Chapter 16: Into the Fire

“I cannot believe...”

Janet’s words were slow and deliberate as she paced back and forth in front of us. We were sitting in the Salaway’s living room. Jeryl held my hand tightly. Jerry was leaning against the doorway leading to the back of the house.

“I am so very disappointed in both of you.” She looked at me as she said it. “Especially you Paul, who we trusted with our daughters’ safety and well-being. For you to take...”

Jeryl cut her off. “He took nothing, mother. I gave him my virginity. Gave. It. To. Him.” She stood as she spoke, but kept her hand in mine.

“I gave him myself fully after years of loving him. He is the kindest, most gentle man I could ever imaging finding and I gave him the prize you and grandmother always told me to hold on to give to my true love; to the man I would marry. And that is what I did!”

“Sit down young lady!” Her mother shouted.

“No! I am sick of you trying to control me and make me be the perfect little girl who never grows up. I wanted to give him my virginity two years ago, right after I learned about Jordan’s scholarship. He made me wait. I wanted to give it to him when we met in Taos the first time. He made me wait. I wanted to give it to him the first month after I started on the pill, and he still made me wait until I was certain and it was right for both of us.”

Janet stopped pacing and blinked. “What does Jordan’s scholarship have to do with anything?”

Jeryl laughed. It was not her typical, pretty laugh but more of a snort of derision. “Where do you think that scholarship came from? Where do you think Jyl’s came from? The same place as the Fieldcrest pool. Paul paid for it.”

Janet looked at me, then back at Jeryl. “So he bought you? Do you know what that makes you?”

“A whore, mother? Is that what you think I am? For your information, he set up a trust for those scholarships and told me they were there for all three of us regardless of what happened between us. He believed enough in us as his friends that he did not want us to feel pressured to do anything we weren’t comfortable with. And he wasn’t talking about pressured by him.”

“What?”

“You and grandmother have pressured all of us to live the lives you planned out for us. He gave us the freedom to follow our own dreams.”

“Or his to sleep with you,” she spat.

“If that was his dream, he could have done it without a trust fund and scholarships. I told you I loved him. He feels the same about me.”

“You’re too young to know what love is.”

“Really? You think I’m that immature?”

“Jeryl, you are only seventeen. You’re still growing up.”

“Yes mother, and I’m growing up with a man I love who is growing up with me at the same time. When will we be mature enough in your eyes? When Paul files his fiftieth patent? That will be next week. When Paul makes his first million? When I make my first multi-million-dollar business deal with him? When I’m accepted at Stanford? What is it going to take for me to grow up in your eyes?”

“That’s enough, young lady!”

“No it’s not. You have told all of us girls to wait until we are married to the man we love to have sex, even when you didn’t. Why should I listen to a hypocrite for a mother?”

“What!”

“Come on mother, it’s basic biology. Your anniversary is August twelfth. Jordan turns twenty at the end of March. Eight months to make a baby seems a little short for a virgin bride!”

Janet stepped closer and slapped her daughter. Jeryl sat down in shock as Jerry stepped in and pulled Janet back.

Jeryl looked daggers at her mother. “Now you think you can beat your ideas into me?” I saw the tear on her cheek and squeezed her hand.

Janet started to speak but Jerry shushed her. “I think you both need to cool down. Paul, why don’t you go home for now? Please?”

I nodded. Jeryl stood with me and gave me a hug and a kiss. “I love you,” I whispered in her ear. “I’ll always love you.”

“I love you, too. And I’m done hiding it from them.”

I drove home and decided I needed to fill Mom and Jim in on what was happening. Mom was none too happy, but seemed to resolve herself to the fact that Janet was overreacting.

“Paul, we’ve talked many times, so I know you do love Jeryl. I don’t believe it is the typical high school love that will fade in a few weeks or years. When I see you two together, you remind me of myself and your father, or Jim and myself. You treat her with love and respect as a partner, not as a playmate.

