She was working so hard she barely heard the call for lunch until Ray came trotting in, his hair held back with a bright red bandana to get her. “Hey, chica, lunch time.”
“Oh, sorry.” Kerry put down her bag and dusted off her hands, pulling her shirt away from her body as she followed him outside to catch some air. It was warm, and the newly cut grass over which they were walking smelled pungent and green in the sun; she was glad she’d remembered to cover her recent sunburn with lotion.
The other workers were gathering under a spreading tree where tables had been set up, and pizza was being distributed along with cans of soda. She tagged along after Ray and joined Colleen and Susan as they picked up their slices, then glanced around for a cool spot to sit down in. Trees scattered in isolated oases of shade across the grass, and Kerry spotted a familiar, Tropical Storm 223
conspicuously lone figure reclining underneath one of them. Everyone was just as conspicuously avoiding her, so Kerry bowed to her inner desires and knew where she was going to head. She poked Colleen. “C’mon, I’m going to go keep my boss company, since no one else here wants to.”
To her credit, Colleen neither rolled her eyes nor chuckled. She merely nodded agreeably and started towards the tree with Kerry, sipping from her can of Sprite as she walked. Susan and Ray hesitated, then sighed, and followed along, giving Dar wary looks as they closed in on the tree.
The executive was chewing her pizza slowly and gave them a moderately welcoming look in return as they came closer, before letting her attention turn to Kerry. “How’d the cleanup go?” She let her gaze travel up the blonde woman’s body until twin blue eyes reached her face and their eyes met.
Her attention thus distracted, Kerry almost tripped on a root. “Um…”
She recovered and took a seat in the grass next to her boss. “Pretty good, I guess. How’s the painting coming along?”
“Haven’t fallen off the ladder yet,” Dar remarked, leaning on one elbow and extending her long legs. “I’m sure everyone’s disappointed.”
“Tch.” Kerry frowned. “No one wants to see you fall off a ladder, Dar.
You could break a leg!”
Dar gave her a droll look and took a bite of her pizza. “You obviously don’t know your co-workers as well as I do.” She cocked an eyebrow at the Associated folks. “Present company excepted, of course.”
They settled in a circle around her and started eating in silence, until Susan, giving the others a furtive look, started a technical discussion, getting into programming concepts with Dar that were beyond the other three.
Kerry let out a tiny sigh of relief and reminded herself to thank Susan later. The atmosphere had definitely been getting stilted, and she felt herself losing patience with both the wary dislike coming from her friends and the icy reserve of her boss.
Dar had spatters of paint up and down her long frame, and a spot of it was above her right eyebrow. Kerry found herself having a very rough time not reaching over to wipe it off. Instead, she sighed and settled herself again, her back just touching the edges of Dar’s pants legs. She concentrated on her pizza, picking off the pepperoni and chewing it before she took a bite from the small part of the slice, then almost choking on it as she felt a gentle nudge against her back. She stopped chewing, then felt it again, and darted a glance at the reclining Dar.
“No, that wouldn’t make sense,” Dar’s low voice was saying. “They’d have to modularize it.” Then for just a second, those blue eyes wandered casually over and met hers, and a tiny glint appeared.
“I don’t know,” Susan replied. “They want to do it as one huge executable. I think they’re crazy.”
“We’re going to get more pizza. You want some?” Colleen asked as she and Ray got up. Her offer went to everyone, and she even shyly glanced at Dar. The executive gave her a smile. “No thanks, none for me.”
“I’ll go, too.” Susan got up and joined them. “Be right back.”
They trooped off, leaving Dar and Kerry alone under the tree. A soft 224 Melissa Good breeze came through, blowing the green grass around them and rustling the leaves overhead. Kerry finally gave in to her desires and reached over, rubbing the paint off Dar’s eyebrow. “Jesus, you look like a demented Dalmatian.”
Dar grinned sardonically. “I did it on purpose. I thought it might break the ice with your buddies. Y’know I’ve been in boardrooms during a hostile takeover that were friendlier.”
Kerry sighed. “Sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Dar chuckled. “I’m used to it, believe me.”
She picked off a piece of sausage and nibbled it. “Besides, it’s a worthy cause.
This place is a mess.”
Kerry glanced over to where her friends were headed back. “Yeah, I know. It scares me, how filled with hate these kids are.” She smiled as Ray sat back down. “I see they’re switching to vegetables now.”
“Uh huh.” he agreed cheerfully as Colleen and Susan also sat down, giving both Dar and Kerry brief smiles.
Uh oh. Kerry sensed collusion.
“So, we were thinking of going over to the Pelican after this and grabbing some dinner,” Susan announced. “You guys want to join us?” Her eyes went to Dar first, then to Kerry, and she made it clear the invitation was to both of them.
Dar’s dark eyebrow crawled up into her hairline. She took a quick look at Kerry’s face, the blank startlement there confirming her suspicion that this was an unplanned event. Tactically, she had no idea what the group was up to, but she had every intention of spending the evening with Kerry regardless.
“Sure,” she replied casually, getting a quick side glance from the blonde woman.
“That sounds fun,” Kerry agreed hastily, wondering what in the world her friends were up to. She looked up as the work supervisor started calling out their names and realized the short lunch break was over. “Back to work, I guess.”
Dar got smoothly to her feet and balled up her napkin and cup. “Later.”
She strode off with a jaunty hitch of her jeans, leaving the rest of them to scramble up and follow her.
Kerry let the others move ahead, and then she was free to grab Colleen and pull her behind a tree. “What in the hell was that about?”
Colleen gave her a startled look. “What was what? It was a dinner invitation, Kerry. Jesus, would you relax?” She shook herself free from the blonde woman’s grasp. “We were just talking, saying how maybe you were right. Maybe we need to give the woman a chance. So, we decided that asking her to have dinner with us was at least a step in that direction. What did you think this was?”
Kerry dropped her gaze, and rubbed her temples. “I-I’m sorry, Col. I…”
“Hey.” The redhead stroked her arm, giving her a concerned look.
“Listen, if this is too much for you, we’ll forget it, okay? I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
Kerry got ahold of herself. “No, no, it’s okay. I just…I guess I feel so self-conscious around you guys because all I hear is Popsicle lady this, and Tropical Storm 225
Chupacabra that, and I just don’t…I just want to scream at you, because goddamn it, she’s not like that.”
“Whoa. Whoa.” Colleen glanced around, then took Kerry by the shoulders and gently pushed her back against the tree. “Take it easy. We didn’t know, okay? All we had to go on is what we hear at work, and what everyone else says. You obviously know more about her than we do. I’m sorry, I didn’t know that stuff was getting to you.”