17.
Morning eventually arrived, letting Angel breathe a welcome sigh of relief. With another full work day ahead he’d at least be assured of maintaining some reasonable distance from Buffy. Her Spike flavored conversation was honestly starting to chafe.
Angel hurried into Harmony’s office as soon as he arrived at work and immediately froze in place. Charles Gunn sat on the fuzzy day bed with his open briefcase beside him. An early meeting? Had Angel forgotten an early meeting? The day wasn’t starting out well at all. Breakfast had been another excruciating round of Spike focused anecdotes, awkward silences and pained smiles. And Angel thought vampires had cornered the market on torture.
He slipped into the closest chair and flipped open his steno pad. Harmony had dictation face on and Angel knew his duties well. Here was the one woman on the face of the earth that Angel had no problems understanding. Harmony Kendall did not over think things. She administered with an uncanny instinct utterly devoid of shades of gray. She said what she meant and meant what she said and Angel sorely needed that.
“Angel?”
“Ready, boss.”
“It appears that my embrace of a new perspective has been totally ignored by certain employees.” She waved a few papers in her hand before tossing them on her desk top. “Ritual evisceration of vestal virgins is, like, so cliché! Accounts receivable isn’t beyond my reach. Those weasels must think they’re on the varsity squad or something because I’ve practically memoed myself to exhaustion–“
“Ahem,” Gunn cleared his throat softly. “Kinder, gentler?”
His words put Harmony back on a positive train of thought. “What? Oh, right. This annoying crap is aggressively counter to my awesome plans for a kinder, gentler Wolfram and Hart.” Harmony tossed her hair back and settled her hands on her hips. “So, to that end, I am amending the execution and dismemberment clauses in the employee handbook.” She looked over to Gunn who nodded his agreement.
“Amendments…” Angel whispered and jotted down the title in his spiral pad.
“Non sanctioned killings of any kind by an employee of Wolfram and Hart will absolutely not be tolerated by the executive branch.” Harmony stepped to Angel’s side and looked over his shoulder. “That will need to be in bold type, Angel, and maybe underlined as well. We embrace professional standards of conduct here at Wolfram and Hart, damn it!”
Angel’s pen scooted across his note pad, accentuating Harmony’s wishes with several exclamation marks. After the last demonstrative stroke he looked up, poised for more words of wisdom. Harmony was on a roll.
“Also, from now on no employee of Wolfram and Hart can reclassify him or herself as a deity in order to change assigned spaces in the employee parking garage.” Harmony smiled sweetly at Gunn, thankful that he’d brought the situation to her attention. “That kind of stunt is so junior high.”
“Good call, boss,” Angel scribbled down the edict. “That loophole really needed to be sewn up.”
Gunn looked at his watch and quickly gathered his papers together. “You’ll have to excuse me Harmony, but judges are sticklers for punctuality and I’m due in court in twenty minutes.”
“I have every confidence in you Charles.”
“Thanks, Harmony. That means a lot.” Gunn left the office with a smile on his face.
“Anything else, boss?” Angel looked up from his pad.
“I’ve got a message for the entire accounting department, Angel.” Harmony gazed at her collection of limited edition faux Faberge unicorns.
“Ready, Harmony.” Angel sat poised for her pronouncement.
“Casual Fridays are a privilege and not a right,” Harmony declared in measured tones. “They should think Tommy Hilfiger casual and not surfer dude, beach skank casual. Would you scan a few pictures and include them in the memo? Those guys and gals need a few reference points.”
“Got it, boss.”
“Maybe you could put something in there about plastic flip-flops too,” Harmony added. “You can get all sorts of diseases from poor quality footwear, you know, and if I’ve learned anything about warm blooded employees it’s that they are disease magnets.” Harmony paused at the odd look Angel gave her. “Don’t be so naïve, Angel. Foot fungus effects the bottom line.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Would you want to add stuff up if you had itchy feet?” Harmony adeptly wrestled logic to its knees.
Angel couldn’t argue that point. “Probably not,” he admitted.
“Precisely! Productivity will plummet! Ipso-fatso, the bottom line.”
“Wow, Harmony. I never thought about it like that.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” she spoke with an air of detached corporate superiority. “That’s CEO thinking, Angel. I won’t bore you with the details. It’s very complicated.”
Angel stared in awe for a few seconds and then wrote down “no plastic flip-flops” before underlining it several times.