“You both have to realize that parents loving their children is a different kind of love. We want to protect you and spend a long time in that role. Over time, it becomes habit. Sometimes it’s hard to let go and let you feel the pain that can come from adult decisions. You and Jeryl have made plenty of adult decisions, but this one is a decision that Janet feels strongly about. For some reason, she fixates on it.”

“She does. All three girls have mentioned it.”

“Well, until she can resolve that fixation, she is not going to be willing to let go. What I’d ask you to do, is make sure Jeryl doesn’t let this turn into her own fixation. Don’t let her allow this to define the future of her relationship with her family.”

“I won’t.” I knew the sense of loss I had felt the first time through, growing up without a father. I would not let Jeryl experience that. “Thanks for listening.”

I was surprised to see Jeryl’s Range Rover pull into the yard a couple of hours later. I was more surprised to see Jerry get out from behind the driver’s seat and head toward our door. Jim and I met him on the deck. I think Jim was looking for a shotgun.

“Paul, can I talk to you for a bit?” he asked without preamble.

“Certainly, sir.”

We headed out to the office in the shop. Jerry seemed a little lost as we sat down. Finally, he collected his thoughts. “Paul, I told you once that I believe you’re good for Jeryl. I still do. She has blossomed into a beautiful, charming young lady while she has been going out with you. I hope her mother can come to realize that.”

“But?”

“But nothing. It’s as clear as the sunrise that you two belong together. I learned that lesson once, the hard way when I agreed that you shouldn’t see her. It was like a light dimmed at our house. I’m not about to let that happen again.”

“But?”

Jerry shook his head. “But, I also have to live under the same roof with both my wife and daughter who can’t even speak to each other right now.”

“I wish I could help. If you have any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them.”

Jerry looked me in the eye and then seemed to relax in his chair. “You can keep loving Jeryl and try to be patient with the rest of us.”

“That I can do, sir.”

“Right now, I’m trying to keep things civil over there. Janet told Jeryl she was grounded, as if that will make a difference. Once I got them in separate rooms, I asked Janet if she really wanted to drive her daughter away. That seemed to finally get through to her. I think she has thought she could control the girls the way her mother controlled her, but she’s never acknowledged that Jeryl got her willpower from both of us, in spades.”

I chuckled. “Jeryl is a lot more than strong-willed,” I said. “She could give mules lessons in stubborn if she set her mind to it.”

Jerry actually smiled. “She gets that from both Janet and I, so be careful. Make sure she knows your boundaries.”

“I think she does. I hope she does.” We sat silently for a moment. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what makes Janet and her mother so opposed to me?”

Jerry sighed. “I don’t know that it’s you specifically, but more what you represent. Janet had an older sister. Evidently, she got pregnant very young. Her mother drove her off and then railed against Janet and then our daughters for the rest of her life. The first time Janet introduced me to her, I thought she was going to shoot me. Of course, I had already proposed at that point. I think that’s the only reason Cynthia let me continue seeing Janet.”

“That’s sad.”

“It is. Neither of them will discuss the matter in any rational way. Janet’s sister and that baby are forbidden topics.”

“So, is there anything specific you’d like me to do?”

“I never imagined I would be discussing my youngest daughter’s sex life with her boyfriend, but I’d like to know that you two have been careful and protected.”

“We have. Jeryl started on the pill over a year ago. We both love each other deeply, but aren’t ready to start a family yet. In a few more years, we’ll see.”

“Have you talked about that far in the future?”

“Of course. The weekend she got home from her grandmother’s two years ago I told her that all the money I’m making is for us, including her. I want her by my side as long as she wants to be there. She feels the same way. I know it sounds clichéŽ, but we complete each other. I miss her smile and her laugh and I appreciate her mind and wit. I’m not interested in a physical plaything. I fully intend on asking your permission to make her my wife in the future. But we’re not ready to do that quite yet.”

“Why not?”

“I guess we both hear our parents telling us that high school romances seldom endure.”

Jerry shook his head. “So we caution you, you listen, and as a result you run the risk of losing each other.”

“We do listen, but I don’t think we are risking anything.”

“Well, I hope not. In the meantime, I want you to know that when you do decide to ask me, I will give my blessing. Janet may be another story, but you’ll have mine.”

