6. Talitha
Talitha
Pulling my car into the empty parking lot, I threw it in park and scrolled through the contacts on the car screen.
“Gema,” I sang when the phone connected.
“Tali, why you calling me again?” she griped.
“I told you I was going to call when I got to my location.”
“Ummhmm. I thought you had a meeting with that fancy boss of yours.”
“Seminar, Gema.” I laughed. “We have a live seminar to attend today.”
“Same difference.”
“You packed and ready to go?”
“Well, Louise posed to be coming over to pack my stuff up for me. Litha round here talking ‘bout I need to stay another week.”
“What you tell her?”
“No.” She all but spat. “I done had enough of her and that man of hers.”
Gema called me last night and told me she was cutting her trip short by a few days.
She claims she had saw and spent time with everybody and was ready to get back to her bed.
I didn’t disagree. Outside of hanging with Rossi that one night, I had spent the last day and a half going over the information Mr. Pellegrin left me and Law.
I offered to come pick her up but she told me they would bring her.
“Well, have them to bring you on back baby.”
“And I am. Bright and early in the morning,” she avowed.
“More than likely, I won’t be there when you get home but I’ll make sure Mrs. Jessie is there.”
“That’s fine by me. As long as I get to sleep in my bed tomorrow night.”
“You will, Gema. I’mma let you go, though. I need to get in this building and get logged in on the computer.”
“Go ahead with ya’ business. Call me later,” she sang before hanging up the phone.
On the drive over, Law had called me and told me he would be waiting on me to get there so after grabbing my bookbag off the back seat, I grabbed the tray of coffee and got out.
“I see you made it okay,” Law called over his shoulder when I walked into the space.
“Yeah. Surprisingly the traffic to get over here wasn’t bad either.”
This particular office was in the Sandy Springs area. When I pulled the address up on the GPS, I just knew it was going to take me a while to make it.
“It’s pretty calm around this time. Going back might be an issue though.”
“Let’s pray it’s not.”
Placing my bags down on the table, I held the tray out to him. From where I was standing, I was able to get a full look at him and he looked nice. This was the first time I had witnessed him out of his business clothes.
The grey Nike tech suit clung to his body like a second skin. For an old man, Law was extremely handsome. I had noticed that the first time I saw him.
“What’s this?” he asked, looking down at the tray.
“I brought you some coffee. If you don’t drink it, that’s fine. I’ll just have two.” I was so busy eyeballing him that I hadn’t realized he was waiting on me to say something.
“What is it?”
“Caramel macchiato. I got you the same thing I get.”
Taking the cup out of the holder he took a sip out of it. “Thank you.”
“Welcome.”
“You brought a laptop, or do I need to set you up on one of mine?”
“I got my own. If you would share the Wi-Fi password, I think I can do the rest.”
“No password.” Doing a double take, Law stopped what he was doing and gazed at me.
“What?” I queried. The awkward stare down was making me nervous.
“You look–” he paused mid-sentence. Scratching at the back of his neck he mumbled, “Absolutely breathtaking.”
If blue tights, a white under shirt, and a long wool grey cardigan was breathtaking, then I guess I looked like a plain jane in my business clothes.
This was an all-day thing, and we weren’t in the office, so I saw no need to throw on anything special.
Hell, I had even slicked my hair back in a low bun and tossed on a grey Chanel cap to match the sneakers I wore.
Finding my voice, I finally retorted, “I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or be offended. ”
“Why would you be offended?”
“You’re my boss,” I explained.
“I’m also a man,” he shared. “Take it for what it was… A compliment.”
Feeling naked under his glare, I cleared my throat and whispered, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I guess that means I should tell you that you look nice as well.”
“You don’t have to, but it’s well appreciated.” He smirked.
Was he? Nawl… He couldn’t possibly be. Or could he? The way his eyes never left mine, I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or not. I would hope like hell he wasn’t though.
“Class starts in fifteen minutes. I’ve ordered lunch that’ll be delivered at noon. Is that okay with you?”
“It is.”
“Bet. I’m going to step out and make a call. You can go ahead and set your stuff up.”
Pulling my MacBook out of my bag, I powered it on and connected it to the Wi-Fi. I had combed over the papers in the manilla envelope with a fine-tooth comb, so I placed them on Law’s side of the table.
