floor, where the operations center was.
“SO I FOUND three people who’ll go through certification.” Kerry took a bite of her chicken salad sandwich and chewed it. “They all live near me, so we called this place in Kendall and got a deal for four Saturdays with classroom sessions, two pool sessions, four open water dives, and one night dive.” She took a sip of ice tea. “Does that sound good?”
Dar nodded, busy with her own plate. Lunch had been much later than usual, and she was squeezing it in between meetings. “Yeah. They include equipment rental?”
“Yes, though, I was thinking of getting a piece or two of my own,” Kerry replied hesitantly. “The regulator, at least.”
“Good idea.” The executive nodded in agreement. “Mine’s a Dacor. You can get them with or without dive computers, like mine has, and with or without an octopus.”
Green eyes blinked at her in confusion. “I’m sorry? They give you octopus with your scuba gear? Uck. That’s disgusting.” She took another bite of the croissant, vainly trying to catch the flakes as they fell.
Dar laughed. “No, no. The extra mouthpiece you saw on my gear, it’s called an octopus.” She scooped up a forkful of potato salad and chewed it.
“It’s for buddy breathing.”
“Oh.” Kerry blushed a little. “Buddy breathing, right.” She pulled out a magazine. “I got one of these yesterday. I read it while I was waiting for the sewers to clear.”
“
Pro Diver
, that’s a pretty good one.” Dar smiled at her enthusiasm, remembering her own certification. It seemed like it had been forever, she mused, then she glanced at her watch. “Did you get held up on something?”
Green eyes lifted to hers a touch sheepishly. “Um… Well, no. I was working on those projects, and then I took care of some e-mail, and, um, I don’t know, I guess I forgot about lunch until you showed up and poked your head in the door.”
Dar studied her curiously. “Uh huh.” She spotted the gentle blush creeping up her assistant’s neck and bit down on her fork. “Well, good timing, then.” Kerry had, she realized, waited for her to go to lunch, and she wondered if the younger woman wasn’t feeling a little intimidated by her surroundings. After all, the only person she really knew here was Dar, and she probably was uncomfortable just barging in on the usual lunch cliques. She made a mental note to get Maria to introduce her to some of her buddies, who were usually the kinder, gentler variety. “Nice to have someone to talk to during lunch. I usually just grab something by myself.”
Kerry nibbled her sandwich. “I did that too, a lot, at Associated. I…it’s weird, I liked the people there, but when I would go out with them, I always had a funny feeling that they were putting on an act for me.”
“Mmm.” Dar nodded in understanding. “I get that a lot, too.” But not with Kerry, she realized with a sense of relief. The woman was just as straightforward as you could get.
“Oh, and I checked on that discounts page you told me about. That’s a 154
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really good plan for that gym. I signed up,” Kerry said, getting the words out somewhat more quickly than was her habit. “I figured, even if…I mean, I’d be crazy not to, right? They’ve got some really good classes there.”
“I did too, this morning,” Dar stated nonchalantly. “We have a deal set up on Wednesday, remember?”
Now Kerry smiled. “I remember.” She relaxed a little. “What time do you have your appointment tomorrow?”
Dar had been trying to avoid thinking about it. “Eight,” she answered quietly.
“Do…do you want me to pick you up at the terminal? No sense in driving all the way here, just to… I mean, it’s on the beach, right? Just off Alton Road?”
“That sounds fine,” Dar replied. “Yeah, it’s just off Alton, near Mount Sinai. Are you sure you want to come? I, um, I don’t know how long it’s going to take.”
Kerry gave her a gently sympathetic look. “I’ll bring a trashy novel, but I bet it doesn’t take long at all, and everything checks out okay.”
Dar exhaled softly. “You keep thinking those good thoughts, Kerry.” She lifted her head and gazed into the sea green eyes. “I could use every one of them.” Their gazes held for a moment, then Dar pushed herself to her feet.
“More meetings, we’ve got some clients coming in I have to sit in for…I probably won’t be back to the office until real late.”
“All right, I’ll keep working on that stuff you gave me. If anything blows up, I’ll page you,” Kerry promised. With a pat on her shoulder as a parting gesture, Dar moved off, and Kerry returned her attention to finishing up her own lunch. It was amazing, she mused, just how warm that felt even through the fabric of her jacket. She glanced up as a shadow fell over her and smiled.
