“So there are models. More than one?” he asked.
“Yeah. We’ve got three in early dev and one more in the middle stages. The problem is that if the club’s engineering fails, it won’t matter. We don’t want to produce a club head that shatters after a month of playing. It would ruin Sidewinder’s reputation.”
Kingston stood and picked up the handouts. “Let’s go look at them.”
“There is zero percent chance that any of them will be available for sale this summer,” she told him. “That’s your job,sales,right?”
“Oh yes, but I’m interested in understanding where new golf clubs come from.”
The sarcasm rose strong. “Well, when a mommy golf club and a daddy golf club love each other very much?—”
He rolled his eyes, his really blue eyes that seemed to draw her attention even in the dim room. “Oh no, you aren’t going to send me pictures of your knobby-headed drivers, are you?”
Nicole clutched her chest as if he’d stabbed her in the heart. “My designs are neverknobby.Sidewinder clubs are sleek and aerodynamic.Never knobby.”
He laughed out loud at her faux outrage, and the superiority of being the funny one stirred in her. Nicole wasn’t usually the funny one, as her jokes ran toward golf puns.
“Right, and just for fun, let me see these future designs. Even though I understand that they will not be ready for commercialization by summer, the Vegas PGA Show isn’t until early December.” He inclined toward where she stood. “Whatcouldbe ready for Vegas?”
“Again,I don’t knowthat becauseI don’t knowhow the design and metals are going to work together until wedo it,”she said slowly.
Kingston prowled toward her, a looming silhouette in the still-darkened conference room. “Show me what you’ve got.”
This conversation was getting weirdly double-entendre-y. “Dude, I don’t know what you want to see.”
“I know what I can sell, but I want to see what’s coming,” he said. “It’s imperative to sales morale to know that innovation is always coming down the pipeline.”
Okay, that wasn’t a double entendre. That sounded like a sales dude trying to sell a golf club. “None of the other sales staff care about what’s in design until we have a release date.”
He was standing near her, looming over her, menacing in the darkened room. “I’m not your average salesperson.”
“Right,I got that,” she grumbled and shuffled backward. “This is soirregular.”
Kingston leaned back and blinked, then spun out a chair and sat. “How about you give me an in-depth tour of yourpossiblefuture directions? I promise to keep in mind that these are early concepts in the developmental process. In return, I will take you out to dinner to discuss anything other than golf clubs or sponsor lunch for your lab. Pizza. Subs. Whatever you want.”
Nicole had been in college recently enough that turning down free food for her lab felt like a betrayal. “Okay, but you must understand thatnoneof these concept clubs might make it to production. Or maybe some kludged-together Franken-club version of several of them might be produced. We came up with probably two hundred concepts last year, andonewent to commercialization.Capisce?”
“I understand,” he said, smiling. “Lead the way.”
“What, like right now?”
“No time like the present.”
“It’s already past three o’clock.”
“Come on. I’ll buy you supperanddo a lab lunch.”
Twomeals? With her student loans sucking her finances away every day, Nicole couldn’t pass that up. “Okay, but we have less than three hours, and there are a lot of concept clubs.”
“Let’s go.”
9
6:01pm
KINGSTON MOORE
Nicole Lamb’s lush form swayed in front of him as she walked, leading the way to her lab.
