Chapter 23: A Board Meeting

August 1, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

I sprang from my chair and ran through the kitchen to the foyer. I pulled Jessica into a tight hug and kissed her deeply. She molded her body to mine and squeezed her arms tightly around me as we continued to kiss.

"Do I get a turn?" Kara giggled, coming up behind me with Jesse.

I broke my clench with Jessica and took Jesse from Kara so that she could greet Jessica the same way that I had. They broke the kiss, and Kara took Jesse back from me.

"Let's get your stuff from the car," I said.

"Hi, Jessica!" Stephanie said, coming into the foyer.

"Hi, Stephanie!" she said, and they exchanged a hug.

"Squirt, will you help us bring Jessica's things in?" I asked.

"Sure!"

Jessica, Stephanie and I went out to Jessica's car and in two trips, brought all of her things up to the master bedroom. Kara handed Jesse to me.

"Take your son for a walk, husband," Kara said. "I'll help Jess get settled."

I knew when I was dismissed, so I carried Jesse downstairs and put him in his stroller. I followed our usual route through Washington Park, and despite Jesse looking intently all over for Francesca, I wasn't surprised that she wasn't in the park.

"Fa Fa?" Jesse said, sounding sad.

"She's not here now, Jesse. You saw her earlier!"

"Da!" he objected.

"She's probably at home with her mom, dad, and Frankie. How about we enjoy the nice Summer weather? Let's walk home and you can see your moms!"

"Mama!" he gurgled.

I chuckled. I knew where I rated at the moment — somewhere after Francesca and Jesse's two moms! It didn't bother me; I just found it amusing. I'd expected something like this because of the family situation with Jennifer and Josie. The budding love affair between Jesse and Francesca was amusing as well, and I wondered once again if it would turn into a situation like Stephie and Red. I turned and headed back towards the house.

August 4, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"Ready for your first day at UofC?" I asked Jessica as she, Kara, and I had an early breakfast.

"Yes! Eight weeks of Emergency Medicine! And this week is just a normal twelve-hour shift and I have next weekend off."

"And the following week?" I asked.

"I won't know for sure until I get to the hospital."

"Could we have lunch with you?" Kara asked.

"Probably not. Lunch is whenever it's possible. I can't very well walk out of a trauma for a lunch break!"

"No, I suppose not!" Kara agreed. "Could we walk you to work?"

"Sure!" she agreed. "It's so cool to be here. We owe Sofia a lot!"

We finished our breakfast and Kara and I walked Jessica to the hospital. We stopped when we arrived outside the Emergency Room doors and exchanged kisses.

"Have a good day at work, Babe!" I said.

"See you tonight, Tiger! I'm probably going to need a sauna at the end of each work day!"

"I think we can manage!" I declared happily.

We exchanged kisses again, then Kara and I walked back to the house. After we cleaned up the kitchen, I went up to the attic offices. I had more than an hour before the rest of the staff arrived, so I fired up the PC and started working on the bug report that was on the top of the stack.

"How long have you been working?" Penny asked when she sat down next to me.

"A couple of hours. Jessica's shift at the hospital started at 6:00am. I came up after Kara and I walked Jessica to work. Did Julia or Elyse tell you that we made a deal for office space?"

"Where?" she asked.

"About six blocks from here," I said.

"Do I still get to sit with you?" she asked warily.

"Of course! They're going to reconfigure the large office for you and me! There's no way I'd agree to anything that didn't have you by my side!"

"Thanks. Now, if I could just be UNDER you, too!" she giggled.

"I thought you liked it on top!" I teased.

"However you want!" she giggled.

"We're both bad, Penny! Did you go out with Jonathan on Friday?"

"No. He had to do something with his parents. He wanted to go out on Saturday, but I had a different date!"

"Jesse?" I chuckled.

"Yes! He's so cute! Did you guys have fun at your guys' night?"

"We did. Drinking, smoking cigars, playing pool, and sitting in the sauna."

"Oooh! Ten naked guys in the sauna! Maybe I'll accidentally come in!" she giggled.

"Your mom would kill you, Pretty Penny. Let's not do anything that's going to get you banned from my house!"

"I do have a date this Friday with Jonathan."

"Good. I'm glad you guys are getting along so well," I said.

"I do have a problem," she said quietly, because Natalya, Charlie, and Zeke had walked into the attic in quick succession.

"What's that?" I asked equally quietly.

"If I wanted to be someplace private with him, I don't have any place to go."

"Are you sure you're ready for that?" I asked.

"I didn't say that I was going to do it, I was just kind of thinking ahead if I decide to."

