by Melissa Good
She had her blue sweater and her dark khakis on and in Dar’s eyes, she looked adorable. Nervous, but adorable. Dar saw her square her shoulders and nod, and then reach up to take a piece of paper from the judge, who was regarding her with a mild and tolerant expression.
It’s done. Dar got up and moved down the aisle to greet her as she came even with her, exchanging a grin as Kerry waved the paper at her. “That was fast.”
“It was,” Kerry agreed. “Let’s go.” She exhaled happily. “Kerry Roberts. You like how that sounds?”
Dar laughed. “What exactly are you expecting me to say to that?” She draped her arm over Kerry’s shoulders as they exited the courtroom. “No?”
“Do you think it was weird of me to do this? Now that it’s done?” Kerry asked after a pause.
Dar considered that as they walked down the steps and stepped out into the bright sunlight of a Florida winter’s day. “I have to say I never really thought anyone would do that. I mean, want to change their name to mine,” she said thoughtfully. “Back in the day, before I realized I wasn’t going to get married, I think I’d decided I wasn’t ever going to change mine.”
“Really? No, never mind. Retract that. Of course you wouldn’t,” Kerry said. “You have every right in the world to be proud of that name.”
“Well, my dad’s family isn’t exactly something he’s proud of,” Dar said. “But yeah, that never bothered me because he’s my dad.”
“Lucky you.” Kerry paused, then smiled. “Lucky us.”
“Let’s walk over to the Thai place,” Dar suggested. “They have beer.”
“Now that I’m not in knots, they also have sushi,” Kerry said. “I don’t know why I was so nervous about that, all he asked me was something about was I changing my name to escape the law?”
“And you said?”
“I said no, just to escape the lousy taste of my upbringing.”
“Nice,” Dar said. “So let’s get some sushi, then go to our new digs and see if I can beat the butt crack in punching down our circuits.”
“Oh boy.”
Chapter Nine
AT LAST THERE was some peace in her day. Kerry perched on an old wooden stool in what was becoming her office. She leaned a clipboard on her lap and wrote some notes on it. It was almost sunset and the light was glancing past the window, putting a golden glow on the leaves of the trees just outside.
There was a lot going on. She heard hammers and circular saws going in the offices to either side of her, and the distinctive jingle of the cable runners as they worked their way down the hall.
There were two sawhorses and a piece of plywood serving her as a desk, and she smelled the sea coming in the window, along with a spicy scent from some restaurant down the way.
She’d changed out of the sweater and khakis that she’d worn to the courthouse, into jeans and a sweatshirt, and she had the sleeves pushed up over her elbows as she worked.
“Ma’am?”
Correctly assuming she was being addressed, Kerry looked up. “Yes?” She motioned the figure at the door to enter. It was one of the maintenance people from the landlord’s management company, who’d been detailed to assist them in moving in.
“There’s a delivery for you downstairs,” the man said apologetically, wiping a bit of sweat from his forehead. “Boy, this is a busy place all of a sudden.”
Kerry slipped off her stool and put her clipboard down on the makeshift desk. “Lead on,” she said, following him out and along the hallway. It was open to the outside, though there were shutters that could be slid down in bad weather. It over looked the inner square, and Kerry glanced down to see the newly contracted landscaping company busy at work.
“Nice to see the place being made up, though,” the man said as he ambled along at her side. “Thought the kid was gonna have to sell it off for a bit. Pity. Been in that family a while.”
“It’s a nice building,” Kerry said. “We liked it as soon as we saw it. Nice area, and the space worked for us.”
He nodded. “Lot of history around here. It’s nice. I live over there in that apartment building.” He pointed. “You can walk to everything.”
They went down the steps to the ground floor in the back of the building where a truck was waiting. “Hello,” Kerry greeted him. “What do you have for us?”
The driver unlatched the back door of the truck and opened it. “That’s yours.” He pointed at the contents.
Kerry peered inside. “Ah, furniture. Cool.”
