Blue Skies

by Robyn Carr

  “Was there something about my instructions you didn’t understand, Miss Burgess?” she barked. She shook the envelope. “We have very specific procedures when hiring people. Do I have to write them down for you?”

  There was lipstick on her teeth. Nikki had to bite her lower lip to keep from laughing out loud. Though Shanna was very young, there was a frightening look about her. As if she could, with the tip of her pencil, change the entire hierarchy of the firm.

  Nikki was feeling pressured, and a bit impatient. There was an obvious power struggle going on, and if a line had to be drawn in the sand, it was best not to put it off.

  “Will you gentlemen excuse us?” Nikki asked with dangerous calm. The men fled the room, and it was not lost on Nikki how grateful they appeared. Big tough guys. They didn’t want to mix it up with the HR goddess.

  “Miss Norris?” Nikki invited, indicating a chair.

  “I’m not sitting down, I’m just going to get this straight with you before it happens again. I gave you very—”

  “Get in here and shut the door,” Nikki commanded firmly but quietly. “We’re not going to air this discussion for the whole building. I, too, would like to get this straight.” When Shanna seemed to be frozen in place, Nikki stood up and braced her palms on the conference table. “Now.”

  Shanna entered, but she slammed the door. Nikki held her with an icy glare until she sat down, then took a seat herself.

  “Let’s talk about this calmly and respectfully,” Nikki said. “It’s already been a very long day.”

  “You—You—” Shanna sputtered. “Look, I told you exactly what the procedure is and you deliberately went around me to—”

  “To hire two very capable men whom I need urgently. I called them, I told them to come on down. I personally checked their licenses and absence of violations with the FAA. Their medicals are current. All they need to do for you is get an ID badge and pee in a bottle. Now, what the hell is the problem?”

  Shanna slammed the folder down on the conference table. “This isn’t the way we do things!”

  “Listen to me. The two men I’ve hired were approved by the president and CEO and we need them now—our deadline for certification with the FAA is fast approaching. All your squares will be filled eventually, but I can’t afford to waste time by putting them through your paces first. I have no quarrel with your procedures, but in this case you can afford to be a little flexible with the schedule.”

  “You could have contacted me and requested—”

  The word requested teed her off. “I don’t have time to screw around,” she said sharply. “I was given to understand that HR was here to support me in my hiring efforts, not that I was here to support HR’s hiring procedures. And I most sincerely thank you for your help.”

  “And who exactly gave you to understand that?” she asked, her voice dripping sarcasm.

  “Daddy,” she said. Shanna looked at her stupidly. “Your boss. Joe Riordan.”

  “You’re pulling rank!”

  “I wanted to be sure I have the authority to hire the people I want, as long as they’re not felons or terrorists, and Joe has assured me that I do. Now, as for your display, miss, if you ever throw a tantrum like that in front of other employees again, I will have your ass. Understand?”

  “My—My—Huh!”

  Nikki almost confided that she had a fourteen-year-old daughter and knew very well how to handle these little hissy fits, but she kept that to herself.

  Shanna gathered her papers and stood.

  “You’ll see the newly hired gentlemen as soon as possible to complete their hiring requirements,” Nikki told her. “And it’s not Miss Burgess. It’s Captain Burgess.”

  Without saying a word, Shanna whirled around, her back to Nikki.

  “And you have lipstick on your teeth,” Nikki said.

  Shanna threw a glare over her shoulder and Nikki held her breath. If the younger woman slammed the door again, Nikki would be honor bound to chase her down and reprimand her. Shanna was ambitious and greedy for power, and that could make life horrible around here. Nikki knew she could not allow Shanna to overrule her.

  But she simply left the door ajar.

  Nikki glanced down at the notebook in front of her. The men must have gone in search of coffee. Within seconds, though, Danny peeked in the room. “Come in, come in—we can continue. Danny, you and Eric have to be diligent about getting that stuff done in HR. We don’t want Shanna to feel she has to troop down here in search of it again.”

