Page 6

Rebel

I made short work of setting up Katy’s litter box in the private restroom attached to Lacey’s office. I did feel a twinge of guilt about dropping the whole cat situation on her, but she was a good sport about it. Hopefully, Dusty’s friend would turn up soon and it would only be a temporary arrangement. I gave her head a scratch, after only three days I was getting quite used to my redheaded feline companion. I never admitted to my club brothers that I still got anxiety sometimes when I heard loud noises, but I’d found that when Katy was sitting on my lap things didn’t seem to bother me half as much. I put her food and water bowls on the tile near the back exit because I was told that door was never in use. After dumping a small basket of cat toys near her desk, I sat down just in time for Lacey to pull our paperwork off the printer.

Since I’m not stupid, I carefully read every single word. To her credit, Lacey had added the parts I requested and what she wrote was a fair and accurate representation of our conversation. The doorbell chimed and after checking the front door security camera on her desktop computer, Lacey buzzed her employees in. A quick glance at my watch told me it was nearing ten o’clock.

All three of them barged into her office without knocking. The first one stopped dead in his tracks and demanded, “What the hell is going on here?”

“Mark, could I get you and Sherman to take a seat in the lobby for ten minutes, I’d appreciate it.”

“Look here, missy. You’re in my seat and I need you to move your pretty ass.”

“I’ll talk to you shortly, Mark. Go out and wait for me in the lobby.”

Instead of following directions, he took two steps closer to her. I growled in my not fucking around voice. “Mister, you can either go out to the lobby like Miss Livingstone asked or I can carry your ass out and sit down in a chair myself.”

“Who the hell are you?”

Lacey didn’t give me time to answer and said, “I know this is a confusing situation, Mark. But I need to talk to Harvey privately first. After that, you’ll be the first person I talk to.”

“I don’t know who you think you are, but while I’m out in the lobby, I’ll be calling your dad. He’ll be real interested to know you’re strutting around here like you own the place.”

“Hold off on calling him until after we talk. He’s not having a good day.”

Mark snorted a laugh and was already pulling out his cell phone as he walked back out the door. Sherman scurried out behind him.

Harvey shut the door and turned back to Lacey. “Is this what I think it is?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m taking over the business both legally and hands on moving forward. After having a look at the condition of the business it’s clear that some changes need to be made. I’d like for you to notarize a partnership agreement between Livingstone Electrical and Mr. Benjamin Ross. He’ll be working jobs right alongside you moving forward.”

“Your old man kept my notary seal in the bottom right desk drawer. He paid for me to become a notary and most all my notary work was for Livingstone Electrical.”

Lacey ratted around the drawer and found it. It didn’t take long for us to show ID, sign off on the agreement and for him to affix his seal and signature. Lacey made a copy for me and handed Harvey his assignments for the day.

Harvey’s eyes lit up. “Wow, we’re back to business as usual. Mark hasn’t given us a written work order in months.”

She told him proudly, “I plan to run this office just like my mom did. If it was good enough for her, it’s good enough for me.”

Harvey’s grin was genuine and filled with relief. “Glad to have you have back, ladybug.”

I cranked my head around to see her blushing. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Harvey.”

“Yeah, I know. But you’ll always be our ladybug. Who do you want me to send in on my way out?”

She took a deep breath before responding, “Best send in Mark. I’m sure he’s harassing the hell out of my parents.”

“Your old man ain’t in any condition to deal with his dumbass right now, ladybug.”

“I know. Thanks for letting us know things were going sideways here, Harvey. We really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome. I look forward to things getting back to normal.”

With that he walked out and the next thing I knew, Mark was stalking in. “Did something happen to your parents? I can’t get either of them on the phone.”

Suddenly, Lacey was all business. “Have a seat Mark and I’ll tell you everything.”

He looked like he wasn’t going to comply and then thought better of it. Once he was seated, Lacey let him have it.

“My parents rely upon the revenue from their business to pay their living expenses and for my dad’s medical treatment.”

“I know business has been bad lately, but things will pick up,” Mark interjected in a confident tone. “They always do.”

Lacey shot back, “I don’t see how that would be possible with the amount of money you’ve been skimming from the business the last several months.”

Mark opened his mouth to deny it, but Lacey held up her hand. “Let me finish. I came back to Griffinsford on Friday evening and spent the better part of the weekend in the office. Livingstone Electrical, the business my father spent his entire life building up from nothing, is a few days away from having the power turned off and we owe both of the local building supply stores more than fifty thousand dollars each.”

“Like I said, times have been tough.”

