Chapter 13

I was very aware that nothing had been resolved by the phone conversation that I'd had with Shirley. What had changed though, was the way I felt about things, having had the opportunity of speaking with her again. I felt less pessimistic. It wasn't that I thought we'd be able to patch things up, or that we'd work out our differences. I didn't believe that we might get back together. It was only that we had somehow changed the direction of our being apart. We weren't still moving away from each other, and the distance we were apart didn't seem impossibly far to me, not like it had seemed before. She wasn't totally lost to me, because we had reestablished contact.

On Monday, as soon as I arrived at my office, Joyce made a comment about my seeming less troubled and unhappy. I told her that I'd had a good week end, and just left it at that.

My father had spent all of Sunday in his study, going over various reports and thinking about how he could best utilize the information that Joyce had presented to him. At breakfast on Monday, he handed me a list of questions he wanted me to investigate for him. At the top of his list was a notation to me, advising me that he wanted Joyce to be the one who communicated with Mildred Taylor.

"Why do you want her to be the only one from the company to talk to Mrs. Taylor?"

"Kenny, its very obvious to me, from what you told me about the meeting you and Joyce had with her, that she's taken a liking to Joyce. I believe she's going out of her way to help Joyce by offering her concessions she might not otherwise give to us. I don't want to disturb such a development."

"You think she's doing things for us just because she likes Joyce?"

"I think she might be. You said yourself that she chose to address Joyce rather than you, even after she indicated that she knew you were my son. Just from what we've already learned, thanks to Joyce's taking the initiative, our future expansion plans have been greatly enhanced. We have all the room we'll need to store both the vending products and the newly manufactured vending machines. Look at the third item on your list. That is the most critical of the answers I'm going to be needing. I would like Joyce getting advice from Mildred about the easiest way of handling that problem. If we can get that set up, everything else will come together for us."

Item number three was a question about how many days after arrival at the rail yard closest to the delivery destination we would be able to store the rail car. I had assumed that the railroad would just deliver the rail car to the siding at the distribution center, just as soon as it arrived.

"Why would they delay delivery?"

"I'm hoping they'll do it because it would make things a lot better for us if they did. Like any other business, they want satisfied customers. We wouldn't need to store things at the distribution warehouses for as long. We could accept delivery of things as needed, knowing that the material was stored close by. Believe me, having the ability to store product and machines, for two or three weeks, would make a huge difference to us. It would allow us to make much fuller use of our ovens, and that means we'd be able to increase our productivity. More productivity means greater profits."

"What would be the advantage for Mildred?"

"We'd increase the number of rail cars we'd be shipping, and she makes a profit every time we ship anything with her. It would also tie us closer to the railroad, and involve us in shipping more of the company's products by rail. It would also cause us to consider rail distribution as an option for each of our companies. Doing that would solve most of our integration issues with the new companies, and make all four companies, and the vending machine business, operate more efficiently."

"Have you thought about how many extra rail cars this might mean? She'll want to have something specific to consider when she was making her decisions. She's a sharp business person too." I asked him that because I knew Mrs. Taylor would be asking Joyce. I also wanted to have an idea myself, about how big a commitment my father was thinking of making.

"That depends on how close she can bring rail rates to what we're currently getting from our trucking shippers. If she can get us a fifty per cent discount from those single car rates, it could conceivably be more than two thousand rail cars a year, from all of our locations."

I knew that Joyce would love having the opportunity to negotiate with Mrs. Taylor. This was especially true when she had that large of an increase in shipping business to offer as an incentive for the hoped for concessions. I also agreed with my father about Joyce being the one most likely to get Mrs. Taylor to agree to accept the freight rate cuts that my father was hoping to get.

I didn't know if what my father was hoping for was even possible for Mrs. Taylor to deliver. I'd never even thought of delivery delays being beneficial for our companies, or using such delays to effectively store product from our routed delivery schedule. I knew that Joyce would be able to get all that Mrs. Taylor was able to offer, at least in the storage concessions, and that was all my father could expect from her.

Joyce spent all day making and receiving phone calls from Mildred Taylor. In the beginning, Joyce was told that what she wanted wasn't possible. There were too many variables that were controlled by each separately owned and operated rail yard. It was a usual thing for one line to park empty cars in another lines yard, awaiting shipment back to their point of origin. Lines also leased out rail cars to one another, as a courtesy, and to reduce having too many empty cars just sitting around, not producing any revenues. There were so many lesser issues too, not the least of which would be insuring the contents of cars being stored in the smaller yards, ones with less sophisticated security protocols.

