Is she nice?
Dar glanced at her lunch companion, who was taking advantage of her tapping to finish her own lunch. Very nice and pretty sharp. Not like the last one.
Kerry's rolled eyes were almost visible in the reply. About time. I figured she must be okay if you had lunch with her.
Dar read that response twice, then hit reply. Eh. Slim pickings since you're not here.
No, I'm here baking with your mom. Why don't you get holdof Dad and bring him home with you?
Dad, cookies, Kerry...maybe she'd stop for flowers. Dar paused in her thought, and then rewound it. Maybe she'd stop for a bottle of wine. You're on. See you later--don't burn yourself.
Heh heh. Yes, mommy Dar. Have a cup of tea for me.
Dar closed her PDA and slipped it into her pocket leaning back again as her table companion finished up her lunch and wiped her lips. "Sorry if I shook you up a little. If it's any consolation, I've been there." Dar told her, with a faint grin.
"You certainly did shake me up." Cruicshank agreed ruefully. "Or was that a very clever way to get me to stop asking questions?"
Dar's eyes twinkled. "Maybe it was just a way to get enough time to finish eating."
The woman held one hand up. "Okay, touché." She looked up as the waitress came over, and neatly plucked the check from the woman?s hands. "I'll take that, thanks."
Dar poured herself another cup of tea, drinking it slowly as the reporter settled their bill. It hadn't been a bad interview, she thought, but it hadn't really given the woman anything concrete to use either.
Had it?
She frowned, having the distinct feeling suddenly that she'd gotten more personal than she'd intended. What if the reporter chose to slant the story that way and it ended up as part of the show?
Kerry wouldn't like that. Dar was pretty sure. She'd had to face the press with that front and center more than she'd ever wanted to and hated every moment of it. Maybe she should have discussed the whole thing with Kerry before agreeing to the interview?
But how was she to know the reporter was going to ask that stuff?
"Well," Cruicshank folded her credit card receipt and put it neatly into her wallet, "okay, so I have to talk to Kerry Stuart about the ships, but one of the things that most caught my eye about the information I gathered was the way your company responds to a crisis."
Eh? Dar watched the train she'd thought they were riding on take a flip. She raised a polite eyebrow in question, but remained silent.
"The most spectacular thing I saw was the ATM outage on the East Coast," the reporter said, "played out on national television. I'd like to talk to you about how that all went down, if you don't mind."
That seemed harmless enough. "Sure." Dar got up. "I've got about forty five more minutes."
"I'll try to make them count." Cruicshank promised. "Is there some place we can pick up a cup of coffee on the way back? I'm still on west coast time."
"We have some inside the office." Dar led the way out of the restaurant, giving a casual wave at two of the marketing regional managers who had just sat down to eat. "Unless you'd like to try Cuban coffee."
"Cuban coffee? Okay, sure. How bad could it be?"
Dar grinned evilly and pushed her way out the door.
"WELL?" KERRY ANGLED the phone against her ear as she mixed items into a mixing bowl. "What's the scoop?" She'd given Mark three hours to hear back from their vendor, and her patience was wearing thin. "Listen, if he won't talk to you, Mark, I know who he can talk to."
"Relax, Kerry. He just called." Mark sounded much happier. "He's pissed. Really, really pissed, but they put the order through. He said he's in a lot of hot water."
"Tell him he could be in boiling. I was going to sic Dar on him. Can you imagine what she'd have said?"
"Um...yeah." Mark chuckled wanly. "Actually, I can. But whatever, he caved. So we're cool. I was just gonna call you."
Kerry felt her shoulders relax. Despite her fierce words, she knew damn well they didn't have time to spec out a new vendor's gear and if their current partner hadn't given in, she really didn't have much of a backup plan to replace them.
Dar, of course, was in reserve, but Kerry really hated to pull that card out unless she really had to. It made her feel like she wasn't capable of doing her own job if she had to go running to her partner for help all the time.
She felt good that she'd been able to resolve this problem by herself. "Okay, so when can we expect delivery?"
"Monday." Mark sounded a touch smug. "I think you scared the crap out of them. Maybe they went and bought those units at distribution, and just resold 'em to us at our price."
Kerry chuckled. "Whatever it takes," she said. "We've given them so much business they've got nothing to gripe about." She pulled out a baking tray and set the fish fillets she'd just coated onto it's already lightly oiled surface. "Okay, thanks, Mark. I'm going to set up a touch point meeting tomorrow afternoon for the whole team, just so we can see where we are."
"Gotcha."
"See you tomorrow."
Mark almost hung up, and then paused. "Hey, Kerry?"
"Mm?"
"Are you feeling better?"
Kerry blinked her bad eye, which had pretty much opened fully during the course of the day. The swelling had gone down, and now it was merely tender to the touch. "I feel a lot better, thanks." She told Mark. "At least I can see out of both eyes now and I just look like half a raccoon."
"Cool deal." Mark replied. "I was wondering because I just saw big D, and she looked real antsy so I was hoping it wasn't because you were feeling bad."
"Ah." Kerry pondered. "Well, we're having a family get together tonight."
"Oh. Um..."
"I'm cooking."
"Oh!" Mark's tone altered to one of understanding. "Cool! Hey, have a great time, okay?"
"Thanks, we will." Kerry hung up. She scattered a handful of crushed pistachio nuts over the filets, then covered them and set them in the refrigerator.
She was alone now, Ceci having headed back to her boat home to pick up a few things for the dinner. Chino was curled up on her bed in the corner of the kitchen, and Kerry had a soft new age CD playing in the living room.
It was quiet, and peaceful, and it smelled like freshly baked cookies. Kerry leaned against the counter and gazed out at the pretty sunlit ocean and indulged in a brief moment of mindless observation.
She went to the refrigerator, removed a bottle of ice tea, then headed to the sliding door and slipped outside into the warm air. It smelled like warm sand and salt outside, and she sat down in their swinging chair with a sense of satisfaction.
Chino had scuttled out after her, and she stood up on her hind legs and put her front ones on the porch rail, gazing out at the sea with an intelligent expression.
"You like that, Chi?" Kerry sucked slowly at her ice tea, swinging back and forth in the chair. "Want to go for a walk on the beach? Just you and me? We can find some sticks for you to bring back to mommy Dar, how about it?"
"Growf." The dog dropped down and came over to her, licking her knee affectionately and sitting down next to the swing chair, her tail sweeping the stone tiles rhythmically.
"You're so cute." Kerry scratched the dog's soft ears. "You know what, Chi? We're going to the cabin this weekend. How do you like that?"
The tail swept faster, as the Labrador recognized a word she knew.
"You like the cabin, right? I like the cabin too. I think I like it better than even this place." Kerry confided. "How about I teach you to ride on the back of the motorcycle, hmm? Would you like that? Your ears all flying back?" She tugged one ear.
"Growf!" Chino wiggled her entire body back and forth.