Chapter 2

Laura ripped off her designer knock-off suit jacket, threw down her briefcase, and collapsed in the big, blue bean-bag chair in the corner. "That's it!" she yelped, "I'm out of there!!!"

"So, where is your copy of Sooner Than Never?" Will asked, ignoring her disheveled state. "We have to get started if we are going to crack the code."

"What!? Can't you tell something has happened to me? I've had a BAD DAY, alright?" She slumped over, head in hands, muttering to herself.

"Hey, I'm sorry. Let's pour ourselves a nice tall duck's butt of wine, and have a little chat, huh? That'll cure what ails you."

He padded into the kitchen, and pulled two absurdly homey-looking tumblers from the kitchen cupboard. A going-away gift from Laura's mother, the brightly cheery glasses sported a ring of large ducks parading about the perimeter. Though clearly intended for water, juice, and other innocuous beverages, they served as wine glasses for Will and Laura. To fill the glass all the way to the duck's butt indicated that one was in for quite a night of revelry.

"Red, white or pink?" Will asked, poking his head through the kitchen doorway.

"Oh . . . pink, I guess. I could use some festivity in my life."

Will poured, started out for the living room, and then headed back to grab a tin of cheese balls. "Man cannot live by wine and healthful foods alone," he muttered. "Now you light some candles, and tell me all about this big, bad day you had."

Lighting two heart-shaped vanilla candles, Laura sighed a sigh of exasperation. "It's Chad, that f---ing little prick."

"What have I told you about language?" Will teased.

"Not tonight." She shot Will a look--one he knew well. "Tonight I will say whatever I d--- f---ing well please. . . That twisted little bastard. I have finally had ENOUGH!"

Will's eyes lit up as he leaned closer. "Oooooh, did he pull a Clinton? Put his big beefy hands all over you?"

"Hah! I wish he were that well adjusted. Sexual harassment would at least be within realm of the expected. No, this little twerp has a BIG problem with women--"

Laura ran her fingers through her strawberry blond hair. She knew from the day she started working at Waterbury Publishing that Chad would be trouble. She didn't ask a lot from a job. A reasonable living--at least enough to pay the rent--and a modicum of dignity. Was that too much to ask?

Laura never questioned her ability to succeed--in anything. A straight 'A' student, she had always been on everyone's 'girl most likely to' list. With her M.A. in hand, her innovative ideas and scrupulous dedication to hard work, she assumed there would be no roadblocks on her journey to success.

And then she met Chad.

Skinny, bald as a melon, with ferret-like eyes and a craven manner, Chad was the sort of man who lived in constant fear. Nothing he did was ever quite 'actionable,' but it was always degrading, and typically bordered on the bizarre.

Like the time he addressed a question to Laura which, due to the din of the office, she did not hear. So he kicked her. Not hard, on the foot. She looked up at him in shock. "Excuse me?" she asked. "I asked about the offprints of Daylily I've been expecting. Have they come in?" Still in shock, Laura shook her head, mouth agape and eyes glassy. "Well, look alive," he barked, shaking his finger at her absurdly.

Or the meeting in his office to discuss the current draft of the budget , during which he took the opportunity to drop to the floor and do sit-ups. "They're good for my back," he announced. "Maybe you should join me. You've been looking a little doughy around the middle." White with indignation, Laura turned abruptly and headed to her desk, trying to wipe the vision of his office-time calisthenics from her mind. Chad bounded after her, screaming, "I don't think we were done yet! We're not done till I say we're done!!"

"So what did he do now?" Will asked, expecting the usual litany of strange, off-color remarks and actions.

"Well, we had a staff-meeting late today. It didn't start 'til 4:45--which, of course, means a late night. You wouldn't understand about long hours . . .," she added sweetly.

"Ouch, right in my work ethic. Go on." Laura reached for her duck-glass. "So we were discussing plans for Sooner than Never. God, what an awful title! Where do they get that crap?"

