Reg bounced exceptionally high, and on the very next bounce he leaped forward and landed on the chair across from the sofa, the one Zephyr preferred when he was interviewing clients. Reg's left foot landed squarely on the seat cushion and his right foot was planted on the top half of the chair's back. The chair fell backwards with a much louder thud than zephyr would have expected from such a heavily upholstered piece of furniture. As it fell, Reg continued smoothly forward and two more steps off the chair, he spun around. He looked down at the fallen chair and drew several arcs in the air with his left hand. Then he moved to his desk, grabbed a pen, and began to write furiously.
"You know what?" Zephyr asked. "I'm not going to ask. I don't even want to know."
Reg obliged by continuing to ignore him entirely. Zephyr sighed to himself,
and, figuring that Reg's acrobatics had been completed, ventured to his own
desk and sat down.
****
Connor placed Zephyr's oversized, two-handled coffee mug on the desk and settled into the extra chair with a dramatic sigh, clutching his own cup of cream and sugar with coffee in his large hands.
"Thanks," Zephyr muttered, pushing aside a mound of paperwork in favor of his coffee. He eyed Connor over the mug. "Let me guess. More Lauralynn trouble."
"Yeah," Connor sighed. He looked truly devastated, a look that Zephyr thought made him look comical. Maybe because he was used to seeing Connor so overtly cheerful all the time.
"Well, get it all out now so we don't have to deal with it for the rest of the day," Zephyr offered. "After that, we get to dedicate our attention to cute, small children."
"Oh, um, actually I took care of that appointment with the Brandeses while you were out sick, so we don't have to reschedule or anything. I installed the last of the rails and I made that adjustment on Melody's crutches. She says they're fine now. She even took a few steps to show me how well she could walk. You should see her."
"I'm sure I'll get to," Zephyr grumbled. He didn't like the idea of Connor going off and doing his job for him, especially without discussing it first. The kid had only graduated above intern position a month ago. But how did one reprimand a person for doing the job? Zephyr wasn't sure.
"So tell me about your latest escapades with the princess," he said instead.
"She's not... okay, maybe she is kind of like a princess. I don't know, it's just a lot of little things. I almost tried telling her I wanted to break up with her; I was talking about work and was going to get around to say that maybe our priorities weren't the same anymore."
"But?"
Connor stared into his very light coffee. "But she interrupted me and started talking about some friend of hers in a bad relationship. It just got awkward after that. Our relationship isn't that bad."
"Not bad? All you ever do is complain about how unreasonable she is!" Zephyr crammed his fingers through the mug's handles and tried to give Connor his best indignant look while sipping his coffee.
"I know, but..." Connor sighed again. "She is unreasonable, isn't she? I was trying not to see it that way, but I..." He looked up and met Zephyr's gaze, his eyes wide. "Listen to this. Last Saturday I was going grocery shopping, and Lauralynn insisted on coming. Okay, fine. But then on our way home, she asked... no, she practically demanded that I take her out to the Mesa Grille. And she knew I had a whole bag of frozen stuff in the trunk!"
"Did you go?" Zephyr asked.
"No. I told her I only had eight bucks, which was the truth, and if she had some money we could go. But she didn't. And then she got all mad at me for not having money. She does that a lot lately. She wants to go to the movies and make me pay. She wants to go out drinking or clubbing and expects me to buy her these $4 drinks. And I can't even have one myself because I'm not legal yet. Oh, and here's the best one of all: I wanted to do something special for Valentine's Day today because I know she'll be mad at me if I don't, so I told her I was going to take her to the boardwalk. And she got all cold and said she'd rather be alone tonight. And then she accused me of manipulating her! I don't get it. How am I manipulating her?" Connor's hands were so tense, Zephyr half expected him to crush the plastic travel mug. He'd always struck Zephyr as one of those people who didn't know their own strength, although he had never actually seen Connor accidentally break something. No, that was more something that the deceptively wiry Reginald would do. Connor was every inch the gentle giant.
Zephyr shrugged. "Sounds to me like she's just begging to be dumped. Dump her, man. Put her out of her misery."
Connor frowned. "Aw, but then she gets clingy and cuddly and starts apologizing, and I can't."
"Well--" Zephyr was interrupted by Marsh, who appeared in the doorway looking rather frazzled himself. For something to bother Marsh too much to hide, Zephyr mused, it must have been one hell of a problem. "Morning, Marshall," he greeted his partner with a deliberately cheerful edge. "What's got you so steamed?"
"Nothing," Marsh replied stoically between clenched teeth. Zephyr was about to shrug and turn back to Connor, but Marsh continued before he had the chance. "How much would you say MARZ is worth?"
