Retreat (15 page)

    
“Geez, Dad, what if I’d gone through with
it?” she asked.

    
He looked at her as if he hadn’t considered
that option. He frowned. “Then I would have supported you. It’s your life,
Clara. But don’t you ever forget that you have people who love you and will watch
out for you no matter what. No matter how hard you try you can’t get rid of us.
We’ll always be here for you.”

    
Her heart almost melted at his words of
affection. He was not a weepy kind of man, so she knew how deeply he must have
felt the need to let her know he was there for her.

    
“Thanks, Dad. For everything. You’ve done a
nice job with the bungalow, too. I think I may stay there for a while.”

    
“You go right ahead. That’s what Mom wanted
when she gave it to you.”

    
“So what’s the first order of business?”
she asked.

    
“Go to your office and you’ll see it there.
The customer files are on your desk. There are corresponding electronic files
for each one. You’ll need to peruse them both because we try to do as much as
we can electronically now. You may also need help with the new systems. If you
do, ask Patrick to give you a hand.”

    
“Who’s Patrick?” she asked.

    
“Patrick is our new IT guy. He handles all
of our technology needs internally and makes sure everything works seamlessly
from our customers’ point of view, with the website, checking on kilowatt-hour
output, that sort of thing. You’ll probably be working with him a lot.”

    
“I’ll have to introduce myself,” she said.

    
“He’ll be here later this morning. That’s
the other thing you should know. We’ve adopted a flexible work schedule, so
people are in and out of the office a lot. They all put their time in, but they
have flexibility, too. The only regular appointment is a Monday morning staff
meeting. Everyone’s expected to be there. Meg will put it on your calendar for
you.”

    
“Meg’s still working out for you?” Clara
asked. As she spoke she glanced across her father’s wide desk, half expecting
to see a stack of business magazines piled high. Between the flexible work
schedule, the innovative technologies he was experimenting with and her
mother’s insistence on a corporate retreat, Clara was certain they were getting
their new business acumen from business school magazines.

    
“Working out?” her father huffed. “She’s
the best. I’d be lost without her.”

    
“Good,” Clara said, standing and heading
toward the door. “I’m going to go attack those files.”

    
“Have fun,” her father said as he turned
back to his email.

    
Clara barricaded herself in her old office
with the stack of overstuffed manila folders. Although her father told her that
everything was electronic now she quickly found that much of what was stored on
the server was also printed out and stuffed into those files. Sometimes old
habits die hard, she thought.

    
She’d been working through them for more
than four hours, getting acquainted with the product lines and vigorously
taking notes about the maze of regulations they were working under, when her
father opened her office door and popped his head in.

    
“Are you ever coming out for air?” he
asked, pushing the door open a little wider when he saw he had her attention.

    
“Just getting caught up,” she said,
pointing at the stack of folders. “These regulations are crazy. You’ve been
busy.”

    
“That we have been. And about to get
busier. Hey, I didn’t want to disturb you since I thought I saw smoke coming
out from under the door, but I forgot to ask you about something this morning
and I can’t act on it until I talk to you.”

    
“What’s up?” she asked, surprised that her
opinion would matter so much so quickly.

    
“I got a message yesterday from a guy named
Jon Griffin. The name was familiar but I couldn’t place it at first. Then I
vaguely remembered that you’d introduced me to someone with a similar name once
upon a time. Isn’t he the guy you worked with down in Texas?”

    
“Yes,” Clara said, trying to ignore the
fact that her nerve endings had all instantly come to attention. “You and mom
met him when you came down to visit me in Fort
Worth.”

    
“Oh. We went to dinner together, right?” he
asked, squinting as he tried to recall the connection. “Good steaks if I
remember right. And then we went to Bobby Joe’s? The place with the mechanical
bull?”

    
“Billy Bob’s. Yes,” Clara said, smiling at
her Dad’s spotty memory. She wasn’t surprised that the clearest part of the
trip for him was the porterhouses.

    
“That makes sense then,” he continued.
“Anyway he said he wants to talk about making an investment. I’ve already lined
up most of what I need, but I thought I’d ask you if you think this guy should
be in on the ground floor.”

    
Clara thought about it for a moment. With
one word she could put an end to the whole Jon Griffin chapter in her life.
That would be the sensible thing to do. The problem was she wasn’t sure if that
was really what she wanted anymore. There was a part of her who wanted to throw
that book wide open and dive right in.

    
“Clara?” her father asked, bringing her
back to the moment.

    
“You know what? It’s your call, Dad. You
have to get to know him yourself and then decide,” she said.

    
“You don’t have an opinion?” he asked
skeptically.

    
Now that was a loaded question. She had too
many opinions. That was the problem.

    
“Their company’s solid,” she said, trying
hard to stick to business. “He’s a good businessman. He navigates through a lot
of takeover bids.”

    
“Takeover bids?” her father said, frowning
thoughtfully, which caused his gray mustache to touch his bottom lip.

    
“With companies that are failing, which
this one isn’t. I’m sure he’s legit,” Clara said. She honestly didn’t believe
Jon had any interest in taking over Spritzer & Spritzer. She thought he saw
it as more of a personal investment. At least she hoped he did.

