Disclaimer: The characters of the Stephanie Plum series belong to Janet Evanovich and are used here without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
Pairing: None
Rating: Suitable for all ages
Feedback: Email TT at ttsmiscellany@yahoo.com
Apples To Apples
By TT
13:00 hours (1:00 P. M.)
Stephanie stepped onto the fifth floor and immediately stopped in her tracks. Something was seriously wrong at Rangeman.
When she had left last Thursday, things were normal, well, normal for the company since she started anyway.
It was always quiet with a definite current of intensity running just under the surface, but people would smile, greet each other and smile.
Today, Stephanie felt like she’s stepped into the DMZ – a no man’s land where people were just waiting for the battle to begin. Given her penchant for being around explosions, Stephanie wasn’t sure it was actually safe for her to be here. It was just too bad today was one of the few times she would have this week to work at Rangeman.
The tension on the floor was so intense, as soon as she inhaled, Stephanie felt the tension seep into her body, tensing her muscles throughout her body and twisting her stomach into a knot.
The same instincts that warned her when things were not right were screaming at her to make herself as small and unnoticed as possible.
Moving past the monitors, she offered a brief smile to each of the guys. They didn’t even look away from the monitors long enough to return it.
Normally, she would take the time to greet everyone on her way to her cubicle. Today, she took note that each man was sitting in his office chair with his back perfectly straight and his eyes glued on his computer.
Slipping into her cubicle, Stephanie quickly and quietly stored her purse, turned on her computer and started in on her searches, hoping someone would eventually clue her in as to what was causing this unusual tension.
After a few hours of working on the files, Stephanie couldn’t stand it any more. The tension in the office was really getting to her. There had to be a reason for it.
Rising from her seat, she headed toward the break room for coffee and a snack.
Once her coffee was prepared to her liking, she began looking for a snack. Normally, Ella kept a good supply of healthy snacks on hand for people to eat between meals. Today, there was a bowl of apples and that was it.
A confused frown flitted across Stephanie’s face. Normally there was a lot more to choose from than just apples. Still, apple season had just begun and she knew that for the next few weeks the apples would be especially sweet and tasty.
Grabbing one of the larger pieces of fruit, Stephanie headed back toward her desk, making a mental note to take her nieces apple picking this weekend. Bringing home fresh apples was a sure fire way to ensure apple pie, apple cobbler, apple crisp, apple turnovers, apple muffins and other little apple-type treats that were only made once a year.
Her mind filled with thoughts of apple-oriented desserts, Stephanie wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing and accidentally bumped into someone, spilling coffee down the front of her shirt.
She let out a yelp of startled pain as the hot liquid soaked through her clothes to her skin. Fortunately, the coffee missed her gun and cell phone.
“Plum!” a deep voice barked at her.
Looking up, she found herself looking at a very irate Tank.
“You need to be aware of your surroundings,” he growled. “Report to the gym for training at 14:00 tomorrow,” he snapped before heading off to his office, entering in and slamming the door.
Stephanie stood in the middle of the hall blinking at the closed door, confused. She had just turned and taken a few more steps toward her desk when she found herself quickly moving to the side of the hallway, stepping out of Ranger’s way.
His eyes just barely glanced at her before he stopped in front of her, his face blank, his eyes burning with fury, his jaw tense. “Plum,” he snapped. “You’re out of uniform. You have five minutes to change and report back to your station.” That said, he stalked to Tank’s office, opened the door and slammed it behind him.
Less than ten seconds later the sound of a loud argument floated out of the office.
“Best get going, Steph,” Junior advised. “Now’s not the time to challenge them.”
Stephanie turned to look at her friend who was standing nearby taking the coffee out of her hand. “What’s going on, Junior?”
Junior just shook his head and took held out a hand for the apple. “Don’t know,” he whispered as they headed back toward her cubicle. “No one does. But when those two go at it, the only thing you can do is keep your head down,” he advised, setting the coffee and apple on her desk before disappearing toward his own.
Glancing at her watch, Stephanie realized that she only had four minutes to comply with Ranger’s order. As quickly as possible, she retrieved her key fob and, as she headed up toward seven, hoped Ella had washed her spare uniforms.
17:23 hours (5:23 P. M.)
Stephanie put her final notes in the last file and set it aside. She stared at her computer and debated the wisdom of what she was about to do.
After the shouting match in Tank’s office, Ranger had left the building. Tank had left ten minutes later and the tension in the building had immediately relaxed.
The reprieve didn’t last long, though. Tank was back less than twenty minutes after he left. Ranger had returned to his office shortly after three, slammed the door and stayed in there. The tension on the floor was once more so thick it could only be cut by an industrial-strength, diamond-tipped chain saw.
Stephanie had had enough. For the past hour she had been sitting at her desk nearly vibrating with impatience and anger. She determined that this would end now.
“Of course it might end with my death,” she muttered grimly to herself.
Most of the men had gone off-shift by this point and the only people on the floor other than her, Tank and Ranger were the two at the monitors.
Sending out the email she had written and re-written, she grabbed a pen and pad of paper and headed off toward the conference room. A glance at the clock told her that she would get to the room only about a minute or two before Tank and Ranger did, if they both arrived.
17:30 hours (5:30 P. M)
As the second hand swept to the 12 at the top of the clock, the doorway to the conference room was suddenly blocked by two large bodies trying to enter at the same time.
Stephanie watched the silent posturing for a few second before letting out a sound of disgust, throwing down her pen and commanding, “Enter alphabetically by street name.”
