Nothing Personal (5 page)

“Nothing wrong with working for a living,” Alec said.
“I hear that some of the best people do it.”

“How’s that going, dude?” Ryan asked
lazily, lifting the Coke that the waitress had just set down from her round plastic tray. He pulled off the top bit of wrapper and took a grateful sip. “Made your first million yet?”

“Not hardly,” Alec said.
“Thanks,” he said to the girl as she delivered his own iced tea. “Just glad to have landed an internship, and one that actually pays, or it would’ve been the green apron for me too. Man cannot live on scholarship alone, not if man has to buy textbooks and the occasional pair of jeans, he can’t. And at least I’m not digging ditches like Gabe.”

“Really?” Rhonda looked interested. “Is that what he’s doing?”

“No,” Alec said. “But close. Landscaping.” He shuddered theatrically. “Way too hard.”

“I’ll bet he’s hotter than ever, though,” Rhonda sighed.

“Hey.” Ryan looked as affronted as an easygoing guy could.

“Yeah, hey,” Alec said. “I’ll point out here that
I’m
the cute twin.”

“Hmm,” Rhonda considered, her head on one side. “Yeah. You’re cuter. But
he has those big football muscles. Plus he’s more smolder-y.”

“I can smolder with the best of them,” Alec protested. Then ruined it by smiling again.

“See?” Rhonda laughed. “You can’t. You totally can’t. You cannot smolder to save your life.”

Alec laughed back. Damn, he liked her. Too bad she’d been dating Ryan since high school
. Why couldn’t he find a sassy girl like that? Because he kept going for the hot ones, that was why. And they were never sassy.

And Maryann was pouting now, because he was ignoring her. He sighed. This wasn’t working out. But it was just a vacation thing, and she was
really
pretty. Too bad she had to talk.

The redheaded waitress was at the table an hour later, loading used plates and cutlery onto her already-laden tray.

“How about dessert?” she asked. “Would you like
to see the menu again?”

“Not for me,” Maryann said. “That salad was
huge.
I couldn’t even eat half of it.” She patted her nonexistent stomach, and Alec caught a sardonic glance from Ryan.

“Me neither
, thanks,” Rhonda said. “I’m trying to diet.” She sighed and didn’t pat her stomach, which was indeed not quite as nonexistent as Maryann’s.

“Not necessary,” Ryan assured her.
“More of you to love.” He grinned down at her as she made a face back at him, his hoot of a laugh escaping when she elbowed him in the ribs. “I would, though,” he told the waitress. “What do you have?”

“Chocolate cake, carrot cake, Boston cream pie,
cheesecake,” she recited. “And pie.”

“Chocolate cake,” Ryan decided. “Can’t beat that.”

“It’s good,” she agreed. She turned to Alec, still balancing her load of dirty dishes. “What can I get you?”

“Pie,” he said. “My favorite. What kind do you have?”

She smiled. “Just about anything you could want. Apple, cherry, blackberry, pecan, strawberry-rhubarb, lemon meringue, chocolate cream, banana cream.”

A tiny dynamo of a gray-haired waitress bustled up next to the girl. She had a coffee pot in her right hand, a pitcher of iced tea in her left.

“Alec.” Her delighted smile creased the leathery brown skin of her face into a relief map. “Nice to see you. It’s been a while. Is my girl here taking good care of you?”

Alec
saw the dark color rise into the redhead’s smooth, honey-colored cheeks. “I was just getting his dessert order,” she said.

He
knew he should stand up, but how could he, with the two of them standing next to the table, blocking his exit? He couldn’t even shake hands, because the older woman’s were full. He felt rude, and embarrassed, and uncharacteristically awkward.

“Hi, Mrs. Foster
,” he said, giving her a smile that he hoped would cover him. “I haven’t been able to get home much this summer. How’re you doing?”

“Oh, I’m just fine.” She reached out and filled
his iced tea glass from her pitcher. “How are things going at that fancy school of yours? Which one is it again?”

“Stanford,” the
young waitress muttered.

“That’s right,” the older woman
said with pleasure. “We were all so proud of you, I can’t tell you. My smart cookie here’s got a real good scholarship too. Tell him, honey.”

She shrugged
, her embarrassment clearly matching Alec’s now. “It’s no big deal. It isn’t anything like his. It’s just here, Chico.”

“Hey,” Alec protested. “A good CSU scholarship
is
a big deal. Congratulations. That PSAT worked out for you, then.”

“You remember that?” the girl asked.

“Dude remembers everything,” Ryan put in. “He’s got so much data stored in there, he’s going to need to add an extra room pretty soon.”

