Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 (17 page)

He did.

“Of course they would say that,
yes. You have to expect that sort of thing from a bunch of deadbeat old women,
don’t you?”

Krista just shook her head in
dismay as she looked back at her email.

Look at how busy I am, Jacob. Too
busy for the likes of you!

“I saw that report you cataloged,
though,” Jacob went on. “I head all of IT, of course, so I make sure the
catalogers are doing their job. Yeah, that was quality stuff. All original
design. Looks like you got a leg up on the rest of those Research yuppies.”

“Well, I don’t know about that, but
since they were all working on Dell, I was the obvious one for the job.”

“Don’t trust that McAdams, though.
He has a reputation…”

So do you.

“I haven’t yet. I don’t intend to
start now.”

Jacob laughed, “Yeah, you’re a
smart one, alright. What are you doing after work?”

She needed to tread lightly here.
She didn’t need a stalker. “Oh, my boyfriend is taking me out to dinner.”

“Oh? Oh right. I was going to say
we should go for drinks …”

“I can ask if he wants to do that
first?” She gave a completely fake, hopeful smile.

Jacob waved it away. “Ah no, that’s
alright. Next time. Anyway—I’ll be off.”

Krista bobbed her head, “Alright.
Thanks for stopping by. See ya.”

She waited until Jacob was out of
sight before she sighed in relief. That was nearly tragic.

She looked back at the list, at her
notes, then sat back and pushed away the adrenaline that always came when she
realized what she was facing was way over her head. She let her brain clear.

I can do this.

Sean was not kidding when he said
he was going to give her a crap load of work. But this…this was a bit ridiculous.

Well, she’d asked for a challenge,
and he was giving it to her. He apparently thought she could do it. No one else
in the company did. She intended to prove him right.

She ignored everything past the
first number. She figured it would just sink her dinghy, which was currently
barely floating anyway. She had to get underway with the first requirement
before she looked on.

“Okay, here we go.”

She got another cup of coffee,
loaded it with creamer, ignored the gossip in the break room as she did so, and
started to row in her cushy office chair. Her paddles were search engines, her
boat was her new office, and the churning seas were vast quantities of data she
couldn’t believe she would ever be able to tame.

The metaphors were just a means to
stall.

That Friday rolled around in a
numerical fog. Krista had been working long hours, eating lunch while staring
at her computer or on the way to the library, and finally, finally making some
real progress. Because of that, she felt like she could leave mostly on time
without feeling guilty, having used all her resources in efficiency to really
chew out a chunk of the list she was given.

She wondered, not for the first
time, how everyone else was faring.

The girls had selected a new bar
for that week’s Happy Hour. It was only two blocks away so they would barely
notice that she was a tiny bit late. She walked in and spotted them
immediately. It was the loud F-bomb that gave them away, of course. A couple
tourists with
San Francisco
sweaters, large cameras and red knees smirked.

Krista headed over and climbed up
onto a stool, looking for the bartender immediately.

“What the f**k took you so long?”
Kate asked.

“Worked a bit over.”

“This whole week you’ve been
working your ass off. What gives?”

Krista ordered a Guinness. She was
curious to see if it was as good as that place on Monday. Krista had almost
suggested they go there, but she was afraid she’d see Sean, so she didn’t
bother.

“It’s the penance for the
promotion. More pay, an office—yay—but also a crap load more work.”

Krista hadn’t asked about the
money, because she was an amateur, but luckily Sean was a man of his word. She
got about a ten percent increase. Then did a happy dance in her new office!

“Yeah, so…I was right, then.” Kate
laughed.

“Exactly.”

“Seriously, Krista, you just missed
the hottest guy,” Jasmine said. “He was all business and serious or whatever,
not our type obviously, but God-damned good looking. I bet he could beat out
your office guy.”

“I agree,” Kate said. Her tone
changed. “He was with this cute broad, though.”

“So? Doesn’t hurt to stare,”
Jasmine retorted.

“Speaking of hot guys, whatever
happened with that hot guy that f**ked you over?” Kate asked as she sipped her
fruity cocktail.

