Chapter 27: Fuck Them!

September 15, 1986, Chicago, Illinois

"When is Bethany moving in?" I asked Stephanie as we ate breakfast with Kara and Jessica.

"In a couple of weeks," she answered.

"And you're really OK with sharing a room with her?"

"Yes. Jorge was a bit put out, but I explained everything to him and we'll work it out. There's always a guest room if I have an overnight guest!"

"True. I really appreciate you doing this," I said.

"I don't think it'll be for too long."

"Oh?"

"She and Nick. I'll bet you anything you care to wager that they're married by this time next year."

"No way!" I said. "I can't see them moving that fast."

"How fast? They had their first date about a year ago. That would be around two years. How long did you know Jess?"

"Point taken, but I'm not sure that Bethany is ready for that step."

"Kara, Jessica, forgive me for what I'm about to say to your husband, but, dear dumb brother of mine, she'll be ready as soon as you take her away for the weekend and fuck her senseless."

Kara and Jessica both laughed.

"And you two are really OK with this?" I asked.

"Yes, Tiger," Jessica said. "You two need to put the finishing touch on your nine-year relationship. Bethany needs to be set free, and you need to close that chapter of your life and open a new one. It's unconventional, but it's what you two need to do. It's what you couldn't do before we got engaged because of her issues."

"She talked to you about that?"

"Her PTSD? Yes. It makes sense. I'd have to talk to Doctor Hicks and Doctor Barton, but she seemed like she was OK to me. She was functioning and seemed to have dealt with everything OK. Obviously, she hadn't. I wonder if we should have all severe trauma patients have a psych consult. Maybe they would have picked up on it."

"When do you normally get that kind of consultation?" Kara asked.

"Usually only if they present as mentally ill. But I heard from Elyse that Steve suffered something akin to survivor guilt when his friend Wen was shot and when Bethany had her accident."

I nodded, "Both of those certainly affected me. And so did Birgit's death."

"This is all pretty new thinking," Jessica said. "I'm aware of it because I did my undergrad work in psychology."

"I meant to ask you about that," Kara said. "I thought you had to have a degree in biology or something like that."

"I double-minored in biology and chemistry," Jessica said. "It's not the normal route for pre-med to get a psych degree, but I don't do things normally!"

"No kidding!" I smirked.

"Watch it, Tiger. I have access to scalpels and drugs!"

"You'd regret it more than I would!" I chuckled.

All three girls laughed. We finished breakfast, and Kara and I walked Jessica to work while Stephanie cleaned up the kitchen. On the way home, Kara walked me to the office, and then she went back home to get her books and head to class. I was in the office before everyone, as always, so I went to my office and fired up my computer and got to work. A little over an hour later, Kaitlin appeared at my office door, wearing a clingy cotton dress that really showed off her athletic frame.

"Hi!" she said brightly. "Need anything?"

"Nope. I'm good. Is anyone else here?"

"No, I'm a few minutes early. I wanted to have the coffee ready when everyone arrives. Are you sure I can't do anything for you?"

I suppressed a chuckle. There was just no way I was going to answer that question in any way other than straight.

"Nah. I got my coffee on the way in. I'll see you at the staff meeting at 8:30am."

"OK!" she said, turning and walking back up front.

"Does she always flirt like that?" Charlie asked as she came to the door.

"Yes, she does. But it's innocent. Well, I think so, anyway. It's not like Penny's flirting."

"Penny isn't flirting; Penny is demanding! I know what it was like, so trust me on that! You just have a stronger will than she does. At least so far."

"And it's going to stay that way!" I said. "What's up for today?"

"There's nothing outstanding for Purina Mills, so Dave wants me to work on some enhancement requests for the legal software."

"OK," I said. "Let me know if you have any questions."

About twenty minutes later, Julia and Dave came into my office.

"We need to talk about staffing before the meeting," Dave said.

"OK. We have permission to hire now that Cindi closed a couple of the deals."

