Chapter 34: Lena

December 6, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“She looked very happy. One down, two to go?” Samantha teased after Wanda left the house.

“And you’re OK?” I asked.

“It was part of our agreement, so yes.”

I smiled, “That’s not what I asked. Forget the agreement. Are you OK?”

She was quiet for a moment, “Yes, I think so. Remember, I was OK with you being with Denise, and honestly, given how it turned out, I wish you had.”

“What happened?”

“My dad was his usual self. He had her two or three times, but his way isn’t like yours from what the girls say. It’s pure sex. No cuddling afterwards. No joint shower. Just get dressed and leave. And after the last time, he gave her a nice necklace she’d wanted and then sent her away. She’s pretty depressed about the whole thing.”

Which I could totally understand. It was one of the reasons I was so careful about the girls I’d been with, and mostly spent a lot of time talking to them before taking them to bed. It was something Jennie McGrath had warned me about fifteen years previously, and even so, I’d run into problems with some girls’ emotional responses.

“I’m sorry she had a bad experience, but you know why I couldn’t. That rule has to stay in place for obvious reasons.”

“I know. It’s just seeing her hurt because she was just another plaything for my dad that really bothers me. Before, it bothered me because I’d lose friends over it. Now it bothers me because I know the difference between sex and love.”

“So perhaps your mission is to convince those girls not to do it. To wait for the right guy. To avoid men like your dad and his friends.”

“The problem is meeting the right guy. Most of the girls go to exclusive private schools, and some you haven’t met go to boarding schools. The only guys they see are mostly the same type of rich, spoiled brats or rich married men. You were an anomaly. So was John, actually, because he wasn’t part of any of the social circles. But Lisa thought she could control him easier than one of the rich boys.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say except to encourage you to talk to them and tell them to stay away from the guys there.”

“I guess,” she sighed. “Did you find out what happened with Lena?”

“A bratty little sister who snooped in her diary and read about the Rap Sessions and the kisses, and then ratted Lena out to her parents.”

“What a little bitch!” Samantha growled. “Did you ever have a problem like that with your journals?”

Problem? No. But Elyse certainly had snooped, even if she felt I’d given tacit approval by leaving the key to my desk with her.

“Not really,” I said. “My sister was on my side growing up, and would never have told my mom. In fact, on a couple of occasions, she took my secret lock box out of my room so my mom wouldn’t find it when she was snooping.”

“Now THAT’S a sister you want!” Samantha laughed. “So now what?”

“Lena’s banned from coming to the Rap Sessions and her parents have her on a very tight leash. She’s going to try to slip free, if you will, later this week, but I’m not so sure her parents will allow it.”

“How? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Reading days. She’s going to come to campus to study with her friends and will try to slip away to see me.”

Samantha laughed, “That’ll be two!”

“You’re just waiting for me to get these out of the way, aren’t you? To see how I behave afterwards?”

“I suppose that’s true. But I think you’ll do fine. In fact, I’m sure of it. You’ve shown me already.”

“I have?”

“By being concerned about how I felt. And if I had said I was uncomfortable, you would have given up on the others.”

“Yes.”

“So for the next sleepover I have, I want you to join us in the sauna. I promise no orgies will break out!”

“Bummer!” I teased.

Samantha’s eyes twinkled, “Just ask.”

“Never!” I said, now sounding serious.

“I know,” she said happily and with a big smile. “That’s why I love you.”

December 7, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

I pulled into my new, snow-covered parking spot just after 8:00am. I’d had to tweak my schedule with Gina a bit to allow for the extra time that the drive would take, but otherwise, the only real compromise was not being able to walk Jessica to work regularly for the first time since she’d started her Residency. I’d still be able to walk her home, but I felt bad about not being able to walk her to work. I got out, locked the car, and walked around to the building’s main entrance.

“Good morning, Lucas. How are things?”

“Good morning! Chaotic! But Kimmy and Keri have everything completely under control.”

I hung my coat in the closet and put my fedora on the shelf.

“The phones are working?” I asked.

“Yes. There don’t appear to be any problems. Kimmy is at the old building ensuring the last of our things are moved out.”