Little by little throughout the course of the day, each issue was resolved. Things that had loomed, in the beginning, as insurmountable hurdles, were either solved, or some way was found to work around them. At five that evening, Mildred Taylor was as excited as Joyce.

Mildred was well on her way to becoming a freight broker for us. She had concluded that the only way to make what my father wanted workable, was for her to negotiate terms, individually, with each rail yard. She was excited, because she saw this brokerage service as a potential windfall, earning for her company, hundreds of small commissions, paid for her acting as the freight broker.

She had always handled all of these negotiations separately, in her many years of working in rail freight, but only as the principal, representing her own rail yard. She saw the potential for doing blanket negotiating for the use of storage space at other yards. In a way, what she would be doing was the same as if she had been expanding her own rail operations.

Tuesday, Joyce and I went out to lunch with my father. Joyce outlined the basic terms of what Mildred was offering. Primarily, there was a fifty three per cent price concession from single car rates, but Mildred was holding back five per cent as an offset against any charges or expenses that she might incur when leasing time and space for what my father needed.

Whatever funds she didn't use for this would be released back to us at the end of the first year's contract. Under this proposal, at the very worst, we'd still be getting a net one per cent discount off of our previously negotiated shipping rate. Anything greater in the amount of her leasing costs would be absorbed by Mrs. Taylor and the railroad.

The only way we could lose would be if we failed to ship greater than one thousand rail cars during the first year of the contract. My father commented that he knew he could ship at least twelve hundred cars, and that was with current sales and shipments. He anticipated rapid growth once the new system was in place.

In the event my father decided to store his products in rail cars for a period longer than two weeks, our company would agree to absorb any additional costs that had to be paid for that extra usage.

Mrs. Taylor had mentioned that each yard would be setting their own rates for the accommodation, but that she'd negotiate blanket rates with the ones that we'd be using the most. The difference, Joyce explained to us, was that we'd have fourteen days for however many cars we parked in a location at one time. If one car stayed for three days, once it left the yard, the remaining eleven unused days would pass to the other remaining cars of ours still parked in the yard. By staggering the number of days we'd delay them from completing delivery, some of our cars might be parked, without any extra charges, for more than a month.

It was readily apparent that the proposal being offered was highly acceptable to my father. Once he knew that he could store cars for almost no cost, all over the country, his mind started racing with all the new possibilities this opened up to him.

It was a good lunch for us. All the news was very good and welcome. We returned to the office, both basking in my Dad's effusive praise, knowing that the new proposed contract represented a huge improvement for all of our companies.

Mama called me at work Tuesday, later in the afternoon. She had never called me at work before. I was afraid something bad might have happened.

"Kenny, I need you to do me a big favor."

"Sure, if I can."

"It concerns Brenda." Immediately, I was on my guard. I had thought that my mother was done with trying to get Brenda back with me.

"Concerns her in what way?"

"She has agreed to re-enroll in that school in Ohio, but only on the condition that you drive her there, and that you treat her nicely during the time that you're together."

"No. You know what she'll ask me for if I spend anytime at all with her. If I don't do that, she'll use my refusal to claim that I wasn't being nice. She's just using this as a pretext to get you to help her try to get back together with me again."

"This school has what Bunny wanted for Brenda, Kenny. You know he thought Brenda needed the treatment that this school can offer her. I'm not asking you to do this to help Brenda, I'm asking you because I know Bunny would have asked you himself, if he were around to do so. You can drive up there in a single day. It isn't like you'd have to spend the whole night with her. If there is even the slightest chance that Brenda will go there and successfully complete that program, you have an obligation help her do so."

I hadn't heard Mama ask me for much, and most of what she had asked had concerned Brenda. She had promised me several times that she was done with doing that though. I already knew that I'd do what she wanted. I might have been able to say no if it were just her, but not to both her and Uncle Bunny too. I owed both of them way too much to do that. Since I was going to be doing what she wanted me to do anyway, I decided to try to negotiate something that made more sense to me.

"Is Mrs. Connor going to go with us?"

"No. I thought of that too, but Brenda insists that it just be the two of you. She wouldn't budge from that position."

