Chapter 62

The three of us walked out of the courtroom and into the elevator. We got to the first floor and went to an exit around the corner from the metal detectors. Both Daddy and Arthur had been quiet since we left chambers except when Arthur told us which way to turn.

We got to the street and Arthur said. "Where are you parked?"

Daddy pointed to the lot across the street at the corner and said, "Over there."

"I'm around the block. I'll meet you over there. Eastside, right?

"Right."

Daddy and I headed toward the corner. While we were waiting for the light, he said, "Jill, you can't talk to a judge like that."

"What? I was only trying to figure out what he meant."

"I know. But he was starting to get mad. I think he was just about ready to charge you with contempt."

"I don't think I did anything wrong."

"You can't go around talking to people in authority like that. I know you get away with it with me all the time, but you talk to a judge or a cop like that and you're going to end up behind bars for a night or two."

"Daddy, you're worrying about nothing."

"All right Jill. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"OK. Make you a deal. If I end up in jail, I'll use my phone call to call you and you can tell me you told me so."

"Deal."

We got to the country club and two attendants came over and opened our doors. As I got out, I could see Daddy handing some money to his guy, just before he got in the car. Daddy walked around it, taking my arm when he reached me. I pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. It was 5:10.

Daddy went to open the front door and someone pulled it open from the other side. It was the general manager, the one who took our pictures when Jack and I went to dinner there.

"Good evening, Mr. and Miss O'Hara."

Daddy said, "Good evening."

"I said, "Good evening," and then I remembered his name. "What are you doing, opening the front door, Julio?"

"It's a little early for the dinner crowd and we're short staffed. I was making my rounds when I saw you come up. I believe you reserved a small meeting room. How many will be in your party?"

Daddy said, "There will be four of us. One is very pregnant, so please make sure she has plenty of room."

"Of course. Can I have your membership card, please?"

Daddy gave it to him and he ran it through a card reader on the hostess podium. He gave the card back.

"Thank you. Please follow me."

He took us to the far side of the main dining room. I noticed there was only one couple eating. The whole wall was glass, including the three doors. As we got closer, I could see there were three rooms of various size. The largest looked like it could hold fifty or sixty people. Ours could hold eight with no problem, a dozen in a pinch. Julio called a busboy over and gave him some instructions, pointing at one end of the table as he did.

"Shall I have your waiter bring you a pot of coffee? A soft drink, ice tea, lemonade?"

Daddy said, "Coffee sounds great. What do you want, Jill?"

"Lemonade sounds really good. Could you bring a pitcher of it? And another of water?"

"Of course. I'll send a snack tray in, too." He pointed to the end of the table he'd shown the busboy. "Have your pregnant friend sit at that end of the table."

We took chairs next to each other on the far side of the table, near the end reserved for our accountant. I could look up and see the whole dining room we'd just walked through. There was another couple being shown to their table. The busboy came in with an odd shaped piece of wood. He leaned it against the wall behind the chair Elizabeth was supposed to sit in, then moved her chair and flipped that end of the tablecloth up. He reached under the table, something clicked and he lifted the end up and away from the table. He put the end he just removed next to the piece he brought in, then lay that one in the groove on the main portion of the table, lowered it and reached underneath it, securing the latch. This end had a circle cut out of what ended up being the end of the table. There was a three foot wide hole in the table, big enough for a pregnant woman to slide in. He tossed the tablecloth back over the new piece, picked up the piece he removed and left.

Arthur came in, followed by a waiter with a tray. There were two coffee pots and pitchers of water and lemonade. Daddy and Arthur both had coffee and I had both lemonade and water. He left those two pitchers near me and put the coffee pots on warmers that were on a sideboard.

He was just on the way out the door when another waiter came in carrying another tray. He was followed in by a woman who had to be Elizabeth. Daddy got up and helped her sit down, making sure to show her the trick table. She seemed impressed and had him help her scoot her chair all the way in.

The new waiter put down a big sectioned serving tray with all kinds of snacks on it. There were a couple of tubs of dip, shrimp, fried oyster, broccoli, cauliflower, miniature carrots, cut up celery, olives, three different types of cheese cubes and several different types of cold cuts, rolled up with knows what inside, held together with toothpicks. He placed the tray in the middle of us where everyone could reach it. He then passed small plates to everyone.

He stood up and said, "Does anybody wish to order anything else?"

Nobody said anything so he said, "I'll be back in about fifteen minutes to see if anyone has changed their mind. Would you like the curtains open or closed?"

Daddy said, "Closed."

He closed some curtains I hadn't noticed, blocking off the view of the dining room. Of course, it blocked off the dining room's view of us, too. He closed the door on the way out after pulling its curtains closed.

Daddy leaned over and kissed Elizabeth, who blushed. "This is Elizabeth Dexter, CPA. She makes sure Uncle Sam only gets what he's entitled to and keeps me busy delivering her children. What is this, Lizzy, the fifth?"

She giggled and turned redder. "Oh, You. The first."

"Sorry, I was thinking of five years from now."

"Oh, God. I hope not."

"Lizzie, this is my daughter Jill. She is the proud but befuddled recipient of provisional emancipation, less than an hour ago."

