Chapter 36

Beep, beep, beep, beep.

Monday morning was here with a busy week ahead. The girls were easy to wake up and dress for our morning workout. Donte came to the gym room with us and worked at his regimen.

Jules obviously had a direction this morning, and was all business as she hurried so she could get through breakfast and check on the overseas markets early. She was talking to Katie about an imbalance between the Swiss Franc, English pound, and the Euro. I didn't understand it, and wasn't that interested in learning this morning.

I was focused on preparing to run through the South Central offices and have that portion of my responsibilities completed before the wedding.

It was nice to have Kelly back in the office. Joan and Kelly accompanied me on my first tour of the day and week, making note of the various goals for the week. Matt had all his salespeople in their chairs and was congratulating them for a job well done during the weekend. He turned to me and the two Assistant trainees, and said, "We will have experienced our first sixty unit sales weekend if all the sales written with deposits hold up, Brad."

That took my breath away. Sixty sales would be two months' worth of sales for some offices. I grinned as I told Matt, "Be proud that you might have set a company record that will never be beat. I have to ask, what are your goals for the rest of the week?"

Matt gave me a nervous laugh, and said, "We want to see if we can hit a hundred and fifty units. We could do it if our sales hold up."

Jimmy in Finance said that he was going to have to expand his crew by two to process that many loan applications. I assured him that his personnel expansion would be handled by his volume.

The three of us stopped by the break room for some coffee, and brought Willy and Donte mugs of tea.

Willy said, "Dan from the home office wants to talk to you about this week. He said that he knew you were working the South Central this week, and wants you to make a side trip. He wants you to call as soon as you were finished with your morning tour."

Joan was trying to listen to every word as she was going to be my traveling secretary and Assistant in training. I joked with her, "I'll let you listen to the conversation. Get your steno pad and take notes."

"Hey, Dan, I hear you want to use and abuse me this week."

"Ha, ha, ha, yeah, we are going to do it to you again. We've already begun building our new office in San Antonio. We have purchased five parcels of property for our first two or three developments. I want you to look at the progress of the office construction, and tour the five development sites. You know what we'll need, so start thinking about who the right person to manage a new office might be, and you might even want to check the city out for some small realtors that we could absorb. Do a search for an ad agency and see if you can get any Nielsen ratings for the area. You should be able to open the office in three months, so you have some time to prepare. I do want to begin building some models and inventory homes. That's where the small realtor will come in handy because he will know the areas to build first, the size of the new homes, and the price range of what we want to offer. That city has exploded, and we want to be a part of it."

"You're probably talking about more than a day's activity, even with my secretary with me, Dan. This will push me into a third or fourth day, and I still won't finish the region. I'll still have Albuquerque and Phoenix to do."

I was a little frustrated by Dan's request. "I think you have forgotten my wedding is this Saturday, Dan. It won't be a huge event, but it's important and the girls and I are going to go to Hawaii for a week. I have five years of vacation saved up, and I'm only taking off a week. I'm having Kelly watch over this office, and the other Assistant will be learning from her as well. I'll do what I can, but it will be tough to do a good job."

After a pause, Dan said, "Forget going to any of the other offices in that region. Go to San Antonio and spend two days preparing to open an office there. We're planning on that office being as important as San Jose. Be back in LA Thursday so that you're rested for Saturday's events. You know that most of us here are coming out to be there with you. Dorothy is planning for your airplane to pick up some people from the various branches. You'll have Dino and wife, Sheila and Rebecca, Taz from Reno, and he's bringing Rose. We can't have our most successful Manager and Regional Manager get married without representation from your friends in the company. I understand that Fred and his wife are trying to make connections to get out there too. So forget about trying to work the other offices in the South Central region, and focus on San Antonio. You can work on the South Central region when you get back from your honeymoon."

"Okay, that sounds more reasonable. I'll spend all day Tuesday and Wednesday working on the new office and prepare a bunch of notes."

Dan asked, "I'm not sure if we should intrude on you guys for the weekend, so we're going to get hotel rooms and suggested the others do the same. I understand your folks are coming, as will Katie's and many of Jules'. Don't worry about us, just give us directions to the event."

"I'll have Jules give you, Dorothy, or Mika a call. This is going to be busy week. I'll talk to you about this again."

