The rest of the guys showed up not long after that, trickling in more or less on time. The big surprise was when Teddy Bear drove up in a dove gray Corvette Z06, with the dealer’s paper plates showing that it was brand new. Of course we all had to ogle and admire his new ride, which honestly was pretty sweet.
“They only made six hundred and fifty with this carbon trim package,” Teddy Bear explained. “To commemorate sixty-five years of the Corvette.”
“Real nice, TB,” Stephen said approvingly. “So, ready to put it through its paces?”
“That reminds me,” Teddy Bear said to me. “Got any of those private track days coming up?”
“I could schedule one,” I said with a shrug. “It’s been a while, and I am feeling the need for speed.”
“I don’t have any gigs booked right now,” Teddy Bear said. “So my time is mine.”
“Let me look at the track calendars and see what I can set up,” I said.
“Um, would you be cool with me bringing Steph, if this track day happens?” Stephen asked me quietly.
“Of course!” I told him. Thinking about it for a moment, I asked, “Is she- I mean, does it feel weird for her to come out on Saturday mornings? I know she likes to ride in fast cars, and…”
“I don’t know. Maybe? She’s turned me down every time I’ve asked if she wants to come out driving,” Stephen said. “But I’ll let her know you’re O.K. with her being here and everything.”
“I am,” I said. “I don’t know how much she told you, but we parted as friends, and I still- well, I like hanging out with her, and spending time just being friends, you know?” I said.
“Yeah, she says pretty much the same thing, but I think she’s a little worried about, I don’t know, maybe tension with Emmy and Angela?” Stephen said.
Shaking my head dismissively, I said, “Make it clear to her there is no tension. Emmy likes Stephanie, even without me in the picture. Angela, well, I don’t think she’s the jealous type, but if she is, she just has to deal, you know?”
Somebody (probably Jimmy) declared that since Teddy Bear was the one with the new car, he got to lead out. Everybody agreed, thus making it a new rule. Whoever brings a new car to the Saturday drive gets to take point.
Teddy Bear was pleased with leading, since that meant no paint chips on his brand new Corvette. Stein had lectured him about vinyl paint protection and I’d seconded the recommendation for Stein’s guy. Teddy Bear agreed to schedule an appointment for a paint correction and protective wrap early the next week, just to keep his new toy new-looking.
“Just- when we do the track day, do me a favor?” Teddy Bear had asked. “Leave my new car with some dignity, alright?”
“Dignity is earned, not granted,” I said, giving him a wicked grin.
“Aw, damn,” he replied. “Now I’m really gonna get thrashed, aren’t I?”
“Step up, my man. Step up.”
That night at the club, Imogen commented to Angela that she looked really good. “You have a certain glow,” Imogen said.
“I probably shouldn’t tell,” Angela replied. “But I think I might be pregnant.”
“Ange,” I started to object, but she waved it away. “Emmy and me, we had our visit to the fertility clinic and they implanted fertilized eggs in both of us. I have a feeling it took.”
“Yesterday afternoon,” I explained to James and Imogen.
“I know it’s too early to know for sure, but I feel… confident,” Angela said.
“Well, good luck to both of you,” Imogen said. “Hopefully you’ll have positive confirmation the next time we see you.”
“Speaking of next time,” James said. “What does your track time schedule look like now that it’s cooling off a bit?”
A while after Imogen and James left, Lauren and Andrej Marković came by the table.
“Getting ready for the big day?” I asked when they sat down.
“I still can’t believe it’s almost that time,” Lauren said. “And Andrej said that Emmy is going to play at our wedding? How did he talk you into that?” She asked.
“Your fiancée can be very persuasive,” I said, nodding towards Andrej, who was blushing with a bit of embarrassment. “But really, it’s the least we can do for a friend.”
“That’s so cool,” she said.
“Andrej, have you decided if you’ll be able to attend my new club opening in Hollywood on New Year’s Eve?” I asked.
“That’s still on?” he asked.
“It’s on schedule,” I confirmed.
The two looked at each other, then seemed to come to a silent agreement. “We’ll be there,” Lauren said.
“Dress sharp,” I said. “It’s going to be a black tie affair.”
Later, when things quieted down bit, Theo came over to my table with fresh cocktails for Angela and me.
