Tropical Storm

Chapter Fourteen

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 Tropical Storm 157

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 Melissa Good 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.”

Kerry hesitated, her lips tensing. “You think it’s bad news?”

Dar just nodded, a tiny bit. “Yeah, I think so.”

The younger woman reached out and circled her arm with warm fingers, rubbing her thumb against the soft hairs on Dar’s skin. “You…do you, um…want some moral support in there?”

The executive hesitated, drawing breath in, then letting it go. “Sure.” It felt good to have someone with her, and she gave a resigned little sigh before she motioned Kerry towards the small room to one side of the waiting area.

“Let’s get this over with.”

It was very small, in fact, almost claustrophobic—two chairs, a small desk for the doctor to sit at, and a print of three apples, two oranges and a banana above the desk. Dar sat down in one chair and folded her arms over her chest as Kerry took the other seat, tucking her feet under it and leaning forward a little.

Dr. Berger joined them, sat down and put a large envelope on the desk, and folded his hands over it. He gave Kerry a curious look but didn’t ask who she was. Instead, he focused his attention on Dar. “Well, Ms. Roberts, you are a very interesting case.”

Dar wasn’t sure how to take that, so she raised an eyebrow.

“You have a congenital valve malformation,” the doctor went on, fiddling with the envelope.

Though her face remained fairly impassive, Dar’s heart sank and she mostly felt like throwing up.

“However…” Dr. Berger glanced up. “Somehow, your body compensated for that, and developed a… Well, here, I’ll show you.” He pulled out a photo and pointed with his pen to an area. “Here. It’s almost like your body compensated by developing this muscle part here…and here.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

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Dar looked at the picture, then at him. She was aware of Kerry’s nearby presence, also peering at the shadowy gray and black image. The iron grip that had seized her chest started to loosen a little. “What exactly are you saying? Is there something wrong with me, or not?”

A quick smile flicked over his handsome face. “There sure ought to be.”

He flicked his pen toward her. “But with all the tests I’ve done, there’s no impairment of the cardiac function in this little arrangement, so I don’t know what to tell you.” He glanced up at her. “I think the fact that you obviously live a pretty healthy lifestyle has a big part in it. You’re in very good shape, you take care of your health, and you have very low levels of triglycerides and cholesterol as well as low blood pressure.”

Dar and Kerry glanced at each other. “What am I supposed to do?” Dar finally asked.

He shrugged. “Live. Try to keep your stress levels down. I could put you in for an artificial valve replacement, if you really want me to, but your plumbing, though strange as hell, is working fine.”

There was a stunned little silence, then Dar slowly let out a long held breath. “All right,” she said slowly. “I’ll try to follow that advice.”

Berger held out his hand. “Mind if I write you up for the Journal of the AMA? This’ll make a test case they’ll be arguing over for months.”

Dar stood up and took his hand, shaking it briefly. “Be my guest. Hope you get a good paper out of it.” She gave him a brief smile, then followed Kerry out, neither of them speaking until they were in the elevator and the doors closed.

“Sonofagoddamnbitch,” Dar cursed softly.

Kerry smiled and impulsively put her arms around the taller woman and hugged her gently. “I’m so glad for you Dar.”

Dar went stock-still for a moment, then tentatively reached around and hugged her back, a little awkwardly. “Oh well, that was the nicest thing that happened to me all day,” she joked weakly as they parted, noting Kerry’s blush. “Thanks. Boy, what an unexpected end to that situation.”

“No kidding.” Kerry wiped her brow. “I thought I was going to have to call and place an order for that machine gun there for a minute. I’ve never been so relieved in my life.”

“Yeah.” Dar grinned then, in pure reflex. “Wow.” She felt a wave of feeling good wash through her, taking away the nagging anxiety of the past few days, and as the doors slid open, she turned to Kerry. “We’re supposed to be offsite until the afternoon at least. How about we do lunch?”

Kerry smiled at the high spirits that were echoing across her boss’s face, despite her attempts to quell them. “Sure, where’d you have in mind?”

“You like seafood, right?” Dar asked, a rakish grin twisting her lips.

“C’mon, it’s not far. We can have stone crabs.” She tugged Kerry’s sleeve.

“And a nice ocean view.”

The blonde woman grinned back. “That sounds great to me. Let’s go.”

KERRY HAD HER chair turned around so she could look out over the water, her body slouched into her chair and a sleepy, contented look on her 160 Melissa Good face. Lunch had been fantastic, but somewhat overfilling, and she’d topped it off with a glass of champagne that Dar had offered, which made matters worse. She felt like curling up in a ball and falling asleep, especially since she was watching the hypnotic shift and dance of the waves.

