"Si, si," Maria agreed readily. "But I have this notice here that your airplane tickets were canceled. I thought you and Kerrisita were staying for more time." She held up the slip of paper. "I know Kerrisita likes very much the Disney World."

"Oh." Dar relaxed. "Yeah, we got..." Her nostrils flared slightly. "I mean, we decided to drive up instead of flying. We drove back last night." She turned and pushed her door open. "Really late last night."

"Would you like some cafacito, Dar?" Maria called after her knowingly.

"A bucket of it." Dar dropped into her chair. "Maybe if I stick my head in and gargle, I'll last through the sales conference call at ten." She booted the machine under her desk and leaned back waiting for it to come up.

Contrary to her pleas for coffee , she really didn't feel that bad. Dar mused, as she removed a folder from her briefcase and laid it open on her desk. Inside was the bid proposal.

It was a relatively hefty document, and now she opened the first page, creasing it back to hold it open and reviewing the cover page.

Her PC came up and bleated for her attention. Dar pulled her keyboard over and signed in, rattling in her thirty two character password without hesitation. The machine obediently logged in, but Dar drummed her fingers on the desk, recalling the conversations she had at the trade show regarding security.

She punched a button on her phone. After two rings, it answered.

"Computer Center, M...oh, hi boss." Mark's voice came through the phone over the ever present rattling of keys. "What's up? When'd you get back?"

"Couple hours ago," Dar replied. "Tell me again why we don't have biometric security yet?" she asked, opening her mail program and scanning the dark lines as they began to appear.

"Uh..."

"It occurred to me while I was sitting here completely wasted typing in my password that if I got smashed and gave it to someone, I could blow the entire company," Dar said. "Fix it."

"Uh."

"G'bye." Dar hung up the phone and propped her head up on her fist. Most everyone knew she'd been at the trade show, but she had a mailbox full of notes anyway and she clicked on her flagged column to sort them by urgency.

Then she selected all the urgent flagged ones and deleted them. "If you're stupid enough to send an urgent email to someone who has an out of office notification on, you're too stupid for me to answer you." Dar announced to the screen. "Next?" She clicked on the first non-flagged note and opened it, then turned her attention back to the opening page in the bid form.

Scanning the first few lines, she opened her desk drawer and removed the fish food, opening it and pinching out some flakes, then sprinkling them into her fighting fish tank on the far side of the desk. "How are you guys, huh?" She spared the fish a glance as they gobbled their breakfast. "Wonder what it would be like swimming in a tank full of you?"

The red fish blew a bubble at her. Dar gave it an indulgent grin, and then went back to her papers. It wasn't the original fish, of course. She'd gone through two changes of them since that first visit to the pet store when she'd allowed herself to be coerced into giving them a home on her desk. But she'd gotten used to them and now she enjoyed having them there to give her something to look at between tasks.

She'd actually paused to look at a snake the last time they'd been in PetSmart, intrigued by its colors. However, before she could consider adding it to her desktop knick knacks, Kerry had swiftly dragged her outside.

Ah well. Dar glanced up at her screen and deleted the first message, going on to the second one before she continued reading the bid. Maybe she should start small, with a gecko. She pulled her keyboard over and hit reply, glancing at her screen as she typed a response to the mail while she continued to scan the bid contract.

The terms were pretty straightforward. Dar hit send, and then studied the next mail for a second, before simply deleting it. "Nitbrain." She glanced up as the door opened, her nose twitching at the scent of fresh Cuban coffee. "Ah."

Maria brought the small, silver tray over and set it down, then placed the tiny china cup before Dar. She also put down a saucer on the edge of the desk, and balanced a small pot on top of it. "I brought the extra, Dar. They did not have the buckets."

"Thanks." Dar lifted the cup and sipped it. She eyed the tray, which also had a plate full of delicate, flaky pastries on it. "Those for me too?"

"Si, of course." Maria's eyes twinkled. "Did you have a good time, Dar? I saw Kerrisita downstairs and I think that you did."

Now what, Dar wondered, did she mean by that? She rocked back in her chair and sipped her coffee to give herself a moment to consider, studying Maria's face as she did so. Her assistant's expression was open and warm, however. "Sure," Dar answered. "We had a decent show, and Kerry and I got to spend some time out in the parks. How bad could it have been?"

