Traveling Bug

by Curry, Edna

  "You may not thank me when you find out why I need you," he scowled.

  Her heart thudded in dread as she waited for him to continue. After a long moment of silence, he did.

  "Dad and I don't get along too well," he said. "It's a long story. I won't bore you with the details."

  "I wouldn't be bored."

  He smiled, nodded. "Maybe you wouldn't at that. Well, to make a long story short, I wasn't too happy with Dad when he married his secretary right after Mother died."

  "Arlene?" Diane asked, confused.

  "No, Janet. She insisted on retiring right after they married and spends most of her time on social things now. Arlene became Dad's secretary after I left."

  "You resented his remarriage?"

  "Yes. I thought it was disloyal to Mother, although Dad tried to tell me that her long illness had made him begin to deal with grieving for her long before she was gone."

  "I see."

  "No, you don't see. I think he had been in love with both of them for years. Worse, I think Mother knew he was having an affair with Janet."

  "Oh." Dismay was plain in her tone. She tried to imagine how she would have felt if it had been her parents, but the very thought of Bill or Rose loving someone else was preposterous. She was sure they never looked at anyone else. Pain was evident on Jeff's face.

  "My point is that Dad and I are at loggerheads at the drop of a hat. And this tour must go well. The project I've been working on is vital to both our finances, since I own a lot of stock in Banning Corporation too. We can't afford to offend any of the important corporation officers who will be on this trip. So..."

  "That's where I come in?" she asked in dread, already knowing the answer. How could she possibly cope both with him and his father and all the others? Just being with him was an ordeal most days. She couldn't do it.

  "Yes."

  "But you and I don't even get along in the office. How could you expect us to do any better in the field?" she cried, dismayed.

  "We'll each do our jobs like the professionals we are, and leave personalities out of it," he said sharply, his voice leaving her no doubt that he was no longer just her dinner date, but her boss once again. Then his face softened as she stared at him in chagrin, and he added in a more persuasive tone, "I've watched you work with the seniors on the bus tours. You have a way with them. Most of these corporation wheels and their wives will be much the same. They just have more money, that's all. They're still just people, with the same needs and fears as the other seniors when they get away from home. Some of them have traveled a lot, but most haven't. You won't quit on me, now, will you?"

  She shook her head, his voice mesmerizing her will to his. But a small voice inside her asked, what have you gotten yourself into?

  "Good. Then that's settled." He didn't give her a chance to reconsider. "Besides, I'm really looking forward to getting you away from your boyfriend and family, and having you all to myself for a whole week."

  "Bob's not my boyfriend." But her heart soared at his words, wondering if she dared hope he was beginning to care, if he was just a tiny bit jealous.

  "Whatever. That music sounds wonderful." He held out his hand to her across the table. "Dance?"

  She moved into his arms and was lost, as she'd known she would be. Emotions played over her as he held her close, and their bodies moved in the age-old rhythms to the beat of the music.

  Tomorrow she might regret it, but tonight was hers to enjoy. He leaned down and kissed her temple softly. A deep longing surged through her, which she didn't really understand. She wanted to feel this closeness forever. She was in love with this man, yet he plainly was only being nice to her because he needed her to help him through a tough situation with his father. We can't afford to offend any of the corporation's officers, he had said.

  What did it matter to them if a silly girl's heart was broken in the process? At least she could be careful never to let him see that she cared. She would be a professional, as he had said they must be, leaving personalities out of it.

  It was late when he drove her home. She was very tired, yet she lay awake for a long time, reliving the evening and wondering if she'd done the right thing in accepting this tour with him.

  But the idea of spending a whole week with him in romantic Puerto Vallarta was too thrilling to pass up and she knew she wouldn't change her mind.

  Chapter 7

  The weeks flew. Now that the main decisions of place and price for the Banning Tour had been made, Anne turned her attention elsewhere, leaving the rest of the details to Jeff and Diane.

  They spent hours together every day, working out the details of the tour. They decided who would do what, the orientation speeches, meeting places, the passports, the plane seating arrangements, the luggage tags, the letters of suggestions of what to bring and the rates of currency exchange. They spent hours on the telephone with the hotel manager, working out the details of the arrangements for each day of their stay. They haggled over room assignments and the times and menus for their meals. They scheduled various meetings and discussed the merits of the kinds of group entertainment available. They argued over suitable side trips, local day tours, and appropriate options to offer their charges. Often Jeff and Diane ended the day with cocktails and dinner.

  Diane made several hurried trips home, twice with Jeff as escort, and they spent the long drives getting to know each other.

  In her office, the day before Thanksgiving, Jeff asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  Diane lifted a shoulder. “Nothing special. Mom’s cooking a turkey as usual, but this year we’re planning to take trays to the hospital so we can eat dinner with Dad.”

  “I’ll drive you, if you don’t mind my joining you.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Wouldn’t he be flying home to spend Thanksgiving with his father? Even if he’d said they didn’t get along, surely they spent holidays together?

  “I’ve nothing else to do,” Jeff said. “I’ll just be alone otherwise.”

