Chapter Two

 

 

In a cubicle on the fourth floor of the headquarters tower, Kelly Masterson swiveled toward her laser printer after finalizing RAE, the Regional Advertising Expense summary. Her boss, Samantha Learkamp, walked into the tiny enclosure. “Brace up. Mr. Lockhart wants to talk about your proposal, tomorrow at nine.”

Kelly could suddenly feel her cheeks radiating. She tried for some semblance of cool, although the little girl within was jumping with new-puppy excitement. “Well, sure, okay.” But cool collapsed into pleasant amazement. “Wow!”

Her boss smiled. “It might help to take deep breaths and hum.”

“Okay. Right. What did he say? I mean, what do I do? You know, to be ready.”

“His secretary just said to be there. No prep needed.”

“What do I wear? Should I get my hair done? I’m sorry, Sam, am I babbling? I can’t believe this.”

Samantha laughed out loud. “Wear a nice dress and be your­self. You’ll be fine.”

“Right. Okay.” Kelly took a deep breath. “Right. I’ll be fine.”

 

She called her husband at Montfort High. “Larry, you won’t believe this. Remember that report I spent half the night writing. It went to Mr. Lockhart. He must have liked it. I’m going to see him tomorrow. Can you believe that? I’m going to see Mr. Lockhart. I mean he’s going to see me.”

“Good grief, Kell, slow down. Are we a little excited?”

“I guess I’m a little excited.”

“Congratulations, hon. Good stroke.”

Although Larry stewed constantly about money, she said, “I’ll need a new outfit.”

He hesitated, but briefly. “Sure. You’ll probably be a vice president soon, right?”

 

As she drove toward the shopping center, Kelly called the woman who had convinced her to submit the proposal. “Mom, it worked. I’m going to meet with Mr. Lockhart tomorrow.”

“Hey, that’s great, Babs.” Babs was a motherly nickname that had somehow evolved from Kelly’s role as baby of the family. As expected, her mother shifted swiftly to adult practicality: “What’s the agenda?”

“I really have no idea.”

“Let me think for a minute… Obviously he’s interested in you.” Another analytic pause, this one longer. “Okay, listen up; you’ll only have a few minutes, almost for sure. You’ve got to make it count.”

“I’m just hoping I don’t make a fool of myself. Mr. Lockhart has been on the cover of Fortune maga—”

“Babs! Stop! This is once-in-a-lifetime. You’ve got to dig deep. Be bold. Take chances. Or you’ll just fade into the sea of faces he deals with every day.”

Kelly spent a moment wondering how a woman who had never worked outside the home could possibly know so much, but she didn’t need to ask. The answer was always the same. It’s all about common sense, Babs.

She shopped for over an hour at Kohl’s, deciding on a cream suit with dark blue trim. It seemed to work with blue eyes and hair on the reddish side of brown. She bought new shoes, too, although Larry would have said her blue pumps were fine.

For the first time in weeks, Kelly dominated conversation around the family dinner table, talking a-mile-a-minute about the business issues she might be discussing tomorrow. Eight-year-old Evan watched wide-eyed, as if a strange new woman had sat down at their table. Larry gyrated between bemused and patronizing, but she decided to forgive him. The chance to talk about possibilities made tomorrow’s meeting a bit less intimidating.

Her digital clock said 12:42 a.m. when she declared it her enemy and turned her back on it for the last time.

 

Kelly stood in front of the bathroom mirror, wearing her white terry robe, noting that reassuring noises echoed from Evan’s room down the hall. She had finished her make-up and was working with her brush and curling iron, trying to force a bit of glamour into a short cut, tapered in back, with simple bangs curled forward. She smiled at the woman in the mirror, wondering why she thought glamour might suddenly find her today. She always made cheer­leader in their small high school, but her pixyish features had earned no trophies beyond Miss Congeniality, 4-H, Muscateen, Iowa, freshman year. When Larry emerged from the shower behind her, she asked, “Do you think I look too young?”

