There were four of us sitting at the overly large dining room table that could easily handle sixteen diners. We were clustered around the end closer to the kitchen with Grandpa Jake sitting at the head of the table and Mark sitting to his right. Dad and I sat to his left, with dad sitting next to Jake. The original plan didn’t have dad being there, but after he’d spoken to one of his colleagues from Galt’s mining school about my reports, he’d asked me if he could join the dinner meeting and help with my negotiations for the ‘extra’ reports that I’d done. Since he was the reason that I even had anything to negotiate over, I jumped at the offer and texted Jake immediately to see if it was ok to add him to the guest list. Besides, it felt great to have dad’s support for this part of my life and it was nice to see dad getting out and being sociable. He stayed at home or his workshop way too much.
The food was incredible, and I was busy enjoying every bite when I noticed that Mark kept looking over at me.
I looked back at him and asked, “What??”, and all of a sudden I was sure that I had some food on my face. Quickly, I used my napkin to wipe at my mouth and surrounding areas. Mark just sat there, smiling again, but looking a bit sheepish as dad and Jake turned to him questioningly.
“It’s nothing. I was just taking notice of your, uhm, healthy, appetite.”
“Are you on that again? Really? Don’t you have something better to do with your time?” I gave him my sternest look.
“Not really. I’m just amazed that someone your size can put away so much food?”, he replied.
“First of all, the food is really good. Second of all, I worked today, unlike some, and I’m hungry. Third of all, I don’t need to explain myself to you.” He was having fun and I wasn’t about to let him keep attacking me. Time to put him on defense.
“Maybe you want to tell your grandfather what you’ve been keeping from him. I’m sure he’d rather hear about that than listen to his grandson try to shame a lady for her eating habits. Isn’t that right, Jake?” I turned to Jake and gave him my sweetest and most innocent expression. I may have batted my eyelashes at him once or twice.
Jake and dad started laughing and Mark’s smile faded instantly only to be replaced with a stunned look.
“That escalated quickly. I can’t believe you threw me under the bus like that.”
“You deserved it!”, Jake answered him. “A gentleman doesn’t comment on a lady’s eating habits. It’s a sure way to get skinned alive, as Abby just showed you.”
“A word of advice, Mark. Abby doesn’t like being on the defensive. When she’s attacked, she attacks back.”, dad added.
“I guess I knew that already, but I’d somehow forgotten.” Mark turned to me, gave a slight bow and said, “My most sincere apologies, lady Abby. I won’t comment on your intake of great quantities of food that belie your lithe frame in the future. Nevermore will I marvel, out loud, at the shovelful of food that you ingest with such gusto.”
For awhile I thought that dad and Jake were going to collapse from laughing so hard as my dessert made it’s way down Mark’s face. I don’t remember having thrown it, but I regretted it almost immediately, as it was a warm chocolate pudding that I’d only managed to take a few bites of.
“Mark! Didn’t Josh just finish telling you that Abby attacks back?” I think he had more to say, but he couldn’t keep a straight face and just burst out laughing again. That got dad going again and the two of them were doubled up and holding their sides like a couple of eight year olds after someone farts in church.
As Mark sputtered and started to get indignant at my abuse, I calmly got up from the table to get another serving of dessert. Out of pity for Mark, I returned with my dessert and a few towels for him to clean up with. He took my peace offering and I drew his attention to my new stock of ammunition. I raised my eyebrows questioningly and he silently indicated his surrender with the raising of his arms. Calmly, I returned to my chair and dug into my dessert as if nothing had happened. It was so good. I felt bad for having wasted some.
After the food and the joking around, we got down to business. I pulled out one of the folders from my bag and handed it to Jake. It was a very slim folder with only a single page in it.
“This is my general impression of each of the two potential mining sites and a comparison between the two. Overall, your Arizona copper land has a whole lot more ore than the Little Rock site has iron ore. It also has two significant deposits for you to mine. In addition, the Arizona copper is much closer to the surface and should be easier to mine.”
“Thank you, Abby. Based on what you know, which one would you recommend?”
I pretended to think about it, but I already had my answer ready. “I don’t know enough about your existing mining holdings to tell you which is a better investment for McKenzie Resources. There are also many other factors, such as ease of obtaining a permit, infrastructure, price fluctuations of the different ores, and McKenzie’s available exploitation resources, that I know nothing about.” I paused here for dramatic effect, but also because this is where the real presentation was about to start.
“Does the report that I’ve given you fulfill the terms of my contract with you? Are you satisfied with the results?”, I asked Jake, while noticing a faint smile cross Mark’s face. However, true to his word, he had kept our discussions from our trip to himself.
Jake took a minute to read the report. It was only one page. “Yes, it does. However, your mention of a second large deposit in Arizona is interesting and I would like to know where you think it is. My exploration team only found one deposit.”
