“Steve mentioned you were a little unorthodox,” he mumbled, adjusting his hoodie. “I guess I have a few minutes before my next meeting.”
“I’m only unorthodox when dealing with Technocore. Would you like to step into your office, or do you prefer conducting business outside of the restroom?” Dylan asked, instantly regretting her off-the-cuff remark. She sounded like her mother.
Tim bent down and picked up the novel, drawing his eyebrows together before letting out a bark, which doubled as a laugh. “You’re funny. In a bizarre, bathroom-stalker kind of way.” Handing her the novel and her emergency deodorant, he continued, “What’s your name, again?”
She stuffed the pirate book and the deodorant back in her satchel before standing up and rearranging the busted bag under her arm. Squaring her shoulders, she extended a hand toward Tim. “Dylan Delacroix.”
Tim shook her hand, recovering his swagger. “I guess you already know who I am.”
Before she could stop herself, she added, “Mr. Gunderson, I think you should come up with a code to ask Layla for security. Could you please call security is a surefire way to cause both the intruder and the employee to panic.”
“You can call me Tim,” he said, ignoring her criticism.
“Okay, Tim. Shall we get going?” Dylan said, appraising his Dockers and obnoxious neon-orange high-tops as he started toward the office door with a curt nod at Layla. Biting back frustration, she continued, “I’m here because of a board of directors mandate to right this ship. I know it is hard to run a company. It was easier when you were a small team of white-hat hackers in a basement, but now you have thousands of people counting on you and scrutinizing your every move. Not to mention countless investors wanting more out of you. Sound right?”
Tim gaped at her, his mouth slightly open so she could see the wire retainer glued to his bottom teeth. He nodded, taking a seat in the swivel chair behind his desk.
“Good. I know it’s tough, and I want to help you. But I need you to do a couple of things for me. First, your employees are terrified that I’m here to fire them. Will you please send out a company-wide email letting everyone know that I’ll be asking to speak with some of them? Explain that I am not here to fire them but to assess the culture of Technocore and make improvements.”
“Can’t Steve do that?” Tim seemed to be regaining some of his pluck. Apparently, a stern talking-to only silenced him for so long.
“No, because Steve’s in charge of firing people. Think about how that looks to the staff,” Dylan commanded, trying to withhold some of her exasperation.
Tim grabbed a stress ball off his desk and nodded as if he understood her logic, blessedly shutting his mouth so she didn’t have to see his charming retainer anymore.
“Also, I need to get on your calendar for a full discussion of your company goals and director expectations ASAP. This will take about three hours. If that means I stay until ten p.m. to meet with you, fine.”
“I’ve made time on Thursday. Anything else?”
“Yes.” Dylan drew a deep breath. Since she was already making guaranteed-to-get-her-fired requests, she continued, “Enough with the red Roadster. It’s killing you in the court of public opinion and makes recruiting quality people near impossible.”
Tim’s mouth dropped back open, encouraging the eggplant color creeping toward his hairline.
“But I like—” Gunderson jumped as his phone rang. Glancing over at the caller ID, he switched gears and put on a headset. “Fine. This is my next appointment. I’ll think about the car.”
“That was all I needed.” Dylan couldn’t hide her smile as she stood.
“Any other pressing business before Thursday?” He adopted an ultraprofessional tone that Dylan assumed was more for the benefit of the people listening on the other end of the line than for her. She shook her head.
“Great, I’ll get the memo out this afternoon and make sure that you’re cc’d.” Without missing a beat, he switched back to the line. “Tim here.”
Dylan could hear the phone line wah-wahing like Charlie Brown characters as she walked toward the door.
“Hang on.”
She turned to face him, resting one hand on the door.
Covering the receiver with his hand, Tim leaned forward. “Is that book any good?” Dylan looked at him quizzically. “The one with the shirtless dude on the cover?” he asked, pointing to her overflowing bag.
She felt the same shade of eggplant he had worn minutes before trying to appear on her own face as she struggled for some clever way to disavow ownership of the novel. Gunderson grinned as if he had won a small victory. That could not happen. Consuming her pride, Dylan shrugged. “So far. I can lend it to you when I’m done.”
