Chapter 8

I got into the office at eight on Monday morning, and my phone rang about a minute later. I felt pretty good, well rested, and in a positive frame of mind. I had to admit that having Shirley come out for the weekend had been a real benefit to me.

"Kenny, this is Virginia. Did you fill that vacancy yet?"

Hi, Virginia. You're up awfully early today. No. I took the weekend off, to relax, and recharge my batteries. Do you have another candidate you want me to look at?"

"Not another one. Katie changed her mind. I told her what you said about her not being as good as me, because I really wanted to be the president of this company, and all she cared about was getting her stock options."

"I never said it like that, Virginia."

"No, but that's what you meant. When I called her, she was already regretting that she hadn't accepted the position with you. When I told her what you said though, it struck a nerve with her. This was her dream job, Kenny. She really does want to run her own company, and in the excitement of negotiating with you, she somehow forgot that. She asked me to call you and do what I could to get her another interview. This time, she wants to come out there. She wants to have a face to face meeting with you. Kenny, she really is good enough that you should give her another chance. Once you get to know her in person, you'll have a chance to find out what she's really like. You'll see how perfect she is for this."

"I took your advice about Clark, Virginia. I started him at sixty three, and made him VP of operations. I like the way he does things. I think he's going to really work out well for us."

"I know about most of it. He called me. He told me that story about Jerry too. He got a real kick out of how you decided, if he talked Jerry into becoming a department head, that was going to be enough of a probation. I love Clark to death, Kenny, and he's good, but Katie would be the real find for us. She can do it all. She's a problem solver just like you are. You remind me a little bit of her, the way you think differently about solving problems."

"When can she come here? I'm pretty flexible, I can fit her in any time this week."

"She can be there Wednesday morning, she's driving out with all her belongings. I already asked her why, she just said she wanted you to know she wasn't afraid to make a real commitment. I talked to your father, and Katie's name came up. I faxed him her resume, and I told him how special she was. I also thanked him for the raise. You should have warned me that you hadn't told him yet. He pretended that he'd just forgotten that you and he had talked about it."

"I told you how busy he's been. If he'd been thinking about it, he'd have told you about the raise himself. He likes the way you always say yes to him, whenever he needs more product for those new vending machines. Did he talk to you yet about us setting up another plant in Omaha, another plant for you to run?"

"What plant? Where in Omaha? No, he never said anything. I don't see how I could do that, Kenny. I'm already spending too much time just trying to keep this one running as well as it can."

"You need to learn to delegate more, Virginia. You should also know we're going to pick one of our division presidents to run all of the baking divisions. There are too many other new projects clamoring for his attention. He already understands he needs to step away from the bakeries and allow someone else to coordinate the running of all the baking plants. We've got some big plans for you, Virginia, but you really need to learn how to delegate. Nobody can run everything all by themselves. If you keep on trying to do that, we'll be screwed when you collapse some day, and they have to cart you off to the bone yard. You need to make some time for other things too. Don't end up like my Dad has, reading reports about the latest improvement in cart rollers every night."

"Do you know how few women ever get a chance to run a big company, Kenny? We can't afford to settle for doing as little as you guys can."

"Virginia, that isn't true with us. It never was true. Learn to delegate, and learn to bring good people up with you. The one we hire to head up the baking companies will already have her successor trained, and ready to take over."

"It sounds like you're saying that job is mine."

"No, I think it's a three horse race now though. You, Joyce, and your good friend Kathleen."

"I'm competing against Joyce too?"

"Absolutely. I am too though, so don't feel bad. I already know she's better at business than I am. That's another reason why I married her, to keep her tied to the company. Now, I'll probably end up working for her."

"I'll tell Kathleen that you expect her at nine Wednesday morning. She said she'd call me later today. Don't let her fool you with that bright polished professional career girl veneer of hers. Underneath all of that hardness, there's an insecure little farm girl, from Omaha, with a ton of ability, and a burning drive to be a success."