“I want you to know that my parents have given me legal power of attorney over the business. I’m taking over the office and terminating your employment as of now.”

“You can’t do that, Lacey. Your father gave this business to me.”

“Do you have paperwork to back up that claim because I can’t see my dad giving away his business to a non-family member. That was never the plan.”

“You know your father didn’t put shit like that in writing. He conducted business his whole life with gentlemen’s agreements and handshakes.”

“And look where that got him, Mark. He trusted you and you stole from the business and ran it into the ground. It only took you a matter of months to tear down everything he worked his whole life to build.”

“Look, this is ridiculous. I’m gonna talk to your old man.”

“No. You’re not. My father is very ill. He’s not competent to give you permission to remain in your position. If you start harassing him, so help me God, I’ll hit you with a cease and desist so fast it will make your head spin. Stress makes him sicker and neither my mother nor I will tolerate you trying to manipulate him when he’s doing good to remember his own family’s faces.”

“Lacey, you’ve got this situation all wrong. I’m sure he didn’t agree to put you in charge of his whole business. I mean, sure he could have made you the office manager, but he didn’t mean for you to replace me as the general manager of the actual business.”

“What part of ‘I caught you stealing from the business’ don’t you understand?”

His expression turned stubborn. “I don’t know what you think you found, missy but it sure as hell wasn’t me stealing and I won’t have you smearing my good name by saying shit like that about me.”

“I won’t have to. I’m hiring an independent auditor to come and review our books. If they find evidence that you were cooking the books the way I think you were, I’m going to the police, and I’ll also initiate a civil suit to force you to pay restitution. That money you stole is needed for my father’s care.”

Mark frowned. “Your old man owned a virtual gold mine for thirty years. Regardless of what hard-luck story they’re telling you, your parents are loaded. If a few bucks got misappropriated on my watch—and I’m not saying it did—it’s nothing compared to the money they’ve got in different banks.”

Lacey slid a piece of paper across the desk. “I’ve written you a letter of termination. You don’t have to sign it if you don’t want to. I have an eyewitness who can prove that I gave it to you.”

“You can’t do this, Lacey. You’re just a kid. I’ve been working at this company for over a decade, waiting for my chance to be in charge.”

“I can and I am. You’ve left me no choice, Mark. If it weren’t for your gross mismanagement, I wouldn’t have become involved at all. All you had to do was run the business like my father trusted you to do and everything would have been golden. My mother and I aren’t going to let you destroy our family business.”

“So what am I supposed to do now? Go home and sit around waiting for the police to come knocking at my door?”

“I don’t know, Mark. And I don’t have time to worry about the man who was stealing from my family hand over fist while my father was struggling to hang onto his sanity.”

“Who in the hell do I appeal this decision to?” he said angrily, as he snatched the letter off the table.

“No one. California is an at-will state. I’m legally in charge of the business so I’m well within my rights to terminate whoever I want for whatever reason I want.”

“Fuck you, Lacey. You’re nothing but an overprivileged kid who thinks she can work miracles with this old company.”

I spoke up. “Time to move along, Mr. Shepard.”

“Again,” he spat out. “Who the hell are you?”

Lacey answered, “This is Mr. Benjamin Ross, my new business partner.”

Mark chuckled. “So you can’t run the business by yourself after all. You had to hire a man who actually knows how to manage an electrical company.”

I took a step closer to him and lowered my voice. “I’m a master electrician and was hired to be electrical technician. I know fuck all about running a business. In fact I’m here to learn what I can on that front. That’s what I’m getting out of the partnership.”

“Lacey hired a master electrician? That’s a bit of an overkill for a backwoods town like Griffinsford, don’t ya think?”

I told him in no uncertain terms, “I think it’s about time you hit the road. Lacey has one more employee to talk to and then a full day of work ahead of her, unfucking all the shit you fucked up around here.”

“Fucking fine. I’m done talking to the two of you. From now on, I’ll do my talking through an attorney.”

He walked out the door and slammed it behind him. Lacey shot me a relieved look. “Well, that went better than I thought it would.”

Sympathy welled up in my chest for this young woman. Regardless of whatever axe I had to grind with her, she was holding up like a champ. “Talking to Mr. Shepard was always going to go off the rails. It’s just the kind of asshole he is. You did real good, ladybug. Trust me on that.

“Don’t you start with calling me ladybug too,” she said it with a hint of a smile, so I didn’t think she disliked it as much as she claimed.

The door cracked open, and Sherman stuck his head in the office. “Mark said you’re ready to talk to me now.”