“Thank you, sir. And thank you for coming over today as well.”

Jerry stood to leave. I followed him to the door.

“By the way, Paul, I’ll make sure Jeryl is at work on time Monday. Grounding has never been a reason to miss work in our house. I won’t let it start being one now.”

I held back my grin until he was pulling out of the driveway. He had come a long way in thinking about me over the past few years.

True to his word, Jeryl showed up in the office right at eight o’clock Monday morning. She came straight to my arms. I picked her up for an embracing hug. She kissed me soundly before I let her feet touch the ground.

“God I’ve missed being in your arms,” she said.

“I’ve missed it, too. How are you doing?”

She let go of me and dropped into her office chair. “Aside from living with a soulless witch for a mother, and having to endure lecture after lecture from her and grandmother, I guess I’m good.”

“Your grandmother’s here?”

“No. Mom got her on the phone and then made me listen to her. She asked if it was true that I had slept with you and then went off on you, me, mother, and my sisters. I would have hung up on her, but mother was watching. It makes no sense to me why they have such a hang up on sex.”

I told her what her father had shared with me.

“Mom has a sister? I never knew. I wonder what happened.”

I shook my head. “That was all your father could tell me. He said it was a forbidden topic with your Mom or grandmother.”

“I wonder if I could find out.”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Well, I may be losing my mother over you; maybe I need to gain an aunt.”

“I’m glad your mood is improving.” If she could joke about losing her mother over me, I knew she was going to be alright. “Promise me though, that you won’t lose your family over this. I’ve lost a parent. I would never wish that on anyone,” I said.

Jeryl was back in my arms. “I love you so much. I don’t want to lose them, but if I have to make a choice, I’m going to choose you.”

I stroked her back and breathed in the fresh washed scent of her hair. “Well, let’s make sure you aren’t forced to choose, then. I love you too much to let you endure that pain.”

After a few more minutes, we separated and settled into work. Jeryl was surprised that I did not have more notes for her to transcribe.

“I typed up the ones on the coating already so you wouldn’t have to. The modified formulation patent is with Kelly for filing. What I could use your help on is the nanotube production numbers. I don’t think our full production costs are correct.”

Jeryl opened her safe and pulled out a floppy disk for the computer. Soon she had her VisiCalc spreadsheet up looking at the input cells. “All the formulas and inputs look correct. Why do you think they’re off?”

By lunchtime, we had realized we were only tracking per-unit production costs. Jeryl began cursing herself and pulling out a copy of the company books which she kept. Each month, she painstakingly copied rows of numbers into the ledger and made sure they matched what we got from the accountant.

“We need to add all of the capital costs as well as the staff costs for the research team in Austin,” she concluded. “I’ll have to talk to Anne and see what sort of depreciation schedule she is using.”

“You might have to go down to visit her. I think we also need to understand how to account for the research teams when we have a product based on their results. Right now we get some tax credits for funding the research.”

“I’ll sort it all out so we have answers,” she promised. “Now, why are you asking these questions?”

“I want to make sure we have all-in pricing when I talk to Lockheed. If they make an offer to buy-out the coating entirely, I want to have all our costs accounted for.”

“Should you do that? I thought the licensing approach was better from a long-term cash flow perspective.”

“It is, but we’ve never had a classified product before. I’m nervous about Dr. Carmichael messing around with the doping of the mixture and realizing what he is playing with for the base coating. Frankly, if Lockheed offered the right dollars, I’d be tempted.”

“Paul, don’t be silly. Covering your costs isn’t enough. If they want this for government work, it is worth multiple millions of dollars. You can produce the nanotubes for about twenty cents a gram, which seems pretty cheap. But there are a lot of grams needed to coat an airplane, and the plane it protects is worth millions of dollars. If you are selling the nanotubes for less than a dollar a gram, you’re being foolish.”

“Okay, so what should we be asking for, oh business genius?”

Jeryl spun back around and created a new spreadsheet. I peered over her shoulder for a few minutes as she worked. “How big is an airplane?”

“Call it a hundred square meters, for simplicity.”

