Chapter 12

This whole mess with Grace and Jane was fast becoming a problem for me. Dad was right. We already had enough to worry about without getting involved in their mess. I regretted telling Mama that I'd talk to Jane about Elizabeth taking Bea's room. I was now caught in the middle of their disagreement. I went upstairs and dialed Jane's number.

"Jane, it's Kenny. Mama told me you were planning to stay in Bea's old room for awhile. You can't."

"Your mom already said I could. All my stuff is packed back in my car already."

"Well, you can't. We all discussed it, and no one wants to be around you and Grace when you're fighting. Besides, Elizabeth just moved into Bea's room."

"Does Grace know you're doing this to me?"

"Grace is a guest, just like you were. I'll tell her our decision at dinner. If she doesn't like it, she can leave the same as you did."

"Let me talk to Grace. This isn't fair, Kenny."

"I'm not going to run around carrying your messages. I'm hanging up now. If you want to speak to Grace, you can call here and ask for her." I listened to her complain some more about how unfair I was being, but I wasn't about to do what she wanted me to. Finally, realizing she wasn't getting anywhere with me, she said goodbye and hung up.

An hour later, Grace came looking for me. She looked unhappy and upset.

"Are you kicking me out, Kenny?"

"I will if this fighting continues, Grace. You two were guests here, and you took advantage of us by having this kind of fight, and by trying us to get involved and to choose sides."

"I just talked to Jane, and we both apologized to each other. She wants to come back here, but she said you told her she couldn't."

"I told her she couldn't move into Bea's old room. I didn't tell her she couldn't go back to my old room. If she does though, I don't want any more of this fighting, and I want you both to quit doing things to upset Mama and Dad. You've both taken advantage of their hospitality, and I don't like that. If she does come back, and we have any more problems, you're both going to be asked to leave."

Grace thanked me, hearing only the part about Jane being allowed to come back to their room. Dinner was served a half hour later, and Grace announced, to all of us, that Jane was coming back later that evening. I noticed Mama smiling over at me, even as she was telling Grace how happy she was that she and Jane had made up again. Dad looked at both of us, and just shook his head.

"Be careful, Kenny, she'll start using you all the time to do her meddling." Dad had to turn away from the angry stare Mama was sending his way right after he said that. "Your mother suggested that you might enjoy traveling up to Omaha with us tomorrow. I need to look over some things, and she thought you should start getting familiar with the way our business operates."

"I thought you went there today?" He had told me that he was going to Omaha.

"I did, and I'll probably be going up there every day for the rest of the week. It's a one hour flight from Bolling to Omaha. We'll be home in time for dinner. There's room for you in the plane, and you might just find it interesting. Tomorrow, we'll be looking at the main building, and examining production operations at the vending plant. It was just an idea, Kenny. You needn't go with us, not if you'd rather do something else. Your mother thought it might be enjoyable for you."

"No, I'd like to go. I've never flown before, and I've never been to Nebraska. Who's going?"

"Just the four of us, unless Bunny decides to travel with us too. He did say he wanted to get up there, to have a look around, but he also mentioned he might have scheduling problems. Your mother and Grace are both going. I'm trying to decide on whether to bring along some of my own production people, but I don't know how well that might sit with the production people up in Omaha. Many of them are already skittish and on edge, due to this sudden change of ownership."

"I'll miss my golf lesson with Dave, but I'd rather do this."

"Fine then, it's settled. Is there a problem, Grace?" Grace was stirring around, looking uncomfortable in her chair. Since she was sitting across from me, I'd noticed her movement too, but I wasn't going to mention it. Dad talking to her, seemed to startle her.

"No, I just didn't know we were going back again, that's all. Did you say all this week?"

"At least. One of the most important things is for us to discover all there is to know about this new acquisition, as quickly as possible. Rob wasn't the best at allocating his resources. The sooner I find out what we have to work with, the better off we'll be."

"Is there another problem, dear?" Mama was speaking to Grace, a note of concern in her voice.

"Not a problem, not exactly. Jane and I were talking about both of us possibly asking for tomorrow off, so we could get her settled back in our room again."

I said, "Grace, this is the kind of trying to take advantage of us, that I warned Jane about earlier on the phone. You don't just get to take time off from work because you and Jane had a fight, and now want to kiss and make up. You can do that on your own time." I was still harboring some residual resentment over the way she and Jane were handling the generosity they had been shown by my parents, and by Uncle Bunny. Instead of working hard, to show their appreciation, it seemed like they were both trying to milk it for all that they could. I was still smarting from Brenda's getting me to offer her that forty dollars too. If I were to admit the truth, I was also very unhappy with Emily's refusal to listen to me when I warned her about how Brenda would be treating her in the future. If you added Elizabeth in too, I was just tired of having to deal with all these girls in general. None of them seemed to think they had any responsibility to solve their own problems, and they all wanted something, all the time.