“Do you never pay attention when I
talk to you?” Krista said, mentally dodging Kate’s F-bombs. “He’s the reason
for the pay raise and new office, remember?”

“Oooooooh, yeah.”

“Definitely not,” Krista replied,
taking a sip of her Guinness. It wasn’t nearly as good as the one in the other
place. Apparently it was necessary to pick and choose where to drink the
Guinness. If it wasn’t poured enough it ended up tasting like burnt ass.

“What about Paul?” Jasmine asked
while looking around the bar.

“Yeah, hey! Why do you never
mention him?” Kate asked in confusion. “It seems like we always have to ask.
Which we then forget about. Which then makes him slip through the cracks…”

Krista shrugged, “Saw him earlier
in the week. I had ‘the talk’ with him.”

“What kinda tawk, dawlin?” Kate
asked in some kind of
New York
accent.

“The same one as the last time. ‘I
just want to keep it light and easy’ kind of talk. I definitely like him more,
it’s just…”

Krista blew out a frustrated
breath.

“Someone always winds up at the
bottom of the shit heap with those types of things. Just be careful, you know?”
Kate commented.

“Yeah,” Jasmine intoned, “someone
always falls. Always. Usually the gal.”

“I thought Paul was the one getting
a bit too serious,” Krista replied. “I’m just not quite there yet.”

“Well, he was always the chick in
that affair anyway.” Jasmine shrugged as if that was common knowledge.

“Doesn’t matta, dawlin--”

“Enough with that damn accent. You
suck!” Jasmine gave Kate a little shove.

“--someone’s always gonna fawl.”
Kate never really listened.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Krista
said, “It seems—”

“Krista…”

Krista jerked ramrod straight. Cold
water trickled down her spine at the same time her sexy-systems started to
purr. She turned slowly, noticing Jasmine staring with wide eyes.

There stood Sean, suit jacket taken
off revealing a white dress shirt. His tie was removed and his collar loose,
allowing his shoulders and arms to be on display. And the pecs…

Krista involuntarily gulped, “Hi
Sean.”

Sean regarded Krista for a beat,
then looked past her to Kate and Jasmine. When his eyes returned to her, he was
clearly asking to be introduced.

I don’t wanna, would probably sound
lame.

“Sean, this is Kate,” Krista
motioned to her friend, currently frozen with her glass halfway to her mouth.
“And Jasmine.” Who still had wide eyes. “Girls, we aren’t playing freeze tag.
Also, this is Sean, my current…uh, kinda-boss.”

Sean smiled his most charming
smile, causing Jasmine to blink. “It’s nice to meet you ladies. I’ve heard a
lot about you. Jasmine,” she blinked again, “I believe you do a Thump-Bird I
have been wondering about.”

“Why are you here?” Krista asked,
ignoring her friends, who were currently making asses of themselves. And her.

Sean leaned against the bar. It was
clear he wanted to sit down. It was also clear he would wait to be invited.
Call her rude, but Krista did not want to invite him. She didn’t need work and
social life intermingling. Not with this guy.

“I just finished a meeting,” he
replied. “I was about to leave when I saw you.”

“Oh, a work meeting,” Kate unfroze.
It was clear she thought it was a different kind of meeting.

A brief look of surprise flitted
across Sean’s face. He straightened up slightly—he no longer wanted to hang
around, it seemed.

“Yes,” he said easily, turning his
focus back to Krista. “How is the office? Have you settled in?”

Krista relaxed. Talking about work
was fine. That was common ground.

“My chair has my butt print in it,”
she laughed. “You weren’t kidding when you said I’d be busy.”

“Have you made any headway?”

Krista sighed, her mind drifting
back to the lengthy list sitting on her desk. With her mind distracted and
overwhelmed, she missed the mouth-made sound of a helicopter crossed with a
pair of giant wings.

She didn’t miss the feeling of
getting flicked in the head by Jasmine.

