Title: The Art of Negotiation
Fandom: General Hospital
Characters: Tracy Quartermaine
Prompt: #9 Cheat
Word Count: 4,662 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: What 17 year old Tracy Quartermaine wants more than anything is an internship at ELQ. What Edward makes her do to earn it…
Author's Notes: Past!fic. Tracy is home on summer break from boarding school
It didn't start out as an argument, really. She'd tried to play it cool and just mentioned the internship to him, how much she'd like to try for it, how much she wanted to learn about the business. It would be a great opportunity for her—to learn about ELQ, to learn about business, to have the best summer ever.
It didn't seem to be such an unreasonable request, considering Alan had just qualified for medical school and didn't look like he was reconsidering his decision to skip a career in business for medicine. And even if she wasn't the first-born, male, and Heir Apparent to the Quartermaine Legacy, Tracy was still a Quartermaine, and it made sense to have Quartermaine in the family business.
That's what she told her father, and what she argued with him about, first over dinner that night, until Lila became so upset she forbid them to discuss it anymore, and then in his office the next morning.
"It's the chance of a lifetime, Daddy," she said, resting her slim posterior against his desk as she gestured broadly with her hands. "A chance to get real-world business experience, in one of the finest companies—"
"I am not going to play favorites with you, Tracy," her father argued, taking a piece of paper out of his desk and scribbling something on it. He'd tried to continue working with her intrusion, but Tracy was making it difficult for him to concentrate.
"You pulled more strings than a puppeteer to get Alan his internship when he was in high school, and he didn't even want it!"
"Alan was different. Times were different," he added.
"I know what's different, Daddy," she glared at him, leaning forward to emphasize her chest. "And that's sexual discrimination. It's illegal, too."
"It's not illegal for a man to choose not to force his unruly daughter on an unsuspecting company for an entire summer!"
Tracy stood, rolling her eyes and sighing heavily. "I'm not unruly; I'm passionate. About finance, about business, about this company. I was i born /i to do this work, Daddy, and all I want is a chance to prove to you what I can do. All I want is time, just this summer, so I can show you that I'm the right person to take over ELQ when you retire."
Edward narrowed his eyes slightly, his heavy brows bending and flexing as if on their own volition as he contemplated Tracy's words. "All right, daughter," he said in a firm, low voice. "If it's a chance to prove yourself you want, that is exactly what you'll have." He stood, pushing his chair away from the huge mahogony desk and gesturing for her to follow him towards a small storage room connected to his office . He opened the door and motioned for her to enter. "In here, you will find the financial records for all of our plants from the last quarter. I will allow you free access to this room for three days, provided you don't interfere whatsoever with my business. In that time, you will create a complete financial forecast, using the standard ELQ template, for all plants over the next fiscal quarter. If you can do that, to my satisfaction, in three days time, I will move heaven and earth to get you that internship."
Tracy stifled an emotional response, as much in reaction to the opportunity as in reaction to the daunting task set before her. The room was filled with boxes and boxes of files—weeks worth of work. Part of her resisted, screaming silently at the unfairness of it all. Alan hadn't had to jump through hoops of fire to get his internship. Alan hadn't had to prove anything at all, especially by killing himself to do something that it would have taken a normal worker ages to do.
But another part of her, the Quartermaine part, gloried in the challenge. She knew Daddy's business—she'd been studying it religiously since she was a child. She read his annual and quarterly reports like gospel, and knew what needed to be done. This was a challenge she could meet, and this was a goal she could accomplish, no matter how much Daddy thought she'd falter.
She turned to her father, glowing with the youthful radiance of confidence. "Deal's on, Daddy," she said, pushing past him to get to the office. "I'll need supplies, and a place to work, and…"
"I'll have Mary set you up in one of our smaller conference rooms," he said. There was a chuckle in his voice.
Tracy grinned at him, eyes wide and defiant. "You do that, Daddy. We'll talk about a real desk once I have my internship." And she was off, ready to prove herself, once and for all.
Two and a half days later, bleary eyed and exhausted, Tracy was no longer so confident. She worked harder here than she'd ever worked in her life, going through ledgers and receipts and piles and piles of adding machine tape to check her figures. The main plant looked good for the next quarter; in fact, all the factories and plants looked good except for the cannery, which was showing a consistent, if minimal loss. She couldn't make sense of it, and she was sure there was a simple reason that she was overlooking. Without knowing i why /i the cannery was losing money, it was hard to know how to forecast for it. She'd done the best she could with what she had, but it still nagged at her. She didn't want to turn in the report with mistakes, but she didn't want to miss her deadline either. Tracy thought back to her business classes at school, to everything she'd learned, all the different examples they'd studied, and still it didn't make sense.