Grace acted innocent, and said: "She asked me, Kenny. I wasn't going to ask, not if she didn't ask me first."

"Kenny, this isn't like you. I'm sure we can all manage to get by with Jane and Grace taking one day off." Mama said that quickly, wanting to avoid any possible unpleasantness at the dinner table. Dad didn't make any comment about what we were now speaking about. He sat back in his chair, watching silently as this whole thing unfolded.

I said, "Mama, I understand we could get along with them taking time off, but I feel like they're taking advantage, and that it is deliberate on their parts. I don't like it, and I want them both to know I don't. I've been telling people to take a stand against this kind of thing, but I've been sitting by doing nothing, allowing people to take advantage of you and Dad. They're taking advantage of me too." Grace stood up from the dining room table. The look she gave me was venomous. I could see the color on her cheeks and neck. I stood up myself, saying exactly what I was thinking, "You better think before you say anything to me, Grace. I'm not in any mood to get into an argument about what you think about what I just said to you. If you do decide you need to get into that with me, you're going to find yourself having to leave here, just as soon as Jane shows up."

In the past, I'd always tried to shy away from these kinds of situations. If it didn't impact on me directly, I'd try to ignore it. I was happy when Grace started walking away from me. I followed her progress, from the time she left the dining room, until she turned right at the top of the stairs, and went to her room.

"Why did you do that to Grace, Kenny? It was totally uncalled for." Mama had gotten upset.

I looked right at Mama, and said, "I did it because she's a guest here, because of me, and she's only here because of my relationship with you. You've been very nice to both of them, and, instead of being grateful, they're trying to take further advantage. Those two aren't the only ones either."

Mama replied, "I did nothing for those girls I didn't wish to do."

I looked over at my father, hoping for some support from him, saying, "Dad's right. We've got enough stuff we have to get done. I don't want to feel like I'm being used, or taken advantage of. When I do feel like that, I'm going to say something about it."

Dad picked up on my hope that he'd be supportive of me, saying, "Bertie, I am in agreement with Kenny on this. To a certain extent, both girls have been taking advantage. It's time that someone talked to them this way. If Kenny hadn't said something, I probably would have. I've seen little evidence that Grace wants to take anything positive from this summer internship. So far, she hasn't treated it as anything other than a free ride. She isn't making any effort to learn. If I had it to do over again, I'd never have made her this offer."

Mama looked surprised, unused to having to defend her opinions on two separate fronts at the same time. "Thomas, you aren't being fair to the girls either. Both of them have been out of school for less than two weeks. They are also dealing with a whole host of problems, emotional situations they shouldn't even have to concern themselves with. They have had so much to deal with, frankly I'm amazed that they've managed to cope as well as they have."

I jumped back into it, saying, "We aren't the ones who have done anything bad to either of them, Mama. All we've done is try to help them. I'm just saying they should appreciate our help, and not be constantly trying to figure out ways to exploit us for more. The more we do for them, the more they want us to do for them. I'm tired of watching it. It isn't just Grace and Jane either. It seems like all the girls I know want to take advantage of us."

Mama stopped looking for ways to defend her position. Instead, she looked at me, concern on her face, saying, "What's the real problem, Kenny? It has to be more than what you've told us about." I could see that Mama and Dad were both looking at me, then, both concerned. I knew they were worried because I wasn't usually given to these kinds of emotional outbursts.

I didn't even know where to begin, or how to explain all the things that were really troubling me. I knew that what I was experiencing was mainly frustration from my inability to make everything turn out the way I wanted it to turn out. It might not have been fair for me to take it out on Jane and Grace, because I was really complaining about the entire situation I found myself in. My troubles had started, because I found myself doing the same thing in my dealings with Brenda that I had accused Emily of doing. I didn't want to be encouraging poor behavior by rewarding it.

Jane showed up a little after eight thirty. I offered to help them both move Jane's clothes back up to their room, but Jane thanked me, and told me the two of them could manage.

We left the house the following morning at seven o'clock. I got to sit up front with the pilot, and he showed me quite a few things about flying a plane. Grace sat by herself, behind my parents. She had been quiet and subdued ever since we all left the house together. A car met us at the airport in Omaha, and took us to the main headquarters of the Lucas Company. It was a three story building, with production bakeries on the first floor, warehousing and distribution and vending storage and repair on the second floor, and administration and sales on the top floor. There were three other production plants and another large distribution center in Omaha, with three other smaller distribution centers in Lincoln, Nebraska, Kansas City, Missouri, and Des Moines, Iowa. Dad had already decided to sell off the Iowa and Kansas City centers, since our other company already had bigger distribution facilities operating in those two cities.