At ten o'clock Joyce called me. We talked about just about everything, except what she had really called me to find out about. After a while, it got to be a game with me. I could tell, from the clipped way she was talking to me, that she was becoming very frustrated with me.

"Shirley told us the two of you hardly left the hotel room. She'd never been to Philadelphia. You could have taken her around and showed her some of the tourist sites."

"I asked her, but she just wanted to stay in the room, and fuck all day and night. If she wanted to see anything besides the head of my dick, she should have told me."

"When are you coming home?" There was more than a hint of icy frostiness in her question. Good, at least she was a little bit jealous.

"I don't know. Who are you planning on sending out for me this weekend?"

"Brenda and Emily both want to go. I wish you'd take both of them. You can't believe how tense everything got here after Brenda told Emily no more fooling around."

"I heard it was you who put her up to it."

"No I didn't. She asked me if I thought you'd make love to her, if she told you that she and Emily had quit. I told her it would probably make it more likely to happen. I didn't ask her to quit it."

"Is Brenda there with you?"

"She's in back, with the twins. I can get her for you if you want to speak with her." I could read Joyce better from a distance. She was having more trouble dealing with the actual reality of me fooling around with the X's, than she had when it was only the hypothetical possibility of it happening.

"Yeah, go ahead and get her for me." I waited less than a minute for Brenda to come on the line.

"Kenny, I'm here."

"Brenda, why did you quit messing around with Emily?"

"Because you said I should make up my mind, and I have. I want to be with you, Kenny."

"Joyce tells me you and Emily are fussing with each other all the time now."

"Emily's the one that's fussing. She's being mean to me now, and she's being mean to all the other X's too."

"Is she there with you guys?"

"She and Shirley went to get some things I need for lunch. I'm making a special veal dish that your father likes, and I needed some stuff."

"When she gets back, I want Joyce to call me again. I want you to be nice to Emily, Brenda. You can do things with her until I get back, if you want to."

"I don't want to. I'm telling you, she's been so mean to me. This morning she told Joyce I was holding Bunny too loose, and she told her I almost dropped him. I never did that."

"Have you been mean to her too?" Brenda laughed, guiltily.

"Maybe."

"You both better cut it out. Joyce thinks I should invite one of you out for this weekend, because she needs a rest from you two sniping at each other. If I hear any more complaints, I'm giving Shirley your turn instead."

Joyce called me back an hour later.

"Put Emily on the phone for a minute, but don't go anywhere."

"Hello."

"Emily, why are you feuding with Brenda?"

"You know why."

"I heard she decided to quit playing with you. Is that why?"

"Look, Kenny, I'm not really in the mood to be laughed at by you. You got what you wanted, let's leave it at that."

"I'm not laughing, Emily. I'm trying to find out how bad it is back there. Joyce is upset by what's going on. She doesn't like to see you guys fighting with each other. I told Brenda she can play with you while I'm not home, but she says you've been so mean to her that she doesn't want to."

"You told her it was all right if we did things?"

"All right with me. I'm a thousand miles away anyway."

"Are you going to let one of us come out to visit you this weekend?"

"I'm not sure yet. I need to talk to Joyce again. I want you being nice to Brenda, in case I do decide to ask someone to come out here. If I hear any more complaints about you two, I'm going to invite Shirley again."

"Kenny."

"Hi Joyce. I tried to calm both those girls down for you."

"I hope you did. Derek and the twins feel the tension that those girls are causing. The only one of us who seems immune to it is Shirley. We all know why she's so calm. Why don't you come home and make me calm too?"

"I'm thinking about flying home this weekend, to Mama's house. I need to talk to them about this idea I've got for the business. I'm going to get Dad to send the plane for me, but I'd like to see the twins while I'm there. Do you think you could have one of the girls bring them over, so I could see them?"

"I could bring them over, Kenny."

"You better not do that, Joyce. We might end up fucking, and then the other girls would get upset with you."

