Chapter 8

Jenny and Ingrid were enjoying the last minutes of their "girls' night out" as they sat in Ingrid's great room and enjoyed a glass of wine. Jenny had told Ingrid of her desire for to become pregnant and she and Tom were hoping they would know soon.

She had also shared her concerns over Tom's intervention on Vinnie's behalf. While the incident turned out well, she sensed Tom had taken some personal risks that might have put him in danger. Tom had brushed the confrontation off, but Jenny had recognized that he wasn't telling her the whole story. Eventually the conversation got around to their husbands.

"It will take me forever to find out where Steve learned all his bedroom 'tricks'." Ingrid confessed.

"He keeps claiming he read about them in books, but I know better," she laughed. "I keep nattering at him about it but he stays tight-lipped

Jenny was amused. "What difference does it make if you're getting all the fun from it?"

"None, I suppose, but it drives me crazy when he won't tell me," Ingrid admitted. "Is Tom holding back any secrets of his own?"

"Not that I know of, but I'm sure I don't know everything about him. He seemed awfully sure of himself when he dealt with that loan shark. I don't know why."

"We all have secrets, Jenny." Ingrid smiled enigmatically.

"Not me. I've lived a mostly boring life," Jenny offered.

"Oh really. What about that other Jenny who showed up the first night you were with Tom?" she smirked.

"That's not a secret. Even I didn't know that would happen," she laughed.

"Yah, well if you're smart, it'll be a secret now."

"Ingrid, you told me that Steve had asked you to marry him many times, I think you said twenty?" Jenny inquired.

"Yeah, well ... I may have exaggerated a bit, but that's right."

"What happened the twentieth time? Why was it different?" Jenny asked.

"It wasn't, I guess. I think he just wore me down."

"What made it so hard to say yes? You knew you were in love with him, and you knew there wasn't any doubt in his mind that he was in love with you.

"I'm sorry ... I'm prying ... It's none of my business," Jenny trailed off.

"That's OK," Ingrid smiled. "I must have asked myself the same question a thousand times too!"

She paused and she looked off into the distance for a moment.

"You remember what I said about secrets ... how we all have them? Well, I had one I couldn't share with Steve. Not then anyway."

Jenny sat quietly looking at Ingrid, waiting for her to continue in her own time, and at her own pace.

"My ex-husband, Max, was a nasty, kinky kind of guy. I was a nineteen year old reckless girl. I wasn't a virgin when I met him, but I might has well have been. He taught me more about crazy, uninhibited sex than I ever imagined, and I loved it. I thought that's what being a complete woman was all about."

Ingrid paused again and then continued.

"I don't know why he asked me to marry him. He didn't want a wife, he wanted a concubine. A fuck buddy. I was just too naïve to see that. Anyway, as time went on, he got kinkier and kinkier and then he started in on me about an 'open marriage.'

"He wanted to screw other women, and he wanted me to look after some of his friends. I wasn't having any part of that. I told him no in no uncertain terms that it wasn't going to happen."

Ingrid stopped for a moment, took a sip of her wine and then shook her head.

"I should have known he wouldn't take no for an answer. Anyway, I got home from work early one day and walked into the bedroom and there was Max and the next door neighbor's wife on our bed, naked. There was semen all over her and the bedding, and a couple of used condoms on the floor, along with their clothes. The pair of them were fast asleep. They'd obviously screwed themselves into oblivion. The bitch was even snoring. I almost laughed out loud!" Ingrid grinned as she recalled the scene.

Jenny had covered her mouth with her hand. Her intake of breath and wide eyes expressed her shock. "What did you do?"

"The smartest thing I've ever done in my entire life. I took off my shoes, quietly walked over to my dresser and picked up my little 35mm camera and shot the last eight pictures left on the roll. Even the flash didn't wake them up!" she laughed.

"Then I went down to the little one hour photo shop in the mall, you know, the one where you can see anyone's pictures as they come off the machine. I stood outside the window and waited until my roll started to come through, and then I started telling passers-by that they should wait a few seconds and see the special portraits I had shot," Ingrid laughed again.

