Chapter 11

I didn't return to work for the rest of the week, moping around the house most of the time, feeling sorry for myself. I did drive over to the country club to hit some practice balls, but being there just reminded me of Shirley. I was functioning though, just barely, but functioning.

It was sometime over the weekend when I decided that I'd had enough of acting like a lovesick puppy with a broken heart. Shirley had made her choice. My Dad was right about her having the right to change her mind. I had to accept things as they were, not how I wished they were. I knew that all the pain wasn't just going to disappear, but I still needed to live my life. I wasn't going to lay down and play dead anymore.

I had been writing things to myself, ever since I found out that Shirley had left the state. It wasn't a diary, or anything like that. It was more my thoughts on what I wanted to do, and things I felt I needed to accomplish. A lot of it was about my business ambitions. I was hoping to take over running the company sometime in the far future, and I wanted to make sure that I learned all the skills necessary for me to be a successful executive. I also wanted to make a difference in the lives of the boys from St. Cecelia's. I was determined that no other kid would spend as much time living at that orphanage as I had.

I wrote a lot about my thoughts about girls. I knew I needed to change the way I handled my relationships and the sex I'd be participating in. I was a little bitter with the things I wrote at first, probably because I was feeling very sorry for myself. This changed though when I started remembering all of the pleasure I'd gotten from my encounters with the opposite sex. From Bea to Shirley, I'd spent countless hours in conversation, and in the many different stages of romantic activity, ranging from innocent flirtation, to kisses and soft touches, frequently culminating with our taking our frenzied sexual pleasures together.

I was focused on the fact that none of my sexual relationships had lasted, or, had ultimately proved successful. With the exception of Bea, I was no longer speaking with, or enjoying any social contact with any of my former love interests. Brenda, Emily and Shirley were now out of my life completely. I was almost seventeen years old, and I still hadn't learned how to sustain a romantic relationship for any real length of time without fighting or breaking up with the girl I was seeing.

I had been Sure that Shirley was the one for me. We had endured fights, but, we got along for a lot longer than any of the other girls. Shirley had been all I wanted. In a way, realizing that, I felt a little bit better. I had been satisfied with Shirley, it was her that hadn't been satisfied with me. I was curious about what she saw that convinced her we weren't ever going to be a perfect fit. To me, there were times when I'd found myself totally and perfectly content with just being near her. I remembered the peace that surrounded me when I was with her.

I decided that I needed to study relationships. I knew there were books about almost every conceivable topic. There had to be some that dealt with how to enjoy successful romantic relationships. I'd get some and study them until I developed a winning formula for keeping a relationship going.

I went back to work on Monday. At breakfast, both my parents treated my going to work again as if it was nothing worthy of special notice or comment. I was a little anxious about going back. First, there was the matter of my father's instructions about not firing Ellen. I wasn't sure how I'd react the next time I saw her.

There was another problem that worried me, and that was the fact that I sometimes became maudlin when thinking about losing Shirley. When that happened, I often started crying. It had gotten to be a less frequent event, but it had happened to me that morning while I was in the shower. It was only a small shedding of tears, softly, and with a quiet sadness. This was a great improvement over what I had been doing. I had wept torrential tears of despair in the very beginning. I was past that point, but it would still have been upsetting to me if I were to break down in front of any of my co-workers.

I was counting on being able to maintain some self control, in the event my thoughts turned to Shirley while at work. I thought the escape back into my work would prove a distraction, helping me to reduce the time I was spending thinking about my lost love.

Of course, I hadn't known that Ellen had gone to great pains to let everyone know that my girlfriend had dumped me. Monday morning, I could see that everyone I came into contact with was going out of their way to treat me like someone who was fragile and delicate. I hated it. I didn't know about Ellen blabbing all of my personal business then, but, after I found out it was her, I understood why people had been treating me so gingerly.

It was Cee Cee Waters who sat me down and didn't pull any punches in the way she treated me.

"Boy, why are you mooning around over some little girl? She's gone, but there's lots more that can take her place. With those tall, dark, and handsome good looks that you got, and all your Daddy's money, you can get all the poonie you could ever want or need. What makes that girl so special?" I was surprised at the way she talked to me.

"I really loved her, Cee Cee."

"And you'll love fifty more, at the very least, before you're done. That's how the game is played, and you're a player if I don't miss my guess. You can't be taking all these girl's comings and goings to heart, boy, that shit will just eat you up from the inside, if you let it. Make it good when you're with them, and then walk away with a smile when it's all over. It isn't natural for these love things to last forever."

I had never heard that kind of advice from an adult before. I might have expected it, maybe, coming from Bea, or even from Uncle Bunny, a little bit, but not to have it put like that. I didn't believe she was right about what she was telling me though.

I didn't want to spend a lifetime running through fifty or more short term relationships. I wanted forty or fifty years with the same someone, a whole lifetime shared together. I tried to smile for her, and I did manage to shake my head like I'd be thinking about what she told me, but I knew what she was suggesting wouldn't be enough for me.