It had felt so good to see Dar happy. Though she was trying really, really hard to keep the lid on, she’d almost bubbled over with it. Not that Kerry blamed her; she knew the worry had been really eating at her boss, and she thought Dar had truly believed she was going to hear really bad news this morning.

Of course, even the good news had its not so good side, she reminded Dar. She really did need to relax a little more, and that half joking, half scolding comment had somehow turned into a conversation which had resulted in an invitation to go out on the boat again not next weekend but the following one. With an added dangling enticement of more diving. Like I’d say no to that.

“Ha ha ha ha,” Kerry chortled softly. “I don’t think so.” She glanced up as a tap came on the door, and she spun around, straightening up before she called out. “C’mon in.”

Maria slipped in and tip-toed across the floor, looking around like she expected spies to be hanging from Kerry’s mostly bare walls. “Chiquita, you know what Friday is?”

Kerry obediently clicked on her calendar. “Um, the Sixth?” she hazarded.

“Ay, ay, it’s Boss’s Day.” Maria waved a hand at her. “I was going to get her some little squishy balls, you know, or one of those crazy masks you put in the icebox, then on your face, but since she says everything turned out okay, I think maybe…I don’t know.”

“Well,” Kerry put some thought to the matter, “actually, they did say she had to keep her stress down, so those balls aren’t a bad idea but…hmm.”

Boss’s Day… She’d forgotten completely about it, or, to be more precise, hadn’t actually known it existed. A day for bosses? It didn’t make much sense, but, since she had one she liked, she might as well take advantage of the fact. She looked up. “Oh, I know what I’m going to go look for.”

“Oye? What?” Maria leaned on Kerry’s desk.

The woman grinned. “Toys,” she confided. “I know some great ones—

Nerf dart boards, that kind of thing.” She crumpled up a piece of paper, then tossed it at her garbage can, missing by several feet.

“Dios mío.” Maria covered her eyes. “Do not tell me.” She hurried out, closing the door gently behind her.

Kerry chuckled softly and turned her attention back to her computer, where her project list was waiting. “Add project.” She clicked twice. “Find some way to get Dar to relax.” She clicked again. “Priority, Urgent.”

“DAR, MR. HEAD of T-and-T on linea numero uno.” Maria’s voice broke into the executive’s thoughts as she looked unseeing out the window. The sunlight was reflecting on the sea, and she’d been counting sailboats crossing the bay while a report she’d been running completed itself on her computer.

“Okay, I’ll take it.” She punched the specified button. “Afternoon, Tropical Storm 161

Uthai.” A completely unintelligible mutter traveled through the phone.

“That’s nice, what can I do for you today?” Dar leaned back and studied her pencil, balancing it on the tip of her finger contentedly. Another, longer spate of gibberish. Dar glanced up as Maria entered, then propped her head up on her fist. “Sure, Uthai, just queue it to my work list.” A shorter burst. “Couple days, I guess.”

Dar exhaled quietly, stifling a yawn. The long lunch had definitely put her in a lazy mood, and it had been very difficult to drag herself back to the office, despite the heavy slate of projects she was working on. She really wanted to just take the rest of the day off, after the stress of the morning, and get the relief out of her system so she could get back to her normal business attitude. Instead, Dar listened to the gibberish. She was responsible for this place. “You’re welcome. Have a nice day, Uthai.” Cheerful, if puzzled-sounding, nonsense came back, then the line went dead.

“Dar, it is wonderful how you understand that man. I cannot see a word he says,” Maria confessed, shaking her head at the phone.

Her boss grinned briefly. “I don’t either,” she admitted. “I’ll look at my work list later and see what I promised him.” She looked up as the line buzzed again and waved at Maria to stop as she picked it up herself. “Dar Roberts.”

“Well, well. Hello, Dar.” Alastair’s voice was extremely cheerful, which usually meant nothing but trouble. “How’s the weather down there?”

“Partly cloudy, chance of afternoon showers. Why?” Dar responded.

“Can’t I just be asking?” the chairman inquired. “No, of course not. I just thought you’d like a little change of scenery.”

The executive rolled her eyes. “How little?”

“Orlando,” Alastair responded. “We’re bidding Disney.”

Dar’s eyes widened in honest surprise. “They’re taking bids? I thought they were so goddamn proud of doing their own stuff, they’d rather have Mickey admit to cheating on Minnie before they’d outsource.”

A rich chuckle. “Not since they had that management changeover. They finally figured out it’s better to farm the stuff out. All the majors are in there, but I want it.” Alastair cleared his throat. “We’ve got a good team bidding, but it needs… Well, John Byers, the account lead, is getting beat up pretty bad by IBM. He needs us to show some weight behind him, and you know the IBM

rep, Jerry Andrews.”