“Damn it, Jaz!” Krista yelled,
ducking to avoid further Thump-Birds and rubbing the sore spot on the side of
her head. “I’m talking to my freaking boss!”

Sean was laughing. He had one hand
braced on the bar, the other clutching his chest. The girls were back to
staring.

To Jasmine he said, “It’s okay, I’m
not really her boss. But thank you for the demonstration.”

“I told her to stop that sighing,”
Jasmine said, coming back to reality. Star-struck never lasted long with those
girls.

“Anyway,” Krista said, giving
Jasmine a dirty look. “I am working on it. You want a lot of info, so it’ll
take time.”

Sean was still smiling. “You have
time. Doing a good job is most important, so take the time you need to be
thorough. Just let me know if you get overwhelmed.”

“If she gets overwhelmed?” Kate
said, laughing. “Just look at her. If she gets any more wound up, she’ll go
suicide bomber on you.”

“Don’t embarrass me, Kate.”

Sean dropped the fun and honed in
on Krista with his business look. Jasmine gave an “oh my” as he said, “Don’t
panic, Krista. We have plenty of time. We are in a marathon on this one, not a
sprint. I’m not looking for miracles. If you need help with any of it, just let
me know and I’ll do whatever I can to help, okay? We’re a team now--we work as
a team. Everyone needs to count on everyone else. We won’t let you fall.”

“Good pep talk,” Kate commented,
nodding.

“Yeah, it usually works,” Krista
answered. She was flushed and embarrassed. As such, she excused herself to the
restroom.

~*~*~*~

Sean semi-awkwardly stood in Krista’s
wake, trying not to watch the sway of her h*ps as she strode away. He didn’t
want to leave without saying good-bye, but he didn’t want to stay with her two
friends. Krista had obviously been talking about him, and it didn’t seem
positive. Her friends were loyal; they would take him to the cleaners. It spoke
well of all of them, but still.

“Krista is a hard worker,” Kate
stated when Krista was out of earshot.

Jasmine nodded.

“We were with her in school,” Kate
continued. “She worked best when left alone. Give her a goal and a deadline,
and stand back. If you don’t rein her in, she’ll go way beyond your
expectations. It sounds like that’s what you’re after.”

“Yeah,” Jasmine said, nodding. “And
don’t try to play tough guy with her. She’ll just shrink. Give her constructive
criticism in a matter-of-fact way and she’ll work harder. Be pushy and angry,
she’ll shut down.”

“Oh yeah,” Kate spoke up again,
eyes lit up with memories, “and don’t put her with others unless you want her
to take over the whole group. She is the worst kind of overachiever you will
ever meet. Seriously. She’ll push everyone else around to make sure she gets an
A. Or, you know, whatever the goal is.”

“I hated working with her in
groups,” Jasmine declared.

“That’s only because she made you
work harder,” Kate reflected, apparently forgetting entirely about Sean.

“Yeah because she made me work
harder! I was happy as a B student.”

“I stuck to her butt like glue! She
did more work and I still got an A. Win-win!”

“User.”

“Pusher.”

“How am I a pusher?”

“What are you girls arguing about?”
Krista said, showing up on scene.

Sean hadn’t seen her approach, what
with the bickering going on with her two friends. They were a trip. Fun,
down-to-earth, and brazen.

He caught Krista’s eye as she came
around the bar. And held it, trapping her within it. Or being trapped, it was
hard to say. “They were just telling me …”

Kate shot Sean a warning look.

“Oh, giving him cheat sheets to
make me work harder?” Krista asked with a smirk, sitting down.

Sean inhaled Krista’s scent; fresh
and clean and woman. He loved the way she swished her hair unconsciously when
she was nervous. It was one of her biggest tells.

“I have to run,” Sean said, wanting
to get away before her friends got out their pitchforks and started chasing him.

“Okay,” Krista said, smiling. “See
you Monday.”

Sean nodded, gobbling down that
gaze, wanting to stay, or wanting her to go with him. He risked a glance to her
two friends, realized either of those options were impossible, said good-bye,
and was off.

~*~*~*~

Kate and Jasmine stared after him.

