Kings of Infinite Space

TWENTY-NINE

“WHY ISN’T HE WRITING ALL THIS DOWN?” said Olivia, who was seated to the left of Rick.

“Why isn’t who writing what down?” said Rick, from the head of the table.

“Why isn’t Paul writing down what everyone is saying?” Olivia twirled a pencil between her fingers as skillfully as a majorette.

To the right of Rick, Paul kept his gaze on the glowing screen of the laptop. “I’m waiting for the consensus,” he muttered.

“For the what?” said J.J., out of the twilight somewhere to Paul’s right. Colonel, J.J., and Bob Wier all sat on Paul’s side of the table, while Olivia sat all by herself on the other side.

“What the professor’s trying to say,” said Colonel, “is that he’s waiting for us’n’s to come to an agreement on how the paragraph should read.”

“It’s not for him to decide how the paragraph should read,” said Olivia. In the glow from the screen at the far end of the room, her face floated as pale as ectoplasm.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” muttered Paul.

“That’s not what he’s saying, Olivia,” said Colonel. He balanced his laser pointer between his fingers, itching for a chance to switch it on.

“I think there should be a record of everyone’s ideas as we go along,” said Olivia. “Of who proposed what.”

There was a general sigh from the men down the length of the table, and Colonel said, “With all due respect, Olivia, what we need is a firm consensus on the finished document, not a record of the process. Who cares who says what?” He glanced either way down the table. “Am I right, gentlemen?”

“Fuckin’ A,” mumbled J.J.

“Amen,” breathed Bob Wier.

“Hm,” said Rick, gazing at the backs of his hands.

“The professor here,” said Colonel, “is a tech writer, not a stenographer.”

Paul hunched his shoulders and avoided meeting Olivia’s eyes, but even so her gaze drilled through Paul’s forehead and out the back of his skull.

“And anyway,” Colonel continued, “I don’t think he can type that fast.”

The men laughed, and Olivia sighed. Once again she beat a tactical retreat on this subject. It was not the first time she had brought it up, but it was the first time since lunch. She laid her pencil against the tabletop with a distinct click and folded her hands over it, as if sheathing her weapon. Across the table J.J. slumped in his seat, his head propped in one hand, and Bob Wier shifted restlessly, both of them silvered by the glow from paragraph 4.3.3 of section 4.3, “Parts, Supplies, and Fluids”:

4.3.3 The Vendor shall be responsible for damage and costs caused by the use of substandard or non-OEM parts, supplies, or fluids.

“I thought. .,” Bob began, stabbing the air meekly with his hand.

“Yessir!” barked Rick. A vent in the rear of the projector threw a hot sliver of glare back across the tip of Rick’s nose and the bulge of his cheekbones. “Speak up there, Bob!”

“I mean,” Bob Wier went on, jerking his hand back, “what was wrong with the RFP the way it was?”

“Yeah,” said J.J.

Olivia gasped in exasperation and looked beseechingly at Rick. Rick, however, merely puffed out his cheeks and made popping noises with his lips. All day Rick had been spiritually hors de combat, staring into space or fussing with his tie while Olivia and Colonel conducted a light-saber duel in the dark over the conference table. Olivia gestured with her pencil, and Colonel parried with his laser pointer, bouncing the little red dot all over the screen. Olivia pushed to tear out every paragraph and start over, and Colonel dug in his heels as if each passage were scripture. Rick had stepped in to adjudicate only two or three times during the morning, and since lunch he had been mostly silent, letting the battle wash back and forth across the table before him.

Now Olivia plucked her pencil off the table again and poked it at the screen. “We require the vendor to buy OEM parts in the first place,” she said. “So how can we make him responsible if the parts fail? It’s not his fault.”

“Parts is parts,” drawled J.J., his voice slurred by boredom.

“Whose side are you on, Olivia?” Colonel rolled the laser pointer between his thumb and forefinger. “Ours or the vendor’s?”

“Plus,” Olivia continued, ignoring him, “isn’t there a hyphen in ‘substandard’?”

Before he could stop himself, Paul said, “No!” rather hotly.

“Whoa!” chorused the men along Paul’s side of the table.

“The professor speaks!” Rick said merrily.

