Hot Shot (33 page)

David had locked his arms around his neck and begged him not to leave. Mitch blinked his eyes and headed for the coffeepot.

Susannah spoke hesitantly. "I don't want to pry, but I know having your children so far away can't be easy on you. If you need a friend…"

"Yes, thank you." He spoke briskly, pushing away her concern so that she would know his personal life was off limits. He took care of his own troubles, and he didn't need anyone's sympathy.

As he carried the coffee mug over to his desk, he glanced at the oversized calendar that hung on the wall. "Did anything come up this weekend?"

"Nothing much. I processed some new orders, took care of the mail, washed my hair, got married. Nothing really."

He spun around, sloshing coffee onto the floor. "You got married?"

She laughed. For the first time he noticed that she was carrying her own private glow with her. Her skin was luminous and her features seemed to have blurred at the edges, as if they were being photographed through a Vaseline-smeared lens.

"We've been talking about it for some time. You know Sam. He gave me half an hour's notice."

As she told him about the playground ceremony, his hands convulsed around his coffee mug. He was furious. He must have been crazy to have left his children on the other side of the continent for this.

When she finally paused, he set down his cup and regarded her steadily. "Quite frankly, I can't believe you've done this."

Some of her glow faded. He felt like a schoolyard bully, but he pushed away any remorse. He should have seen this coming, but he had been too caught up in the risk and excitement of their venture to dwell on the relationship between Sam and Susannah.

Besides, he certainly hadn't envisioned Sam as a family man.

He watched her gather her dignity about her. "You know how Sam and I feel about each other."

"Didn't it occur to either one of you that we should have discussed this first?"

"We don't need your approval, Mitch."

"You may not need my approval, but you're damned well going to need a lawyer. Have you thought about what this marriage does to our partnership agreement?"

She was smart, he'd give her that. It didn't take her long to see that she and Sam had neatly managed to take control of half the company. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't think—We'll get it all ironed out with an attorney this week. You surely realized that neither of us was trying to pull any sort of power play."

She was probably telling the truth, he thought. That's what was so incredible. He had known from the beginning that he was getting involved with amateurs, and he had no one to blame but himself. Her expression was so stricken that he softened. "Is the lucky bridegroom in the back room?"

She cautiously accepted his peace offering. "Still in bed."

"I saw his bike outside. I thought—" He broke off at the self-satisfied expression that had begun to form on her face. "You rode the Harley over here by yourself?"

She smiled. "It was wonderful, Mitch. I beat the morning traffic, so I was only slightly terrified."

He tried to imagine his ex-wife jumping onto a motorcycle and failed abysmally. But then, he had given up the notion weeks ago that Louise and Susannah were anything alike.

Her laughter faded, and she gave him a look so earnest that his anger began to dissolve.

"Be happy for us, Mitch. Sam and I need each other."

He didn't want to be on the receiving end of any intimate confessions. Taking a sip of his coffee, he nodded his head toward her hand. "No wedding ring?"

She smiled slightly. "An antiquated symbol of enslavement."

"That sounds like Sam talking, not you."

"You're right. But I'm the one who made the decision to keep my own name instead of taking his."

"Not all of the old traditions are bad ones."

"I know. But my name is my last link with my father." She hesitated. "I guess I'm not ready to give that up."

By now he had heard the story from Sam of the way Joel Faulconer had turned his back on her. He tried to imagine doing something like that to his own daughter, but he couldn't.

"How does Sam feel about your not taking his name?"

"He harangued me for at least an hour. But I think it was more a training exercise than a sign of real conviction. He wanted to make certain marriage hadn't turned me into a yes-woman."

"Sam definitely likes a good fight."

Susannah's expression turned serious. "I'm not afraid to fight with him, Mitch. Just because we're married doesn't mean I'll rubber stamp his opinions. When it comes to SysVal, I'm my own woman."

We'll see
, he thought to himself.
We'll see
.