“And how many grams per meter when the coating is applied?”

“I’ll have to figure it out.” I grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil. Ten minutes later, I told her.

“Okay, I think I was low-balling the price we should charge. I think we should tell them it is seventy-five dollars a gram.”

“What? That’s more expensive than gold.”

“And what it’s protecting is priceless.”

My mind was spinning, but she continued. “Of course, that’s if we do the production. If you hit them with that number, you can then back off for a licensing fee. I’d suggest settle for thirty-five dollars a gram if you only license your process and formulation for both the nanotubes and the coating.”

“That’s still a lot of money.”

“It’s a lot of protection.”

“Okay, you’ve sold me. Now I hope Candace and I can sell them.”

The next two weeks of summer established the pattern for Jeryl and me. She was at work every day, from eight to five, but could not go out aside from family activities such as church. Her mother forbade her using the phone as well, so all of our talking happened in the office. We managed some private time a couple of days a week, but generally did actual work getting ready to meet with Lockheed and reviewing the work our researchers were conducting.

I was disappointed Jeryl could not travel with us, but Candace and I would be the only two in the meeting, at Lockheed’s insistence. Sanford was back from his vacation and would be accompanying us along with Alison who had decided to join us for this meeting.

I was a little nervous in my sports coat and tie as we were ushered through security at the Lockheed Palmdale plant. We were taken into a small interior conference room with off-white walls and no windows. Three men joined us. One of them scanned the room with an electronic device, I assumed looking for bugs. Neither gentleman said a word until the scanner nodded to them and left.

“Sorry for the melodrama, Candace, but you know the drill for classified discussions.”

Candace nodded. “I do Kelsey. I also explained it to Paul before we came out. Paul, this is Kelsey Hodges and Victor Martin. Both are engineers here, but also have R&D and management responsibilities. I honestly could not tell you their titles, since they’ve never shared them with me.”

The second man, Victor smiled. He had a gray crew cut and a square face with engineer glasses on and a note pad in front of him. “We know who we report to and who reports to us. Titles just get in the way. So, what are we here to talk about?”

Candace nodded to me. I took a deep breath and began.

“I have developed a coating process that can make aircraft aluminum stronger than steel.” Both men looked interested, but not that intrigued. “It also appears to make it nearly 100% radar absorbent.”

Both men sat up straighter. They exchanged a look and Victor arched an eyebrow.

“Coating, you say. How thick?” Kelsey asked.

“My applications have been in the 50-micron range. I’m doing some tests on different formulations and thicknesses, but that’s a few more weeks out.”

“How strong?” Victor asked.

“It’s around 5,000HV on the Vickers test for hardness. I’m still assessing torsional loads, but it appears to lose about 50% of its hardness if it is deformed significantly after application.”

Kelsey whistled. “And what spectrums does it absorb?”

“So far, everything we’ve been able to test it with. I could only go down to 300 KHz and topped out around 3 GHz.”

“Pulses or continuous wave?”

“Both.”

Victor got up and excused himself. Kelsey leaned back in his chair and waited for his partner to return. A few minutes later, he did in the company of a younger man who typified the stereotype of a nerdy young engineer. “This is Randal Vilosovich. He’s done a lot of work in low-observable materials.”

I shook his hand before he sat down opposite us.

“So, what are you willing to share?” He asked with a hint of a European accent.

I explained the properties of my coating and waited for the questions.

“Can we get a sample to test?”

Candace jumped in. “Perhaps. We need to have some business discussions, first.”

Kelsey smiled at her. “If your coating works as well as you say, I’m certain we can come to some arrangement.”

Candace gave him a predatory look. “I’m sure we can, but I also know you could take a sample down to one of your labs and reverse-engineer your own solution from what you learn. I’m here to protect my client now, Kelsey, not protect the interests of Lockheed like the last time we worked together.”

The older man developed a hint of a blush. I wondered if there was more than business to his relationship with Candace. “What would we need to test it?”

