Kill the Competition Page 5

  She rushed into the first stall to relieve some of her physical burden, but as she peeled off her ruined panty hose, the weight of what she’d just done started to sink in. Margo was probably calling security at this very moment to have her removed from the building. With the sagging economy and a discharge on her record, she’d be hard-pressed to find another job with such good benefits—including the discount on furniture she’d been looking forward to when she was finally able to set aside a few extra dollars.

  She emerged from the stall and caught sight of herself in the mirror—Midwestern pale, helter-skelter hair, serious brown eyes, not a rule-breaking bone in her body. She practiced an apology while she washed her hands. “I wasn’t myself,” she murmured. “I had a really dreadful morning and—”

  The door to the lounge swung open, and Margo marched in with a thundercloud on her forehead. Belinda busied herself drying her hands, rehearsing in her head.

  “Belinda—” Margo began.

  The door opened, and a woman Belinda recognized as a software developer walked in.

  “Leave,” Margo barked.

  The woman bolted, and Belinda’s pulse spiked. She glanced around the small room and judged the distance to the door. Her legs were longer—she could make a run for it if she had to.

  Margo cleared her throat. “Belinda,” she repeated, her expression softening, her voice…contrite? “I want to apologize for losing my temper.” She lifted both hands and almost smiled. “I was upset about postponing my vacation, and I overreacted.”

  Belinda blinked. “Oh…kay.”

  “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  “Oh…kay.”

  “The truth is, I admire the way you stood up to me out there.” Margo angled her head. “The credentials on your résumé are very impressive, but when I met you, I couldn’t reconcile the two. I underestimated you.”

  Belinda pushed her bangs out of her eyes.

  “In fact, I’ve been looking for someone around here with a little backbone, someone I can groom for senior management. Someone who isn’t afraid to go after the competition.”

  The woman actually did smile this time.

  “What do you say, Belinda? How would you like to help me take Archer public?”

  Belinda squeezed her bare toes inside her shoes. “Sure. I mean—yes, if it’s good for the long-term health of the company.”

  Margo made a humming sound in her throat. “Life is short. Right now, I’m more worried about the immediate health of this company. I’ll reschedule the meeting with Mr. Archer and the board of directors for tomorrow—midmorning, just in case you encounter difficulties again. I suppose the traffic does take some getting used to.”

  “Er…yes.” Belinda swallowed. “Margo, I found some irregularities with the Payton P&L statements, and I was hoping we could discuss them before the meeting.”

  Margo looked pained. “I’m going to be running full speed.”

  “I’ll e-mail you.”

  Her boss lifted her hands, stop-sign fashion. “No e-mail. My computer is being upgraded. Whatever you think you saw, I’m sure it’s nothing—Payton is a solid company.”

  “But—”

  “Belinda, I don’t want unnecessary last-minute questions to postpone the transaction. All the players are primed—Juneau, the Payton family, the board of directors, the venture capitalists. An endorsement from Archer’s chief financial officer will help seal the deal.”

  “But…Archer doesn’t have a chief financial officer.”

  “The former CFO had some personal problems, and we had to let him go. Juneau and I have been conducting a quiet search for a CFO, but we haven’t found someone with the right mix, someone who can be trusted.”

  Her boss flashed another smile—teeth and everything.

  “I think maybe you’re the right person, Belinda.”

  She blinked. “Me?”

  “Mr. Archer will defer to my judgment if he likes what he sees tomorrow in the meeting.” Margo examined her black cherry manicure. “And you’re right—I don’t pay you enough. Compensation for the CFO position is 80K.”

  Eighty thousand dollars? Belinda couldn’t help it—she laughed.

  Margo looked up. “All right, 90K, but that’s my final offer.”

  Belinda nearly swallowed her tongue. A new couch. In leather.

  “Then, of course, there’s the executive benefits package—stock options, bonuses, expense account.”

  Belinda didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes.”

  One of the sink faucets had developed a leisurely drip. Go. For. It. Go. For. It. “Yes.”

