In a Room Full of People

As part of my research I kept tabs on the company that had treated Taylor so shabbily. Taylor was in the office bathroom when I screamed "Eureka!" I'm not sure what she dropped while she was in there, but she came out looking very worried.

"Call the folks and tell them we are pulling a late one, so don't make dinner for us."

I went back to typing while Taylor just stared at me, waiting to add anything to my last comment. I was so focused on what I was doing that only Taylor knew how long she stood there. I do remember laughing at something and looking up, only to find Taylor leaning against her desk looking back at me.

"Please call the airline; we need two tickets to Houston on the first available flight."

Taylor managed to raise an eyebrow before my attention was once again on the screen in front of me. When I was done I stood and pulled a file out of the cabinet. By now, of course, Taylor's patience had by far exceeded its usual threshold.

"Care to share? Or am I going to have to tackle you to the ground and make you tell me?"

"But, honey: if you tackle me to the ground, and sit on my face, how am I going to tell you anything?"

Her impatience took a back seat as her carnal thoughts played out that moment.

"Well obviously, being a lady, I would wait for my orgasm to pass before I asked again."

I knew I dare not push her any further, so I explained everything. Merchants R&D section had invested heavily in a component that would extend the fuel on airplanes, as well as keep the engine running at full capacity. The science behind it was all foreign to me: stick a computer in front of me and I could strip it down and put it together again, but airplane engines were not included in the curriculum at classes I went to at college. The first trial of the prototype was a monumental flop. It was then I opened up the file to show her we had the answer.

Two years earlier a sorority sister had contacted Taylor. The husband of one of her friends was an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force, and when he retired he used his time to do his own research. He died in a car accident six months later, leaving his wife just enough to live on. It was that widow that we were on our way to see, offering to buy half the designs and place everything he had under patent.

Taylor phoned Joan Winchester while I packed a laptop, and both of us grabbed our emergency bags out of the closet on the way to the airport. Mrs. Winchester turned out to be a great lady, insisting that we stay with her rather than in a hotel. She wouldn't even let us talk to her when we got there. She was off bowling with her neighbor, and told us that she had seen what flying all over the country does to the nerves, so we were both to rest and would talk in the morning.

One thing we figured out real quick about Joan Winchester was that she had stubborn down to a fine art and could well give Taylor some lessons. Taylor knew long ago not to fight it and go with the flow, so we sat and watched TV and then had an early night. Neither of us heard Joan come in that evening, but we sure smelt breakfast.

*******

We explained what we knew and what we had. Joan watched Taylor throughout, but waited until she had finished speaking.

"These are the people that fucked you over for that job you wanted?"

Taylor looked at me, her eyes screaming betrayal.

"Don't look at him like that, Taylor. Emma told me. I spoke to Emma soon after you rang me, and she told me what those folks did to you when they thought you cheated on that exam."

Joan got up and made us drinks while Taylor collapsed into a seat next to me.

"Emma had no right to tell you that."

Once Joan put the tray down she pulled Taylor from her seat and held her close.

"Hush now, child; I made Emma tell me. What goes on at the sorority stays within the sorority; Emma was never to tell you that you're looking at another sister."

Joan smiled at the look of confusion on Taylor's face.

All Taylor could muster was, "But?"

"Love, my child; the same love I see in your eyes for that young man over there. I had my life all planned out, and then I met Henry. I knew I would follow him to the ends of the earth and back again and, to be honest, I think we did just that."

The hug they gave each other held such genuine warmth that for a second I felt like an outsider. This was the face of sororities that was seldom seen by anyone but those who lived in them. After they both sat down we talked strategy. Joan was willing to let Taylor lead in the negotiations, as long as she had a bigger shark sitting next to her - as they would.

Both looked at each other and smiled, then exclaimed in unison: "Monica!"

Joan nodded and Taylor just laughed, leaving me to figure out who Monica was. By the time we left Joan had signed over Power of Attorney and said she would phone Monica personally, and get her to the office as soon as she could.

We knew that Henry's designs were the answer to the problems that Merchant's R&D Division was having. The technical parts were way above my head, but I knew enough that adding parts of Henry's design to what they had would cure the problems they were having. As with all R&D divisions, no-one but the man in charge knew how much they were spending but, from what I had managed to glean from the data already out there, Merchants were in deep: VERY deep.