That was a real conundrum. If I let her use one of the guest rooms and Alice found out about it, that could cause serious problems. I doubted that Penny was going to tell her mom that she was thinking about being with Jonathan, so I decided to temporize.

"Let me think about it," I said.

She nodded as Julia came into the office to begin our staff meeting.

"First things first, we're having a Board meeting tomorrow to let the Board know that we're going to move into new offices," Julia said.

"Where?" Zeke asked.

"On 53rd Street. It's only about six blocks from here. Our plan is to move in on September 1st. That's Labor Day, but hopefully everyone can give us a half-day. You'll get other time off to compensate. Penny, you're hourly, so you'll be paid if you can work.

"Second, we'll most likely be hiring a receptionist. That will allow Zeke to concentrate on support and testing. The receptionist will also do things like mail invoices, send out letters for Mario and Cindi, open the mail, and stuff like that I've been doing, which will let me spend more time on design, programming, and pre-sales support."

"Well, I'm happy!" Zeke said. "The stupid sales calls from every office supply, long distance, cleaning, and coffee company were getting pretty old."

"Hey, don't knock cold calls!" Mario chuckled. "WE do it and it works. But yeah, I can see how it would be annoying in your position. I usually talk to a receptionist and have to get past them, which isn't always easy. That's why I send letters."

"Cindi, did you want to talk about any specific new deals?" Julia asked.

"Not at this point. Nothing big enough to worry about, just a few small sales. But they add up. The bigger ones take longer. We're really learning about our sales cycle. I talked to Doctor Lambert about it and again, we're kind of in uncharted territory because PC software is so new. There just isn't a lot of data available. We do have one thing that Mario told me that needs to be discussed. I'll let him explain."

"I was talking to a firm about legal software and they told me they already had some. I asked about it, to try to figure out if we had a new competitor and it turns out they have copies of our software that we didn't sell to them."

"Well, shit," I said. "Julia, we should talk to Jamie, and I hate to say it, but we're going to need to do something Tom mentioned a few weeks ago when he was in the office. We have to figure out some kind of license codes and some way to enforce them."

"Whatever we do has to be bulletproof," Cindi said. "And it can't ever interfere with a paying customer's operations."

"Julia, talk to Doctor Dalton and Doctor Bauer, and maybe Scott, and see if they have any ideas. In the meantime, let's call Jamie."

The meeting broke up and Julia, Mario, Cindi, and I went to my study to call Jamie. We explained the situation and Mario gave him the details as he had them. Jamie suggested that we let him call them and offer to allow them to become customers at our normal rates and with our normal contract, with the implied threat that we'd sue them. We'd also require them to tell us where they got the software.

"You do have copyright notices on everything, as I instructed?" he asked.

"Yes," Julia answered. "On the diskettes that we give them, and there's a clear copyright notice on the startup screen, as well as a notice that the software is only for use with a currently valid license."

"Good," Jamie said. "Let me call them and I'll get back to you. If they refuse, it should be a slam dunk in court, including recovering our fees."

We thanked Jamie and hung up.

"You know, there are probably other copies floating around," Mario observed.

"I know," I said. "But one step at a time. Let's get back to work and let Julia make the phone calls."

Cindi and Mario headed out to appointments, and I went back up to the attic to continue working on bug fixes and change orders for the medical software. Natalya spent time with Charlie, Zeke, and Penny throughout the morning, trying to get up to speed on our software.

I took my lunch a little earlier than usual and after Kara and I ate, we collected Jesse from Beverly, who had started work again that morning. We headed to the park and Jesse was excited to see Francesca.

"He'll be six months at the end of August, right?" Carol asked.

"He will," I confirmed. "Are you thinking about the play group?"

"Yes. He'll love it — there are seven other kids besides Frankie and Francesca, the oldest being about three."

"Where does the playgroup meet?" I asked.

"We rotate between the houses. It's twice a month on Thursdays from 11:00am to 1:00pm, which is why I'm not here on some Thursdays. Do you think you could bring Jesse starting next month?"

"Probably," I said. "He'll be ecstatic to have two hours with Francesca."

Kara and I talked with Carol while Francesca and Jesse babbled at each other and played with a toy that had a bunch of different actions — sliders, buttons, knobs — plus a mirror and various noise makers. It always kept them entertained, and Francesca seemed to enjoy showing Jesse how to do things. I had to leave because of the receptionist interview, so we gathered up Jesse. He protested as he usually did, but didn't throw a fit.

We returned Jesse to Beverly, and just as we walked into the house, I heard the doorbell ring. I went to the front door and opened it to find a cute, auburn-haired girl who looked like she was sixteen. She had on a filmy sundress that exposed quite a bit of nicely tanned skin and clung to her curves.