“Sign?” The driver handed over the clipboard and a pen.
She scanned the packing list, mentally checking off the items, then nodded and started to sign the manifest, pausing after her first name. Then she smiled and continued to write, finishing with a slight flourish and handing it back. “There ya go.”
The driver and his helper hopped inside and extended the rear gate, preparing to get a pallet jack into position to move the delivery.
“Okay, while we wait for the freight elevator to come down, I can separate what’s first floor and what’s second.” Kerry stepped back to give room and folded her arms over her chest, regarding her first purchases for their new place.
Nothing very exotic. The nicest piece of furniture she’d reserved for Dar’s desk, with a top that was adjustable to height, with a wraparound design that would be comfortable for Dar to sit at while she worked, and yet, would allow her to raise up part of it to stand if she wanted to.
Sometimes, she did. She got tired of sitting down like anyone else would and Kerry had found her more than once with her laptop on the drink credenza at the old office pecking away while she stood there.
There was also a smart board for Dar’s office, and for the corner, a nice zero gravity chair and a reading light in case she wanted to chill out for a few minutes.
She’d spent a lot more time on Dar’s office than her own. Her furniture was more or less the same, but she’d added a small work group table and chairs for the corner of her office rather than the relaxing chair.
For the rest of the offices she’d gotten modular desks and comfortable chairs. The floors had been covered and lined with rubber surfaces. “Okay, so, those two pallets go upstairs.” She pointed. “Those three stay here, and the ones in the back, they go upstairs, too.”
“All right,” the driver said. “But y’know, we’re just supposed to drop it at the dock.” He eyed her. “Don’t suppose you want to be hauling that all yourself, huh?”
Kerry smiled at him. “I sure don’t,” she responded. “But I’m open to a delivery fee. Interested?”
The driver grinned. “Now that’s my kinda customer.” He motioned to his helper. “C’mon, Jake. We’re gonna get us some beer money. It’s our last stop anyhow.”
Kerry chuckled, taking a breath of the cool air and exhaling in contentment. There was a pallet jack and she thought she could figure out how to use it, but having two big strong men, who already knew how to do it made a lot more sense to her, especially since she had some cash in her pocket to reward them with.
Sometimes, it did not pay to play the butch card.
“Hey.”
Kerry turned, to find Dar approaching. She was in jeans and a sleeveless sweatshirt, with a tool belt full of punch down paraphernalia strapped around her waist.
“Hey. Furniture’s here.” Kerry indicated the pallets.
“So I see,” Dar said. “What do you want to do about telephones? I’d rather use the twisted pair for data, and not have to split off a pair for phones.” She folded her arms over her chest, and regarded the pallet now making its way down to the floor. “Nice chair.”
“Glad you like it.” Kerry reached over and brushed a bit of pull string fuzz off Dar’s bare shoulder. “Let’s see what we can do about using an IP phone system. Let me call and see what revolutionary stuff is available we can prototype.”
“Okay,” Dar said. “Let me go back to installing that demarc. Looks like we can hook into the same pops fo
r a ring that ILS did.” She hitched her thumbs into her work belt and winked at Kerry, then sauntered back into the building.
“Scuse me, ma’am.”
Kerry put her lustful stare on hold and backed up out of the way, looking down the service ally and spotting a small cafe on the corner opposite the end of it. “Be right back.” She circled around the building super and strolled down the lane, which had the wall of their building on one side, and a thick leafy hedge on the other.
It was nice. Even the dumpsters she was walking by were relatively clean. She got to the corner and crossed the street, exchanging brief smiles with two women seated at a table outside before she entered the cafe.
It was mostly empty, but the staff was obviously getting ready for a busier evening. “Hello.”
“Hey,” the girl behind the bar greeted her. “Whatcha want?”
“Two lattes, extra shot of espresso, to go please.” Kerry slid onto a stool to wait, as the woman busied herself with her order. The cafe had a coffee bar, with a case full of the usual pastry selections, and about ten small tables with menus stuck in table tents on them.
