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Josh didn’t move. “Tell me what went wrong at the opera with the Sanders. Your text was pretty cryptic.”
It was a fair question.
Josh had been out yesterday, so I’d only seen him at squash since the opera evening and had been too busy whooping his ass to tell him.
I leaned forward and picked up the squeeze ball. “I saw her again.”
“The redhead?”
“Yup. She took some pictures of us during the intermission. With Jeremy Sanders there I couldn’t very well go chase her.”
The same short little redhead had popped up at several places over the last several months, always taking pictures of me, and I’d never been in a position to chase her down. Not yet.
“Still no idea what her game is?”
“Not a clue.”
Veronica’s timing was excellent as she interrupted us to bring in my espresso. I was done with this conversation. Dwelling on the way Amy had made me feel wouldn’t help me get any of today’s work done, and there was plenty of it on my desk.
I thanked Veronica and shooed Josh out.
Not even Veronica knew how much I owed Josh.
Chapter 5
Liam
I didn’t mind burningthe candle at both ends sometimes, but my all-night marathon with Amy had made me more than a little drowsy this morning. I finished off my fourth espresso, feeling so wired, my leg wouldn’t stop trembling.
The text surprised me.
MELINDA: I have to go out of town
She hadn’t mentioned anything about this last Saturday night at the opera, and it was going to put a kink on my plans to entertain the Schmulians. Hubricht Schmulian ran Springbok Foods and was one of two companies we were considering adding to the Quigley-Fulton stable in the foods division.
ME: How long?
Her reply was immediate.
MELINDA: Visiting family
She hadn’t answered my question, but right now, with Josh back in the room, wasn’t the time to deal with this.
MELINDA: The earrings are nice
ME: How long?
I put my phone down and turned my attention to Josh.
“Some of this can be explained by the summer quarter,” he said. “It's always the weakest for this business. It should improve in the fall.”
We were preparing for the conference call due to start any minute now with our lead investor, who was traveling in Europe somewhere today. I tried to focus on Josh’s spreadsheet.
“You try that on Syd and he'll rip you a new one,” I told him.
Syd Kovner had been our early lead investor, and together with Craig Barnett, he represented the entirety of the second-tranche investors we’d added last year.
Josh hadn’t learned yet how excuses didn’t cut it with Syd. It was like Yoda said, “Do or do not; there is no try.”