"Tell her I might agree to drive her there, but not the two of us alone. She wants that three million dollars, just like her mother wants hers. Tell her I wouldn't budge on insisting on another person being there too."

"Kenny, don't be unreasonable. She's not going to attack you. What's the worst that could possibly happen? We both know what Brenda is really asking for. Would it be so bad if you give her what she wants?"

"I won't do that. If that's what you both are expecting, it isn't going to happen."

"We'll speak about this later, dear. I just wanted to call you so that I could tell Brenda you are considering it. I want you to do this for Bunny. Brenda is still one of the loveliest girls I've ever seen. Most boys would be thrilled to give her a ride wherever she wanted to go. I wouldn't ask this of you if you were still involved with Shirley, but, things are changed now, and you're free to do this for us."

"I'm not free. Not in my mind, not in my heart. If I were free though, I don't think I'd be willing to be intimate with Brenda again."

"Kenny, in this life we enjoy together, we all have occasion to do things we'd really prefer not having to do. All of us, but that is just a small part of the greater obligation that we share with each other. It comes with the territory, part of the responsibility of having a family. I love you, and I'd never want to hurt you, or to take any unfair advantage of you, but this is simply too important for me to allow you to refuse to do it. It isn't enough that you are pleading that you have a personal distaste for the duty."

I remembered Mama's statement to Mrs. Connor that she was the strongest member of the family, and that Uncle Bunny was the one who was soft. I knew I wouldn't have been able to refuse Uncle Bunny if he'd asked me to do this. I also know he wouldn't have asked me the same way Mama was.

"Did you tell Brenda that I'd have sex with her if she went back to this school?"

"I didn't have to. She came to me with that offer. I merely told her that I'd try to talk you into it."

"Go back and tell her I offered a counter proposal. If she goes back to this school, and somehow lasts until Christmas vacation, if the school reports that she was cooperative and worked with all the counselors, I'll spend a night with her, in my bedroom, sometime over the Christmas break."

"I think she might agree to that, Kenny, but only if you made her that offer yourself. Will you please call her and see if she's agreeable?"

"I'm only agreeing to do this because of Uncle Bunny, You and I had a deal about Brenda, Mama. You've broken that deal with me again."

"I know I have dear, and I'm going to make it up to you. If you're being honest with me though, you'll have to admit that the thought of spending a night alone with Brenda isn't something that you are really dreading."

"The thought of spending the night with her in my room, during Christmas break, after she's spent four or five months in that school, is less distasteful to me than giving her what she wants now would be. I have a real objection to rewarding her before she's actually done anything that she's promised. I'm not paying her for something she hasn't already done. Who knows, after a few months of counseling, Brenda might decide that letting me screw her up in my bedroom isn't what she really wants or needs?"

"Well, if it helps her get her life back on track, it isn't too high a price for you to pay. I'd be very surprised if she changes so much that she won't want her reward for having gone back to that school."

"I doubt it as well. I never thought I'd be the prize someone was offering to get someone to do something that would help them. I'll call her after we finish talking. I'm afraid if I delay calling her, I'll change my mind and then end up chickening out."

I hung up the phone, and it was only then that I noticed Joyce, standing in the open connecting doorway between our offices. She was looking over at me with a strange expression on her face. I smiled over to her, hoping to set her at ease.

"I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but that was a very unusual phone conversation. That was really your mother?"

"Yes. This was an unusual conversation, but it took place because of the very long and involved situation that involved both Brenda and myself. Brenda, the girl we were talking about, she was my first real girlfriend, and she's almost like a part of our family. In fact, my mother still has high hopes that, someday, we'll patch up our differences, and go on to live happily ever after. Brenda is supposed to be going to this school in Ohio. My late uncle was certain that this school would help her become a better person. She needs to change a lot of things about the way she treats other people."

"She wants you to sleep with her as a reward for her agreeing to go to this school?"

"Brenda wants me to get back together with her, and, she's hoping that I'll be more willing to do that, if she can get me to have sex with her again. She knows I have a susceptibility to her charms. She's counting on that to sway me."

"Will you have sex with her?"

"I'm not sure. She does have some kind of weird power over me. I can't even begin to explain it. Even though I've been actually hoping to never set eyes on her again, just thinking about her now, it makes me get all excited." I was very erect, to the point where I was getting uncomfortable. Brenda always had that effect on me.

"She must be very pretty." Joyce wasn't looking at me when she said this. Instead, she was staring down at her shoes.

