Gossip, Weddings, and Manipulation

Chapter 17 - Peace Offering

“Good morning guys,” Tara said as she placed three cups of coffee and breakfast pastries in the middle of the table.

“Pastries and coffee? What’s this for?” Laurel asks.

“I thought after this weekend we could all use it,” Tara replied.

“Oh yeah, I heard about the wrong version being pushed out to the public.  Vivek how could you make such a rookie mistake? I didn’t even believe it at first.  You know Ron called me when I was on a date with Vincent this weekend asking me to come over and watch the girls because he had to get to the office for a work emergency.  I thought he was lying and trying to ruin my date.  I even yelled at him, but then I looked at the twitter feed and saw that he wasn’t lying so I ended my date.  What the hell happened?” Laurel asked with her arms crossed across her chest.

“He didn’t make it, I did,” Tara stated.  “He saved my ass.”

I looked at Tara, questioning her with my eyes why is she telling Laurel the truth. 

“We’re a team and somebody should know the truth,” Tara responded.

“So you two are good now.  Thank God, because the tension between the two of you was killing me.  I don’t know what you did Vivek to piss off Tara, but hopefully this makes up for it. Because the stress of your team members constantly coming to me to make decisions because they’re all scared shitless of both you was about to kill me,” Laurel confessed.

“What?” Tara and I say at the same time.

“Yeah I don’t know the god damn difference between middleware systems and whether we should use open source or not, so it’s good you two have patched things up.”

“What were you telling the tech team to do?” I asked my heartbeat increasing.

“I either flipped a coin or just told them to do what they thought best.  Shit.  They’re smart people give your team some credit.”

Laurel continued as Tara and I sat in complete silence staring at each other.  “Now that we’re all on the same page and the tension is cleared can we get this meeting going?”

 

A few hours later.

Suzanna the office assistant comes by to the bullpen where all of the programmers are working.  “Did you guys see Laurel’s office?”

“No what happened?” I ask.

“Laurel has a secret admirer.  She was sent a beautiful photograph of three colorful Dahlia’s.  The photograph is huge.”

“It’s probably from Vincent.” Tara says and then she turns and walks away from the team.

A few steps later she turns around and looks at me, “Aren’t you curious?”

I smile and join her and walk towards Laurel’s office.

We walk into Laurel’s office and a 48x36 photograph of three red and white dahlia flowers is resting against her wall.

“That’s interesting a Dahlia, not the typical flower you expect to see.  And a photograph, not a bouquet.  I have to give it to Vincent, he’s original,” I say.

“It’s not from Vincent,” Laurel responds.

“Who’s it from?” Tara asks.

“I don’t know.  A secret admirer.  It came with this note.”

“Some say the Dahlia represents dignity and elegance, if that’s indeed true than it’s a flower best suited for you Laurel.  Because, you most definitely personify dignity and elegance in everything you do.  I hope you accept this small token as a gift as I admire you from afar.  If you like the photograph you should check out the photographer, Andres Castine, at his exhibition next Wednesday at 7pm.”