Otherwise, the report looked good. She had finished in amazing time, quicker than even she could have predicted. She refused to have one of the secretaries type it up—Tracy had set herself up in an empty workspace and had plugged through on her own, squeezing the type between the preprinted table lines, redoing when she made typos, proofing and correcting like there was no tomorrow.
If only she could figure out that damned cannery, she'd be home free, internship in hand.
Blowing out a breath of warm air, Tracy pushed herself away from the conference table, grabbing her precious report, and headed to the break room for a well-deserved cup of coffee. Her mother frowned on too much consumption in young people, but here at ELQ, she was just another young worker grabbing a cup of joe. The thought of it made Tracy smile, even as she rounded the corner to the break room. Her smile vanished, though, when she caught sight of her father and his secretary Mary, all cozy and smiling as they leaned together against the wall outside the break room.
It was very apparent what sort of fringe benefits this tart was expecting from her job.
A flurry of rage whipped through Tracy, and she found herself barrelling toward the pair, all toothy grin and mindless determination. "Daddy, there you are!" she said in a breathy voice, pushing the report into his hand, cannery problem be damned, as she insinuated herself between him and his secretary. "I think you'll be very happy with the work I've done, and you'll also note that I finished in i less /i than the allotted time!"
Edward furrowed his brow, doing his best to regain his composure after his daughter's intrustion into his little afternoon i conversation /i . "Well, let's hope you didn't rush the job, Tracy," he blustered, fanning through the pages of the bound report at a quick pace. "Although I'm sure you did your best."
"That's all I ever do, Daddy," she said in an overly-effervescent tone. With a pointed, albeit sweet smile at his secretary, she added, "Mother wants to know if you'll be home for dinner tonight."
Edward at least had the decency to look chagrined, and he was indeed home for dinner that night. Lila commented on how lovely it was to have the whole family around the table for supper, and nothing at all was said about Tracy's report.
For the next two days, she waited more or less patiently for his response on her work. She tried not to bug him, knowing that her father did not like to be pushed. But it was two days now, and she was getting crazy. She grabbed her big canvas bag, the one she'd used to carry books between classes school, and made her way down to the ELQ office. She'd brought several personal items, one of her textbooks and her electric calculator, to help with her project and had left them there in her hasty departure. It was as good enough an excuse to stop by, and maybe Daddy had an answer for her.
She rode up the elevators with half a dozen men, all in nice suits and ties. She loved the sight of a man in a suit—it was just one of those things that spelled class and success to Tracy. When she worked here, she would find a way to get tailored clothes, maybe something Chanel-like, to give the impression that she too understood the corporate world.
She ran into Chester, the mail room boy, as she exited on Daddy's floor. He smiled at her, a wide, slightly gummy smile in a pale freckled face. Chester had been a life-saver during her time there, and even though she'd never socialize with him, she liked him as a fellow ELQ employee. "How's tricks, Miss Q?" he said. He wore loafers and a short-sleeved shirt, and Tracy almost cringed at his unprofessionalism. Still, he was cute enough and really helpful, for someone who really didn't have any serious ambition.
"Just coming to pick up some things I left in the conference room the other day," she said breezily.
"Oh, that book and the Japanese calculator? Nice calculator, by the way," he added with a low whistle. "I put them up in the cabinet in the storage room. Didn't want anybody walking off with 'em."
Tracy cast him an indulgent smile. "You are a darling, Chester. This company would fold in a heartbeat without you."
"Don't I know it," he laughed and walked with her toward the store room, still pushing his metallic cart full of mail and packages. He walked right past several stops, intent on chatting up Tracy before getting back to his rounds. "So, you aren't going to be working here anymore?"
"I hope to be," she said honestly. "I'm just waiting on news about the summer internship."
Chester paused, scratching his head through a particularly unruly lock of auburn hair. "They filled that internship already, Miss Q," he said, obviously surprised that the boss's daughter didn't know. "Harvard guy—a senior. He started on Tuesday."
Tracy stopped dead in her tracks. Tuesday would have been two days into her project. She felt her blood boiling, anger threatening to overtake her. Purposefully, she calmed herself, forcing herself not to jump to conclusions. Maybe Chester was wrong. "Are you sure it's the same internship?" she asked in a small voice.
