have gone for the money if I’d refused, so now—”
He stopped suddenly, and turned, looking out the window.
She gazed at the sharp line of his silhouette. The shadows in the dim room accentuated the harsh planes of his face.
“And now?” Nell prompted gently.
“I don’t know about games. Anything about them. I don’t like it.” His voice was clipped. “I like to have all my facts in a row. No surprises.”
“Like the strip steak,” Nell said daringly.
He considered that, turned and looked at her. “Yeah, I guess.”
Nell perched on the table, clasping her hands. “Well, the soup changes every day, and you’ve bravely tried a new one every time.”
“They’re all pretty good.” He took a step closer. “I didn’t come to the Sunset Grill for lunch today.”
“We missed you,” Nell said. Her voice felt breathless, wispy. “There was a very nice lentil stew you could’ve tried.”
One step closer hid his face in shadow, silhouetting him against the illuminated buildings outside.
“I don’t hate your ideas,” he said. “I just automatically contradict everything my brother says. It’s a reflex.”
“He shouldn’t tease you,” Nell said. “Any man who runs his own business knows about taking risks. What’s Bruce risking? He’s launching his project using your business as a springboard. What has he got to lose? You’re financing it. You’re the one who’s put everything on the line!” She was startled at her own vehemence.
She couldn’t see his face, but she got the feeling he was smiling. “Thank you for saying that,” he said. “I appreciate your understanding.”
Tasting Fear Page 24