"Why should they get upset?"

"I don't know, but when I suggested the same thing to you awhile back, you said it wouldn't be fair to the other X's. This is mostly a quick business trip, and I'm not even sure I'd have time for seeing the twins, and doing some fucking too. Maybe we should wait for when I have enough time to do a good job of it."

"Okay, if that's what you think would be best. Which girl did you want me to send with the twins?"

"How about Shirley? That would be a good choice, in case I do find some extra time. I'll call you when I know for sure if I'm coming or not."

Wednesday, I finally met Kathleen Ulliott in person. She didn't look anything like I'd imagined by how she sounded on the telephone. She was a heavy woman, maybe fifty pounds overweight, and not very tall. She had dark hair, cut short, and her business suit was clearly tailored for her, and very expensive. All of her personal grooming was immaculate. I was glad I'd chosen one of my nicest suits to come to work in. Still, I felt a little scruffy, and I was conscious that I needed to get my hair cut.

I gave her an hour's tour of the plant, explaining what I could, and fielding all her questions. She seemed more concerned with the financial nuts and bolts of the operations side. Interested in what our profit margins were, rather than in how we managed to keep our costs low enough to compete, while still maintaining healthy profit margins. It didn't seem to me like she was asking the right kinds of questions. Her primary concerns were with our output, and how we were financing our ongoing planned expansion.

In one sense this was not a problem, since all purchasing of ingredients for our ovens was handled in Bolling. Still, it worried me that she didn't realize we were insulated from most price fluctuations by the way we managed to acquire our grains and flours. She didn't ask how much of our own growing we did, or about what our grain storage capacity was.

She did understand our distribution advantage right away, and seemed real interested in my father's hub concept. I was about to give up on her, when she started rattling off facts and figures about our farming operations, my grain trading, and our use of independent grain brokers. She knew more about that side of our business than I did. I realized she'd deliberately set me up with her earlier questions. She had done her homework, or else Virginia had hand fed her some confidential information about us.

"Virginia needs to be more circumspect with internal corporate data."

"Circumspect my ass. I put all of this together by myself. I'm a trained analyst, and I find out whatever I need to know. Your companies are more difficult than most to investigate, but you can find out almost anything if you know where to look for it. I know where to look."

"What do you see as the main focus of your job, if you were to take over here?"

"Feeding the machine with whatever it needs to maximize profits."

"Which machine?"

"The production center. All those lovely ovens that keep cranking out salable product. How long before you convert this plant over to producing vending products?"

My dad had been thinking about doing that, but he'd finally decided on building a second vending product plant in Omaha. Somehow, Kathleen had figured out we were approaching maximum production capacity, with no end in sight to our projected increased product need. It had made a lot of sense to diversify geographically, before Joyce had managed to stumble into the railroad shipping and storage program.

My Dad had just purchased a plant site less than an eighth of a mile from the Omaha rail yard. The railroad was putting in spurs for us on three sides of the new plant we'd be building. It was going to be all ovens and packaging, with direct rail head loading. Dad had calculated that all the new efficiencies would pay for the plant cost within the first twenty-seven months of production. Most new plants took between eight and eleven years to pay for themselves.

"We're building a new plant in Omaha. Virginia is going to be running that one too. It will come on line in the second quarter of next year. They're building the ovens and the inside automation for us now. We'll be cutting our labor costs in half. We'll be using those new profits to build a similar plant in Reno, Nevada in three years time. We have the land for it already."

"Jesus. What happens to your core business when the vending overtakes it in gross sales?"

"We're packaging the three cereal and bread bakeries into a single, autonomous division. We might spin it off, and take it public, to raise some money for our expanding vending operation. There just isn't enough margin anymore in bread and cereals. The vending business is the real future for us."

"Where will that leave the three division presidents? It wouldn't make much sense for me to come to work here, if it was only going to be bought up and then folded into a larger operation."

