“The only thing she likes is managing other people’s businesses,” Jake said to nobody in particular. And then after a moment, he added, “And me.” It was a new approach, and it brought to mind a new option. He sipped his coffee and stared at the lake while he considered it.

Then he put his mug down on the rail and went to Nancy ’s.


Two weeks later, Kate sat in her luxurious office, speaking patiently into her phone with Chester Vandenburg, the vice president of a company that she had been working night and day for the past six weeks to save. Part of her furious concentration was because the company had six hundred employees and four times that many stockholders, and she felt an edge of panic every time she focused on how close the whole thing was to going under. All those people. All those poor people.

The other part of her concentration was an effort to avoid remembering how much she hated the city, how much she despised her job, and above all, how much she missed Jake.

“All right, Mr. Vandenburg,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Would you like to explain to me why you just voted the CEO of your failing company a million-dollar raise?”

She tapped her pen hard against the desk as she listened to his dulcet tones explaining the need to cherish good management “Good management is the backbone of industry, Miss Svenson, and surely-”

“That good management is shipping your firm right down the tubes, Mr. Vandenburg,” Kate interrupted, still tapping her pen savagely. “It’s Titanic time over at your place, and you just gave the iceberg a nail for ripping a hole in your hull. Have you any idea of the view your stockholders are going to take of this? Roughly the same view that the passengers did on that other disaster, except that this time, Mr. Vandenburg, this time it will not be women and children first. This time everybody’s going down with the ship. Do you feel any guilt about this at all, Mr. Vandenburg? About the employees and stockholders you just screwed? Have you any moral fiber whatsoever?”

She stopped when she heard her voice rising to a shriek.

His voice came over the line, oily and unctuous. “I don’t think you understand big business, Ms. Svenson. Perhaps if-”

“I was raised on big business, Mr. Vandenburg. I cut my teeth on stocks and bonds and wrote my first school paper on leveraged buyouts. My third-grade teacher was quite impressed. I cannot help but feel, however, that she would be even more impressed with the magnitude of your ability to ignore what is happening under your nose at the same time you are facilitating it.”

“Are you accusing me of impropriety?”

“Either impropriety or ineptitude on a truly magnificent scale,” Kate snapped. “With you, possibly both.”

Mr. Vandenburg cleared his throat ominously. “Perhaps it would be better if the firm of Bertram Svenson, Ltd. assigned someone else to our little problem,” he threatened.

“What a good idea,” Kate said. “I suggest the SEC.”

She heard a click on the other end of the phone as Mr. Vandenburg hung up, and then her door opened.

“It’s just me,” Jessie said as she backed in holding two waxy white paper bags. She dropped them on Kate’s desk. “Sugar and caffeine,” she said. “Apple fritters and black coffee. You look like hell.”

“Thank you,” Kate said. “I feel like hell. I always knew I worked with scum, but I never realized it was this bad.” She pulled a foam cup from the bag and pried the lid off. “This smells good. Are the fritters from Debbie’s?”

“Yep. She sends her love and said to tell you that business is great and she’s thankful for your advice every day.”

“I need more Debbies and fewer Vandenburgs,” Kate said. “Unfortunately, it’s a Vandenburg kind of town.” She sipped her coffee and stared wistfully at the fritter Jessie shoved in front of her.

“Who’s Vandenburg?” Jessie asked as she opened her own coffee.

“One of several jerks I am currently trying to keep from financially murdering their own companies.” She sighed and then looked at her best friend, who was blithely chomping away on a fritter. “You know, I used to enjoy this, but now… I’m losing my edge, Jess.”

“You?” Jessie snorted. “Never. How many morons did you slash today?”

“Not enough,” Kate said. “I want to stay and fight the good fight, but this is ridiculous.” She leaned back in her chair. “I’m so tired of this, Jessie.”

Jessie dropped her fritter on the floor in surprise. “You’re kidding. That’s great.”

She bent to pick up her fritter and Kate said, “No, it isn’t. This is my career.”

“You have a very clean floor,” Jessie said, examining her fritter. “There’s no dirt on here at all.” She bit into the doughnut again, chewed, swallowed, and said, “So have this career somewhere else. Like, say, Kentucky.”

“No,” Kate said.

“You’d go back if Jake wasn’t there,” Jessie said. “You miss it.”