“Boss,” he said. “I don’t have any idea how you got us that stock of rare whiskies. When we opened that crate and there was about a million dollars’ worth of Pappy, Michener, Sazerac… Well, I just about lost it. I mean, this was the treasure of the Sierra Madre, right there in front of me, right? When we priced them out, I thought, ‘Nah, no way is anybody going to pay twenty-five hundred bucks for a pour’, but was I ever wrong.”
I nodded, waiting for him to go on.
“Well, we’ve had a lot of clients asking for full bottles. Last Friday night we had a table that bought over fifty thousand dollars worth, and that was just what they drank here.”
“This club has a lot of exceptionally wealthy people for members,” I told him. “If you’ve got eight hundred million in the bank, fifty K to impress your friends is no big deal.”
“No, I get that,” Theo said. “Believe me, every time somebody drops a thousand dollar tip I’m reminded of that fact.”
“Does that happen very often?” Angela asked, curious.
“Couple of times a month, yeah. And that’s just the ordinary clients. That table I mentioned? The guys that bought all that whiskey? A ten thousand dollar tip on that tab. Everyone on the staff went home a bit happier that night,” Theo said, remembering back.
“So, you’re saying that I should keep the club supplied?” I asked.
“You can get more?” Theo asked, his eyes wide.
“Sure,” I said. “I can’t promise to get a given bottle in specific, but I can keep a flow of the extremely high-end juice coming.”
“You do that, boss, and I will kiss your feet. I’m serious. I will absolutely do that.”
“All I ask, Theo, is that when somebody tries to hire you away, you tell ‘em to screw off. Everybody here loves you and the team, so just keep doing what you’re doing.”
“We can do that,” Theo said. “This is the best place I’ve ever worked. Hey, did you know I got profiled in Mixology magazine?”
“Really? That’s awesome!” Angela said, her big blue eyes wide.
“It’s an industry insider thing, but still, it’s cool,” Theo agreed.
“Send me the link,” I said. “I’d like to see it.”
We sat there for a moment, then Theo brought up another topic.
“Um, Sandy Mac came in here a few weeks ago and said your new club down in Hollywood is coming together. He asked if I could spare a couple of weeks with the bar crew he’s putting together, to make sure everybody understands what we’re all about. That’s cool with you, right? For me to take two weeks off here and work down there setting up the new bar?” Theo asked.
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“Sandy is now the official boss of the bar and nightclub division. If he says he needs you down there, it’s policy. Full pay, plus per diem and housing, all that. The new place needs to launch like a rocket ship, no errors, from day one.”
“I’ll be there with bells on,” Theo said, looking excited by the idea.
“You say everybody loves me,” Angela said as we settled into bed that night. Well, morning, actually, but who was keeping track? “But you- people love you, too. Theo? I don’t think he was kidding when he said he would kiss your shoes. And Melanie? The waitress? She has a very serious crush on you. But guys like Andrej- you’ve pulled him in to your… orbit? Is that the right phrase?” When I assured her it was, she said, “And now he would do anything for you. I know you told me you had him working on some project with his friend Tom, but I think he would do much more than that. Did you notice how he and Lauren looked when you reminded them about the LA launch? It was halfway between ‘How did we get so lucky?’ And ‘Check us out- we’re on The List!’”
I pulled Angela into me a little bit closer, enjoying her warmth and, of course, the way she smelled. Nuzzling her neck as I spooned her nice and tight, I said, “Almost every day I find myself asking how I got so lucky.”
Angela covered my hand on her breast and made a little satisfied sigh. “Me, too.”
The next day Angela and I went to Napa for some wine touring, hitting a few of the vineyards that Emmy and I had liked, and a few I’d never tried before. My wine palate was improving, but I doubted I’d ever have anything like Emmy’s knowledge on the subject. Still, we found a few we liked, so we bought a few cases to have shipped down to Los Angeles.
It was nice, just spending time like that with Angela. She was so easy to get along with, such an upbeat person, that besides all else, she just made any room brighter.
I tried to banish the thought when it popped into my head, but I found myself thinking that life after Emmy wouldn’t be so bad, if Angela was in it. Sitting at an outdoor table at a winery named ‘Four Horses’ or something like that, watching Angela talk to the woman explaining the different varietals mixed into their signature blend, I mentally added thirty years to Angela’s face and figure.
She was still one hell of a hottie in her late fifties, I decided. I felt myself slip into a daydream of the two of us, wine tasting like this as empty nesters, when our daughters were off making their own lives. Angela would still be a joy to behold, and a joy to spend my life with.