He wrapped wet arms around her. “Do you think I look like Tarzan?”

She smiled at the naked reflection in the mirror. Larry was tall, lean, and dark with an eternally clean-cut look, perfect for a high school teacher-coach. “You look just like Tarzan, and Jane wants to know whether she looks like a kid.”

He nuzzled her neck. “I can’t believe you’re worrying about looking too young.”

“Seriously. What do you think?”

He reached inside the top of her robe and cupped her breast. “I think you are mature, worldly and wise.”

She pulled his hand away. “Stop it. I’m concentrating.”

Larry turned without comment and headed for the bedroom, likely miffed about rejection of a seduction he wasn’t serious about anyway. After ten years of marriage, she still didn’t understand that part of him. She dressed. Larry recovered enough good humor to say that she looked mature and professional. She munched on half a cinnamon bagel, kissed Larry goodbye, kissed him again for good luck, yelled a goodbye upstairs to the dawdling Evan, and drove her elderly Voyager toward the Lockhart campus in Oakbrook. 

She found a spot in the employee lot and walked alone up the wide sidewalk leading toward twenty stories of smoky-blue glass jutting into a bright, clear sky. Robins proclaimed spring from the trees and lawns of their richly manicured campus, but Kelly’s stomach churned with the ache that her college drama instructor called the marvelous power of adrenaline. “Embrace it!” Professor Dale would bellow. “Use it! Never fear the fear.” She scanned from the Tower’s fourth floor to the twentieth. Here’s hoping!

 

Kelly’s cubicle became a miniature visiting room.

“Hey, Masterson, I hear you’re seein’ the man,” said Mike Nielsen.

“Lookin’ good, kid,” said Al Brierly.

“This is really exciting,” said Betty Dressler. “Good luck.”

At 8:45, her be-prepared-for-anything father became her men­tal partner. She opened her blue cloth Franklin binder and inserted two copies of her report and two blank file folders. She tested her pen and added a second backup pen. She stopped in the restroom for a last check of hair, make-up, and outfit, took a deep breath, and headed for the elevator.

When the burnished doors finally opened on 20, she stepped into a vast corridor, a study in marble, chrome and deep blue. A gold nameplate on double doors opposite the elevator announced Boardroom. Single doors marked with executives’ names lined the hallway to her right. And to her left loomed the barrier of glass and chrome that guarded the suite of Richard Lockhart.

       She pushed open the door and entered a plant-filled reception area staffed by two women sitting at parallel desks. The older of the two sat behind the nameplate Althea Yardley. Her hair was yellow-blond, pulled back severely. She was focused intensely on her computer screen, her keyboard clicking rapidly, her expression as severe as her hairstyle.

“Excuse me,” Kelly said, a bit hoarsely, “I’m Kelly Masterson, here to see Mr. Lockhart.”

       Althea Yardley studied her through oversized glasses, rimmed powder blue. She rose. “Follow me.” They walked halfway down a paneled hallway, passing two closed doors on the left before enter­ing a doorway on the right. A mahogany conference table domin­ated the room, surrounded by ten blue leather chairs. Each chair-back carried the key of Lockhart’s logo.

“Sit there,” said Althea, motioning to the left of the head of the table. “Mr. Lockhart is finishing an overseas conference call. His schedule is very tight. Be concise.” Kelly nodded and made her way to the designated seat. Althea stopped at the door and turned, her eyes casting warning. “I’m to advise you to prepare for an aggressive man.” She pulled the door closed behind her.

Long minutes passed. Kelly scanned the décor, oddly retro for a technology company’s CEO, she decided: mahogany paneling, blue wall tapestry on the far wall, likely covering an A/V screen, six original wall paintings—African mountains, plains, and wildlife as best Kelly could determine. She fought nerves. She wondered what being ready for an aggressive man might involve. She thought about her mother’s advice. Being bold made sense, but she couldn’t visualize a single possibility.