"We have to consider the Waukesha situation," Dave said. "We're closing in on the end of the year budget cycle. We planned for eighteen months, but we can't be sure it will continue past the end of the year until the new budget is passed. I think there's enough work for us for at least another year. The debate is whether they should hire another in-house programmer or not. My thinking is not, because once the major coding is done, they'll only need the two people they have — Will and Kent — to do the maintenance and support. If they have major projects, they could contract with us.

"I argued that they shouldn't hire full-time staff for what amounts to limited-term work. I think Mr. Forster agrees, though the department head, Mr. O'Donnell, isn't sure. To me, his argument sounds like he wants to increase his headcount to increase his permanent budget. That's political, and we won't have much influence against a political argument. But, as I said, Mr. Forster believes in using outside contractors."

"So, what's the bottom line?" I asked.

"Right now, I'd say we have to wait and see. Their budget request is due in October and will be approved in November. We'll know for sure then which way they're going because the budget is public. It'll be super obvious from the headcount numbers and the amount of money allocated for our contract."

"So we could have a situation where we don't have specific work for Tom and Debbie in January," Julia said. "We have to figure out what we're going to do."

"If they do decide to hire someone, would they consider hiring Debbie or Tom?" I asked.

"They might," Dave said. "But don't we have to assume that we need to find work for them?"

I nodded, "That would be the conservative approach. One of them could take over the Purina Mills support, which would allow Charlie to cover for Penny and Tasha, who only work part time. The other would be the new slot for which we're talking about hiring. But can we manage until November with the short staff?"

"Zeke has taken on more testing since Kaitlin started, so that's freed me up for more coding," Dave said. "I think we just have to work through it and wait to see what happens. That fits your conservative approach."

"It does," I said. "I guess we prioritize the paid enhancements and bug fixes. The new functionality that people want but aren't paying for directly will have to wait. How bad is that for Cindi and Mario?"

"I'll ask," Julia said. "But to me, it seems like those two are being run ragged because of installs and sales calls. We're going to need to hire someone to do installs and on-site support so that they can focus on sales."

"These are all good problems to have," I said. "I'd rather have these issues than not enough work."

"I do have one other issue I want to mention to you privately," Julia said. "We had one potential client who asked some pointed questions about your personal life."

"About Jessica and Kara? Or about Jesse?" I asked.

"Both, actually. I'm not sure how they heard about it, but they did. They were concerned about, and I'm quoting here, the 'moral turpitude' of our owner."

I sighed, "Just one? And how big?"

"Yes, just one. A small law office in Cicero. Cindi wasn't sure how they found out about you."

"My first response is to say 'Fuck 'em!', but if something like that spreads, I realize that we could have some serious problems. I have no idea how to counter it, though. All that Cindi and Mario can do is point to our success."

"Steve, how are you going to respond to a reporter who asks about your life?" Dave inquired.

"With the truth! How else would I respond?" I asked, exasperation showing in my voice.

"I know you well enough to know that would be the answer," Dave said. "But think about what could happen if some of our larger customers had concerns about your personal life?"

"What are you saying?" I asked, perturbed by the whole situation.

"Just that you might want to consider finessing the answers."

"Fuck that noise!" I declared. "I'm willing to appoint a CEO if that will take some of the heat off, but I'm not going to lie about my wives or my kids."

"Your sister really isn't ready to be CEO," Julia said.

"I agree that it's too soon," I said. "She's a Sophomore at UofC. I'd say Elyse, but she's about to have a couple of my kids out of wedlock, which doesn't help. It really can't be one of you two or Cindi because of your other roles. My dad and Joyce are both in Cincinnati. I'm out of options if it can't be Stephanie."

"Maybe it has to be her after all," Julia said. "Just because of the circumstances. We don't want to hire someone for that role. If you think about it, her name goes on the literature as CEO instead of your name as President. People almost never ask to meet you. It's happened maybe three times, and one of those was Jamie's firm. So it's not like she'll have to go to see clients very often. And your sister is so confident that I think she can pull it off even though she's only nineteen."

"Then I guess we name her CEO," I said. "I need to talk to my dad and Joyce about it, but I can't see them having any objections given the circumstances."

"You knew you were going to have trouble like this before you asked the girls to marry you," Dave said.

"I know. I wish people could just mind their own fucking business!" I snapped.