  “Oh, I don’t think she’ll be back,” he said. “At least, not without reinforcements.”

  As the day was winding down, Nikki was called by the Gatekeeper. “Joe would like to see you before you leave for the day.”

  Nikki had already been to his office at least five times that day, but what was once more? She filled her briefcase and swung by the boss’s house, where she was told to go on in.

  Sleeves rolled up, glasses perched on the end of his nose, he glanced up from the papers spread out all over the desk. “You tell Shanna Norris you’d have her ass?”

  Well, that was fast, she thought. “Big tattletale.”

  “How’d she take it?”

  “Obviously it pissed her off.”

  “There’s got to be a better way to resolve your differences.”

  Nikki shrugged, very annoyed to be taken to task over this when Shanna had clearly overstepped. “I could’ve decked her, I guess. But she looks like a hair-puller.”

  He slapped down his pen. “She’s talking about filing a complaint against you. For harassment.”

  “Look, Joe, I—”

  “She was in here for more than forty-five minutes ranting about her procedures. About your abusive tone.”

  “Oh, brother. If anyone has tone…Well, that’s total bullshit. She burst into my conference room during a meeting, without knocking, and berated me for not following her hiring procedures. In front of a superior and two men who work for me. She was shouting at me. I couldn’t let her get away with it. I can’t have some twenty-five-year-old girl busting my chops in front of male pilots who wonder if I have the balls to run Flight Ops.”

  “More than forty-five minutes,” he said again. “Ranting.”

  “Well, now it’s starting to sound like a personal problem,” she said. His expression did not soften; he did not find her amusing. “I’m sure that was very taxing.”

  “I hope that whatever you were trying to do by putting her in her place worked, because I don’t want her in here ranting again. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” But she was dying of curiosity. Couldn’t Jewel have ejected her?

  “And because, really, you can’t have her ass.”

  “Well…” she said, on the verge of arguing that point.

  “But I can have yours.”

  He wasn’t really mad at her, Nikki knew. Because as the days passed and certification drew near, she could see he was increasingly relying on her. The more Bob Riddle talked about his “profencity” for getting things done and how “indinuated” he was with job applications, the more Joe worried that the VP choice had been the wrong one—she could see it in his eyes. This starting an airline was no cakewalk. But Joe also needed to assert that he was the Grand Poobah in this place, and Nikki could appreciate that.

  This brought her other problems into specific relief. She needed a gatekeeper of her own. Someone with class and finesse and authority and experience. Someone who could head off the Shannas of the work world and act as her sentry, who wouldn’t be intimidated by the onslaught of pilot applicants. Someone whose loyalty was unquestionable.

  And someone to answer the phone. All day long her phone rang. The word was out that she was hiring, and those who didn’t phone dropped in to visit. Though she didn’t have the time, she tried to say hello, shake a hand whenever possible. She could understand the panic to make contact, to get an edge on the job.

  And these applicants work
ed hard to stand out among the crowd. One candidate sent in a shoe, his résumé tucked inside with a note that read, “Now that I have my foot in the door…” Another put his résumé on a sheet cake, still another sent a shirt with a note saying, “I’ll give you the shirt off my back for a job.”

  An old and time-honored method of getting in to see the chief pilot was to send the chief pilot’s secretary gifts—flowers, candy, et cetera. Well, Nikki didn’t have a secretary and she was a woman, so…these things started coming to her. The outer office was beginning to look like a funeral parlor. At least these guys were smart enough, almost to the last one, to have congratulatory and good-luck notes attached rather than pleas for an interview. Because really, flowers and candy were not making a favorable impression on a female chief pilot who wanted to be considered one of the guys, professionally speaking.

  “I’m starting to get sick from the sticky-sweet smell in here, Burgess,” Bob Riddle said.

  “I can’t get rid of them fast enough…. And I feel so guilty, throwing them away.”

  “Are you keeping track of who sent them?”

  “No. Believe me, it’s better for them if I don’t.”

