The F-Word

“The what?”

“The teak…”

Bing bing bing.

Bailey looks shocked. Actually, I’m shocked, too. It’s her smartphone. The only other time her phone rang while she was with me was two years back, when her mother called to say her dad was in the hospital.

I look at her.

No. She doesn’t look shocked. Or worried. Just…I’m not sure. Annoyed? Upset? Something.

I wave my hand. “Take the call.”

“It’s a text. And it can wait.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. See what it is. I hope it’s not bad news.”

She yanks the phone from her pocket. Looks at it. Then she looks at me. She shakes her head.

“I’ll deal with it later.”

“Don’t be silly. Deal with it now.”

“Later,” she says firmly. She hits the button that turns off the phone, then jams it back in her pocket. “We were talking about the teak doors.”

“The teak doors,” I say, but it’s difficult to get my head back to the topic. What’s going on with Bailey? I can’t help but wonder.

She nods. “From Thailand? The ones that date back to the fifteenth century.”

“The temple doors. Of course. What about them?”

“They’re due to arrive today and Bob—”

“And Bob’s the only guy I want handling them.” Shit. I blow out a breath. “Any chance we can hold off delivery for a couple of days?”

“I already called the dock transport people. No way.”

Double shit. I trust all my people, but trusting them to deal with doors that set my client back six hundred thousand bucks…

“We must have somebody who knows teak.”

Bailey nods. “We do.”

“Well, call him.”

Bailey looks at me. “Ring-a-ding,” she says.

“What?”

“You know teak, Mr. O’Malley.”

I stare at my PA. There are two things wrong with her statement.

One, I don’t know teak. I mean, not compared to Bob the Barfer. I’m into wood, yeah. I have this thing about looking at a piece of oak or redwood and kind of seeing what form or shape is hiding inside it, but knowing teak that’s centuries old? Not my specialty.

Two, after all these years, I have yet to convince Bailey to call me Matt. Each time we have this conversation, she tells me she’s old-fashioned, that she believes in proper form in the business place, and I tell her that calling the boss Mister went out with typewriters and landline phones.

“I call you Bailey,” I invariably say, and she invariably nods and says Yes, that’s right, you do. And then she calls me Mr. O’Malley again and I sigh and give up the whole dumb thing for another couple of months…