Chapter 11

Week 5 - Saturday

When I awoke, Missy was still beside me. She was sound asleep. I just lay there and watched her for a while. I swear she has become more beautiful, since we've been together. Either that, or I've become so besotted with my love for her, that I see her that way.

It wasn't long before Missy started to stir, so I kissed her awake. Her arms went around me and she returned the kiss with passion.

"You know," Missy said after a while, "you're the first guy I ever spent the night with. I could get used to waking up like this."

"It is nice, isn't it?" I asked. "It's too bad we can't wake up every morning without feeling rushed to get to work, or something."

"Well, we know that's not going to happen, so we just have to make the most of the time we have," she said as she rolled on top of me.

We did.

We took a shower together, then made ourselves a respectable breakfast. I decided I was going to go into work for a while. I wanted to catch up on some paperwork while Missy worked on her project.

We took separate cars, since we weren't necessarily going to be there for the same length of time. I did stop and pick up a large coffee for each of us on the way in. I dropped Missy's coffee off to her in the R&D lab, before going to my own office.

Mel had told me yesterday that he wanted to hire two of the people he had interviewed, but that he'd like for me to look over their resumés first. I was just going through the first one when a man stuck his head in my door and said, "Mr. Delany, I'm Charley Timmons, from Sales. I was wondering if I could talk with you for a minute."

"I suppose so," I said somewhat reluctantly. "What can I do for you?"

"Word has come through the grapevine that we are redesigning the Order Picker. I was just wondering if that was true?"

"Yes, for the time being, we're just revamping it so we can make a replacement for E. L. Libby. Theirs was destroyed in a flood. Why do you ask?"

"I was probably the only Belding salesman who actually sold the Order Picker system. Right after I sold the Libby system, I was told by Jim Shear that we were no longer going to manufacture the system, as some components were no longer available. Since then I've had at least a dozen requests for an upgraded Order Picker system. I forwarded all of these requests to Shear, but nothing ever came of them. I even talked with Pete about the potential for a lot of sales, but he wasn't that interested either."

"What do you mean by an upgraded system?"

He handed me a sheet of paper that had a list of features on it.

"These are the features the potential customers wanted. None of them sounded too outrageous, but I'm not an engineer. I was wondering if we were going to start manufacturing the system again, and if these features could be included?"

I looked over the list. I didn't know enough about what Missy was proposing to do to be able to respond and I told him so.

"I'll guarantee you that I'll get copies of this list to the new R&D Manager, and to the engineer who is doing the redesign. They can evaluate how hard it would be to implement them."

Timmons left after that, and I sat there thinking for a while about what he had told me.

For the first time, really, I was starting to have serious doubts about Mike Severt. I could understand why Mike wouldn't have known about the potential problems with the engineers. But I think Mike should have known about Shear holding back the R&D department.

I thought he should have known there was something fishy going on between Pete and the purchasing department. I also thought he should have known about Pete's sexual harassment. I decided I needed to be very careful of my own conduct, and very watchful of others.

I don't know how long I had been sitting there, but it must have been a long time. Eventually, Missy came in and closed my office door. She sat on my lap. That brought me out of my reverie.

"Hi, Sweetie," I said as I put my arms around her.

"Hi, yourself. You looked like you were lost in thought."

"Yeah, I guess I was. I'll tell you about it after we get home. Since you showed up here, can I assume you're ready to go?"

"Yes. I was thinking that since we have both cars, maybe we could make a trip to my old apartment and pick up the last of the things I want to move to our place."

"That sounds good," I said, hugging her to me.

She wiggled around a little, then kissed me with as much passion as she'd ever shown.

As much as I was enjoying our kissing and cuddling, I knew it wasn't appropriate behavior for the workplace. I broke it off and we headed for her 'old' place.

As we were putting away the last of Missy's things, I said, "You know, honey, we are in a difficult relationship. There are things I need to bounce off of someone that if they got back to anyone at work, I'd be in grave danger of losing my job. You are the only person I feel confident talking to about them, but you need to be especially careful not to let anything slip out by accident."

Missy stepped close to me and put her arms around me.

"You know I'd never intentionally repeat anything you ever said to me. But if you are worried about me slipping up and saying anything, then wait and talk to Jillian about it. I can give you some time alone with her, if you need it."

"No, I guess I just wanted to emphasize that anything we discuss, is between the two of us, and no one else. I love you, Missy, and I trust you."

I told her about my misgivings about Mike.

