Lyza licked her lips. “I love their fish. Let’s do it.”
They hopped in their shared red Mercedes convertible, top down. Leesa drove while Lyza picked a CD, and they cruised into LA, music blaring as the twins sang along like teenage girls out after curfew.
At the restaurant, the valet took the car, and the women strolled into a packed house. The host seated them immediately. Lyza looked around to see familiar faces. These were her people. Not that she knew everybody in the room, but she recognized faces of people frequenting this and her other haunts. Most patrons were friends of her parents. Edith Hudson, host of the The Talk of the Town talk show, looked as if she’d come in off the beach, her blonde hair wind-tossed. Film producer Ted McKee and his family sat directly across the room. The distinguished mayor of Los Angeles sat at a round table on the patio with seven other men dressed in business suits; it looked like a working dinner.
Lyza ordered the best champagne on the menu. After the wine steward poured, she lifted her glass to toast her sister. “To success.”
Their glassed clinked and Leesa returned to the conversation of her closing with Norton. “You wouldn’t believe what that good ol’ boy did after we closed our deal. Norton had the nerve to…” She laughed. “It’s not funny, but now that I look back on it, maybe the guy has a sense of humor. More likely he’s just an old letch. Lyza, he slapped me on the rear! Can you believe it?”
“You have to be kidding.” Lyza couldn’t help grinning. “I mean, does the guy not know that cavemen are out of style?”
Leesa grimaced. “Evidently he didn’t care.”
Lyza set her drink on the napkin in front of her. “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“I reprimanded him in front of his attorney, then our attorneys came in. I made them wait ten minutes before I went back into the room. He apologized right there in front of his attorney, our attorneys, and the secretary. His face was bright red, and he actually stammered his apology.”
Lyza’s eyebrows shot up. “Old man Norton stammering? That must have been a sight to see.”
Leesa wiped at a drop of champagne on her chin. “Then he said it wouldn’t happen again. I had to wonder what his woman attorney puts up with.”
“He has a woman attorney?”
Leesa nodded and looked around for their waiter. “Oh, yes. I e-mailed her this afternoon. I told her she didn’t have to work for a letch like Norton; after all, she’s an attorney, for heaven’s sake. Turns out, he’s her uncle. She told me she had to work for him for three more years because he paid for her schooling and that was part of their agreement. One day he’s going to mess up and she’ll get the courage to leave. Anyway, I think she enjoyed watching him grovel as much as I did. I let him stew a few minutes before I told him it had better never happen again.”
Lyza frowned. “You forgave him? You are such a softie.”
Leesa held her hands up. “You should have seen him. He held up both his hands, like it was a stick up, and begged me. He kept saying, ‘It won’t, it won’t—I promise. It will never happen again.’ I finally accepted his apology, signed off on the deal, and left.”
“So you completed the contract, that’s good.” Their waiter appeared, and Lyza stopped talking. She chose the fish of the day with house salad, and Leesa duplicated the order.
Leesa leaned forward. “Your turn. What happened in Nuremberg?”
As the waiter served them, Lyza down played the drama of the negotiations in Germany. “Smooth sailing. In fact, it turned out easier than I thought it would. The attorneys had already worked everything out, and it was a matter of the presentation and signing the papers.”
Leesa picked up her salad fork. “You mean you had no objections, no walls thrown up at the last minute?”
Lyza winked. “Not at all. Piece of cake. In fact, I enjoyed it. We are lucky, just incredibly lucky, aren’t we?”
Lyza put up her hand for a high five.
Leesa grinned. “We are the luckiest people in the world.”
Their hands slapped together over their salads.
Lyza sipped her champagne as her eyes stared into the space between them. “I’d love to do about a hundred more deals like that one in Germany.”
Leesa tilted her head. “What do you mean by that?”
Lyza took a bite of her fish. “Oh, never mind. Let’s talk about your deal.”
Their conversation went on all evening. They talked about their deals, the office, and shopping. Finally, the restaurant emptied, and the twins prepared to leave. After their two bottles of champagne, Lyza decided they should take a taxi back. Cook could send the butler to pick up the car in the morning. Once in the taxi, they leaned back on the seat and closed their eyes.
“We should do a shopping trip,” Leesa suggested sleepily. “Let’s take the week off and go to Paris or New York and find something to wear to the benefit. I’ll cancel the Monday morning meeting. What do you think?”
Lyza looked over at Leesa. “What a great idea. I’m all for it.”
Then Lyza watched Leesa’s eyes reluctantly close again. Her rhythmic breathing deepened.
“Okay, then—Paris,” Lyza whispered to herself.
Chapter Three
Chuck O’Malley dreamed of retiring early. It had become an obsession. My entire life revolves around this job. There’s got to be more to life. I’m sick of the meaningless everyday grind. I need a change. God, let me find something to be passionate about. I’m not a religious man, but I know you could help me if you wanted to. Everyone in the office had left, but Chuck worked late again. Exasperated, he threw his pen at the wall and shouted into the empty office, “I want a life!”
The past two years, he had thought up scheme after scheme to get out of IBM and into the world. If I had the money, I would be gone in less than an instant. They were dreams. He never acted on any of them.
His father had teased him when he was in high school. “You and your buddies don’t do anything but hang out at the computer lab. Don’t you know your classmates call you guys nerds? How are you going to meet girls? You should go out for football or track or something physical.”
Chuck didn’t care about names. “Guess what, Dad? I like being a nerd. Those other kids waste time hanging out at the mall. Bits and bytes are far more interesting than giggly girls and airheaded cheerleaders.”
His father scoffed. “Oh, yeah, bits and bytes. What on Earth does that mean?”
Chuck tried to explain. “Computers speak bits and bytes. To get them to do something new and different, I have to speak bits and bytes, too. Think of it this way, Dad. You don’t have to be an electrician to enjoy toast from a toaster, but you have to know electronics to design a better toaster. Computers are going to do more and more over time. Do you remember when an office full of noisy typewriters meant they were doing a lot of business? I’ve seen it in old movies.”
His father put down the newspaper he’d been reading. “I remember the IBM Selectric. I loved it because when you hit backspace, it would lift the error right off the page.”
Chuck went on to prove his point. “Now no one hears typing in an office. If you did, you would know they were obsolete, and you wouldn’t want to do business with them. My teacher told me about that IBM Selectric. What used to be done mechanically is now done digitally. We all laughed when my teacher said that the IBM Selectric, like the pony express, enjoyed a short history.”
Chuck’s father shrugged. “Okay, you may know the future like all teenagers, but life is more than bits and bytes.”
When