"Uh..." Zephyr started.
"More importantly, how much of its value translates as regular income for me? I'll tell you how much. Not much. I scrape together maybe fifteen hundred a month to pay myself, on average. Okay, that's not so bad considering that my rent is only six hundred, you might say. And you'd be wrong - after adding up all my expenses, fifteen thousand is a drop in the bucket. It's like... it's like being in college all over again! I'm having to clip coupons so I can afford to feed myself! I'll bet you a hundred dollars that Nancy doesn't clip coupons."
Connor nodded. "I clip coupons," he offered.
"Okaaay..." said Zephyr.
"And," Marsh continued, "I've been unable to make any personal investments since we started the company. MARZ is my investment. I put every last stray cent back into it. Hey, I'd even pick up pennies off the sidewalk to invest in MARZ if I had the time to go outside. Okay, so I put almost three million dollars into starting it. That doesn't mean I have three million dollars at my disposal. Nancy knows that MARZ isn't a liquid asset! So why... why, Zephyr? Why is she pulling this BS on me?"
"Because all's fair in love and, in this case, war," Shauna suggested as she came up behind Marsh.
"Because she's a girl," Zephyr countered. "Connor here was telling me all about girls."
Marsh gave Zephyr a disparaging look as he shifted to the right of the office doorway to make room for Shauna.
"Yah," Zephyr continued defensively. "You should hear what Connor's girl does to him. They're merciless, manipulative, irrational weasels. All of them."
Connor chuckled nervously. Zephyr grinned at him.
"All of them?!" Shauna challenged. "Even me?"
"You're not a girl; you're a techie," Zephyr explained to her.
"Oh, thanks," Shauna grumbled with the tiniest hint of a smile.
Marsh regarded Connor. "What's yours doing to you?" he asked.
Connor shrugged. "She thinks I'm made of money, just because I have a job. Kind of like what your... uh..."
"Dump her," Marsh advised. "Dump her right now. Don't tie yourself to any gold-diggers, or else you'll just find yourself in the same situation I'm in now. Can you believe, she's suing me for $2000 per month alimony! Two thousand! She keeps throwing around the term 'quality of life.' What about the quality of my life?! And where does she think this $2000 is going to come from? Oh, let's sell off the plasma cutter! We don't really need a band saw! Hmm, let's not buy office supplies or pay our employees for a few years! Yeah! Oh, and my oldest is starting to emulate her. 'Daddy, if I get accepted to Princeton, will you give me $50,000?' she says. Right, kid."
"I'm telling you, it's a girl thing," Zephyr insisted. "See, I don't have these kinds of problems, because I stay the hell away from girls." He glared at them all defiantly, daring them to say anything against Reg. None did. He had wise friends, Zephyr thought.
"What about Tracy?" Marsh asked him.
That took Zephyr by surprise. "Tracy? Well... she's an exception. She doesn't give me any trouble. In fact, she usually bends over backwards to please me, for some strange reason."
Marsh nodded in agreement. "I invited her to my place for dinner last week, and she brought dessert. And she gave me a whole pile of stuff for the apartment, everything from throw rugs to steak knives. She's always like that. She doesn't let you do all the work."
"Yeah, but she's also not in a relationship with you," Zephyr pointed out. "Or me. So it's okay for her to treat us platonic old men nicely. Besides, isn't she a techie, too?"
Shauna laughed at that.
"I, um, yeah, I think so," Marsh said. "A medical technician."
"That must be the secret, then," Shauna laughed. "Forget getting involved with a girl; just find one of us techies!"
Zephyr raised his eyebrows at her. "Are you available? Marsh here's apparently a real good catch..."
Shauna blinked at him and smirked. "I'm going to find a computer to tweak, before I get myself in any hot water with one of the bosses," she said.
As she disappeared down the hall, Zephyr turned back to Connor. "So that's what you need to do," he said. "Get rid of Lauralynn and go land yourself someone like Tracy."
"Okay," said Connor. Then he asked, "Who is Tracy?"
Zephyr looked at Marsh, and Marsh looked at him, and he was very tempted to
give Marsh his best Brain imitation: "Are you pondering what I'm pondering,
Pinky?" But he doubted that Marsh really was, so he held his tongue. He
was well aware that Marsh had a thing for Tracy, as ridiculous as it would have
been for them to become a couple. Tracy was a lot closer in age to Connor than
she was to Marsh. Wasn't she? Zephyr would have considered asking her how old
she was next time he had a chance, but he was afraid she might go all girlish
on him... and bite his head off.