'All of us don't have your flair for fashion.' Mitch gazed with distaste at Sam's ragged jeans and a faded T-shirt that was stretched nearly to transparency over Sam's chest.
Sam grinned. 'So what are you doing out here?'
'I had an interview this morning. I thought I'd stop by to invite you and Yank for dinner. There's a French place in Palo Alto, or we could go into the city if you prefer.'
Susannah's grip tightened on her soldering iron and she glanced sharply at Sam to see how he would react to the fact she had been neatly cut from the picture.
Once again Sam let his eyes rove over Mitch's business suit. 'Let's make it Mom and Pop's.'
She waited for him to say more-to mention her-but he didn't. Mitch agreed to Sam's choice of restaurant. They chatted for a while and looked over the latest work Yank had done on the prototype.
Susannah confronted Sam as soon as Mitch left, but he shrugged off her indignation. 'Give him time,' he said. 'Once he gets to know you, he'll change his mind. You're too sensitive.' He reached for her, ready to quiet her protests with kisses, but a new stubbornness took hold of her, and she resisted him. For some unfathomable reason Mitch disliked her, and he was giving no indication that he intended to change his mind. Getting up stiffly from the table, she went into the house so she could collect her thoughts. Sam didn't follow her.
That evening, she took her clothes into the bathroom and got dressed. She told herself she wouldn't let them dismiss her without a fight, but courage still didn't come easily, and she fumbled with the button at the waistband of her skirt, and then snagged her hair in the inexpensive loose-knit mauve sweater she had bought at Angela's favorite outlet store. Brushing her hair to the nape of her neck, she tied it back with a scarf. Angela came into the bathroom and fluffed the curls that had formed around her face.
'Don't let them push you around, Suzie,' she said, attuned as always to what was happening around her. 'Stick to your guns.' She clipped a pair of beaded pink and purple triangles to Susannah's lobes. 'I won fifty dollars at the slots when I was wearing these in Vegas last June. They'll bring you luck.'
Susannah smiled and gave her a fierce, impulsive hug. She felt closer to Sam's mother than she had ever felt to her own.
Yank and Sam were both in the kitchen. Sam looked surprised when she walked in, as if he hadn't expected her to come with them. The sharp corners of the pink and purple triangles banged into the hollows beneath her ears.
'I don't know why you're making such a big deal of this,' he said defensively. 'It's just a meeting.'
Instead of replying, she walked out to the car.
Mitch was already at the restaurant when they arrived. He had traded in his suit for dark brown slacks and a gold sport shirt. A Rolex gleamed in the sandy-brown hairs at his wrist. He stood as she approached, but made no attempt to hide his displeasure at her appearance. The men slid into the booth on each side of him. She took the seat on the end, keeping her back as straight as Grandmother Bennett's yardstick.
'This is supposed to be a business meeting, Sam,' he said, nodding in her direction.
'That's why I'm here,' she replied before Sam could answer.
The jukebox began to play a Linda Ronstadt hit. 'Roberta isn't coming,' Yank said abruptly.
Susannah gave him a sharp glance. Yank was hardly given to idle chatter, so he obviously wanted to make a point, but she had no idea whether he was indicating that she shouldn't be here either or whether he was making a distinction between the two women in her favor.
He began to draw an abstract figure in the moisture on the beer pitcher-another one of his diagrams. Did he design circuitry even in his sleep? she wondered. For the moment, it was easier to watch Yank's finger than deal with the tension that permeated the booth.
A circle appeared. A transistor maybe?
Two dots. A curve.
Yank had drawn a happy face.
'So… did you take a job with IBM yet?' Sam's voice snapped with sarcasm.
'I've been asked,' Mitch replied as the waitress approached with the pizzas he had ordered. 'Actually, I've had a number of interesting offers in the past few weeks. A lot of high-tech companies, naturally, but Detroit, too. And the soft drink people have been pretty persuasive.' As they ate, he detailed several of his offers, including one from Cal Theroux at FBT.
Sam listened with increasing impatience, then pushed away his pizza and leaned back in the booth. 'Sounds safe. Safe and predictable.'
Mitch gave him a long stare. 'It's a miracle that you've managed to keep SysVal alive this long. You don't know anything about selling a product. You don't have any organization, any definable market. Your company is so eccentric that it's a joke.' He went on and on, detailing their shortcomings until Sam's mouth had tightened in a grim line and Susannah felt as if someone was banging her head into the wall. Yank drew three more happy faces.
Finally, Sam had had enough. He wadded up his paper napkin and tossed it down on the table. 'If we're such a joke, then why did you come back, you son of a bitch?'
For the first time, Mitch seemed to relax. A smile spread slowly over his broad, good-looking face. 'Because you hooked me. You hooked me good. SysVal is all I've been able to think about since I went back to Boston. I told myself I needed a vacation. I've tried to take some time off. But nothing's worked.'
Sam sat slowly upright, his expression cautious, afraid to hope. 'Are you telling me-'
'I'm in.' Mitch shook his head. 'For better or worse, I'm in all the way.'
Yank smiled. Sam let out a whoop that startled one of the waitresses so badly she dropped a pie.
'That's great! God, that's really great!'
'We have to deal first,' Mitch said, holding up his hand. 'I have some conditions.'
Sam could barely contain his excitement. 'Name them.'
'I want an equal partnership with you and Yank. Each of us takes one third of SysVal. In return, I'll guarantee a $100,000 line of credit at the banks. That'll keep us away from the venture capitalists for a while.' He opened a leather folder he had brought with him and pulled out a gold pen. 'Yank, you have to leave Atari. The SysVal I is only a toy. Our future is locked up in that prototype you're building, and you have to commit to it full-time.'
'I like Atari,' Yank said. 'I have this new game coming out in a couple of months.'
'Are you crazy?' Sam exclaimed. 'This is a hell of a lot more important than a goddamn video game.'
'I don't know about that, Sam,' Yank replied earnestly. 'It's one heck of a good game.'
Sam rolled his eyes to the ceiling and turned to Mitch. 'I'll take care of him. I promise.'
Mitch began to discuss contingencies, eventual strategies for venture capital, a marketing plan, but Susannah didn't hear anything more. All the muscles in her torso seemed to have contracted into tight, painful bands. At the same time, her legs were rubbery and her pulse was beating much too fast. On and on they went-their exclusive male chatter cutting her out and pushing her aside like a whore who has been well-used and is no longer wanted. She drew herself up and tried to calm her heartbeat, but her voice was unsteady. 'What about me?' she said.
Sam immediately grew cautious. 'Let's talk about this later.'
Mitch crossed his arms over his chest and looked irritated. 'Another item on my list of conditions, Sam. Keep your woman troubles away from the company.'
Susannah could feel her cheeks burning. Sam put all his weight on one hip and pulled Yank's car keys from his opposite pocket. 'Look, Suzie. Take the car. I'll meet you at home in a couple of hours and we'll go over this.'
'No!' She found herself on her feet, standing at the end of the booth and glaring down at the three of them. A pulse throbbed in her neck beneath skin as tight as a drumhead. She was dizzy and reckless with anger, uncaring of the scene she was creating for the people in the neighboring booths. 'None of this is satisfactory to me, Mr. Blaine. None of it.'
He waved his hand dismissively. 'Miss Faulconer, I-'
'I've got the floor now, and it's my turn to talk. Sam seems to have forgotten to give you one important piece of information. If you intend to work with him, you need to know that he's quite brilliant in defining the big picture, but abysmal when it comes to details. He should have told you that tending to the details has been my job. Like finding the money to build those first forty boards. And paying our bills. And making certain dealers took us seriously