By the end of the following week, they had taken the legal steps necessary to protect the company in the event that Sam and Susannah's marriage failed. Documents were drawn up to make certain that partnership shares couldn't change hands in a divorce settlement and upset the balance of power. If either Sam or Susannah found it depressing to sign papers that dealt—theoretically, at least—with the end of a marriage that had just begun, neither of them commented.

As fall slipped into winter, Mitch watched for signs that Sam and Susannah's marital relationship was affecting their business decisions. Finally, he was forced to admit that, more frequently than not, he and Susannah joined forces against her husband.

While the SysVal partners were growing accustomed to their new office, the little Apple Computer Company continued to operate from the Jobses' family garage in Cupertino. Its founders were also at work on a prototype of a self-contained computer, which they were calling the Apple II. One night early in December, over video games at Mom & Pop's, Mitch discovered that Yank had openly discussed his work on the Blaze with Steve Wozniak. His expression grew incredulous as he absorbed this casually offered piece of information.

"Are you out of your mind?" he exclaimed, angrily confronting Yank, who was standing at the next video machine. "Your designs are this company's most basic asset. You don't share them with a competitor. Don't
ever
let anything like this happen again! Ever!"

Yank was completely mystified by Mitch's anger. "Woz and I like each other's work," he said in his reasonable, logical voice. "We've always helped each other out."

Sam and Susannah had been playing Super Pong together when the eruption occurred.

Observing the curious stares of a couple in a nearby booth, she moved her body slightly, hoping to block some of the confrontation from public view while Sam tried to calm Mitch.

"Look, it's a different world out here," Sam said. "Yank's a hacker. Hackers can't even understand the
concept
of proprietary information."

Mitch's expression grew fierce. "Listen to me, all of you. We're not playing games with SysVal. From now on every piece of information on the Blaze design is proprietary—

right down to the number of screws holding on the case. This is not debatable! No one talks publicly about anything, do you hear me? No one!"

Yank turned away from Mitch to gave Sam a long, piercing gaze, and then he said distinctly, "This is crap."

It was the first time Susannah had ever heard him use a vulgarity. Without uttering another word, he stalked away from the three of them and left the restaurant.

Mitch was as angry as she had ever seen him. Sam, in his impulsive manner, wanted to deal with the situation in the middle of Mom & Pop's, but she hustled both men outside and they drove to Sam and Susannah's apartment.

The apartment was small and dingy, with a view of the trash Dumpster, but Susannah loved having a place of her own and didn't mind its shabbiness. They had neither the time nor the money to improve it, which was probably just as well because Susannah had finally admitted to herself that domesticity had never interested her. When it came to a choice between spending her time working on the development of the Blaze prototype or picking out living room draperies, the Blaze won hands down.

Sam grabbed a beer from the refrigerator for Mitch and a Coke for himself and then began to pace the floor. Susannah took a seat in the room's only armchair. Mitch, whose outrage over Yank's breach of security hadn't eased at all, sat on the couch and scowled.

They were in the positions they usually occupied late at night when the three of them got together to refine their business plan and define exactly what they wanted their company to be.

How many nights had they spent like this, with Sam painting word pictures of a company that had glass walls, open doors, and rock music playing, while Mitch countered with his own, more pragmatic vision—one centered on swelling market share and snowballing profits instead of a Utopian working environment? Despite the friendship between the two men, they were frequently at loggerheads, and Susannah had to act as mediator. She realized that this night would be no different.

Sam planted his hands on his hips and looked over at Mitch. "You've got a Master's from MIT, but Yank and I are Valley kids. We weren't trained in colleges. Our roots are in the suburbs—in garages. For hackers, the rewards come in breaking codes and in getting into closed systems—in showing your design to someone who's smart enough to understand the dazzle of what you've done. When you tell a hardware hacker like Yank that he can't show off a brilliant piece of design to one of the few people he knows who can really appreciate it, it's like you've cut off his oxygen supply."