"Yup. They made a big deal out of it, sent an office wide memo introducing him and everything. That's him right there." He pointed out a young man, handsome and blond in a three-piece suit, talking wth two older men. "Hey, didn't your brother have an internship here just a few years back?"
"Yeah," Tracy grunted, pushing away from Chester to head towards the man who had stolen her summer.
"I'll get those things for you and have them waiting at reception," Chester called out to her, but she didn't hear.
Tracy pushed her way between the three men. The two older men, recognizing her immediately, coughed politely and excused themselves, leaving Harvard Boy to fend for himself. "What is your name," she demanded without preamble.
"Uh, Frank Watson," he said, confused by this dark-haired tornado who was suddenly in his face.
"Frank Watson, of Harvard University," she said with a sneer. "Well, thank you, Frank Watson of Harvard University, for officially i ruining /i my life."
"Ruining your life? I don't even know you," he countered, looking around helplessly. "Is this some kind of joke? Hazing the new guy and all that?"
"That internship meant the world to me, you get it? I've been preparing for it all my life; I deserved it. And here you are, with your three-piece suit and your Harvard education and your—" She smacked his chest with the palms of her hands, not hard but enough to get his attention. "You've ruined my life."
"Look, Miss, I don't know what you're talking about. I applied for this internship six months ago, interviewed three times. I earned this job, and I need it." He was trying to be diplomatic, which was hard to do with the pretty young woman fuming and fussing right in his personal space.
"That doesn't make sense. My brother got his internship in just a few weeks." She could feel the steam easing. Her rage wasn't at this guy, and she knew it. That helped her to calm down a little, anyway.
"Then your brother must have some pretty powerful connections," Frank said, following suit and calming as well. "This is one of the hardest internships to get on the East coast." He gave her a compassionate look. "What's your name?"
"Tracy," she murmured glumly. "Tracy Quartermaine, although a fat lot of good that does me."
"Quartermaine as in ELQ Quartermaine?" He stared at her, a new and sudden respect showing on his face. "As in Edward Quartermaine?"
"His screw-up daughter, in the flesh," she completed the sentence for him. "Daddy must have pulled major strings to get Alan that internship."
"And somebody like me probably got a nice little letter in the mail telling him that his resume would be kept on file for six months."
She sighed, suddenly feeling very foolish. Her father was right. She didn't know anything about anything. "Look, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. It's just—" She lowered her eyes, feeling every bit the spoiled brat people accused her of being. "This meant so much to me. I've been dreaming of working here since I was six years old."
"There's still next summer," he offered hopefully. "Just submit your resume in January and take your chances with the rest of us."
"By next summer, my parents will have me married and pregnant by some idiot from a good family." She leaned against the wall, eyes closing. "I really wanted this job. I just wanted to work with my dad."
Frank nodded. "I know what you mean. Edward Quartermaine is a hell of a businessman. I'm pretty sure, if genetics works, you probably have a great future ahead of you, too."
"Ha."
"No, really. And there's a lot you can learn from your dad, even without working here." He paused, reaching down to grab his briefcase from the floor. He opened it up and pulled out a bound report. "Check this out. It was distributed this morning. Don't let the simplicity of it fool you--I have never seen a cleaner, more concise example of business reporting in my life. The man's a genius."
Tracy took the report from him and opened it up. Her eyes got wider as she flipped through the pages—it was her forecast! Every page, exactly to the letter, even the typo on page 16 she'd meant to go back and fix. Her father had just changed the cover sheet and passed it on as his own work!
She steeled herself. She grounded herself. She smiled prettily at Frank, who was staring curiously. "Ya mind if I hang on to this?" she asked sweetly.
"Uh, no, keep it. I can get another one."
With another smile—or was it the baring of teeth—Tracy turned on her heels and headed towards Daddy's office. His secretary tried to stop her at the door, a look of worried surprise on her face. "He's in a meeting for the rest of the afternoon."
"I'll wait," Tracy spat, pushing past the little hussy with all the arrogance she could muster. "And if you try to move me, I'll just let my mother know about you and your little coffee breaks with Daddy." One look in her eyes, and the secretary knew Tracy was not bluffing She backed down and allowed the young woman entrance to the CEO's office.
It was everything Tracy could do not to go on a destructive rampage. She wanted to smash things. She wanted to take his antique pen set and pour ink all over his leather chair. She wanted to take the coat rack and smash through the huge windows overlooking the city of Port Charles.