"Yes, and that's a big part of her problem. If she weren't so pretty, she might treat people nicer. She thinks her looks will get all her other behavior excused. Sometimes, I think she's right to think that, but it makes her a very hurtful person."

"I wonder what it would be like, being able to make people go crazy, just because of your looks?"

"I don't know. In Brenda's case, I think it has hurt her. She's never developed into a caring person. She only cares about herself."

"What about you? How does it affect you?"

"I guess it affects me just like it affects all the other people. I see her, the way she looks, and I put up with things from her that I'd never put up with in other people." Joyce started blushing.

"I meant how does it affect you with the way people react to your looks."

"Nobody goes crazy about my looks, Joyce. I'm just a regular looking guy." Joyce giggled, and then she put her hand over her mouth, turning away from me. She walked back to her desk. I knew there were some girls who liked the way I looked, but not the same way people, both boys and girls, responded to Brenda's looks. Maybe to Joyce I was good looking, but if she ever set her eyes on Brenda, she'd understand what I meant. Compared to Brenda, I really was chopped liver.

Mrs. Connor answered the phone when I called over to talk to Brenda. I identified myself, asking her if Brenda was available to speak with. I looked up while I was waiting for Brenda to come to the phone. Joyce had returned to the connecting door, and was obviously prepared to listen in on my conversation with Brenda. Her interest in this part of my personal life was a little bit shocking, and a little bit amusing to me as well. I decided I'd have some fun with it.

"If you want to listen to me talking to her, Joyce, you can come right on over here and park yourself in this chair. I don't want to have to speak loudly just so you can hear me from way over there." She blushed, an even darker shade of pink than before, but she didn't hesitate, coming forward and sitting demurely in the chair I kept along the side of my desk.

She was so short, her feet didn't quite reach the floor when she was sitting all the way back in the chair. She may have been embarrassed, but she wasn't going to allow any embarrassment to prevent her from listening to what I was going to be saying to Brenda.

"Hello?" Brenda sounded excited when she came on the line.

"Hi Brenda, this is Kenny. How are you doing?" I still hadn't made up my mind about how I was going to approach things with her.

"I'm good, Kenny. Your mother just called mine, to tell her that you'd be calling me. Does this mean you're going to drive me to that school?"

"No, I'm not going to be driving you." I waited, savoring the thought of her being sorely disappointed in my response.

"Well, after you hung up on me the other night, I thought you might not be willing to. I still don't understand why you have to hold such a big grudge against me. All those things happened a long time ago. I'm a lot more mature now."

"I did have a different idea, Brenda. One that I think you might like. I know you wanted me to give you a different kind of ride. Something that's a lot more personal than driving you to that school. Isn't that right?"

"Well, I thought you might want to talk to me while we were driving there. I know you still like the way I look. I guess I thought we might end up doing more than just driving to Ohio."

"Mama really wanted me to drive you. I'm sure she knows what you were really after. She still asked me to do it."

"I already told her what I really wanted. I wasn't trying to trick you, Kenny. She said she couldn't just come out and ask you to do that with me. She's the one who said we should just ask for you to drive me. I'm not going back to that school unless we have sex together again. I already told my mom and I also told yours. That's the price you have to pay if you want to get me to go back there."

"That three million dollars that Uncle Bunny left you in his will? I don't know if you know this, but it goes to me if you don't fulfill the terms he set up for you to receive it. Why should I want you to go to that school? It would actually cost me a lot of money if you did go back."

"I don't care that much about his money. I'm not going back unless you do me again. It wouldn't even take you that long, maybe two hours, and then its done."

"Brenda, please. This is me you're talking to now. I know exactly how much being rich means to you. You'd go back to that school, crawling on your hands and knees to get there, if you had to. I know you're going to go there, whether I do this thing with you, or if I don't. You might be able to fool our mothers into thinking otherwise, but I know exactly how much you love money. No, I'm not a bit worried about you deciding to go back there. Three million dollars, that's a lot of money. I'll bet you play with your pussy at night, thinking about what you're going to be able to do when you finally get all that money." I looked at Joyce's face when I said pussy. She was already leaning forward, listening closely to every word. I didn't know if she was able to hear anything that Brenda said, but I leaned over closer to where she was sitting, and put the receiver a little distance away from my ear to give her a better chance to hear Brenda.