Chapter 5: The Naked Truth

"Shall we go, your majesty?" Mark stepped back and bowed her out the door. Both his mother and his lawyer gave him strange looks. Rachel blushed after she realized he had heard her. She worked hard to keep the nervous titter from bubbling past her lips. Executives don't titter. Rachel decided she would make it, no matter what was thrown at her.

Claire called after them, "Would you care to trade car keys?"

Rachel accepted the keys to the Ford and handed her the keys to her five-year-old Chrysler van. Rachel felt a newfound bravery and held out her hand for the keys to her new company car.

Mark smiled at the key transaction. "Please drive me back to the dealership. I need to order my wheels and a little something for my mom."

Rachel looked at Mark and frowned. "What about the problems we have here?" she asked.

Mark nodded, "This is Thursday. The cops are going to be all over those records for a couple of days. Figure on Monday you will officially start your new duties for me.

"Tomorrow let's take a drive up to Naked City and make our presence known. You drive."

"What's a naked city?" she asked, unsure she wanted to know the answer.

He told her about his conversation with Claude when he mentioned he wanted to rename the Willows Resort "Naked City."

"You didn't mean it!" she exclaimed.

"Nah. I was just yanking his chain." He looked at his watch and realized it was almost five in the afternoon. "Let's go get something to eat."

"I can't. Cole's sitter has to leave to make dinner for her family. I can't leave him alone for that long a time."

"I do need to talk to you about tomorrow and where we go from here."

Mark noticed her worried expression. "Look, how about we go to your house, order chicken or Chinese delivered and take care of business there. Do you have a PC?"

"Just an old HP mid tower. There has not been money for anything else. After the insurance coverage ran out, Cole's treatments have kept me almost broke." She sighed and added, "Not that the bank's wages were all that much anyway."

"Call the sitter and ask her to stay a little longer. You will give her fifty dollars to stay and she can order pizza for her family or whatever they want."

He made another quick decision. "I want thirty thousand dollars in hundreds right now. Get it and put it in your purse. Go."

"Ah..." She looked at him and did not move.

"Get the damned money," he ordered. "Damn it, I am tired of you women treating me like a kid."

"May I make a suggestion without you getting angry?" She looked at him; a tentative smile flickered across her face. Then the smile disappeared as she saw his expression.

"I'm already mad. What is your suggestion?"

"This is not really my place to say anything." She hesitated, swallowed hard and continued, "If you want to be treated like an adult you better act like one, sound like one and look like one."

"What?" he snapped at her.

"You can't do anything about your face. It's a very good looking face, at least when it's not glaring at me."

"I don't glare at you," he told her and frowned.

"Well right now you're frowning at me and you do not look attractive at all." She watched him frown harder.

"Just get on with it," he ordered.

"You have a handsome face. It is also what is called a baby face. You have an artist's face, or one that belongs on a poet. In fact you could be mistaken for a gangly fourteen year old. You have a face women love to kiss."

"Yeah, I been told that before," he answered her with a smug air about him.

"And it went to your head. You have a lot of girlfriends and no one has ever wanted to go steady with you for very long."

"So?" He looked bored.

"Let's start all over. What would you do if you worked in a bank and a tall, slender fourteen year old kid sat down at your desk and started to demand attention?"

"Why I'd..." He stared at her. Then he understood. "Okay, I get your point."

"Wait and let me finish. Here you come in wearing baggy pants, an oversized tee shirt and have a cap on your head worn backwards. I wondered where you parked your skateboard."

"At home," he mumbled. Mark felt embarrassed and sorry and something else in this woman's presence.

"If you want to be treated like an adult you must first learn to act like one and more important, dress like one." She smiled and asked, "Do I still have a job?"

"Thank you. I have been a dick head today, haven't I?"

"Yes," Claude said as he walked up behind Mark. "I think there is still hope though."

"Take my mom over to the car dealer and order her whatever car she wants. Then take her to dinner. You know where to go after dinner."

"Go get the money," he ordered Rachel.

"But I..." She stood still.

"Harold, I want thirty thousand dollars and she won't give it to me," Mark called across the bank in a loud voice.

"Please lower your voice." Rachel frowned at him.

A very unhappy bank manager came over to them. "What is it now?" he asked in an aggrieved voice.

"I want thirty thousand in cash and she just stands here," Mark told him.

"Come with me," Harold told him and led Mark to the tellers' windows. In less than five minutes Mark returned to Rachel.

Claire had her arms around the shoulders of Mark's personal employee, his only one so far. "Mark, Rachel feels overwhelmed right now. This has been a trying day for her. She needs time to adjust." His mother seemed a little overwrought herself.

"Do we still have a membership in the country club?"

"Honey, the only two times I made you to go to the country club you hated it."