“Well, there isn’t,” muttered Paul. It was nearly quitting time, and they had been sitting in the overheated semidark, blinking at the screen and listening to the buzz of the projector’s fan, since eight-fifteen that morning. The meeting was supposed to have started at eight, but Paul had been so rattled by the discovery of the Tiffany’s box — the rest had never happened, he was sure of it — that he had taken longer than expected to set up. And, quite apart from the stress of sitting for hours in the same room with Olivia, he had kept an eye cocked all day at the ceiling, watching for bulges or sudden gaps or the heel of a black Oxford.

“Way-ul,” Rick was saying now, “I don’t think we’re gonna get to the end of this today.”

“I can stay late,” Olivia said.

J.J. groaned, and there was a sharp intake of breath from Bob Wier’s direction.

“Yeah, well.” Rick raised his eyebrows at his wristwatch. “I can’t. We’ll reconvene on Monday.”

“Yesssss,” breathed J.J., and there was a long, slow creeeeak as he shifted in his chair. Paul’s gaze shot to the ceiling again. He’d spent hours listening to every squeak and groan of every chair in the room, and yet each little noise still took him by surprise, stretching his nerves a little tighter. “What’s that?” he gasped.

Rick stretched in his own chair, making it creak as well. “What’s eating you, son?”

“You been acting hinky all day,” said Colonel. “You see a ghost or something?”

Across the table Olivia rapped on the tabletop with the sharp end of her pencil. “Could we at least finish this paragraph before we leave?” she said.

All the men groaned except for Paul, who didn’t make a sound.

“At least,” insisted Olivia, raising her voice, “at least let’s have Paul enter the revisions so far before he goes home tonight. . ”

“I don’t believe Paul has the level of badge,” said Colonel, “that allows him to remain in the building after business hours.”

“I have a pretty low-level badge,” Paul said.

“One of us could stay with him,” Olivia said. “As I said before, I can stay late.”

Paul’s hands began to tremble over the laptop, making the keys rattle. This was even worse than he’d imagined: Not only would he have to be here on his own time, after hours—“You’d never catch me in there after dark,” Nolene had said — but he’d be alone with Olivia. On Monday morning his coworkers would find him dead in his chair, a gray, desiccated, bloodless husk.

“Not tonight you can’t,” said Colonel heartily. “Have you forgotten already?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Olivia.

“Karaoke night, my good woman,” boomed Colonel. “My house, tonight, seven P.M. sharp. I believe I announced it when we convened this morning?”

He glanced round the table, and J.J. and Bob Wier nodded eagerly. Olivia glanced wildly at Paul, as if afraid he might get away.

“I, uh, can’t make it tonight.” Rick tapped his own wrist-watch, and he put his palms on the table, preparing to heave himself up. “I have other, uh. . I won’t be able to. .”

“How about tomorrow morning?” snapped Olivia, restraining Rick with a hand. “Saturday morning, Paul?” she said, fixing Paul with her gaze. “Can you meet me here tomorrow?”

Before Paul could say a word, Colonel grasped his wrist and said, “Yes he can, on one condition.”

Olivia glanced furiously from Colonel to Paul and back again. Rick subsided into his seat. “What condition?” she said.

“Well, it seems we can’t prevail upon our redoubtable leader here to favor us with a tune this evening.” Colonel glanced at Rick, who looked like a whipped dog. “But surely Olivia will grace us with her presence,” Colonel continued. “Perhaps the SMU fight song. Or even a cheer or two.”

Olivia scowled. She was clearly calculating just how much face she could afford to lose.

“Because if you put in an appearance,” Colonel went on, “I can guarantee the professor here will be at your beck and call tomorrow morning, bright and early.”

“Wait a minute. .,” Paul began, and Colonel silenced him with a really brutal squeeze of his wrist.

“Go Ponies,” said Colonel, crinkling his eyes at Olivia.

Olivia lifted her eyebrows at Paul.

“Professor?” said Colonel. “Tomorrow morning? Eight A.M.?”

“Sure,” said Paul, miserably. He and Olivia would be alone, but at least it would be daylight.

“That’s settled, then.” Colonel popped his laser pointer into his breast pocket and placed his palms on the tabletop. “I believe y’all will find an e-mail in your inbox with directions to Casa Pentoon.” He stood, and J.J. and Bob Wier stood as well. The meeting was over.

“And remember!” cried Colonel, as Olivia minced out the door. “Everybody sings!”