Free Serafina and the Virtual Man by Marie Treanor Page A

experience she would be. The youth was too shy to do more than look, although he gazed for too long, allowing Jilly to turn her head and catch his gaze. She nodded in a friendly way, and he gave a hesitant answering smile.
    Allowing a hint of apology into her voice, Jilly said, “Don’t suppose you work at Genesis, do you?”
    The young man’s eyebrows flew up. “Actually, yes. Why?”
    “Trying to pluck up the courage to go in and leave my CV,” Jilly confided. “I thought the personal approach might help.”
    “I’m sure it would,” the youth said a little too fervently, with a quick, admiring glance over her person before his gaze returned a little guiltily to her face.
    “Do you know if they’re taking on new people?” Jilly asked.
    “Probably will be in the spring, if everything goes according to plan.”
    “Yes?” Jilly allowed her expression to perk into hope. “Then I’ll definitely give it a go. Is it a good place to work? Do you enjoy it?”
    “Sure,” Curly said, his shoulders straightening. Clearly he was flattered to be spoken to for so long, not least because his colleagues were now blatantly watching and listening as he got the opportunity to impart his wisdom. “Good money, cutting-edge technology, decent management.”
    “Still?” Jilly said eagerly. “A friend of mine said things had gone downhill since one of the partners died.”
    “No, no,” Curly assured her, although she had the impression his enthusiasm had less to do with truth than his desire to make sure she still applied for a job. “Adam was brilliant, but everything still ticks along pretty well.”
    “He was a genius,” Jilly observed.
    Curly grinned. “Bloody was,” he agreed. “But never so almighty that he couldn’t muck in and get the work done. Pleasure to work for Adam—wasn’t it, boys?”
    Jilly turned on her stool to take in the “boys,” who were all nodding with enthusiasm. The gloomy man even raised his nearly empty pint in a silent toast.
    “Sounds too good to be true,” Jilly observed, with just a hint of scepticism.
    “Oh no,” said the optimistic one. “You didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. Laziness pissed him off. And stupidity.”
    “I expect that happened more toward the end,” Jilly said sympathetically.
    “Why would it?” the gloomy one pounced with a hint of aggression.
    Jilly met his gaze with boldness, wondering how far he’d go in Adam’s defence. “I heard he went downhill. It was in the papers.”
    “The papers talk shite,” Curly said.
    “You mean he still came into the office every day?”
    “Well, no, but then he never did that. Sometimes he worked for days on end at home, especially when he had a new idea.”
    “So he was always fine with you guys, right up until he sold out?”
    “‘Course he was. Didn’t see him much from around May, but he kept in touch by e-mail.”
    Jilly frowned. “So why did he sell out, then? I always thought it was because of the—er—downhill thing.”
    “No,” the gloomy man said. Curly paid the barman and began to ferry the drinks from the bar to the table. And Jilly realised she’d get no more out of them on that score. There was loyalty to the company, but she sensed there was a deeper loyalty to their dead boss that seemed to have more to do with affection. Their very silence said they missed him.
    For some reason, she was glad of that. And yet it didn’t help her.
    She drained her orange juice and slid off the stool. “Well, thanks for that, guys. I’m going to give them my CV and see what happens. See you around, I hope.”
    ****
     
    So how, Jilly wondered as she walked back to Serafina’s, did Genesis Adam degenerate so quickly from the man who owned that flat, the brilliant developer of the wild and wacky imagination who inspired affection and loyalty in his employees, and man of many enthusiastic interests, to the drink-and-drugs soaked wreck who’d sold out to his partner and left the country to