Dad spent several hours talking with the sales staff. They were having a big meeting, with Dad taking this time to have a chance to meet all of them. He told me before the meeting that he wanted to find out what he was going to have to work with, as far as the sales staff was concerned. While he was in his meeting, Mama, Grace and I were given a grand tour of the first and second floors. One of the ways that the Lucas Company was different from our other company was in selling a lot of their products through vending machines. They owned a lot of these vending machines, and most of their sales force worked exclusively in this one part of their business. Dad wanted to change this if it was practical to do so, but he didn't know enough about it yet to know whether it was practical. He had gotten all of the company salesman together to talk with them, hoping to find out if it was.

We were watching a man fixing one of the vending machines when I had the idea about putting one in our apartment at the Academy. Jerry would love having all those cookies and snacks close at hand. Then, I remembered that Jerry didn't have any money. I asked the man fixing the machine some questions, about how the machines worked, and how long the cookies and chips stayed fresh. He said all their products stayed good for six weeks or longer, and some of them had a shelf life of six months or more. He described the different preservatives used for vending machine products, to keep them fresher for a longer period. Dad's meeting took more than three hours. Mama and I both enjoyed looking at everything, but Grace was just sullenly going through the motions, clearly uninterested in any of what we were seeing.

I turned to look at grace, saying, "Grace, do you wish you'd stayed with taking that driving job over at the construction site?" I don't know why I decided to ask her that. I was annoyed with her, and that was the first thing that came into my mind. I really expected her to take it like I'd meant it, as chastisement, and a little bit of a threat, or a warning. Instead, her eyes lit up and she immediately told me she would much rather do that. Even Mama seemed pleased that I'd brought it up. She had been noticing Grace's lack of interest too. I said, "Mama, is there still time to get Grace a driving job for the catering deliveries? I don't think she is enjoying this, and I doubt she's learning anything either. I'd like to take her place working with Dad."

I could tell this was something that pleased Mama, me wanting to work with Dad, but all she said was, "You'd have to ask your father, Kenny, but I'm sure he'd agree, as long as Grace didn't mind switching over to driving."

The rest of our time went by pretty quickly. I was impressed that the people who worked on the production floor were all so proud of what they were making. We sampled seven or eight different kinds of rolls and cookies. My favorite was a chocolate cake with vanilla icing wrapped in it. It was made flat, then a machine put on the icing on the front and rolled it. It was one of the best selling vending machine products. The lady in charge of the rolling machine told me she'd personally eaten some of these rolls more than a year after they were made, and they were still just as tasty as when they came off the production line. She said she made, and packaged, over three thousand rolls a day on her shift. Everyone seemed to know who we were too. I guess the word had spread all over the building. Mama spoke with several of the older ladies, telling them who her father had been, and her family's involvement in commercial baking for over forty years. I listened to Mama, quickly realizing why she was talking to these older women. She was letting them know it wasn't some impersonal corporation that had bought out Mr. Lucas, it was just another baking family. After talking to Mama, I noticed the women were more relaxed, and able to smile at us without it looking so forced.

Up on the third floor, I met Mr. Lucas, and his daughter. He had agreed to stay on for sixty days to make the transition easier. He was pretty old, older than Dad by at least ten or fifteen years, but his daughter, Virginia, looked like she was less than thirty. She had blue eyes and dark brown hair. She had been the head of the accounting department for the company, and I knew Dad liked her, but not her husband. Dad had already gotten some professional pension plan managers to take over pension allocations and distributions, and he was using the same investment adviser for the Lucas pension plan as he used for our company. Virginia's husband had effectively been fired as the pension plan manager.

I liked Mr. Lucas. He liked to laugh a lot, and all the people around him seemed to like him too. I said something to Virginia about how her father looked pretty happy for a guy who was working. She looked at me, and I saw her eyes start to tear up.

"He loves this place. I don't know what he's going to do with himself now. We got too successful for his managing style. He simply outgrew his ability to manage things. He had a hard time telling people no, whenever they wanted to try something new."

We left Omaha at about five thirty. Again, I sat up front with our pilot. Mama and Dad were talking, and then Dad turned around and asked Grace some questions. They talked for about five minutes. When Dad turned around again, I left the front, and came back to the regular passenger area.

"Well, Kenny, what did you think?" My Dad was smiling at me when he asked me that. I knew my Mother must have already told him that I wanted to take Grace's place.

I told him, "It was great. They sure make a lot of good things to snack on. If I had one of those vending machines in "Joke Hall", I'd make a lot of money. What's Mr. Lucas going to do now that you bought his company?"

"I'm sure we can arrange to put a machine in at the Academy, Kenny, if you can get the school administration to approve it. I'm not sure what Rob's plans are. I assumed he'd simply retire and take it easy. I guess these last few years have been pretty hard on him. He's a widower, and, from what I gathered, Virginia is his only child. Maybe he'll do some traveling."