A Trade For Good (2 page)

Jeff heard some scraping sound in the
background, like furniture being moved, and then the same
screeching noise from before.

"This contract is binding,
I have your signature here, it’s uh… right here, there’s a
P. Sinclair
. Your scribble
is right here in front of my face.”

The screech in the background grew
even louder to the point where Jeff had to pull the phone away from
his ear, but somehow, that didn't even phase the harried woman who
quickly responded.

“That’s
Peter Sinclair
for your information,
and I’m Sera Henderson Sinclair, so see, it’s not me after
all”.

Jeff adjusted the phone a little
closer to his ear this time, but instead of just listening, he hit
the side of his head with the receiver a few times trying to unclog
his brain before speaking, and while the screeching in the
background grew louder. He was used to jackhammers, saws, loud
cement mixer trucks, but whatever was on the other end of the phone
was painfully noisy and almost otherworldly.

“Excuse me,” Jeff said almost yelling
again to match the noise on the other end. “Is that a fax line in
the background? Cause I can't even hear what you’re
saying?”

“No Mr. Mason," the woman said
exasperated, "it’s not a fax, that’s my daughter. And before you
ask, no, there’s no way I can quiet her down. She does this all day
long.”

Jeff had nephews and nieces he claimed
were almost inhuman at times, the way they moved nonstop, touched
everything, put whatever they weren’t touching in their mouths,
smelled foully, but none of them sounded like that. He almost found
himself feeling sorry for Mrs. Sinclair, but not sorry enough to
drop the small matter of a $14,000 job she was expecting him to
suck up.

“So you're Sera Henderson - Sinclair.
Fine, is Peter Sinclair your husband, then?”

“Well, uh... I, you see,"

“It’s not really that difficult a
question you know. Either you're married to him or you're not, but
if you are, you're just as responsible for the bill as he
is.”

“Mr. Mason, believe it or not that
question is harder to answer than you think, but legally...
Yes."

“Yes, as in Peter Sinclair is your
husband?" Jeff wondered if the woman was on drugs. How hard was it
to say the P. Sinclair on the contract was in fact her
husband?

“Well then, that settles it. Your
husband signed the contract so you are both responsible for paying
the bills.”

Hell, Jeff knew he was no businessman,
he was a stone/landscaper, so he wasn't even sure about recourse in
a case like this, but he was not about to let another client take
advantage of him again. He had to at least pretend he had the upper
hand. Truthfully though, Jeff was a lousy businessman, but he was
an artist when given free reign. He was also really lucky in that
he was surrounded by honest people for the most part, who loved his
work.

The woman had stopped
speaking.

“Mrs. Sinclair? Are you still
there?”

“Yes, and you’re right. Okay, I'll pay
you for the labor then; my husband can pay you for all the
materials.”

He smiled at that. Not bad for a
loony. At least she was a quick thinker when it came to business
and striking ideas, too bad she didn't know how landscaping
worked.

“Just for your
information
Mrs.
Sinclair," he added putting emphasis on her marital status,
"labor is more costly than the actual materials”.

“I gathered that
Mr.
Mason,” she said
smugly, "and since the labor
won’t
be done - because I'm cancelling the job - I have
no problem with you billing my husband for the materials. Even that
top of the line sprinkler system you mentioned earlier, so I guess
that pretty much settles my part of the debt."

Quick thinking
and
smart, he thought
reminding himself how lucky he was to be single.

“I'm sorry Mrs. Sinclair, I
don’t know what prompted this, or what this is all about, but when
we write up a contract, we do the job; the job consists of
materials
and
labor." Jeff was starting to worry about tomorrow's delivery
and the bill for specific materials he’d ordered that he wasn't
ready to be stuck with, and probably couldn’t return.

"Did you change your mind on what you
want done? You two – uh… you and your husband - not agree on the
layout? Are you moving, or did you find another landscaper?" Then
hesitating, "I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I need to
know what's going on if you want me to work with you on
this."

The silence on the other end was
followed by a strung out sigh that sounded like the air emptying
out of a tire.

“No, Mr. Mason it’s none of the above.
The job itself isn't the problem. I'm not moving or shopping around
for another landscaper, and I don't even know what layout my
husband and you agreed on." She paused, completely deflated, and
added in a whisper, "I can’t find my husband. I have no idea where
he is. If you asked me to look for him, I wouldn’t even know where
to start.”

Well that was unexpected.
Then again, some problems followed him like magnets. Jeff would
have to check, but as far as he remembered, the ad he took out in
the Yellow Pages said he was a
landscaper
, not a
sucker
or a
counselor
, not even a
businessman
, but a
Landscaper.

The last time something like this had
come up he had promised to protect himself against anything that
could screw up getting paid. The last one was the contract with the
widow. Well, she wasn't a widow when she signed it, but she had
done a lot of crying and now she had a beautiful yard, free of
charge, and a new husband only three months after starting
widowhood.

The business couldn't stand another
case like that. No, there would be no more widows, divorcees,
families with hungry children, or missing husbands. He was running
a business, and emotions had nothing to do with business, other
than the emotion caused from leaving a client with the thrill of a
beautiful yard, patio, or garden, and a job well done.

“Fine,” he suddenly heard a voice from
very deep within him say, “I’ll cancel tomorrow’s truck and all
other deliveries." Then, running his fingers through his dark hair
that had just a little bit of gray in it (most likely a result of
the outcome of the widow's contract), he paused, and as if to
himself, he said, "I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of
the materials, but I’ll say one thing for your husband, he has good
taste. He had me order only the best. Everything is top of the
line”.

