Chapter 4

With Ann on the trip, Sid spent the evenings with his wife. Even when the three of them were together, the couple virtually ignored Victoria. For the first time ever on a business trip with Sid, Victoria had to go to dinner alone every evening of the trip.

Depressed and lonely, Victoria sat in her hotel room for yet another long night. With nothing else to do, she spent her time thinking about her situation.

Things seemed so clear to her. She worked to support her family. It wasn't that she wanted to be away from her family so much, but that was the price she had to pay for her salary. She knew it was hard on everyone, but they benefited from her hard work. They lived in a four bedroom house in a good safe neighborhood with excellent schools.

The house had been first argument between her and John. She wanted the large house even though John's earnings could barely cover the bills. He took a much more conservative position arguing for a smaller place in a slightly worse neighborhood. She had brought the parents into the discussion and he lost that battle.

Two months after moving into the house she regreted having won the argument. Money was tight. To save money, John moved out of his office in an office building. He converted the garage to a home office and worked from there on his programming contracts. The move had initially hurt his ability to earn. Working from a garage had made him look like an amateur, but his excellent reputation for delivering quality code had salvaged his earnings from a spiral downwards.

John had never complained about the hardship of working in the garage or the money pressures of owning a house too large for his budget. She appreciated that fact, but it didn't prevent her from feeling guilty. The strapped budget bothered her far more than him. They couldn't afford a babysitter for an occasional evening out. John didn't even have time for an evening out since he was struggling to make enough money to cover the bills.

She began to make plans on how to correct the situation. She would be a stay at home mom until Rose entered school. She would get a job to earn enough money to ease the situation. It was all so clear to her.

When the kids were in bed and John was working in the garage, she would spend hours on an old computer. She learned to use the business software that would allow her to command a better salary. It was time well spent.

Getting the job as a Personal Assistant to Sid Buchwald had been one of the happiest days she experienced since moving into the large house. The salary was huge. The one negative was the requirement that she had to travel frequently. Still, the salary was nearly as large or larger than what John was earning.

Upon getting the job, the first thing she did was go out and buy some business clothes. That had cost over five hundred dollars from an already overstrained budget. Anticipating that John would be furious, she had gone on the offensive arguing that her first paycheck would make up for the expenditure. John had been upset, but he didn't make a big deal out of it. He had told her that his income had taken a slight upturn and they could afford the clothes but she would have to be careful in how much she spent. She didn't believe him.

Her first trip out of town had been an eye opener for her. The business clothes she had purchased looked cheap in comparison to the suits worn by the businessmen at the various meetings. She was Wally Mart and they were Brooks Brothers. She had even had to wear the same outfit twice during the week. It embarrassed her to sit in a meeting looking like a poor man's secretary when the men were discussing contracts involving millions of dollars.

Upon her return from that first trip, she had spent the weekend at the mall buying clothes. Short of cash, she had opened several charge accounts. She had spent over two thousand dollars. When John had learned of that, he had gotten very upset. He wanted to stash some money aside in order to grow his business and to provide a cushion in case the business faltered.

This was the beginning of what she called the finances war. He questioned her expenditures on clothes, beauty products, and travel necessities. She questioned his increased expenditures on computer equipment and office furniture. She had been incensed when she learned that he was spending time writing games for the kids rather than searching for more programming contracts.

The arguments increased in volume until they separated their finances. Every month they each deposited three thousand dollars into a joint account. She paid the bills online while traveling. He used the debit card to purchase food and clothes for the children. The first few months were tight, but a slush fund slowly built up. After six years, the balance in the joint account was large enough that they could pay cash when getting the house re-shingled.

Her private accounts had grown to where she had over a hundred thousand dollars in an investment account. She wanted to have that money in reserve in case John's business folded. Every time she returned home she expected to find out that he was out of business.

It wasn't that she believed John wasn't a capable programmer, but she seriously doubted his business acumen. She had watched very successful businessmen discuss huge amounts of money. In comparison to the business smarts of those men, John acted like he was running a lemonade stand. They had hundreds of people working for them and John was the only employee.