Candace smiled, and I could easily imagine what a seal saw just before joining a shark for dinner. “We’ll let you run any non-chemical test on the samples we have brought so long as my client is able to observe them and receive copies of all the results documented. In return, you’ll pay his consulting fee of two thousand a day.”

“Done,” Kelsey said without blinking. “It’s late in the day to start those sorts of test, so let’s do them in the morning. We’ll have things set up to start at eight o’clock if that’s good for you?”

“Works for me,” I said. “Please make arrangements that one of our security team can escort me as well. I might need to use the restroom and would not want to have to stop a test in progress,” I said with a grin. “My samples are ten centimeter squares, will that work?”

Randal nodded. “And the coating is applied to regular aircraft aluminum?”

“Yes. I also have a set applied to steel and one set of tin.”

“Controls as well?”

“Yes. Cut from the same sheets as the coated samples.”

“Why multiple coated samples?”

“I’ve done some different formulations. Only one demonstrates the 100% absorption. The others have different reflective characteristics that I thought you might be interested in. All appear to have the same hardening properties.”

“Okay, we’ll start testing in the morning. In the meantime, I need to remind everyone that they should treat this conversation, including who was involved, as Top Secret with disclosure carrying the penalty of up to ten years in prison.” Victor was looking at Candace and me as he spoke.

“No.” Candace said.

“What?”

“This is my client’s research and he will protect it accordingly. You do not get to slap a classification on it to try and gag him. We will treat his knowledge and the discussion in the confidential manner it demands, but it is not classified under any government system at present.”

Kelsey smiled at us as Victor scowled. Candace just smiled and ushered me out of the room without another word.

The next two days must have been boring for Sanford as he watched me watch engineers run the samples through multiple batteries of tests. Sanford made certain the samples were kept in our sight at all times, but other than that showed little interest in the proceedings. I was fascinated by it, however. It reminded me of my own methodical research and experimentation process.

The third day saw Candace and me back in the windowless conference room with Kelsey and Victor again. “Ok, Mr. Taylor, you definitely have our attention. All of our tests were indicative of your original claims. Now it’s time to negotiate.”

Candace smiled. “What sort of negotiation do you have in mind, Kelsey? Hostile or collaborative?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve shown good faith by demonstrating our product. You’ve run your tests, but now have two folders in front of you. One is stamped Top Secret. I thought we had made it clear that we are not looking for a gag order on Paul’s ideas.”

“What are you looking for?”

“We are prepared to start production of the coating for you to apply as you see fit. Whether we sell to others or not is entirely dependent on what terms you are offering.”

“How about fifteen million for the exclusive rights to the manufacture and use of the product?”

Candace laughed. “What does one of the fancy planes you make for the government cost? I bet it is over a hundred million dollars an airplane. If we assume that, what is it worth to protect them? Fifteen percent of a single plane seems pretty cheap.”

It was Victor’s turn to get red in the face. “That has nothing to do with...”

I cut him off. “Fifteen million for the process of applying the coating is fine, but we’ll want at least seventy dollars a gram for the actual material used in the process.”

His face got redder. “That’s six times the price of gold right now!”

I smiled. “You’ll need fifty-two grams per square meter. If your aircraft has a one hundred square meter surface area, that works out to just under $400,000 per plane. At the one hundred million valuation Ms. Morgan estimated, that means we are looking at about a four-tenths of a percent expenditure to protect your machine.”

The two engineers looked at one another.

“What if we want to manufacture it ourselves?”

“That would mean sharing the formulation and manufacturing process?”

“But eliminating your capital costs to produce it. You’ve sold licenses to most of your ideas, young man. Why not this one?” Kelsey asked.

I pretended to think about it for a moment. “Usage of my other licenses can be verified. I’m not sure how we could do that if it is being used on top secret projects. Also, my other licensees have rights to this idea as soon as I file a patent on it. I don’t know how we would structure things to keep the process proprietary and out of circulation.”

“You can’t file a patent on this. If you do, the Air Force will have it pulled and classified,” Victor said.

I nodded. “I know. That’s why we’re proposing providing the material for you. You license the application process, we provide the material.”

“That could work in concept. Can you provide enough material to meet our needs?”