Lacey motioned him in, “Come on in and have a seat, Sherman.”

When he was seated, she launched into his firing speech. “I’m sorry to say that we can’t keep you on any longer, Sherman. I had a look at our records over the weekend and it looks like your complaints tripled over the last twelve-month period, we’ve spent more time fixing your bad wiring than we made from the jobs, and we even lost customers because of quality control issues on the work you did for our company.”

Unlike Mark, Sherman looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “Isn’t there some way I could get retraining and keep my job?”

“I’m not sure this is a training issue,” Lacey told him flatly. “You were doing good quality work when my parents ran the business. The shoddy workmanship only started under Mark’s watch.”

“He kept pressuring us to get the jobs done quick. When you’re rushing, details get missed.”

Lacey sighed. “Yeah, I know that. The thing is, we’re not selling non-dairy creamers here. We’re responsible for wiring businesses and homes. Bad wiring can lead to electrocution and house fires. I can’t take a chance that you’re not going to cut corners when you think you have good reason.”

“Do I get severance pay our anything like that?” he asked hopefully.

“I’m afraid not. Right now the business is operating in the red. Until we fix all the jobs you messed up and somehow get back in the black, there isn’t going to be any money left over. The math doesn’t add up for severance pay.”

“Losing my job out of the clear blue sky is gonna make it hard to pay my bills, ya know?”

“I’m sorry, Sherman,” she said as she slid his termination letter across the desk to him. “I truly am.”

He took his letter and left with what I thought was quiet dignity. Then he slammed the office door behind him.

“That little pipsqueak didn’t have the guts to tell you off, so he stomps around like a toddler.”

Lacey dropped down into her seat. “That was way more difficult than I thought it was going to be.”

“You could have just sent them a registered letter,” I pointed out.

“No. Mark and Sherman have been with us for a long time. They deserved a face-to-face conversation and honesty about why we were letting them go. It’s just really hard to fire someone because it messes with their ability to support their families. I feel like I’m taking food off their table and punishing their innocent families for their wrongdoing.”

“Yeah, I can see how it might seem that way. But both of them got themselves in a situation where keeping them on would just be a cancer to your business.”

“I know what you’re saying is true. I just need to keep reminding myself that they did this to themselves.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened in this case. Look, it’s just gone eleven thirty. You ready for an early lunch?”

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat but I’d be happy to go with you and get some coffee while you eat. Where were you thinking of going?”

“Bennigan’s. Once you start smelling good food that might trigger your hunger.”

***

It only took us about fifteen minutes to drive to Bennigan’s and be shown to our seats. Once we were face-to-face, Lacey seemed to be putting the unpleasantness of the morning behind her. If nothing else, she was resilient. I’d give her that. Seeing her operate in her own environment made her seem a lot less awkward. All that newfound confidence looked good on her.

Once we had given our orders and had our drinks, I asked, “Why is it that Harvey gets printed work orders, and I get electronic ones?”

She started to relax a little. “It’s because Harvey can’t even operate his cell phone half the time. He never quite entered the tech world. My mom found out long ago that printing out his work orders every morning was the key to helping him be successful.”

Shrugging with one shoulder, I responded, “That makes sense, I suppose.”

“You’re the opposite of Harvey. Remember in Storm’s office when I asked you to tell me a little about your work process? Even though you didn’t see fit to answer my question, I realized by the nature of your professional dilemma that you hate keeping up with paperwork. You’re the kind of guy who likes to check his phone, so electronic work orders were clearly the way to go for you.”

“I have to say you sure do seem like you know how to manage people, even people like me who don’t like the idea of being managed.”

“The whole point of managing people is for them to not feel like you’re overbearing, forcing them to do things a certain way, or harassing them about deadlines. That’s micromanaging and I try to stay away from that at all costs.”

As we ate and chatted back and forth this lunch almost started to feel like a first date for me. Then again, I couldn’t remember the last time I actually went on a date, as club girls and one night stands were more my scene, so the fact was, I didn’t know much about what a real date felt like. All I knew was that the more time I spent with Lacey, the more I was starting to like her as a person.

I particularly liked the way she kept her chin up and her wits about her when the situation got rocky and unpredictable. She still wasn’t showing any interest in me as a man, which was fine. It was enough that she was polite, respectful, and partnering up with me to increase both our earning power.

When lunch was over, we went our separate ways, her to the office to cat-sit for me and answer my business line, and me to the job I already had scheduled for the afternoon. If this worked out for me, it would be a real step in the right direction in terms of taking care of my grandmother. That was my sole focus at the moment.