He looked at his mother and told her, "Mom, you forced me to go. That is why I hated it."

Claire accepted the well-deserved rebuke. "Yes," she agreed in a soft voice.

"Rachel, get Cole and let's all go out for dinner." He looked at her a moment and added, "That is, if you want to."

"I have nothing appropriate to wear because the rest of the new clothing won't be ready until sometime tomorrow afternoon. Also, Cole's wheelchair would make it difficult to maneuver. Besides I have never been anywhere near the country club before in my life.

"Another besides is I would not know how to act."

"I have nothing appropriate to wear either, Mark and neither do you." Claire looked at her son and shook her head. "After that last growth spurt you have no dress clothes that will fit."

"Rachel, did you call your baby sitter?" Mark asked. He felt the impatience build up inside again.

"Yes."

"Do you still have that credit card?" he asked.

"Yes." she answered.

"Well you take Mom and go to that place where you went to order your wardrobe. Order something for this evening. Also have them take all your measurements and both get all new wardrobes. Get shoes, the works."

Claire looked at her son's clothes. "What about you?"

"I'll let Claude take me to where he buys his stuff and get me some of the same."

"What if Claude has other plans?" The lawyer looked at Mark and cocked his head.

"Then I'll go buy something at K Mart and take the two best looking babes in town to the Country club. I meant it when I said I wanted things to go my way."

"Well, in that case we better go get clothes." Claude laughed in amazement at the changes that already happened in Mark. "I think there is hope for you after all." Inside he was worried. He did not want Mark to take control of anything, not yet anyway. There was the matter of another two thousand dollars he needed to replace. He decided to take care of it immediately.

"Mom, after you shop for clothes take Rachel with you and head back to our house. We'll meet you there after I get something to wear. We have a lot to talk about and I want to get it out of the way."

"While you are giving orders, have you given any idea to the fact others might have feelings and wish to be consulted?" Mark noticed Rachel's look of agreement at his mother's angry question.

"No Mom, I have not nor will I. This is business and has nothing to do with hurt feelings. Either you come aboard or you don't. If you don't, the plane flies without you.

"I do not mean this as a threat because it is not. My vote is the only one that counts, just mine and not that of anyone else. I will listen to what others have to say up to a point and that's all.

"My father, Uncle Mike, left me a set of instructions. I have followed them so far and intend to follow them in the future. He believed in me and encouraged me to get along with my mother until I was of age, eighteen."

The tears in Mark's eyes started to run down his cheeks. "My father whom I knew as my uncle kept up the charade and hated you, Mom. He also hated Grandfather Hunter. That is why he left and went out on his own all those years ago. I was nine when he came back into our lives. He only returned after he learned about me."

Rachel looked at Mark and couldn't understand what was going on around her. "I don't think this is any of my business."

Mark wiped the tears from his eyes and took a deep breath. "Yes it is because I say it is. My mother will probably try to manipulate me and attempt to use you as a tool. Probably not right now, but some time in the future. Claude is going to try to countermand my orders in my own best interests. You will not permit that to happen.

"What I say goes so far as you are concerned. If you cannot work under those conditions tell me right now. The Explorer will be your severance bonus. If it bothers you to work for a baby-faced kid, now is the time to get it out in the open. Are you with me or not?"

Rachel gave Mark a reluctant nod. The country song, "You Can Take This Job And Shove It" came to mind for less than a split second. "Yes I am with you. You are the boss." She smiled up at him. "I do reserve the right to tell you when I think you are being a bonehead."

"Fair enough," he told her.

Claude told Mark, "I do not believe I can work for you under these conditions."

Mark answered, "Then you take Mom to dinner. The two of you think it over. It's my way or out the door. Also remember that if you ever try an end run on me I'll have you up before the ethics committee so fast you will still be wondering what happened while you file your appeals to get your license revocation reversed."

Mark turned to Rachel, "I changed my mind. Let's go to your house and make plans for tomorrow." Mark took hold of the small flight bag that contained the money and led her out the front entrance.

Mark saw the computer store sign across the street from the bank. "First we need to go over there," he pointed, "and get a couple of notebooks or laptops." He led the way toward the computer store. "You need a Toshiba Satellite with all the features or something else as good. Maybe some custom job made just for you. You choose what works best for you.

They jaywalked across the street to the computer store. Four thousand dollars later the walked out with two new ultra thin laptops. Mark opened the car door for her and she slid in behind the steering wheel. "Let's go to your house. We have a lot to talk about. You have any beer?"

"No," she told him. She hated it she sounded apologetic. "I have had no money for such luxuries."

"Stop at a market on the way and I'll pay for a couple of six packs. You'll have to buy them. I'll get too much static if I pay for them. What does Cole drink?"