MODERN LEGACY

CHAPTER ONE ACE IN THE HOLE

You're always hearing people say, "Gotta do whatever it takes," but do they even know what they're saying? "Gonna do whatever it takes" to achieve their particular goal. Ya buddy, whatever covers a lot of ground; whatever covers the entire spectrum of human experience and imagination. Are you really ready to suffer every sort of pain, loss and humiliation? Are you actually prepared to lie, cheat, steal, kill? It trivializes life to talk that way, to act that way, over something like a football game or an Olympic medal, how can you take people who talk like that seriously. Well I'm not the kind of person to shoot my mouth off like that, but I can honestly say that when the chips are down, I am the kind of person who will do whatever, what-ever, it takes to ensure the safety and future of my children. Believe me, I walk the talk mister.

Of course, I never thought it would come to that in my life. By the time I turned forty-two my life was good, at least in all the important areas. Or so I thought. Looking back, I think that it all began to change when my brother decided to move his family to Montana to be part of some big important, environmental legal office crap. We were sad to see them go, but I hadn't really thought of him as a support, I like Mitchel, but I never felt that I needed him. Then my father's second wife, Gloria, sent her son off to live with his biological father saying that he needed more masculine influence in his life. It seemed strange behavior on her part, but losing my little stepbrother was no big deal. While this was going on, and much more to the point, my husband, Phil, Mr Real Estate, went into a sales slump. In four months he sold only two houses, and both of those were referrals. We didn't panic, he had been through slumps before, but when he went two more months without any sales at all, I began to quietly worry. We needed him to sell a house a month to keep up our comfortable lifestyle, which ran us about fifteen grand a month. Our house, which my genius real estate husband had bought at the top of the market, was just now at the point where if we sold it we would break even, minus of course all the money we had paid into it over the past ten years. We had a hundred grand in savings which isn't much, especially with two, maybe three, kids still to go to university. We had figured that we would catch up at some point, and of course we figured that we would get a share of dad's company when he passed away. That was our ace in the hole.

So it wasn't for the salary, well maybe a little bit for the salary, that I started working for my dad in twenty thirteen, an auspicious year if there ever was one. The idea was for me to get out of the house and get back into the work force, make a bit of money, and maybe, in the back of my mind, kind of keep an eye on our future investment.

I had some trouble with my management style, but it didn't take me long to get a handle on the administrative side of the house. Once I got that down and started concentrating on the financial aspects, I began to get an inkling that everything was not as rosy as we all thought. Shortly after that dad called me into his office after everyone had gone home, closed the door and came right out with it.

"You're a big girl, so I'm not going to sugar coat it," he said. "The company is on its last legs; we'll be bankrupt in a couple of months. I've borrowed to the hilt on the company and on my own credit, sunk every dime of savings I had, cashed my insurance policy – everything to keep it going these past two years."

I was dumbfounded; I shook my head and sat there with my mouth hanging open in disbelief. I wanted to ask a hundred questions, but found I couldn't catch my breath. He raised his hand "Hold all your questions and comments until the end, believe me there's a punch line." I closed my mouth and tried hard to get enough oxygen through my nose. He went on; "it doesn't matter how I got here, a few mistakes, some bad luck, some bad timing, it isn't important. What is important, is that you understand the seriousness of our situation."

"Got it - situation serious," I managed to croak out.

"Good, because I need you to make an all-out effort on this, he said and tossed a thumb drive onto the desk. I picked it up, looked at it, looked back at him hoping that somehow it was all a big joke.

"It's a State funded deal, a huge building and renovation project covering most of Southern California. The legislators put all kinds of political hippie shit on it, and Work Horse Corporation won the bid on the strength of their commitment to using local business and workers, and their record of empowering women, you know, that kind of bullshit. The closets contract would mean four million profit for us over six years. We get this contract the company is saved, I can retire and you can take over a strong, valuable company; we don't get the contract and, no kidding, me and my family wind up living in your garage."

"Dad, this is all so much...

"Never mind all that; I am going to feed you all the technical stuff, the specs, the supply pipeline, manpower and all that. What I need you to do, is focus on the pitch. Find out everything you can about these people, about the woman taking the bid. You have to sell us to them. They don't want to hear it from an old white guy, they want to do business with a dynamic young woman."

"Does anybody else in the family know about the company?"

"No. What would be the point of getting them all worried? What good would it do?"

"How long do I have?"

"A month."

####

The woman, I should say girl, who was Work Horse's project manager for the Southern California Renewal Project was Charlotte Durance Foxworth, a child prodigy. Her father, The Duke of Foxboro was a diplomat, politician and director of a foreign policy think tank; her mother, was a brain surgeon. She graduated from Oxford at age twenty-one with a law degree and a masters in twentieth century English literature. After school she went directly to work for Work Horse and now at the ripe old age of twenty-three, was in charge of a multi-billion dollar construction project. I really wanted to hate her.