"You know," she said, "I don't think Mike is deliberately ignoring problems. I think he is an example of 'the Peter Principle.' It may make it harder on you, but you may have to hold his hand and feed him information as he needs it."

"I was kind of figuring it that way myself," I agreed. "Mike is a very likeable guy. When he's aware of something, he makes good decisions. Maybe he just has tunnel vision. Maybe he can only see what is directly in front of him. He might get to working towards a goal, and be so focused on it, that he isn't totally aware of what's going on around him."

"That's a good quality for an engineer," Missy grinned as she ran her fingernails up and down my back. "It's not such a great quality for a company president."

"God I hate being a babysitter, but it doesn't look like I have much choice," I said as I stroked her butt.

"You could practice by babysitting me," she said.

"I'd rather play with you," I grinned.

"Well, we don't have anything else to do, today. What would you like to play?"

"How about we play house," I leered. "I'll be the daddy and you can be the mommy."

"Ooh, is it bed time for mommy and daddy?"

"I think it just might be. 'I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours.'"

Week 5 - Sunday

We finally made it out of bed. We went to Jillian's around noon. Missy was a little hesitant for a while, around Jillian. Soon, though, the two young women were talking as though they had known each other for years. Of course, I was trashed by both of them, but especially by Jillian. She just had to tell Missy stories about when we were growing up.

It was all in fun and we all enjoyed ourselves.

Week 6 - Monday

I awoke early, with Missy in my arms. I just watched her sleep for a few minutes. God, I loved this girl. Isn't it amazing how hate can change to love, as it did with Missy; and love can turn to hate, as it did with Lorna? Finally, the clock told me it was time to get moving.

Missy was a little flustered when I awakened her. She had wanted to get an earlier start. I told her she could just have breakfast with me and start at the regular time. A little cuddling and a few kisses convinced her there were more important things than work.

Brenda joined us at breakfast and she and Missy chatted about our past weekend. Brenda and her husband had gone up to Fort Michillimacinac (pronounced Mishla' mackinaw). I had been there before, and I knew it was an interesting place, especially for a history buff. I said so to Brenda.

"I wouldn't say Greg is a history buff. He's more like a history nut. Sometimes I don't think he could tell you who the President of the U.S. is, but he could tell you the details of any battle in the Revolutionary War," Brenda said.

"My father is that way," Missy laughed. "He's more into the Civil War, though."

Brenda and I left for my office, and Missy took off to R&D. I didn't see her again until evening.

Gene came in not long after I got to my office to tell me he had hired two new controls engineers.

"I've got three more to interview this week. If they're as good as the ones I've already hired, my department is going to have the best staffing it's had in years," he said.

"Great! Baldwin was telling me last week that it looks like the Atlanta job is going to be turned over to the customer on Friday, right on schedule. Have you heard anything from Sly this week?"

"No, but I expect him to call before long. I told him I wanted a status report by noon today. I want everything finished by Wednesday. If he can't tell me for sure that's going to happen, they go back on twelve-hour days."

I nodded and asked, "Do you think there's any hope of rehabilitating Westover?"

"I just don't know, Ed. When he wants to work at it, he's a good engineer. I'm just afraid he's been teacher's pet for so long, that he has forgotten what it takes to be a good engineer, unless someone is looking over his shoulder."

"Well, let's see how he does after we get him back in the office. Do you have him assigned to anything else?"

"Yes. He is supposed to be working on a job for J. C. Penney. He's going to be about a week behind on it when he gets back, so he'll have to hit the ground running."

"Any word on Miller?"

"No. Not really. They have had a few more things show up in pawnshops, but that's about it. No word on the rental car and no word on his location."

"Well, keep me informed if anything comes up on Miller. Also, let me know about the Atlanta job."

Gene said he would, then he left.

Mel was the next one to check in. "Did my suggestion help with that freezer problem?" I asked him.

Mel laughed. "I just got off the phone with our guys out there. They said the maintenance crew worked on it all weekend, but they finally got it fixed. First they had to get the ice off the old belt, so they could remove it. Then they had to cut it, and pull it off with a tow motor. Luckily, they had enough new belting to replace the old belt. The ice had stretched the old one so badly it couldn't be reused."

"I'm sure you've been in situations where you had to put in a lot of hours. I know I have. I can remember working forty-nine hours in a row once, when a system crashed. I went back to my room and slept for four hours, then came back and worked another twenty-two."

"Yeah, I've done the same thing, Ed. Sometimes I wonder if our younger engineers would be willing to do something like that. Somehow, I think the work ethic that was there a few years ago is gone, now."