I was in a panic now, as my folks and Katie's folks would be here either today or tomorrow. I called Katie's cell phone and she answered right away. I told her that I had forgotten about all the out of towners who were coming and would probably be there today or tomorrow. Katie told me, "Not to worry, Love. Jules and I have it covered. Your and my folks are going to be here in the morning. Your brother and sister will be here Friday through Sunday. Brindle has already hired a couple of small limos, a party bus, and drivers so local transportation should be good. We know that you will be gone tonight and tomorrow night, and will probably be home Wednesday night. You know that we don't play league pool these next two weeks because it's the break between seasons. We won our division, so we don't have to play any playoff games. We're golden for this week and our honeymoon week."

I had to ask, "You're spending a lot of time with me. Aren't you guys busy?"

Katie laughed, and said, "We already did everything. Jules was right on time to do some quick trading before the market flattened out. She was able to take advantage of some currency fluctuations in the east, and is busy putting all the money and profits in gold for a couple of weeks. I think she's going to take a break from trading until we get back from Hawaii. Why don't you get an early start to get out to your first office?"

"That's the other thing, Sweetheart, the company is opening a new office in San Antonio, and wants me to interrupt my schedule to go to San Antonio to check out the building construction, the development properties, and to look for a Sales Manager and to get the lay of the land as far as advertising. I could possibly leave early and it could be an early start. I could even get some work in today. Have Cindy pack me for two days. I'll send Joan home to pack."

Joan was waving to get my attention, "I'm packed and ready to go now."

To Katie I said, "Have Brindle drive in with my suitcase as soon as Cindy and or Kindle have me packed."

Now it was Donte who was waving. He said, "I'm not packed, but Kindle knows my stuff and can pack for me. Ask them to do it for me."

"Have Kindle pack for Donte, and we can be out of here before noon or earlier, Katie. I'll guess I'll see you guys in a couple of days."

Katie said, "Let me get you and Donte packed. Jules and I will come with Brindle to say goodbye."

Kelly was sitting back smiling, as she said, "Willy and I will run things this week and the next it will be Joan, Willy, and me. You've taught us well and given me a lot of confidence. Working the Salt Lake City office for a week was really good, and then I spent a couple of days with Dino. That office is a hoot. Milli or 'Wombi' as she insists everyone call her, is enough to make every day fun. She's constantly telling everyone how fast she is saying she's a Milli-second Wombi. Sandy will have a blast working up there."

I called the pilot to advise him we would go to San Antonio first and asked if he could be ready by noon. He said, "It's only nine, so I can be ready by ten. Call me on the way if you want to leave earlier than noon. We'll have the plane ready to go when you get out there."

Donte asked, "Have you talked to Hideki about your honeymoon? Am I going with you guys? I'll bet Jules has already asked, so I'll ask her when I talk to her."

I asked Joan, "Just for fun, put the folders for the offices we thought we would go to in your briefcase. You never know what kind of time we might have. No harm done if we don't need them."

I asked Kelly and Willy, "Get us a car with GPS and hotel reservations near the airport. Be sure to get reservations for the crew too. You two can begin looking for small realtors in San Antonio, as well as look up the Nielsen ratings for radio and TV there. Check out ad agencies and you might even speak with them to see which one is the friendliest. Compile the information you get and e-mail it to me."

I went for a mug of coffee and only poured a half mug full. I had the time figured right because Jules and Katie came swarming into my office to give me kisses and hugs. Jules said, "Come on, let's get you and Joan to the airport and get this job in Texas done."

Michi was with the girls and was going to stop back by the office to drive the BMW home while the girls rode in the limo. I called the pilot to tell him that we were on the way to Burbank Airport. He said he would be ready. While riding between the girls, I asked Jules, "Have you spoken to Hideki about Donte going with us next week?"

Jules said, "Grandfather wants us to take Donte with us. He's already bought us first class seats for the trip and has us in the most exclusive hotel in Hawaii. He's even hired a helicopter to fly us to the various islands so we can see a lot of the area. He is very excited to make sure that we have some private time. I think he wanted us to go to Japan for our honeymoon, but I convinced him we would go there to visit soon."

We three put our luggage in the luggage hold and locked the hatch right at ten in the morning, and then I did some kissing and hugging with the two women in my future while Joan and Donte got onto the plane. We parted with an 'I'll see you soon'.