As time passed, her business trips increased in frequency. She was away from the house more days than she was at home. This left John stuck at home serving as a house husband. It was fortunate he worked from home and they didn't have to pay for childcare. She didn't think she would have been able to acquire such a large nest egg if she had to pay childcare costs in addition to her business expenses.

Although she didn't want to admit it, her relationship with the children had suffered. When they complained about how much she was gone, she would explain to them that she was doing it for their benefit. The kids would argue that their father could support the family. She marveled at their confidence in their father. She tried to convince them that his company would probably suffer significantly if there was the slightest bump in the economy. They had looked at her as if she was crazy.

John's insistence that she didn't need to work had begun to grate on her nerves. She was sacrificing so that the family would have a financial cushion. It bothered her that he didn't appreciate her efforts.

The outright antagonism by the children on her last visit home had been shocking. She had never imagined her children would tell her to leave the house and never come back. To learn they wanted to trade up in mothers had hit her like a knife through the back. John taking the children's side had been the final blow. She couldn't comprehend why they didn't understand how much she was doing for them.

Dwelling on her problems was just giving her a headache. She went over to her laptop and logged into the bank account. It was time to pay the bills. She wondered if it would be the last time she did so.

Wondering if John was using the debit card to drain the joint account, she immediately went to review the last month's transactions. It didn't make sense to her. He hadn't charged anything against the account. She went to the records for the previous month. Again, he hadn't charged anything against the account. She stared at the screen wondering how he was paying for groceries, clothes, and gasoline.

She thought back to that horrible night. Based on the dinner David had prepared food wasn't an issue. They even had wine with the dinner and according to the kids it was a common event. She wasn't sure how much the wine had cost, but it had been very good. The clothes the kids were wearing looked new. As far as she could tell, John wasn't being stingy with money for the kids.

She paid the mortgage, the electric bill, and the cable bill. It was while paying the cable bill that she noticed they now had the HD package. She didn't recall seeing any charges for an HD capable television in the past.

Sitting back, she wondered what kind of games John was playing. She went back to the checking account summary to make sure he was making the full three thousand dollar deposit. Much to her surprise, she saw that he was depositing five thousand a month. She stared at the entry wondering how he could afford to put sixty thousand dollars a year into the joint account. It didn't make any sense at all.

She was still trying to figure out what was going on when there was a knock on her hotel room door. She went over to it and looked through the spyhole. Ann was at the door.

Upon opening the door, she said, "Hello, Ann. I didn't expect to see you tonight."

"There's been a slight change of plans," Ann said without taking time for a friendly greeting.

"What?" Victoria asked.

"We need you to fly to Atlanta to work with the SSID proposal team tomorrow. You'll have to stay there the whole weekend. Monday morning you'll have to fly back to the office and hand deliver the proposal to the red team," Ann said.

She brusquely handed Victoria an envelop with papers.

Victoria glanced inside taking note of the airline ticket, hotel reservation, and directions on how to get to SSID. It seemed to her that Ann had taken to being a PA like a duck to water. She even had the brusque business attitude down pat.

"What will I be doing with the SSID proposal team?" Victoria asked.

"You're going to be providing them with the proposal cost estimates. Sid will be developing them over the weekend, but he wants you there to make sure that they get added to the proposal exactly like he provides them," Ann answered.

"Okay," Victoria said.

This was a very different kind of task than what she had done in the past. She felt uncomfortable suddenly taking orders from someone other than Sid.

Ann said, "After the red team finishes with the proposal, you'll have to hand carry it to Washington."

"Okay," Victoria said feeling like she had just become some sort of glorified go-fer.

"I've already called your husband and informed him that you'd be gone over the weekend," Ann said.

"Thanks," Victoria said.

Ann waved and said, "We'll talk later. Sid is waiting for me."

Victoria was left staring through an empty doorway. She slowly closed the door and returned to the hotel room desk. The screen saver on the computer had kicked in. She watched photographs of the family appear and disappear on the screen. It dawned on her that the newest photograph was two years old and none of them included her.