  At the end of the day she went home to the suites inn. She let herself in to the efficiency and found Carlisle helping Jared with a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table, while Dixie and April chopped vegetables for a salad. She had noticed that, with the added attention the kids were getting from Dixie and Carlisle, they were doing so well. Even living on top of one another in the hotel as they were, and nervously anticipating starting brand-new schools, they seemed to be in high spirits.

  Everyone looked up with contented smiles, said hello, then went back to their work. The picture of domestic tranquillity, she thought. What lovely families people created for themselves when the ones they came with weren’t available. Or amenable.

  And then it struck her. “Dixie, can you type?”

  Dixie had never seen herself in the role of secretary or administrative assistant. It had always looked to her as if those drudges were tied to their desks and phones and boss’s whimsies, without having the luxury of leaving the ground. As for problems in the workplace—hers had always deplaned at the end of the line.

  But she would do anything for Nikki, and just hearing what her best friend was up against in the office, without a front man, as it were, was enough to cause Dixie to spring into action. And this was a plan that could serve her. She could take this full-time position long enough to qualify for a mortgage on a cozy suburban bungalow, give Nikki the help she needed, and then find a way to turn full-time into part-time so she could go back to school. Perhaps by spring she’d be ready to start taking classes.

  She doubted her instincts about people, however. Especially since the wine bottle episode.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Nikki had admonished. “In love you might be blind, but in all other things you have uncanny insight. Besides, where I really need your people instincts is with the women in the office. There’s at least one who’s out to get me.”

  So Dixie said she’d do it.

  Her first order of business was a call to her supervisor at Aries and her real estate agent in Phoenix. The town house was put on the market, but she did not turn in a resignation to her old boss. Rather, she asked for an unpaid leave of absence. With the huge number of layoffs industrywide, the Aries management welcomed the offer. In fact, while it was usually the policy not to let an employee have a leave to work for another airline, especially a competing airline, these were hard times and there were no questions asked. Dixie’s leave might mean someone else being called back.

  Next, after fifteen years in a uniform, she had to outfit herself for the job. This was not as hard for Dixie as it had been for Nikki; Dixie loved clothes and had some very nice ones. She pinned Nikki down and quizzed her about both Jewel and the Jewel-wannabes’ work wardrobes. There was a very essential protocol here if Dixie was to win them over—she would have to be up to their standards but not a smidgen over.

  Dressing was something she could really get into, and the shopping in Las Vegas was good. She decided she’d also book in for a manicure, pedicure and touch-up on the hair.

  She made an appointment to see the lioness of HR, Ms. Shanna Norris. That in itself took some doing; Shanna was very busy, her staff was new. Nikki had confided that she hadn’t seen any staff around there yet.

  “My stars, it sounds like you’re the one who could use an administrative assistant,” Dixie cajoled.

  It took a few days to get in to see Shanna, and Nikki was already in her third week at the airline and positively deluged with work. Dixie dressed carefully for her debut, hoping to be given the blessing immediately. She entered the HR domain, résumé and application in hand, and scoped out the target.

  Ms. Norris sat at her neat desk in her mauve skirt and patterned sweater, her bottle-blond hair teased for fullness and falling to her shoulders. Her long nails were color-coordinated with her outfit, and a peek under the desk revealed her legs crossed at the ankles. On her feet she wore a pair of mauve-and-gold pumps. Nikki had described her pretty accurately.

  But what Nikki would never realize and Dixie knew at once was that the skirt and sweater were both Jones of New York knockoffs, probably purchased at a discount outlet, and the shoes were absolutely The Shoe Factory. The bottle job was strictly over the counter, as were the makeup, lip gloss and manicure.

  Dixie wore beige. She had had some lowlights mixed with the highlights in her blond hair and had pulled it back into a conservative clip, but it was still quite full. Her nails were done in a short French manicure, understated, and beneath her beige jacket she wore a black crepe blouse with a high collar. But her suit was Donna Karan, her shoes Anne Klein, her make-up Bobbi Brown.