"I rather liked it!" Will sniffed. "So what did you find out about the treasure hunt. Any insider secrets?"

Laura shot the look again. "AS I WAS SAYING . . . we were having a late meeting. Chad was presenting some rather tepid ideas about how to publicize Sooner than Never. Not that it needs much in the way of publicizing! I take it you've seen the buzz it's caused already?"

"You'd have to be a blind deaf hermit not to."

"Well, the concern upstairs is that after this initial buzz, people will lose interest. There's a guaranteed sell with a certain segment of the population--you know, the sort of people who regularly by lottery tickets but don't think it's worth their while to get an IRA. Once that market is saturated with copies, the sales bulge will end. Waterbury wants to make sure that doesn't happen. He wants the momentum to keep building so that even the non-target audiences will start buying the book."

Will was starting to look bored, so Laura quickened her pace. "Anyway, Chad was suggesting a line of newspaper ads--'The winner could be you!' 'It could be in your own backyard!'--that sort of thing. Well, I had been thinking this through, and thought maybe we could ratchet the whole thing up a bit. I suggested that we plug into the Internet community to whip people up--you know, those who DON'T normally read books. I thought we could sign up the book with those 'hot site' links you see on the search engines, and maybe enlist some web jockeys to establish 'treasure hunt' sites for us. You know--twenty-something slackers who would try to unravel the puzzle and post regular updates. A lot of people don't have the interest to solve the puzzle themselves, but they'd still like to see other people do it. In order to follow the site, they'd have to read the book."

"Yeah, yeah, brilliant idea, as usual. So what?"

"Well, this is where it gets a little creepy. The whole time I'm talking, Chad's head is down. Soon he starts rocking a little. Then I start to notice that he's turning red . . . I mean really dark red, on the top of that pointy little bald head of his. Finally, he jumps up, and starts to say that my idea won't work. Now, after all this time with Chad, I'm used to being cut off--hell, I'm used to being insulted to my face. But this time, he goes totally ballistic. He leans over the conference table, right at me, and starts pounding, loud and hard, while he hollers, 'No, I said no! We're not doing that.' Well, clearly, at this point, I shut up, and everyone at the table is just gaping. And the whole time, Chad just goes on and on, pounding and hollering. Pretty soon, he's screaming about how I've been trying to get him from the start, just because I've got my little M.A., and you women are all alike, always trying to cause problems--oh, did I mention--Chad's wife is finishing her M.A. right now, and he never finished his. I guess that might be relevant . . ."

"Well, this is just lovely," Will purred. "So what happened? Oh, my land, you didn't get canned, did you?"

"Nope, I didn't give him that satisfaction. I quit."

Will nearly dropped his glass. "Heavens to betsy, what drama!"

"I stood up, walked over to my desk, and typed 'I resign' on a piece of letterhead. I walked back into the conference room and put it right under his nose. Then I walked out. God, I even forget to clear out my desk! I bet he's burned all my stuff by now!"

"Oh, well, good riddance to bad rubbish! You need a refill?" Chad asked, getting up.

"Please. Oh, Jesus, what the f--- am I going to do now?"

Laura sat and stared until Will returned, glasses in hand. "I've never left a job on bad terms before. Hell, I've gotten just about every job I've ever applied for. What do you do with a blot on your record?"

"On your PERMANENT RECORD," Will added, in a menacing tone. "This is worse than forgetting your lunch money or talking back to teacher."

"Shut up, Will. I'm serious. After I left Waterbury, I just wandered around the city. I know, my mother would kill me--but I just didn't know what to do. I think I was in shock."

Will had only been half-listening to what Laura was saying. But now he was interested. "So you join the ranks of the underemployed. There are lots of us there." Will clinked her glass with his. "I say we kick back and live off the fat of the land for awhile. Like gypsies."

"Yeah, gypsies. Starving gypsies. Directionless gypsies who can't make rent." Laura glumly stared into her glass.

Will's eyes narrowed. "Who says you need to make the rent? People on the road don't pay rent."

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