“Perfect. When she arrives, have her come see me, please.”

“Will do. Sam asked that you stop in her office. There was some difficulty with the computer network over the weekend.”

“But you have access to your electronic mail and the files now?”

“Yes. It seems to be working OK.”

I waved my pass card to unlock the door into the interior offices and was pleased to see it work correctly. Rather than go up the stairs, I turned left to head to Sam’s office.

“Lucas said there was an problem with the network,” I said.

“There was some confusion by the electricians with the low-power cabling. They misread the CAT-3 UTP standards and had to redo every single connector and wall plate over the weekend.”

“Why didn’t we find this out before?”

“They had toned out each connection and it was fine, because it was electrically good. But some pins were reversed from what they should have been. It’s fixed. They spent all day Saturday and half of yesterday fixing it.”

“All the computers are on the network now?”

“Yes. I personally tested each one as they fixed them. I was here pretty much the whole weekend.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “You can take a couple of days of comp time to make up for it.”

“Julia already approved that! I was happy to do it, though. It was good experience, and I could be sure everything was working right. Your CICNet connection is live in the computer room. All you need to do is run the patch cable in the computer room and then plug into the correct jack in your office. I made sure the Unix box is up and running. I hope you don’t mind that I did the Ethernet configuration for you.”

I chuckled, “Could I have stopped you short of changing the root password?”

“No! Also, I heard from InfoNet. They’ll be in next week to connect us to the WAN. That’s going to take a bit of configuration of their routers and our OS/2 and Novell systems. I’ll do that, too, if you’ll let me.”

“Everyone keeps pointing out that I’m keeper of this zoo, so yes, I will! I know you’ll document it properly. Just keep me posted.”

“To start with, I was only going to configure your computer, my computer, and one in each remote office for full access. We’ll see how it works before I try to get it on all of the workstations. The real issue is getting PC/TCP to load and run with the Novell packet drivers in the limited memory that Microsoft allows.”

“I know you’ll manage,” I grinned.

“Using HIMEM.SYS and MEMMAKER, I should be able to at least get a rough idea of how to fit it all into upper memory so we can still load Windows with all the drivers in place.”

“That’s what we pay you for!”

“I was thinking that given the improvements that Microsoft is making, especially with the talk about the new server OS which will come out next summer, we might want to think about dispensing with Novell completely. I know Microsoft’s file sharing isn’t as good, but given our reliance on SQL Server, we might want to think about it. I also looked at MS Mail, and think we should consider moving to it, instead of cc:Mail.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Integration is the biggest thing. Once Greg started us on the path to SQL Server, I think we committed to Microsoft. The only thing I’d be reticent to change would be WordPerfect, but we’re going to have to support MS Word at some point.”

I nodded, “I figured this was coming. I started out as an Apple and Mac guy, but I can’t see any alternative to what you’re proposing, at least not now. Write it all up and we’ll discuss it.”

She smiled, “Way ahead of you, Boss!”

I laughed, “Terry’s habit is spreading!”

“Well, at the moment, you ARE the boss, until you decide to be a programmer again. If you do.”

“There’s no ‘if’ about it! It’ll happen. I just need to keep my skills up in the meantime! Anything else?”

“Not for now. It’s all quiet on the Dante front for now.”

“That never lasts,” I chuckled.

I left her office, and after saying ‘good morning’ to Dave and Julia, headed up to my office. I turned on the computer and was happy to see everything was working fine. I did the same with Penny’s computer, and had just finished checking it when she walked in the door.

“Snooping?” she teased.

“Just making sure it was working and on the network. It is. Did you guys drive over?”

“Yes. That lot is only a block away, so it’s no problem at all. It makes it easy to bring Amber and Andy here for the daycare.”

“You know, I should check on that,” I said.

I got up and walked down the hall to the large office we’d set aside for daycare. Eventually, it could be made into two offices or a conference room, but for the time being, it served as the company daycare. None of my kids would come here unless Abbie was going to be away, but most of the others would. I saw Eric, Peter, Nicky, Amber, Andrew, and William with a young woman who I assumed was the person who the ‘co-op’ had hired.

“Hi, I’m Steve Adams.”