  Was he making a deliberate play on her sympathy wanting her to agree? She didn't need much persuading, and smiled. “Fine.”

  They spent a pleasant day with her family during which she kept telling herself that the deeper she became involved with him, the worse she was going to be hurt. Still, she rationalized that it did her parents good to see Jeff. Both he and her father seemed to enjoy their computer chatter so much she couldn't understand why Jeff had ever left that field. She was pleased that he could take her father's mind off his problems.

  Over the next weeks Bob called several times, but she kept saying she was too busy with the upcoming tour details to come home to ski. Luckily the weather co-operated by bringing a December thaw which made skiing impossible for a couple of weeks.

  She saw no more of Arlene, although of necessity she talked to her several times on the telephone. Their conversations were always polite, but reserved.

  The week before Christmas, Jeff came to her office one morning to go over the final letter to be sent out for the tour. They had gradually eased into a comfortable working companionship, so that she no longer dreaded his visits to her office, in fact she looked forward to them.

  This morning she thought he looked especially handsome in a casual slacks and sweater outfit of various shades of green. She pulled her gaze back to her keyboard and followed his instructions.

  "Let's go over this final letter once again," he said now.

  She ran off a copy of the draft as she had currently written it up on her computer and handed it to him, then retrieved a copy to her screen so she could key in changes as they discussed them.

  "You have made up the name badges for each person to wear on the trip?" he asked, noting they were listed as an enclosure at the bottom of the letter.

  "Yes, they're all done."

  "Did you double-check the spelling of the names? You know how fussy people are about their names being spelled correctly."

  "Yes, of course."


  "I see you've recommended sturdy shoes. But most of these people won't do much walking. They'll take taxis or buses. Remember, most of them are well-to-do older people," he said.

  "I know. But the streets in Puerto Vallarta are of cobblestones, and hand built, besides. They're murder on shoes and ankles, too. Even a little walking will require sturdy shoes. It's a small town and very picturesque. They'll want to explore it and shop. You can't see much from the inside of a taxi."

  "Okay, okay." He laughed and tapped a long finger on his copy. "But how about this recommendation to take plenty of any prescriptions they are on? Surely medicines are available there?"

  "Of course they are. The problems arise with finding exactly the right ones. There's the language barrier and there seems to be an unwritten law which says that all tourists are rich and may be charged extra. So why go through the hassle, when a little extra precaution may save us hours of time?"

  "Well, when you put it like that!" he agreed. "Hmm, passports, plane departure time, luggage tags, sunscreen, sunglasses, spare eyeglasses, if used, I...I hope we haven't left anything out."

  "If we have, we've probably mentioned it twice before," she said dryly, thinking of all the letters and brochures she had been sending to this group.

  "Better too much information than too little," he returned. "Okay, wrap it up. How about some lunch?"

  "Sounds great, I'm starved."

  "You don't look as though you eat enough to keep a bird alive," he said, running a critical eye up and down her slim form. She blushed under his intimate gaze. He was the only man she knew who could make her feel positively naked, just by letting his eyes rove lazily over her.

  "Dad always says that!" She laughed shakily, slipping on her coat and picking up her purse.

  "How is he doing?"

  "Fine, he really seems much better. Mom brought him home Saturday, but he'll have to return to the hospital for physical therapy for quite a while yet."

  "We must get out to see him again soon," Jeff said, sounding sincere. Yet, when she glanced quickly at him, his mind seemed far away, as though he were thinking of someone or something else, and she decided he was just making conversation.

  "How about tomorrow night?" he asked as they walked back to the office after a leisurely lunch.

  "Tomorrow night?" she asked wondering what he had in mind.

  "To go to see Bill," he said impatiently, as though she should have known what he meant, even though it was an hour since they’d started this conversational thread. "I'm spending the week of Christmas through New Years in Milwaukee, so tomorrow will be our last chance to go until after the trip. Okay?"

  "I guess it is getting close, isn't it? Okay," she agreed, not admitting to herself that she had been hoping to spend the holidays with him.

  "I'll pick you up after work, then. Think we can talk Anne into letting us both off early?"

  "After all the extra time we've put in lately, she'd better," she said, although she knew Anne wouldn't refuse.

  Their visit was a pleasant one as the others had been. In fact, Diane thought wryly, as she helped her mother prepare dinner, her parents seemed to expect her visits to include Jeff now. Jeff seemed to be able to cheer up Bill when she and her mother couldn't. Perhaps it was the matter of fact way Jeff treated Bill, as though he were in need of no special treatment at all, while she and her mother were having trouble thinking of anything except the new problems his accident had created.

  When Diane went to call them to the dining room, she overheard Jeff instructing her father not to log onto Banning Corporation's bulletin board until he’d sent Bill some new software.

  "But that bulletin board is my favorite." Bill exclaimed.

  "We're having a problem, Bill. I can't tell you any more now, and please don't say anything about it to anyone else, but believe me, it's important that you stay off it for now. As soon I can, I’ll send you our new version of the software, and you can make up for lost time."

  "Dinner's ready, guys."

