Just as Honor pushed one of the double doors open to exit the department, Ben Dugan entered through the other one. Honor smiled. “Hey, Ben - I wanted to thank you for helping Julie hang up the new bulletin board in my office. It looks great!”
“No problem,” he mumbled. “I was happy to help out.”
Trying not to sound like a match-maker, Honor ventured, “Julie told me she has really enjoyed your company during the past few weeks. You know, she’s a real people-person, and when I’m not around, she feels isolated in our department, surrounded by nothing but serious engineering geeks. It’s nice that she has a close friend like you.”
Ben blushed, revealing his attraction to Julie. To avoid embarrassing him, Honor said, “Speaking of my engineering geeks, I guess I better get back to them.”
As she stepped through the doorway, Honor glanced over her shoulder and saw Yvonne making a beeline to Helen’s desk. She shook her head. “What a busybody.”
Back in the engineering department, Honor distributed assignments to various project managers for completion, and then she sat down with Julie to go through a few of the other stacks of paperwork, which still seemed to dominate every corner of her office. She was determined to make sense out of the financial reports, and with that objective in mind, she began to highlight everything on the reports that she didn’t understand. She was hard at work when she heard a knock on her door. She looked up to find William standing there, trying much too hard to appear casual.
“I heard you were meeting with Helen Ellis this morning. What’s up?”
Honor was positive Yvonne had called him immediately after debriefing Helen, but chose not to let on. “I’ve decided to take a more ‘hands-on’ approach to the financial side of project management, so you’ll probably be seeing me on your side of the building more often.”
William couched his objection behind one of his broad smiles. “Come on, Honor…why mess with a good system? I like things the way they are.”
Honor was undeterred. “I confess I was never very interested in your end of the business, William. But now that I’m traveling more, I realize I need to understand our finances so I can resolve issues over the phone and comprehend the reports Julie sends to me.” She plastered an innocent look on her face. “Actually, I’m just following your lead, William. While I was away, you called our customers to assure them everything was under control because we’re interchangeable. That’s great, but for your statements to be accurate, we both need to understand our total operation.”
William paled, realizing his plan to entrench himself in her department had backfired.
Honor pretended not to notice William’s discomfort. She waved her hand at the mountain of paperwork, stacked on her table. “I was planning to ask Helen to help me understand this stuff, but if you think that would be too much extra work for her, I can just take a class in financial management at the college annex. I’m sure I could get one of the professors to spend some time with me after class, helping me decipher all these reports.”
William stammered, “No need for you to get outside help. I can teach you myself. But let’s take things slowly, okay? After all, you’re pretty busy right now, handling your mother’s affairs and keeping up with technical stuff, right?”
Honor could tell William was beginning to hit his stride in his sales pitch. “And, you’re right. I talked to a few of our customers about minor technical issues while you were away, but it didn’t take me long to realize how easy it was to get in over my head. It’s difficult to step back and forth across the aisle between finance and technology. In fact, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we should just keep things the way they are. After all, this company is our baby. We make an unstoppable team when we put our separate skills together, right?”
Honor wondered how many times she had heard William spout that worn-out refrain over the years. Unmoved, she persisted. “I’m tired of not being able to understand our financial operations, William. If you want to teach about them, that’s fine, but please don’t try to discourage me.”
William’s wide smile reappeared, undaunted. “Okay… it sounds like your mind is made up. Let me know when you want to get started and I’ll try to clear some time on my calendar. But please keep in mind that we’re getting close to the end of the year and that’s a busy time for me. Perhaps in January…”
Honor interrupted. “I know there are a lot of financial issues that have to be handled at the end of the year, but that’s my point, William. I don’t understand any of them and that needs to change.”
William nodded stiffly, and then checked his watch. He pretended to be amazed at the time. “I’ve got to run. We’ll talk more about this later.” With that, he disappeared from her doorway.
Honor trembled. She didn’t usually stand up to William on non-technical issues. Proud of herself and flush with adrenalin, she decided to check on Debbie, to see if she had given any thought to the detective challenge.
When Honor entered the lobby, Debbie flipped her notebook closed and cried, “No peeking!”
Honor was delighted to find she was taking the challenge seriously. “Okay, I’ll wait. If you’re free tomorrow night, I’ll take you out for dinner and you can show me what you’ve come up with.”
Debbie patted her notebook confidently. “It’s a date. I think you’ll be impressed. In fact, you should probably start checking into police academy classes right now.”
Honor chuckled. “I think I’ll wait till tomorrow.”
Still smiling, Honor turned and walked back to her office, wondering if her attempt to create a circle of allies might actually have an impact on Debbie’s long term career plans. “Wouldn’t that be something?” she mused under her breath.
At the end of the workday, Honor decided to take the freshly highlighted reports home with her and compare them to the reports she gathered from the conference room on her first night back in Chicago.
Julie stepped in as she was packing up. “Wow, I’m impressed… you’re leaving the office on time two nights in a row! You really are turning over a new leaf.” Then she noticed the stack of paperwork in Honor’s arms and chided, “You know, simply changing the location of where you’re working isn’t actually the same thing as leaving work.”
“I know, but with Josh and Cody so far away, there really isn’t much else for me to do.”
Julie nodded. “I can understand that. At least you finally have something more important in your life than work. That’s encouraging.”