"Probably holding some valuable stock options, and answering only to an elected board of directors. There are advantages and disadvantages to being with a large public corporation, but some of them get taken private again, when the top people find the financing to do that. Cereal and baking company's, they don't usually sell for much of a multiple."

"You'd be giving up control?" She had her eyebrows raised in wonder. I could see her mind cranking over probable figures. She was already trying to figure how much she'd need to borrow, in order to take the spin off private again. I knew she was very savvy about the financial possibilities. She was openly avaricious too. Mama had always told me that greed didn't have to be a bad thing. It had certainly proven itself to be a wonderful motivating factor for people.

"We were thinking of retaining a nominal stake in the spin off. Perhaps as little as thirty eight per cent, held in nine blind charitable trust accounts."

"The same trustee for all of them?"

"We haven't decided that yet. To be honest with you, I've only been tinkering with this idea for a week or two. So far, it is only an idea. I'm going home to run it by my parents this weekend."

"Why use charitable trusts?" This was an excellent question. It was also one I'd prefer not to answer.

"We don't need the money for ourselves, but we want to retain permanent control for other, important, strategic reasons." I was telling her a lot more than I'd planned on. It was due to my enthusiasm, and the newness of my ideas. If there were obvious flaws in my ideas, I'd much rather have Kathleen discover them, than to have it be one of my parents

"Is one of the strategic reasons for doing it that way, your Chicago trading programs?" I felt a slight lurch in my guts. Had I become that transparent to people? I hadn't even committed this idea to paper yet. I'd barely had time to call Frank, to have him research the legal problems with the plan. I knew Mama wouldn't want to give up control of her father's business again, but time had passed it by. I made more money trading grains with my seven trading accounts in a year, than we were netting from the three cereal and bread plants. Even the specialty rolls were having some trouble competing in the crowded marketplace. All the farms we owned were held in either my big trust, or in Mama's name, privately, never having been a part of the company's assets.

"We sponsor some charities that I sometimes trade for. They have a tie in to other, personal holdings."

"Your farms?"

"My father guarantees certain percentages of my grain sales and purchases. It makes the trading less risky."

"I'll say it does. Which also explains why you can make do with so many marginal profits in your trading. You're middling both sides of every trade. With three grain hogs, like these bakeries, you can afford to take such large virtually risk free positions. Do you offset against the farm production too?"

"I can, but it's usually simpler to buy it at spot. We need everything we produce, and more. You seem very interested in my trading methods."

"I'm fascinated. I didn't realize that it was you doing all that trading. I already knew about the trusts. Who is Brenda Connor, and is Joyce Parsons a relative?"

"Brenda is a family friend. I trade her account as a personal favor to her. Joyce is my wife. Those are the only two accounts I trade for regular income and profit. Those other accounts, the charitable trust accounts, they are all tied into a large tax exempt charitable program my family is interested in."

"I really want this job now. Are you planning on having one overall CEO for the spin off when you do it?"

"Didn't Virginia tell you?"

"No, was she supposed to?"

"It's going to be a woman CEO. It will be at least three years from now, maybe longer. Other than the sex of the CEO, the position is relatively open. I'd have to say that Virginia is the front runner. My wife is in second place, and it looks like you're just entering the race."

"Why your wife?"

"Because she's the best at what she does. She came up with our whole shipping and distribution program. It was all her idea, from start to finish. She runs the whole thing now, while nursing our two new babies, and running most of the group homes we founded together. In her spare time, she manages my life for me. Kathleen, if she wants the CEO job, believe me, she's capable of earning it. It wouldn't be nepotism either. Luckily, for either you or Virginia, she probably won't want to take it."

"All that's left then is to work out who I need to report to. I think it would be better if I reported to your father, like Ginny does."

"I was thinking, since you obviously don't care to be reporting to me, that I'd put you under Virginia. You'd still be a division president, but one who reported to another division president. She would still report to my father, so, if you look at it the right way, you'd be getting what you want, except it would need to go through Virginia first."