“You’re a real smart boy, I know that,” Mrs. Foster told him. “I’d be
tter get to my tables, and let you get your dessert. You take good care of him, honey,” she told the younger woman. “Nothing but the best for Pastor Dave’s boy. Give my regards to your folks, Alec.”

“I will. Nice to see you,
” Alec said, and she gave him one last smile and bustled off.

“So, pie?” the girl asked him.
“Were you able to narrow it down, or would you like the list again?” Still embarrassed, he saw, but doing her job.

“
Apple, please,” he said. “A la mode.”

“One apple pie a la mode, one chocolate cake, coming right up.”

“I can’t believe how high-calorie everything is here,” Maryann said. “You’d think they’d have
one
healthy option.”

“Hey,” Alec objected
. “Tasty food, big portions, cheap prices. Everything I look for in a restaurant. What’s not to like?”

Maryann rolled her eyes. “
No wonder poor people are fat.”

She’
d muttered it, her voice low. But Alec heard it, and so did the waitress, it was clear. Her posture stiffened, her shoulders went back, and the color flamed even higher in her face.

“Coming right up,” she repeated, not looking at Maryann. Not meeting Alec’s eyes. She turned and walked to the kitchen, still balancing the heavy load that must have had her too-slender arms aching by now.

And Alec, for the first time in his life, wanted to hit a girl.

“I broke up with her that day. Just so you know,” he said now.

“Who?
” Rae reached for her coffee cup, took her time pouring cream and stirring, took a casual sip.

“Maryann
. That girl I was with. What she said—it wasn’t OK with me. But I know I didn’t say anything at the time, and I should have, shouldn’t have just sat through the rest of dinner like I did.”

She shrugged. “None of us has
much courage when we’re young. You were with your friends, and your girlfriend. When you’re a waitress, you get used to hearing things like that. She wasn’t the rudest customer I ever had, believe me. You didn’t owe me anything. And my grandmother . . . that was embarrassing for you, I know.”

He
reached out, wanting to touch her hand where it clutched the handle of her cup. The other, he suspected, was clenched in her lap. He pulled his hand back at the last moment, wished he knew what to say. “
You
had courage, and you were, what, that last time? Nineteen?”

“Eighteen,” she said. At
least she was looking at him again. “My first summer working in the diner, but not my last. I worked there all through college, with my grandma. And I’m not sorry. I’m glad.” Her low voice had lost its usual softness, and her eyes were blazing. “Because you know what? I know things that lots of so-called successful people have never learned. I know how to work really hard. I know that low-paying jobs are usually tougher and more stressful and a whole lot less enjoyable than high-paying ones. And I know that if hard work was all it took to make it, this country would be run by people who take care of kids and clean houses and mow lawns. And so should you.”

“
I do know that, because I was raised right, just like you,” he assured her. “Poor, but right. Don’t worry. All appearances to the contrary, I know all that too.”

“Yeah, I did s
ome good work with Ethan. Their code was spaghetti when I got there, but I sorted it out. Visicon was pretty chill, but the challenge is over now. Ready to move on.”

T
he young man leaned back in the leather chair that had been delivered just yesterday, Rae having decided that furnishing the conference room was top priority for exactly this reason. The kid’s jeans were appropriately skinny, the designer jacket over the black T-shirt clearly carefully chosen for its panache. Alec knew that none of these guys wore a tie anymore—hell, he never did either, not unless it was absolutely necessary—but he’d wondered, when he’d seen the retro black high-tops with their white rubber caps, if they hadn’t gone a little far down the road. He was less than ten years older than—Simon, he thought with a glance down at the resume in front of him, but he wouldn’t have worn jeans to an interview. Or tennis shoes.

Still, Ethan said the guy could write code,
and Ethan was a friend of Joe’s, so who cared if the kid was a little cocky? Alec had been accused of that often enough himself, and they weren’t hiring Simon for his personality. But Joe could finish interviewing him. Because the whine of electric drills and the
thump
of partitions being wrestled into place that had provided an unmelodious background to their afternoon had suddenly died down considerably, and he should probably check on that.

“Excuse me.” He got up from the conference table, stepped out into the hive of activity that was their formerly-open office space, and pulled the door shut behind
him. One team was industriously setting up panels for what would become their cube farm, but the other was standing idle. With Rae.

“
This needs to be taken apart and redone,” she was saying. “I believe I mentioned that you should double-check with the diagram as you go.”

S
he was standing tall, her gaze steady and serious on the big bearded guy in the orange T-shirt, dusty jeans, and work boots, a kidney belt beneath his pot belly, who was hefting his drill, clearly impatient to get on with it.

“I have an extra copy here
, since you seem to have mislaid yours.” She held the sheet out to the guy, who made no move to take it.

