Melissa Good - Tropical Storm

“ Mierda .” Alex snorted.

“Don’t tell me what that is either, okay?” The director exhaled. “But in Michigan we’d say, ‘this sucks.’ ”

She spent the next few hours putting things in order, studying the latest statistics their reporting system had generated, and clearing her inbox. She had her head bent over the last performance review when a light knock came at the door. She looked up, to see Ray Rameriez standing there, holding up a Coke in one hand. “Oh, hi.”

“Lunch?” The tall, lanky technical supervisor raised a dark, inquiring eyebrow. “I hear they have picadillo in the café.”

Kerry made a face. “Ew.” She put her task down and stretched, working a kink out of her back. “Two years, and you’d think I’d be used to that stuff by now, but every time I eat it, I go right to sleep under my desk.” She fiddled with a pencil. “Besides, I’m not really hungry.”

“C’mon, c’mon, don’t let them get you down, Kerrisita . Come, I’ll get you some flan, I know you like that,” Ray coaxed, waggling his brows invitingly.

She smiled, but shook her head. “No thanks. Maybe tomorrow, okay?”

She opened her drawer and pulled out a bag of miniature carrots. “Besides, I brought.”

“You’ll grow floppy ears one of these fine days.” Ray laughed. “You and your little carrotas .” He sighed. “You sure?”

She nodded. “Yes. Go on; get out of here for a while. I’ll probably need you when those guys show up.”

He lifted a hand, then let it drop in surrender. “I’ll be back soon,” he promised, then ducked out the door.

Kerry gazed pensively at the door, then sighed, and tossed her pencil down, bending her eyes towards her evaluation again and propping her head up on one hand. What’s the use anyway? The evaluations won’t be worth anything to the newcomers.

A soft knock interrupted her again. “Look, Ray, I told you…” She glanced 14 Melissa Good up, slightly annoyed, then stopped.

There was a stranger in her doorway. A tall, golden-skinned woman with midnight dark hair looked back at her, the lean body arranged against her doorway in a posture of confident arrogance. Kerry blinked, looked again, and was captured by the bluest, clearest eyes she’d ever seen. They drilled right through her with a blast of cool intensity, and a strange, almost haunting glimpse of something familiar. “Um…sorry. I thought you were someone else,” she managed weakly, getting to her feet.

The woman pushed off the doorframe and entered, putting a thick leather briefcase down on her visitor’s chair and extending a hand. “Dar Roberts.”

The voice was low, pleasant, and seemed to rumble in her ears. As she moved to take the woman’s hand, a soft scent of musky perfume mixed with leather reached her. “Kerry Stuart.” She took the taller woman’s hand and gripped it, feeling the strength in it as the woman returned the squeeze. “Are you, um…” She hesitated. “I mean, you’re from the new headquarters, right?

I’m sorry. I must seem kind of daft to you. I wasn’t expecting anyone until after lunch.”

Dar studied her quietly for a moment. “Yes, I am. I suppose my lunch doesn’t quite match yours,” she answered coolly. “Sorry.”

“Oh, right,” Kerry answered awkwardly. “Well, that’s okay, because I-I finished lunch already myself…but my staff is still out. What…I mean, can I get you some coffee, or something?”

“No thanks, I’m on a tight schedule,” the tall woman answered briskly.

“Let’s just get started; it won’t take long.” She motioned to the desk. “Sit down.” Dar watched the younger woman step back around her desk and seat herself, laying her forearms on the surface and looking back at her with a mixture of trepidation and curiosity.

She’d briefly studied the picture Mark had so kindly provided, but the static personnel print gave no hint of the gentle presence the woman projected, or the clear steadiness of her eyes, whose color uncannily matched the ocean Dar saw out her window every sunny morning. There was also something familiar about her that Dar couldn’t quite put her finger on. No time for that, though. She sat down in the visitor’s chair. “You know why I’m here, right?”

Kerry’s fingers twisted a piece of binding tie. “I know you people are taking over. They really didn’t tell us much about what was going to happen, no.”

Dar cursed silently, making a mental note to send a mail ripping a new butt hole for whomever was on the account team for this cluster. “They were supp—” She put a hand out. “I’m not going to play games or beat around the bush. Bottom line is, what we purchased was your business.”

The blonde woman took a breath. “Okay…but what does that mean. We report to different people, or you want things done differently? I have reports…”

A hand silenced her. “It means we’re interested in the services you’re providing, not in how you provide them, or who does it,” she replied firmly.

“There’s nothing you do here we can’t do better, and cheaper, which is the whole point.”

Kerry stared at her. “What are you saying?” she asked softly. “You’re Tropical Storm 15

saying you don’t need us, is that it?”

Cool, blue eyes met hers. “Yes.”

“You can’t just come in here and fire everyone! We’ve been doing this for years; you can’t replace us just like that,” the director protested.

“Yes, I can,” Dar replied. “It’s what we do.” She gestured towards the door. “I have a programming group in Huntingdon, a support group just west of the airport that can take your calls, and a hardware installers division—all who already work for me.” She stood, and walked around the back of her chair, leaning against it. “Your people are inefficient: they take two sick days apiece every three weeks; half of them are late every day; your programmers haven’t met a deadline in two years; and you’ve had eighteen workman’s comp claims in the last four months.”

Kerry just looked at the surface of her desk and concentrated on breathing. Her chest hurt from the sudden, unexpected attack, and she realized she had no answer for the charges. She knew they were true, but it was a good staff. They were good people, just a little lazy sometimes, like everyone was. Her eyes traveled up to the hawk-like profile watching her, and she felt a quiet despair. Not everyone, not anymore. “I guess John was right,”

she finally said in quiet defeat.

Dar eyed her, slightly disconcerted. The usual reaction to her speech was anger, indignant protests, not…this. “Right about what?”

Those sea-toned eyes lifted. “You are here just to rape us.”

The executive flinched visibly. “That’s not an appropriate way to refer to it.” Kerry shrugged. “What are you going to do, fire me?” She took a breath.

“Is there something else I can do for you, Ms. Roberts? You seem to have all the information you need,” she studied the clip in her hands, “and…I’ve got a lot of paperwork I need to get started on, I guess.” She tried, but couldn’t keep the hint of hoarseness from entering her voice. Though she could feel Dar hovering, she refused to look up, unwilling to give the older woman the satisfaction of seeing the depth of her pain.

Dar felt a sudden twinge of shame. She could see the anguished tension in the slim shoulders across from her, and she bowed her head for a moment, feeling a sense of confusion very alien to her. She’d done this a dozen times already this year alone. “Look…”

“They’re not really that awful,” Kerry said softly. “Our customers like us.

We do a good job. I don’t…see why we need to be thrown away like garbage.”