When she arrived at our office wearing clothes that cost more than my car, and jewelry worth more than my house, and turned out to be a gorgeous little pixie with high cheekbones, slightly plump cheeks, a pert nose, mischievous mouth and a dynamite little figure, I wanted to despise her. She wasn't even stuck up or aloof, but maddeningly friendly, even warm. I hated it that she intimidated me, and it made me so nervous that I probably wouldn't have finished at all, if she hadn't tried so hard to put me at ease and been so good at it. God, her upper class accent was devastating; damn those Brits.

When I was done, she sat close to me and asked me a few pointed questions that touched directly on our weakest points. I gave her the assurances that dad had given me, and she seemed to accept them. In the end she said, "It is a tenet at Work Horse that we partner with people, not companies. I like you Claire, you are just the kind of person we want to work with on this project."

I actually blushed.

"We will have to run a few checks, but unless something unexpected comes up, I can say that Pritchet Closets will have the contract. Our legal department will be in touch with yours, and you have my number; if there is anything you need please call me. I look forward to having a close relationship with you." She leaned in close to me and put a hand on my knee, God, I thought for a moment that she was going to kiss me. It was so much to take in, and it came so easy that I was in shock. Afterwards it occurred to me that the whole thing did have a kind of a lezzy vibe, maybe because I had never been in such a position of dependence on another woman, and I wasn't used to Brits, so I put it out of my mind.

So we were in. Now the real work began as we scrambled to meet commitments that we never should have made. For the next month we worked our asses off but just could not get ahead of the curve. The estimates that dad had given me were all too optimistic; he was much more out of touch with the current state of the industry than I had ever imagined. We had problems with labor, with supplies, availability of machines and tools, shortage of finances – just about everything. After three weeks he stopped saying positive things all the time and started to look very pale and haggard, he even missed a couple of days work which I found out later was because he had a small heart attack that he didn't tell anyone about. I wasn't sleeping, my nerves were on edge, and I was practically pulling my hair out. And what were all the other members of the family doing while I was carrying them all on my back?

Phil still hadn't sold a house and wasn't even trying. He was convinced that he had to make the jump now if he was ever going to realize his dream of being a professional magician. He spent all day and night working on his act when he wasn't sniffing around Gloria. My dad's blushing bride it seemed, was fed up with the lack of attention and vitality in my dad lately and had turned to the most available source of admiration, Phil. Of course, while those two were up to their shenanigans nobody was watching our darling little children who were getting in to a very big pile of shit.

Naturally, just at this time the little duchess shows up for a surprise visit. She arrived at the main plant in a big Cadillac with a female driver; "We're trying so hard to buy American on this project," she said. "It's such fun."

I had to take her on a tour of the mostly empty facility which embarrassed the hell out of me. She was nice, sympathetic; touching my arm, smiling with encouragement as I furiously tap danced around her questions. She was too well brought up to call me a liar to my face so she waited until we were in "the loo."

"You must try this lipstick Claire," she said as we stood in front of the mirror. "I think this shade will look great on you." She handed me a stick in a gold, actual gold, tube and I put it on to be polite. It looked good and really felt good too; son- of-a- bitch.

'Oh, it kind of tingles," I said.

"Yes isn't it lovely, it has all kinds of medicinal benefits as well. It's made by one of our sister companies, Show Horse, in Trinidad of all places," she said. I was going to ask her about all these "horse" "sister" companies to take the focus off of my own sorry operation, but she didn't give me a chance. She took a silver case from her purse and handed me a beautifully embossed business card with a hand- written number on the back.

"I want you to have my personal number Claire," she said gently. "If there is anything you need, anything at all, feel free to call me at any time." she said.

"Thank you Charlotte," I said. "I will."

"And Claire, I'm sure that if you know that you are not going to be able to meet your commitments, that you will let me know in sufficient time to do something about it without knocking the whole program off the rails."

I nodded sheepishly keeping my eyes lowered, studying her card.

"Just call and say "help,"" she said touching my arm again. "We want you to succeed."

After she left I sat in my office with my head between my knees feeling sick. I had a long talk with dad that evening and confirmed that there was nothing up his sleeve that was going to save us. Finally at about nine that night I called the number and got her message box. "This is Claire. Help," I said.

She called me back about an hour later. "One of our jets is leaving LA tomorrow morning at eleven, go to the Flying Horse counter at the executive terminal, they'll have a seat for you. A car will meet you at the Sacramento airport and bring you out to our property. Rebecca is here which is fortuitous. Bring your problems and we will knock them on the head over a couple bottles of Chardonnay. You can stay the night and we will get you back to LA the next morning."