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wait for my phone to buzz.  It wasn't long but always shorter than it seemed.  It was just a text message.  They're here is all it said.  But my heart seemed to slide downward.  It hurt.  I had done a fair share of presentations before.  I was the assistant marketing manager in charge of investor branding.  Malia did retail branding.  But we had investment products, so I had to explain that side of the business:  products; stats; figures. 
                  The meeting was two-fold.  The committee members wanted assurances that our finances were solid, so they felt safe with us reinsuring part of their portfolio.  But Longboard also wanted us, and by us I mean me, to market our investment products to them.  Longboard wanted to cut out the middle man.  Instead of reinsuring an insurance company that the committee was invested in, Longboard wanted the committee to turn over some of that pension fund money directly to us.  Specifically, he wanted the committee to invest in our KW Queen Assets Fund .  It was registered with FINRA and most people in the industry thought it was a good fund.  The only drawback was that it was only invested in Hawaiian companies.  Even the name was a reference to, Queen Lydia, the last Hawaiian monarch.  Pension funds usually liked diversification and the State of Hawaii was small when comparing investment products.  It was going to be an uphill battle to try to get more money into our Queen Assets Fund , especially if we wanted more pension money.  Pension funds were always conservative.  So you had to show them your investment products were more conservative.  And there were rules on how much they could have allocated to any specific company.  I had to convince them our fund was diversified enough to meet their guidelines.   If it wasn't, we could always get the money upfront and add more companies to the fund later, to keep the pension fund in compliance with regulations.  It would be a win-win for them and us.  That's the way Longboard saw it.
                  I stood up and looked for Malia to be coming in the door with the committee members.  There were supposed to be five of them but sometimes there were no-shows.  And sometimes there were add-ons.  So it was always a surprise to see what happened at the eleventh hour.  But as Malia stepped in, I counted five in suits:  three in men's suits; two in ladies' suit skirts.  I could hear Romy greeting them and Malia explaining that we would try to keep everything on schedule, so she escorted them toward the conference room.  Longboard always wanted us to have a team approach, so I shouted hey to Malia first.  She replied.  I stepped forward to meet all the investors shaking hands, making eye contact and memorizing subtle details so I could categorize the name with the detail.  You had to do it that way.  Even with name cards, you couldn't always be searching for a name.  That was one principle to being a marketing manager.  Your clients were your family, so long as they were around.  So I got the names down and did my best to keep them at the forefront of my memory. 
                  I lead the committee members into the conference room and asked them to sit down.  I told them that Longboard would be in soon to greet them.  But it seemed like Longboard was avoiding me, so I didn't know what soon meant.  I let Malia lead them in a round of her usual chit-chat.  She was better at the small talk than me.  But I was better at the long con.  Longboard walked in and shot a look in the opposite direction from Malia and myself.  The one difference with how Longboard walked into the room was that he had an espresso complete with saucer in his hand.  There were five committee members sitting across the table from Malia and I.  Longboard took his place next to Malia.  She was in the middle.  Longboard was nearest the door and I was nearest the window.  I guess I had to give