Emmy wasn’t going to be with us forever, but Angela and I would somehow manage to carry on, even with that Emmy-shaped hole in our hearts. At least we’d have each other, and our daughters, who would be raised to be loving, smart, and strong.
“What are you thinking about?” Angela asked when she sat down with our two glasses of red, hers limited to a small splash in case she was pregnant.
“The future,” I said. “Us, you and me. Our daughters. Emmy. The usual,” I said, covering her hand with mine.
“We will be O.K.,” Angela said, a bit of sadness in her smile. “It will all work out.”
I squeezed her hand, then took a sip of my wine so she wouldn’t see my eyes get moist.
A week and a half later, both Emmy and Angela tested as not pregnant, so they underwent another round of transferral. Still only one egg each, the plan was that we would continue doing it this way until they took.
“I was certain I was pregnant,” Angela moaned in the car on the way back home.
“I thought perhaps you were, too,” Emmy said. “I did not feel as though mine had taken, but I had been hoping.”
“We’ll just have to keep trying until it works,” I said. “At least the transferral isn’t so bad.”
“It isn’t nice, having that thing stuck up your…” Angela said.
“No, but at least there’s no pain, right?” I asked.
“There is some pain,” Emmy said. “But not too bad.”
“Let’s go home and get you in a hot bath,” I suggested.
“That would be nice,” Emmy said, and I could hear the discomfort in her voice.
That night we cuddled with Emmy in the middle, sandwiched in between Angela and me. She was still suffering from cramps, but the warmth seemed to help.
“I hope it works this time,” I said, kissing Emmy’s slender neck.
“I do, too,” she replied. “I want this very much.”
“Me, too,” Angela agreed. “I want us to have big bellies together. It’ll be like a comedy show- we’ll have to lean forward to kiss. Our baby bumps will bump into each other.”
Emmy laughed at the image and her mood visibly lifted. “Poor Leah!” Emmy said. “I will say, ‘I need pickles!’ and you will say ‘I need ice cream!’ and we will both start crying at the same time!”
“You know why it’ll be O.K.?” I asked.
“I do not know how it will be anything but a nightmare when we are both hormonal,” Emmy said.
“It’ll be O.K. with me because I love you both and no matter how moody you guys get, I’ll be there for you,” I said softly.
Emmy leaned her head back to rub it against mine, letting out a contented sigh. “Angie,” she said. “We are very lucky.”
“Very,” Angela agreed.
As it turned, out, the second round of transferals didn’t take, either. The doctor suggested we re-think our commitment to one egg at a time, but we insisted that’s how it was going to be and she relented.
The mood was a bit down in the car drive, but soon after getting home Angela managed to perk up.
“You know what they say,” she said, pouring a cup of hot chamomile tea for Emmy. “The third time is the charm.”
Emmy smiled, still a bit disconsolate. “I thought this would be the easy part,” she said, gratefully accepting the cup Angela handed her.
“This part is much better than when they collected the eggs,” Angela reminded her.
“You are right,” Emmy said. “That was terrible.”
Angela circled around behind where Emmy was sitting at the kitchen counter and wrapped her arms around Emmy’s middle, stroking the smooth, flat belly there.
“Soon this will be huge,” she said, rubbing Emmy’s tummy. “It will look like you swallowed a watermelon without chewing.”
Emmy laughed, then twisted around to give Angela a kiss, a smile back on her face.
“You know what the sad part is?” I asked.
“What’s the sad part?” Angela demanded.
“You both are going to be so huge there won’t be room for me in the bed. I’ll have to sleep on the floor,” I said.
“We will have a new bed made,” Emmy said, enjoying the moment.
“It’ll be so big it won’t even fit in our room,” Angela agreed. “We’ll have to sleep out in the sound stage.”
Pleased that the two had shaken off the dispirited mood from before, I wrapped an arm around Angela’s upper thighs and lifted her up, holding her with my right arm. Emmy had jumped up out of her chair in surprise, so I did the same and lifted her up with my left.
The two squealed with joy as I bounced them a bit walking around the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Angela asked.
“Practicing for when I have two little girls to carry around,” I said.
“I hope they will not be as large as us,” Emmy said, her face lit up in amusement.
“Not at first, no,” I said. “They start out small, but they get big fast.”