Jenny's jaw dropped. "No! You didn't!"

"I sure as hell did. A handful of people got quite an eyeful that afternoon. Unfortunately, there were a couple of kids in the audience and they didn't need to see that," Ingrid said, shaking her head.

"I went back into the shop and made two more copies of the last eight pictures, and then headed for a lawyers office on the outside of the mall. None of them could see me right away and I just sat in the waiting room for a while, and then I started to cry. I couldn't believe how stupid I was. I just wanted to go somewhere and hide," she confessed.

"Oh Ingrid, it must have been horrible!" Jenny sympathized. "I can't imagine what I'd do if it happened to me."

"Anyway, after I while, I got up and went home. I don't know why, it was the only place I could go, I guess," she said wistfully.

"Max was awake, the woman was gone and I was just starting to get really, really pissed off," Ingrid continued.

"I sat at the kitchen table and in he waltzes like it's just another day at the office. It was all I could do to keep from taking a carving knife to his balls!" she spat at the memory.

"I opened the photo package and pulled out the pictures. Naturally he wanted to see them, so I handed them to him. It took him a couple of minutes to get to the last eight and then the shit hit the fan. He started swearing and ripping them up and throwing the torn pieces around the kitchen.

"I had taken the extra prints and the negatives and gave them to the lawyer's receptionist to hold for me when I got an appointment. Max started screaming at me that I was trying to blackmail him and he had more on me than I'd ever have on him. I couldn't figure out what the hell he was talking about. I just had to wait until he had calmed down enough to hear what I was telling him.

"I told him the negatives were in the hands of my lawyer, and I would be filing for divorce at the first opportunity. That set him off again. He couldn't seem to grasp the idea that infidelity was grounds and I was the victim, not the perpetrator. That's when he spilled the big pot of beans," Ingrid said with a note of finality.

Jenny was lost in the narrative and completely captured by this story of deceit. She sat motionless, listening to Ingrid's every word.

"Max said he had a video tape of him and I having sex. Not just any sex, but real, full blown, kinky sex. He had got one of his buddies to hide in the house and then he jumped me and got me going pretty good. Like I said, I like sex and I guess it was one of those times when I was up for the game and put on quite a show while his pal was recording it all on video," Ingrid said matter-of-factly.

"Oh no, what did you do?" Jenny asked, again shocked at another revelation.

"I told him I didn't believe him, so he disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back with a VCR tape in his hand and asked me if I wanted to have a look. Naturally, I couldn't say no. It was awful, Jenny. I was so humiliated, I couldn't believe that was me on the screen, but there wasn't any doubt. I just felt sick to my stomach," Ingrid concluded.

"Oh god, Ingrid, that's horrible. Does he still have that tape?" she asked.

"Yeah, he's still got it. He hasn't used it that I know of, but I'll bet all his buddies have seen it several times. That's one of the reasons I left Kelowna and came down here. I didn't want to run into any of those creeps."

"And Steve doesn't know about this?" Jenny asked cautiously.

"No, I haven't told him yet. Maybe I never will. It was over fifteen years ago and I was just a kid. Every year that goes by is that much more distance between me and my past," she said sadly.

"I don't know where Max is, but I haven't seen or heard from him since the divorce. I thought for sure he'd use it against me, but my lawyer had so much shit on him that I think he figured he'd wait a while. I'm not even sure he's still alive."

"Wow, have I ever lived a sheltered life," Jenny laughed. "You really had an exciting time back then."

"I guess so, Jen. But I wouldn't trade today for anything in the world. The past is just a bad memory that's fading a bit every year. Maybe that's why I can live without knowing all of Steve's secrets," Ingrid said philosophically. "That way I don't have to tell him all of mine."

-0-

Jenny had developed the habit of visiting Tom's mother and father at least once a week. Her work schedule had been reduced after she had married and had informed the MacDonald family that she would be trying to have more children.

The family were disappointed that she wouldn't be taking over as a principal buyer, but recognized they didn't want to lose her. They sat down and worked out a manageable schedule for her until she took pregnancy leave.