Tim shifted his hand away from the phone, his smile steadily working its way back toward his ears, and returned to his call.
Dylan rushed back to Marta’s office as fast as she could without breaking into a sprint. To say her meeting with Tim had gone well would have been an overstatement. At least she hadn’t set his ridiculous oversize desk on fire. Pressing the power button on her laptop, she held her breath. The last thing she needed was to have to call Kaplan’s IT department on top of everything else. After what felt like an eon, the thing booted up, and the usual pinging sound of incoming emails began, followed by the ding of a chat message. There were roughly twenty Kaplan emails about the state of the office kitchen, as well as an email from Jared marked URGENT. Dylan decided to deal with the chat first.
Stacy Castello’s name blinked at her, drawing an unexpected smile from Dylan’s memory. She and Stacy had been best friends through high school, surviving braces and frizzy hair together. Of the three Delacroix sisters at Roosevelt High School, Dylan had been the least likely to get invited to anything other than a student council meeting. Stacy was also the odd one out in her family, making the two of them fast friends. At exactly five feet two inches, she was a Filipina made up of all curves and bleached-blonde hair, a holdover from her family’s move from Everett in the seventh grade. The Castellos owned a series of car-part-recovery locations that made them the unusual combination of blue collar and wealthy in a neighborhood dominated by white-collar tech professionals. Everyone had wanted to hang out with Stacy; they just hadn’t wanted to deal with her truck-driving, BB gun–loving, ATV-worshipping brothers, who referred to themselves as the Trailer Park Mafia.
Still smiling, Dylan clicked on the icon.
I hear you’re back in town. True or False?
Dylan felt guilt clawing its way to the front of her mind. She avoided coming home as much as possible, and when she did get here, she made it a short trip. Not seeing Stacy was a byproduct of the unintentional time constraint.
True! I’m here for the next couple months.
Good, then you have plenty of time to come to Lenny’s tonight.
Lenny’s was where everyone who’d graduated from Roosevelt and never left town spent their evenings. Dylan could think of about a million reasons why she didn’t want to go there but very few good excuses not to. The bar was literally within walking distance of her house and divey enough that she could wear her pajamas and be considered “dressed to kill.” She wanted to see Stacy; she just didn’t want to see her at Lenny’s surrounded by the ghosts of high school football stars past. Her fingers were hovering over the keyboard, searching for an excuse, when a second urgent email from Jared came in. The subject line was Anyone Home? Grumbling, Dylan flipped back to her chat with Stacy, deciding that Jared’s email was the perfect excuse to avoid an evening at Lenny’s.
Sorry. My boss just sent the email from hell. Looks like I’m gonna be working late. Maybe this weekend?
Of course! I ran into Neale today. She says you have some huge account or something.
It’s becoming more intense by the minute. Remind me to tell you about the romance novel and the bathroom . . . oof
Dylan felt bad putting off Stacy, but there was too much to do, and social time jus
t wasn’t carved into her calendar. Pressing send on a response to Jared, she watched as another email hit her inbox, this one from Tim. She opened it with smug satisfaction, knowing Tim had bent to her will.
To: Technocore All
From: Tim Gunderson
Subject: New Consultant
All,
I would like to welcome our new consultant Dylan Delacroix of Kaplan & Associates. Previous consultants have been hired to assist in restructuring and occasionally downsizing our workforce, which is not her role. I ask that you please cooperate with Ms. Delacroix as she asses our work.
Tim
Asses our work. Blinking rapidly, she read it again.
Nope. Dylan was still assing things. Tim hadn’t noticed the typo; maybe the rest of Technocore wouldn’t either? She dropped her head into her hands, only to have someone knock on the door. Jerking her head up, she watched Deep pop her head into the office.
“Hey, so what time did you want to ass me?” Deep didn’t linger in the doorway to see if Dylan was laughing. Grinning, she turned to a man walking by and said, “So you’re being assed first, then?”
Cringing, Dylan looked from Deep to the people giggling in the hallway and said, “How about we do your assessment tomorrow?”