She paced and fumed, fumed and paced, until she couldn't stand it anymore. Her hand flew wild and knocked over the old picture he kept on his desk of him and Mother with President Eisenhower. It was enough to send several items scattering, including the brass kaleidescope he'd gotten from Mother several Christmases ago. The tube-shaped object rolled off the desk, heading toward the mahogany credenza on the wall just next to the storage closet. Tracy grimaced; even in her rage, she didn't want to be responsible for destroying that kaleidescope. It was one of Daddy's favorite things.
She got down on her knees, chasing the brass tube as it rolled into the recess under the credenza. There was just enough space here for her to nudge through, reaching to grab the kaleidescope as it rolled all the way to the other end.
It was then that she saw the light coming out from under the bottom of the credenza. She might not have noticed it at all had she not been down there in the first place. The credenza was pressed against the wall; there shouldn't have been any light at all. She stared at the thin line of light at the bottom of the paneling, and pushed slightly on the wooden panel in front of it.
It moved.
She pushed again, forward and then to the side. To her amazement, the panel was a false one and slid easily to the right to reveal a tiny cubbyhole that was obviously part of the store room, hidden off from the main area. There was a small box there, and Tracy pulled it out, her curiosity more powerful than her rage for the moment. She opened the box, which was no wider than the width of a file folder, and started leafing through the files it contained.
"This doesn't make any sense," she murmured to herself. They were the files for the cannery, the same as the ones she'd spent days pondering over. "Why would he—" A realization struck, and she stood to get the report from where she'd left it on Daddy's desk. She opened it up to the proper page, and started comparing the numbers.
They didn't match.
Tracy's eyes grew wide, and then she began to laugh as she started systematically removing the most damning pages from the real cannery files. "You son of a bitch! You've been cooking the books and pocketing the difference," she laughed, knowing that her Daddy was going to pay through the nose for this one.
When Edward Quartermaine returned to his office from his quarterly financial meeting, he was surprised to find Tracy in his chair, her long legs stretched out before her (in a skirt that was far too short for his liking), ankles crossed casually on the desk. She was playing with his kaleidescope, seemingly oblivious to his arrival.
"What in the name of god do you think you're doing, young lady?"
Tracy grinned, easing her feet off the desk and leaning forward to put the kaleidescope down. "Hi, Daddy," she said in a light, airy tone. "God isn't in today. I'm his replacement."
"Get out of my chair!" He rounded the desk in an attempt to pull her onto her feet, but she stopped him by waving a copy of that damned forecast in his face.
"Ah, ah, ahhhh…not so fast, Daddy. I think there's a little conversation you and I need to have about business."
Edward's eyes narrowed as he tried to swallow his chagrin. "I used the basic skeleton, yes, but there was quite a bit of work needed to bring it up to company standards."
Tracy tossed the report on the desk with a resounding thud. "It's my report, verbatim. You changed the cover sheet to show your name instead of mine." She snorted derisively. "You probably didn't even do i that /I yourself. Probably had Good Time Mary out there type it between i coffee breaks /i ."
"Now see here, young lady—"
"No, i you /i see here, Daddy. You never had any intention of giving me that internship. You knew it had already been filled, and you knew that you weren't going to go on a limb to get me that job. You just put me through this to torment me, to give me an opportunity to fail. And when I didn't fail, when I managed to call your bluff and produce a report that has been described as 'genius' by some of your finer employees, i you /i stole my work and presented it as your own. Is that basically what happened, Daddy?"
To his credit, Edward didn't deny it. "It's common business practice for upper management to farm out drudge work to lower ranked employees. It helps them learn the business, and frees management to deal with more pressing matters."
"Bullshit! You threw a pot of lentils into the ashes and hoped Cinderalla wouldn't get them out in time for the ball." Tracy was glowering at him now, the full force of her Quartermaine temper showing in her young face. "Well, I I won /i that bet, Daddy. I did what you asked, and now you have to pay up."
"I i can't /i give you that internship now, Tracy. It's already been filled, by a good and qualified young man." He harrumphed, adjusting his jacket as he spoke. "Besides, there's no way for you to prove that report is anything other than my work. I checked—you left no draft copies, and your notes have been…ah-hem…shredded." He smiled a wolfish grin. "You really shouldn't leave your work space so untidy, Miss Quartermaine."
