Secrets of the Apple (2 page)

He noticed she smiled when she talked, like a teacher, encouraging, with an edge of command. Almost before he could finish the thought, the door closed and once again she vanished. He paused for a moment to take stock, unable to shake the feeling he’d just been dismissed.

Consoling himself that she’d left because she was getting beyond her depth, he returned to the binder, cross-referencing the information with the documents he’d brought from Japan. He envied Pink her quick absorption of detail, but when she poked her head in to wave a perfunctory goodbye at precisely five o’clock, he decided the talent had been wasted on a flighty girl with no loyalty or sticking power, not much future in business. He sighed tiredly, wishing for the hundredth time his father had listened to him and sent him the team he so reasonably requested.

He kept hard at it until after eleven that night when most of the floor was dark and the unvarying whine of a vacuum cut through his concentration. As English and Japanese began to swim before his eyes, he realized he’d been up more than twenty-four hours. He drove to his hotel, stumbled to his room and into bed, barely pausing to fling off his clothes and brush his teeth, fully expecting to awaken too early, as he always did in an unfamiliar bed.

Knock knock

pause

Knock knock

He had just closed his eyes.

“Housekeeping.”

Knock knock

pause

Knock knock

Ryoki lifted his head, vaguely aware of a singsong Spanish accent muffled behind the door.

“Housekeeping.”

Housekeeping? In the middle of the night? He wobbled woozily out of bed, stubbing his toe in the pallid dark and staggered toward the door to take a look out the peephole, suddenly realizing he hadn’t locked the inner latch. Panicked, he leaped forward—

Snick.
Card key in the lock.

Too late.

Aborting mid-leap, he lost his balance and stumbled heavily against the coffee table, barking his shin just as the door flung open, revealing a sturdy, round-faced Hispanic woman. Shocked fully awake, he rubbed the bleeding scrape on his shin, fury splattering all four walls with a bilingual mud pie that frightened passing tourists who picked out “philistine,” “troglodyte,” and a brand new invective questioning the evolutionary parentage of every humanoid within a ten-mile radius.

When he ran out of air, the maid opened her mouth, but her words hung fire as her eyes fixed somewhere south of his face.

His stomach clenched and acid burned his throat. Lost his temper again. So often lately, so sudden, and in front of a woman—a helpless maid, which made it worse. Ashamed, he rubbed his fingers through his hair, giving her a moment to recover and wondering when he had become the troll under the bridge. Tired, that was all, just tired, and needing a couple of antacid. He’d recover his equanimity once he’d completed the current project.

The maid remained silent, a look of blank amazement on her face. He’d been very harsh, maybe scared her. He should have remembered to lock from the inside and put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, so yes, perhaps he bore part of the blame. He composed his face, tried to give her a benevolent look, allowing her the chance to exit with dignity intact. But she didn’t move. “Unbelievable,” he muttered under his breath.

At last she drew herself up to a dignified four-feet-nine. “It after ten, sir. When you want us come back?”

“Ten?” Mouth agape, he looked around—blackout curtains pulled across every window. He checked his wrist where his watch should have—

Oh. No.

Skimpy pink silk boxers with purple lipstick kisses, ridden up, slumber-twisted and tucked askew to resemble women’s panties, extra small. Without thinking, he stomped his foot and wiggled his hips, hoping they’d straighten out, no such luck.

When he dropped the woman who’d purchased said boxers, she’d cursed him with all the venom of her soul, but he’d paid no attention, forgetting the gift immediately after shoving it to the back of a drawer. Thirty-six hours ago he happened upon them in a rush in the dark, consciously thinking,
I’ve got to get rid of these.
But most of his respectable pairs were already packed or sent ahead to São Paulo.

Maybe it was time to start believing in curses.

Instinctively he picked up the closest items to cover himself, a crystal candy dish and the remote. He juggled them for a moment, unable to determine the best configuration. “I’ll be out shortly,” he said stiffly.

“Thank you, sir.” She whipped off the “Do Not Disturb” sign, hanging it on the outside doorknob as she shut the door. He heard the electronic lock click and her rapid, retreating footsteps.