"Yes, that sounds like him..." her
voice trailed off. Then, "You sound like a nice guy.”

Jeff was getting tired of hearing
that.

“I'll tell you what,” she continued
softly, “If you feel bad about charging my husband for materials
that won’t be used, as soon as I find out where he lives, I'll give
you his address so you can dump every ounce of cement and rocks he
ordered right on his doorstep. I’m hoping he’ll be standing there
when you do.”

Jeff chuckled at that.

"Oh, and I'm sorry for yelling. It
seems that’s all I do these days, that and stopping checks, calling
contractors, utility and mortgage companies, and specializing in a
lot of creative financing.”

Hell,
Jeff was just about to tell her that she still owed him at
least a portion of the money no matter what her personal problems
were, and here he was, almost crying from the sob story.

This part was definitely the downside
of the business. He hated collecting money, dealing with people
directly, and had a hard time escaping the personal problems they
brought forth. He almost wished he was still working for Freddie,
but although Freddie took care of his business, he was a con man
and that's the only reason why Jeff had gone out on his own. Better
a sucker than a user.

“Listen lady, I’ll have to
call you back and come up with a plan. I just can’t eat
all
of the expenses. In
the meantime, worry about the other contractors on your list, and
I’ll come up with something. Don't worry; I'll see what I can
do.”

“Thank you Mr. Mason," she was
obviously touched, "and by the way, my name is Sera.”

“Yeah. Okay, I’ll keep in
touch… Sera”. As he hung up the phone he wondered,
'
Why don't I just make this a non-profit
enterprise and avoid the pain of it all'.

Chapter 2

Jeff arrived at his office on Monday
morning much later than his usual 7:30 show up time. He had been up
since five that morning going over a pile of outstanding bills and
skeptically looking over a list of prospective clients. By seven
that morning he had had two pots of strong coffee, a box of stale
doughnuts he found in the back of the kitchen cabinet while looking
for some sugar, and was ready to call it a day. He reached the
conclusion that the business aspect of his job was taking all the
fun out of what he loved to do. By the time he dragged himself in
to work, he was emotionally drained.

As soon as he walked into his office,
he knew something was amiss because it was Monday morning and Todd
and Alan were all smiles. As soon as he stepped in Mitch seemed to
come out of nowhere slapping him on the back and telling him what a
glorious Monday morning it was.

In his seven years working
with Todd and Alan, Jeff had never seen them smile; he didn’t even
know they
could
smile. And as for Mitch ... he must have smelled too many of
those weeds they were taking out of their client's
yards.

Completely dumbfounded, he
turned the corner into his office and immediately realized it
wasn't weeds or
weed
. The reason behind the smiles and the cheery disposition on
these clowns on this glorious Monday morning took another shape
altogether.

Stumbling into his office after being
caught off guard and slapped on the back, he was immediately
greeted by the most gorgeous, ass-thetically pleasing toosh in
tight jeans he had seen in a long, long time.

He wondered what the face looked like
and quickly decided it didn't really matter as he focused on her
assets while she was bent down shuffling through some papers and
totally unaware of the eight eyes boring through her. Four pair of
eyes who should have been working on something, but couldn't
disengage.

The fact that she was rummaging
through his papers didn’t register.

The woman turned around without
looking up and carried a stack of papers to a file cabinet that had
come with the building and had never been used. As far as he could
recall, the cabinet had never been opened, and so far, had been
used as a shelf for a silk plant his mother gave him as a gift when
he started the business.

To his dismay, the plant was now in
the trash bin next to the file cabinet. That hurt.

The woman was oblivious to the
attention she was getting and after depositing the stack of papers
in a neat pile in the top drawer of the file cabinet, she turned
around to see a gaping Jeff standing before her.

The first thing Jeff thought before
hinging his jaw back into place was that the woman's front-side was
just as pretty as her backside. She looked to be in her early
thirties, and not only wore the jeans very well, but the white
t-shirt she was wearing filled out in all the right places and
looked like an advertisement for trouble.

She was petite, but disproportionately
bigger where it really mattered. Her brown hair was tied with one
of those elastic fabric bands his nieces always wore, and her eyes
were as green as the silk plant had once been. The plant, he saw,
was now in the trash bin.

Jeff gave himself a few seconds before
giving in to reason. Regretfully, he decided it was time to put an
end to his enjoyment - nice toosh or not. After all, this was his
office, he was the boss, and he had no idea what the hell was going
on.

“What did you do to my
plant?!”
was somehow the first thing that
came out of his mouth. As if realizing how stupid his remark was,
Jeff rather forcefully shoved his amused employees out of the way
and out of his office.

She looked down at the trash bin he
was pointing to suddenly looked very confused as she looked back up
to see his expectant and slightly flushed face.

“It’s dead. I don't think it can be
saved, so I threw it out." Bending down to get it, she added, "I
can put it back up he..."

Now that
really
hurt. Not to
mention the fact that her bending down again completely disarmed
him.

“
How can
silk
be dead?” he
snapped.

“That was silk?" and smiling, "I never
met anyone who could kill silk before.”

Jeff tried to ignore the
chuckles coming from the room next door, but just as he was about
to snap at them, the intruder approached him with a smile and a
hand extended as if welcoming him into
her
office instead of his.