  This smile included gums. “Good. It’ll take a couple of weeks for the paperwork to be processed, assuming there aren’t any…snags.” A persuasive smile diluted Margo’s pointed gaze.

  Belinda’s neck started to itch. Assuming she didn’t do anything to stall the acquisition. Here lies Belinda Hennessey. She was Chief Financial Officer. “I’ll…take another look at those numbers.”

  “Atta girl,” Margo said with a wink.

  A wink.

  “Welcome to the top, Belinda. We’re going to make a killing.”

  Margo extended her hand and Belinda shook it, half expecting her to have one of those shock buzzers in her little palm. She didn’t, and her grip was iron-woman strong. “Thank you, M-Margo.”

  Margo released her hand just short of the point of pain. Her designer heels clicking on the tile, she turned and left.

  Yilk. Belinda turned and stared at her wide-eyed reflection, then sank into the faux marble counter, weak with relief. Apparently, she had more to get used to down here than Coke.

  Chapter 5

  “All I can say,” Libby sang as she swung into the passenger seat, “is that you, Belinda Dawn Hennessey, are my hero.”

  Belinda winced. “How do you know my middle name?”

  Libby looked sheepish. “Friend in HR. Must have come up in conversation.”

  Carole slammed the back door. “Well, I can’t believe I missed it. Rosemary, why didn’t you call me? I could have whipped up an urgent delivery for the eighth floor.”

  Rosemary closed her door. “By the time Libby called me, the encounter had reached the level of urban legend.”

  Belinda fought the smile that pushed at the corners of her mouth. Was this what gloating felt like?

  “Well, I had a front row seat,” Libby said. “And Belinda put Margo in her place like a pro.”

  “About time someone did,” Rosemary said.

  When the other women chorused agreement, a pang of guilt struck Belinda—she owed Margo her allegiance, more so now than ever. She drove out of the parking garage and poked her damaged bumper into a crack in the solid traffic on Peachtree Street. Thanks to their collective face-press, a driver let her merge.

  “You know,” she said as she slid in behind a behemoth SUV, “Margo did have to postpone her vacation.”

  “Big deal,” Libby said. “Margo is always gallivanting off somewhere exotic with one of her tadpoles.”

  “Tadpoles?”

  “She likes younger men.”

  “And older men,” Rosemary added dryly.

  Carole leaned forward. “Hush! I want to hear all about the showdown. What happened?”

  Libby turned in her seat and retold the story with gusto, gesturing wildly, and embellishing at will. “And then Belinda just up and says, ‘Excuse me, I’m going to the john.’ ”

  Belinda squinted. “Well—”

  “And then off she went,” Libby finished with a flourish.

  Carole gasped. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” Libby declared, having taken ownership of the story. “She marched off, calm as you please. Margo stood there for a while with smoke coming out of her pointy little ears, and then she followed Belinda.”

  “Into the bathroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes wa
y, yes ma’am.”

  Carole gaped at Libby. “What happened in the bathroom?”

  Libby’s shoulders fell. “You’ll have to ask Belinda.”

  Carole’s head pivoted. “Well?”

  Belinda shrugged carefully. “We…talked.”

  “About?”

  “About the misunderstanding.”

  They waited for more details.

  “And…we agreed we needed to work together on this acquisition.”

  Carole frowned. “That’s all?”

  Belinda nodded. All day she’d pondered the unspoken deal she’d struck with Margo in the ladies’ room, along with her revelation that the people who get ahead in life were rule breakers. Ruthless competitors. She didn’t need a psychology primer to know that social rule breakers reached higher levels of success and recognition—the incredible promotion offer aside, more people had spoken to her today in the halls than in the two months she’d worked at Archer. Because she’d dared to defy her pushy boss, everyone knew her name. One moment of insanity had given her a higher profile than a decade of do-gooding.

  “You’d better watch your back,” Rosemary said. “If Margo swallowed her pride, she’s probably planning to swallow you as a chaser. She doesn’t like competition.”

  Belinda contemplated the warning as she gunned and braked her way through Midtown traffic. For a moderately sized company, Archer certainly resonated with drama.