"Then we have a serious problem," Mitch said coldly.

Silence fell between them.

Susannah sighed in frustration. Why couldn't either of them ever see the other's viewpoint? Once again she found herself wanting to bang their heads together. Mitch grounded everything in reality, Sam in possibility. She alone seemed to understand that only with the melding of both philosophies could the true vision of SysVal emerge.

She slipped into her customary role of mediator as if it were an old, comfortable bathrobe. "Don't forget that while Yank is showing off the Blaze, he's also looking at the Apple II. Surely there'll be some benefits in that."

"That's nuts," Mitch protested. "What if—by the grace of God—we actually manage to make a success out of this ridiculous company? We can't function indefinitely with our newest technology flying out the window all the time."

"You're right," she said, "but in this case being right doesn't make any difference, because Yank simply won't pay attention." She had already given the matter some thought, and now she shared her ideas with them. "As soon as we're able, we need to begin surrounding him with the most brilliant young engineers we can find—eccentric thinkers like he is. We have to create the Homebrew environment internally."

Sam's head snapped up, his eyes grew bright. "That's no problem. The best people in the world will be standing in line to work for us. There won't be any time clocks. No assholes in three-piece suits telling people what to do."

"But everything will be directed," Mitch said. "Everybody will be working together toward a common goal."

"The goal of giving the world the best small computer ever made," Sam said.

"The goal of turning a profit," Mitch replied.

Susannah smiled and took a sip of tea. "You're absolutely right."

December passed—sometimes a blur of activity, at other times painfully slow. Christmas was difficult for Susannah. While they exchanged presents around Angela's artificial tree, garishly decorated with plastic ornaments and ropes of pink tinsel, Susannah's thoughts wandered to the towering Douglas fir that would have been erected in the entrance hall at Falcon Hill, its branches glimmering with French silk ribbon and antique Baroque angels.

Had Joel and Paige thought about her at all today? It had been foolish of her to cherish even a dim hope that the Christmas season would magically bring them all back together again. As she looked up at the plastic Santa on the top of Angela's tree, she felt unbearably sad.

She told herself she mustn't do it, but late that afternoon, while Sam and Angela were watching a football game on television, she slipped into the kitchen and dialed Falcon Hill. The phone began to ring, and she bit the inside of her lip.

"Hello."

Her father's deep, abrupt voice was so familiar, so beloved. Her own voice sounded thin in response. "Father? It's—it's Susannah."

"Susannah?" His voice lifted slightly at the end of her name, as if he might have forgotten who she was.

Her knuckles grew white as she gripped the receiver. "I—I just called to wish you a Merry Christmas."

"You did? How unnecessary."

She squeezed her eyes shut and her stomach twisted. He wasn't going to give in. How could she have let herself hope, even for a moment, that he would? "Are you well?"

"I'm fine, Susannah, but I'm afraid you've picked rather a bad time to call. Paige has planned a marvelous meal, and we're just sitting down to eat."

She was overwhelmed with memories of past Christmases—the sights and smells and textures of the season. When she was a little girl, her father used to lift her high up on his shoulders so she could put the angel on top of the tree. An angel for an angel, he had said.

Now Paige would be sitting in her seat at the bottom of the table, and that special smile he had once reserved for her would be given to her sister.

She was afraid she was going to cry, and she spoke quickly. "I won't keep you, then.

Please tell Paige Merry Christmas for me." The receiver hung heavily in her hand, but she couldn't sever this final connection by hanging up.

"If that's all?"

She hugged herself. "I didn't mean to interrupt. It's just—" Despite her best efforts, her voice broke. "Daddy, I got married."

There was no response. No words of acknowledgment, let alone expressions of affection.

Tears began to run down her cheeks.

He finally spoke, in a voice as thin and reedy as an old man's. "I can't imagine why you thought I'd be interested."

"Daddy, please—"

"Don't call me again, Susannah. Not unless you're ready to come home."