Chapter 16: Doubt and Certainty

Frank ran into Aaron the morning in the lobby while he was waiting for the elevator.

"Thanks for coming in early, Aaron." His protégé shrugged. "You're a real lifesaver. I'd like to take my daughter to Austin on Thursday and help her get her things into her dorm. It's a big deal—first time living away from home, and all. You'll see someday."

"Don't worry about it," Aaron mumbled. "Glad I could help you." The bell rang and the elevator door slid open. The two men stepped in.

"How's your wife holding up? Did you tell her about our conversation about the FBI?"

"Naomi? More or less, I guess. She's still nervous, but she's willing to wait a while longer to see what happens."

"Just keep your cool. Things will work out. If something happens and you need to make a move, I'll give you the word," Frank promised anew.

"Okay," Aaron said. He pressed the button for the sixth floor. "I want to get some things from my desk before I come upstairs," he said as he stepped out of the elevator car. "I'll see you up there in a few minutes."

"You can have coffee up there," Frank replied as the elevator door closed.

When Frank stepped off the elevator on the Executive Floor he saw Floyd standing in front to the glass wall of the reception area looking at him.

"Mr. Bennett, you're always an early bird, but this a first," Floyd said as Frank walked into the area. "I heard the elevator bell. I couldn't imagine who it could be."

"Got to get an early start on the forecast," Frank told him. "I've got personal business on Thursday, so I've got to buy some time today and tomorrow."

"It's never done, is it?" Floyd sympathized as they made their way to Frank's office.

"You mean work, or personal business?" Frank bantered back. Floyd laughed. "The answer is 'yes' to both," Frank said.

Floyd unlocked Frank's door. "I'll bring you some coffee when it's finished brewing," he promised. "Should be about five minutes."

"Would you mind bringing an extra one? I've got Aaron Fishman in here with me. He's down on the sixth floor getting some things out of his desk right now."

"Sure," Floyd answered. "Is he the same young man who worked up here with you the last time?" Frank nodded. "He must've done a good job."

"He wouldn't be on his way up here if he hadn't," Frank answered.

"I'm surprised," Floyd said, "him bein' under suspicion by the FBI, and all."

"What're you talkin' about, Floyd? Who in the hell told you that?"

Floyd took a step backward. His eyes opened wide. "Sorry, Mr. Bennett. I meant no offense."

"Forget that," Frank demanded. "I just want to know who said that."

"Well, I just saw him in and out of the office those FBI fellas were using. I just thought..."

"I didn't ask for a line of baloney, Floyd. I asked where you got that information." Floyd opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He started shaking his head and holding up his hands as if to say 'I don't know'.

"Give it up!" Frank shouted. He'd never yelled at Floyd before.

"It was ... it was..." Floyd began to say, but then stopped.

"Out with it!"

"Mr. Bennett, I don't know how to say this," Floyd pleaded.

"Don't figure out how; just tell me, goddammit."

"It was Miss Jeannette," Floyd said, nearly breaking down into tears. "We were just chattin'. I don't think she meant anything by it."

"Jeannette?" Frank gasped. "Are you sure?" Floyd's statement stunned him.

He had thoroughly expected it to be Jason Lowell. "Of course not," he corrected himself, "when would a guy like Jason have anything to say to Floyd?"

Frank staggered to the chair behind his desk and dropped into it. "I would have never thought..."

"Please don't tell her I said anything," Floyd begged. "Like I said, I don't think she meant anything by it. You know how people get talkin' and like to trade stories. Please don't tell her."

Frank stared up at the ceiling for a second and then looked at Floyd. "Alright," he said. "I'll let you call the tune. I'll stay silent if you promise to tell me if she says anything else about this."

"Oh, I promise."

"And I mean about anything," Frank repeated. "That means about Aaron, or me, or anyone—is that clear?"

"I promise," Floyd said. "You're not going to punish her, are you?"

"I guess not," Frank said. "No one's perfect. Besides, I already said I wouldn't tell her what you said, so how could I punish her without telling her?"

"Oh, right," Floyd smiled. "You're not still mad at me, are you?"

"No, why should I be? You're just the messenger."

"Well, you sounded pretty mad a minute ago."

"That was then; this is now. I will be mad if I don't get a coffee pretty soon."

"Comin' right up!" Floyd said happily as he stepped out of the office. "Don't forget a cup for Aaron, too," Frank called after him.

