One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) (7 page)

Rick finished canvassing the Movie Colony, and decided to glide through some neighborhoods and down the main street before returning to work. Fall had the effect on him that spring had on residents of other parts of the country. After the stifling heat of summer, October was finally nice enough to escape outside and get some fresh air. He stuck to the right edge of the three-lane, weaving out of the way of the cars behind him whenever an empty parking spot gave him enough room to let them by.

He pulled up at the side of the street to watch a couple of bulldozers and an earth mover that were reshaping a large lot on the north edge of the main business district.

“Hey, Rick!” A large man with a clipboard, dressed in dust-covered work clothes, waved and strode over toward him. “How’s it going? You want to jump in and help us?”

“Hi, Carl,” Rick stuck out his hand. “No. I passed up my chance at this kind of business, but I still like to watch these big machines work.”

“Yeah, it’s like being a kid in a sandbox. A very big sandbox.” Carl waved his arm over the large dirt plot. “And how’s your mom doing?”

“Good, I think,” Rick said. “You know we don’t talk much about business.”

“Yeah, I never understood that, Rick. You would have been great at this. But you like that hotel business?”

“Yes, I do,” Rick said. “The projects are smaller, they get done faster. I like the variety. You must be at this one project, what? Two years?”

“Yes, it takes patience, that’s for sure. I know it’s none of your business, but back to your mom.”

“You are right, it is none of my business.”

“But I’m wondering if she’d be interested in selling out. I need a bigger crew, more equipment. I think we could both benefit. And she must be ready to retire. What is she, fifty?”

“Fifty-five.”

“Wow. She doesn’t look it.”

Rick grimaced. People were always telling him how great his mother looked, and he didn’t really want to hear it.

“Why don’t you call her?” Rick asked.

“Could you warm her up for me? See if she’s interested?”

“Sorry, Carl,” Rick shook his head. “It would do more harm than good. I’m afraid you’ll have to approach her yourself. I really can’t help you.”

“Well, sure.” Carl nodded, but he looked disappointed. “I’d better get back. One of these bulldozer operators is new to the job. I’ve got to watch him like a hawk.”

Rick pulled his butt back up on the bike seat and headed back down the busy street. He pulled up to a Starbucks, and locked his bike to the railing around the sidewalk seating area.

The line inside for coffee was surprisingly long, given that it was at least three in the afternoon. Didn’t afternoon caffeine keep most people up at night? he wondered, taking up his place at the end of the queue. Once upon a time, before Starbucks became so ubiquitous, people had stopped drinking coffee about noon.

“Rick?”

Rick knew the voice. He didn’t even have to turn around to know Beautiful Betty was suddenly behind him. He had managed to avoid running into her for nearly year; his luck had finally run out.

Rick turned around and fell back at the sight of his ex-wife’s huge belly.

“You’re pregnant!” he exclaimed and immediately regretted it. Fifteen sets of eyes looked up from the bistro tables scattered around the coffee shop; he grimaced at how stupid he had sounded. Of course she was pregnant. And neither she nor anyone else in the room needed him to announce it.

“Yes,” she said, smirking openly. “You always were so observant. It’s a boy, and I’m thinking of naming him Rick.”

Rick frowned. Was she serious? He backed up a step and looked around to see if anyone heard her or recognized him. Luckily, everyone was once again focusing on their iPads, iPhones, and laptops. Apparently the mini-drama in front of them—the one with real, live human beings—couldn’t hold a candle to the excitement of their Facebook postings and Instagrams.

“Just kidding, Rick,” Betty cooed. “How are you? What are doing out of the office in the middle of the day?”

“Trying to find some new properties to rebuild my company after you stripped me of my cash,” he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. He was still bitter about the extent to which a philandering wife could reduce her husband’s company’s coffers, even when she’d had nothing to do with building them.

“Oh, Rick,” Betty said, backing up a step herself and shaking her head. “You really have to quit blaming all the women in the world for your problems. You’re never going to enjoy living until you can accept the other fifty-one percent of the population. We’re everywhere, you know.”