Harmony smiled from over his shoulder and continued. “I swear, Angel, those numbers guys need a short leash. This is a place of fashionable business, not all you can spew tequila shooters night at the frat house.” She snorted with incredulity. “If they don’t get it together, I may have no other choice than to clean house.”
Angel nodded in agreement. He’d seen some frightening fashion crimes while trolling the corridors of Wolfram and Hart. This was a chance to encourage the extended corporate team to embrace clean lines, user friendly fabrics and up to date color palettes. It was exciting to be privy to the lightning flashes of brilliance that frequently erupted from Harmony’s crack business mind.
“Anything else, boss?”
“It’s time for the Y and R. Don’t interrupt me for an hour, Angel.”
“Right, you’ll be incommunicado for the time being.”
“No, Angel. I’ll be right here in my office, just no calls, you know the drill.” Harmony wiggled her fingers, urging him to leave. She needed a little mindless down time with her fictional community.
“Of course.” As Angel left the office, the sweaty, hairless torso of a pouting actor appeared on the plasma screen. The emoting was about to begin.
“Bonus!” Harmony reached into her mini fridge for a creamy bloodsicle. “The pool party isn’t over.”
*
Later that day the familiar buzz of the intercom met with a swift reply.
“Yes, Harmony?”
“I’ve set up the easel, Angel.”
“But you have a meeting scheduled in ten minutes.”
“I can do both. The muse has returned and I can’t ignore it.”
“Of course not.”
“I’ve got your costume ready.”
“Um, haven’t you already finished that part?”
“One does not argue with the muse, Angel. One obeys.”
“Of course, Harmony. I’ll be right in.”
The ever present strain of leadership pushed Harmony into pursuing her innate artistic abilities. Fred assured her that a little left brain-right brain cha-cha was just the thing to strengthen her impeccable managerial skills. Artistic endeavors activated the best of both hemispheres. Business issues were handled with creative zest and Harmony got something sparkly to look at in the bargain.
When the team arrived for their meeting they found Angel posed on a faux granite pedestal squeezed into a pair of teeny white leather shorts. His pale, hairless epidermis shone with the luxuriant texture of ultra suede. In his palm balanced one of Harmony’s delicate crystal unicorns.
“Okay, I think everyone’s arrived. Should I get my note pad, Harmony?” Angel shifted on his pedestal.
“Agh! Don’t move Angel! Look at the unicorn and think happy thoughts. I’m painting your forehead right now!” Angel froze in his original position and stared at the fragile prop.
“Um, should we come back later?” Wesley tried to catch Harmony’s eye. She spoke without acknowledging the interruption.
“I’m in the zone, Wesley, therefore I can create beautiful art work and carry out an efficient business meeting at the same time.” Another studied stroke of the paintbrush ensued. “I’m not letting the clay sculpture incident alter my artistic journey.”
“When did she do sculpture?” Fred whispered. This was news to her.
Lorne angled his whispered reply directly into Fred’s ear. “You remember…the lump the Paragon of the Order of the Trembling Whatsits stubbed its big toes on?”
“Oh. That didn’t look anything like Angel.”
“There were some clay consistency issues,” Lorne acknowledged delicately.
“Do you think I made his eyebrows look too much like a caterpillar?” Harmony looked at her team, anxious for some feedback.
Wesley stepped closer and took at critical look at the painting. It was a reasonable likeness of the barely clad and clearly uncomfortable vampire. “That looks exactly like an eyebrow to me. Your technique is certainly impressive, Harmony.”
“You really think so?” Harmony gushed a smile. Gunn, Lorne and Fred moved closer to take a peek.
“She’s got the hair exactly right.” Gunn admitted.
“It’s uncanny.” Lorne nodded his admiration.
“Angel!” Harmony turned a stern face to her model. “I said DON’T move your forehead. Put it back like it was. What is with you today? Concentrate!”
“Sorry Harmony.”
“Okay people, let’s begin.” Harmony nodded at Wesley. He immediately dove into the latest crisis.
“I’ve received reports of an alarming nature. Something large is targeting recreational baseball diamonds in the valley and dragging off unsuspecting little leaguers.”
“Yeah, I heard that on the news,” Gunn nodded. “They think it’s a cougar.”
