Kill the Competition (6 page)

Another fan. "Do you know where I can find her?"

"I saw her walk Mr. Archer to the lobby. Actually, she was trotting after him. Then she said, um... that she was looking for you."

Great.

"Want a Krispy Kreme?" he asked, holding up a jelly-filled doughnut. "I picked them off the conveyer belt myself less than an hour ago."

Doughnuts were apparently a Southern panacea. She smiled at his attempt to cheer her, but shook her head. "I might as well face the firing squad."

"Literally—Margo lives to fire people, you know."

She swallowed. "Oh?"

He leaned forward. "But you're probably okay because"—he craned to look over her shoulder and seemed satisfied they were alone—"the last guy she fired, Jim Newberry, filed a big, whopping lawsuit against the company."

She wasn't sure how to respond, so she didn't.

At her silence, Clancy looked nervous. "Of course, that's not public knowledge, and I'm only telling you because it seems relevant and I know you won't repeat it."

"Of course." Belinda pointed with her thumb. "I'd better get going." She backed out of the meeting room, pivoted, and practically ran to Margo's spacious corner office.

Empty.

Margo's executive assistant, Brita, a slender giant, glanced up from her computer keyboard, where she sat behind a half-wall. "She's looking for you."

"Um... thank you." With dread building in her chest and pressure building in her bladder, Belinda put one foot in front of the other and followed the path of teal indoor-outdoor carpet toward the five-feet-high, eight-feet-square cubicle where she spent the majority of her time these days. Along the way, she passed two dozen or so replica cubicles alive with music and chatter transcending the shared walls insulated with gray woven fabric that Downey would love to sharpen her claws on.

The modular mini-offices were situated in clusters of four, and the foursomes populated the entire floor—only Juneau Archer and Margo merited true offices with real furniture. A third office sat empty. Jeanie Lawford's? Jim Newberry's? For everyone else, the pecking order seemed to be determined by one's chairs, with top distinction going to those whose main chair and visitor chair matched and were upholstered in a desirable color (cobalt blue), all the way down to those whose two chairs
didn't
match and were upholstered in undesirable colors (pea green and/or burnt orange).

When Belinda rounded the corner, she passed Libby's cube. Her carpooling mate made a face and a chopping motion with her hands. Belinda realized what her friend was trying to warn her of when she walked into her own cubicle to find Margo perched in the pea green visitor's chair dressed in designer black, slim leg crossed over knee, pointy-toed shoe swinging. The woman's foot stopped, and so did Belinda's pulse.

"Where
have you been?"

She had considered herself lucky that the opening to her cubicle faced a window—okay, a beam and a
slice
of window—and now she was especially grateful that no one sat opposite her to ogle this encounter. Still, all surrounding chatter stopped, and radio volumes were cut. Meanwhile, a hot flush consumed Belinda, and the smooth, professional apology she had memorized evaporated on her tongue. "I..."

"Well?" Margo shot up, appearing taller than her four-foot-ten-inch stature. Her body was tanning-salon orange and compactly muscled. Her tight black French twist and emerald green eyes (a la tinted contact lenses, Belinda suspected) made her seem even more severe—and unstable. "Tell me—
what
was more important than this morning's meeting? Did you oversleep? Have a fight with your boyfriend?"

Belinda was struck dumb at the woman's scathing tone. No one had ever talked to her like that. People in Ohio were passive (although Cleveland had a reputation).

The woman crossed her arms. "Because you weren't here with the numbers, I had to postpone the meeting with the board of directors. And Mr. Archer wasn't too happy about coming in to the office for nothing."

The thought crossed Belinda's mind that if the man was CEO, surely he could find something at the office that needed his attention, but she decided against voicing that observation, especially since everyone in the department was listening. "I'm sorry I'm late. I was in a car accident."

"Was anyone injured?"

"No. But my car—"

"You could have called."

"I didn't have access to a cell phone... that worked."

"If you're going to live OTP, you're going to have to be more responsible."

Belinda sorted through the stored acronyms in her memory bank and came up empty. "OTP?"

The woman's mouth tightened.
"Outside. The. Perimeter."

Translation: Uncool people who live in the boonies and schlep into the city daily to work for ITP people. Belinda's body sang with humiliation. "Again, I apologize—"

"I was planning to leave for Hawaii this evening."

"Yes, I remem—"

"Was
being the operative word." Margo's little foot tapped. "Mr. Archer isn't available the rest of the day, so it looks like I'll have to postpone my vacation to get this meeting taken care of."

Low groans sounded around them.

"So.
If I can reschedule the meeting for tomorrow morning, do you
think
you can manage to get here on
time?"

The quiet around them intensified. Belinda's neck tickled with the promise of pain. Whiplash? Aneurysm? She bit down on the inside of her cheek. "Yes."

Margo pursed her mouth, a little knot of flesh covered with black cherry lipstick. "Good." She turned to go. "But this had
better
not happen again."

And she sniffed.

Later, when the girls would ask Belinda what exactly had made her snap, she would say it was that sniff. Dry. Disdainful. Deliberate.

In the fraction of the split second it took for Belinda's aching brain to process the sound and for her overworked sensibilities to perceive its meaning, she experienced her first true epiphany in thirty-one years:

All her life she had followed the rules governing good behavior, and if she fell down an elevator shaft today, what did she have to show for her clean living? She was a jilted, broke, glorified calculator living in an alien city, driving a nightmare commute to a job for which she was overqualified, working for a short, unpleasant woman.

A cool sensation enveloped her, akin to the thrilling numbness of standing next to the interstate with massive vehicles speeding by. A reckless person would step into the path of disaster for the sheer exhilaration of the rush before the splat. And right now, she felt reckless.