"Aaron, let's go over the assumptions for the forecast." Aaron had stepped out of the elevator just as Frank was concluding his conversation with Floyd. He waited for Frank to rattle off the economic parameters. He took a sip of the coffee that Floyd brought for him.

"It's not as good as Jeannette's," Aaron commented as he tasted Floyd's brew. "At this time of the morning, anything would be good."

Frank looked over his reading glasses as Aaron awaited the forecast dictum. He wondered to himself if Aaron had heard what had been said a few minutes ago and was fishing for information.

"Blake Hart's group generated most of this data," Frank said. He decided to say nothing about the other subject—see what course it might take, if there was a course at all. "To start with, consider U.S. homebuilding down around thirty percent. Here is the orders estimate from the National Sales Manager. The Plant Controllers should be sending their calculations on shipments and unit costs today or tomorrow. Make a draft when you put it together and show it to Blake. He might want to shift some production."

"That means that the Sealant and Adhesive's Division is going to get clobbered," Aaron said.

"I'm afraid so," Frank said. "Assume that it will be sooner, not later. Consider the Consumer Division steady. Don't factor anything for downsizing or restructuring at this point. Let Blake come forward with that after he sees the numbers."

"It won't be pretty," Aaron said.

"It's not all bad. European and Pacific operations should contribute more because of the weak dollar."

Aaron nodded, making notes about the Euro and the Yen. "There's that reserve for the costs of the Wertheim deal that didn't come off," Aaron reminded him. "We didn't take it back into income in the last forecast. That will come in handy now."

Frank raised his hands to stop him. "At the last forecast it wasn't certain that the deal was off, so we kept in there for safe-keeping. Now, it's our secret. I want operations to put forth everything they can to deal with this. The reserve is in my hip pocket. We'll save it for the end—if we need it. So, mum's the word on that."

"Understood," Aaron assured him.

Frank leaned back in his chair and tapped his pencil on his desk. "In fact, assume the dollar stays at the same value as it is today. They can take any gains up to now. Any effect on future income, we'll deal in later. Keep their feet to the fire. Just set up your worksheets so we can factor it in later."

"Sounds good," Aaron said and then finished his coffee.

"And, of course, we have to deal with Dr. Lowell," Frank said. He regretted the sarcasm, but it was too late. "I want you to go over his projects with him. Don't fine tune it; just look for anything glaring that has to be fixed."

"That's fine with me," Aaron said and let a small laugh escape.

"Don't forget he's a Vice President of the company! What you think of him personally makes no difference." Frank warned. "When you have that put together, we can take a look at the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement. The P&L is the big thing on these quarterly forecasts."

Frank picked up Aaron's empty cup and tossed it in the waste basket. It was the signal that the meeting had come to an end. "I'll try and get up to see you around four and let you know how it's going," Aaron said as he stood up.

"Be sure you do," Frank answered. "The FBI guys are finished here for the time being, so you can use the Controller's office again. I like it better than having all this stuff out in open view in your cubicle downstairs."

"I've got a lot of work to do to set this up," Aaron said. "By the time I get that done, people will start arriving at the office and I'll be able to talk to everyone I have to."

Something seemed not quite right to Brenda. She glanced over to Gloria sitting in the passenger's seat as they waited at a signal light on their way to the Sunrise School. Brenda spent a lot of time with Gloria, and had come to learn that she would never be able to know all of Gloria's moods—at least not in advance. New ones always seemed to appear at the most unexpected moments.

"That was quite a big step for Darlene," Brenda said. "I had my doubts at first, but when she actually got in her car to drive to San Antonio, I knew she stepped over the line."

"It was inevitable," Gloria agreed. "Jim Sweeney would never take 'maybe' for an answer. And, I know how Darlene must have felt. She had to do something to save the situation. She used the only means she had available."

"Jim has a way of making the whole thing 'fun for everyone'," Brenda added.

Gloria had a laugh at the way Brenda made her point. The light turned green and the sedan eased forward. "That's so true," she agreed. "Still, in some ways I wish it could've been worked out some other way."

"Have you ever met that wimp, Jason?" Brenda asked. "He'd never stand up for himself. It was the way it had to be. Now little Darlene has earned her wings."

"I guess I'm still a romantic after all these years," Gloria said. "Innocence lost, and all that. She was a fresh, young thing; now she's gone all the way. She's one of us."

Brenda sensed the reason for Gloria's special mood. Change was in the air. In the old days of not too long ago guilt could never have found a place in her mind.