“That is not the issue, Betty,” he countered. “I love the company of women. I sleep with a lot of them now. In fact, I sleep with them a lot more often than I did ever slept with a woman when we were married.”

“Ouch.” Betty feigned hurt. “But honey, women can be more than prostitutes, wives and mothers. It might be time for you to realize that.”

~

Rick decided he didn’t need a latte. He let Betty take his place in line, slipped out the door, and retrieved his bike. He flew down the street, taking advantage of the downhill slope of the streets toward the wash, and pulled into the equipment bay attached to his office. He hung up his bike, grabbed his clothes out of his office, and took a quick shower in the large walk-in shower he’d had installed at the back of the machine shop a couple of years before.

Walking from the garage into the office hallway, Rick multi-tasked: walking crookedly while studying the notes he’d taken on his bike trip, wondering if he should hire someone to track down the owners or do it himself.

“Watch where you’re going!” Amy stopped abruptly in front of him as they rounded the same corner from adjoining halls. She was holding a cup of coffee, but had somehow managed to pull it out of the way before he bumped into her.

“Oh!” He backed up out of her way and quickly took stock of his body’s reaction to Amy’s proximity. He was relieved to find he was staying cool and focused. Perhaps running into Betty that afternoon was the perfect antidote to the power her female form had been exercising over him. “I was just thinking about how to find the owners of these houses,” he held up the notebook as an explanation for his distraction. “I found some possible remodels and even some tear-downs that could make way for some smaller inns.”

“Why don’t you let me take a look?” Amy said. “I did some accounting work for a real estate business in Billings, Montana, once. I learned quite a bit about tracking down real estate records.”

“I don’t expect…”

As she took the notebook from him with one hand, Amy fumbled and dropped the coffee cup in her other. Brown liquid ran in streaks down one wall and quickly spread into the carpet.

“I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed. “Here I was yelling at you, and I am the klutz around here!” She bent down to pick up the cup as Rick ducked into the break room and grabbed a pile of paper towels. He returned, and they sopped up the mess. Down on the floor on their hands and knees, they worked quickly, laughing quietly together, and then sat back on their knees.

Rick suddenly realized how close her body was. He quit laughing and caught his breath. “I certainly know how to make a mess of things.” He choked the words out of his tightening throat.

“No, it was me,” Amy said, her face only a foot away from his. She was looking at him with the first hint of shyness he’d ever seen in her eyes, a slight pout on her face. He held her eyes as he reached for the wet towels in her hand, but he caught her fingers instead.

Rick held her fingers lightly. He fought the urge to lean forward and kiss her on the lips. All of the distance he thought Betty had helped him achieve from women had vanished. He felt like breathing had gone from something automatic to something he had to work at.

Abruptly, Amy pulled her fingers from his grasp. “Rick, I’m sorry …” Amy stopped, apparently giving up on trying to figure out what else to say. She sat back, closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m really sorry. I think you shouldn’t have done that.” Amy opened her eyes and looked down, looking down at her hands. “I need this job, and already I’m afraid of what happens to me when I’m around you sometimes. I’m …”

“Oh, no,” he stuttered. “It…it…it’s my fault.” Still, he couldn’t move. Rick sat on his heels, pushing back against the force pulling him toward her, when James walked around the corner and nearly tripped on them.

“What the—!” the CFO exclaimed.

Quickly, Rick and Amy scrambled to their feet in unison.

“I spilled the coffee!” Amy said, a little too emphatically, holding out her empty cup.

“And I was helping her clean it up,” Rick added. He hoped he didn’t look as guilty as he felt.

“And the mayor’s been calling for you this afternoon,” Amy said to Rick, making it sound like they were just concluding a conversation. “Maybe you should call him back right away. And don’t forget you have dinner at your mom’s house tonight. You have to leave early.”

Rick nodded and turned back toward his office, waiting to take a deep breath until he closed the door behind himself. Now he knew it was not just him. She had managed to act so professionally, sometimes even coolly toward him, and he had nearly convinced himself the attraction was one-sided. Now he knew differently. But he wasn’t sure that was necessarily going to help him figure out what to do with her.