“How much will you need?”

It was his turn to do some quick figuring. “Fifty-two grams per square meter, right?”

I nodded.

He scratched in a note book for a few minutes and then punched some numbers into his calculator. “Three hundred kilos to start.”

I nodded. “We can have that for you in three months, if we can come to terms.”

Candace smiled her shark-like smile. I was happy to see Kelsey actually sweat under her gaze.

“I still can’t believe my mother,” Jeryl said as she and I sat down for lunch a few days after I got back from California. “I’m pretty certain she is going to keep this charade up until school starts.”

“Have you tried talking to her again?”

“She doesn’t want a conversation. She wants me to stop sleeping with you, stop seeing you, and stop ruining my life. I’m getting totally fed up with it.”

“Have you tried your dad?”

“He supports us, but says I’ve got to come to terms with my mother. I’ve heard him telling her the same thing. Usually, it’s right after she gets off the phone with her mother. Paul, I’m going crazy. If I didn’t see you every day for work, I would run away. It’s ridiculous.”

I took a bite of my sandwich and thought while I chewed and swallowed. “Kitten, I don’t want to come between you and your mother...”

“Don’t you dare suggest what I think you are going to.”

“No, I’m not saying we give in. I just want to caution you about taking too drastic a step. Now, with that in mind, we could both start at Stanford next month if we wanted to.”

“I thought you wanted to play football one more year.”

“I do. I’m just wondering if you told your mother you couldn’t take it anymore and were going to go away to school now...”

“That it might force her to realize I’m serious about not living under her thumb.”

“But you can’t make a threat you aren’t willing to carry out,” I cautioned.

“Paul, if she won’t let me start going out for more than work and church, it won’t be a threat, it will be a promise.” It was her turn to think for a few minutes. “If she doesn’t back down, will you go? I can’t stand the idea of going without you.”

“You mean a lot more to me than my last season of football. Of course I would go,” I said.

“Okay, I’m going to start laying the foundation for that conversation tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Now, let’s get back to work.”

The next morning, Jeryl could not wait to tell me about her evening. “I think you should be making plans to take me somewhere nice this Saturday,” she said.

“Oh? I guess it went well. What did she say?”

“Nothing yet. I went home and pulled out that packet we both got from Stanford and left it out for Mom to see. I then asked Jyl if she would mind picking up some things as she was out shopping for school. When she asked why, I told her I might be starting this fall as well. Mom was in the next room. Then, just before bed, I told dad that if things did not improve, I was going to California and that you and I would start school a year ahead of schedule.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked if I was sure I wanted to skip my senior year. I told him yes. He asked about your football commitments and I told him you had chosen me when I asked you about it. Don’t be surprised if he checks up on us today.”

“I won’t be. I told Mom and Jim that you and I might be changing our plans. I think Mom suspects you are trying to leverage your mother, but she knows I was only staying this year for football and you. When I told her it was your choice, she seemed to understand. I don’t think she’s ready for me to leave yet, so don’t be surprised if your mother gets a call from mine.”

The next day, Wednesday, Jeryl gave me a warm smile as soon as she walked into the office. “A decision has been made. I am officially un-grounded Saturday morning.”

I hopped up and gave her a hug and kiss. “That’s a relief. What happened?”

“Dad took me seriously, I guess. Last night after dinner, he had Mom and me in the den for a discussion. He told me that I was no longer grounded effective Saturday morning, and that you were welcome to take me out. Mom started to put conditions on it and he stopped her. I’ve never seen my parents act the way they did last night, but dad told mother that I was nearly an adult in the eyes of the law, that you and I had demonstrated we were as mature as most adults, and that we could continue our relationship on our terms as he had before we went to Michigan.”

“Wow.”

“When mother tried to argue, he stopped her. He said if she wanted to cut you and me out of her life, that was her choice, but he was not going to lose his youngest daughter to a silly notion of misplaced morality. Mom was speechless. I don’t know if they continued the discussion, but Dad gave me a hug and wished me a good night, and I left his den. I didn’t see Mom this morning.”

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