“Hello.”
A short, blonde woman was standing there, smiling. “Hi. Mind if I sit down?”
Kerry shook her head. “No, I’m about done. Would…did you want this table?” She could see several similar ones empty around her, but assumed perhaps the woman liked this particular one.
“No, that’s okay. I just wanted to introduce myself.” She held a beringed hand out. “I’m Eleanor Anastasia, from the Sales and Marketing Group. I hear you’re Dar’s new girl.” The woman seated herself primly and smoothed her hand over the tablecloth as she studied Kerry’s face. “I didn’t think Dar went in for such youngsters, but I’ve heard good things about you.”
“It’s very nice of you to tell me that, thank you,” Kerry replied guardedly, prudently ignoring Eleanor’s snarkier comments. “It’s only been a few days.
I’m still getting used to a lot of things.”
Eleanor smiled toothily. “We always like to see fresh talent here, especially in such an area as important as Operations. I hope we can develop a pleasant working relationship.” She paused. “Sometimes we have such…oh, I suppose you can call them communications problems. I’m sure you’ll go a long way towards ironing them out.”
“Well, I’ll certainly try my best. I try to get along with everyone, if I can,”
Kerry answered with a thin smile. “We have so many things going on at once,
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it’s hard to not rush through the social niceties.”
“Honey, your biggest communication problem is right down the hall. We all love dear Dar, but she can be a bit difficult at times.” Eleanor positively oozed fake affection for her fellow executive. “Don’t you agree?”
Kerry cocked her head slightly. “Actually, no. I’ve found her to be extremely easy to work with,” she replied politely. “So I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Really?” Eleanor gave her a pitying stare. “Well, give it a few more days, sweetie.” She patted Kerry’s arm condescendingly. “We’ll be talking.” She patted Dar’s new assistant again, then stood up and straightened her tight, bright red skirt suit. “It’s nice to have someone with manners over there for a change.” She gave Kerry a smile, then walked off across the room to where a table was set to one side, four other business-suited figures seated at it.
Kerry shuddered and resisted the urge to wipe her sleeve with her napkin where the woman had touched her. “Ugh.” She picked up her tray and carried it to the washing room, setting it down and dusting her hands off. “I gotta do something about her reputation.” Deep in thought, she started walking back to the elevator.
KERRY PUT HER magazine down and peered around the waiting room.
Then she checked her watch and sighed.
Two hours.
The room was pleasant enough, with decently padded chairs set around in a double figure-eight and low tables with an assortment of surprisingly current magazines. She’d already gone through
PC World
,
Windows
,
Infoweek
and
Time
, and had been flipping through
People
when she decided to give it a rest.
She wasn’t really interested in reading about the fifty most intriguing people of 1998 anyway. She leaned back and crossed her ankles, wondering what Dar was doing. Or to be more precise, what was being done to her. She’d picked up her boss at seven thirty, and they’d made the short drive over to the beach in relative silence. Dar kept her emotions hidden very well, but Kerry had seen the motion as she kept swallowing, and the tense pursing of her lips.
Poor Dar.
She felt so bad for the taller woman. Being that nervous was bad enough, but having to pretend you weren’t was worse. Kerry had almost just told her it was okay to be scared, but she didn’t think Dar would appreciate the attack on her defenses at the time.
With a sigh, she stood up, wandering out of the empty room and down the hall to the small vending room nearby. The walls were covered with pale blue vinyl, and the floors were polished until they shone, but the most curious thing about the place was the plaques.
Plaques were everywhere. There were memorial rooms, memorial wings, memorial staircases, a memorial elevator shaft, and, as she glanced up while she was walking, a memorial water fountain. All in honor of people who gave money to the Heart Institute. Kerry was intrigued and wondered why someone would bother contributing just to put a plaque on a bathroom door.
Personally, she would rather just give the money and let them do more productive things with it, like design hospital gowns that didn’t expose your butt.
Surely some research dollars could be shaken free for that, right?
Kerry ducked into the vending room and ambled over to the coffee machine, popping her quarters in and selecting a cappuccino. She retrieved her frothy drink from the dispenser and headed back to the waiting room.