He was impressed with the amount of things she had managed to take on in the first week, including tasks that were clearly below her—like taking most of his phone calls. Perhaps by accepting a big share of the office’s low-level clerical work as well as many of Max’s old duties, she was showing him that he didn’t have to worry about her climbing up the ladder and stealing his company from him.

Maybe he could keep her out of his board room, he had started to believe. Now he wondered if that meant she had to stay out of his bedroom as well.

Amy had learned quite a few things in the first week, including how little it took to impress the other people in the office. All she had to do was offer to take over some of their duties—things she thought would provide more variety and more challenge to her day as well as things that would help her better understand the business and better understand Rick.

She offered to start to take Rick’s incoming calls after only two days of overhearing Sandra on the phone. Sandra was sweet enough, but Amy thought most of the conversations could have been handled more efficiently. Rather than criticize or correct Sandra’s comportment, Amy simply offered to step in. Sandra was happy to oblige.

Amy had visited the city planning and zoning office to introduce herself to the staff, and asked enough dumb questions to make them feel knowledgeable and superior, which would help down the line when she needed assistance. She had stopped by the title insurance company to do the same, and introduced herself to the teller who considered himself Rick’s personal liaison at the bank.

She still had a lot to learn, and once she actually had to drive a project through city review, purchase title insurance, or fill out loan documents, she was certain she’d find out how little she knew. But she was laying as much of the groundwork as she could to accelerate her learning curve when the time came.

Finally on Friday, she found time to stop in to visit Busker at the vet’s office on the way back to Buen Dia from a trip to the bank. Busker would be ready to go to the animal shelter soon, where he’d be put up for adoption, and she wanted to be sure to see him before he left. He wagged his tail and shook excitedly when he saw her.

“I think he remembers me,” she told the young assistant who escorted her back to his cage.

“Oh, no,” the young girl said. “He acts that way to everyone.”

Later, when she got back to the office, Amy worked on the research she was doing on chief operating officer candidates for Rick. She had looked into hiring a headhunting company, but she was amazed at how much they expected to get paid—whether they found the right candidate for Rick or not. She wouldn’t mind having the firm take on the responsibility for reviewing and confirming the information on applicant resumes; she assumed there would be a certain amount of exaggeration in every case. But once she priced what it would cost to post an job on Monster and Indeed—with which she was already too familiar—and the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Seattle Times websites, she decided handling the search herself was a much cheaper option than hiring someone to do it for her.

She had first researched similar postings to see how the jobs were described, what was usually revealed and what wasn’t, and what documentation hiring companies generally asked for from candidates. From that information, she wrote a proposal for Rick to review with a draft posting, a cost breakdown and a timeline.

That was easy stuff, though. Now, she had a chance to really prove her worth to Rick, she thought, helping him narrow down the list of properties he’d found on his bicycle Thursday, right before they ended up on their knees on the floor of the hallway. She closed her eyes, remembering how he’d reacted. He’d held her hand, hadn’t he? And gently, too. Not like some kind of co-worker handshake.

Somehow, she felt the intimacy of that moment put additional pressure on her to perform at her job. She would not only find out who owned the properties he’d found, but she’d prepare a history of each plot, and research the zoning restrictions that might limit Rick’s options or improve their suitability for the type of projects he liked to build. If a lot, for example, was limited to five multi-family units or ten hotel rooms, then the larger developers were unlikely to be interested in outbidding them.

She had just opened up the county tax assessor’s website to start researching the properties when her cellphone rang. She realized that she hadn’t yet taken a single personal call at work. Maybe part of that was because she never got many. Before she started this job, the only calls she ever got were from Katie and her mother.

She picked up the phone and recognized the number as Katie’s. They hadn’t talked since she left the café the week before. Amy had given two weeks’ notice so that Caitlin, the owner, could have time to replace her, but Caitlin said Amy could leave as soon as she found a new waitress. That had taken only a day and a half.