“Steer f**king clear, Krista,” Kate
warned. “That one is way, way too good at the game. He plays it in his sleep.”

“Yup.” It was all Krista needed to
say.

“But my-oh-my,” Jasmine’s eyes had
followed his progress out of the bar, “I get why you keep getting sucked in.
He’s hot!” Jasmine said the last word in a sing-song voice.

“Yeah. He’s probably the devil,”
Kate reflected somberly.

“Yup.”

By the end of the next week Krista
had everything researched, organized, graphed, cataloged, compartmentalized,
and stuffed in every nook and cranny she could find. There was a method to her
stockpile, but she was worried it would only be decipherable to her. There was
nothing for it, though, she had to move on. She had a crap load more work to do
and no idea when it was due.

Note to self: in future, ask for a
specific deadline.

She had not seen hide nor hair of
anyone from her team, which included her handsome and fearless leader. She
would’ve liked to know how she was doing so far, but worried he’d tell her she
hadn’t done enough, and she had most of the list still to do.

She had to move on.

Next up on the grudge-list, A.K.A.
Number Two, was asking Marcus for new research ideas. She took that to mean new
directions in which to get numbers. Or maybe the viability of the new ideas?
Sean had been a little vague, which, in his book, meant he thought it obvious.

Hopefully after meeting Marcus she
would find it equally so.

As she walked into the art
department, she looked around for Tommy. Since he worked near the entrance, she
spotted him immediately and went over. He was hunched over his computer, deep
in concentration.

“Hey, Tommy.”

He jumped about a foot. When he saw
who it was he sat back and smiled, followed by rubbing his eyes. “Hi, Krista.
Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Yeah, I am a floor up now.”

“I heard. New office!”

“I know!” She giggled happily. “I’m
so excited! Been working my ass off, though.”

“You’re not being mistreated are
you?” Tommy asked seriously.

She knew he was talking about Sean,
and therefore didn’t mean much of anything besides being hit on or similar, but
she didn’t like the way he asked. She didn’t like what those words had meant a
couple short years ago.

“Well,” she said, trying to brush
it off, “if you count that I have so much work it is nearly giving me hives,
then yes, definitely mistreatment!”

Tommy laughed. “Yeah, I hear
McAdams is a grueling boss.”

“You got that right. Speaking of,
do you know where Marcus sits? I am now supposed to pick his brain. I think.
I’m not really sure.”

She got directions deep into the
art department, where not many Research people went. For a reason. As she
walked, clutching her pen and paper, she entered into a chaos against which her
brain tried to rebel.

People were everywhere, talking and
laughing and yelling. Paper was strewn all over desks of all different colors
and sizes. Some desks had paper over their keyboards, crawling up their
screens. One person was singing at the top of her lungs. When she finished, three
other people clapped. It might as well have been a theater production of
“Cats”. Krista wanted to turn around and run.

Keeping composure, barely, she
noticed people looking her way. A couple people made eye contact and smiled a
welcome, which she returned nervously as she continued to make her way to the
back where Marcus sat.

This better not be a joke Tommy
thinks is hilarious. Marcus had better be sitting way back here!

As she rounded a makeshift green
wall of fake plants, she heard his voice chatting on the phone about the kind
of dog food his Lab ate. Krista let the wave of irritation flow past her at his
lack of diligence—just because she was an over-achieving work horse didn’t mean
everyone else had to be.

She smoothed over her scowl and
replaced it with a half-smile as she neared. The last thing she needed was
people to have proof she was a typical Research a-hole.

She got to his desk and noticed the
similar state of chaos as the rest of the department. There were pictures
strewn about of rings, necklaces and various other pieces of jewelry. The
pictures ranged from the early ’60s to present day. There were sapphires mixed
in, and she knew this must be the same type of thing she was working on. That
at least made her feel better. She knew now that she didn’t get any more work
than anyone else on the team. She just worked harder at finishing it.

Marcus saw her and raised his
eyebrows in surprise. He finished up his conversation with, “I gotta go, babe,
ciao.”