It's only a three hour flight to San Antonio from LA, so we barely had time to discuss our plan of attack on the various things we needed to accomplish. Joan's first job was to get with the girls from our office to find out what information they might have picked up. We should have some answers fairly fast with so many of us working on the same project. I even gave Donte a something to do. He needed to check on ad agencies and get referrals from each one. I would focus on driving to the new office building site so that we could see their progress.

The building wasn't as far along as ours at home was, but it wasn't swarming with workers like ours. Joan circulated in the construction with me, and we were both able to converse with the workers and foremen in Spanish. I finally found the general contractor and was able to have an English conversation with him. He said that he was probably two weeks ahead of schedule and should remain that way, but didn't expect to pick up much more time before the completion. He had me help with some trim selections before we left.

I did question him on key foremen who could ramrod building some home models and inventory homes. The man smiled and told me, "I would be interested in something like that. It sounds like that would be a year-round job, and not just when there was a job like this one. I work well with all my men and they seem to give me their all every day. I could be a good man for your company."

I had Joan give the man one of our applications, and told him, "Fill this out and e-mail it to me or just fill the app out on the website and direct it to the LA Office Manager. I'll be gone for a week, but I'll review it when I get back. I'm going to need a man and crews very soon."

The guy seemed like he might be worthwhile to consider as a construction supervisor. We went out to the nearest development site after the building visit. It's always difficult to look at bare land and visualize what it will look like once developed. The area looked primed to have a small shopping center with a major grocery store, along with multiple units for small shops, at least one branch bank, and a gas station. I thought it would be good to have a shopping center that we would build in a consumer group if we built five hundred homes in the development, and then another five to six hundred on the other side of the area.

It was already after six, so we drove back toward the airport to get to the hotel where we had reservations. This was a nice hotel and I asked if they had a gym and not just a suite with some treadmills and Nautilus. They indicated that they had what I wanted. I suggested that we put out luggage in our rooms and meet in my room to go to supper. I located the pilot and hostess and invited them to join us. They were excited to eat with us. We drove to a local restaurant that featured good steaks for us men and some chicken and fish entrees for the two girls.

I think the pilot and hostess were surprised when I immediately ordered a Beefeaters. Joan and Donte looked at me for permission and I waved at them to have what they wanted. There soon was five us drinking the almost bitter liquid with olives and munching on some appetizers. We all ordered various sizes of excellent meat. I had a fairly large rib-eye that melted in my mouth. This was really good. Donte had a giant sirloin, and didn't waste any of the great steak along with his veggies and potato. He can really pack it away.

We went to the coffee bar back at the hotel, and sat to plan the next day. We needed to check the other two development locations, and then meet with a realtor who was interested in heading up our sales group. He was interesting because he was making a profit, but couldn't afford a larger office for more sales people. We planned on meeting him for lunch.

Once in our rooms, I made sure Donte and Joan understood why we would leave the connecting doors open. There would be no chance of anyone messing with us. We had Joan in the middle with Donte and me on either side.

I called home to talk with the girls before getting ready for bed. They were in a giddy mood this evening, probably in anticipation of the coming weekend. Katie said her parents would be arriving around noon, and that my parents had called to say that they were arriving just after noon. Jules had booked all the family in first class, so the folks would feel as if they were royalty by the time they arrived. My brother and sister, along with their spouses, would be coming on Friday. We discussed what I had done today, and Jules then let me know that my savings had taken a growth spurt, and now was another twenty percent larger. Jules had continued to watch the markets and made some last minute trades that netted some big numbers. We said our 'I love you' stuff and good night.

I had just finished brushing my teeth when Joan came into my room in some silky sleep shorts and one of my T-shirts. I thought it funny that she would have one of my favorites, but she said that Jules had picked it out for her. Joan said, "I know that you feel there shouldn't be any wild fooling around between us, and you know that I'm good with it. I do like to snuggle, though. The girls said that I could probably talk you into holding me at night."

I laughed because of how sweet she was being. "You're an amazingly sexy woman, Joan. You've had me excited from the first time I met you. Who knows what it is? Do you know that there's an older woman who has the same appeal you do in one of our offices? I would be chasing her all over the office if I was older." I smiled at the very attractive woman, and told her, "I'd love to hold you all night long. Understand, though, that I might want more during the night without realizing that you're not Jules or Katie."