“No reason to postpone the inevitable,” Caitlin had said. “I always knew you’d find a better job than this.” Both Caitlin and Kate were destined to remain Amy’s friends.

“Hey, chica, how’s it going at the old greasy spoon?” Amy answered the ring.

“Awful, but no more awful than ever,” Katie responded. “So, has he asked you to marry him yet?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Amy asked. She was glad her office door was closed; it was unlikely that her office mates would understand that swearing was expected between Katie and Amy. “I’m doing serious work here.”

“Really? But hasn’t he even asked you out yet?”

“Katie. Katie, Katie, Katie,” Amy shook her head at the phone. “Look, I’m not interested in him romantically.” She was lying, but she needed to convince herself that the personal thing growing between them wasn’t the most important thing happening at work. “The last thing I want is for people to think I’ve got a job because I’m sleeping with the boss.”

“Well, then introduce him to me!”

“In your dreams,” Amy said. She wanted Katie to know she was serious. As one of her only good friend in town, she needed someone to talk to about work and career as much as about silly romance. “I needed a real job and a real career. This could be it. I didn’t know it when I accepted the job, but I think I could actually make something of this.”

“God, you’re a boring witch,” Katie said. “But how about drinks tonight? I’ve had one fucking hell of a week. The new girl is slower than bejesus. I’ve been running my ass off trying to take care of three-quarters of the restaurant by myself.”

Amy tried to postpone answering Katie’s invitation by engaging her in a more extended bitch-fest about her new co-worker. “I guess that means more tips for you, though, doesn’t it?”

“Well nobody’s in the mood to tip when I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off, with no time to refill their coffee or get the check. I’ll be surprised if we don’t lose half our regulars at this rate.”

“Maybe it’s time to move on.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to come out drinking with me.”

“Not tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Why not?”

“I have a date.”

“With…?”

“Actually, it’s not a date. I’m going to Rick’s mom’s house to his sister’s birthday party.”

“I knew it!” Katie yelled. “I knew it! You’re sleeping with him already. Although I can’t blame you. And now you’re meeting his mother. What’s it been? One week? You move fast girl!”

“Are you done?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to share?”

“Share?”

“Details, Amy. Details.”

“Shut up, Katie. We aren’t sleeping together. I have no intention to. I’ve got a good job, finally, and I’m going to do my best to make sure I can keep it.”

Katie apparently couldn’t process that. She had no smart retort, which was unusual.

“And now, I’m sorry but I have to go,” Amy said. “I’ve got some property research to do, and then I’ve got to get ready to meet Rick’s family.”

“Wow. So that’s it, huh? No dancing with the one who brung you?”

“Oh, Katie, no,” Amy realized she was cutting off her best friend in Palm Springs. “No, I don’t mean that at all!  Let’s go out tomorrow night, okay? I just can’t tonight.”

“Well, okay.” Katie’s voice was pouty, and Amy couldn’t blame her. Here Amy was, moving on, and she could imagine that Katie was afraid she was going to start ignoring her blue-collar friend now that she was working for the “hot” Rick D’Matrio.

“No really. How about eight-ish?”

“Where?” Katie sounded like she doubted Amy would show up.

“Toucan. How about Toucan?”

“No, how about Copa? I mean the lounge, not the restaurant.”

“Then, let’s make it ten,” Amy said. “Nothing happens there until ten.”

~

Amy got quite a bit of research done by 4:30. She’d set the alarm on her phone so she wouldn’t work too late. She needed to get dressed and put on some make-up for the evening. She wore a minimum of mascara and lipstick to work, but she figured a birthday party at the D’Matrio estate probably called for a little more polish.

She was a little unsure she’d chosen the right dress. After an hour of pulling things out of her closet and putting them back in, she’d finally chosen a little black dress that she thought any red-blooded, straight, sexually active male like Rick would like. It wasn’t overly revealing. In the back, the fabric rose all the way to a little stand-up collar, but in the front, a deep “v” dipped down between her breasts.