“I see. Too much assing for you to do tonight, then?” Deep cackled.
Dragging her attention back to the screen, Dylan clicked on Stacy’s chat.
I can’t wait to hear all about it. Brunch on Sunday?
Actually, I could do with a drink. Lenny’s at 7:30?
A martini was the least her Kaplan expense card could do for her after the day she’d just had.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dylan barreled into Lenny’s, feeling the curl return to her hair as the Seattle mist sank through the layers of strategically placed hair product. So much for the salon’s promise. Stopping to let her eyes adjust to the grimy lighting, she felt her pumps stick to the dingy green-and-white checkered floors. Formica countertops and an unfriendly-looking bartender with a beard to rival Santa Claus’s greeted her. The martini glasses would be passably clean, but that was about it. Scanning the room for Stacy, her eyes fell on the sad remnants of what used to be a pool table, now doubling as a beer stand in the corner. Dylan wasn’t sure how long Lenny’s had been around, but she was convinced the table and the layer of dirt that covered it were even older. Finally, she spotted Stacy’s familiar bob frantically waving at her from a semirevolting brownish-maroon booth.
“Look at you!” Stacy shouted as she came hurtling toward Dylan, her teddy bear scrubs blurring in the dim light. “You are the exact same! Seriously, how have you not aged?”
“Me? Look at you! You’re fabulous. I’m loving the hair color.” Dylan’s words were muffled by a hug.
Releasing her bone-crushing grip on Dylan’s neck, Stacy stepped back and appraised her. Dylan was a solid five ten, without the heels. In them, she was nearly a foot taller than her friend. “Neale was right: you are like a megaprofessional now.”
“Oh, please. I like how you’ve seen Neale and I haven’t.” Dylan smiled. This was typical of Neale.
“Shall we grab a drink?” Stacy said, not waiting for an answer before finding a home on a barstool. “Dyl, what do you want?”
Doing her best to sit delicately on the stool, she started fishing around in her purse for cash as she spat out her usual. “Hendrick’s martini, with extra olives, please.” She continued to dig around in her purse for a beat before feeling eyes on her. Glancing up, Dylan made eye contact with Santa the Bartender, who was staring at her in disbelief.
“We don’t carry Hendrick’s. We aren’t exactly your standard martini joint.” Santa’s gravel-packed laugh filled the gloomy space, catching the attention of the patrons sitting next to her.
Suppressing the urge to give Father Christmas a dirty look, she cast a desperate glance around the bar, trying to pick up on what the locals were drinking these days. The guy in a black knit cap next to her held a beer glass full of something that looked like a promising gin-based drink. Attempting to sound casual, Dylan tilted her head toward Knit Cap. “I’ll have one of those.”
Kriss Kringle’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline, but he didn’t say anything; instead he picked up a bottle and began pouring. “And you?”
“Pink Lady, please,” Stacy answered without missing a beat.
“One Pink Lady and a Beast.” He handed Stacy a pink concoction in a highball glass, then passed Dylan the Beast. “Cheers, ladies,” he said, wandering away with a slimy-looking rag to wipe down the bar.
“Cheers!” Stacy shouted, knocking her dainty drink into Dylan’s.
Dylan took a sip and did her best not to gag. To say the Beast tasted like whiskey fortified in a shoe would have been generous. No wonder Santa had looked shocked. To go from high-end gin to moonshine was a far fall from grace. Trying not to think about the drink in her hand, Dylan shifted her focus back to her old friend. “So clearly Neale filled you in on me. Tell me, what have you been up to?”
“Oh gosh. What’s new?” Stacy said, wrinkling her nose and taking another sip of her drink. “Ack! I can’t believe I didn’t mention this to you. I saw the evil spawn of Andrea Curtis this week. That demon baby tried to eat my hand as I was showing him how to floss.” Dylan’s skeptical laugh in response was punctuated by her gagging as she tried to swallow another sip of shoe drink. “Don’t look at me like that. Andrea was always the worst. You can’t possibly think she would give birth to anything other than a cannibal.”