One of the worst things about coming back to work, was the way Joyce was now treating me. If anything, she seemed even sadder for me than I was for myself. I could tell that she wanted to cheer me up, and I could also tell that she didn't have the slightest idea about how she could manage to do that. I stayed at my desk for the rest of the morning, working on the latest three weeks of sales and delivery numbers.

There had been a marked increase in both sales and deliveries, and the efficiency rate for our deliveries was also increasing due to their being far fewer loading errors. Cee Cee's loading manifests, and her having all of the drivers take a few minutes to check things quickly, before they left the loading area, had combined to prevent any more large delivery problems for us. I knew my Dad would be happy with the report I was going to prepare for him.

At noon, Joyce came into my office and laid a small, neatly typed, report in front of me. On her own, she had come up with a vast improvement of the system currently in use to transfer the finished vending products from the Lucas bakery to our warehouse inventory for later shipment. Instead of loading it onto trucks and trucking it over to the warehouse for off loading and storage, Joyce had found a way for us to eliminate all the off loading and storage steps at the warehouse. Joyce had coordinated her idea with Mildred Taylor, and received all necessary approvals for loading rail cars right in the rail yard.

Now, our trucks could drive straight to the yard at the railroad and load the product directly onto the rail cars. It was a shorter distance to drive for them, and, once loaded on the rail car, they wouldn't need to be off loaded again. One of the best parts of Joyce's report was that she had broken down the standard product mixes for shipments to our current distribution warehouses. The products being ordered were usually pretty standardized. It looked to me like her idea had a lot of merit to it.

"This is fine work, Joyce. I'll be finished with a report I'm making to my Dad an hour after we get back from lunch. We'll take both reports to him then. He's going to love your idea, and the way you were so thorough in appending the usual makeup of the shipments to the distribution centers. We're going to lunch in your new car, and I'll even let you pick the place we eat at."

"I brought my lunch, Mr. Parsons." I could see that Joyce was getting a little flustered again. I thought it was probably because of my praise for her idea, and the enthusiasm I had shown for her actual report.

"What's the matter? Don't you want to show off your new car? I've never been in a new Lincoln. I want to compare the ride of your Lincoln with my Cadillac's smooth ride."

"I have things I need to do today, and I was going to take care of them during my lunch break." Joyce had dropped her head while she spoke to me, and I could barely make out what she was saying to me, because she spoke so softly. It finally occurred to me that she didn't want to go out to lunch with me, and that it had more to do with me than with going out to lunch.

"That's okay, Joyce. Another time, perhaps? I'd still like to take a look at that Lincoln when you have a chance though." I was a little bit hurt by her not wanting to go out to eat with me. With all that was going on in my life right then, I guess I was looking for someone to hang around with. Someone I knew I had no romantic designs toward. Joyce looked up at me and then turned and walked back to her office, sitting behind her desk.

I got up and left my office, making my way down to the maintenance department. All four of the maintenance guys were sitting around having their lunch. I looked at the name tag that Steve Lusby was wearing on his shirt. Like the others, the name stitched on his shirt was John. Earl was the first to see and greet me.

"Hey, kid. I'm surprised to see you here. Word is out that you had some serious problems dealing with breaking up with your girlfriend."

"Where does everyone hear all this stuff? It seems like everyone here knows all about my personal business."

"I heard it from Edith's kid last week. She was telling a bunch of us about how your girlfriend dumped you and moved to Virginia or someplace."

"South Carolina."

"Wherever. The main thing is she was telling us all about how broken up you were about it. You got a lot of friends here. Most of us feel bad that you're hurting, but you're too young to get floored by the loss of some chick. Get right back up on the horse that threw you."

"I wish Ellen would keep her damn nose out of my business."

"Edith told me that her kid really has it bad for you. Maybe she's hoping that she'll be the next one in line with you."

"I guarantee you that that will never happen. Ellen spent half her time here, on the phone with Shirley, trying to make her think I was doing stuff with other girls behind her back."

"Tie a can to her ass then."

"I wanted to, but my Dad said what she did was personal, and I can't let it affect the business. He won't let me fire her."

"No shit? I don't know about that kind of thinking. Seems like he'd be more concerned with what you want than with taking her side of things." Earl was more of a politician than the other three guys. I wasn't sure if he meant what he was telling me, or if he was trying to butter me up for something. Stewie had been quiet the whole time that Earl and I had been talking, but he decided he was going to say something.

"I heard her talking to that little girl, the one you've got assisting you now? She was really giving her the riot act about not socializing with you no more. I heard her say that she was the cause of you breaking up with your girlfriend. The little girl was crying and saying that she didn't do anything. That kid of Edith's though, she kept after her. I felt real sorry for the little kid, but, I didn't step in, or say nothing to them."