Have to change hotels,
he thought, tearing off the boxers and pitching them into the trash.
Better to have been caught naked outright.
Even the most sculpted abs could never compete with scanty pink man panties.

With the residual panic of a man still too exhausted to be fully calm, he picked up his cell phone and scrolled for the office number. The chipper receptionist transferred him to Pink.

“I’ve been unavoidably delayed,” he said.

“I see that.” He could hear the teacher smile in her voice.

“I’ll be in shortly for my 11:00 a.m. with Melo executives and the audit committee. I haven’t finished reviewing the proposed adjustments or preliminary internal control findings. It’s going to be close. Could you lay out everything so I can get directly to work?”

“It’s already finished,” she said.

He paused, thinking she must mean “finished laying it out.” Surely she couldn’t be capable—

“You’re ready for your meeting,” she said. “I’ve summarized the findings and gotten the management responses from Melo’s accounting department already.”

An unidentifiable quality in her tone worried him unreasonably—smugness, perhaps, or some sort of secret knowledge, as though she could see him through the phone. Instinctively he pulled a pillow in front of himself.

“Thank you,” he said uncertainly. “I’ll be in as soon as I can.” He thumbed his phone to end the call, absolutely positive she’d never been caught in her underwear. Fifteen minutes later, showered and immaculate, he paused to fish the offending boxers out of the wastebasket and shoved them into his pocket. In the parking garage he furtively crammed them into the first public trash he saw. No point exposing the evidence.

“G
ood morning, Pink.” He strode into the office smiling mechanically, oblivious to what he’d said or to the perplexed expression on her face. Already homing in on his computer, he dropped carelessly into the bizarre chair, his legs splitting east and west as he grabbed the desk to right himself.

“Chair,” he said with his best Tanaka stare, a legacy from his paternal grandfather, known to shatter the kneecaps of battle-hardened executives.

“I’ll switch it as soon as they send us a replacement, or would you rather I snatch one out from under someone else?” She smiled sweetly. Ryoki demurred, deciding to ask Brian about it later, though he would never remember to do it.

She showed him the completed documents, photocopied, collated, stapled and neatly stacked on his desk. “Brian went through this with me,” she said. Ryoki looked over everything, rapidly scanning the numbers and Melo’s take on them, appreciating her clear, meticulous summary. He had everything he needed, but he knew he wouldn’t have time to familiarize himself with the details. She seemed to read his mind.

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“That will not be necessary,” he replied automatically, his nose in his papers.

She put a finger on the corner of his spreadsheet and he looked up, really seeing her for the first time that morning. Tan corduroy skirt, ivory cashmere sweater and a short strand of graduated pearls, like a professor with a little student thrown in. He still couldn’t figure out what position she held in the office. Judging by her work and overconfident manner, she must be a newly minted lawyer or fledgling MBA, or possibly a clever graduate student who did not yet own a dark suit. Pink looked at him, smoothly determined, momentarily exposing a wide vein of granite under all that cream. But an executive meeting required more than determination. He glanced back at the reports in his hand, then checked his watch. No way to absorb all this in time.

“Look, yesterday I saw the dark circles under your eyes,” she said, biting her lip. “And last night I got to thinking that I may have been a little abrupt, and this morning, well, I think maybe you might need me more than I’d anticipated.”

“I’ve had a good night’s sleep since then,” he said.

“We both have a vested interest in making sure there are no delays in this transaction. I need to be free as much as you do,” she said bluntly.

Her clothes looked so soft, so tactile, so at odds with her frank expression. Somehow her offer to help seemed more palatable yesterday when he didn’t have to parade her into meetings. He checked his watch again, dropping the reports onto his desk with a sigh. Truthfully he could see no alternative. He would have to take the risk.

At 11:00 a.m. she sat near his elbow, unobtrusively handing out materials and generally facilitating the meeting. She moved quietly, almost too quietly. Fourteen dark-suited, dour-looking men. What if she folded in on herself? What if she tried to disappear? What if—

But when Kate’s turn came, she stood, cracked a joke, made direct eye contact, and led the group through the last set of findings with a sweet smile and the clear, commanding confidence of a secretary of state. Ryoki studied expressions around the room as they subtly shifted from ogling the pretty girl, to actually listening to what she had to say. When she resumed her place, Ryoki stood to wrap up and noticed that fully half the eyes had followed her to her seat and rested there before reluctantly returning to him. Stern faces had softened, looking receptive, an unexpected advantage. Certainly she had done this before.