Ranger, despite the fact his blank face never changed, seemed to send a smug look at Tank, who sent back a death glare.
The two men entered. Tank closed the door behind him and then they took seats on opposite ends of the table.
That suited Stephanie just fine. She didn’t want to be too close to either of them at the moment.
Standing, up. Stephanie looked from one man to another. “I don’t know what is going on, what set the two of you off, but, it is the right of every employee to work in a non-hostile environment. WWhatever is going on between you two created enough tension to cause health problems in your employees. It’s so bad that when I first stepped on the floor today, I thought I needed to find someplace to hunker down in case of attack. That is unacceptable, gentlemen.”
Tank and Ranger continued to stare at her with blank faces.
Taking a deep breath, Stephanie pushed on. “We are going to resolve this conflict and resolve it now. I have a number between one and ten written on my pad of paper. On the count of three, both of you will use your fingers to indicate which number you think I have written down. Whoever is closest will get first shot at telling me what this argument is all about.” Neither man nodded, but she assumed they would play along. “One. Two. Three.”
Four hands appeared above the table. Ranger was holding up six fingers, Tank was holding up five.
Stephanie flipped the pad of paper around so they could both see the number she had written – three.
Taking her seat, she looked down the table. “Tank, you have the floor.”
Tank cleared his throat and glared at Ranger.
“Look at me when you speak,” Stephanie commanded. She was not about to let them continue their fight.
Tank’s attention snapped to Stephanie. “It’s apple season,” he declared.
Stephanie sat and looked at him. When it became apparent he wasn’t going to continue, she prodded, “And?”
“Ella always makes special apple treats,” Tank added.
“That’s nice,” Stephanie said, not seeing what the problem was. “I don’t see why that’s a problem.”
Tank took a deep breath and continued the tale. “Ranger and I decide each year what the apple treat will be. We discuss it and agree on the schedule of offerings, give it to Ella and let her handle it.”
Stephanie’s mouth was watering at the thought of Ella treats. “So, what’s the problem this year?”
Tank shot a glare at Ranger. “He won’t let us have anything he deems unhealthy, which includes all desserts with sugar and crusts.”
A shiver of horror swept over Stephanie at the thought of no sugary treats, but, since she was being the negotiator in this instance – or the mother, she thought darkly – she needed to give Ranger his say as well. “Thank you, Tank. I now know your position.” Turning, she looked at Ranger, “Ranger, why don’t you tell us your position on this?”
“Babe,” he said, smiling.
Stephanie felt her face and a few other areas heat but cleared her throat. Oh the effect that man had on her. “Ranger,” she tried again. “Would you tell us why the treats should not have crust or sugar?”
Ranger leaned back in his chair. “Despite using healthy recipes, the pastry and the sugar she uses in those dishes are unnecessary carbohydrates.”
Stephanie zoned out a little while Ranger continued to expound the evils of carbohydrates and why they would cause problems with the guys on shift. Eventually, she tuned back into the conversation as he wrapped it up.
“That’s why I suggested baked apples, apple chips and whole apples,” Ranger concluded.
Stephanie sat back and thought for a few minutes, trying to clear the image of tasty baked apples and apple chips from her head. In truth, all the desserts mentioned sounded too good to be true, especially since Ella was baking them.
As for making a decision… it wasn’t so much that she needed the Wisdom of Solomon on this one, but trying to decide the best compromise to use while sitting between two men who could break her in half with barely a second thought was a little intimidating.
Instead of coming up with a plan, her mind drifted to the various desserts that had been mentioned and images of them laid out on the counter of the break room thoroughly distracted her.
“Babe,” Ranger called, his voice a little louder than normal.
“Huh?” Stephanie asked, blinking and shaking her head. Looking from one amused face to the other, she cleared her throat. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she announced. “Each day, Ella will make two treats. One Tank-approved snack that will be served with lunch and one Ranger-approved snack that will be made available the rest of the day.”
Looking back and forth between the two men, she could see they were communicating silently.
“Agreed,” Ranger finally said.
Tank nodded.
“Great!” Stephanie announced. “Now, you guys can take me out to dinner as a thank you for resolving this particularly delicious issue.”
“Delicious issue?” Tank asked aloud, a wide smile on his face.
“Babe,” Ranger said, chuckling softly.
“Delicate!” Stephanie corrected, her face turning red. “It was a delicate issue.”
The two men rose from the table. “We can have dinner up on seven,” Ranger informed, moving toward the door. “Anything in particular you want for dinner?”
“No,” Stephanie replied. “Whatever Ella makes will be good. Oh, but can we have baked apples for dessert?”
“I thought you’d like an apple tart, Bomber,” Tank said in surprise.
“Or at least an apple turnover,” Ranger added.
Stephanie shrugged. “What can I say? Sometimes I feel like some crust. Sometimes I don’t.”
Both men sighed and shook their heads at that statement before the three of them climbed into the elevator.
“Oh, Tank,” Stephanie added. “About meeting you in the gym tomorrow at two? Well, that’s not really going to work too well. See, I have to spend the afternoon tomorrow with Grandma Mazur and baby Lisa.”
Tank paled at that information. “Uh,” Tank began. “We’ll reschedule.”
Stephanie caught the glare that Ranger was sending Tank’s way.
“Or, we could just forget it,” Tank demurred.
“Whatever you say,” Stephanie agreed, her mind already drifting to Ella’s wonderful culinary creations.
End.