"Hi, I'm Kaitlin Quinn," she said, smiling brightly.

I invited her in, wondering just how old she was. I knew from Scott's class that I couldn't ask that question, though I could ask questions that would give me a good idea. I invited her into the study and offered her a Coke. She accepted, so I got her soft drink and a Dr Pepper for me.

"Where did you go to High School?" I asked.

"Kenwood Academy," she said. "I graduated two years ago."

That made her about twenty, despite the fact that she looked younger than Penny.

"Are you working now?" I asked.

"No. I've had three temporary jobs filling in for girls who had babies. I haven't found a full-time job."

That reminded me of Kara — she had done that at the engineering firm in Milford.

"Do you know anything about computers?" I asked.

"I used WordPerfect at the last place I worked," she said. "I'm pretty good with it. And I've used a Macintosh to do some drawings in school."

That made me feel much better about hiring her. At least she wasn't completely clueless about computers. I asked her a few more questions about school and things she knew how to do, and was satisfied that she'd be able to do the job. I explained to her what we did and what her duties would be.

"That sounds interesting. And I can do all of those things. Uncle Larry told me some of that, but not all of it. Will you hire me?"

"Let me have you talk to Elyse," I said. "She does our accounting. You would do some work for her, too."

I went to find Elyse and filled her in on what I'd talked to Kaitlin about. Elyse went to my study to talk to her, and I went to talk to Julia.

"I think she's fine," I said. "Elyse is talking to her now, because besides answering the phones she'll be doing invoicing. She knows WordPerfect, and she's at least used a Mac, so I'd say that if Elyse has no objections, we'll hire her."

"Are you taking over?" Julia smirked.

"No. But this is a favor for Alderman Bloom, so I figured I needed to be the person who did the hiring. It's a quid pro quo as I said, but it's not as if we're hiring someone who isn't qualified."

"I was teasing," Julia said. "She's not technical staff, so frankly, Dave and I won't have any objection. Elyse is the right person, at least for now. I guess in the future, your sister will handle the administrative hiring."

"Six years from now, when we all work for her!" I chuckled.

"So she finally gets things back to where she wants them — bossing you around?" Julia laughed.

"Yeah," I acknowledged with a smile. "Did you hear back from Jamie?"

"I did. He knew one of the partners at that firm, so he called him and explained the situation. They admitted everything and Jamie will work out the details. We have a new customer."

"Cool. But we do need to figure out some kind of solution," I said.

"I have a meeting with Doctors Dalton and Lambert tomorrow right before the Board meeting. Is your dad actually coming up?"

"Yes. He'll drive up and stay a couple of days. He hasn't seen Jesse yet! We'll need to call Joyce in Georgia and Beth in Urbana."

"Georgia? She's visiting Jake?" Julia asked.

"She is. I'm guessing they're negotiating terms!" I chuckled.

"Marriage? Cool!"

"It's going to be tough while he's in the Navy, but Joyce's situation is flexible enough that she could probably work from Georgia and fly up to Cincinnati when she needs to. Kara's mom would run things day-to-day."

"There aren't too many of your core friends who are single. Katy and Stephie are getting married before the end of the year. It's really just Bethany, isn't it?"

"Yes; I'd say Josh and Mary are basically engaged based on what they told me. My sister is kind of young, and Penny is even younger, so I'd put them in a different category."

"I was talking about college graduates. Speaking of which, how is Tanya?"

"She's been on several dates with her Colonel of tanks. My guess is that they'll get engaged before the end of the year."

"Wow. That's fast!"

"Tanya isn't one to dilly-dally. She likes him, and it seems he's a good match in personality as well as politically. And that's very important for her and her career. He has Colonel Anisimova's endorsement, and that's pretty much golden in my book."

"Lyudmila's mom?"

"Yep."

Elyse came into the attic.

"She's smart, has basic computer skills, and is a cute, teenage 'Steve type'!" Elyse smirked.

Julia laughed, "Of course she is! Penny, Charlie, Natalya, you, Debbie, Dany, and now Kaitlin. I sense a pattern!"

"Don't forget yourself," Elyse laughed. "Steve's just making sure that women have opportunities for computer jobs!"

"Steve is just hiring qualified people!" I retorted. "I hired Dave, and we hired Mario, Zeke, and Tom, too."

"She's waiting in your study," Elyse said. "I'll go downstairs with you and we can make the offer."

We went back to my study and let Kaitlin know that we'd be hiring her, and that we'd want her to start on August 25th, so that we could bring her up to speed before we opened the new office. She was very happy with the salary that we offered and accepted verbally.