"Steve, we're your friends," Julia said gently.

"I know," I sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just annoyed."

"Has anyone said anything to Jessica?" she asked.

"Al Barton said that some other med students had given her a bit of grief about Kara, but that's all so far. I suspect that her usual answer is that she's married. We'll see what happens when she's invited to some hospital event and both Kara and I attend."

"It won't cause a problem with her licensing?" Dave asked.

"No. It's not like lawyers and admission to the Bar where they're required to be of 'good moral character', whatever the hell that means. So if Jess or Kara were going to be lawyers, it might be a problem. Kara decided to teach at the university level because she was concerned about some school board having a fit about our relationship."

"I never asked, what did you tell the Swedish authorities at passport control when you three went there?"

I smiled, "That Jess was my wife and Kara was our friend. We agreed that we wouldn't ever represent to any government that the three of us were married. That could get us in serious trouble, even if ultimately nothing came of whatever complaint was lodged. It's not illegal in Illinois for me to claim to be married to both girls, so long as I don't represent it in any official documents like tax forms."

The three of us went to the staff meeting, which was fairly short, and all of us got back to work. At noon, I invited Charlie with me on my lunch break so that I could take Jesse to see Francesca without being alone with Carol. She hadn't come to the house when I'd invited her because her husband had refused. She repeated her invitation to bring Jesse to the playgroup, and I said that it would be a problem because of work, but I'd see what I could do. I thought about having Beverly take Jesse and decided that was the best solution.

"Hi!" Elyse said, coming into my office around 2:00pm.

"What's up?" I said.

"I was walking home from class and thought I'd stop by and tell you that I think I'm late," she smirked.

"Really? When were you supposed to start?"

"Saturday night or Sunday morning. I'm not as regular as Jennifer was, but I've never been more than two days late."

"Well, I'm no expert, but I think it takes a few weeks before you can reliably use a home pregnancy test."

"True, but I feel pregnant. Maybe it's psychosomatic, but I don't think so."

"I think I'd wait a bit before I told anyone," I said.

"You just want to keep getting your nookie!" she giggled.

"That's NOT what I meant at all!" I chuckled. "Though I've always liked making love with you. I figure you should wait until you can use one of those tests and get confirmation. If you want me to tell Jess and Kara, I will."

"Are they going to let you be with me once I'm pregnant?"

"You know, we never discussed that detail directly. The agreement was that you and I could be together until you had two kids. I suppose it's something for you to discuss with Kara."

"Not Jess?" she asked.

"Jess told you to check with Kara, and she hasn't said differently to me. Kara will know what Jess wants."

"It's an interesting setup that you have with them. They aren't controlling, but you're controlled."

"A kid, a business, and a couple of wives will do that to you! I just haven't had the urge to do anything really crazy since last Summer."

"And Lyudmila?" she smirked.

"Why am I not surprised that you know about that?" I chuckled. "Is it common knowledge?"

Elyse smirked, "I had no clue. Now I do!"

"That was underhanded, even for you, Ms. Clarke!" I grinned. "That was a dalliance that seemed like the right thing to do, but also showed me that I don't feel the same way about them that I have in the past."

"So you're done with them? Permanently?"

"I don't know. I have some amount of freedom from Jess and Kara, but I'm not sure I'll use it any time soon, if at all."

"What about Miss 'Bend me over the desk, Mr. Adams!' out there?" she smirked.

"She works for NIKA. No way!"

"I think she'd fuck you until you were cross-eyed, that's what I think!"

"Maybe, maybe not, but I have no intention of looking for that answer. That's the last kind of trouble I need. And if Penny ever found out, then what?"

"Yeah. She'd never ever let you say 'no' again, and that would be bad," Elyse nodded. "Whatever happened with her boyfriend?"

"She told me that she was going to break it off with him because he didn't take her 'no' as a 'no'."

"That kid is lucky to be alive and have his balls attached. I would NOT want to mess with Miss Penny O'Neil!"

"Exactly," I said. "I think she cut him a tiny bit of slack because he was a horny teenager. Just enough to tell him to 'shove off' rather than castrating him."