Page 20 of What I'm Looking For

He laughs. “Can’t blame a guy for trying. Okay, let me see that stack of propaganda.” He rifles through them and then scopes out the booths nearby. “All right, I know the guy in the Catalina booth. He was in my frat at Tufts, but he’s kind of a Dexter, so this should be easy. Follow my lead.”

The moment he takes my elbow to steer me toward the guy, my stage fright kicks in—heart races a mile a minute, the whole routine. But then I remember the breathing thing Will taught me yesterday and try it as Steve greets his friend. “Richie, homeslice, I haven’t seen you in a dick year.”

As the pair execute some ridiculous handshake with sound effects and everything, I surreptitiously keep up the slow deep breaths. By the time they’re finished and Richie turns to me, I actually feel okay. “Hey, didn’t I see you earlier?” he asks.

Steve places a hand on my shoulder. “Richie, meet Katherine Bishop. She’s an analyst at Rhodes Wahler.”

“Oh, okay.” Richie smiles and then leans in conspiratorially. “You looked kind of disapproving when you stopped by so I thought maybe you were quality control for the convention center and you were gonna bust my balls for having too big a banner or something.”

“Nah, she’s here to check you out, man.”

As Steve gossips with Richie about their college buddies I tune them out, fingering the samples on the table to check for fabric quality. But when Richie starts going on about some friend of theirs who works in operations for the company who’s strung out because he’s having to live on Chinese time, my ears perk up.

“Yeah, poor Max. He’s having to deal with all kinds of issues moving production overseas. Talk about quality control. Heh heh.” Richie’s laugh is slightly uncomfortable like maybe he knows he just leaked something shouldn’t have. “Hey, you look like you’re a size six. Want some samples?”

“Um, sure. Thanks.”

While he sifts through a bin of colorful sweatpants, Steve manages to tease out a few more details on Max’s—and therefore the company’s—troubles.

Once we’ve said goodbye and are out of earshot, Steve puts his arm around my shoulder again. “That was clutch. Did I or did I not get you some good gossip?”

“You did. Also some new workout gear.”

“If it’s samples you want, homefry, I can get you a whole outfit to sweat in.” His square jaw juts at the brochure on the top of my stack. “I got an idea. This guy I used to play poker with is at Gitano.”

“Really? They’re gearing up for an IPO.”

“Schweet. You get to play this time.”

“I don’t know.” Standing back and watching Steve do his thing while I ferreted away facts was just my speed. Not sure if I’m ready to do what he does.

“Kate, come on. Do you not know what a legend you are?”

This has me stopping in my tracks. “What are you talking about?”

He shakes his head. “Besides the fact that it’s so fun to get you all flustered, the other reason the guys tease you so much? They’re intimidated by you.”

“What? Why?”

“You’re alwaysright. Even when you’re wrong, you catch it before it’s a problem. Like the other day in the morning meeting, when you realized you’d made a mistake in that model?”

“Oh my god. That was so embarrassing.”

He knocks on my forehead. “Wrong. It was scary. Right in front of everybody, you caught the error, recalculated and fixed it before anybody else caught on that you’d even made a mistake. Nobody’s brain works as fast as yours.”

All I can say to this is “Huh.”

Then the Hot Steve smile is back. “But you’re no salesman. That’s where I excel. Really, we’re a perfect partnership. Which we’re going to put to work. I’ve got an idea. Grant is kind of a hoser. You put that mad face to work and be bad cop. Everything I bring up, you knock it down.”

“What mad face?”

He shrugs. “You just look mad all the time.”

“Well, I’m not. I’m probably just thinking.”

“Whatever. We can use it. Come on.”

Five minutes later, our improvised routine has squeezed some very useful nuggets of information regarding the timing of the Gitano IPO. Some of it skirts on the edge of insider trading, but some of it I can use. The role-play has me feeling more predator than prey, and I kind of like the feeling.

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