“This morning?”
Again Craig was not listening to me. “He’s right. I finally agreed on Friday, but . . .” He waved his hand at the door. “Do you know how much I laid out for her? The money? The options?” He dropped his head again. “Do you have any idea how much this is going to hurt us?” His words were muffled by the laptop. He popped up again. “Stay, Mary. You’re right about every aspect of this company and you can’t leave. What will it take?”
“I’m not sure I understand. You’re firing Karen? Did Nathan know this?”
“He’s been working for it. It’s been our one point of contention and he was right. Other investors raised concerns too, but, like I said, I paid so much.” Craig blew out a long breath. “We had a good-bye party for Nathan Friday, then I hired him again to see us through this. No one knows that, by the way.”
I plopped into the chair I’d just vacated. Benson’s laptop was in my hands. There was a sticker of E=MC2 on the cover.
“You know what I want, Mary. It’ll be leaner for a while, but we’ll get to do what we do best, even if it’s by the seat of our pants. But what do you want to do?” Craig picked up the pen he normally rolled through his fingers and started a helicopter whirl.
“I want to stay.”
He stared at me. He deserved more.
“Craig, that was a pretty bad e-mail I sent, and I’m sorry. The five years alone deserved more respect. But the one place I felt good suddenly wasn’t mine anymore. At least it didn’t feel that way . . . I love my job and I think I do it well. May I stay?”
“Thank you.” He closed his eyes as if cycling through a change in plans. “I feel like we’re beginning again. Can you feel it?”
I laughed. “Maybe we are. You need to get Rodriguez back too.”
“On it right now.” He reached for his phone, then flicked it toward the door. “Get out of here and make sure everyone knows you’re staying. I’m tired of all the grim faces. And if he’s still in Conference Room A, grab Nathan and send him in here.”
Nathan? Here?
As I left the room, I heard Craig chuckle. “It’s a whole new ball game now.”
I leaned against the wall outside Craig’s office and took in the entire company before me. Working at WATT hadn’t started with a proactive decision; it had started in an elevator with Craig pursuing me. And I perpetuated that fallacy—I didn’t choose the job, it chose me—for five years. It was false because I’d chosen WATT too—I’d made it mine each and every day as I woke up and brought my best to work. It wasn’t just a job. It was my job. And these were my people. My home.
I looked toward the office’s far corner. Karen’s cubicle. She always had an arched reading lamp on when she was there. It was off. I looked across the cubicle walls and didn’t see her blond-gray bob and green-rimmed glasses. I didn’t see Nathan either. The door to Conference Room A was open; the room was empty.
I walked back toward my own cubicle to find Moira.
“There you are.” Moira rounded the corner and met me. “I brought this for you. It’s almost gone, and you need a piece of your own good-bye cake.”
“Gone?”
“You were in there almost an hour, and when Karen came storming out, people got scared and scattered. Dottie cut your cake up to calm the troops.” Moira pulled her lips tight in mock fright. “Word is you were shouting.”
“I think I might have been at one point. It was not my finest moment.”
Moira lifted her eyebrows as if to say, Debatable. I suspected she was weighing the shouting against my e-mail. Both looked bad.
“But I’m staying.”
“How? Karen won’t forgive you after that . . .” As her statement trailed, she drew a breath. “The Wicked Witch of the West?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
Moira nodded like a small child waiting for cake.
“Going.”
She yelped and leapt at me, catching the cake before it toppled. “I can’t believe it.” Her hug caught me in a half laugh, half hiccup.
“And you said you hated me.”
“I already said that was a lie.” She pushed me away, then punched me in the arm with her free hand. “Girl, I didn’t know how I was going to survive without you, and now . . . It’s like Christmas.”
“I feel the same.” I pulled her into another hug. “Hey—Craig said to send Nathan in. Is he here?”
“He was earlier, I guess. Benson just said he talked to him.”
The excitement and the air seeped away. As I stepped back, Moira shot me a questioning glance.
“I wish I’d gotten to see him, that’s all, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll let Craig know he’s gone. How late are you staying?”
“I’m not.” She glanced at her phone. “The usual suspects are headed to Z’Tejas. A friend of mine works there and is holding a big table on the patio for us. It was supposed to be your good-bye party.”
“Go. I’ll tell Craig and be right behind you.”
“You don’t mind? I want to make sure we get our table.” Moira hoisted her bag onto her shoulder.
“We’d take two cars anyway. Go.”
Moira headed one direction and I the other.
Chapter 28
I arrived at Z’Tejas an hour late.
When I’d told Craig that Nathan wasn’t around, I got only a quick wave before he started tapping on his phone. He was most likely calling Nathan—which is exactly what I wanted to do. I sat at my desk staring at my phone for fifteen minutes, ordering myself to call him. I finally gave up. My self-recriminations and MoPac ate the next forty-five.
Moira ordered another round of nachos upon my arrival, and we sat back and listened to Benson tell the team how Golightly was going to set WATT on fire—figuratively this time.
He glanced at me and hesitated. “It’s your work, Mary. You should talk.”
I shook my head. “It’s all you. Moira and I are perfectly content over here.”
He grinned and returned to their discussion. Work never ended with this crew—and that was part of the fun.
Moira slid me a margarita. “I ordered it when you said you were looking for parking.”
“Thank you.” I took a sip of the top layer, which had already melted.
“There’s tons to cover here, but first things first. You’re staying, Karen’s going?”
“So it seems. Craig wants a new CEO. He wants to design again.”
She gave me a sideways smile. “Expensive wish.”
“He said that too.”
“So we take a hit now; it’s better than the alternative. And with Golightly, it might not be more than a blip.”
I lifted my glass. “To another innovative WATT product.”
Moira joined me. “To the Vertex.”
I’d forgotten that nickname. We’d called ourselves that back in the garage, back when we celebrated our first product, earned our first paycheck, and knew we would make it—we were the top of the top.
“I need to tell you about England, Nathan, everything.”
Moira pulled her neck back. Nathan and England in the same sentence was a surprise. For the next two hours, I told her everything. At some point most of the guys left, and Benson pulled his chair close.