Trilemma (32 page)

Prepare to halt the launch, says the chairman of the Board. Don't accept any directive to halt the launch, says the director I owe my job to. The one whose support I should be able to count on.

I shiver and rub my arms to warm myself up. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

When my cell phone vibrates against the surface of the table, I start in surprise and look down as if it is a snake about to strike before pressing the answer button and putting the phone to my ear.

“This is Lin.”

“Hiya,” he says. “How are things?”

“Like a shower of maggots.”

“That bad?”

“The bloody Board!”

“Emmy and Cheryl both say hi.”

“And those news stories are continuing. After all my hard work, I bet I'll be known for this crap in the media, not for getting Hera to the launch date against all odds.”

“What can you do?”

“Nothing. There's nothing I can do now that will make a difference.”

“Cheryl's met a nice accountant,” he tells me. “Who has a couple of kids.”

“Bloody accountants!”

“Who do you think is talking to the media? Is it this Peake guy?”

“I asked him whether he knew anything about the leaks to
the media and he didn't bat an eyelid. I asked straight up if it was him and he laughed. Laughed! Said of course he hadn't talked to the media.”

“Bummer. Anyway, shall I book tickets for next weekend? Or the one after?”

“Peake would stab me in the back in an instant if he thought he could get away with it.”

“Shall I come this weekend, Lin? Moral support?”

“No, no, I'm fine. We'll leave it until later on, after the launch, as we agreed.”

“Okay.” He clears his throat. “Well, look after yourself.”

“I will, bye now!” I turn off my phone.

I stand by the window and gaze out. Gray today. Clouds hang threateningly over the city as if about to snuff out the life of the ants scurrying below. The pane of glass against which my forehead leans is cold and hard. Eventually, I turn away and sit at my desk.

My cell phone is starting to look battered, the white frame has scratches on one side, and the screen is smeared from whatever it was I grabbed as a snack for breakfast an hour ago. I wipe it on my sleeve and turn it on. iPhones are so easy to use. Anything you need pops up in the screenload of icons. Contacts are halfway down on the right-hand side. I scroll through Alison and a couple of others and barely think at all before I reach the
H
s.

“Ben,” I say when he answers, “I've changed my mind. Can you come this weekend? Please? I could do with that moral support.”

I scroll to the next name. “Tom?”

In the end the decision was clear.

Late that night the doorbell rings, and when I go downstairs, Ben is there. I hug as much of him as I can reach and breathe in his healthy noncorporate male smell.

He reaches his arms around me and pulls me against his
chest before holding my shoulders and looking down at me, smiling.

“I wanted to come up, but the door code wouldn't work.”

“We've changed the combination.”

Our lovemaking is nice, fast but nice. I curl against his back with my arm over his side, my hand encased in his. But I can't lie still. The anger in me rises and I twist and turn and face the wall while Ben's breaths slow and he starts to snore gently. I watch the moonlight sneak in through the curtain and pray for sleep because I can't stand my head being so full of argument and regrets and, yes,
rage
.

But in the morning the sun shines through the gap in the curtain, and when Ben pulls the fabric aside, the light blazes forth and bathes the room. I can feel the heat against my bare arms. In the copper beech below my window a bird twitters, and another tweets back in response, and then more join in until I can hear a whole symphony playing out in the yard.

From the kitchen comes the sound of the coffee grinder, and Ben brings me coffee in my favorite orange-and-black bone china mug and climbs back into bed.

As we lie together sharing the paper, the heaviness that has weighed me down for weeks starts to lift. After two long months alone, Ben is here, and, with Ben, I can face whatever happens next.

Ben is looking at me with a question in his eyes.

“Let's get out of town,” I say. I would like to be out of reach of the chairman, just in case he tries to give me a directive I don't want to obey.

Ben is happy to go up to Ngatirua, he replies. Wal has promised to take him fishing next time he comes.

“My friends at work want me to go to some event in Hawke's Bay this afternoon. Do you want to come?”

“Nah, you go with your mates, do some bonding. I'll go fishing with Wal.”

“I didn't know you liked fishing.”

“What's not to like? You sit around for a few hours telling yarns, scratching your belly, sculling a few tinnies, there's a couple of frantic battles, you only have a dumb fish to fight so you win, and you get to cook it and eat it for supper. Sounds like my kind of sport.”

Marion is happy I'm going to join them, and we arrange to meet at the fishing port on the north side of Napier Hill.

Alison, too, is happy we're coming to stay.

“Lin! It will be lovely to see you! Viv and I thought you'd deserted us!”

“I'm sorry, Ali, work has been so hectic—”

“And we'll see dear Ben again too! I'll call Viv. What time will you get here, Lin?”

“The bus will drop me off at the turnoff at around eight o'clock.”

“I'll get someone to pick you up.”

“No,” I say. “I'll walk up the hill to the farm. I love to walk.”

So we throw a few things in the car and drive up to Hawke's Bay once more. This time it almost feels like I'm going home.

As we near the zigzag hill, Ben starts whistling “Country Road, Take Me Home,” and I add my voice to the melody, remembering most of the words.