Of course we ended up on the big couch in a pile again, once more with me on the bottom and the two of them covering me like a loving blanket. There was a lot of kissing and cuddling, and a morning that had started out with bad news turned into a very nice afternoon. Dinner was just the three of us out on the deck, enjoying the warm evening and each others’ company.
It went unsaid, but it seemed to me that both Emmy and Angela had come to a certain acceptance that these failures in the process were merely speed bumps, and we would arrive at our destination sooner or later. They would have their babies- it might not be as soon as they wanted, but trusting that it would happen eventually took some of the strain away. The failure of the eggs to take was still a disappointment, but we had over a dozen ready in the pipeline for each of them. We didn’t really need to start worrying for quite a while.
Cutting back on the hours I spent in the office was harder than I’d expected. There were so many demands on my time, so many people who wanted meetings, so many proposals to review… Eventually I had to make it clear to my various newly-minted division heads that they were running their respective shows now. Day to day stuff? I didn’t want to hear it. They could muddle through just fine without me.
Weekly reports were expected, and any issues that rose above a certain (fairly high) threshold, yeah, come talk to me. But the mundane stuff? That was theirs to deal with now.
It took a while, but Sandy, Jake, Nash and the rest (including the San Jose honchos) finally came up with what they all felt was a decent incentive plan for themselves that gave them a stake in the success of their divisions.
Jake and Nash walked it in to my office one morning, rather than send it via email. They wanted to present their case in person, and I respected them for that.
“When Sandy told us you’d suggested this idea,” Jake said, sitting down. “I thought he’d been spending too much time in the sun. But then you sent out that email with the new company-wide org charts, and we each got emails outlining our new job titles and expected duties, well, it made a lot more sense. So we’ve been working on it.”
“The hardest part,” added Nash, “Is that the various divisions aren’t evenly profitable, or have comparable numbers of employees.”
“And there’s the cultural thing, too,” Jake said, nodding. “You’ve made it very clear to me, personally, that you have no desire to squeeze every last dime, so profits can’t be our only metric.”
“Right,” Nash said. “Which brings us to a very important point, Leah. We all value working for Royal Holdings, in its various divisions, because it’s a damned fine company to work for. The whole idea of a company culture seemed like so much bullshit to me five years ago, but I have to admit, it’s seeped into me. And now I wouldn’t have it any other way. So this plan we worked up, it required a buy-in from all the heads, and pretty much everybody agreed. Some had ideas to add, but mostly it was just fine-tuning. The key was for the heads of the highly profitable divisions to be willing to, well, subsidize the less-profitable, if you get what I mean.”
“But in the end, every head agreed on this package?” I asked, looking over the pages.
“Eventually, yeah. It’s unanimous,” Jake said.
“This is interesting,” I said, one item catching my eye.
“What’s that ?” Nash asked, a bit concerned.
“The company-wide profit sharing plan. It says, ‘All FTEs equally.’”
“Right,” Jake agreed.
“So you guys, as division heads, will take home the same annual bonus as the janitors or the busboys?” I asked.
“Well, yes and no,” Nash said. “Yes, the same annual bonus, but our individual salaries as heads will get pegged to the specified performance metrics. So a stellar year will result in more pay, but a dismal year will see us take a hit.”
“And everybody was O.K. with that?” I asked.
“Like I said, it comes back to the culture thing. We want everybody, no matter what division, to think of themselves as stakeholders in the success of the whole company, not just their little castle,” Nash said.
“Alright,” I said, nodding my head. “Let me look it over for a few days. This next weekend is a San Jose weekend, so I’ll talk to a few of the heads up there and get their input.”
“We’ve all been involved in putting this plan together,” Jake said, a touch defensively.
“Oh, I’m sure you have,” I said. “But interestingly, the heads of the most profitable and the least profitable divisions are both based out of San Jose. As the two outliers, I’d like their feedback.”
“That’s Pete with VC, and Michael with outreach, right? What the heck even is outreach, anyway?” Jake asked. “And why do we have a division that makes no money at all but has over fifty FTEs?"
“Honestly? It’s the reason any of the rest of this is even happening,” I said. “All of the rest of this, the property management division, the commercial development, the REIT, all of it, are just to fund the outreach.”
“Well, what is it? Even the folks I talked to in San Jose weren’t clear.”
“Um, I think it’s some sort of refugee aid or something like that, isn’t it?” Nash suggested.
“Nash, could you please shut the door? This really isn’t for general consumption,” I said, settling down in my chair.