“
Twenty units,” he said. “Five blocks of four. I do this all the time, lady. Go on back to your office and let us do the job. Piece of cake.”

“
Not if the electrical fittings are in the wrong place.” She crouched under the unit he’d just finished installing with his helper, who was standing by, a bemused expression on his face. She got onto all fours, crawled under the desk space, and poked at the fitting. “See that? Wrong orientation.”

The guy was looking, Alec saw. He was looking at Rae’s ass
, exchanging a grin with his helper, and Alec was at his side in a few quick strides.

“Problem here?” he asked.

“I don’t have a problem,” Beard Boy said, glancing at him, then back down at Rae’s rear view. “I’m having a real good time.”

“Well, unless you want this to be your last day on the job,” Alec said as
Rae climbed out again, dusting off the knees of her pants, “you’ll do the work to Ms. Harlin’s specs, and to her satisfaction.”

“And who would you be?” the guy drawled, his eyes sweeping Alec’s white shirt
and dark gray slacks, making it clear that he was less than impressed.

Alec folded his arms, paused a moment, and stared him down. “I would
be the guy who signs the check.”
And the guy who could kick your ass.

Beard Boy
grunted. Reached a hand out for the piece of paper that Desiree handed silently to him, looked at the spot where she was tapping one slim nail, its coating of clear polish gleaming in the reflected light of the overhead fixtures and still-uncovered windows.

“
Switch these two panels around,” she said. “And please doublecheck all the electrical fittings this time as I asked. I found a loose one under there, and I don’t think your boss would be happy about a return service call.”

“Talk to you a sec?” she asked Alec as Beard Boy snapped an order to his helper, began to loosen bolts.

Alec followed her perfectly straight back and set shoulders towards the break room. He could see her scanning right and left along the way, checking the placement of the other cubes being assembled by the second team against another copy of her diagram. Which she had on a clipboard. Of course she did.

She waited until they were inside the area to which, Alec realize
d, she’d had rubber matting, a water cooler, and a state-of-the-art single-cup coffee machine added since yesterday. With coffee. And tea, and hot chocolate, and who knows what else, all neatly slotted into their dispenser. And surely that was a new dishwasher and refrigerator. They hadn’t been stainless steel before, had they? When had that happened? He’d bet the refrigerator had milk in it already. And everyone’s favorite drink, too, which she’d somehow divined. He’d just bet.

Then she turned to him.
“I appreciate the chivalry,” she told him. “But I’ve got it.”

“What?”

She sighed. “It doesn’t exactly make me look stronger if you have to rescue me. I had it. Worst case, I’d have called his boss. I’ve done this before, you know.”

Alec shif
ted from one foot to the other. “Sorry. But he was pretty . . . disrespectful.”

“I work in the tech industry,” she said. “Disrespectful I’m used to. He didn’t
actually grab my . . . he didn’t actually grab me, which puts him ahead of a fair number of the guys at the last conference I went to.” 

“And that’s OK with you?” Why wasn’t she outraged? Because he was, just thinking about it.

“It’s not the least bit OK with me. But I’ve got this,” she repeated. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help, but I’ve got it. And you’ve got interviews, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and took a look. “Joe should be wrapping that one up, got another one coming in at
two.”

“Then go take care of that,” she urged. “And let me do my job.”

He wasn’t feeling quite so protective of her two days later. When he and Joe were in the conference room again, joined this time by Brandon and Rae herself.

“I appreciate how easy
you’ve made all this for us,” Alec said, trying to smooth the troubled waters and wondering for the thousandth time in his entrepreneurial career why he’d ever thought it would be easier to be the boss. “That setup software was a brilliant idea, and now I’ve magically got furniture in my magic new office, placed exactly where I wanted it. I even have blinds already. I can’t tell you how long that took, last time. And that’s great.”

“But?” Rae’s eyes were steady on him from her spot below Brandon at the table, Joe having chosen to sit across from her.
Still hostile, Alec thought with an inward sigh.

“But . . . i
f we have to do budgets,” he asked, “do we have to do them right now? When we’ve got so much else going on?”

“Why do we ever have to do them?” Joe muttered. “There are only three of us. Bunch of bureaucratic B.S.”

“Four of us,” Alec pointed out.

“
Because you don’t know whether you’re overspending until you know what you’ve planned to spend,” Rae said, looking at Joe. “I’ve made it as simple as possible. I’ve prefilled the spreadsheets with all the line items I normally see, and even included some ballpark figures for things like trade show expense and salaries. All I need to know is which trade shows you’re thinking of going to, how many initial hires you’ve decided on, what software programs you want everyone to have. Which I need to know anyway,” she pointed out, “so I can get them ordered and installed on all the machines just as soon as they arrive. Before your new staff starts showing up. But yes. I do need to get some figures in there.” Her low, soft voice was still calm, the only indication of tension the barely audible click of her ballpoint under the table. “I’ll need to show some preliminary financials to the board next week.”