"Very clever, Daddy." Tracy met his smile with an equally hard smile of her own. "I guess I can't prove you stole my report. But I i can /i prove you've been doctoring the ledgers for the cannery for the past three quarters and pocketing the difference."
The look of utter shock on Edward's face told them both she'd scored a direct hit. "What are you babbling about, daughter," he spat out, flustered but trying to control it.
"For such a smart businessman, you sure can be dumb, Mr. Quartermaine." She swiveled in the chair, using the toe of one of her shoes to point out the recess below the credenza. "You'd think a man as smart as you wouldn't hide evidence of his criminal activities in his own office, where anyone could stumble across them…"
"You little—"
"And just to make sure these precious files didn't get i accidentally /i shredded by your overzealous secretary, I took the liberty of copying the most…interesting ledger sheets. I put them in a big manilla envelope and addressed it to the Board of Directors." She smiled again, victorious. "If I don't stop my contact in the mail room in fifteen minutes, that package goes out."
"You wouldn't dare!"
"Face it, Daddy. If even i one /i of those files reaches the board, you're through as CEO. You really want to take that chance?"
"It would destroy your mother," Edward said, playing his one trump card.
If the threat concerned Tracy, she didn't let it show. "Then you'd better start negotiating."
"This is nonsense," Edward grumbled, picking up the receiver of the phone on his desk.
"Looking for this, Daddy?" Tracy asked, dangling the spiral cord that usually connected the headpiece to the base.
"I'll go down to that damned mail room myself," he bellowed.
"Do you know how many manilla envelopes leave that mail room every day, Daddy? How suspicious would it look for the CEO himself to go rummaging through stacks of envelopes like a madman, searching for an anonymous package to the Board? Don't you think certain people would be curious as to the contents of the envelope Edward Quartermaine was sooo desparate for the Board i not /i to see?" Tracy leaned back in her father's leather chair, stretching her legs and crossing her ankles on the desk once more. "No, Daddy, I think it's time we discuss Chapter Five of my business text book. It's called…" She lowered her gaze at him, delighting in the power of it all. "The Art of Negotiation."
Edward drew in a deep breath, obviously out of options. "How much is this going to cost me?"
"Well, since the internship is no longer an option—I've met Harvard Boy, and unlike you, I don't quite have the stomach yet to destroy a life for my own personal whims—we'll just have to find some other form of compensation. Besides, I only wanted the job so that I could learn more about business, and well, Daddy, you've taught me i so /i much in this last week…"
" i How much is this going to cost me, Tracy /i ?"
She gave him her most feral smile. "Let's talk…transportation."
The white leather interior of her new Mustang convertible shone in the moonlight as Tracy leaned back to admire the splendor around her. From her vantage point, she could see all of Port Charles below her and, if she squinted, the lights of Manhattan far in the distance. It was perfect, she thought. Just perfect. The car, the night, everything.
A little voice in her head suggested maybe she could ask Harvard Boy out for a drive next weekend, but her conscious mind scolded it. It was rude to plan your next date when you still hadn't finished the one you were on.
"Penny for your thoughts," her companion said, reaching out to adjust the jacket he'd placed over her bare shoulders. The skimpy sundress she wore was perfect for a summer day, but the nights could get a bit chilly.
"I was just thinking," she purred, nestling into Chester's arms. "How I haven't yet thanked you properly for helping me out with those files."
"Hey, I just gave you the passkey to the copy machine. It wasn't anything."
Tracy reached up to place a small kiss on his chin, her eyes glowing mischievously. "You'll never know how much that one small act meant to me." She kissed him again, this time a little more purposefully. He was sort of cute, after all, despite his lack of ambition. She wrapped her arms around his neck, ready for another round of heavy making out.
"Your father would kill me—" Chester began, nervous enough, but not so nervous that he made any real effort to stop her.
"I believe Daddy is going to be very reasonable for the rest of the summer," Tracy whispered in his ear. "At least where I'm concerned." She blew a stream of cool air into his ear and was pleased with his resulting groan of pleasure. "Besides, what Daddy doesn't know will never hurt you, right?"
"We'll just keep this to ourselves…" He agreed, just as he'd agreed to this one time only ride in her car as a thank you for his help with her copying needs. Chester, it turned out, was very agreeable.
Tracy laughed, pulling him down on top of her so that they could fully explore the back seat's potential. "Now, where's that penny you promised me?"
The End
Written for the 100situations Challenge.