After that, decisions could be made about when she could return to work on a limited schedule. At present, she was working three days a week and available for buying trips this fall and winter.

Tom had made it clear that they didn't need her income and that she should only work if she enjoyed it and it didn't interfere with their personal lives. His schedule demanded his full attention from April through September, the maximum daylight period of the year.

But something else had arisen which had been unexpected and would cause Tom and Jenny to reassess their futures. It was now apparent that Tom's father would never completely recover from his stroke and in all likelihood, would retire from active participation in the business.

By the end of the year, Vinnie would be set up in his own company as a framing contractor, and that would leave two very big holes to fill. For all intents and purposes, Tom would become Blanton Construction, holding 50% of the shares, but 100% of the responsibility. It would mean a complete rethink of the management structure of the company.

Tom would have to devote a significant amount of time recruiting new management and/or developing it from within. He had one proven candidate in Robbie Delgado, but he needed at least one more. More importantly, he needed someone to take the administrative load off him so that he could continue to run the field operations. These were problems he shared with Jenny, and they spent many hours pondering their alternatives.

With Tuesday and Thursday off, Jenny had some time for herself and would be home when Nikki came home from school on those two days. Tom's parents had accepted Jenny as one of the family and a daughter they had never had. Jenny would usually visit them on Tuesday for lunch and they would discuss matters of the day, or just pass the time in pleasant conversation.

Not long after Vinnie had announced his decision to form his own company, the three of them were discussing the incident which led to Vinnie's beating and Tom's rescue of the situation.

"I still don't understand why Tom didn't think that situation was dangerous," Jenny said in wonder. "He shrugged it off as if it didn't mean anything, but I was really worried."

"I was too, Jenny," Louise confirmed. "But Tom isn't an ordinary guy when it comes to defending himself," she said cryptically.

"What do you mean, Louise?"

"Didn't he tell you? He has a black belt in Karate. He's had it for years, when he was in school."

"No, he never said a word about it!" Jenny exclaimed

"When Tom was young, he used to be small and not very strong. He wanted to play football, but he was too small. He didn't weigh enough. He tried out for the wrestling team in junior high school, but he wasn't strong enough for that either. The only thing he could get into was karate at the Community Centre.

"So he tried out and started there when he was about fifteen. Just about then, he started to grow, and he was doing very well in the competitions. When he got up to about the middle of the rankings, a man from a private club in Vancouver saw him in a tournament and asked him to join his club. He would become his teacher.

"Tom did very well with this man and he kept moving higher and higher in the city rankings, and then in the provincial rankings. He was still growing at eighteen and you could see all the work with his dad and all the training at the gym had made him into a big, strong boy," Louise paused.

"Is that why he wasn't afraid of that loan shark guy, Tremblay?" Jenny asked.

"Yes, I think so," Louise nodded. "Karate taught him a lot about self-control and only using your power when it's absolutely necessary. I think it made him a better person, and I know it helped him in school. He was only an ordinary student until he got involved, but every year his grades got better and better.

"He treated his school work very seriously. He was always smart enough, but now he was using that discipline to be a better student. We were very proud of him when he earned his black belt. There were very few of them in the province, and he was one of them."

"That explains a lot," Jenny smiled. "He's very conscious of his power and he works very hard to keep it under control."

Louise looked at Jenny with a knowing smile, and Jenny blushed. Each knew what the other was thinking. Tony had been sitting quietly listening to Louise talk about Tom and nodding his head in concurrence with her comments.

"Eees ah goohd mahn, Chennee! Eee whull look ahftuh yooo," Tony slurred slowly, with great effort.

Jenny smiled and nodded. "Yes, I know, I'm lucky to have him."

-0-

Tom had scheduled a meeting with Robbie Delgado for 3pm that same Tuesday afternoon. He needed Robbie's help, advice and support to get Blanton Construction back on track. He had come to rely on the diminutive young Mexican-born worker. Like Tom, his training had been at B.C.I.T., but Robbie had done it the hard way. Night school while holding down a steady job. He was the energy that Tom fed from on days when he wondered if they would get all their tasks done on time.

