Calculated Risk

Pelican Ventures, LLC

In search of the yellow sticky with her ideas for today's meeting, Cisney Baldwin sifted through papers on her desk. She had a choice: honor her rash commitment to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with Nick LeCrone and his family, or lie and join her friends on the Colorado ski slopes.

Biting cold air and exhilarating speed might keep her mind off slime-ball Jason. And, she'd need her Richmond friends nearby to nurse her self-esteem after she told Daddy she'd lost his pick for her future.

She planted fists on her hips and stared at the papers sprinkled with yellow stickies that covered her workspace. Minutes before her meetings with Nick, she could never put her fingers on her notes. Why did this always happen?

How was she going to face him today, after he'd stood in her office doorway last week and watched her disintegrate during Jason's dump-Cisney phone call? If only she'd stopped there, but no, she hung up and blubbered about the end of her six-month relationship and having nowhere to go for Thanksgiving.

She splayed her arms over her paper-covered desk and knocked her head on the piles. This was all Jason's fault. Jason needed space? Right. What he needed was freedom to date that woman with a waist the size of his muscular neck.

"Hi."

She shot erect, raking her hair from her face.

Nick stood in her doorway. He didn't have a greasy mop of hair or wear button-down shirts two sizes too small, but he carried a calculator loaded with countless complicated functions. The joke around Marketing was that actuaries were accountants without personalities.

Nick came from a long line of actuaries, several still kicking. And unlike go-getter, snap-decision-maker Jason, built like a football tackle, lean Nick was analytical, reserved, and deliberating.

Daddy would eat him for lunch.

She peeled a yellow sticky from her arm and stuck it back on her desk. "Hi. Come in and have a seat." She moved aside a stack of company summaries. Her new marketing strategy would turn the profiled companies into customers for Virginia National Health Insurance — if Nick approved the financial risks.

As he eased into the chair beside her desk, she fiddled with her pen. She needed to back out of the weekend now, before he had a chance to give her holiday details. Which of her excuses would avoid hurting his feelings?

He hooked his arm over the back of the chair and rested his ankle on his knee, as if he had no upcoming trips on his mind. "Did you come up with an alternative to shortening the pre-existing period?"

Happy day! Could he have forgotten he'd invited her to spend Thanksgiving with his family? Oh, yeah, he never chitchatted before getting down to business. Didn't he want to know how she was holding up the week after her boyfriend had dumped her? He must know her heart still hurt like a triple bypass.

She lifted a legal pad. None of the yellow stickies beneath it had miraculously morphed into the one she needed since the last time she'd checked. "Yes, I do have a couple of new ideas that came out of our focus groups." If she could find them. She picked up an empty foam cup hinting of French vanilla and threw it into the trashcan. Maybe this was a good time to renege on their trip south.

Nick leaned over and removed a yellow sticky adhering to the side of her desk. "Is this what you're looking for?"

She squinted. Yep, that was the sticky. "How'd it get there?"

The knowing smile on the tight-lipped man's face probably meant he thought she'd resorted to using other s