Danielle Engle - Lavender Excursions

Taryn said as she got into the back seat. "I don't know about you, but I could use a good stiff drink."

Taylor shifted the car into gear and pulled into traffic. She watched Taryn through the rearview mirror. Although Taryn was turned away from her, Taylor could see the cellular phone in her hand. She suspected she was calling Morgan Estates to check on Kimberly.

Back inside the office building, Mark Clayton rested his six-foot frame against the edge of his desk and waited for Kimberly to answer.

His dark, perfectly styled hair was tousled from running his hands through it. He stroked his mustache and thought about his recent visitor. Must be a mistake , he kept telling himself.

Kimberly had seemed a little distant of late, but she was under a lot of pressure. He chuckled at himself for worrying about it. Kimberly's phone rang several times before her answering machine came on.

Mark was disappointed but not really surprised. She'd been working so hard lately, how could he expect her to actually take a Saturday morning off from her job? "Hi, babe. It's Mark. Just calling to see if you were free to meet me for lunch. I'm at work. Call me when you get home so we can decide what we want to do tonight. If I'm not at work, call me on my cellular phone. Love you. Bye."

Mark sighed and glanced at the gold clock on his desk. Even though it was a gift from Kimberly, he felt like throwing it. For some reason, he felt very angry. This day was going to be interminably long. One regret Mark had about working for Sands, Kaufman amp; Nord were the incredibly long hours they demanded. For Mark, that meant Saturdays at the office and more often than not, Sundays. He sighed and returned to his desk. Mrs. Martin was having her will revised for the umpteenth time. Mark sighed and opened her file.

Mark lost track of the time as he poured over Mrs. Martin's latest request for changes. The next time he glanced at his watch, it was almost six o'clock. "Oh, shit!" he muttered. He hadn't heard from Kimberly. Would she have gone to visit her parents? He couldn't remember her saying anything about it. Thinking she might have tried him at home, he called and checked his messages. There were three, one from his brother asking him over for dinner, another from his mother asking him for dinner and the last call was a hang-up.

"Hmm." Mark started to call Kimberly again, then changed his mind. He reached for his coat and hurried out of the office. If she wasn't home yet, he figured she would be by the time he got there.

Monday morning Kimberly Justin was startled from a deep slumber. Sunlight was streaming through the windows and three meowing cats were lined up around her bed. She glanced at the clock and realized she was going to be late for work. If she hustled, she thought she could make the Monday morning meeting. She flung the covers back and sat on the side of her bed.

"Ouch!" she groaned, clutching the side of her bed. Her head was aching and every movement made it worse. The weekend had given her a hangover far worse than any she'd ever suffered from drinking.

Saturday was a blur. She remembered being shown around Morgan Estates during the afternoon, Laurie and Susan whisking her about and fussing over her like two mother hens. After several protests and Kimberly's promise that she'd call Taryn later, they'd finally driven her home. She woke up with a fever Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day in bed, taking cold medicine and falling asleep over her laptop. "So much for finishing my report," she muttered.

Distressed by Kimberly's bout of inactivity and what they considered feline neglect, her three cats were dancing around her feet.

They meowed and purred and rubbed their heads against her ankles.

"Okay, okay," she said. "Breakfast for you and coffee for me."

Donning her robe, she went into the kitchen, the three cats following her.

They waited by their food dishes while Kimberly started the coffeemaker. She filled fresh bowls with crunchy cat food and made the exchange of empty and full bowls with only a minimal of protest from the three felines.

Kimberly flipped the television on and changed the station to CNN.

She poured some coffee and looked over her appointment book.

"Damn!" she said when she saw Camarin Knight's name stenciled in for lunch. The last thing she needed today was an interview. Now she'd have to take care extra special care with how she looked. "Why today?" she moaned, thinking how nice it would be to dress business casual today. She walked to the bathroom, hoping she'd remembered to buy more aspirin.

Forty-five minutes and three aspirins later, Kimberly pulled into the company parking lot. Thankfully, she had a reserved space. There seemed no end to the need for expanded parking, forcing several employees to search for parking spaces on the street. "Thank God for executive privileges," she muttered. After gathering her things, she locked her car and hurried inside.

Michael, her secretary, frowned when she walked into the office.

"You've got five minutes before the meeting," he said, pointing to his watch.

Too tired to even try to explain her tardiness, Kimberly thanked him for the reminder. It wasn't that she owed him any explanation of her whereabouts, but Kimberly knew how office politics worked. The last thing she needed was an employee speculating about what she did over the weekend. "I don't want to get too close to you," she said.

"Virus," she explained when Michael handed her the messages from her in-box. With the handful of pink slips in her fist, she walked into her office and flung them down on the desk. These were phone calls waiting to be answered and she wished she could toss them in the wastebasket. "I'm got to pull out of this," she told herself. She hung her coat and grabbed a writing pad and pen. There was nothing she hated worse than a latecomer, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

The conference room was on the west side of the building overlooking a pond with a fountain in the center. The last to arrive, Kimberly had no choice but to sit facing the sun. This was a section of the building under renovation. Unfortunately, the windows were not yet tinted. Kimberly's head ached and the sun hurt her eyes, but she tried not to squint as she looked around the room.

"Kimberly, I'm so glad you decided to join us," said Martin. His silver hair the only clue to his actual age, he scolded her with his eyes.

"We were just going over the minutes from last week," he said.

Kimberly heard the voices droning in the background. Although she tried to maintain eye contact with the people sitting around the large conference table, she had to fight to keep from falling asleep.

The meeting seemed to go on forever. Her mind a jumble of confusion, Kimberly wanted nothing more than a few minutes alone to collect her thoughts and figure out what was happening to her.

When the meeting finally ended, she gathered her papers and hurried back to her office.

She stopped by Michael's desk first, remembering to keep her distance because she might still be contagious. She picked up her morning mail and some additional messages. Michael was on the telephone with someone. He looked up, pointed to her calendar, and mouthed a reminder about her meeting with Camarin Knight.

Kimberly acknowledged the reminder and continued to her office.

Camarin Knight said she was a reporter for some new zine called Executive News . When she first approached Kimberly about doing a story, Kimberly was excited. But then she told Pat and her friend warned her to be very careful.

"Watch what you say," Pat warned her. "I've heard this woman has no principles whatsoever and she'll do anything to get a scoop on your personal life."