“Wild animals in the suburbs? Don’t they have cougar, um, guys for that in the police department?” Harmony knew that containing the local wildlife population was a little beyond her purview at Wolfram and Hart.
“It is not a cougar, Harmony.” Wesley’s voice slowed with the gravity of the situation. “I’ve examined photos of suspicious scat left behind.”
“Pouring over snap shots of unknown demon poo?” Lorne interjected with an wandering twitter. “Wesley, you’ve got to get out of the office more often.”
All eyes turned to Harmony. As leader of this band of heroes, she set the tone. “Demon? Oh, that’s bad.” Harmony wrinkled her forehead dramatically and hoped that the child eater involved wasn’t a valued client of Wolfram and Hart because Wesley definitely had his sexy I-want-to-kill-it-face on and there could be some potentially sticky conflict of interest repercussions.
She squeezed out a large dollop of titanium white onto her artist’s palette and began mixing it vigorously with the medium umber. Angel had a tricky skin tone that Harmony was determined to get right this time, demon crisis be damned.
When she realized that the assembled team was waiting for her to continue, Harmony thought of a useful question. “Um, what is it again?”
Wesley began to detail what they knew so far. “A large loping quadruped with long greenish fur or scales. There are conflicting eye witness reports. The excrement evidence leans towards fur.”
It didn’t sound like any client Harmony was familiar with. “Munching on kids is so not cool,” she pronounced to her like minded colleagues.
“Indeed. I believe there was a snippet of amateur video making the rounds as well.”
“I saw that on the news, too,” Gunn added. “It’s shaky and out of focus. Totally containable.”
“What’s the plan?” Harmony bit the end of her tongue and tackled the expanse of Angel’s forehead with easy flowing strokes.
Wesley did indeed have a plan ready for implementation. “Nothing less than prompt removal with extreme prejudice.”
“Sounds reasonable. You’ve got the go ahead.” Harmony knew the strengths of her team members.
“Discretion and surgical accuracy will be required.”
“Yah-huh,” Harmony nodded her approval. “It’s your project, Wesley. I have full confidence in you and your team.” Harmony sparkled a smile toward Wesley. She saw his shoulders straighten in response to her praise.
“What about your thingies, G-Dawg?” Harmony continued down the curve of Angel’s jaw. “How goes it in the courts?”
“Oh! That’s me,” Gunn responded a few beats too late. “Corporate-wise, no problems. Nothing that a couple rounds of cricket won’t iron out.”
“Cyuh Aaal,” Angel groaned, trying to speak without moving a muscle.
“What’s that, Angel?” Harmony asked.
Angel took that as permission to move his face for communicative purposes. “Cyvus Vail?”
“Oh, yeah! What about the Cyvus Vail issue? Angel tells me his people have been leaving all kinds of messages.”
Gunn nodded in response. “That paternity suit is dead in the water. Cyvus is a sweet talker for sure, but I’d wager it’s been a few centuries since his little swimmers have even attempted the dog paddle.”
“Excellent. And science…Fred. What’s up, girlfriend?”
“Well, as you know, I’ve been working on sustaining a stable threshold between dimensional planes using Heisenberg’s model of molecular elasticity.” Fred’s unbridled enthusiasm bounced off Harmony’s dazed expression.
“Ooo-kay.” Harmony didn’t sound like she knew too much about that particular project. “And where are we with that elastic thing?” Instead of paying attention to the answer, Harmony shuffled through some papers until she came to the one she wanted.
“It’s coming along quite well actually. The experimental phase has exceeded all expectations.”
Harmony held up the piece of paper. It had a couple of lines highlighted in neon chartreuse. “The numbers don’t lie, Fred. It’s an expensive little vanity project and frankly, I don’t see a wider profitable application. Every department has their budgetary restrictions.” Harmony set down the paper. Her sunny expression darkened for a moment. “Just ’cause we took that pole dancing class together doesn’t mean that I’ll overlook you monopolizing our financial resources. Get it under control, or I’ll find someone else who can.”
The pole dancing reference caught Wesley’s attention. His curious look fueled a furious blush on Fred’s cheeks. She did her best to maintain her composure.
“Yes, Harmony,” Fred responded with scientific precision and a nervous tug on her suddenly too short skirt.
Harmony resumed her cheery vocal tones. “Awesome! Go team! Now that wasn’t awkward at all. Lorne?”
“Yes, mon capitain…”