  “Knock-knock,” she said. Shanna looked up. “You must be Ms. Norris. I’m Dixie McPherson. Am I early?”

  Shanna pursed her lips, looked her up and down very critically, then said, “Have a seat right there. Give me a few minutes to finish up.”

  “Sure. You take your time.” Dixie sat at one of the three chairs that lined the wall just inside Shanna’s office. There were two larger, more comfortable chairs right in front of the desk, but she was not invited to upgrade yet.

  Then Dixie watched the woman. Her movements were precise but very slow. The wait was deliberate. Shanna moved her pen over a piece of paper, picked it up and took it to a file cabinet, then repeated the process with a second piece of paper, and a third. Anyone else would have courteously left these simple tasks until after the appointment. Dixie would not look at her watch and betray impatience, even though Shanna kept her waiting until twenty minutes past her appointment time. Just so Dixie knew who was in charge.

  Dixie used the time to survey the room. Most of New Century Air was still in disarray, but not Shanna’s office. There were a couple of prints on the wall—tense and rigid like her—and silk plants. No photos on her desk, though. Shanna looked to be about twenty-five—a woman alone, Dixie thought. She’d better loosen up and start being nice to people or there would never be pictures on her desk, Dixie predicted.

  “Miss McPherson?” Shanna said. “Have a seat?”

  Dixie moved forward, handing Shanna the folder containing her completed application and résumé.

  “Oh!” she said, nonplussed. “You’ve already filled this out?”

  “Yes. I thought that would make things easier.”

  “But how did you…?”

  Dixie waited a beat. “Captain Burgess gave it to me, of course.”

  Shanna’s mouth formed an unpleasant line. “Captain Burgess,” she said derisively, and began looking over the paperwork.

  “You sure have a nice office,” Dixie said. “And wonderful art.” She highly doubted Shanna referred to her prints as art. Or even prints. “You’re all settled in. You must have come here with the first wave. The founders.” Shanna looked up, sort of. She lifted her eyes slightly. “It must be real
exciting to start an airline with Joe.”

  Now Dixie had her attention. “You know Mr. Riordan?”

  “Yes, but I’ve known Captain Burgess much longer. She’s the one who recruited me.” Shanna’s expression took on that closed look; she’d been had again. “I suppose there’s lots of in-processing to do. I’m really anxious to get it taken care of so I can get to work. Captain Burgess told me she promised Joe that I would go through all the proper channels with HR before reporting to work, so—”

  Shanna sat at attention, head cocked. She might as well have shouted, Hallelujah! I’ve been heard! My orders are being followed! She smiled and, oh God, there was lipstick on her teeth.

  “I hope you don’t consider this too forward,” Dixie said, “but I was wondering, is that a Jones? The sweater? It looks absolutely made for you.”

  “Why…yes,” Shanna told her.

  It is not, you big liar, Dixie thought. But she smiled. “I knew it. I can spot Jones New York anywhere.” She shook her head appreciatively. “You certainly have excellent taste. Joe must pay you well.”

  “Not yet,” she said amicably. “But one day I’m sure he will.”

  Ah, foolish, foolish girl, Dixie thought. You’ve let your cat out of its bag. You’re building an empire from the bottom up with a brand-new company. No wonder it’s so important that people follow the rules!

  “Well, you’ll earn your keep in Human Resources. Humans can be a real handful.”

  “Tell me about it,” sighed the grande dame of HR.

  In-processing went a lot faster after the director was paid a few compliments, Dixie thought smugly. After a long but very fruitful afternoon, long enough that Nikki had already left the office, Dixie returned to the inn with her insurance card and ID for New Century Air. “Mission accomplished,” she reported to Nikki. “I have delivered the enemy into your hands.”

  “You’re awesome.”

  “She’s a piece of work,” Dixie said. “If she was half nice, I’d take her shopping. Show her where the real knockoffs are.”

  “Knockoffs?” Nikki asked.