Scissor Link, Georgette Kaplan [best 7 inch ereader .TXT] 📗

“The rotors move through the air faster,” Janet surmised. “And are the scissor links rated for that speed?”

“I don’t know!” Wendy cried. “I e-mailed R&D, asking them for their stress test findings at 11.10 inches of mercury. They would only give me the rankings down to thirteen inches of mercury. So maybe the scissor link will be just fine, or maybe it’ll fly apart.”

“Those findings are classified,” Donnie said.

“From who? We’re the same company.”

“You can’t expect to have the clearance of a DARPA-certified asset—”

“I expect to be given the resources I need to do my job.”

“It’s my job!” Donnie insisted. “R&D says it’ll be fine, it’s our job to approve the specs, that’s what we do!”

“We stop helicopters from crashing. That’s what I do.”

“Do you have a contract?” Janet asked.

“What?”

“What?” Donnie echoed.

Janet picked up her coffee again. “With your internship. Do you have a contract guaranteeing you a position at the company once you’ve finished the program? That if there’s an opening, they won’t just hire someone else off the street instead of giving it to you?”

“Well, no,” Wendy admitted. “But I’m pretty sure—”

“Ms. Cedar,” Janet interrupted, then held a moment’s silence while she sipped her coffee again. “We are under a deadline to submit a proposal for the Navy contract. If we don’t have a project drawn up and green-lit by that time, ipso facto, we won’t get the contract.”

“If the prototype crashes, we won’t get it either.”

Janet nodded. Then she folded her hands together, ringing her fingers around the warm coffee mug, and Wendy had the unmistakable impression of a snake coiling up. And the equally unmistakable desire to feel that snake around herself, squeezing tighter and tighter… “All right, I think I’ve heard enough. Mr. Parsons, please deal with the situation as you see fit.”

“Thank you,” Donnie said. “Now, if we’re through wasting time, Ms. Cedar, your services will no longer be required. Please clear out your desk and turn in your security badge. It’ll be expected within the hour.”

“But you can’t fire me,” Wendy protested, giggling a little at the nervous absurdity of it. “I’m—”

“Don’t waste your breath trying to save your job,” Janet said. “Or volunteer work, as the case might be. Regardless, I would like to hire you for a position in my division.”

“What?” Wendy asked, followed by Donnie again repeating the question at a higher pitch.

Janet looked from one of them to the other. “I have an opening. I have Wendy here, who’s done conscientious and professional work despite the pressures put on her. If she were working at another company, I wouldn’t think twice about snatching her up. And I’d usually offer her twice her pay, but since she isn’t making anything, that’s not really possible. Oh well. We’ll hammer something out.”

“You’re just going to promote her?” Donnie demanded. “Someone who’ll question your authority? Someone who won’t follow orders?”

“How do you think I got promoted?” Janet asked. “Now, please see to it that R&D sends over the stress test rankings for 11.1 inches of mercury to my department. We wouldn’t want to miss the deadline, after all.”

It was then that Wendy Cedar fell hopelessly in love.

That afternoon, Wendy skipped down to her sister’s house in the suburbs to do her laundry. Regan’s place was a neat little stucco thing, short and plump, and so lovely it looked more like a gingerbread house than anything else.

Regan graciously took the laundry basket and while the machine worked, Wendy went out into the front yard to wait on the swing.

Keith was mowing the lawn, wearing jean cutoffs and a muscle shirt that showed actual muscle, and he gave Wendy an impeccably neighborly nod and smile as she loitered.

When Mac brought her his basketball for a game with the hoop up above the driveway, Wendy agreed to shatter the domestic tranquility. “Okay, Ewok,” she said, “we’re gonna practice some free throws. You know free throws?”

Mac nodded. He had Keith’s eyes and Regan’s hair.

Wendy shot and felt like a badass as it swished in.

Mac ran, impressed, to retrieve it.

“All right, now you do it,” she said.

He shot, and managed to brush the hem of the net before the basketball hit the garage door and rebounded.

Wendy caught it before it went into the street.

“You’re taller than me,” Mac complained. “It’s not fair.”

“Oh yeah?” Wendy got down on her knees and shot again. The ball wobbled on the rim for a moment, but went in. Wendy smiled smugly in the way only someone who was a badass to a seven-year-old could.

“Your arms are bigger than mine!” was Mac’s follow-up.

“Joke’s on you, I’m a lesbian, my people are very into big arms.”

Mac rolled his eyes.

Wendy wondered when Regan was going to teach the Ewok respect for his elders already. “Fine. Bring it in. I’m gonna make this shot lying on my belly.”

Mac returned the ball to her. She did not make the shot lying on her belly. “Let’s see you do it, smart guy.”

After retrieving the basketball once again, Mac got down beside her and tried to shoot. The most he managed was to get the ball to roll all the way up the driveway to the garage door.

When it rolled back, Wendy caught it and had another try, just as Regan wandered out the front door with a tray of lemonade in hand.

“Finding a way to play sports lying down,” Regan said. “I’m impressed.”

“I thinking of calling it Wii Sports. Is that taken?”

Regan brought the tray over to Keith, who paused the mower to take a grateful swig and give her a kiss on the cheek. Wendy shared Mac’s sense of ‘oh, come on’. Then she rolled over and sat up as Regan brought the lemonade to her.

“Hey,” Regan said, “I know it’s short notice, but Keith and I won this radio contest for a vacation in Hawaii. It’s just three days over the weekend, so do you think you could watch Mac while we’re gone?”

“Yeah, no probs.” Wendy tried to Harlem Globetrotter the basketball on her finger, without