"I've never heard of provisional emancipation. What is that?"

"In this case it represents need of proof that the proceeds from a life insurance policy have been paid to her before becoming final."

"I see. Jill, you can call me Elizabeth or Liz. I hate Lizzie."

"OK, Liz."

Daddy said, "Over here is the attorney who keeps me and my daughter out of jail, Arthur Duncan. Arthur almost soiled his pants this afternoon when Jill questioned the judge about just what good a provisional emancipation was. Isn't that true, Arthur?"

"You've got me there, John. I would like to request that when the check does arrive, you let me take it to the clerk and get the paperwork signed."

"I'm sure we'll have no problem with that."

Arthur said, "Now that that's out of the way, I'm happy to meet you, Liz."

She nodded to him then turned back to Daddy. "So, why did you gather us all here?"

"This is a favor to my daughter. It seems that both she and her boyfriend are industrious and are both looking at going into business for themselves."

Elizabeth said, "Good for you. What are the two of you going to be doing?"

"I'm going to design web pages. Jack is into photography. He's going to take any pictures I need for my web pages in addition to doing portraits of his own clients."

"What do you plan on earning from this?"

"I don't know. If figure a couple of pages a month, so that's a hundred to a hundred and a half a year."

Arthur said, "That's not very much money for all that work."

"Liz said, "She means thousands, Arthur. Right Jill?"

"Yes. I'm only going to take the ones I'm really interested in and they'll probably go for five to six thousand each."

"Good. How much of that is Jack going to get per page?"

"It depends. I guess between $500 and $1500. depending on what he has to do."

"OK. Now, what's he doing on his own?"

"He's got a lot of girls from my school interested. We did a web page for my volleyball team and he took all the pictures. He's really good and a lot of people are excited. I figure once he starts taking pictures and some of the girls start showing the pictures around, he won't have enough time to take them all."

"All right. How is he doing so far?"

"Well, he interviewed clients three nights this week. I think he talked to 14 girls. One girl was in the garage while we were setting up some backdrops and he was experimenting and took one picture she really loved. She talked him into giving her the one picture on a CD for $50. He was mad at himself afterwards. He wants to sell packages for $350 that include a sitting for an hour or less, the proofs and some prints. Until the prints are ordered, the client can cancel at any time and not pay anything. So far he has four jobs lined up. Let's see. Three at 350 and one at 600. Thats $1700 including the one on the CD."

"That's $1700 his first week?"

"I think so. He was talking to one girl about seeing her at the playoff game on Saturday. I don't know if he sold her a job or not. If so, that would be over $2000."

Arthur said, "What have you done to set up the businesses?"

"Well, since I haven't bought anything in or paid anything out, I haven't done anything. I told Jack to keep a couple of text documents listing all the income and all his expenses. He's bought a few things and gotten some income already. Right now, he just lists the company, what he bought, the date and how much it cost. For income it's date, who, amount, what it was for. I'm going to try to talk to a woman I go to a couple of computer classes with at the JC tonight. She's got a couple of kids and her husband died in Iraq. She gets some money from the government but would like a job. I'd like her to handle emails to inquiries and to do the books. I'd like to be able to use her for my business, too."

Arthur looked at Liz. "I say incorporate."

She said, "Definitely. They are so similar, I think they could get away with one corporation and a couple of DBAs."

He thought for a moment. "You're right. One account for payroll, taxes, corporate fee, all that. Separate books for the companies, though."

"Of course."

Liz said, "Here's what will probably be best for you. The two of you should form a corporation. Each of you will have your own businesses and we'll file DBAs for those. That stands for 'doing business as.' Go to Costco or Sam's and get a copy of Quick Books. If the person who's going to be entering the data needs training, there are lots of classes available, from the JC to some of the high schools that have adult school. I can teach her the basics on a Saturday for $50. That would probably be best because I can teach her exactly what I need. I would suggest you let me look over the books frequently to start, just to make sure everything is being done right."

"What do you mean by 'frequently'?"

"Oh, I'd say once a month for a month or two."

"OK. Can she do payroll from that?"

"It's another module and you can order it with a credit card. They make you buy a new one every year. Let me tell you a little about payroll, though. The Feds and the State have it set up so you need to keep multiple reserve accounts and pay different things at different times all through the year. They are very picky. You can even be assessed a penalty for paying on time without using the proper form. It gets very complicated and it's unusual for a business not to screw something up. It also takes a lot of time on the part of the person who's doing the payroll. And if she quits or something else happens, it's very difficult for someone new to pick up where she left off."

"What do you suggest? You?"

"We can do payroll but I don't suggest it. There are companies out there and that's all they do. You give them the hours the employees worked and they cut the checks or do direct deposits and tell you how much money to put into the account. That money is for the checks, the set asides for the taxes and their fees. When something is due, they pay it. And they guarantee that the payroll is done correctly and that all taxes are paid on time. Again, check Sam's and Costco. I'm sure one, maybe both give discounts on a payroll service. There's at least one bank that will do it free but they require that all your employees have accounts with them for direct deposit. They'll nickel and dime you to death and they'll treat you like a number and your customers like shit."