"You look good, Tom." She leaned back and kicked off her heels, wiggled her bare toes. "God, what a day."
"Lot of pressure?"
She sipped her wine and blew a strand of hair from her face. "A lot to keep track of. I'm glad we're working together, Tom. I feel as though you're the one friend I can count on in all this."
"Thanks. I'll try."
"So: how bad is it?"
"Well. It's hard to say."
"Just tell me."
He felt he had no choice but to lay it all out for her. "We've built very successful prototypes, but the drives coming off the line in KL are running nowhere near a hundred milliseconds."
Meredith sighed, and shook her head. "Do we know why?"
"Not yet. We're working on some ideas."
"That line's a start-up, isn't it?"
"Two months ago."
She shrugged. "Then we have problems on a new line. That's not so bad."
"But the thing is," he said, "Conley-White is buying this company for our technology, and especially for the CD-ROM drive. As of today, we may not be able to deliver as promised."
"You want to tell them that?"
"I'm concerned they'll pick it up in due diligence."
"Maybe, maybe not." She leaned back in the couch. "We have to remember what we're really looking at. Tom, we've all seen production problems loom large, only to vanish overnight. This may be one of those situations. We're shaking out the Twinkle line. We've identified some early problems. No big deal."
"Maybe. But we don't know that. In reality, there may be a problem with controller chips, which means changing our supplier in Singapore. Or there may be a more fundamental problem. A design problem, originating here."
"Perhaps," Meredith said, "but as you say, we don't know that. And I don't see any reason for us to speculate. At this critical time."
"But to be honest-"
"It's not a matter of honesty," she said. "It's a matter of the underlying reality. Let's go over it, point by point. We've told them we have a Twinkle drive."
"Yes."
"We've built a prototype and tested the hell out of it."
"Yes."
"And the prototype works like gangbusters. It's twice as fast as the most advanced drives coming out of Japan."
"Yes."
"We've told them we're in production on the drive."
"Yes."
"Well, then," Meredith said, "we've told them all that anybody knows for sure, at this point. I'd say we are acting in good faith."
"Well, maybe, but I don't know if we can-"
"Tom." Meredith placed her hand on his arm. "I always liked your directness. I want you to know how much I appreciate your expertise and your frank approach to problems. All the more reason why I'm sure the Twinkle drive will get ironed out. We know that fundamentally it's a good product that performs as we say it does. Personally, I have complete confidence in it, and in your ability to make it work as planned. And I have no problem saying that at the meeting tomorrow." She paused, and looked intently at him. "Do you?"
Her face was very close to him, her lips half-parted. "Do I what?"
"Have a problem saying that at the meeting?"
Her eyes were light blue, almost gray. He had forgotten that, as he had forgotten how long her lashes were. Her hair fell softly around her face. Her lips were full. She had a dreamy look in her eyes. "No," he said. "I don't have a problem."
"Good. Then at least that settled." She smiled and held out her glass. "Do the honors again?"
"Sure."
He got up from the couch and went over to the wine. She watched him.
"I'm glad you haven't let yourself go, Tom. You work out?"
"Twice a week. How about you?"
"You always had a nice rush. Nice hard rush."
He turned. "Meredith . . ."
She giggled. "I'm sorry. I can't help it. We're old friends." She looked concerned. "I didn't offend you, did I?"
No.
"I can't imagine you ever getting prudish, Tom."
"No, no."
"Not you." She laughed. "Remember the night we broke the bed?"
He poured the wine. "We didn't exactly break it."
"Sure we did. You had me bent over the bottom of the footboard and"
"I remember-"
"And first we broke the footboard, and then the bottom of the bed crashed downbut you didn't want to stop so we moved up and then when I was grabbing the headboard it all came
"I remember," he said, wanting to interrupt her, to stop this. "Those days were great. Listen, Meredith-"
"And then the woman from downstairs called up? Remember her? The old Lithuanian lady? She vanted to know if somebody had died or vhat?"
"Yeah. Listen. Going back to the drive . . ."
She took the wineglass. "I am making you uncomfortable. What did you think I was coming on to you?"
"No, no. Nothing like that."
"Good, because I really wasn't. I promise." She gave him an amused glance, then tilted her head back, exposing her long neck, and sipped the wine. "In fact, I-ah! Ah!" She winced suddenly.
"What is it?" he said, leaning forward, concerned.
"My neck, it goes into spasm, it's right there . . ." With her eyes still squeezed shut in pain, she pointed to her shoulder, near the neck.
"What should I-"
`Just rub it, squeeze-there-"
He put down his wineglass and rubbed her shoulder. "There?"