There were also tents on the bar, and Kerry removed a menu and studied it. After a moment she put it back, having found a couple items she could foresee herself ordering for lunch in the weeks to come. Next door to the cafe was a pizza shop, and next to that a Thai place.
Nice. At the old office, unless they wanted to take a car out, it was pretty much restricted to the cafeteria downstairs, or the executive lunchroom upstairs.
This ramble of choices seemed more fun.
The girl who had taken her order came back over to her and leaned on the other side of the counter. “You working around here? I saw you go by a few times the last couple days.”
One of Kerry’s very blonde eyebrows hiked a little. “Yeah,” she said. “The next building that way.” She pointed. “We just moved in.”
“Oh! The old Supertravel place.”
Kerry nodded.
“That’s been empty a while,” the girl commented. “The last people there, the nail people...they were cool. Had piercings and all that stuff.”
“Ah.”
“But no one wanted to go in there. Too much of a bummer, you know? Just them in that little space and everything else empty.”
Kerry nodded again. “Yeah, I know what you mean. They would have been rattling around in there. It’s a pretty big space for a small operation like that.”
The girl waited for her to go on, but Kerry merely sat there with her hands folded. “So did your company rent part of it, or...” Now her eyebrow lifted in question.
“All of it,” Kerry cheerfully supplied.
“So what do you guys do?”
Kerry cleared her throat. “It’s high tech,” she said. “Computer services, networks, that kind of thing.” She observed the body language across from her and decided her interrogator was pleased with the information. “We’re a new startup.”
“Oh, that’s very cool,” the girl said immediately. “You hiring? When are you going to get that all going? Most of the companies that move in here already have all their staff.” She reached behind her and secured a stack of paper to go menus. “Want to put these out? We love free advertising.”
Kerry chuckled. “Sure.” She took the menus. “We’re probably going to start taking applications in a couple of weeks. We’ve got a lot of work we’re doing on the building first, getting furniture and stuff in.”
“Good to know. Is it all tech stuff?”
“Tech stuff, sure, but also regular office positions. Accounting, logistics, you know,” Kerry said. “Spread the word? We don’t mind free advertising either.”
“You bet.” The girl smiled. “I’m Janine.” She offered a hand. “What’s the company name?”
“Kerry, and it’s Roberts Automation.”
She took her coffees, paid for them, then retreated back toward their building with a sense of satisfaction. She heard snatches of music, and smelled something barbecuing somewhere nearby, and she smiled as she trotted up the back stairs and headed down the hall toward their new offices.
Yeah. This was good. She edged around the pallets in the hall and squeezed into her space, going to the interconnecting door when she heard Dar’s voice drifting through it. “Hey, hon.” She poked her head inside, then proceeded as she saw Dar by the window.
Dar turned, and spotted the coffee. “You rock.” She took hers. “I was just thinking about who to call to have a coffee machine installed here.”
The building super was standing there, having been the other half of that conversation. “Well, we used to have a service, you know, Continental or something,” he said. “The last people, they just had a Mr. Coffee drip machine,” he added. “Used to leave ‘em on all the time. Smells bad, burnt coffee.”
“It does,” Dar agreed “I’d rather have a small local company in here. Anyone around who’d be up for stocking dorm refrigerators with drinks and maybe do single cup coffees?”
The man looked at her in surprise. “You mean like one of the shops around here?”
Dar nodded. “Nerds need caffeine, sugar, and protein,” she said. “It keeps the brain cells spinning.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Now that’s an interesting question. Lemme ask around.” He gave Dar a look of respectful appreciation. “I guess all them vending machine people and stuff will be asking to talk to you. They pulled all that stuff out after the travel people left.”
“Not fond of them, especially the ones that take your money,” Dar said.
“Well.” Kerry took a sip of her coffee. “We really think we should set a better example than candy bars.”
Dar just started laughing, shaking her head and wandering off back to where the drivers were unpacking her desk.
