Breene, K F - Growing Pains 01 (20 page)

“Great,” Sean said, turning to
Krista. He held her eyes for a moment before saying, “You’re up. What have you
done with a month?”

Krista nearly threw up. She’d had a
whole month and she’d only done the first two numbers. Sean was obviously
bracing himself for bad news.

“Relax,” Marcus said from across
the table in his caterpillar voice.

Krista jumped, looked at Marcus
with panicked eyes, then turned and grabbed the first book off her stack.

“Um. Okay. Well,” Krista cleared
her throat and looked at Judy, who was looking back with a reassuring smile.
Krista plunged on, “Sean gave me a list of things he was looking for. The list
ranged from a general, broad history of the whole genre, to a narrowed scope of
just sapphires. I then broke that down further into sapphires within the piece and
type of jewelry. Then he wanted that information across the country, also the
world, various markets, niches, regions, you name it, he wanted it.”

Krista stood and passed around the
first couple books. Each book was well executed, probably half the size of a
textbook, and had plentiful graphs and images in it. Once Krista had given them
out, she sat back down. This section, which was Sean’s item number one, yielded
three books. Judy, thinking that Krista had made a book for each person,
presentation-style, looked at Krista to see why she didn’t get one.

“Oh, ahhh, each of those is part of
the whole. There was too much information for everyone to get their own. So
there are three parts. Ray has the first, Sean the second, and Marcus the
third. I would have done one book, or two, but I didn’t really know how to work
the machine and couldn’t get it to bind any more than that at a time. Plus, we
really only need one set. I have everything saved electronically.”

Sean’s eyes snapped up from the
information in front of him. He looked from his book to the others. When his
eyes hit Krista’s they were wide with disbelief.

Judy, not caring about quantity,
scooted over to Marcus to look over his shoulder. He immediately passed it to
her, who scanned a few pages and gave up. They probably didn’t know what the
hell any of it meant.

It was Krista’s turn to confuse the
art people. Hah! She would remember to throw that in Marcus’ face.

If she didn’t get fired first.

“This is really good work, Krista,”
Ray said to no one in particular, bringing her back to Earth. He was herding
her focus like a sheep dog. He probably had a teenager. “Where did you get all
this info?”

“Well, I looked at historical
information first and got some broad stuff there. There was a lot there, but
selective, you know? So I took to the library and pulled the rest.” She knew
Ray knew what Sean knew, even if Sean said he wouldn’t tell anyone. Krista was
not so naïve to think it was an honest secret. She also wanted to get across to
Sean the type of information the others had, and how it ranked in the grand
scheme of things.

“You have a library card?” Judy
said with a chuckle.

“Geek Girl,” Marcus said with a
smile, passing his book to Ray.

“Cheap books,” Krista retorted. “As
in free. I have a lot of time to read on Muni, especially when I am trapped in
a tunnel.”

Sean was now devouring the
information in front of him. He glanced at everything in his book and then
looked at Ray. Ray passed him the first book in the set, which was opened to
the table of contents. Sean scanned it immediately.

“Geek Girl, you are making Judy and
I look bad,” Marcus said disapprovingly, leaning back with a smile.

Sean glanced at Marcus, then
shaking his head, looked at Krista with drunken, overwhelmed eyes.

Fear stabbed her again. It was a
lot of information. Maybe she spent too much time on it? Maybe she spent too
much time organizing it? Maybe she should’ve been watching Sean’s back with the
art stuff?

She was on the edge, wondering
which way the wind blew when Sean said, “Good work, Krista. This will be
invaluable. It will also help us make contact with light comments.”

It sounded good, but his face was
still blank as he looked through the information. Ray had the third book and
was looking through it, slightly shaking his head. It sounded good, but the
actions didn’t match.

Krista hated this. She hated having
no idea where she stood. Her first real assignment with her first real job for
a boss she really wanted to impress, and it was heads or tails if she totally
messed up and wasted everyone’s time.

And that was just step one. She
still had to show step two, which was an even bigger gamble.

