That afternoon Michelle learned that nearly every major corporation in the U.S. had, at one time or another, done business with Corporate Financial Consultants. “Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Universal, Time-Warner, Bertelsmann, Citibank, Kroger’s, Home Depot, Sears… all of them had been clients at one time or another and some are still clients.” Sam nodded at one of the Systems Admin Techs monitoring the servers as they walked by. “Anything new for those clients gets handled out of our Manhattan office now. California handles Administration and they keep all the master records. We’re strictly second tier businesses—manufacturers, mid-sized retail chains, software companies, healthcare companies.”
“Healthcare?” Michelle had asked, thinking about Red Rose and all the trouble Donald had been having with them. The night before, Donald told her that even Dr. Schellenger’s expertise had been unable to sway the suits at Red Rose to approve payment for the surgery for Donald’s testicular cancer patient. Donald was advising the young man to go ahead with the surgery anyway; the patient was stuck between a rock and a hard place financially, and was currently thinking about it.
“Blue Cross, Kaiser, Aetna, Red Rose,” Sam rattled off as they exited the Data Center. “Pretty much all the major HMOs and PPOs in the area. Well, Kaiser isn’t here; they’re in Baltimore, but they’re close enough. Their California division deals with our Los Angeles office, so it’s only natural for them to work with us out here.”
“Of course,” Michelle had said.
There was so much to learn, both as far as the company history and what they did as a firm—as well as her duties—that the days flashed by so quickly that before she knew it, the trip to El Paso was upon her and she found herself kissing Donald one Sunday afternoon after having packed her luggage and her laptop. “I’ll be back Friday afternoon,” she told him. “Be good.”
“Knock ’em dead, kid!” Donald said, returning her kiss.
She’d flown to the El Paso Airport, rented a car, and drove to the Hampton Inn near the airport where Sam had made reservations for her. The next morning she’d driven to the client, a manufacturer of metal roofing and accessories on Mesa Street. She’d come prepared for the trip and sat in the company boardroom listening to input from the corporate bigwigs on what they wanted their documentation to convey. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon talking with the IT techs and accepted an early evening dinner and drinks with some of the other members of the team.
And now she was bored.
The table she was seated at numbered half a dozen. Sitting at her left was a web developer who worked for Building Products, a rail thin dark-haired guy named Jay O’Rourke, who seemed to have cigarettes growing out of his fingers and between his lips; every time he finished smoking one, another magically took its place. He was leaning back in his seat, a cup of black coffee in front of him, looking as bored as she felt. Michelle caught his eyes and offered a smile. “You look bored.”
“No shit? Ya think?”
Michelle’s grin widened. Jay had sat in on the latter part of their meeting today and she found him extremely likable; he was witty, brutally honest, and had a biting sense of humor. She also got the impression he was one of the few people at that meeting—and here at the Lone Star—who knew what the hell he was doing with his job. “I’ve been bored the past twenty minutes. You’d think they’d talk about something else besides work.”
“These guys? Hell no. It’s all they talk about because it’s all they do.” Jay’s voice rose a tad and the inflection indicated he was deliberately trying to provoke some kind of response from the others at their table. “If these losers had any kind of a life, they wouldn’t need to talk about the same boring shit all the time. Sometimes I wonder why I even agreed to tag along with these morons.”
Michelle laughed and the guy sitting to Jay’s left, Alan Perkins, another Corporate Financial Consultant from the Manhattan office, heard him and grinned. He nudged Jay playfully. “What’s up, Jay? Are we boring you already?”
“Hell yes, you’re boring the shit out of me! Can’t you talk about anything else besides Building Products and this clusterfuck project? Jesus Christ in a chicken basket!”
One of the employees from Building Products heard Jay’s comment and turned toward them. Michelle thought she caught the faint sense of disapproval on her face. “Must you go through another one of your worthless rants again, Jay? I mean… really!”
“I suppose I don’t really have to,” Jay began, “but the more I sit here listening to the conversation, the more it’s pissing me off. You’d think that when a group of co-workers gets together to hang out after work and shoot the shit, they’d find other topics of discussion besides their jobs. You know, the weather, the latest movies and cultural events, what’s going on in the world outside of work, maybe even idle chatter about families and kids. Not you guys. You guys are abnormal.”
Another Building Products employee, the team leader, said, “Guess that just means we’re more dedicated than you, Jay.”
“More dedicated my ass! You guys need me more than I need you! I wrote that ASP code for the website in my sleep. I also know when to walk away from this shit and live life. Something you guys have a problem doing.”
“You didn’t have to come, Jay,” the first Building Products employee said. Michelle thought her name was Barb. Barb was dressed tastefully in a blue business suit and had impeccable fingernails. She was nursing a glass of whiskey. To Michelle, she looked like a disapproving teacher or parent. “Sometimes I don’t know why you come to these things.”
“Well, let’s see, I wanted to talk to Paul about the project he was working on and I wanted to hear about his daughter Amy,” Jay said. “You remember what happened to Amy, don’t you Barb?”
Barb’s forehead grew creases. “Wasn’t she in an accident?”
“Yeah. She was hit by a car two weeks ago. Paul’s been out of his mind every day since and has missed over a week of work, and all he gets is a bunch of shit from those numb-brained managers about missing work because of it. What kind of shit is that?”
“Isn’t Paul in Sales?” Barb asked.
“That’s him,” Jay said.
“Well, I’m sure Jim has very good reasons for leaning on him about missing work,” Barb said. Whatever everybody else was talking about at their table was forgotten and became focused on Jay and Barb. “I mean, I sympathize with what he’s going through, but he should be thankful his daughter’s alive.”
Jay was looking at Barb as if she were from another planet and Michelle felt her admiration for him leap into the stratosphere. It was rare to meet a man who worked a white-collar job who held such unapologetic views about taking time away from the duties of work to tend to the needs of his family. Of course, Donald was very much like Jay in this respect, but then Donald was a doctor. Different ballgame, different mindset. “Man, you don’t get it, do you?”
“What’s there to get? His daughter was hit by a car, it was a terrible thing, she lived, that’s that! He should be thankful things weren’t worse. That’s all I’m saying.”
Jay took a deep drag on his cigarette and leaned forward, his lanky frame hunched over the table. He was dressed in a pair of black khaki’s, a blue long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows exposing his tattooed forearms. “So if it was your son you’re telling me you wouldn’t be home with him right now; you’d rather be here wasting time with us idiots?”