There isn't time to stop to see my sisters so we don't take the turnoff to Ngatirua, we keep driving north, past the fruitgrowing town of Hastings, and on up the bay of Napier, a pretty little town that got flattened by an earthquake in the thirties and was rebuilt during the Art Deco era. Today's special event combines touring the Art Deco buildings with the art and wineries of the Hawkes Bay region.

Ben turns into the port area and we drive slowly along the waterfront, dodging fishermen until we find the rendezvous. Hera's violet minibus is parked outside one of the cafés.

I kiss him good-bye. “See you tonight, back at the ranch.”

Tonight I will have that talk with Alison. I will ask her why they didn't make more of an effort to contact me once they knew I was moving into their house. We're surely past the risk of ruining our relationship.

“Was that the guy?” asks Helen.

“That was Ben, yes.”

“He looked nice,” she says.

Nice.
The greatest compliment a Kiwi can make.

I smile. “He is
very
nice!”

“It's good to see your eyes, Lin. Contact lenses?” Marion asks.

I nod. “I normally wear contacts on the weekends.”

We wait in the café for Tom, Ian, and Fred who spent the morning in Wellington and have taken a flight to Napier instead of the violet minibus. Our CFO is not joining us. He is in Auckland, no doubt doing his toadying best to ingratiate himself with the Board members who have been gathering. I am happy to be here instead, celebrating with the people who've been doing the real work.

Helen takes the wheel and we drive around Napier Hill and through the pretty Art Deco streets, stopping at the galleries and then climbing back on the bus. We work our way south, stopping at Trinity Hill, Te Awa, Ngatarawa, Sileni, and Te Mata, each displaying art from a local artist, before arriving at our final stop at Clearview near Haumoana where I trust Joe's children are still being well nurtured by their grandmother.

Here the art takes the form of cartoons by a guy named Dick Frizell. I buy Ben a black t-shirt displaying a character morphing from a Mickey Mouse to a Maori Tiki; “From Mickey to Tiki,” it is called.

Then we sit down for an early meal before the team heads back to Wellington and I head home to Ngatirua.

I sit next to Tom.

“How are Kiri and the twins?” I ask.

“They're fine,” he replies. “I gather you're staying in the bay.”

“Just for the weekend. I'm staying at Ngatirua farm with my sisters tonight.”

“The picture in your office.”

“Yes.”

“Up the zigzag hill.”

“By the way, we found out who leaked to the press.”

I am bluffing, the press would not give out their sources, but I am almost certain my suspicion is correct. I watch Tom's eyes.

Tom shuffles in the hard, wooden seat, stretching out his legs. He lets out a sigh.

“If you had a beef, you should have raised it with me.”

“I do raise the issues with you, but you don't listen.”

“I do listen. I just don't alter my decisions. And I am the boss, Tom, the decisions are mine to make.”

“Yeah, and we know how you got to be the boss, don't we?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“You shafted me, didn't you Lin? When Adam died.”

“Who told you that?”

“Does it matter? It's true, isn't it?”

“I speak the truth as I see it. I don't intentionally shaft anyone.”

Tom holds my eyes for a moment, then nods as if to say okay I accept that, and picks up the newspaper.

“I should have told you about Peake,” he says.

“Peake?”

“Leaking the stories to the media. What did you think I meant?”

“I was worried you did it.”

Tom's eyes widen in surprise. “Of course, I didn't! Okay, I did bitch about you, but it was Scott who went to the press.”

“But why would he do that?”

He smiles. “Perhaps he wants your job, Lin. After all, if we missed the launch date—”

“Then he's out of luck, isn't he.”

Because that morning we launched Hera's service, five days before the official launch date. It was to have been a happy surprise for the Board on Monday. And now I know it will be an unhappy surprise for the ones who were hoping we'd fail.

“The first installs this morning went well, Lin,” Ian says. “A couple of problems, but the guys got them sorted pretty damned quick.”

“A couple of the accounts weren't set up correctly, but we fixed the fields so they're all good now,” says Fred. “And we've changed the guide so it shouldn't happen again. The disconnection we tried didn't work properly, but we won't be handling many disconnections in the first weeks. And we've got a work-around while we reconfigure the system,” assures Fred. “Here. Try calling this number.”

I take out my cell phone and make the call.

A resigned voice answers. “Yes, it works,” he says before I have the chance to say anything.

“Our first customer,” says Fred. “Try sending him an e-mail.”

“Come on, guys, leave it. Let's eat,” says Marion.

Ian reaches over to offer me the wine.

“She doesn't drink,” says Marion.

But today I am not Caesar's wife. “I'll take a glass,” I say, and Ian pours me a Hawke's Bay Chardonnay. “Cheers!”

“Cheers!” come the replies.

“Here's to Hera!” I toast and, “Hera!” they reply.

Then Helen calls, “And to you, Lin!”

“To Lin!”

This is it
, I realize.
This
is the feeling of success. When you achieve something exceptional, and the people who know best tell you you've done a good job. I sit there and enjoy that feeling and smile at them, my friends, and raise my glass again.

“To you guys,” I reply. “The true heroes of Hera. You're everything good about the Kiwi can-do culture. I just helped clear a few of the obstacles from your path.”