With my notebook on a blank page, I sat my pen on top of it and went to my email so I could pull up the link.
I planned on taking notes while sitting here listening to this seminar.
I needed to gather all the information I could so I could fill out this application and pray that it got approved on the first try.
Law swaggered through the door right before it was time for the seminar to start. The minute he sat down, he picked up the envelope. Holding it up he asked, “This have anything good in it?”
“It has a lot of good shit in it. He gave us the applications of people who have been approved.”
“That’s why he said if it got out, he would deny it.”
“Yep. Let’s just say we have our work cut out for us. Not only do we have to find and secure a building, but it actually has to be set up. If we submit the application and it goes to the next step, the board will then come out and do a tour.”
“Damn. So, we gotta get a move on it.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “We kind of do. More importantly we have to figure out which programs we plan on offering. That’s the only way we will know how we need to set the facility up.”
“You got anything in mind?”
“I mean… I have a few programs I want us to offer. That’s not the issue. It’s a matter of funding Lawton.”
“Unlimited funds… Remember?” He shrugged like I knew his financial portfolio.
I mean, after learning what Law used this business space for, I was thoroughly impressed. I had crunched the numbers in my head and what I came up with was he had plenty of money.
That’s why his ass was insistent on being able to pay for whatever. That still didn’t give me the right to automatically assume he was going to be funding everything.
“I’m talking about a lot of money,” I expressed, trying to get him to understand what I meant without necessarily coming out and saying it.
“How much?” he asked after realizing where I was going with this.
“A lot,” I exaggerated. “Meaning we need investors.”
“In other words, my money ain’t long enough,” he teased.
“I never said that.” I giggled. “I’m not trying to bankrupt you.”
The speaker for the course had finally dialed into the live. When Law realized it, he nodded and said we could talk about it later. Thank God for a reprieve cause talking about money was never fun to do, especially when it was somebody else’s.
Slipping my AirPods into my ear, I focused my attention on the screen, ready to get today’s lesson over with. Law did the same and leaned back in his chair with his arms folded across his chest.
From his relaxed position, I knew I would be the only one giving the speaker my undivided attention. That was fine by me; as long as one of us knew what the hell was going on, I was satisfied.
“Shit. This does require a lot of money.”
Tossing my arms in the air, I bleated, “I tried to tell you that. You over there all ‘I got money.’ And I’m trying to let you know this shit is expensive.”
Law and I had successfully sat through eight long hours of the seminar. A few times I noticed that he had indeed nodded off, prompting me to tap him awake. Now that we were done, we were still seated at the table going over the ideas I had come up with.
“So, eight programs are what you’re wanting to start out with?”
“I mean, yeah. I feel like eight gives us enough variety for them to choose from right now.”
“Dental hygiene, LPN, computer support specialist, paralegal studies, automotive technology, health information management coding, transit electric power and equipment, early childhood care… I don’t even know what the fuck half of these are.”
“They’re trades,” I laughed. “Upon completion of these specific ones, students will get their associate degree. I tried to pick the more diverse ones in each industry.”
“Diverse my ass,” Law groused.
“During my research, I stumbled across an old tech school that lost its accreditation and had to shut down. The city owns it and I’m almost certain it can be bought. That right there will help with the cost.”
“I hear ya’. I’m still looking at the numbers.”
“Excuse my language but I told yo’ ass that we can just partner with the schools around town. It was you and Poppa that came up with this grand ass idea to open up a school.”
“You don’t even sound right talking like that,” Law laughed. “And to be honest, the shit sounded good when we came up with the idea. My ass didn’t know it was going to be this pricey. And I’m not saying I can’t afford it because I can.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“We need investors,” he finally surmised.
“How painful was that?” I teased. “Admit it. I was right and you and your alpha male tail was wrong.”
“Yeah aight.” He waved me off.
“No, admit it.”
“I’m not admitting shit.” He huffed and stared down at the papers.
Snatching them out of his hand, I held them behind my back. “Admit it, Lawton. Just say Tali, I was wrong. We do need investors.”
“You plan on giving those back?”
Tilting my head, I brought my hand from behind my back and held them out for him. When he went to reach for them, I snatched them back and laughed. “Not until you admit it.” Folding my arms across my chest, I waited for him to humble himself.
Swiping at finger across his nose he mumbled, “Women.”