  The temperature sat on the high side of ninety, and the sun hung at a merciless slant. She turned up the radio, wondering if the traffic reporter would reference her morning mishap—it was, admittedly, a thin connection to the man with the velvety voice, but she would take it. However, the eye in the sky had more pressing situations to report than her long-forgotten fender bender with the police officer.

  “Folks, it’s a mixed bag for drivers on I-85 northbound. Two construction delays before you hit Spaghetti Junction, but stay in the left lanes, and you’ll be okay. HOV lanes are definitely the fastest route home tonight! This is Talkin’ Tom Trainer for MIXX 100 FM traffic.”

  With a pleasant start she realized she’d actually understood what he’d said—spaghetti junction, where I-85 and The Perimeter came together, was the most fierce tangle of overpasses and ramps the city had to offer, and the HOV lane was for “high-occupancy vehicles,” aka carpoolers. She was getting the hang of the lingo, but the traffic was still a two-handed, white-knuckle stress fest. The homebound commuters were a hot, sweaty, lead-footed, hungry bunch of people who communicated with their horns and their hands.

  Libby made a rueful noise. “As if the cars and buses and eighteen-wheelers going eighty miles an hour aren’t dangerous enough, a body has to worry about some fool freaking out with road rage.”

  “Yeah,” Carole said from the back. “Belinda, do you have a weapon?”

  Belinda frowned. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. You really should put something under the seat to protect yourself when you’re on the road. I have a tire iron.”

  “I have a lead pipe,” Libby said.

  “Stun gun,” Rosemary added.

  “Is that legal?”

  “Good gravy, yes,” Libby said. “While I was going to night school, I packed a .25 automatic.”

  Belinda coughed. “A gun?”

  “Sure. But after I started carpooling, I relaxed a little. A tire iron has a nice balanced feel to it, like a cast-iron skillet.”

  “Ah.”

  Carole’s head jutted forward. “A few months ago we took self-defense courses after work. We got to beat up on a big guy with lots of padding, and learned how to send a man’s nose bone into his brain.”

  A finger of suspicion nudged Belinda. “What made you decide to take self-defense classes?”

  “It was Jeanie’s idea,” Carole said, her tone rueful. “And she talked us into it. Rosemary got the best marks in the class.”

  “Wow.”

  Rosemary smirked. “It wasn’t quite as ferocious as Carole makes it sound.”

  Belinda laughed. “Still, I feel safe with you guys.”

  The sudden silence in the car resonated with deeper significance, and Belinda realized that the women did make her feel safe—literally and figuratively. Something had changed between this morning and this afternoon….

  She had changed. Had taken a risk. Lowered her guard. It felt, well…good.

  Libby leaned toward her. “Y’all.”

  “Hm?”

  “You guys is Yankee-speak. You’re in Atlanta now, girl, so it’s y’all.”

  Belinda tested the words on her tongue. “You. All.”

  Libby laughed. “We’ll work on it.” She pulled the yellow legal pad from her bag. “Now, back to our book.”

  “Not this again,” Rosemary said.

  “I thought of a better title—do you want to hear it?”

  Rosemary sighed. “Do we have a choice?”

  Libby made a face.

  “I want to hear it,” Carole said.

  “Thank you. How about I Think I Love You?”

  Belinda took her eyes off the road just long enough to glance over. “Isn’t that a song?”

  “The Osmonds,” Carole said, nodding.

  “No, not the Osmonds, you child,” Libby said. “It was the Partridge Family. Keith Partridge, feathered hair, jumpsuit.”

  “I don’t get it,” Carole said. “The title, I mean.”

  Libby sighed. “Don’t you see? It’s perfect. I Think I Love You—we all thought we were in love with these men when we married them.”

  Belinda pursed her mouth. True enough.

  “Speak for yourself,” Rosemary said. “I was in love with each one of my husbands.”

  “Okay. The subtitle is just for you.”

  “Christ, there’s a subtitle.”

  “Relationship DOs and DON’Ts for Grown Women. And I’m going to let Rosemary come up with our very first DO or DON’T.”

