The Intern Affair (3 page)

“Yes, it was kind of a surprise—for me anyway.
I had left my resume here months ago, and I didn’t think I would hear from you people for a long time, but here I am, and glad to be working with such a great bunch.”

“Thanks, but we have our little quirks, you know, and our bunch is not always as cheerful.
It’s almost like the weather.
How we feel, or behave, depends largely on the moods of our shareholders or the market’s ups and downs. Have you been working for a public company before?”

“A couple, but none which had projects spreading as far as
Africa
before,” Doug replied, pouring Talya and himself a cup of coffee from the fresh brew in the urn.
He looked at her, smiling.

“Have you ever been to
Africa
?”
Talya asked.

“No, I haven’t, this will be my first time.
I’ve read a lot about it, but that’s the extent of my travels in that direction.”

“Well, Doug, I think you,
Thomas
and I need to get together sometime soon and set a couple of basic rules down before we go anywhere.”

“Yes, I think so.
Thomas
already mentioned that he’ll want a meeting with
Charles
and the two of us.” They looked at each other from over the rim of their cups.
His eyes were green like those of a cat.

She was about to reach her office, cup in hand, when she heard the phone ring.
She rushed, spilled a little coffee on the carpet, which infuriated her, and picked up the receiver with her free hand.

“Talya speaking.”

“Madame
Gilmore
?” She recognized the voice instantly.

“Yes. How are you, M
r.
Ousmane
?” Talya looked at her watch—it was the end of the day for him.

“Finally you’re back! I didn’t know it would take you that long to get back to your office.
And since your secretary was very discourteous and didn’t want to give me your home number, I had no choice but ringing you every day.”

Talya frowned.
“I didn’t know you were looking for me until this morning.
I’m sorry, but you could have talked to Mr.
Durant
in the meantime—”

“I didn’t want to talk to M
r.
Durant
. I wanted to talk to you.”
His voice had the cutting edge of impatience.

“You could have left me a message. Anyway, what is it that I can do for you now?
You’ve got my attention.”

“It’s about this demolition plan of yours. What’s that suppose to mean, ‘demolishing’ every part of the plant.” He quickly went from edgy to sounding flustered.
“There are many valuable pieces of equipment there and many are bran-new.
And—”

“M
r.
Ousmane
, let me stop you right there.
I think you have to consider the future rather than the past.
First, we are not going to
demolish
anything.
We are going to
dismantle
the processing line piece by piece, and maybe we will be able to use some of the newer equipment.”

“But, I have these agreements that your
Mr. Durant
sent me and they’re very specific—”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to interrupt you again. If the agreements need rephrasing, we’ll have our attorney change the wording.
I suggest you sent me the agreements with the changes and I’ll get
Jim
to redraft what ever needs to be modified.”

“That’s fine, I’ll do that, but will you be in the office?”

“Yes, I should be, but if I’m not you can always talk to
Charles
, he will listen to your suggestions; I’m sure.”

“Yes, I suppose.”
Ousmane
didn’t sound convinced. “May I ask you…?”

“What else could I do for you…?” Talya was fast reaching the point of frustration.

“Could I address you by your first name?”

“I think after what we’ve been through, we could certainly address each other by our first names. If I may call you Ahmed you may indeed call me Talya.”

“I am grateful for your sentiment, Madame Gilmore—Talya, I mean.

“
Good. So,
let’s keep in touch, shall we?”

“Yes, of course. You can expect a call from me in the next few days when I’ve revised the agreements.”

Shortly after they hung up, Talya sat down, sipped o
n her coffee and thought about Ousmane
, what he had said and the tone of his voice.
The whole conversation bothered her.
His determined mind coupled with the smoothness of the words and the gentle voice
;
his whole attitude, even ten thousand miles away, gave her pause.

Ahmed
Ousmane
was a rogue—the best way to describe him—he had invested time, effort, and money into a gold mining project in eastern Senegal for some five years prior to Talya’s arrival on the scene. She had then discovered that
Tristan
’s agent, Mr.
Karim
, had
channelled
a half-a-million dollars of her company’s money into
Ousmane
’s venture. The embezzlement resulted in
Tristan
having a sizeable interest in
Ousmane
’s enterprises. Once the Board of
D
irectors had approved
Charles
’s plan for
Tristan
to take the reins as a foreign investor in the mining development, Talya, as an assistant director and chargée d’affaires in
West Africa
, had been assigned to the Sabodala Project.

Anyway, there was the envelope, which
Charles
had handed Talya when she arrived, staring at her from her desk.
She opened it.
Inside, there was a formal one-page document, saying that Talya had been given quite a few thousand dollars worth of shares in their company.
If Talya had been into fur coats and
jewellery
, she could have spoiled herself rotten with that much money.
She wasn’t.
With the certificate, there was a note signed by all four directors.
On it, just two words: “Thank you!”
Talya sat, looking at both pieces of paper pensively.