“You
need to spend money to make money.” That was Brandon.

“She doesn’t get that. Going to be n
ickel and diming us. Like being nibbled to death by ducks.” Joe again.

“I understand that you need to spend money, and so does the board,” Desiree said. “But your last venture’s financials were, frankly, a mess. The board never knew what was going on
from one month to the next. They’re pretty tolerant of change, but they absolutely hate surprises. And I suspect that dealing with me’s going to be more pleasant than that scenario.”

“Dealing with you definitely has its points,” Brandon agreed, looking at her with a smile.

She gave him a cool look, and Alec heaved another inward sigh. Another gentle reminder was clearly called for. Because Joe hated her, and Brandon . . . didn’t.

“Well.”
He set both palms on the shining surface of the table in a gesture of finality. “Sounds like we’re doing budgets. I’ll talk to you about it at ten, how about,” he said to Joe, “before our next interview, and to Brandon, say, eleven-thirty. And we’ll work it out.”

“And
any time you know there’s going to be a variance,” Rae said, “you just need to inform me.”

“I knew it,” Joe growled. “Staff meetings.
The ultimate time-suck.”

“I didn’t say staff meetings
.” Rae looked at him levelly. “I said inform me. I’m two doors down from you. Stick your head in my door. Send me an email. Inform me.”

“Man,” Alec groaned when the other two men had left, and he’d put a hand out to stop Rae from leaving the room. He leaned back in his chair a
t the head of the table, rocked a little in the plush leather. “You really know how to clear a room.”

“Hey,” she said. “I never even mentioned the employee manuals.”

He was the one who stuck his head in her door
a few days later. She was sitting with their new clerical person, who was industriously taking notes. Veronica, Alec remembered as the thin, somewhat mousy young woman looked up at his entrance and turned a predictable shade of pink. A lot of name for a fairly plain young woman. Rae liked her, anyway, and having a good-looking woman at the front desk would be asking for trouble with all those cocky young code warriors around, legends in their own minds.

“Can I interrupt for a few minutes?” he asked. “Get you to join us in the conference room, Rae?”

“Sure,” she said. “Why don’t you go on back to the desk, start familiarizing yourself with HR Hero’s website,” she told Veronica. “Look over the hiring forms, and the employee manual section too. We need to get that in place.” She looked up at Alec with a gleam in her eye that had him laughing back at her. “Just as soon as possible, I’d say, wouldn’t you, Alec?”

“Oh,
absolutely,” he agreed, stepping back to let Veronica scuttle past him, the color flaring even higher as she did, and waiting for Rae to join him.

“What’s up?” she asked. “Decided on a staff meeting after all?
Want to go over those budgets, maybe have me diagram your new hire decision matrix for you?”

“No, although I’m sure
you could do it at the drop of a hat. I thought we’d get your input on our logo finalists.”

“Oh, actual
fun
stuff. Sure.”

“Hmm,” she said when she was
standing and looking down at the five designs, each printed on a separate piece of paper and laid out on the polished blonde surface of the conference table. “Do you have them smaller?”

Alec stood beside her, looked across the table
at his partners, both leaning against the credenza that stood beneath the wall of windows, echoes of their recent heated discussion hanging in the room like a fog. Joe folded his arms and stared at Desiree, his posture clearly communicating that he, for one, wasn’t interested in her input. After a few more uncomfortable seconds, Brandon shrugged and grabbed a single sheet of paper from the file folder behind him, leaned forward and slid it across the table to her.

She
ignored them both, looked at each large image in turn, then studied it in its smaller size. Alec watched as she flipped first one image over onto its face, then, after another period of study, a second. The third followed, and then her gaze was moving back and forth, again and again, between the final two. Studying the small images again now, and back to the large ones.

Joe sighed, shifted his weight. If Rae noticed, she gave no sign. She
rearranged the two images so they were side by side. Then moved them so that one was on the bottom, the other on the top. And then reversed the order.

“This one,” she finally said, pointing to her choice.

“Too simple,” Brandon began, but Alec put out a hand in a downward motion that silenced the other man.

“Interesting,” Alec said. “Why?”

“Because it
is
simple,” Rae explained. “Look, this one looks good, all big like this.” She reached without hesitation for the blank page second from the left, flipping it over to reveal Brandon and Joe’s top candidate. “But look at it small,” she explained, tapping a nail on the piece of paper where the logos were reproduced in thumbnail size. “That’s how it’s going to be viewed, most of the time. You don’t have a . . . a billboard with just your logo on it.”