When I’m With You (Indigo)

Marcel Baptiste rested his head against the shower wall, his eyes drifting shut. Relaxation washed over him as the hot water from the massaging showerhead sprayed across his face. He felt as if twenty years had been added to his life in the last forty-eight hours.

The past two days had been nonstop. He had delivered the keynote address at the annual conference for the National Automobile Association held in Atlanta. Countless meetings in stuffy conference rooms, late-night strategy sessions that, coupled with the three-hour time change, had taken their toll on his thirty-eight-year-old body. He was grateful to finally be headed home to Oakland to wrap up the bid for his newest automobile dealership.

After the soothing shower and an hour-long workout, Marcel donned a pair of jeans, a cap, T-shirt and tennis shoes. With soaring adrenaline and razor sharp concentration, he leisurely strode back to the main cabin of his Execuliner jet.

“Mr. Baptiste, we’re cruising at an altitude of thirty-seven thousand feet over the Rockies. If our tailwind holds, we should land about twenty minutes ahead of schedule.” The words from his long-time pilot, Russ Jenkins, were welcome news. Marcel decided to squeeze in more work before he landed.

Sitting down in a plush-leather seat next to the window, he grabbed the lone item atop his cherrywood desk: the proposal to fund a youth center in East Oakland. He’d read it umpteen times over the last three weeks. His desire to help the underprivileged, especially youth, had him spending every available moment he could spare considering the East Oakland Youth Center’s request. As he flipped through the dog-eared pages, he easily found the key points he’d circled. Each of them stirred his philanthropic commitment to worthy causes.

His vow to share his wealth with others was as steadfast as his commitment to accomplish his goals. His astute business ability had made his family’s business, BF Automotive Enterprises, the top-ranked Black-owned dealership in the country. Under his leadership, the company had maintained several years of steady growth and enjoyed skyrocketing profits. Three years ago, he’d launched a mammoth expansion plan throughout the nine Bay Area counties in California, expanding the BMW dealership from three to eleven. Company revenues would easily exceed the billion-dollar mark by year’s end, three months ahead of schedule.

A wrinkle etched along Marcel’s forehead as he tried to figure out how the grant writer knew he was a philanthropist. He’d always believed that generosity and publicity didn’t mix, so he’d insisted on complete anonymity in the various causes he’d funded over the years, and had gone to great lengths to ensure he couldn’t be connected to his sizeable donations.

Trailing his finger along the proposal’s edge, he closed it and placed it back on his desk. In the past five years, he had received scores of proposals, and he’d personally read them all. This one had a uniqueness he couldn’t explain. Whoever had written the proposal had lived the words they’d written. Over the years, Marcel made many decisions based on instinct alone and his sixth sense was telling him to relinquish his steadfast rule of anonymity. He wanted to put a face to the grant writer’s name.

He wanted to meet Caitlyn Thompson.

Two days later – Oakland, California

“What the hell do you mean, we have a problem securing the dealership?” Seated inside his corporate office in downtown San Francisco, Marcel’s baritone voice was sharp enough to split a single strand of hair.

Ken Terrell shook his head in frustration and sighed. “Marcel, I’m just as dumfounded as you are, but someone upped our bid for the dealership.”

“Why?” Marcel shot to his feet and angrily paced the length of his glass-topped desk as he listened to the explanation from his vice president of operations and second in command.

In the business world, Marcel had garnered a reputation for scrupulous fairness and unmatched ruthlessness, especially when someone told him no. His usual controlled and tempered nature was teetering on the brink of eruption at the news he was hearing. He had no reason to doubt Ken who had been with the company from day one when his father, Alcee Baptiste, started the business with one dealership. He stopped pacing and glanced over at Ken who appeared to be as frustrated as he was. But nothing Ken had said so far made any sense. How could something as simple as acquiring a twelfth car dealership create such a problem?

Marcel flung his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d heard enough bad news and sat heavily. “Listen, find out what the problem is and get back to me as soon as you can.”

“Will do.” Ken slid a folder inside his briefcase and stood. “Marcel, do me a favor and get your mind off this bid for a while, okay? Why don’t you stop by the Oakland dealership before going home?”

Marcel’s smile was flinty. “Is that an order?”

Ken stood near the door and chuckled. “No, but it’s a suggestion you would do well to heed.”

Marcel watched as Ken left and quietly closed the door. Releasing a loud groan, he swung his arm up and glanced at his gold watch. “Dammit.” It was already two o’clock, and there was no way he’d be able to keep his three o’clock meeting with the grant writer of the proposal for the youth center, Caitlyn Thompson, when he still had more than an hour’s drive ahead of him.

He pressed the intercom on his phone with more force than intended and spoke with forced patience. “Marilyn.” Marilyn Jenkins, the wife of his pilot Russ, had been his executive assistant for the past five years and ran his office with the precision of a synchronized swim team.

“Yes, sir.” Marilyn replied in a calm, strong alto voice.

“Cancel my three o’clock.”

“You sure about that?”

Generally, Marilyn’s opposition to his directives didn’t faze him. She was one of the few people who had the balls to challenge him and win. But after the news Ken just delivered, he wasn’t in the mood to listen to logic, even if it was in his best interest. “Just cancel it.”

Marilyn cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your last request, sir.”

He inhaled deeply and slowly released his breath. His tone softened to a sweet plea once he realized he hadn’t uttered Marilyn’s favorite word. “Please.”

“All right. A reschedule date?”

“Let me get back to you on that one.”

“Aren’t you the one who scheduled the meeting in the first place?”

She had him there. He picked up his Palm Pilot and carefully studied his calendar. He did want to reschedule his meeting with Caitlyn, sooner rather than later. Marilyn knew how he loathed having to cancel meetings, especially those he initiated. “How about Monday, say ten o’clock. Happy now?”

She answered in her best I-thought-you’d-see-it my-way tone. “I am now.”

All he could do was shake his head and smile. The woman had the innate ability to read him with her eyes closed. He grabbed the inventory report from the center of his desk. Tension rode his shoulders like a freight train. Rotating his neck provided some relief, but fifteen minutes later, he realized it had settled even deeper. Plus, he was still on page one and didn’t recall a thing he’d read. Sighing, he conceded his day was shot to hell. He tossed the report onto the desk and stood. Grabbing his suit coat off the back of his chair, he slipped it on. The more he thought about it, he realized Ken was right. Perhaps a visit to his Oakland-based dealership wasn’t a bad idea.

* * *

“Not now, dear God, not now,” Caitlyn Thompson anxiously cried out when her late-model BMW jerked as she approached the westbound entrance to the Caldecott Tunnel just outside the Oakland city limits. She didn’t need to spend a lot of time analyzing this dilemma. She wasn’t going to make it through.

With less than twenty feet to go before she entered the mile-long span, her car released another not-so-friendly mutter and a swirl of blue-gray smoke drifted over the front windshield. Seconds later, she smelled fumes from her tailpipe. She had about as much faith her car would make it through the tunnel as she did in men. Both registered a zero on her scale.

The car hesitated when she shifted from first to second in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, but there was little she could do about it. She couldn’t even move to the shoulder. She gripped the steering wheel with determination, pulled her bottom lip between her teeth as she got to the tunnel’s entrance, and prayed. “Oh, dear God, just let me make it through.” The car slowed and California drivers, infamous for their lack of patience, blasted their horns behind her.