Sean interrupted her self-loathing,
still looking through the material, with, “Okay, everyone, let’s convene for
now and we’ll meet back after I can process all this information.”

“Wait…” Krista grabbed the
remaining stack.

Sean looked up with a light scowl.
Everyone paused in their various stances, except for Marcus who was always
lounging. He had a hopeful look, though. He wanted to know what the rest of the
information was. Namely, he wanted to see what she did with his ideas.

“Um, that was just the first part
of the list that Sean gave?” Sean’s scowl got slightly more pronounced. Krista
hurried on. “I got a good way through the second one with Marcus’s help?”

Stop rounding off sentences with a
question! You sound dumb and green!

“Yes,” Marcus settled back with his
hands behind his head, his arms out to the side like wings. He was like a
little boy about ready to see if his new model airplane would fly.

Krista passed out the remaining
books. “Okay, well first, you should all know that Marcus and I speak a
different language. He speaks in high-art, and I speak in normal person…”

“There was nothing normal in those
books you passed around.” Marcus cut her off.

“Okay, well, affluent math, then.
So when I went to get Marcus’s ideas, which I think was Sean’s big practical
joke to torture me…” Marcus and Judy both laughed. Sean was looking at her
blank-faced. She hurried on, “I wrote down a bunch of genius crap that I then
stared at for a couple hours before realizing there was no way in hell—excuse
my language—that I could turn it into logical, statistical research. It was all
gibberish as far as I could tell.”

Marcus and Judy both laughed again,
but Sean and Ray wore very similar masks of confusion.

“So I took his notes to someone who
could speak both our languages, and asked for help. What I got was something I
could work with. Now, before you look at these, please know that this is my
interpretation of Marcus’s ideas turned into research. I made no decisions
beyond that. If the ideas are stupid and not worth pursuing based on numbers,
blame Marcus.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time!” Judy
laughed.

“Why four smaller books rather than
three?” Ray asked. “Did you do these before you figured out the machine?”

Krista smiled. Ray had a sense of
humor it seemed.

“There are four ideas turned into
research. I figured I would just break them down that way. The other
collection, we’ll call number one, was a solid mass of information.”

Ray nodded as each person delved
into their book. Each book was a little different, and each covered a different
amount of terrain. They had graphs and, what Marcus and Judy latched on to,
art. There were even photographs from when she people-watched. If the team
missed her over-achiever status thus far, they were currently getting a rude
awakening.

Plus, working on the whole idea was
kind of fun. She got to do more than just work with statistical stuff—taking
pictures and working with graphics was a great way to exercise the other half
of the brain.

Krista was watching Judy and Marcus
laugh about the perfection of one of the photos when she felt eyes boring into
her. They were Sean’s. Their look was unreadable, as was his face, but his focus
was acute.

Krista flushed and fidgeted, not
sure what to make of the stare; not sure if it was good or bad or lust based.

“Too much? Did I waste too much
time on this stuff?” Krista asked with a grimace.

Sean remained mute for a moment,
his stare acute. When he was done trying to shoplift her grocery list, his eyes
pivoted to Ray. Before either said anything, Marcus said, “Hey Krista, what is
this one?”

It was a picture of a little girl
at the beach with her mother’s bracelet. The bracelet was ugly and cheap, which
was probably why the mother allowed the child to have it in the first place,
but Krista thought the idea of it worked.

“Oh, well, you know that idea where
you wanted to create some sort of collectable jewelry for kids? Kind of like
those charm bracelets, but more for special occasions? You know, so that they
could hold onto it through the years?”

“Yeah, but—“

“Well,” she said interrupting him,
“the idea to market heirlooms was so similar, and you were hitting the very
young and the very old, I—and my secret helper—thought maybe we could combine
that. You know, a keepsake you get as you grow that you could then pass on?
Something like that? It, ah, sounded good at the time.

“Anyway, I looked up info for the
individual thing, then did some comparing numbers for the overall deal. I don’t
know what you all aim for or whatever, but the overall deal seemed cool to me,
so I went out and tried to find some people who might buy into that. That
picture was cute and fitting, don’t you think?”