  Jeff jumped and turned at hearing her voice. He cast her a guilty look, then threw a warning glance at Bill as if to ensure his silence.

  "We'll be right there, Diane."

  Diane went back to the kitchen, wondering what that was all about. Obviously, they were not about to tell her. Once again, she was quite sure it had to do with Jeff's project for Banning Corporation. She felt hurt and left out. Evidently Jeff did not trust her as much as her own father. That feeling threw a definite chill over the rest of the evening.

  On impulse, the next afternoon after work she went shopping. She’d been sorting out things to take on the trip a couple of nights before, and had been amazed to see how faded her favorite swimsuit looked. She imagined Arlene in a fashionable bikini by the pool with Jeff, and decided the expense of some new clothes was justified.

  To her dismay she found that few of the shops that she normally went to had swimsuits in December. Those she did find, didn't suit her at all. At last, in desperation, she went to the largest department store in town where she usually didn't shop because their prices were as high as their skyscraper.

  There she found two bikinis she liked. Trying one on, she stared at herself in the slinky black creation. She could hardly believe it was really her looking back from the triple mirrors. She tried on the other one, a bit of soft red fabric, and felt equally pleased. They made her look as well as feel gorgeous.

  Ignoring the price tags, she bought them both and a lovely white wrap cover-up to go with them.

  Jeff flew to Milwaukee the day before Christmas. He dreaded returning to the big house in which he’d grown up.

  His stepmother, Janet, had redecorated it from top to bottom as soon as she had moved in. She’d said the house badly needed redoing, although Jeff was sure that her real reason had been to try to erase all traces of his mother. To him, it no longer seemed like home.

  Only Jeff's own room remained intact, still holding some of his childhood treasures, such as his electric train set packed in a box in the closet, his old comic books and his first computer, which now seemed more like a toy. He remembered how thrilled he had been when he had first hooked it up to his bedroom television set. He and his friends had played games on that little computer by the hour. On it, he’d first learned to use a modem and telephone a bulletin board. It had been the spark which started him on the road to serious programming.

  He spent Christmas Eve going through the motions of celebrating with his father and Janet. They attended a family dinner with Vince's sister, who lived nearby, and her children and grandchildren, then returned home.

  Although the tension between Jeff and his parents rode high, they exchanged gifts by the little artificial tree Janet had set up in a corner of the living room beside the fireplace, and shared hot Tom and Jerrys in front of the fire.

  When at last, Jeff said goodnight, it was with a sigh of relief that he’d gotten through the evening without showing the resentment he felt toward Janet. Maybe if he concentrated on work, he told himself, he could remain civil to her for the whole week.

  Jeff lay in bed, unable to fall asleep. His mind kept returning to Diane, wondering what she and her family were doing, and how she was celebrating Christmas.

  He missed her already, and it would be a week before he would see her again. At times he was sure she cared about him, even acted jealous of Arlene, and at other times she seemed so remote, he told himself he’d been imagining her interest in him.

  Damn this project anyway, it had certainly loused up his attempts to make points with her over the past weeks. But soon, he promised himself as he drifted off, soon he would see her all day every day for a whole week. In as romantic a setting as Puerto Vallarta, she would surely notice him.

  Jeff and Vince spent the week between Christmas and New Years working frantically. Jeff spent hours implementing and then double-checking his project. He felt relieved to be getting it off the ground. One minute he was exhilarated and pleased with the way it
worked, then the next he felt appalled at the enormity of what he was doing.

  Lots of people were going to be furious with Banning Corporation for awhile, and then later with him. Yet, as he turned over their options in his mind for the thousandth time since his father had asked his help, he knew this was the best course.

  Each day, Jeff and his father worked from early until late. They checked and double-checked the new software, with Vince at his office and Jeff at their house, testing and re-testing how it worked over the phone lines. They uploaded and downloaded, then phoned each other to discuss every detail of the new programs Jeff had been working on.

  At last they were satisfied that the new software was as ready as it could be. They sent it to the factory to be duplicated and prepared for distribution.

  "Are you sure it will be ready in time to send?" Jeff asked for the third time. "I mean, really ready, in the padded mailing packages, and addressed to all of our legitimate customers, ready to send at a moment's notice?"

  "Don’t worry, Son. I’ll supervise it myself. Two of my own office staff will do it. Believe me, everything will be 'go' before I leave here. We’ll just have to say the word from Puerto Vallarta."

  "What about storing it safely until then?"

  Vince glanced at Jeff quickly, then looked away. "It'll be safe. I'm not even going to tell you where."

  "Good." Jeff sighed, wracking his brain for any little detail which they might have overlooked, but could find none. "Then there's nothing more for me to do here."

  It was Dec. 31, Jeff realized as he phoned for a plane reservation. New Years Eve, the traditional night to celebrate. He’d told Diane he didn't think he'd be back for it. Would she have made other plans?

  Although he knew he barely had time to catch his plane, he crossed his fingers and phoned her, heaving a big sigh of relief when she answered.

  "Care to see in the New Year with me? I'm sure we can find a dance floor and some mistletoe."