Looking in the mirror in the women’s bathroom shortly before five, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. She was still struggling with the paradox of wanting to feel his body next to hers, but also not wanting to fall into the cliché of sleeping with the boss. To be precise, she admitted, she would love to sleep with this boss, as long as neither Rick nor anyone else thought she was getting ahead because of it. There were lots of couples who ran businesses together, but she knew it worked better if they both brought something to the table other than their bodies.

Brushing on some finishing powder and a tiny bit of blush, Amy finished her preparation. She stood back and examined the effect in the mirror. Not bad, she thought. Maybe not society-page-photo worthy, but she’d done a respectable end-of-the-day transformation from working woman to temptress of the cocktail hour.

As she turned sideways, she realized how prominently the fullness of her breasts showed over the top of the plunging neckline. It was too much cleavage! But it was too late. It was the only dress she had brought for the evening. She hoped the simple diamond pendant hanging about half-way down her décolletage would draw everyone’s eyes away from her fleshy parts.

Taking a deep breath, she left the privacy of the restroom, snuck back to her office, and closed the door. She expected that by the time she and Rick left together in his BMW, the rest of the staff would be gone, and no one would have the chance to conclude anything salacious was going on between them.

Distracted by anticipation, she finally gave up trying to concentrate on the building codes she’d been studying. She swung her chair toward her computer and opened Facebook. She scrawled through the silly memes and old-timey postcard jokes, “liked” a couple of announcements of wedding anniversaries, and opened a couple of news stories. But nothing held her attention, and by the time Rick’s voice squawked over that ridiculous intercom, she was simply staring into the distance at the darkening, dry face of the mountain rising to the west of downtown.

After a stutter move in and out of his own office, Rick met her in the lobby with a bottle of whiskey and poured them each a shot, and they toasted her first week at Buen Dia. She was relieved he seemed to have forgotten his indiscrete pass at her the day before. But had he forgotten it, or was he simply avoiding it? Or maybe it didn’t mean that much to him. Amy wasn’t sure which theory she wanted to believe.

Rick had offered to drive to his mother’s house, and she expected they’d take his little BMW, but he unlocked the door to the equipment bay and grabbed a set of keys off the wall.

“Let’s take the pickup,” he said. “I don’t want you to mess up your hair.”

“Can’t we close the top and take the Z3?” she asked. She wasn’t sure how clean the inside of a construction vehicle might be. She didn’t want to show up at Rick’s mom’s house with dust all over her black dress.

“I can’t drive with the top closed,” he said. “My head hits the roof.”

Amy smiled. Maybe he should have thought of that before he bought it.

Rick walked around to the passenger side, opened her door for her and offered her a hand to help her jump up into the seat. She was pleasantly surprised to find the cab as spotless as everything else was around Buen Dia.

“I need to warn you of something,” he said as he pulled out onto East Palm Canyon Drive, and headed down valley toward Indian Wells. “My mom and I don’t exactly get along well. It may be a little uncomfortable at times, but the only thing to do is just let it roll off your back. That’s what I do.”

“Really?” she feigned surprise. She’d guessed there was some kind of schism that explained why he hadn’t inherited the family construction business. “What’s it about?”

“Too much to explain, and I don’t want to fill that pretty head of yours with negativity,” he said, glancing over at her. He seemed to be struggling to focus on her forehead and the pile of hair she’d arranged on top of her head in anticipation of the BMW ride. She realized he was looking up at her hair so as to avoid looking at her cleavage. Damn it. She was right. It was too much!

They rode mostly in silence down valley to a large gated community nestled up against the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains. It was nearly dark when they pulled into the circular driveway of a gigantic stucco Spanish Revival with a red tile roof. The risers of the curved steps leading up to a large arched entry way were lined with brightly painted Mexican tiles. The Moorish-influenced windows—even those on the second story—were protected by intricate wrought-iron grills. A square stucco chimney decorated with more tiles and wrought iron towered over them, competing for air rights with the tall palm trees and desert willows that swayed in the breeze on the sides and behind the house.