Tracy Kelleher - The Company You Keep

And that’s when Mimi experienced a second lightbulb moment. Two in one conversation! Which could only mean… “Wait a minute. Don’t tell me you’re trying to create some drama?” She hated the fact that her father had so easily manipulated her—for his own purposes, no less.

“These alumni panels can sometimes be rather dry, much too intellectual. Do we really need to be lectured on our overdependence on oil or the future of the space program? Far more entertaining to watch sparks fly, don’t you agree?”

Vic Golinski. Mimi hadn’t thought about him since graduation. What she did remember was they were more than polar opposites. They were matter and antimatter. Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner. Get them together, and it was total combustion—as that one time had proved.

Not that he’d even remember her, she immediately dismissed. It wasn’t like they’d ever hung around together in college. And hadn’t he gone on to some pro football career? He probably had groupies at his beck and call.

“So what do you think?” her father prompted her.

Mimi wasn’t ready to commit. “Did you say one other person hasn’t gotten back?”

“That’s right.”

Mimi heard a shuffling of papers.

“Yes, it’s the other undergraduate member of the panel…that former football captain…named…let’s see…yes, here it is. Golinski. Witek Golinski. Quite a mouthful.” He chuckled in a condescending way.

What a narrow-minded snob, Mimi thought with irritation. “Vic. He went by Vic,” she corrected him. And impulsively, to thwart his smugness, Mimi blurted out, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

“I knew I could count on you.” Again, that conceit.

You want drama? I’ll give you drama, Mimi thought. She could be just as manipulative as her father—for her own ends. “Yes, I’ll participate on the panel—on one condition, no, two actually. First, I’ll do it, but only if Vic Golinski does, too.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I hang up,” her father answered. “And the second proviso?”

“I want you to notify the fire department.”

“The fire department? I don’t understand?”

Mimi smiled for the first time in months. “Forget sparks. I predict a fire of major proportions.”

CHAPTER TWO

“HERE’S YOUR ORDER, THEN—Ubatuba.” Vic Golinski pointed to two enormous slabs of polished granite. They were stacked vertically in a wooden pallet in the brightly lit warehouse the size of a giant airplane hangar. Several 747s could have fit in the space with no problem. Rows and rows of identical pallets held enormous rectangles of different stone, all finished on one flat surface, rough and scored on the reverse. The high-tech space was filled with the mechanical whirring and beeping of a crane maneuvering a slab of pink-flecked granite to a flatbed truck stationed by the open garage doorway.

“Ubatuba is our largest seller and a fairly uniform stone,” Vic explained. His voice was calm, solicitous, betraying none of the awareness that myriad tasks awaited him with a timeline of “yesterday.”

He waved the young couple next to him to come closer. “Have a good look here. See how the flecks are regular and there’s no discernible veining? That’s typical of Ubatuba granite—not a lot of variation from one shipment to the next.” He ran his hand up and down the polished side of the stone. “Still, I’m delighted you came in to check out your order. I always tell customers that it’s best to come to the warehouse to see what they are getting, rather than take the salesman’s word back at the store. It’s your money and your kitchen, after all, and you want what’s best.”

The woman, her hand resting protectively on her rounded baby bump, stood with her mouth open. “It’s beautiful,” she said in awe, reaching out to touch the polished black surface for herself.

Her husband leaned in to get a better look before stepping back to take in the inventory that surrounded him. “Wow. It’s like a museum in here,” he exclaimed. “I had no idea there were so many types of granite.”

“Not just granite. We’ve got all kinds of natural stone—marble, limestone, travertine, onyx, slate—”

“Vic. Vic Golinski.” A loud announcement carried over the speaker system. “You’re wanted on line one.”

Vic looked apologetically at the couple. His football days were long past, but his large shoulders and massive build tended to dwarf those who stood next to him. “I’m sorry, but it seems I’m needed elsewhere. I tell you what. I’ve got your order information here—” he held up the clipboard “—but feel free to go ahead and take a look around. If you see something else you like, we can always change it. And when you’ve made your decision, just check back at the reception desk. That way we can finalize all the delivery arrangements.”

He shook hands and nodded goodbye before heading to the door. As he moved along the cement floor, he winced. His lower back was reminding him of last night’s pick-up game of basketball at Baldwin Gym, the basketball arena at Grantham University. It had been a mistake to play given his knees, but he hadn’t been able to resist.

He pushed open a heavy door and entered the front office space. To the left, behind a decorative wall of marble stone with a cascading fountain, were the showrooms. Mosaic patterns, multi-patterned stone floors and walls displayed a seemingly endless variety of inventory. To the right, on the other side of the long reception desk, was a warren of cubicles and some larger offices along the front wall of the building.

Two women, both talking into headsets, were stationed to greet customers. One, Abby—a middle-aged woman with raven-black hair that Clairol needed to retool—looked up when Vic passed by. As she provided directions over the phone for the warehouse’s location on Route One in central New Jersey, she raised her penciled eyebrows and made a circular motion by the side of her head, indicating that the person on the other end of the line was loco. Abby didn’t believe in subtlety when dramatization was so much more satisfying. True to form, she snapped her fingers and pointed with her manicured acrylic nails—snowflakes adorned each tip—in the direction of his office. Pronto, she mouthed emphatically.

Vic nodded but only marginally picked up his pace. He’d long ago learned that whenever anyone wanted him, somehow it was ostensibly always a crisis. That seemed to be the best job description for his position. In his opinion, there simply weren’t that many crises in the world, let alone at Golinski Stone International. And if it were a real crisis—a cave-in at a mineshaft or flames engulfing an apartment building—the chances that a washed-up football player who was now a natural stone distributor was the man for the job were slim to none.

So with his usual display of understated calm he headed for his office prepared to deal with whomever was having an anxiety attack.

No doubt it would be his brother, Joe—or maybe his father. Though Pop rarely showed at the office these days. Ever since his sister, Basia, had started divorce proceedings against “The Lousy Scumbag” and moved in with Vic’s parents, his mother and father had been drafted for babysitting duty for Basia’s three-year-old Tommy. That way, Basia could juggle waitressing at a diner in Grantham with going back to finish up her degree in accounting. Vic was convinced though that the real reason their parents—more specifically, their mother—had jumped at the idea was because she wanted to keep an eagle eye on her only grandson.

Anyway, his kid sister had had to abandon college when she’d gotten married and had a baby, which was a real shame in Vic’s opinion. Not that he didn’t think his nephew was aces. It’s just that of all Golinski siblings, Vic had always thought Basia was the one most deserving of an Ivy League education. She was scary bright, and he’d never understood why she refused to take advanced placement courses in high school.