Page 47 of Grinch Girl

I stifled a laugh. Oh, he was good. Harlan had displayed the luxury Garia Desert Collection model on his showroom for the last couple of years, but hadn’t been able to sell it. This wasn’t Palm Springs, after all. There might have been money in the area, but most Midwesterners couldn’t stomach the idea of spending over thirty grand on a freakin’ golf cart.

Excitement crackled into Harlan’s voice. “You have quite the eye. Climb on in and I’ll show you some of its features.”

Michael spoke again, still sounding off-key and anxious. “The thing with the invoice is—”

Harlan cut him off. “Just throw it in my office, please.”

Yes!Now we were cooking with gas! I did a half spin on the street.

Harlan droned on about the leather interior and azure paint color, and I waited. Thirty more seconds and Michael appeared on the street and gave me a thumbs-up. Hopefully, he’d managed to convey the same sentiment to Bella and Nate on his way out.

Nate interrupted Harlan’s rhapsody about the quality of the Bluetooth speakers. “I’m certain I saw this exact model online for ten grand cheaper.”

Harlan’s voice sounded the tiniest bit indignant. “Not possible, sir. I can personally guarantee that you won’t find a better price anywhere.”

“Let’s see, shall we?” Nate sounded haughty, and I knew he was holding up his phone. “For Christ’s sake, don’t you have wireless in here?” Now he sounded like he was talking out the side of his mouth, probably toward Bella. “You want me to spend this kind of cash with a business that doesn’t bloody offer its customers wireless?”

“Of course we have wireless!” Harlan exclaimed.

Bella made an apologetic cooing sound. “Hmmm. I don’t think it’s working, actually.”

That was my cue. I smoothed my Geek Squad golf shirt and baseball hat, which I’d driven home to get. The clipboard clutched to my chest was empty.

Harlan sputtered, and I pictured him checking with his own phone. “I see. This is highly unusual, I can promise you that.” Frustration wound its way through his salesman’s voice.

I pulled open the door to the dealership, hearing the bell ping above the door. Harlan’s eyes flicked over, and he took in my work shirt and clipboard. “There’s been reports of an internet outage in the neighborhood,” I announced. “Can I take a look at your connection?”

Thank God Harlan was fairly clueless about technology, because it made no sense for me to check his personal setup if there was a neighborhood outage.

Nate blew out a long breath. “Until I can do a price check online, I guess I’d like to learn more about the engine.”

Harlan looked between Nate and me, clearly conflicted.

I tapped the clipboard against my flat palm. “I just need to check your hub, the wired router, the core, wireless, and edge routers, as well as the VPN,” I stated nonsensically. Harlan had approximately two of those things, but he hadn’t paid any attention when I’d upgraded the dealership’s network and internet connectivity last year. “Can I have a look in your office, sir?”

He hesitated. “Ah—”

Nate broke in again. “How does one arrange a test drive?”

Harlan leaned into that question like a shark sniffing blood in the water. To me, he gestured down the hall. “Second door on the right.”

Nodding, I quickly walked out of sight. In Harlan’s office, I plugged back in the router Michael had disconnected and waited for the internet to come back online, heart pounding.

When the blinking dots indicated that connectivity had been reestablished, I sat at Harlan’s laptop. Like many of my clients, he’d ignored my stern advice about resetting his password after I left, so I was able to log in immediately with the default. I opened the one browser saved as a shortcut on the desktop and went to the web series site.

To my giddy delight, he’d saved his login and password info on the browser, and I was able to log in within seconds. I cracked my knuckles over the keyboard. Time to make a few adjustments.

I was so focused on changing the advanced settings of the ad parameters set that it took me way too long to notice that Nate was speaking much more quickly than before. “Well, this was a very productive visit to the dealership, wasn’t it? Perhaps we should celebrate with a brewski?”

I stopped typing immediately—and that’s when I heard footsteps in the hall. I silently shot to my feet and closed the lid of the laptop. Threw myself at the shelf where the modem androuters sat blinking. I entwined my hands around the thick cords just as Harlan appeared in the doorway. “What’s the problem?” he asked.

“No problem!” I chirped. “Your connectivity has been restored. You can verify on your phone,” I said quickly as he walked toward the desk. “I just need to run a quick diagnostic and I’ll be out of your hair,” I said quickly.

On the showroom floor, Nate’s voice boomed, “Christ, does the manwantus to leave without giving us a business card?”

Harlan flinched and grabbed a card from a stack on his desk. “I’ll be right back,” he mumbled.

As soon as he disappeared, I opened the laptop and finalized the changes to the ad. Then I quickly tested it on both his browser and my own phone. Yes! I did a private fist pump before closing the browser and laptop.

---