Hearing that, I got really upset. How did Ellen justify all this crap she was pulling? I might have gone along with my father's wishes if it had just been me that Ellen was attacking, but I couldn't tolerate her acting that way around Joyce. I left the maintenance area and made straight for the phone order room. I didn't want to stop and rethink what I was going to do. I'd just do what I needed to do, and then I'd deal with the fallout from my father. He could fire me too if he was that upset about me disobeying him. I needed to take action. One way or another, this was going to be the last time I had any contact with Ellen. I arrived at the phone room, and Ellen was sitting in the recliner again, taking a phone order with her headset on. I went over and disconnected the headset from the phone console, terminating the call.

"Ellen, get up and get your stuff. I want you out of here right now. You're fired!"

"I didn't do anything wrong. Why are you firing me?"

"For making threats to another employee, for gossiping about my personal business, for lying to me when you told me you were going to stop causing me trouble. I don't need a reason for firing you anyway. I'm firing you also because I can't stand the thought of having you anywhere around me ever again. Get up, and get out. I'll send your final check home with your mother tonight."

"I'll sue you for firing me, Kenny."

"Go ahead, sue me if you want to. I don't care. Even if I lost the suit, and I doubt that I would, it would be worth it to me to be rid of you." I turned around and left, heading up to personnel to inform them that Ellen had been terminated.

I went by my father's office, but he was out somewhere, and not expected back before three o'clock. I left a message for him with his secretary, Myra.

"Tell Dad I fired Ellen from the phone order desk today. Tell him I'll be coming down to see him after three o'clock."

"Kenny, didn't your father specifically tell you that Ellen wasn't to be fired by you?"

"Myra, I don't care what he said. Ellen needed to be fired and that's what I did. If he hires her back, then I'll quit the business instead. I won't work for any company that has her for an employee. She's been threatening my assistant, and doing whatever she could to come between me and my girlfriend. I warned her before, but, I'm firing her now because she's been telling people here at work my personal business, and because she yelled at and threatened my assistant."

At three o'clock, Joyce and I were waiting by Myra's desk for my father to return. He got back about five minutes later. I followed him into his office, with Joyce trailing right behind me, before Myra had any chance to give him his messages, or to tell him about my firing of Ellen.

"I fired Ellen this afternoon." I put both reports on his desk as I told him that. I put Joyce's report on top of mine.

"No, you didn't, Kenny. I told you that I wouldn't allow that."

"It's too late, it's done."

"Then undo it. She's too valuable to the company for us to fire her over some personal business with you."

"If you bring her back, I'll quit, Dad. I'm not talking about just for the summer either. I'll quit, and I'll sell the stock that Uncle Bunny left for me. I'll never set another foot in any of the companies."

"You can't sell the stock, Kenny. I'm the trustee and I won't allow the sale. You can't let a personal vendetta throw you so far off track that you throw away such a brilliant opportunity. This doesn't make any sense. You need better self control."

"Ellen yelled at Joyce, and then she threatened her. She also told almost everyone here at work about how upset I've been over Shirley. That goes beyond just being personal. She has a screw loose somewhere, and what she's doing indicates mental imbalance. None of that is important right now though. I shouldn't need to justify this any further to you. You need to decide whether you're going to back me, or if you're going to take Ellen's side of it, because those are the only two choices you have now."

"Why don't we let this go for now, Kenny? You take some time to cool off, and we'll speak about it again, at home, tonight. I won't take any action about Ellen until you've had a full chance to convince me that you're right about this."

"I'll quit too, Mr. Parsons. I almost did when it happened. I won't be threatened like that anymore. She scared me with some of the things she promised to do to me. She was trying to scare me enough to quit when she said them." Joyce had been behind me the whole time I was speaking with my father. I'm not even sure he saw her standing behind me like that. He seemed very surprised when she leaned out so he could see her, and she began speaking to him.

"I'm not going to say anything more to try to convince you. You already know enough, Dad. It's either her or me, because I won't work any place where she works. This has been an emotional time for me, but my decision to fire her isn't just an emotional one. We can't allow people to run around threatening people, or doing things to hurt other employees. Any company that would allow that is asking for big heaps of trouble."

"Joyce, are you sure about this plan being approved by the railroad? This would be an incredible advantage for our operation in Omaha. They will let us load there, and still store the product for thirty days?" Joyce seemed unable to cope with the abrupt shift in subject. Finally she nodded that she was sure. "That's really hard to believe. It is so clean and simple too. I would have never thought to ask for something like that."

"Do you have rail service at the vending machine factory, Mr. Parsons?"

"Yes, of course, why?"

"Mildred said we could load and store at the rail yard nearest the manufacturing plant too. If you book everything through her, those shipments count towards your four hundred car commitment too. Mildred told me that she has reciprocating storage deals with all the other rail lines. She said you can park cars almost any place where the railroads have a presence. It would be just like they were stored in her yard, the same type of insurance and access."