Slugfest

Forty-five

Rolanda slid all the way over to hug the inside of the booth and stay out of sight of the new arrivals. I did the same.

I felt, more than heard, the couple sit down in the booth behind us. First one thud then a softer one that gently rocked the booth Rolanda and I were sharing. Brian came over to take their drink orders and would have asked if we needed refills, but the look on Rolanda’s face and a slight move of her index finger sent him away without his saying a word. She mouthed something I couldn’t understand and repeated the action three times before I realized the name she was saying—Kristi Reynolds.

I was mildly curious to know what Kristi had said to the cops, especially if she had implicated Jamal Harrington and the other student gardeners because of the trade show mishaps, but I had no reason to hide and didn’t particularly care who she was getting cozy with, so Rolanda’s precautions puzzled me. But the future cop saw or knew something I didn’t, so I kept quiet and stashed the makeup bag.

They spoke softly, but I picked up snatches of the conversation, especially when the man spoke. He had a hearty salesman’s delivery and his speech was peppered with excruciating clichés like “Whatever floats your boat” and “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.” They were the kind of lines that all but ensured his back wasn’t getting scratched any time soon. I didn’t know how Reynolds stood it.

“What we have here is a symbiotic relationship,” he said, his tone getting warmer.

I started to wonder if we should do the sisterly thing by saying hello and giving the poor woman an escape strategy when she dropped the bomb.

“Listen, pal, what we have here is a temporary arrangement. Very temporary. We both know I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire if you hadn’t accidentally seen something you weren’t meant to see. So you can stop pretending that we’re going to be picking out china patterns anytime soon. The minute this weekend is over, I’m going to make a nice little bonfire with your flyers, your business cards, and that ugly shirt you gave me.” Kristi Reynolds spoke the words slowly and, if I had to guess from the tone, they were delivered with a smile, so no one watching from a distance would ever imagine they weren’t a happy, flirtatious couple out for a predinner drink. It was eerie.

“Here’s the list and a map so you don’t screw it up. Thirty-five locations. Make sure you stay away from these ten. Is that clear? If you concentrate on the top five, we should get the response we want.”

She instructed the man on how to proceed. Refusing to take the hint, the man still tried to turn the business meeting into a social one and suggested they’d celebrate together when the job was done.

“If that pudgy wet thing on my leg is your hand, remove it now before I stick a fork in it and you never get to date Mrs. Palmer and her five daughters again.” She laughed at the end as if they were having a fabulous time and she’d just said something wildly amusing.

Dang, the woman had a way with words! Why didn’t I ever come up with lines like that? My bon mots generally came at four in the morning, long after the moment to deliver them had passed.

Kristi excused herself and walked to the bar for another drink.

“That was fast. Hard drinker?” Rolanda whispered.

“I think she wants to get away from him before she goes too far. She still needs him for something and she’s giving herself time to ratchet down. That’s what I’d need to do after the fork comment,” I said. “I’d be hyperventilating.”

On her way back, mixed drink in hand, Kristi looked at Rolanda—out of uniform—and couldn’t quite place her. Then she came a step closer and saw my exhibitor badge. The three of us nodded politely, and Rolanda and I feigned surprise, as if we hadn’t known she was there. I didn’t think she bought it.

The next ten minutes passed quickly and Rolanda and I didn’t hear much. Obviously Kristi had advised the man to keep his voice down. Was she getting a kickback from his sales or giving him leads? Whatever it was, they were in bed together, figuratively if not literally. I took a page from Kristi’s book and went to the bar for a beer but really to see who it was she had been emasculating.

He was about forty years old; thick, dark blond hair; a little pasty; probably ten years and ten pounds past his prime but still the kind of guy your mother’s friends would refer to as “a good catch.” He wore a sport jacket over a polo shirt and khaki slacks. Kristi and her male companion kept the conversation to a minimum, and after what she must have considered a reasonable amount of time, they got up to leave. I went out of my way to say good-bye, hoping the man would turn around and I’d get a better look at him, but he didn’t bite. At their abandoned table were a few crumpled dollars and Kristi’s untouched second drink. She recoiled as the man attempted to put his hand on her shoulder, and they left the bar.

“I had a date once that lasted forty-five minutes,” I said. “And that was with dinner. Big mistake—knew it right from the get-go. But twenty minutes? That’s got to be a new record.”

“If the magic’s not there, the magic’s not there.”

Neither of us really thought Kristi and the man in the polo shirt were on a date.

“That color reminded me of something,” Rolanda said. I’d thought the same thing the minute I’d seen it.

“Ya think? It’s all over the SlugFest booth. I’m guessing that was Scott Reiger.”

Once Kristi and her friend left, I showed Rolanda the literature I had taken from the SlugFest booth. It was long on marketing speak but short on details. The bio pic looked ten years old, but the man Kristi had been duking it out with was definitely Scott Reiger.

“I also made a copy of his meeting schedule.”

“Why?”

“Someone once told me you can’t believe everything you read. You have to read between the lines. Let’s look at that directory again.”

In addition to the brief company description, BioSafe, the company that made SlugFest, had taken a four-color full-page ad on the inside back cover of the book.

“Probably not cheap,” Rolanda said.

“Especially for a brand-new company with no track record and limited distribution. They do say self-promotion is key for start-ups and newbies.”

“More likely Kristi Reynolds threatened to break his kneecaps if he didn’t take it.”

I took my laptop out of my backpack.

“Eighty percent battery. That should last for a few searches.” SlugFest was first. The BioSafe Web site mirrored the booth, the ad, and probably the man—a few catchphrases; not many details on scientific credentials, ingredients in the product, or how it worked but lots of salmon-colored images that someone must have decided were a warm counterpoint to the less attractive but necessary slug pictures.

As the founder, Scott’s bio was the first and the longest. He had an extensive sales and marketing background but not in any gardening-related businesses. Nine months earlier, he’d left an executive position at a well-known pharmaceutical company to start BioSafe. On paper he was the male equivalent of Kristi—aggressive, successful, and single-minded. They’d make a great couple if she didn’t stick a fork in him.

“So what does he need her for?” Rolanda asked. “Entrée into the gardening community?”

The way to Kristi’s heart was through her balance sheet. All he had to do was write a check for that to happen. Maybe she’d needed him. I googled Kristi next, and the Big Apple Flower Show popped up. She’d been at the helm for two years, taking over from Allegra Douglas. The jury was still out on her performance.

An article in The Trentonian made it sound as if she was single-handedly bringing the event into the twenty-first century. A less flattering piece in a New York paper cited the exodus of numerous long-term employees, exhibitors, and community supporters. Referred to as “the always outspoken,” Mrs. Jean Moffitt was quoted as saying, “Kristi Reynolds has shaken up our neat little world, but perhaps we were getting too fusty. Too unimaginative. To whom will we pass the torch when all the old-timers like me are planted in the ground if not to the young innovators? Some of her methods may be unorthodox, but if she can sustain us through these few difficult economic times, then I applaud what she’s doing.”

But not everyone felt the same way about Kristi, including her predecessor, the snarky, chain-smoking Allegra Douglas.