  Belinda bit back a smile.

  “This is nonsense,” Rosemary said.

  “But it passes the time,” Libby said. “And you should have the best advice of all of us. Come on, give us a DO or a DON’T.”

  Rosemary rolled her eyes. “Okay. DON’T sleep with a man until you’re married.”

  Silence exploded into the car.

  “That’s archaic,” Carole finally said.

  “Yeah,” Libby seconded.

  “The old rules are the best ones,” Rosemary chirped. “Every generation of women has tried to change the rules, yet there are more unmarried and more unhappily married women than ever.”

  Belinda bit into her lower lip. She’d had good-girl values drilled into her brain since birth. She’d tried casual sex in college and hadn’t cared for it. When she’d met Vince, she’d recognized a potential life mate. During the two years they’d dated, they’d engaged in some heavy petting, but she’d refused to have sex with him—until the night before the wedding. Vince had said they would be too tired after the ceremony and festivities to truly enjoy their wedding night. “Tonight we can be spontaneous,” he’d whispered. Champagne and sheer curiosity had worn her down. Twenty-four hours later, she was single again. Coincidence? She thought not.

  “What do you think, Belinda? Should a woman hold out for a ceremony?”

  “I…don’t have an opinion.”

  “Well, I think it’s irresponsible not to sleep with a guy before you get serious,” Carole said. “That’s like buying a house without going inside.”

  When Belinda pulled up to the clubhouse in the apartment complex, the women were still debating the validity of Rosemary’s DON’T.

  Rosemary opened the door and stuck one leg out. “If you want me to contribute to this so-called book, then it’s going to have some old-fashioned rules.”

  Libby worked her mouth back and forth, then heaved a bosom-bouncing sigh. “Okay.”

  Belinda turned around in her seat. “Girls, I’ll be on time in the morning, I promise.”

/>   “Are you sure you want to drive?” Rosemary asked.

  “The car seems to be running fine, as long as you don’t mind riding in an eyesore.” Depending on the estimates, she might not be able to pay for the repairs right away.

  Rosemary shrugged. “I don’t mind. But bring your gym bag and we’ll tackle the weight machines at lunch. Legs tomorrow, arms on Thursday.”

  Belinda’s smile froze. “Okay.”

  “I’ll bring you the name of Gustav’s cousin, the auto body guy,” Carole said.

  “Thanks.”

  They closed their doors, waved to each other, and moved off in opposite directions.

  Libby returned the legal pad to her bag. “At this rate, I’ll be ready to retire by the time we finish this book.”

  Belinda laughed and steered back toward the entrance. “It’s a cute idea, though—a multigenerational approach to men.”

  “Men—you can’t live with ’em and you can’t just shoot ’em.” Libby sighed. “I think I’ll make pork chops for dinner.”

  “Uh-hm.” Since that hefty raise Margo promised her wouldn’t kick in for a while, she was thinking pork ’n beans for dinner.

  “Glen likes pork chops.” Libby patted a Bloomingdale’s bag near her knee. “And if I butter him up with a little fried food, maybe I can smuggle in my new wind sock.”

  “When did you buy that?”

  “At lunch—my friend in HR was going to the downtown location and asked me to ride along.” Libby made a rueful noise. “Jeanie got me into wind socks.”

  Belinda remembered her earlier thought of whether the woman had committed suicide. On the other hand, Carole had mentioned it was Jeanie’s idea to take self-defense classes—had she been afraid of something…or someone? Belinda affected a light tone.

  “Libby, was your friend’s death really an accident?”

  Libby looked up. “Did you hear something different?”

  Belinda pulled the car into Libby’s driveway. “No, I…no.”

  Libby’s suspicious expression turned to distress. “Oh, Lordy, there’s Glen. See you tomorrow.” The woman cat-apulted out of the car and practically ran past her husband, who was talking to a neighbor. Her husband smiled, then caught sight of the Bloomingdale’s bag. His expression changed, and when Belinda pulled out, he was striding after Libby, his face a tomato. Hopefully those fried pork chops would calm him down.