DAR KEPT HER eyes closed, trying to ignore the tiny pinches and strangeness of the gear attached to her body. Leads were over her heart, under her arm, and one was on her back, and they’d just finished setting up a machine off to the side of the bed. It had a small wand-like device, which the
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head nurse had told her sweetly was like what they used to observe babies in the womb; it would emit sound and map the return waves as a picture.
Oh.
Dar chewed the inside of her lip to prevent herself from snapping at the nurse.
Like I’ve never heard of an echocardiogram. You wanna know how to take those
pictures, convert them to light waves, and reassemble them, little girl? How about if I
reroute that current in there so it zaps the hell out of your hand when you pick it up?
Condescending little…
But no, she was being good, so she just closed her eyes, and waited.
Finally a male voice rumbled close by, and she opened them to see a tall man with a shock of gray-shot dark hair standing over her. “Hi.”
“Hello, Ms. Roberts.” The man stuck a hand out within her reach. “My name is Richard Berger, and I’m going to be taking a listen inside you to see if your plumbing needs work.”
“All right.” Dar liked his frankness. “Lay off the pipe wrenches, though, huh?”
He smiled, then slipped his stethoscope into his ears, and warmed the end of it between his fingers before he laid it on her chest.
Dar liked that touch. A physician had once cheerfully told her it would only chill for a minute She’d answered by taking a metal bedpan and sticking it between his legs, right up against his testicles. It only chilled for a minute, she recalled, before the doctor had gone flying in the other direction.
She watched Dr. Berger’s face as he listened intently, his head turned—a natural human reaction to listening, even though the stethoscope was bringing the sound to his ears evenly. “Hmm,” he muttered, then picked up the wand and spread a gel-like substance on it, then on her chest. He pressed the instrument down, moving it in tiny circles as he glanced up at a monitor overhead. After a moment, he frowned down at her. “No offense, Ms. Roberts, but you have damn low blood pressure.”
Dar cocked an eyebrow at him. “Not my fault.”
“No, but it’s making it real hard for me to see anything. Can you, um, think of something that would get your heart pounding a little?”
“I don’t…well, I’ll try,” Dar closed her eyes in concentration. A thought came to her mind with surprising quickness and she let the image go, feeling her breathing increase and the blood start pumping faster, warming her skin in a soft blush. “How’s that?”
“Much better,” the doctor complimented, patting her shoulder. “Okay, just hold that thought. I want a few more pictures. Got it. Okay.” He half turned. “Did you get that on the EKG? Good.” He gave her a professional little smile. “All right, Ms. Connors here will get this stuff off of you, and you can get dressed.”
Dar gave him a puzzled look. “That’s it?”
He nodded. “That’s all I needed to see. I’m going to go review the tape, then talk with your doctor, okay? Get dressed, then we’ll chat in the consultation room.”
Her mind racing with possibilities, she swallowed hard. “Okay.”
He patted her on the shoulder again and walked out, carrying a cartridge he’d ejected from the machine.
The nurse closed in and reached for her. “Honey, let’s get you sitting up 158
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here a minute so I can get this little old patch off your back, okay?” Dar ignored the outstretched hands and sat up, feeling the pull against her abdominal muscles as she leaned forward.
“My goodness.” The nurse, a tall, heavyset cherubic-looking blonde, laughed. “You must work out, right?” She plucked the lead off Dar’s back and touched her shoulder. “Okay, back down now.”
Dar laid back down, trying to empty her mind of tension as she waited for the idiotic woman to finish pulling off the electronic attachments. She suddenly had an unreasoning desire for a teddy bear to hug. She wished she could just leave, not go into that consultation room, and not listen to what the very nice and thoroughly terrifying Dr. Berger was going to tell her. She didn’t want to be sick. She hated being sick.
Dar swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood, taking the clothes the nurse handed her with a brief nod. “Thanks.” She slowly slipped back into the familiar wool, tucking in her cream-colored shirt and zipping up the skirt, then hanging the jacket over her shoulder as she made her way out in the waiting room. Anxious green eyes met hers, and she felt a quiet warmth ease the fear a little. Kerry jumped up and trotted over, her gaze searching Dar’s face intently. “Well, it’s over,” Dar told her. “Now I have to go in and find out the bad news.”