    
“Okay. Well I’ll give him a call and see if
we can get together,” her father said. “I want to talk to him and make sure I’m
comfortable with him before I do anything.”

    
“That sounds like the right thing to do,
Dad.”

    
“Alright then,” he said, as he nodded and
closed her office door.

    
Clara sat back in her chair. So Jon had
been serious about investing in the company. That could be interesting. She’d
let her dad meet with him and make the decision. Give the fates another chance.

    
Clara spent the rest of the day going
through the files from the customers she used to work with before she left for Fort Worth. Several of
them made the transition to alternative fuels at her father’s prodding. A few
thought that he’d lost his mind and told him so. She also put in a couple of
phone calls to some of the people who were still on board that she’d been
particularly friendly with to let them know she was back at the company. When
Meg popped her head in at
5:30
to let her know she was going home, Clara was surprised that the day had gone
by so quickly.

    
“Don’t become a workaholic,” Meg warned
her.

    
Clara smiled at her old friend. “Not a
chance,” she said. “I need to do a little more shopping tonight. I ended up
buying more than I should of yesterday, which means I have several outfits that
don’t have matching shoes.”

    
“You’re too much,” Meg laughed. “These days
I’m happy if I can even find one matching set of shoes in the morning. Jenna
likes to try them on and clomp around the house in them, and of course never
puts them away.”

    
Clara tried to picture what it would be
like to have a little girl to clomp around in her shoes. She pushed the thought
aside. “You should get home to her then. It sounds like she wants to be just
like her mommy.”

    
Meg beamed. “See you tomorrow,” she said.

    
Clara turned back to her computer. Patrick
set it up for her the day before so it’d be ready when she started. Her father
gave her the same email account and passwords that she had after college and
access privileges to all the corporate accounts so she could hit the ground
running. The systems had all been upgraded since then, but the interface was
similar to the one she’d used at Freedman’s. It felt good to be doing real work
again. She powered down and packed up some folders to look at that night.

    
When she walked out of her office, all of
the lights had been switched off and the lobby was silent. She was surprised to
see that she was the last one there. Josie had never even come in. Clara went
back to her desk and grabbed the ring of keys her father had put in her top
drawer.

    
Talk about flexibility, she thought,
wondering how they got their work done. It was barely
6:00
and everyone was gone. At Freedman’s
9:00
nights were the norm. But then,
there had been a lot of distractions there, too. She smiled to herself as she
remembered what it was like to work under Jon’s hot gaze.

    
As she prepared to lock up, she noticed a
green Cadillac pull into the parking lot next to her Acura. She strained to see
but didn’t recognize the man inside. She finished locking the front door and
walked toward her car.

    
“Hey there,” she said as the man started to
get out. He was only a few inches taller than Clara, and appeared to be in his
mid-to-late 40s with dark hair that was just showing signs of
salt-and-peppering. He grabbed a laptop case from the passenger’s seat as he
stepped out of his car.

    
“Hi,” he said. “You must be Clara.” He put
his hand out and she shook it. “I’m Mark. Your father told us about you at the
staff meeting yesterday. I started about a month ago as the chief financial
officer.”

    
“Nice to meet you,” she said. “Working
late?”

    
“I have a few things I need to get done
before I send out packets to our investors tomorrow,” he said. “I want to make
sure everything’s in order. This is probably the most important financial step
the company will take in the next twenty years so it’s got to be right.”

    
Twenty years. Clara couldn’t think past the
end of the week.

    
“Do you need any help?” she asked.

    
“No. I’ve got it covered. Thanks, though,”
he tipped his head to her. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you
around.”

    
She smiled at him, but felt uncomfortable as
she watched him slip a key into the door she’d just locked and step inside
alone. For her whole life the only employees in that company had been related
to her, except for Meg who was practically related to her anyway. It seemed so
strange to see someone she never met before have full access to the facility.

    
She turned away and got into her car.

    
Guess I’d better get used to it, she
thought.

    
She drove to the local mall, which wasn’t
very big at all. It was one story, with two anchor stores and about twenty
others between them. Yesterday she’d spent the day two hours away at the
largest mall around. Tonight she just wanted to pick up a few things and the
local strip would do the trick. She had to admit that she missed being ten
minutes from the sprawling mall in Tulsa, which had just about every store she
wanted, and if it didn’t she could just hop on the highway and be across town
in minutes at the second-largest mall.

    
She stopped into the cell phone store and
picked out a new phone and a new number and got it activated. She’d tried to do
it the day before but she’d been preoccupied trying on new outfits. By the time
she got to the cell phone store it had been overrun with teenagers who
apparently congregated there after school, making it nearly impossible to get
any attention from the sales rep.

    
When she had her new phone tucked safely in
her purse, she went to one of the anchors and found the matching shoes she was
missing and a set of new workout clothes. Despite the rough start on Saturday,
she’d decided to start running seriously again, which meant she needed the
right equipment. She picked up an MP3 player and a laptop, too. She cringed
each time she pulled out her credit card, but the reality was that she had to
replace nearly everything. Thank God she’d kept Grammy’s house just the way she
left it, furniture, dishes and all. Otherwise she’d end up with the national
debt.