she got there, she turned on the water, and while it was running, she rinsed out Daniel’s cup and pretended to rinse out her own. Meanwhile, she felt around in her pocket for her pills. With her thumb, she flipped open the lid of the container and emptied the remaining pills into the pocket.
She dumped out the last bit of coffee in the pot and rinsed it. Threw away the used coffee filter and replaced it with a new one. In the refrigerator’s freezer compartment she found coffee beans. She ladled ten scoops into the coffee grinder. Her back shielding the grinder from Daniel’s view, she slipped the pills from her pocket. There were five and a half left. She dropped all but one into the grinder.
“You remember the formula?” Daniel asked. He’d crossed the room silently and was standing right behind her.
Diana’s heart stuttered. The little white pills seemed to glow among the nearly black beans.
“Of course I do,” she said, quickly putting on the grinder’s lid and pressing down to turn it on. Daniel put his hand over hers. One, two, three . . . She counted to herself, listening as the pitch of the grinding shifted higher and higher.
Daniel released his hand, but Diana kept hers pressed down and continued counting until she reached twenty. She couldn’t afford any telltale white chunks to still be visible. When she removed the lid, the pills had disappeared into the fine, uniformly dark powder.
Daniel leaned close to the grinder and sniffed. “Ambrosia of the gods,” he said.
He returned to his computer. While the coffee dripped through the filter, Diana stood behind him. He shifted to one side so she could see. It was a memo addressed to Andrew. Andrew Moore was Vault’s head of IT. The subject line was “Recommendations.” Daniel was building a numbered list, and he was up to number seven.
“You’re giving them recommendations at a kickoff meeting?” she asked.
“Why not?”
“Because all we’ve done so far is gather background information, propose an approach, and cash their advance. Coming in day one with answers? Not a good idea.”
“But it’s obvious to anyone what they need to do.”
“Not to anyone. Certainly not to them. They need to feel like you’re listening. Your response has to seem agile, not off the shelf. It should grow out of their ‘unique’ ”—Diana drew quote marks in the air—“‘situation.’ There’s a reason we call what we do solutions. No one wants to pay a lot for the quick fix. Besides, it’s about ownership. Give them a prescription up front? They’ll feel like they could have gone to a wiki and gotten the same answers for free.” She bent down, reaching for his keyboard. “May I?”
Daniel pushed away from the table, his arms folded across his chest.
“And—” At the top of the memo she highlighted TO: ANDREW. “This early in your relationship, don’t assume you can use the COO’s first name.”
“Since when?”
“Since always. But that’s a minor point.” She scrolled through the document, stopped, and highlighted another line. “Never call what they do engineering.” In another she highlighted data storage. “This is even worse. They like to think of themselves as software developers.’ ”
“You’re kidding.”
“Sweat the small stuff. Show that you know their marketing niche, what image they’re trying to project. Believe me, it matters.”
The coffeepot made slurping sounds as the last bit of water dripped through. Diana went over to it and filled Daniel’s cup. She made sure he saw her add some fresh coffee to the top of her own unfinished cup. She turned to face him and took a sip, smiling as she did so.
“The main thing,” she said, walking back to him and handing him his cup, “is this. We shouldn’t be handing them answers at a first meeting. We should be listening.” She bent over and read some more, shaking her head.
He got up, offering her his seat. “Go to it.”
Diana took her time, revising what Daniel had written, watching out of the corner of her eye as he drank some coffee, then drank more.
“There.” Finally, unable to stretch the task out any longer, she pushed away from the table. The page she’d been working on rolled off the printer. She handed it to Daniel.
“Discussion points?” he said, reading the heading. “That’s slick.”
“Short and sweet. Asking, not telling. Now take the main points and make them into a slide presentation and we’re good to go.”
“We need slides?” Daniel groaned.
“You want to control the meeting, don’t you? Besides, that’s what they