"I could've gone to San Antonio in Darlene's place," Gloria continued. "I could've talked to Jim for her—and convinced him, too. It wouldn't have been the first time, and the result would've been just the same." Gloria paused, looked out the side window of the car at nothing in particular. "I haven't been with Jim in a long time. I miss him; it would have been a good time. I wish I'd thought of it before Darlene went."

"What're you saying, Gloria?" Brenda protested. "Darlene's a big girl; she can fend for herself. You can't take care of everything for everyone. What about your innocence, anyway? I thought you and Alvin ... you know."

"I know, I know," Gloria answered. "Sometimes I think that innocence is all relative. I'm just philosophizing—getting idealistic in my old age, I guess."

"Old age!" Brenda exclaimed with a hoot. "There's nothing in your shape that says 'old age'. Besides, how would you have gotten yourself down to San Antonio to meet with Jim? You know how you feel about driving; and you sure couldn't have Alvin's driver take you."

"I'd have had you drive me. You could have helped me with Jim. If we had done that, Jason would be Company President right now," Gloria said with a laugh.

Brenda was happy to see Gloria's mood brightening. "I'm not sure I would be willing to do that for Jason," she said, "interesting concept, though." Her comment brought another peal of laughter from Gloria. Brenda laughed, too; it was funny and reminded them both of some simpler times they'd enjoyed together. "Of course, I might have done it for myself. One never gets enough practice." They had a hearty laugh again, and Brenda nearly swerved into the oncoming lane.

Unlike Gloria, Brenda never debated points of idealism versus the pleasures of practicality. She gave that up when she was in college and Clinton was just coming into office. Idealism became such a mirage. She looked about and saw older grad students with promising degrees in the making and futures for the taking. Her looks gave her a leg up on the competition. She learned to separate wheat from chaff. She slept strictly with the wheat and finally filtered Blake from the rest. With him, she got what she'd bargained for, and Blake wasn't finished rendering return on her investment. She met Blake on a tennis court one day. They'd made great doubles partners—in a number of ways—and an occasional singles match was a nice diversion from time to time. Practicality ruled.

"So, what's the purpose of our visit today?" she asked Gloria.

"Just the usual," Gloria said. "I enjoy the children. Whenever I'm glum about something an hour with the children is just the thing to cheer me up."

"Those children mean a lot to you."

"It's my good side," Gloria confessed.

"And we're not going to see Maddy?" Brenda hinted.

"You never know," Gloria answered in a sing-song voice. "I didn't ask her when I spoke to her over the phone."

"It's not something you can ask over the phone," Brenda agreed. "We could get a hotel room downtown, or maybe we could go back to your place."

"She's got an apartment not far from the school," Gloria said. "If she's in the mood, we could go there after school's over for the day."

"We'll find out soon enough," Brenda said. "There's the school just ahead."

She pulled into a visitors' parking place near the front door of the school. Maddy must have seen the car because she stepped out the door to greet them. She wore a wide grin, as well as the usual canvass skirt and peasant blouse. "The children are at lunch right now. They'll have art work after that."

Brenda and Gloria followed Maddy through the front door and into her office. "I haven't seen either of you since the pool party," Maddy said.

"It was quite a flop," Gloria said. "My parties were never flops until that one. It was a first."

"More than one first," Brenda added.

"It turned out just fine in the end," Maddy corrected in her perky tone. "Better than fine, actually. So I wouldn't say it was a flop at all."

"And Alvin ended up giving you the money to hire an office girl, anyway," Brenda reminded Gloria.

"Office Manager!" Gloria snapped at Brenda, and then put her smile back on. "Anyway, if you enjoyed the festivities that much, we'll have to do it again some time."

Maddy jutted out her lower lip and nodded slowly. She tucked her lip back in and grinned again. "Sometime real soon, I hope." The outlines of her nipples pressed through the fabric of her blouse. She leaned forward and her blouse fell away from her collarbone, exposing some inviting, round cleavage. "As soon as possible," she whispered.

Brenda didn't say anything. The surprising rebuff from Gloria stung, so she didn't want to risk another by speaking out of turn. Besides, things were progressing nicely without any further input from her. She'd set it all up in the car before she and Gloria arrived.

"The children should be on their way to art by now. Why don't we join them?" Maddy said. They walked to the Assembly Room where easels and paints had been set up while the students were in the cafeteria. The dual-language alphabet cards were still mounted on the wall. "We already did our ABC's today," Maddy told them. "Trudy was a big hit when she was here. The children still ask about her. We do the ABC shapes just like she taught us. The children love it."