“I didn’t say anything. She was always a—”
“Total a-hole.”
Dylan’s smile spread. Stacy worked as a hygienist in a children’s dental clinic, and it showed. Not only was she dressed in kid-friendly scrubs, but curse words were generally off the table. A-hole was probably the strongest language she would use all night, and Dylan suspected Stacy felt guilty about it.
“I find it hard to believe that a six-year-old consciously tried to eat you.”
“Well, he did. Because his mother is Satan’s Barbie Bride,” Stacy said, shaking her hair out of her face and taking another sip.
As Stacy carried on about the different kids she saw every day, former classmates, and bad boyfriends, Dylan felt lulled by the easy rhythm of an old friendship. It would have been more convenient to blame the warm, nostalgic feeling on her drink, but as they wove in and out of topics without preamble or backstory, she had to admit that in avoiding her family, she’d missed at least one person back home.
Dylan was glad she’d had the foresight to park the car and walk to the bar as she fell through the front door of her parents’ house, slightly sweaty from both the alcohol in the Beast and her brisk walking pace. After pulling her trench and heels off in one motion, she wandered into the living room. She had expected to find her father doing Tae Bo or something. Instead she found Neale thrown sideways in a chair, reading what appeared to be her mother’s battered copy of Either/Or.
“There you are. I was wondering when we’d run into each other,” Neale shouted, launching a hug at her sister.
“Hey, sister. How you been?” Dylan said, giving her sister a squeeze before carefully folding her coat over her arm.
Neale sat back down airily and looked around the room, as if she were surprised to be there. “So good. I’m sure Mom told you—I’m working on my next manifesto. I think it’s going to get a good response.”
“It sounds promising,” Dylan answered, knowing the vagueness wouldn’t prompt a response from space’s reigning queen, then made a mental note to ask her mother about the manifesto. She didn’t have the heart to tell her no one had so much as emailed her about it. Not even Grandmama, who was a relentless cheerleader for her grandbaby’s art.
“How’s the active pursuit of claiming souls?” Neale said, picking up Kierkegaard again.
“Oh, you know. I met the devil’s quota when I took the Technocore gig, so overall I’d say it was a pretty good day.”
Neale snorted into her book and looked up as Dylan shifted her heels to her other hand so they couldn’t drip mud onto her coat. “Good to have something you are good at, big sister.” She giggled, picking up her coffee mug, then fixed Dylan with one of her rare I-am-present-on-Earth stares. “God, Dyl, everything in your wardrobe is so neutral I want to fall asleep looking at you.”
“Thanks. I believe it is called professional. If I wanna look like a hobo, I’ll visit your closet.”
“It’s a miracle you manage turnarounds. I feel like you are more likely to achieve a narcoleptic takeover in that getup.” Neale laughed, chucking one mud-covered sneaker over the arm of the chair she was curled up in. Dylan cringed at the mud, then remembered that in her parents’ home, mud was probably cleaner than the cushions anyway.
“Well, if you ever have trouble falling asleep, feel free to peek in my closet. I have an entire wardrobe full of corporate attire.”
“Oh, I know. I went in there to find something to wear today and came back empty handed. I dare you to buy something in a color other than beige, black, or navy.”
“I think I have a gray dress somewhere,” Dylan shot back, reminding herself that nothing in this house was strictly hers as long as her sister was around.
“You would have an inventory of the colors in your closet. I’m guessing you have an itemized list too?”
“Yes.” Dylan rolled her eyes as if they were back in school. “Just so I can track exactly what you’ve stolen out of there.”
“Oh, goody. I’ve missed your lists.” Neale snickered. “I noticed the spotlight is gone. Seeing as the Robinsons’ house isn’t on fire, I’m guessing I should say thank you,” she said, not batting an eyelash at the abrupt turn.
“You’re welcome. Honestly, Mom and Dad bring it upon themselves.”
“False. Linda and Patricia are sociopaths under all that hair spray.”
“I very much doubt that. They raised two perfectly normal children without any homicidal tendencies.”
The Checklist Page 5