She picked up the phone again and this time she
dialled
what had been a familiar number before her departure—
Ghali
Defray
.

When she first returned to
Vancouver
, she wanted to phone him immediately, but she didn’t. Her mind was embroiled in the events that had
taken
place in
Dakar
—she had suffered a violent attempted rape at the hands of a psychopath named
Mustafa Kareef
. She couldn’t get
Kareef
out of her mind.

Ghali
was
her boyfriend. When Talya left he had promised to write or call once he knew where she was staying, but he didn’t make good on the promise.
She had tried phoning on a couple of occasions and got his voice mail.
She had left messages from time to time. All the way through,
Ghali
’s silence had been blaring more than a thousand words would have done.
The picture was clear enough. He hadn’t come to terms with Talya suddenly leaving him stranded on the shores of
Vancouver
.

“
Dr. Defray
here.”

“Hello there! H
ow’s the stranger in my life?”

“Just fine, thank you, Talya.
How are you?”
The coldness in his voice was in the range of twenty below zero.

“I’m fine.
What have you been doing?
How’s the practice?”
Ghali
was a family doctor.

“Just swell, thanks.
I’ve heard you’re back.
Did you
enjoy
yourself?”
We’re talking iceberg size now … in the frozen
Arctic Ocean
.

“Yes, I did but you haven’t returned any of my calls or answered any of the messages.
So, I was wondering what’s been happening.”

“Nothing, nothing at all, you’re the one who’s been globe-trotting, not me.”

“Maybe we should have a drink somewhere tonight and talk about it?” Talya asked.

“Sure, how’s the Boat House sound?”

“Just fine. Would seven o’clock be okay?”

“Yes, I’ll be there and I hope you’ll have something else to say to me than announcing your next departure.”

“Okay!” That was it. He rang off.
Talya looked at the receiver in her hand and thought; you
,
my friend, you’re in for an ‘announcement’ of quite a different kind tonight!

2

The Boat House
is a
cosy
place.
Facing the beach and close to
Stanley
Park
, it is an inviting spot where the
neighbourhood
goes to quench its all-seasons’ thirst and to eat the catch of the day.

That evening, after undressing and relieving her poor feet from the torture of high heels, Talya took a cool shower, put on her
favourite
slacks and sweater, and walked down to her rendezvous.
Ghali
was already sitting in one of the couches by the fireplace. He got his name and his gentleness from his Tanzanian mother.
His father had died in a car accident some years ago. He had worked his little butt off to put himself through medical school.
He was a tall fellow with dark hair and hazel eyes.
The natural tan of his skin was attractive, even seductive.
His nonchalant attitude was not dismissive but comfortable. They had met several months ago and became friends.
Not long afterward, one thing leading to another, they soon got involved.
Talya and
Ghali
got used to each other, as shoes and socks go together; they fitted well with one another.

“Hi,
Ghali
. How was your day?” Talya said from behind him as she approached the couch.

“Hi, I thought we’d sit here; it’s more private if you wanted to talk,” he replied from over his shoulder.
He didn’t bother getting up.
That was a bad sign.

“That’s fine.
How’s your mother?”
Talya took a seat beside him.

“She’s okay.
She asked about you a couple of times.
I just told her that you were away… That’s all.”
This morning’s iceberg had only thawed off a few inches.

“Well, I think I need a drink before we talk.
Beaujolais
?”
Ghali
asked.

“Yes please, that’d be wonderful.”

Ghali
got up and went to the bar to order their drinks. Talya had noticed that he hadn’t ordered anything yet.

He must have come in shortly before I did.

He came back in a few minutes and sat down in a chair across from her, setting the glasses in front of them on the coffee table.

“So, Talya, what have you to say?
Why are we sitting here?”
He asked the questions as if he addressed a patient during his hospital rounds. It sounded like, “How are we doing this morning?”

“Well, I think we should talk about your silence.
While I was away, you didn’t even pick-up the phone once.
I was wondering why
.
”

“I think you know the answer to that, Talya.” He put an arm across the back of his chair.

“Frankly,
Ghali
, I don’t.
Yes, I left rather suddenly and yes, it was a surprise for you. It was for me, too.
What did you want me to do?”

“Maybe you could have told me in another way than in the way you did?”

“And what way was that?”

“It’s not so much what you said, or where you announced your departure, it’s your offhand attitude about it that stayed with me.”

“What
offhand attitude
? What are you talking about?
Is it the fact that I was pleased to be given such a responsibility?
Or is it because I didn’t ask your permission before I accepted my assignment?”

“No, Talya. You had absolutely no consideration for my feelings.
That’s the offhand attitude I’m talking about.
You were pleased—thrilled actually—to leave me and go off on your own.
You didn’t give a second thought as to what I would be feeling. You just flaunted your
glorious
assignment in my face and left.”