*******

She didn't even knock. The door crashed open and a woman in her late forties stood in the doorway, a small suitcase on wheels by her side and a coat draped over the handle. The business suit looked like it cost more than my car was worth. She scanned the room and a smile appeared only when Taylor came into view.

"Get rid of the boy, dear; we need to talk."

Taylor was out of her chair and into Monica's arms in an instant.

"I can't do that, Monica. He's the love of my life, and I trust him with everything."

I leaned back in my chair and watched both women.

Monica gave out an exasperated sigh before saying, "Yet another one of the sisters that stepped over to the dark side, I see."

When both settled down I got them drinks. I did offer to get some food from the deli downstairs, and that got me a warm hug and "thank you" from Taylor. She would never exclude me, but this was sorority business and I was simply showing her I didn't mind, so I left them to it for half an hour to play catch up.

By the time I got back Monica was sitting in Taylor's seat. Taylor was just walking back from one of the filing cabinets, one file under her arm and another open in her hands. Over the next hour we talked patents and a plan on how to deal with the R&D Division of Merchant's. Monica would stop us talking every now and then so she could talk to one of the girls at her office, and by the end of the day we had an appointment with some of Merchant's people at three the following afternoon.

During the day I phoned mom and asked if she could squeeze another stranger into the house. By seven that evening both Monica and mom looked like life-long friends and she even flirted with dad, much to mom's amusement.

*******

It only took me twenty minutes to ask myself what Taylor ever saw in this company and why she was so broken up when they cut her loose. I would have been singing from the rooftops! Not one of the five people who represented Merchant's had a redeeming feature, all shining suits and fake smiles - and that was just the two women. The men really did think themselves all-important, looking down their noses at everything and laughing at the price we wanted for the license to produce Henry's parts so they could adapt them to their design.

We left after three hours, and to be honest all I wanted to do was go home and shower, maybe even burning what I had on that day as well. Monica and Taylor knew this was nothing more than a feeler session; the real work would be over the next week when the technicians at Merchant's got to see Henry's drawings. It became apparent they were stalling and, a couple of days later, we found out why.

Joan phoned and told us that two of the sleazeballs from the original conference had come to her door and offered her a deal to effectively cut Taylor and I out of the negotiations. Taylor wanted to hit someone, but all Monica did was laugh, pick up the phone and cancel the next day's meeting with Merchant's R&D people. The shark in Monica took over then, phoning Merchant's main competitor and setting up a meeting with them the next morning.

Within an hour of us arriving, Donald Truman, the CEO of Babstock Industries, was sitting in the meeting with three of his technical people. We had dinner while the technical people went and hid in their lab, and by the time we came back one of them had told Donald to get his checkbook out.

It still took a week of haggling, but Monica was a force of nature that not even Donald could sway. Joan Winchester was now a very wealthy widow, thanks to Henry's designs. Taylor stood a few inches taller from that day onwards, and Babstock Industries had Merchant's R&D people over a barrel for some years to come. It was actually two years later that I read an article to Taylor that Babstock had in effect taken over Merchant's.

The smile remained on her face for the rest of that week. She had got to see the downfall of the people who tried to cut out her heart. She took the picture of the tortoise and the hare down that afternoon; I had it framed and it sits in our house now. That year was a busy one for us all. It was a leap year so Taylor went down on one knee and asked me to marry her. Like I was going to say no? I had been in love with that woman since the day she moved into the apartment.

My folks gave us their house as a wedding present, saying that it looked like we never planned to leave so they might as well. Taylor's folks moved closer, and both families ended up in a newly built gated community next door to each other, in houses which we had helped pay for as thanks for everything they had done.

Throughout all this I never allowed Taylor to miss a session with her therapist although, of course, she had had to change therapists when we moved away from the university. Many times I would drive her to her appointment and sit outside in the waiting room. She never bitched or moaned about it; if anything, she looked on it the same way I did. We bonded together those days; we were each other's support and the loving I got in those evenings always proved me right in my decision.

I met someone who was a whiz at calligraphy: she thought my request somewhat odd, but she figured it out when I kept going back. Set in a beautiful frame are the words "In a room full of people, why do I feel so alone?" Below those words are the pictures of our two children and underneath that are the words "You're never alone."

We have that picture above the fireplace now.

The End.