“Ah. Jerry.” Dar let out an unpleasant laugh. “He won’t be glad to see my face, let me tell you that, Alastair. Last time I saw him he threw a desk chair at me.”

“Exactly,” Alastair agreed jovially. “Just what John needs to throw off Jerry’s focus.” He shuffled some papers. “The meetings are tomorrow and Thursday, but I’d like you to get up there tonight.”

Dar considered. “I can take a puddle jumper up. All right, I’ll take care of it, Alastair.”

“Great.” The CEO sighed. “You’re in a good mood today. What’s up?”

“Nothing much. Just had a good morning, that’s all,” Dar replied dismissively. “Let me get started on pulling up the files for Disney, Alastair.

Talk to you later.”

“Give ’em hell, Dar. Bye.” Alastair hung up.

162 Melissa Good Maria sighed. “Travel again? My goodness.”

Dar worked seriously at her keyboard for a moment, then looked up. “I’ll need a flight out tonight, Maria. Book me for tonight and tomorrow night at someplace relatively close to the admin center up there, and get me the usual…” She paused, considering. Alastair wanted to put on a show, okay, and she wanted to break in her new assistant, maybe she could knock off two birds… “Actually, I think this is a good opportunity for Kerry to get a look at what an account battle looks like. Book two seats, and two rooms, and clear both of our schedules until Friday,” she decided crisply, then dialed the phone. “Kerry?”

“Right here,” Kerry answered softly, over a flutter of keystrokes. “Just working on some e-mail.”

“We need to go up to Orlando for a few days; we’re bidding an account up there. Is that a problem?” Dar was busy calling up records.

“Uh, um…sure. No, no problem. I can do that. How long?” Kerry’s voice sounded surprised.

“Two days. We’ll fly up tonight and come back on Thursday night, probably,” Dar replied. “I’d like you to see the process first-hand.”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll get going on these projects and try to get them out the door before tonight.”

“Good.” Dar hung up. “Okay, let me just print these. Maria, I’m going to have to run home and pick up a bag since I didn’t drive today. Schedule the flight for seven or so, the last one out.” She felt her energy picking up as the challenge pricked at her competitive nature. If I could bring home Disney, ooo…

Her nostrils flared in anticipation.

“Si, I will.” Maria was making rapid notes on her pad. “You want two rooms together?”

“Yeah, sure.” Dar nodded absently, absorbing the information. “That’s fine,” she muttered to herself as Maria left, sending sheet after sheet to the printer.

“Ay, Dios mío.” Maria sat down and pulled out her contact book, checking for a number and then starting to dial. She paused, however, when the outer door opened and Kerry slipped in. “Oye, chiquita, you go on your first trip, hmm? Not so far.”

Kerry perched on the corner of her desk. “Am I reading this right? Are we going to Disney World?”

Maria smiled. “Si, is business, though. No Mickey Mouse at the meetings.”

A twinkle of mischief showed in the sea green eyes. “Hmm. So, where are we staying?”

Maria pulled up a trip planner and reviewed her choices. “The Village area is close, it has access to the administrative offices. Is nice…the Hyatt, I think.”

Kerry drummed her fingers on the desk. “I kinda thought it would be something like that. What if it’s full?”

“Ay, well, there are seven, eight hotels in that area. Is not holiday season yet,” Maria stated, giving her a curious look.

“Well, what if it…what if they were all full?” the blond woman persisted.

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“What if…” She pulled the monitor over and scrolled down the choices.

“What if we had to stay…here?”

Maria studied the screen. “Chiquita, that’s right inside the park.”

“I know,” Kerry assured her.

“What little plans are going through your mind?” the secretary demanded. “Dar will go crazy if I book her in there.” She checked the profile nonetheless. The Floridian was one of the nicest hotels on the Disney property, and the picture showed a huge, filigreed white Victorian structure.

“Is nice.”

“Mmm.” Kerry agreed. “Listen, her doctor keeps bugging her to take a vacation, and I know this is a business trip, but those meetings can’t last all day. Maybe I can get her to just cut loose, and relax for a while, you know?”

“Ahhh…” Maria smiled and patted her hand. “Chiquita, you are so sweet…and very tricky. That is a good thing.” She picked up the phone. “I will do it. If she gets mad, she gets mad.”

Kerry smiled. “If it works, it’ll be worth it.” She got up when she heard movement inside Dar’s office. “Whoops, gotta go. Listen, I’ll bring you back a stuffed Pluto or something.” She slipped out of the office and back down the hall. Maria shook her head. “Pluto. Ay, chica, make sure she doesn’t stuff you.”