At 9:10, a corner door swung open—apparently a private entrance from Richard Lockhart’s office—and he was suddenly striding toward her, his piercing dark eyes probing without hint of warm welcome. He wore an immaculately tailored dark blue suit, gleaming white shirt, and a tie striped burgundy and blue. As expected, the rich black hair was wavy and carefully cut, but the angular face carried a few more lines than she had noticed in photographs, or from her distant auditorium seat at company meet­ings. A faint scar followed the curve of his right cheekbone. She stood as he extended his hand, concentrating on meeting his eyes and returning a solid handshake.

He said, “Sit down, Masterson.” She sat, surprised at his curt, cold tone, aware that she had said nothing at all yet. “A hard copy of your analysis, please.” She withdrew a copy of the nineteen-page document and placed it in front of him. He said, “Do you have your own copy?”

She managed a reasonably strong, “Yes. Of course,” although she hadn’t imagined that this portion of her over-preparation would be important.

He pulled a gleaming gold pen from his shirt pocket and began scanning the report’s first page, underlining occasionally. At about mid-page, he frowned, looked up, and studied her through eyes narrowed quizzically. “Discount hair salon?”

Surely, she thought, I misunderstood him. “I beg your pardon?”

“I gather you use a discount hair salon.”

Her mind raced. Maybe this is it. “It’s a wig, sir. If you don’t like it, I have several others in my desk.”

He nodded, the faintest hint of laughter dancing in his eyes. Kelly smiled, though uneasily, saying silent thank yous. He pulled a folded copy of her report from his breast pocket, opened it, and quickly thumbed through the pages. She could see written notes in the margins.

“How did you come up with the ‘building together for the future’ angle?”

“It seemed we need a carrot,” she replied, focusing on sound­ing forceful and confident. “I mean an incentive, for the dealers to buy the transition.”

“How did you know I could intro major new products?”

“I know we have acres of research and development at Fox Hill.”

He nodded slightly. “Why do you think I can deliver the speech you suggested?”

“I’ve heard you speak, sir. I—”

“Have you heard me say more than three conciliatory words in a row?”

His tone had returned to harsh, almost sarcastic. She wondered whether he was testing or attacking. “I think you could give a balanced speech.”

“I assume you know what the employees call me.”

“Yes, sir, Dick the Prick.” She couldn’t believe she said it. She had meant to be bold and honest, but not that bold and honest. She felt instant heat on her neck and cheeks.

He studied her for a long moment, then his face relaxed into a broad smile. “I have over nineteen thousand employees. Do you know how many have called me Dick the Prick to my face?”

“How many?” she asked tentatively, heart still pounding.

“None, until just now. Good shot, Masterson.” He returned to somber, while she suppressed a sigh of relief and an urge to confess that her good shot had been questionably timed honesty. “Do you plan to move ahead in the company?” asked Lockhart.

“I hope so, sir.”

“Let me tell you about hope and a quarter.”

“I intend to move ahead in the company.”

He again paused, fingers drumming the table as he studied her. “I trust you’re familiar with case studies.”

“Yes, of course.”

He turned to the credenza behind him and pushed an intercom button. “Althea, get me Curt Dantley.” Kelly knew that Dantley was Lockhart’s VP-Human Resources.

The speakerphone soon crackled. “Dantley here.”

“I assume we’ve got at least one department where morale’s all screwed up.”

Dantley chuckled. “Safe to say. Are we testing?”

“Affirmative. A young woman named Kelly Masterson is on her way to your office. Give her access to employees and mana­gers, between eleven and three today. Call me at three-thirty.”

“No problem, Mr. L.”

Lockhart hit the off button. “I use live cases. The objective is departmental morale improvement. Dantley will brief you. Althea may be in touch later this afternoon.”

He stood. As Kelly rose, she nearly asked whether someone would notify her boss, but sensed that it would be a green question. And she stifled a query about the reason for the test, figuring she would know soon enough.

“Thank you, Mr. Lockhart.”

 

 

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Excerpt: Players and Pawns