Their client's team had fallen apart trying to answer her questions. Everything she asked was either deferred to their VP Ops who was out of town, or met with an anxious, wide-eyed stare of incomprehension.
Their CIO had been pretty much mortified, and offered to take Dar out to dinner to make up for the chaos. He'd turned out to be a vegetarian.
Dar had forced him into a steakhouse, sending a brief mental apology to her mother as she ordered hers rare and spent a desultory couple of hours making polite conversation about nothing significant at all while a pounding ache in her head slowly grew into what she suspected was the beginning of a migraine.
Aggravated wasn't the word for what she was. Disgusted, hurting, sick to her stomach, and just hellfire damned annoyed didn't even come close either.
With a sigh she started unbuttoning the sleeves on her shirt, slowing as she spotted a basket on top of a small table in the reasonably elegant room. She didn't remember it being there earlier when she'd thrown her luggage into the room before heading for the client, but then the bottle of champagne resting with distinguished chilliness nearby hadn't been either. "Hm. What have we here?"
She glanced at the tag on the champagne. "Forget it, Stewie. You'll be lucky if I leave you an extra set of tin cans tomorrow." Her lip curled slightly at the sight of her erstwhile dining companion's name. "You can keep your damn fake French bubbly."
She tossed the card on to the table and watched it slide off the polished surface and waft toward the carpet with a supremely disinterested shrug.
Now, the basket. Gift from the management? Dar circled the table and cautiously investigated the unexpected offering. The basket was a nice wicker one with a lid. She opened the top and peered inside, a smile appearing on her face when the first thing she saw was a packet of good hot chocolate. "So." She sat down and upturned the basket, spilling out its contents.
Brownies. Cookies. The hot chocolate. Truffles. Dar poked her finger among them and stopped at the last item--a frilly little gauze bag filled with Hersey's kisses. She picked it up and cupped it in her hand, gazing at the silver wrapped treats with eyes that suddenly, unexpectedly, stung.
There was a card attached to the wicker. Dar opened it, already knowing what she'd find inside.
Hope you're looking at this as you finish up business early and are watching the sun set over Manhattan. But I bet you ain't. Love, Kerry
"Bet you're right," Dar answered in a husky voice. "Wish to hell you were in that basket."
The quiet of the room settled around her as she sat there, her head resting on one hand and a bag of kisses cradled in the other. Finally she sighed and straightened up, opening the net and retrieving one of the candies. "C'mon, Dar. Get a grip. She can use a vacation from you with all this insecurity crap you've been pulling the last week." With a morose look, she popped a kiss into her mouth and chewed it.
Here, alone in her hotel room, she could lean back and be as depressed as she wanted to.
Her eyes shifted to the table.
But it was hard to do that, when she was practically up to her earlobes in thoughtful presents from her beloved partner whose warm smile seemed to reflect off the packaging scattered over the surface in front of her.
Even if it was midnight, and she had a migraine.
Dar pulled the other chair over and put her feet up on it, leaning back as she consumed more of the kisses. Lacking milk, she reached over and snagged the bottle of champagne, untwisting its top and popping the cork in a smooth motion. She poured herself a glass and took a sip, letting her head rest against the back of the chair as she thought about Kerry.
Slowly, the tension eased from her shoulders. She knew Kerry was trying her hardest to be supportive, she only had to unfold the piece of paper in her wallet and reread yesterday's poem to see that. Chocolate chip cookies, her stuff all taken care of...this...Dar exhaled, acknowledging the deep emotion in her guts the thought triggered.
Kerry cared so much about her. It was almost like she could feel her partner's presence, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost sense a pair of ghostly hands on her shoulders and the faint brush of Kerry's lips on the top of her head.
Tears came again, and Dar rested her head on her hand, letting her fingers slide forward to cover her eyes. "God damn it," she cursed at herself softly. "Would you fucking snap out of this already?"
It was ludicrous. It was frustrating. Dar wanted to slap herself for feeling the way she did, for what she considered such a stupid reason.
For no reason, really. So what if she'd had to tangle with Shari? She'd gotten exactly what she wanted from the trade show, and they'd won, damn it! So what the hell was wrong with her?
I need to kick myself in the ass.
Disgusted, she shoved herself to her feet and went to her window, brushing aside the curtains to lean against the glass and stare out at the city. Behind the thick glass, the sounds were muted, and the garish lights and looming buildings seemed alien beyond their usual to her.
She'd never liked New York. The city seemed big, impersonal, nasty and dirty to her, without any of the exciting energy and pulse she'd heard its residents boast of. The streets were narrow, the buildings were overbearing and in some places dirty, and in the heat of the summer, the place stunk to high heaven.
Exciting? Dar had driven past the financial district earlier, as the cabby proudly pointed out Wall Street to her. Peering down the rows of buildings, it had appeared like nothing more than a huge, impersonal canyon about as picturesque as a bunch of shoeboxes set on end.
The change of subject was helping. Dar took several deep breaths, reassured by the order that seemed to be returning to her thoughts.
She spotted a man walking a dog across the street, and focused on that. He was a street person, she realized, wearing ragged clothing and carrying probably all his possessions on his back. Alongside him a mixed breed shepherd dog trotted, his tail wagging proudly. He had a kerchief around his neck that probably cost as much as the owner's shirt, and as Dar watched them move past and studied the man's lifted head and jaunty step, she decided she deserved nothing but a first class butt kicking rather than chocolate baskets and pretty poems.
"Okay, Paladar," she addressed herself, moving back from the window and starting again to unbutton her sleeves. "That's enough. You're over it. Grow the fuck up."
She slid her shirt off and tossed it over the chair with her jacket. She slipped out of her skirt as she walked to her suitcase, it's top neatly opened. She removed a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, changing into them and breathing in the scent of home as the soft folds settled over her.
"That's better." She took her sundry kit from the overnight bag and went into the bathroom, setting it onto the sink and removing her toothbrush and paste from it. She glanced at the paste and half chuckled, recognizing the flavor. "Grape." She held the paste up. "Thanks, Ker."
Her headache was easing a little, and to further that end, she swallowed a few Advil after she finished brushing her teeth.
Wandering back into the main room she sat down on the bed, flipping the television on more to provide some background noise than anything else. She found CNN and stretched out on the bed, lying down flat and watching the picture sideways.
Some of the CNN anchors, she'd discovered, looked better that way. The news, however, always seemed to be the same thing. Trouble in the Middle East, typhoons in Tokyo, political wrangling in the U.S. Never changed.
Dar checked her watch, hesitantly wondering if it was too late to call home. The thought was only barely articulated when her cell phone, resting on the nightstand, went off with a low, rumbling buzz.