Lost and Found (Growing Pains #1)(64)

She turned her music back up and lost herself yet again to the fog of numbers.

The next couple weeks passed quickly. Krista was making great strides on the ideas she got from Marcus. There hadn’t been much of anything in the company databases for them, which she took as a good sign, so she got all her info from the library and out in life. Once done, she reviewed all the original data and did some changes and fixes that made them easier to understand and more accessible to non-Geeks. She even put together a table of contents in case it was needed. It was overkill, but Sean asked for thorough, so he couldn’t really yell at her if she gave it to him.

On Thursday evening she got an email from Sean addressed to everyone on his team. Instead of immediately hitting delete out of pure fear, she opened it. He wanted to see what they’d gotten so far. The day had come. She was not ready for it.

She was desperately scared he would see all her work, get a disappointed look on his handsome face, and tell her she had wasted a month of his time on frivolous research. Or that she completely missed the point of his list. Or that she shouldn’t have been bothering Marcus after all.

A list of possible reasons she would be fired shot through her head. It also fueled her fire.

She worked like a demon to get all her things together and glossed up.

The other was…she’d missed him. Which was bad. But he was funny and fun, witty and intelligent—he was on his way to becoming a friend, and she didn’t realize it until he stopped coming around.

Kate was going to punch her in the mouth really, really hard!

Turning her attention back to work, she was suddenly overly glad she’d done the table of contents! Otherwise she might have wasted time trying to find her way through all the information again. The bad news was, even with the table of contents, it was still just a stack of papers--well organized papers--but a stack nonetheless. She needed something a little more dynamic.

Once again, she headed down to Marcus.

The marketing and art department was abuzz. More so than usual. People were smiling but tense, calling off directions across the room. Someone needed some ten stock white something or other. Someone else needed those slides pronto, darling, yesterday! They worked like an anthill after it saw a boot. Complete chaos to the passerby, but probably some hidden rhythm in there somewhere. Being that Krista had heard Dell mentioned a couple times, she figured it must be presentation day.

Krista kept walking as she made her way back to the Dark Hub. As she rounded the wall of plants, she didn’t hear Marcus on the phone for once. This time he was there, quietly sitting in his chair, his nose inches from his computer.

“Hey,” she said as she walked up.

Marcus looked up distractedly. “No more ideas. I gotta get this crap for Sean’s meeting.”

“Yeah I know. I am at the same point. I need to put my stuff into a nice format. A binder isn’t going to cut it.”

Marcus leaned back. It was the first time a small amount of stress showed under his calm exterior. “What kind of format?”

“I was thinking some kind of book?”

“Hmmm.” Marcus bent over a sticky note. He scribbled something then offered it to her. “Take that to Phyllis in Art. She’ll hook you up. Now scoot, I’m a busy little boy.”

He turned back to his computer as Krista hurried out. Then went straight to Tommy for directions—he wasn’t there.

“Merde!”

“Hey baby cakes, what’d’ya need?” It was some young hipster art person Krista had never seen before. She had black, holey skinny jeans, wild, spiky hair, tattoos everywhere, and bright pink lipstick.

“Uh…Phyllis? In Art?”

“Oh right, sure. You from IT?”

“No, um, Research?”

The girl’s eyes lit up. “Oh wow, Research, huh? You seem normal, though.” She laughed as she led the way. “I heard everyone from Research was a whack-job.”

“They are, but you didn’t hear it from me. I’m working on Sean McAdams’ thing so I was able to get out for a brief time.”

“Oh! You’re Krista Marshall!” The girl looked at her again. “Right. Marcus talks about you all the time. He’s excited to see what you can do. Not often someone from Research works so closely with one of our own!”

“It hasn’t been easy, I can assure you. My brain is wired differently. But we’re making do. I think we have some good stuff.”

“Well cool. I hope to see it some time. There’s Phyllis, right through there…” She pointed through a doorway into a land of paper and machines.

“Oh great, thanks,” Krista said, not wanting to go through into more chaos. And probably gossip.

She got a pat on the back and laughter as her tour guide wandered away. She seemed friendly. Krista should have gotten her name.

Phyllis had a desk that made up a quad, two people side-by-side, facing the other two. It was hard to decipher whose work was what. Where one desk ended and the other began it was completely covered in a mass of color and art supplies.

As Krista reached the quad, she looked down at the post-it. Marcus had written, “This is Geek Girl. Help her. Luv U. M”

If she’d any doubt she had been talked about, she didn’t anymore.

Krista walked up slowly to Phyllis’s desk, sticky clutched in her hand like a hall pass. Phyllis was a thirty-something woman with a haircut that looked like she went through a wind storm and cut it without combing it out first. As Krista reached the desk and slowed further, feeling a little like a creep, Phyllis and the three others all looked up.