When he hung up the phone he leaned
forward on his desk and smiled a welcome. “Well, if it isn’t our team geek! How
are you faring?”

If said with disdain, Krista
would’ve immediately taken offense. The way he greeted her, however, was kind
and inclusive. It was easy and friendly. Krista relaxed as much as she possibly
could through her desperate need to organize his desk.

“Hey Marcus, how are you?”

“I’m great, mama. Good as can be.
How are you doing with the tidal wave of work that young stud has dumped on
us?”

It suddenly occurred to her that
Marcus might be g*y. He didn’t affect the g*y speech so common in
San
Francisco
, he wasn’t in any way effeminate, and he
didn’t have that “swish” of movement that she had seen so frequently among g*y
men. All the same, her g*y-dar went off. It was quiet, but it was there.

She didn’t dare ask. She’d offered
to hook someone up once, only to get a mean scowl. Some men were affronted by
that question.

“I am through step one,” Krista
shook her head and huffed. He laughed in commissary.

“So what brings you to the Dark
Hub?” He leaned back and gestured around him. This guy was the most relaxed guy
she had ever met. Ever! She relaxed that much more, itching to sweep the paper
in front of her into a pile.

“Well, you, sir, are step two.” She
lightly brushed a page toward another that looked similar. Obviously they
belonged together; she just had to help Marcus see it.

“Am I?” Marcus said in surprise,
easily ignoring her hint.

She tried to concentrate on him
instead of his desk. “You are indeed. I did a bunch of research on everything
jewelry, and now I am to report to you about new directions to travel.”

“Well then, I shall whirl you
around like Dorothy and send you down the yellow brick road.” He turned to his
computer and pulled up some spreadsheets.

Cue: avalanche.

The next half hour was her taking
quick and fierce notes as he rattled on about this market and that niche, this
idea and that scheme. He talked with his hands and stared out at distance
ideas. It didn’t seem like he intended to be taken seriously, so he was spouting
off anything that came to his head, realistic or not.

“Wouldn’t it be nice to get our
little fingers in here and do this?” He’d ask whimsically.

Krista assumed that meant she was
supposed to find out if it was statistically plausible, so she tried to outline
that idea as quickly as possible before he went on to the next, “I wish we
could…” or “Wouldn’t it be nice…” or “I was thinking…”

After his creative genius was
expired for the first pass, Krista stiffly straightened from her crouch and
returned his pen. He looked at her like he forgot she was there.

“Now what do you do, geek girl?” he
asked, leaning forward again with a pleasant smile.

It occurred to her that no one knew
what Research did—besides frown and say weird things.

She smiled. “Now I turn your
gum-drop dreams into reality, Prince Marcus.”

He laughed. “What? A sense of
humor? No wonder that young stud loves you!”

An explosion went off in Krista’s
mid-section. She squelched it immediately. The last thing she needed was to get
lovesick over a womanizing playboy in front of the biggest gossip in the
company. She was not looking for career suicide.

“Well, I’ve always wanted my
personal fairy Godmother.” He waved an imaginary magic wand and did something
akin to giving her pixie dust. His phone rang during her dusting and he stopped
to pick it up with a “Marcus at your service.”

Krista gratefully took that as her
cue to get out of the weird world of overly creative people, and hustled back
toward her desk. On the way out she got some odd looks, and realized she had
probably mussed her hair while thinking about Marcus’s unreasonable whims.
That, or she had ink on her face. Or both. It was a bad habit, but running her
fingers through her hair, or holding her chin, made her feel like she was
getting the brain juice flowing. She always walked away with a plan and in need
of a comb.

Back at her office she put her desk
into order, even though it didn’t need it, and then put her notes into some
sort of order so she could look them over. She typed them up, adding all the
detail she could remember, then stared at the screen.

Her music was some fast beats, and
she thought they might be distracting her, so she changed it to soft sounds. It
didn’t help.

The list was worse than Sean’s
because it was so abstract. The ideas were just short of genius, but way too
deep in the land of creativity for her to turn into something she could
research. The barrier was just too high.