"Robbie, how's Julie?" Tom asked by way of greeting that afternoon.

"Big!" Robbie replied. "Just another month and I'll be a dad again. But to answer your question, she's fine," the young man smiled.

"Wow, two kids in what, four years?" Tom marveled. "I'm jealous," he laughed.

"Yeah, but as soon as I find out what's causing it, I'm goin' to put a stop to it," Robbie laughed in return.

"You're a lucky guy, Robbie. I just hope Jen and I can do some catching up in the next couple of years."

"Good luck," Robbie offered. "But for now, I guess we'd better get down to business, eh?"

"Yep! Did you have any luck with the upcoming graduation class at B.C.I.T.?" Tom asked.

"Yes, I think so. I've got my eye on three people; two guys and a really sharp girl!" he replied promptly.

"Good! Are they all available in January?" Tom asked hopefully.

"The girl and one guy are; the other guy has some classes to make up and won't be done until May." Robbie responded.

"That may not be so bad. It will give us time to get the two of them started and then we can pick up one more just as the busy season gets going." Tom offered. "Do they all look like winners?" he asked.

"Hey, Tom, we're talking B.C.I.T. here!" Robbie laughed. "You have doubts?"

"OK, let's set up the interviews as soon as we can. I don't want to lose any of them between now and graduation," Tom explained.

"I'll look after it. Any particular timing?" Robbie asked.

"Yah, tomorrow!" Tom grinned. "Naw, but as soon as you can. I'll make sure I'm available. It's our number one priority right now."

"Consider it done," Robbie said simply.

"Now, what about leadership? Any likely candidates for lead hand in the crews?" Tom asked.

"I wish I could tell there are, but I don't see anyone. We've got some good workers, but I haven't seen any leaders emerge yet," Robbie offered.

"I've been so busy, I haven't really been able to spend time with the guys. I think Derek Tryon is smart enough, but I'm not so sure about his people skills. He's someone that I have to spend some more time with," he concluded.

"Well, maybe, if you think he's got potential, we can send him for training. They don't learn this stuff by accident."

"Yah, well, that's one less guy on the crew, so if we're going to do that, it had better be in the next four months or we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot," Robbie said ruefully.

"OK, let me see what I can find that fits. You think it's just people skills he needs?" Tom asked.

"A bit of management training wouldn't hurt. He's not one of our B.C.I.T. guys, so he doesn't have the background they have. But in every other way, he looks good," Robbie said brightly.

"OK, leave it with me." Tom smiled. "Meeting adjourned ... can I buy you a beer?"

Robbie took a quick look at his watch and said, "OK, I've got time for one. I hate to leave Julie alone for too long. I want her to rest and not bother with all the housework. I can help with that stuff."

Tom nodded his approval and they headed off to the pub. It would give Tom the chance he was looking for to talk to Robbie about something important and personal.

He had come to rely on Robbie so much in the past year and he realized he would be a prize possession for any contractor. He didn't want to lose him, either to a competitor or have him start his own business. He wanted to make Robbie a partner in Blanton Construction and he now had an extra share to make the offer attractive.

As they entered the Pub, Tom found a quiet corner with no one around and they sat down. The waitress quickly took their order and they were served within a couple of minutes.

"Robbie, you know how happy I am with what you contribute to our company. You really make a big difference to our bottom line and better than that, you're a good people person, something I think is really important," Tom began.

"I want to make sure you are happy at Blanton and I want to make sure you are properly rewarded for your efforts. I have been trying to think of a way and now I have one," Tom said looking at his young manager seriously.

"You know I bought Vinnie's share back recently. I'm sure you also know that my father and mother hold one share each as long as they are alive. In the past, only a Blanton could hold a share, but in the last couple of months, there have been some big changes in the family. My dad will never come back to work, Robbie. With Vinnie starting his own company, I'll be the one and only Blanton with operating responsibility. I've talked to mom and dad about this idea and they are in agreement. We would like to offer you a half share in Blanton Construction," he concluded abruptly.