Chapter 26
Setup day for the conference—Kansas City, MO
Daniel woke up fully refreshed and ready to go.
He didn’t bother to shower; there wasn’t much point when he was going to spend the next few hours getting sweaty and filthy crawling around the convention floor.
He’d even packed ratty clothes specifically for the task—an old, faded Yankees T-shirt and a pair of jeans that probably should have been thrown out two years ago.
He got to the convention center right at seven o’clock, the moment the doors opened.
The show floor was honestly a little eerie.
The lights were dim, but not dim enough that he couldn’t see the dust in the air.
Hundreds of big freight trunks were set up in rows, waiting for their owners to arrive and unpack them.
And in this whole huge, almost cavernous space, there were only a handful of people besides him.
He could hear a group of them, off in the distance, grumbling and complaining; and there was a forklift beeping as it drove through the aisles of trunks, delivering still more of them to their proper spot.
Thankfully, the row markers were already hanging from the ceiling, and he followed them to where the QNS booth was supposed to be—spot number 505.
And there they were, all sixteen… no, there were only twelve trunks here.
He’d have to talk to someone—the forklift driver, maybe? —to track down the missing ones.
But that could wait. He could start with what was here. He’d made sure that all the trunks were numbered so it would be easy for the team to set things up. And right there was trunk number one.
An hour later, with the help of a convention center employee—Larry, according to his nametag, who’d clearly taken pity on the lone nerd in the Yankees shirt—they had the frame standing and the canopy bolted into place. Daniel made a mental note to buy Larry lunch.
Stepping back to look at his progress, he had to admit that it actually looked pretty good. And it was oddly satisfying to accomplish something purely physical—no code or screens or slide decks. Just metal and plastic and his muscles.
And—where had the thought come from?—he wondered what Nora would say if she could see him now.
Nora , later that morning
Nora wasn’t proud of herself for flirting her way into grabbing the last seat for the pre-conference demo of Windows NT.
But what was that saying—all’s fair in love and war?
This demo was a hot ticket; Microsoft was billing this new operating system as a game-changer.
And, anyway, flirting was kind of a strong word; it was more like strategic charm deployment.
All she’d done was smile brightly and bat her eyes at a Microsoft employee who looked like the last time he’d seen sunshine was back in the 1980’s.
The important thing was, it worked. And the cherry on top?
Not only did she get the last seat, she had the pleasure of seeing the door shut right in the face of Annette Goddard.
Annette had started at Livingston the same week as Nora, but she’d been a bad co-worker and a worse human being. She’d left three months later.
Nora had heard through the grapevine that she’d landed at PC Magazine. So taking her spot was a double victory—sticking it to a rotten person, and also getting the edge over a major rival publication.
A little to her surprise, Nora found that she was able to keep up with the demonstration, and even jot down a few questions for the Microsoft people later. All those nights of reading up instead of having anything like a social life were definitely paying off.
At the end of the session, Nora wondered what Daniel would have thought about it. This was his subject—his world. Would he be amused that she was—tangentially, but it still counted—part of it herself now? Or jealous?
The one thing he wouldn’t have been is surprised, because he’d told her that she could do anything.
Would she have believed that if he hadn’t believed in her first? She didn’t know. And right now, she didn’t want to find out.
Daniel , late afternoon
The booth was finished. Daniel had done probably eighty percent of the work himself, but he’d had help for the last two hours. The whole team was here—Bryce, Edward, John, the two Kristins, and Thomas.
The ongoing argument over how to differentiate the Kristins cropped up again as soon as the last workstation was set up and the last brochure rack was filled.
They’d joined the company within a week of each other, so “Old Kristin and New Kristin” didn’t really work.
They were eight months apart in age, so “Young Kristin and Old Kristin” only led to acrimony.
They were both blonde and within an inch of each other in height, so physical descriptions were out.
And neither of them wanted to use their last initial.
Daniel had anticipated the problem, though. “Guys! Look in the small trunk. Down at the bottom, there’s a paper bag.” Bryce went over and leaned into the trunk—almost disappeared into it, if he was five foot four, that was being generous. He emerged a moment later and brought the bag to Daniel.