When the meeting broke at two o’clock, they all went to lunch at a nearby sports bar, but Kate begged off, claiming work. Ryoki had given her no assignment, but he said nothing. As she headed down the hall, Brian’s partner, Edward Randall, a white-haired, grandfatherly type, caught hold of her arm. “Now, Kate, don’t work too hard,” he said. “Remember, you’re on vacation.” He let loose with a big guffaw, as though he’d told some great joke. With her back to him, Ryoki could only see her right shoulder lift and fall in a delicate shrug as she hurried off down the hall.

Ryoki didn’t get the joke, and felt a nagging suspicion he should have. She was always pulling that disappearing act, and every time she left he sensed some undefined quality evaporated with her, though he would never have admitted it. He should have had a little introductory talk with her earlier, a private chat, not necessarily work-related, just to be polite, to break the ice. In his haste, he’d neglected to do so yesterday and hoped to remedy the oversight after lunch. Unfortunately he didn’t see her again until three-thirty that afternoon, and by then she seemed distracted, hugging a scuffed and stained leather binder to her chest, cloaking herself in mundane tasks like someone who wished to be alone. He held back on the small talk, figuring tomorrow would be better for them both.

However, the 11:00 a.m. meeting proved so successful that the following morning found them plunged neck-deep in draft EPS calculations and sticky licensing agreements. True to her word, Kate focused directly on her work, staying late, keeping close, but never taking time for idle chit chat—which is how Ryoki came to be surprised on his fourth evening in San Francisco when he went to Brian’s home to attend a Porter family dinner. He had already kissed the cheek of Brian’s wife, whom he’d never called anything but Aunt Grace, and had begun a round of jolly back-slapping talk with Tom, the oldest of their four sons, when Kate breezed in without knocking and said “Hey, Claire” to Tom’s wife, giving her a hug and asking when she and Tom had arrived.

“Kate, where have you been? You should have been back an hour ago,” Grace said.

“Bad traffic,” Kate said.

Ryoki looked at Kate’s soft pink dress, her hair loose and wavy around her shoulders. She seemed so different from the office, more relaxed around the mouth, an odd loopiness in her movements.

“Bad traffic, or a wrong turn?” Grace asked, cutting into his thoughts, her head coyly cocked and one eye narrowed to a slit—the same face she pulled the time he and Tom tried to convince her that their broken headlight was a hit-and-run, absolutely nothing to do with Tom’s bat-wielding ex-girlfriend. Ryoki knew that look well.

Kate looked at her toes, muttering something about the confusing number of exits between Oakland and the Bay Bridge, and visibly jumping when she turned around and noticed Ryoki.

“I believe you already know our Ryoki, isn’t that right?” Grace said.

“We’ve met,” she said simply, her elbows stiffening to her sides as though someone had poured starch over her dress.

“Put down your things and freshen up. We’ll wait,” Grace said, her tone more mother than hostess.

Ryoki had stood staring for the whole exchange, his fingers absolutely still on the back of a chair. That was the dress she could wear on the cover of a romance novel. Not a bodice ripper, but something classic, an Austen romance. He blinked.

Austen novels popping into his head made him feel uncomfortably in touch with his feminine side, a feeling paradoxically at odds with the reason he stayed behind the chair, taking conscious regular breaths, and trying to think about baseball.

Kate returned a few minutes later with her hair brushed out and fresh lipstick. Ryoki allowed himself a brief, courteous glance before averting his eyes as Grace herded them all into the dining room, directing him to a seat on her right, opposite Kate. Tom took a seat next to Kate, opposite Claire, and Brian presided at the head of the table.

During the salad course, Tom elbowed Kate, causing her to smear dressing on her cheek. “So, Kate, how’s your vacation going?” he asked with a smirk. She feigned deafness as she wiped her face, her fingers inching toward the cruet as though she might pour the contents down his neck, but a look from Grace stayed her hand.