Sean’s expression changed. Now he
looked at her like she’d just sprouted a third eye. It put her into defensive
mode. “I mean, it’s not my job, I know, so I did both of Marcus’s original
suggestions, but thought I might just throw that in for spice. It really didn’t
take much more time. Just a few extra photo sessions, which was on my own time
anyway, so…”

She was shrinking under Sean’s
heated gaze. She’d gone overboard. Definitely overboard. This was the kind of
thing she should have done after she got some direction. She should have kept
it generic until they landed the account!

“I told you I was a genius,” Marcus
said to Judy, who laughed at him and grabbed the photographs.

“I have to tell you, Krista, these
photos aren’t half bad. I like how you captured life. You are no Ansel Adams,
but these are great. I can work off these,” Judy said, giving them her
technical “art” eye.

Well, at least someone liked it.

Sean was doing some sort of silent
exchange with Ray, then he looked back at Krista. His face seemed a little
hostile.

“I assume that is all you have?”
Sean asked in a flat voice.

“Uh, yeah.” She had had a month,
and she had a world of information on things that they might never, ever need.
She only got to a quarter of the list he gave her when she probably should have
gotten a little bit on every point.

Shit.

Sean nodded, “Okay, gang, leave
those here with me, plus what you have, and I’ll look over everything. Ray will
be in touch about the event. It is mandatory that everyone go, so make it
work.”

Everyone stood up to leave.

“Not you, Krista.” Sean had his
hands clasped on the table, staring at her with a firm, unreadable expression.
Ray hadn’t gotten up, either.

Krista froze. She gave a scared
glance at Marcus with a plea of help. He got it and smiled.

“Relax,” he mouthed, giving her a
Cheshire Cat smile as he drifted out of the room with Judy.

~*~*~*~

“I told you!” Marcus exclaimed when
they were out of earshot. He was still high from the effulgence that was the
young stud. If only that man had been born g*y, Marcus and he would’ve made the
best pair. For about two seconds, then they’d have an open relationship,
naturally, until they got old.

“You did not tell me that girl was
such a workhorse!” Judy nearly yelled back. “She made us look like slackers.”

“I wasn’t talking about that, but
yes I did tell you, dearest. It was right after I noticed her fabulous red
pumps, remember? I said she was getting all her work done in style, much unlike
myself. Work done, I mean. I always maintain style, of course.”

“Getting all her work done doesn’t
mean coming up with the entire presentation—art, marketing and research
combined—in one month, Marcus! Sean is probably wondering what he needs me
for—she did all the images already!”

“Relax, honey; you are still the
most experienced. Sean needs you. But he wants that little geeky blond! Did you
see the way he was drooling over her? He was ready to gobble her up!”

“Who, Monica? They’re just trying
to out-sleaze each other. I don’t care to pay attention to that.”

Marcus stopped her with a hand on
her arm as they got out of the elevator. “Woman, I am starting to think you are
blind. Not that old tramp! I heard she had a drunken night with John two years
ago. Any woman that hates herself enough to sleep with John is trash and—“

“And he isn’t?” Judy interrupted
indignantly, starting to walk again. She now had a lot of work to do, thanks to
that young workaholic. It was too bad she was sweet in a sarcastic kind of way
because Judy would love to hate her.

“My darling, you seem stressed. I
am not sure if you noticed, but Mr. Boss wasn’t expecting so much work out of
that darling nerd. Yes, you should probably work a teensy-bit harder, but there
is no reason to trot back to your desk.”

Judy just shook her head.

“Anyway, as I was saying. That
young stud has his head so far up Geek Girl’s skirt he has truly lost his way.
I absolutely love watching it!”

“You think so? I didn’t notice
anything.”

“You didn’t see him going three
shades of red every time he looked at her?”

“Oh God, Marcus, you want to gossip
so badly you make it up. I swear.” Judy walked quickly back to her desk, intent
on emailing Krista immediately so as to start fiddling with Marcus’s ideas. She
didn’t care what Marcus said, she needed to get her stuff in gear if she wanted
to stay on this presentation.