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A Woman’s Tale in a Man’s World
© 2012 Shirley Ann Howard
Kristina Lansing, a slender young woman wearing a snappy
silk blouse and shiny black slacks, pushed the button and waited for the elevator
on the twelfth floor of her condo building. She took a step toward a small
marble statuette and gazed out the window at a few boats already docked early
in the season at a private pier on
The elevator door dinged. She turned and greeted a man
she knew.
“Good game last night,” she said as she walked in and
stood next to Bryan Mackey.
At six-four he towered over her. “Thanks.”
He had close-cropped dark hair with a hint of curls, and
blue eyes that mirrored the sea and sky she had just admired.
She tucked a lock of her shoulder-length blond hair
behind her ear. “The umpire squeezed you a few times… glad those bad calls
didn’t rattle you.”
“They were borderline,” he said, “could have gone either
way.”
The bell rang again at the mezzanine. He put his hand
against the door to hold it and said he was going for breakfast in the condo
café. “Care to join me?”
She glanced at him and hesitated for half a second. “I’ll
get a coffee to go. It’s already after eleven, and I have a dozen calls to make
to confirm arrangements for next week’s road trip.”
She stopped at the self-serve coffee bar. “He’d hire
someone else in one day. Anyway those pitches in the seventh looked good to us
and he was impressed you were still throwing 92.”
Kristina raised her cup to the hostess indicating it
could go on her tab. “Enjoy your breakfast,” she said to
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