Belinda wet her lips and tasted Aqua Net. "If you're going to belittle me in front of my coworkers," she said to Margo's retreating back, "I'll need a raise."

Margo stopped. Someone on the other side of the cubicle gasped—probably Libby. The air itself seemed to flee, leaving an ear-clogging vacuum in its wake. In slow motion, the diminutive woman turned and narrowed her eyes. "Ex
cuse
me?"

Belinda dropped her briefcase on the tidy work surface of her cubicle and offered her boss the bland smile of a person whose morning—and life—had nowhere to go but up. "I said you don't pay me enough to patronize me, Margo."

In her peripheral vision, Belinda saw the tops of heads pop up over cubicle walls all over the floor. Margo's eyes went from slits to protruding organs. She took two slow steps back to the cubicle opening and swept her blazing gaze over Belinda. Belinda identified her need to exhale, but her lungs wouldn't budge.

"Unless you apologize for that remark," Margo said through clenched teeth, "I can arrange for you to be paid
nothing."

Fired? Belinda swallowed as she mulled whether her body could back up her newly liberated mouth. Breaking rules meant facing consequences. Could she draw unemployment if she was fired? She had enough Slim-Fast to last a week or so. Her childhood coin collection would yield about three hundred bucks—just enough to rent a U-Haul and hightail it back to Cincinnati. Downey would be overjoyed to return to the cooler climate and the fish-scented air.

"I'm waiting," Margo said, foot still tapping.

The woman's shoes probably cost as much as a decent couch, Belinda thought wildly, light-headed now from lack of oxygen and a swimming bladder. "I..."

"Yes?"

Hoping the woman couldn't see she was shaking in her muddy Aerosoles ($29.95, on clearance), Belinda exhaled. "I've apologized enough." She punctuated the statement with a tight smile that belied her state of mind. "And now... I'm going to the ladies' room."

Before exiting the cubicle, her feet driven by a rush of adrenaline, Belinda caught a glimpse of Margo's shocked expression. She felt the eyes of her coworkers on her as she passed their cubes. Her skin tingled with the absurd expectation that Margo would chase her down and jump on her back, but when she closed the lounge door behind her, she was alone.

Alone with her sudden, ballooning remorse.

She rushed into the first stall to relieve some of her physical burden, but as she peeled off her ruined pantyhose, the weight of what she'd just done started to sink in. Margo was probably calling security at this very moment to have her removed from the building. With the sagging economy and a discharge on her record, she'd be hard-pressed to find another job with such good benefits—including the discount on furniture she'd been looking forward to when she was finally able to set aside a few extra dollars.

She emerged from the stall and caught sight of herself in the mirror—Midwestern pale, helter-skelter hair, serious brown eyes, not a rule-breaking bone in her body. She practiced an apology while she washed her hands. "I wasn't myself," she murmured. "I had a really dreadful morning and—"

The door to the lounge swung open, and Margo marched in with a thundercloud on her forehead. Belinda busied herself drying her hands, rehearsing in her head.

"Belinda—" Margo began.

The door opened, and a woman Belinda recognized as a software developer walked in.

"Leave," Margo barked.

The woman bolted, and Belinda's pulse spiked. She glanced around the small room and judged the distance to the door. Her legs were longer—she could make a run for it if she had to.

Margo cleared her throat. "Belinda," she repeated, her expression softening, her voice...
contrite
? "I want to apologize for losing my temper." She lifted both hands and almost smiled. "I was upset about postponing my vacation, and I overreacted."

Belinda blinked. "Oh... kay."

"I shouldn't have said what I did."

"Oh... kay."

"The truth is, I admire the way you stood up to me out there." Margo angled her head. "The credentials on your resume are very impressive, but when I met you, I couldn't reconcile the two. I underestimated you."

Belinda pushed her bangs out of her eyes.

"In fact, I've been looking for someone around here with a little backbone, someone I can groom for senior management. Someone who isn't afraid to go after the competition."

The woman actually did smile this time.

"What do you say, Belinda? How would you like to help me take Archer public?"

Belinda squeezed her bare toes inside her shoes. "Sure. I mean—yes, if it's good for the long-term health of the company."

Margo made a humming sound in her throat. "Life is short. Right now, I'm more worried about the
immediate
health of this company. I'll reschedule the meeting with Mr. Archer and the board of directors for tomorrow—midmorning, just in case you encounter difficulties again. I suppose the traffic does take some getting used to."

"Er... yes." Belinda swallowed. "Margo, I found some irregularities with the Payton P&L statements, and I was hoping we could discuss them before the meeting."

Margo looked pained. "I'm going to be running full speed."

"I'll e-mail you."

Her boss lifted her hands, stop-sign fashion. "No e-mail. My laptop is being upgraded. Whatever you think you saw, I'm sure it's nothing—Payton is a solid company."

"But—"

"Belinda, I don't want unnecessary last-minute questions to postpone the transaction. All the players are primed—Juneau, the Payton family, the board of directors, the venture capitalists. An endorsement from Archer's chief financial officer will help seal the deal."

"But Archer doesn't have a chief financial officer."

"The former CFO had some personal problems, and we had to let him go. Juneau and I have been conducting a quiet search for a CFO, but we haven't found someone with the right mix, someone who can be trusted."

Her boss flashed another smile—teeth and everything.

"I think maybe you're the right person, Belinda."

She blinked. "Me?"

"Mr. Archer will defer to my judgment if he likes what he sees tomorrow in the meeting." Margo examined her black cherry manicure. "And you're right—I don't pay you enough. Compensation for the CFO position is 100K."

One hundred thousand dollars? Belinda couldn't help it—she laughed.

Margo looked up. "All right, 120K, but that's my final offer."