Daniel reached in, pulled out three blue polo shirts with the QNS logo over the left breast pointed to Kristin Zachetti.
“You’re Blue Kristin.” He pulled out three more shirts, exactly the same except red, and handed them to Kristin Chambers.
“You’re Red Kristin. Problem solved.” It was exactly the kind of thing Nora would have come up with, probably with a more sarcastic twist than just red and blue.
Blue Kristin shrugged and took her shirts. Red Kristin asked, “That’s fine for now, but what do we do when we’re back in the office?”
Daniel hadn’t thought that far ahead. But he wasn’t their manager back in Chicago, so it really wasn’t his problem.
“You can call each other every morning and coordinate outfits, I guess.” Both women glared at him, until Thomas—the senior employee on the team at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, stepped in.
“Let’s not kill Daniel before the show even starts, okay? Or else,”—he looked at Red Kristin—“I’ll tell everyone what your middle name is.” That settled them down, although now Daniel was curious how bad her middle name could possibly be.
“More important question,” Edward piped up, “Where are we going for dinner? The Team Lead always takes everyone out after the booth is done.”
Mr. Kincaid had warned Daniel about that tradition—and also that the company credit card would cover it.
“That place across the street looked good,” Daniel said. “Hickory Moon? The concierge at the hotel raved about it.”
John spoke up. “Of course she did. They probably pay her under the table to send people over there.”
Once John got started on his conspiracy theories, there was no stopping him.
You had to cut him off right away. “Fine. I saw in the guidebook, there’s Smoke and Embers.
It’s a couple of blocks from here, but it’s supposed to be really good, too.
Let’s just go there. Call it a command decision. Everyone good?”
Thankfully, everyone was good. They all wanted free food more than they wanted to argue.
Nora , fifteen minutes later
Nora was back in the lobby of the Marriott. She’d been working nonstop since eight o’clock in the morning—four demos, six interviews, and an hour sneaking around the show floor, one step ahead of security the whole time.
She deserved a reward. Her per diem was $50 a day, and she hadn’t spent any of it yet. A nice dinner would be just the thing now. She’d be by herself, but she was used to that. She would have asked Kenny the photographer, but he had family nearby, so he was booked tonight.
The guidebook in her room had mentioned a local barbecue joint that sounded interesting. Smoke and Embers, three blocks away. All the better she was eating alone—she wouldn’t have to worry about making a mess with an order of ribs.
“Hey, Nora.”
She turned to see who was calling her. It was a redheaded woman, taller than her and wearing an ingratiating smile. Annette Goddard.
“Hi, Annette. Sorry you missed the Windows NT demo this morning. Maybe you heard some of it from the hallway?”
Yes, that was obnoxious, but did Annette really deserve anything better?
Maybe that was unfair. Annette had behaved horribly in the three months Nora knew her, but sometimes people had stuff going on that wasn’t apparent from the outside. She wouldn’t want to be judged forever for the way she’d acted the spring of her freshman year.
“Sorry, forget I said that. How’s life at PC Magazine?”
Annette’s smile hadn’t wavered at her catty remark, or her semi-apology. “It’s great. I’d love to talk with you about it. What are you doing for dinner?”
Well, that was suspicious. She’d just tried to give Annette the benefit of the doubt, but clearly the woman wanted something from Nora. But that was fine. She could be wary, and still polite.
“I was just trying to figure that out, actually.”
Annette grabbed her arm and pulled her towards a window. “I’ve heard Hickory Moon is fantastic,” she said, pointing at a flickering neon sign across the street. “And I’ve got a company credit card, so dinner is on me. Do you want to change and meet me back down here in half an hour?”
Nora didn’t, really. But it would be a free meal, and, knowing that Annette was searching for dirt, she’d be on her guard, so there wasn’t any downside. She might even get some good information about a competitor, in addition to some genuine Kansas City barbecue.
“Sure, Annette. See you in a half hour.”
Daniel , an hour later
The team dinner was officially a success. It would have been nice to think it was because of his excellent leadership, but Daniel knew better. It was the pitcher of margaritas he’d ordered that was making everything go so smoothly at the table in the dimly lit back corner of Smoke and Embers.