Kerry had to chuckle, acknowledging the irony. “We’ll figure out something. We’re going to have a few more people showing up on Monday to work.”
The man nodded, then they both turned as a soft knock sounded on the door frame. “Hello, sir.”
Their landlord came in, looking around with appreciation. “You folks don’t waste any time.”
“No we don’t,” Kerry said. “We’ve got our papers and our checkbook. Why not come over to my space and I’ll square that away with you.” She went back to her office followed by Marcus, putting down her coffee on her temporary desk and pulling over the leather case full of documents. “Sit.”
He pulled over a stool and parked himself on it, hooking his leather booted heels on the rungs. Today he was dressed in an Ambercrombie and Fitch zipped hoodie and jeans, with a leather wristband to compliment the outfit.
Kerry wondered briefly if he was gay. Her gaydar was unreliable at best. “Okay so, here’s a copy of our incorporation documents, and a check for the first month. You did say we’d get half off, right?” Her eyes twinkled a little as she handed it over. “I think we’re making up for it in renovation.”
“No argument.” Marcus took the papers cheerfully. “I’m getting a lot more out of this deal than I thought I would. I looked you guys up on the Internet. You’re sorta famous.”
“Sorta,” Kerry said with a brief grin. “In a notorious, fifteen minutes of fame kinda way.”
“Why’d you decide to cut out on your own?” he asked in a curious voice. “Seemed to me like you all were doing great.”
Kerry rested her elbows on her knees as she watched the drivers diligently delivering her desk across the room. “Yeah, back to the wall, facing the windows, guys.” She paused, then returned her attention to their landlord.
“I’m just being nosy,” he said. “You don’t have to answer that.”
“I don’t mind,” Kerry replied. “ILS fired us. So we walked down the street, and opened our own company.” She felt a sense of curious satisfaction saying it. “Stuff happens, you know?”
“Sure do!” Marcus sighed. “More than you know. I just got fired from Sedanos. They said
they wanted someone more Latino to be their marketing head.” He eyed her. “You don’t seem Latino. Want someone to do your marketing for you?”
Kerry was caught between sympathy and laughter. “Don’t you think that’s a conflict of interest?”
He shrugged. “It’s Miami.”
Yes, that was true. “Let me talk to Dar about it,” Kerry said. “I’m not sure we’re ready for a marketing department yet, but we will when we’re up and going.”
He grinned at her. “I like you guys. My mother would have liked you guys. You’re family and you’re not cheapskates.”
Ah. “Guilty on both charges,” Kerry answered easily. “From what I’ve seen around the Grove so far, we should be comfortable here.”
He nodded. “No problem. Most of the businesses that move in here, they’re looking for an audience, you know? But no one around here needs high tech. At least, the kinda stuff you were talking about. So you’re not competition.”
“That’s true.” Kerry hadn’t thought about it that way, but now, the interest of their neighbors made more sense. “We’ll be clients. Trust me. Nerds who work here will go and eat, and drink and buy stuff if it’s walking distance. I know my kind.”
“Exactly,” Marcus said. “And you’re not a pawn shop. But I was kinda curious...what kind of customer do you have? Who buys that stuff?”
“Today? Almost everyone,” Kerry said. “High tech, meaning computers, and wireless, and high speed Internet, and web sites. Pretty much everyone needs it. At ILS, we had to deal with the biggest of companies to make the financial model work. Now, we can take small customers we’d never have looked at there.”
Marcus nodded the whole time she talked. “You get it.”
“I get it,” Kerry said. “But...” her eyes twinkled again, “we could get some bigger clients that might surprise you.”
“Ker?” Dar poked her head in the door. “If your desk is here, can we borrow your sawhorses to set them up in the conference room so our friends have somewhere to meet with us tomorrow?”
“Sure.” Kerry got up and picked up her things off the plywood. “Does that mean we need to rent folding chairs for them?” She stood back as two of the building people entered and started taking away her table. She let them remove it, then she walked over to her now assembled desk, where the drivers were waiting patiently. “Thanks, guys.”