Maria slid the plate of pastries over. "Everyone here was speaking of the interviews about you."

Dar indicated the chair across from her desk. "Were they? I know I kicked some booty that first day," she admitted, with a grin. "But I think it all worked out...did we look okay on TV?"

Her assistant grinned, and removed an envelope from under one arm, extending it toward Dar. "This was from the television program that was on from there. I watched it with my family. We were very proud of you and Kerrisita, Dar. You were wonderful."

Dar set her cup down and stood, reaching over and retrieving the envelope. She opened it and removed an 8 by 10 photo, setting it down on her desk to examine it. "Huh."

It was a shot of their booth, Kerry sitting at the console giving her presentation and caught in the act of looking right at the camera with an appealingly sweet intensity. Dar had been perched behind her, and in the shot, she was also looking right at the lens, her arms folded and her attitude one of intimidating protection. "Don't I look scary," she mused.

"No, Dar, you look very pretty!" Maria objected.

"I was trying to be scary." Dar glanced up from the photo. "There were a couple of people there who weren't friends." She was a little surprised that Maria hadn't heard. "The company who's been moving in on us in the Southeast...Telegenics?"

"Ah." Maria frowned. "I have heard their name, yes."

"It's run by Michelle Graver, and...um..." Dar exhaled, "Shari."

Maria blinked in honest surprise. "No, Dar, not that woman!" she gasped. "I cannot believe it. Is it true? After this long, to have her come back and bother you?" She clasped her hands together. "Never have I disliked a person so as I did that woman."

Maria became her assistant when Dar was promoted to regional manager and chose the woman as her assistant. When Shari came back into Dar's life the first time, Maria had taken the brunt of Shari's caustic comments when she'd discovered who was integrating their account. "Yeah, well." Dar shrugged. "Kerry and I took care of them. But it got ugly a few times."

"Tch."

"Yeah." Dar studied the picture. "She got lucky. I thought Kerry was going to beat her over the head with a chair." She looked up at Maria. "In a way, it almost felt good to see her."

Maria gazed at her. "Because you are happy now," she ventured. "I think that you are."

"Mhmm." Dar nodded. "I am. Damned if it didn't burn her." A rakish grin appeared. "We're competing with them on this." She indicated the folder she was reading. "Something that came up during the show."

"A good thing?"

Dar shrugged. "Could be. Contract's probably worth twenty or thirty million, not a major one for us, but it's a foot in the door of someplace we're not in right now." She flipped through the pages. "Do me a favor? Throw this on the photocopier and send a set up to legal, and one over to Jose's office."

"Si." Maria got up and accepted the folder. "It is good to have you back here, Dar. People were saying this week that things were too...how you say it...too much alike?" she ventured. "That you made things upside down, but that it was a good thing." She gave Dar a smile, and left the office, closing the door behind her.

Dar poured herself another small cup of coffee and took a sip from it. One finger reached out and tapped the photo a few times, and she found herself smiling at the image it presented. "Well." she finally sighed. "I don't know how good a thing it was, but I guess we'll be finding out."

However, remembering how it felt to rise to the challenge was stirring an interest in her she hadn't felt since she'd finished her network project. Doing the second generation of the technology was all right, but Dar hadn't found the same interest in it she had with the original.

Now this, on the other hand, this was brand new.

Dar captured a pastry and popped it into her mouth, chewing it with piratical gusto and blowing a few crumbs onto the surface of her desk.

KERRY FINISHED SCRIBBLING her name for the nth time, running her eyes over the purchase order before she lifted it and tossed it into her outbox. She had her head resting on one hand, and now she straightened up a little, hissing slightly as her shirt pulled over her sunburned back. "Son of a biscuit."

Her phone rang. She checked the display, and then pressed the button readily. "Hey, Col."

"Hey girl," Colleen replied. "You up for lunch?"

Lunch? Kerry glanced at her watch. "Sheesh...didn't realize it was that late. Sure." She pushed the rest of the paper pile back into her inbox and eased herself to her feet. "Let's go downstairs. I don't really want to put my jacket on to go to the dining room."