"It would make me subservient to Ginny. I don't want to enter lower than she is."

"Is it some title thing that bothers you? Is it that you want to be reporting directly to the CEO?"

"Ginny does. It makes a difference when people are sizing you up later."

"Virginia reports to me too, it just isn't a formal arrangement. In fact, though she never involves herself in the business like that, Virginia would also need to report to my mother, if my mother required her, for some reason, to do so. What you don't seem to grasp, Kathleen, is, while this is a very large corporation, it is really just a family business, and we're all actively involved in it. Would it help with your needing to report to me, if I became the company's CEO?"

"Your father is the CEO."

He has our irrevocable proxies, for another eight years, covering one hundred percent of the outstanding stock. We don't take too much real pride in our titles. I can become the CEO easily enough, and he'd then become the Chairman. They're only titles. Someday, it will all be mine anyway, and you'll be telling people you once worked with me."

"What's your current title?"

"I think I'm carried on the books as a summer intern, but they don't pay me. My wife is a vice president though."

"You don't care?"

"In the last eighteen months, with very little help from me, the value of our holdings has more than tripled, mostly because of my father and my wife. We just took out a line of credit from a consortium of banks, for a little more than half a billion dollars. We're paying prime, minus a point, and my Dad is currently earning twenty-eight per cent on that money. With that kind of return on my investment, what does it matter to me what my title is?"

"My choice is only between you and Ginny?" It troubled me that this was such an important point with her. The job was going to be the same, regardless of who it was she was reporting to. Maybe it was a big city thing. In our business, titles had never meant that much, unless the title was owner. Ownership was a title that meant something. Regardless of how you expressed a title, unless it conveyed ownership on you, you were simply an employee.

"Kathleen, I'm afraid so. I'm an owner of forty percent, my father owns only thirty percent. You'd be reporting to an extra ten percent, reporting to me."

"Which would you choose? Ginny or you?"

"If I was ambitious, like you are, I'd choose me. If you had once reported to Virginia, it would be difficult to justify promoting you over her."

"That's what I think too. Okay, I'm ready to report to you. When do I take over?"

"As soon as you can move your things into my office here."

"If you can get me two men to help carry it all up for me, I've got them sitting outside, in a U-Haul."

"What about the need for giving notice at your other job?"

"I already quit it. My ex-father-in-law was mad that I just quit, but I don't think he'd dare give me anything less than a really great recommendation. They just got finished deciding to give my ex-husband the job that I was in line to get. I deserved that job, deserved it a lot more than he did. I'd earned it, but he was born into it."

"Did they void all your stock options?"

"I didn't need the money. David never had me sign a pre-nuptial agreement. I married that idiot just to get that job. Those options won't be worth much anyway. I couldn't exercise them for another year and a half, and by then, the stock will be below the exercise price anyway. I'm thinking of shorting the company, but I'm worried it might be considered insider trading."

"You need to meet my mother, Kathleen. She could help you channel this aggression better."

I got some people from packaging and receiving to help Kathleen move all her personal items into her new office. I put all my stuff into two empty cardboard boxes they were able to round up for me. I walked around, until I managed to locate a small, mostly empty room to leave my things in.

When she was through moving in, I took Kathleen down to meet Clark. After making the introductions, I then left the two of them alone, to become better acquainted with each other.

I went downstairs for awhile, looking for Jerry Davis. I found him kneeling in an open delivery bay, cleaning grease off of some old tools that he'd immersed in a pan of solvent. From the fumes the solvent was giving off, I suspected it wasn't on any government agency's approved use list of cleaning agents for commercial bakeries. In Delaware though, with their long time ties to the big chemical companies, maybe there were no proscribed solvents.

"So, Jerry. Are you my new crew chief or not?"