“Hi! I’m Kate Ball!” she said with a moderate Polish accent. “You’re the boss?”

“Of the company, yes, but you work for the daycare co-op, not me.”

“Do you have kids?”

“A bunch, but we have a nanny at home. You mostly won’t see my kids unless she’s on vacation. And some days, Peter, Nicky, Amber, and William will be at my house to play with my kids.”

“Their moms or dads told me. I guess there are other kids, too.”

“Yes. I don’t see Charles here, or Ally’s kids. I suspect they’ll be along soon. Do you have someone to help you?”

“Yes, another girl, Luisa, but she’s only here in the afternoons unless I’m not here. She’ll help with lunch and afternoon walks.”

“OK. I’m just down the hall, in the office next to Elyse.”

“Thanks. It was nice to meet you, Sir!”

“Please, call me Steve. Everyone does!”

“OK, Mr. Steve!” she replied.

That would have to do.

December 8, 1992, Chicago, Illinois

“I got a job, starting in January,” Samantha said at dinner on Tuesday night.

“Where?”

“At the new Borders bookstore over by the University. I’ll work Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings, plus Saturday mornings. And yes, I’ll be able to get my homework done!”

Everyone laughed.

“That’s great!” I said. “How does it feel?”

“Weird. But you told me it was a good idea and I believe you. The pay is unbelievable.”

I chuckled, “As in unbelievably low?”

She nodded, “$5.00 an hour! I could barely buy gas for my car, let alone pay insurance on that!”

“Welcome to the real world!” Josie laughed. “My first job paid $2.35 an hour! And that was working at McDonald’s. Ugh!”

“How can anyone make it on so little money?” Samantha asked.

“I think you’re starting to understand something Steve intended for you to learn.”

“May I ask what you pay Lucas?”

“$9.00 per hour,” Elyse said. “He’s also eligible for bonuses. His total compensation would probably work out to around $23,000 per year, which isn’t bad for a young, single guy living with his buddies. It would be tough to raise a family on that, though, especially here in Chicago.”

“Is that normal for someone like him?”

“No,” Elyse said. “We pay well because we want the best and we want people to stay. He was only making about $6.50 per hour with the temp agency.”

“Something to consider when you take over Spurgeon Capital,” I said. “Those fund managers and traders make millions, but I bet the receptionist makes less than Lucas.”

“Probably. Dad would say you should never overpay for something like that.”

“We’re not,” Elyse said. “We’re paying Lucas what he’s worth to us. Just because it could be had cheaper, doesn’t mean it’s the same quality or provides the same value. How often does Spurgeon Capital get new receptionists?”

“Every year, if not more often.”

“Which proves my point,” Elyse said. “Kimmy and Keri both started as receptionists. We promoted them. They’ve both been around for a long time and most likely won’t leave. That has value, too.”

“An interesting concept. Dad says that with the exception of the top analysts, traders, and especially fund managers, every employee is fungible.”

“And he’s technically correct,” I said. “Anyone can be replaced. But what’s the cost of doing that? I say the cost to the firm of high turnover is much higher than paying better salaries and offering better benefits.”

“I don’t know that he’s considered that.”

I smiled, “But you will, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Steve,” Abbie said, “Jorge called me about my script! You told him?”

I chuckled, “Yes. I need to divert him from a different course of action! I thought maybe a graphic novel would be a good idea! What did he say?”

“We’re going to talk about it this weekend. I assume because you suggested it, you’re OK with his plan?”

“I am,” I said with a grin.

“What script?” Jason asked.

There was general laughter at the table, as all the adults knew about it.

“I’ll tell you later,” Abbie smirked.

Later that evening, after Kara and I had walked Jessica home from work, I was in bed with Elyse. We’d made love and were cuddling afterwards.

“You set up your tryst with Lena?” she asked.

“Yes, for Friday. Why?”

“You need to be very careful with her. VERY careful.”

“Why? Because of her parents?”

“That’s part of it.”

“She’s eighteen and in college,” I countered.

“That’s true, but I’ve watched her. I’ve seen the way she looks at you, the way she acts around you, and the way she responded to those kisses.”