Dad saw that as his cue to join the discussion. “That’s what we’re here to discuss with you. Abby’s contract with you only asked for her impression of the two sites. You’ve just stated that her report met with your expectations. However, her ‘land-sense’, as you’ve referred to it, is actually much stronger than either of us knew. With her ability, she was able to prepare much more thorough reports on each of your potential mine sites. I’m here to help Abby negotiate with you for those reports. I have made some inquiries about the value of the reports, so I have a general sense of what they might be worth.”
Jake’s face was like stone. I couldn’t get any sense of what he was thinking of at that moment.
“You showed the reports to others?”, he asked quietly.
“No.”, dad replied. “I talked about the contents in general terms. I have no desire to have Abby’s talents made public. It would diminish the value of any future gemstones she finds and add a level of notoriety to her life that I don’t think she’d enjoy.”
Jake seemed relaxed a bit at that. “Okay. I agree. However, I’ve always treated Abby fairly in the past. Why did she feel she needed you to help her negotiate with me?”
“She didn’t. I did. She was willing to help you by giving you all the information for free. However, I believe that she needs to get paid for the value that she provides and I think that she won’t push you hard enough because she may feel indebted to you for the help you’ve given her in selling her gemstones and in setting up her foundation.”
“Nothing wrong with a father looking out for his daughter. I can appreciate that. You should know though that I feel indebted to her. She saved Mark’s life and, by extension, my company. The help I’ve given her doesn’t even scratch the surface of what I owe her. I wanted to do more, but she doesn’t seem to need anything that I can offer her right now. You sure you don’t want to go to a fancy college, Abby?”, Jake teased. I guess it’s clear where Mark got it from.
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“Not getting into that now Jake. Thanks for opening up a sore spot with my dad sitting right next to you though. Dad, make sure to squeeze a few extra percent out of him, please.”, I answered right back at him, with a smirk of my own.
“Before Abby decides to go get another dessert and toss it at you, Jake, let me show you one of the reports that she did on your existing silver mine in Idaho and you can judge the value of what she’s offering.”
I pulled out another report, thicker this time, and handed it to Jake. Now was the moment of truth.
Jake opened the report and started reading. I tracked his eyes as he read it, watching for the moment when he saw the depth to which I’d scanned and the details that I was providing. Bingo! His eyes got big and he started flipping towards the map to verify the information. Jake stopped for a minute and excused himself, only to return a minute later with his own binder and maps. He started comparing the two reports and I looked over to Mark to get his impressions of his grandfather’s mood. Mark was in heaven.
“You’re enjoying this way too much, Mark”, I whispered to him, so as not to disturb Jake from his studying of the report.
“More than I can tell you. Grandpa Jake is always in control and almost always right when it comes to people and his mines. To see him so thrown off is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ll be able to bring this up as an example of his fallibility for years to come. This is definitely worth a faceful of pudding.”
“The pudding wasn’t a requirement for this. You could have just stopped teasing me and still had this moment of joy.”
“Yeah. I could have, I suppose. Not much fun in that. Besides, now I’ve got a story that I can tell people whenever I introduce you to them. Hi, Aunt Beatrice, this is Abby, the girl I told you about that saved my life and then threw a huge bowl of pudding in my face.”
“It was not a huge bowl. I’d characterize it as a cup at most.”
“Sorry Abby, but size never decreases in the telling. In a few years, it’ll be the size of punch bowl, at least.”
I glared at him in mock anger and waited in silence while Jake finished reading the report.
When he was done, Jake looked over at his grandson. “You knew about this?”
Mark didn’t even try to deny it. “Abby told me about some of the things she was doing and I have a vague idea of what’s in that report. When she told me how far down she was sensing and to what detail, I knew you’d underestimated her abilities. I didn’t see any reason to ruin her surprise. I’ve been waiting for weeks in quiet anticipation to watch you negotiate this deal. I want to learn from ‘the voice of experience’.” With those last words, Mark changed his voice and did a passable imitation of Jake.
“Son of a gun. My own grandson set me up and is now basking in my challenges. I may have to make some changes to my will.”
“You go right ahead, Grandpa. I’m sure Connor, Rosie or anyone of the cousins will be able handle whatever changes you make.”
“Josh, as the voice of experience, I feel that I need to let you in on a secret. Grandchildren can be a pain in the ass!”
“Spare the rod and spoil the grandchild?”, dad added helpfully.
“Amen, Josh. Amen.”
“Abby, this report is amazing. We’ve been working that silver mine for decades and your 3D map has more detail about the ore body than mine does. If I’ve done my calculations right, we can improve output from the mine by at least a few percent based solely on your detail of the positioning of the ore body. If I were to factor in the time savings and cost reductions involved in knowing exactly where the ore is, McKenzie Resources can improve the bottom line by five to ten percent. I’m also embarrassed to say that whatever software you used is several generations better that ours. I’d like to know more about it and how you came across it.” Jake was shaking his head, as he continued gazing at the 3D map.