“Maybe,” Kate said. She pulled her fritter toward her and looked at it sadly. “I’m so miserable, I’m not even hungry.”

“You miss Jake, too,” Jessie said. “I can’t believe you’re being such a wimp about this.”

“I am not a wimp,” Kate said. “It’s been six weeks, and he hasn’t called. He probably wouldn’t recognize my name.”

“Oh, please,” Jessie said. “Spare me.”

“He’s probably forgotten I exist. Six weeks.” She looked at Jessie, the hurt plain in her eyes. “Six weeks, and he hasn’t even called once. I’ve given up checking my machine. I buried it under my dry cleaning because every time I go home there’s either no blinking light or, worse, there is one and it’s somebody trying to sell me something.” She shook her head and gestured to her office. “This is all I’ve got, Jess. And I hate it.”

Her secretary buzzed her again. “Tim Davis of Davis Enterprises on two.”

“Yet another jerk,” Kate said and picked up the phone. “Hello, Tim.”

“What the hell is this about not laying off the Princeton plant?”

“It’s not cost-effective,” Kate said. “The money you save in the layoffs will be counteracted by your retraining fees and start-up costs when the plant kicks into gear again. Also, it’s very bad PR, laying off people who have worked for you for twenty years.” Kate clenched her jaw to keep from screaming. “That kind of thing is right up there with ripping off the pension fund. And speaking of the pension fund, I was just going over some interesting figures.”

“Who the hell are you working for?”

“My daddy,” Kate said. “He’s a son of a bitch, but he never stole from widows and orphans. Clean this up, Tim.”

He hung up on her, and she dropped the phone back in its cradle. She looked over at Jessie and said, “I hate this. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.”

“What you need here,” Jessie said, “is a plan.” She reached across Kate’s desk and pulled a memo pad toward her.

“Oh, no, I don’t,” Kate said.

“Why not?” Jessie said. “It worked before. Give me a pen.”

“Yes,” Kate said. “It worked beautifully. That’s why I’m back here, lonely and miserable…”

“Now as I recall,” Jessie said, ignoring her, “first we set goals. In this case, I think the goal should be to get you married to Jake.” She stretched her arm across the desk and took Kate’s pen.

“Jessie,” Kate began, and Jessie overrode her again.

“Now, what’s keeping you from marrying Jake?”

“Well, he’s not speaking to me, and that’s a real drawback,” Kate said, sarcastically.

“We don’t know that he’s not speaking to you,” Jessie said. “We just know that he’s not calling you. There’s a difference.”

“At the moment, it escapes me,” Kate said, but Jessie wrote down, “1. He won’t call,” and then looked at Kate again. “What else?”

“Jessie,” Kate said, but Jessie said, “Look, the man loves you. You love him. And I’m going to get you back together. What else?”

“He thinks he might love me,” Kate corrected. “He was still pondering the question when I left.”

“Okay,” Jessie said and wrote, “2. He thinks he might love her.” She looked down at the list and said, “This is coming along nicely. What else?”

“Well,” Kate said, seething as she thought about it, “he hates confrontation. But he also hates women who manipulate him, which pretty much cuts off all form of human contact except sex.”

“How does he feel about sex?”

“He’s heavily in favor of it,” Kate said, wondering gloomily if he still was, and if so, with whom.

“Okay,” Jessie said, and wrote down, “3. He hates confrontation and manipulation.”

“Plus,” Kate said, “he’s not working. He’s just wasting himself, and that drives me crazy.”

“Well, it is his life,” Jessie began, and Kate overrode her.

“It’s a terrible waste and he knows it. He’s just running away from commitment of any kind. And what really makes me crazy is that he uses the opposite argument for keeping me away. He says there’d be no career for me there, so I have to go. But there’s no career for him there and he gets to stay.”

“Well, you would go nuts not working,” Jessie pointed out fairly, but she wrote down, “4. He’s not working. 5. He runs away from commitment. 6. He thinks there’s no career for her there.”

“Okay, read me the list,” Kate said gloomily, and Jessie did.

“Is that it?” Jessie said. “We can fix this stuff.”

“No, there’s another one,” Kate said. “He doesn’t want to get married. And I do. I want it all. Commitment, rings, the church, the whole thing.”

“Okay,” Jessie said and wrote down, “7. He doesn’t want to get married.” She shoved the list across to Kate. “Piece of cake.”