Crap.

An hour later she was still staring
at her computer screen. She had shaken her head a couple times, did a couple
doodles of ideas that didn’t pan out, but largely she hadn’t so much as changed
position. She had no idea how she was going to accomplish this.

But she knew achieving those ideas
was the key to their breaking ground and possibly making the marketing hall of
fame with whatever elusive client they were chasing. She had to fulfill her end
of the Marcus/Krista team. She just wished she was smarter.

Fuck!

In a blind panic, she printed out
all the notes and headed home. On the train she continued to stare. Then
walking to her house. Then sitting at the table. It was like trying to decipher
Sanskrit.

Finally Ben tapped her on the
shoulder. She looked up and met a confused expression.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“What? Why? What are you talking
about?” She looked at her extremities for blood.

“Well, your hair looks like you
just woke up, you have ink all over your face, and you might as well be
drooling while staring at white paper. This isn’t like you.”

“Oh. I am trying to find a way into
the creative genius of a guy at work so I can do some field research on his
ideas. His ideas are just so out there that I can’t find a logical basis to
take off from.”

Krista was starting to get
teary-eyed, which was the first sign of defeat. She hated failure. No, not
hated; she was terrified of it. In school she rarely ever got less than an A-.
She worked her ass off to make sure she did well. Overachiever didn’t even
begin to describe it, it was a complex.

But no matter how hard she worked,
every once in a while there was something she just couldn’t grasp. In school it
had been woodworking. No matter what she did, she just couldn’t get it. Every
time she went to that class she felt like one of the dumb kids.

For a change of pace, actually, it
was the dumb kids from her academic classes who were the ones excelling. The
tables were solidly turned. She’d been glad she helped them when they needed it
in academics, because when she hit woodworking, her fellow book-smart students
all failed miserably where she had mountains of much-needed, reciprocated aid.

Ben’s face turned to one of
desperation as he saw her close to tears. Like all men she knew, Ben could not
handle when a woman cried. He quickly sat down next to her and looked at the
paper she was stewing over.

“Hmmm, I don’t know much about
marketing, and I know nothing about jewelry, but maybe I can help you bridge
the gap between art brain and logic brain?”

“But you have art brain.”

“I’ve learned to work with business
types like you. I just imagine I am the most boring, white-and-black person on
earth, and try to condense my thoughts appropriately.” He smiled, trying to
cheer her up. She really wished it was working.

“What do you mean
‘white-and-black’?”

“Devoid of all gray matter,” Ben
said with a mousy smile.

She really did love this guy. He
was so sweet and good. So opposite of her.

“Okay,” she agreed weakly.

“Okay.” Ben pulled his chair closer
so they could look at the notes together. “Why don’t you take me through these
notes?”

“Well, maybe it would be better if
I take you through the notes that actually came from his mouth?”

“Oh yes, that would be much better,
yes. The horse’s mouth, as it were.”

Krista pulled her scribbled notes
from her handbag and laid them out in front of Ben.

Ben squinted, eyes scanning the
pages. “Well, maybe you should read them out loud so we can both look over
them?”

“In other words, my writing looks
like something a five-year-old would do?”

Ben just smiled encouragingly,
which meant that it was exactly what he was thinking but too nice to say.

With their heads together, the two
spent the next two hours going over the notes from Marcus, then what Krista
thought they meant. It turned out she had it all wrong. From the first word out
of Marcus’s mouth, she was not on his wavelength. Her brain was too organized
and logical. Marcus was too haphazard and creative.

Ben was the perfect combination of
both, thank freaking God! He literally spent two hours saving her ass. She had
no idea how she was going to thank him, but she would, and it would be
spectacular. Possibly expensive.

The next day she showed up to work
early to get started on Marcus’s real ideas; the ideas Ben translated. It was
totally doable once she had the decoder ring in place.

She flew through the company
databases and that of the library both. She even took to the streets looking
for newspapers, magazines, and sometimes crowd watching for a new take on data
collecting. Real stat style!