"Looks fucking like it, boss. I don't trust that Fucking Clark guy either. Do you know who he was going to make crew chief if I didn't take it? Fucking Lenny Bowers, that's who. You want to know what I fucking did, not ten minutes after I agreed to let him make me the fucking crew chief?" I could see great amusement dancing in Jerry's eyes. He really didn't care what I thought of him. He knew who he was. He wasn't like Kathleen at all. For just a few seconds I wanted to take Jerry back upstairs with me, so that he and Kathleen could size one another up. I resisted the temptation though.

"You went and found that fucking Lenny Bowers, and then you fucking fired his lazy, incompetent ass?" Jerry looked up from the pan he was stirring, and he laughed boisterously, fully. It was a short lived, barking kind of laugh, but I knew it was an honest laugh, not something he'd do to be polite, or to curry favor with a boss. He nodded his head that I had guessed right, then he went right back to working on what he was doing. I left him to it, as happy with him, as he was with himself. I was pretty sure our plant machinery maintenance situation was in some very capable hands.

By six o'clock, I could see that Clark and Kathleen were still hard at it, bouncing ideas off of each other. I went back to her new office, and started making some phone calls.

"Hi, Mama. I'm coming home, sometime Friday. Why don't you set up a tee time for you, Dad, Shirley, and me, for about ten in the morning?"

"What about Joyce?"

"What about her? She doesn't golf."

"Why Shirley?"

"She golfs."

"Are you planning on staying here, or over at Bunny's?"

"I'll be staying with you for awhile, I think. Joyce and I can't seem to agree on too much anymore."

"She's closer than a daughter would be to me, Kenny. Those are my grandchildren. I won't give any of them up, not even for you."

"Who's asking you to? Not me. Those are my kids as much as they are hers."

"Are you still thinking divorce, then?"

"Joyce already told me it was no use divorcing her. She said I had to love and take care of all of them anyway. She said it didn't matter to her if we got divorced or not."

"Are you okay with that? She's right, divorce changes nothing."

"Doesn't really matter if I'm okay with it or not. All of you have already decided for me anyway. Since no one seems to want me to be able to decide things for myself, I've been looking into other people's business."

"Sweetheart, we're all thinking about what's best for you. Whose business have you been looking into?"

"Mostly yours, Mama. I've found out some interesting things, some suspicious things. I'm thinking about what I'm finding too, trying to get it to fit some pattern, to make some sense to me. I only wish you and I could both find a way for us to agree on what it is that's best for me."

"I've thought of almost nothing else, Kenny. I've decided that Joyce is best for the main part of you. The others, the X's, they're like an insurance policy for you and Joyce. They'll keep you from making the worst of my father's mistakes, or the worst of Bunny's. For someone like you, dear, it's best to surround yourself with women who will always truly love you. The other kind of women will only bring trouble for you."

"I sure don't want or need any more trouble. I feel like I've already got more trouble than I can comfortably handle. That's part of the reason I've been looking into your business, Mama. It takes my mind off of all my troubles."

"Will you be here in time for dinner on Friday? We could invite the girls and the twins. It could be your welcome home party."

"I think I'll be a little later, and I'll be too tired to want to entertain. I'm trying to get some DNA that I want tested. I think I've found Brenda's real father, but I want to make sure."

"Are you feeling well, dear? What possible use could you have for knowing who Brenda's father is or was?"

"I feel fine, Mama. I met a woman today that's even more ambitious than you are. She married a man, in order to get a job she wanted."

"I'm not at all ambitious, dear. I have all that I require now."

"You were ambitious when you were younger, Mama. I told you I've been looking into some of your business."

"How so? What is it that you think you've found?"

"Lots of things, just by going through some of Uncle Bunny's old things. Things he saved from back when he was in school. Things he liked to write about. That's why I say you were ambitious when you were younger. You created a job opening, just to get a man you wanted. Do you know how Uncle Bunny felt, Mama, when you told him he needed to go to law school, instead of taking his place in the family business? He hated it."