Mark couldn’t help snarking in, “Wow, Grandpa. What happened to playing your cards close to the vest and not letting the other side know how badly you wanted the information? Play it cool? Keep your emotions in check? You’re practically begging Abby to walk all over you. You need to be firm and willing to walk away if you don’t get the deal that you want!” I got the feeling that Jake had given Mark quite a few speeches about how to negotiate.
Jake just looked at his grandson, blinked a few times and said, “Abby, would you mind going to the kitchen and getting me a few more of those desserts? I don’t think that Mark has had his fill quite yet.”
“Uhm, I ate the last one. Sorry!”
“No, it’s ok. It’s my own damned fault. Should’ve gotten a bigger rod to beat him with as a child. It’s too late now though.”
“Actually Jake, it’s not too late.”, I said as inspiration struck me.
“Really? How do you figure that? He’d pretty big to be putting over my knee and he probably won’t sit still once he sees the ole hickory stick.”
“One thing that I noticed about Mark when we were on our trip is that he’s out of shape. He was out of breath just coming up a small hill to come get me. He spends way too much time studying and almost no time exercising. I either go to or teach a Kung Fu class almost every day. It’s a great way to stay healthy. Maybe if you urged Mark, he’d join. I can almost guarantee that eventually he’ll get hit with a stick!”
The look of horror on Mark’s face was almost as priceless as was the gleam in Jake's eyes. I could tell right away that Mark would be enrolling at Uncle Magnum’s place before the end of the week. Another convert to the ways of Kung Fu! Score one for the good guys.
“Not to interrupt Abby’s recruitment of another sparring partner, but there’s more to the report”, dad interjected. He pulled out another folder and handed it to Jake. Jake took it and opened up the 3D map that was folded up inside. It took him a few seconds to orient himself and understand what he was looking at.
“This is a map of the area surrounding the silver mine?”, he asked.
“Yes. Abby took the time to survey as much as she could all around the mine site and all of the other mines that she went to as well. You’ll note that most of it is pretty empty of silver, except to the north of the mine. There’s a decent sized vein about a half mile away. Given that it’s not that far from your mine and that it’s further away from the town to the south, you may be able to add it as a phase two to your existing mine and you may not have as many regulatory hurdles to get a permit. All the ore processing equipment and buildings that you currently have can be used as well, so you won’t have to build more, unless it can’t handle the increase capacity.”
“Enough. Enough. You had me with the 3D map of my mine. You win. Let’s talk about the value of these reports. I need to finalize the deal with you and then get to work on buying up some of the areas surrounding my properties. Properties, mind you, that I’ve already paid someone to explore and they’ve failed to find anything.”
“Uhm, about that. You don’t need to rush.”, I said.
“Why’s that, Abby?”, Jake asked.
“Because…I may have…uhm…already bought all of them. Well, the only the ones with significant deposits.”, I answered sheepishly. All of them were staring at me. Even dad. I’d sort of neglected to tell him about this part of my plan.
“You bought all of them?”, dad repeated.
“Well, not just me. The Hannah foundation bought most of them. I only bought two or three. One of them has a working farm on it.”
“Why?”, dad asked.
“Well the couple who runs the farm are very nice and they’re going through a hard time. I figured that I’d help them out. I think it’ll be a good investment. Also, the far end of their farm, which is just some pasture land, is sitting on top of a fair sized iron deposit.”
“No, Abby. I meant why did you buy all the properties? That seems like a big investment and Jake might not have a use for some of them anytime soon and even if he does, they’ll usually take years to get a permit. Won’t you need the money to run your foundation?”
“Most of the properties are in the middle of nowhere and I got them very cheap. Others are next to a mine site and have been explored and found to have nothing worthwhile, so I got those even cheaper. It’s not my fault that the exploratory teams missed looking in the right place or couldn’t go deep enough in enough places to find the ore. As to the foundation, we went way over expectations on the sale of the rubies and I figured that we needed to invest some of it for the long term. Mines are long term investments and as the owners of the land and mineral rights, I figured that we could either lease the land to McKenzie Resources or sell them the mineral rights for an initial fee that would cover our investment and a yearly royalty on the mined ore. Eventually, the royalty from all the mines should be enough to sustain the foundation.”
Dad took in my explanation and shook his head. “I can see that you’ve had this planned out for awhile. Please remind me why I am needed here at all?”
“Because you’re my daddy and I love you! Also, the whole idea of looking for things that might be useful to Mckenzie Resources was yours. You told me to look for things that I could negotiate for and then make sure that I got paid for the value that I brought to the table and here we are. Sitting at a table.”
“Why are you all just staring at me? Come on, that was funny. I was going to go with something about ‘buying the farm’, but I decided it was too punny.
I’d never gotten three face-palms before. I wish I’d taken a picture of it.
I got up from the table and walked around to Mark. “Anyways, you and Jake can still have fun negotiating, while Mark and I go for a short hike to work off dinner.”
At the door, I stopped and added, “Just don’t forget to get at least half the sale price of the dinosaur and I want naming rights.”
As the door closed behind me, I could just hear Jake shout out, “What dinosaur??”