CABERNET ZIN (Cabernet Zin Wine Country) (17 page)

Miss Helving pushed herself out of her chair and breathed heavy. Her wiry hair spun out in a frizz that sparkled in the intense lights cutting down from above the conference room. She pushed her red squint-glasses farther up her wide nose, “Lawrence had us recode his salary at the end of December for this year as soon as the Finance and Accounting preliminary results came out. He canceled any stock option grants for last year and this year and turned off his bonuses.”

“Thank you Miss Helving. I’m now making as much as I did when I drove truck, oh, too many years ago to count, what with inflation it isn’t much these days.” His eyes scanned the floor, “Yes, I still keep my truck operators license up to date! That is not all I have done. I’ve cut my personal expenses down so I can get by on it. The reason is I don’t want anyone here feeling any pain that I do not, and it allows us to keep more people on at the working level; that is where the magic happens for our clients. I’d rather we work hard now than be forced to make cuts that slice through our tires and deflate the company. Shokworthe is only a company when our wheels are spinning. There will be reassignments. We will combine some departments while others will split into new projects. I expect, and so should you, that our company will look completely different by the end of the year. I’m doing this so everyone here can keep our jobs. If I were less of a CEO then I’d wait until the end of the year, see the losses, beg our investors to stay with us, lay off or downsize once or twice and hope the economy returns to fix things. I’ve been through this a few times and know corporate history. We will be fine but there will be changes. I’m suggesting our top executives and director management levels look at their personal lives and see where they can make sacrifices so they can return and pledge their own bonuses and part of their salaries toward the cause. Leaders that will work as hard as any of us to keep this great company strong and rolling into the future. Thank you.”

-:-:-:-O-:-:-:-

The video clip ended and Zack pushed back from the edge of the counter. Lydia banged her hand on the counter. “That was ten this morning. Can you believe it Zack?” The computer screen shivered. “We don’t have the cash to cut.”

“We could probably cut a few things. You know you’ll have to participate since everyone else will.”

“What can we donate? No trip this year to Cartoon Land. What will we tell the kids?”

“Nothing. They will be as excited going to the local beach as riding in teacups with clowns. They will only be interested in being with us.”

“I work hard all year and look forward to our vacation trips and telling everyone at work and our friends that we are going somewhere exciting.” She stared out the patio window, “You’re going to need to get another job.”

“I wondered when that would come out.”

“What do you mean? I’m serious. We’re going to need something to pay the rent and my car.”

“When we put the kids in day care they will be that much more sick, days off from work, and we’ll be paying practically another mortgage in care fees. The car I’m driving is not a reliable commuter. So we’d need to figure on spending for a newer used car to do it.”

“I talked with the other Directors and a few Executive row guys and the consensus seems to be a twenty-five percent cut in pay.”

“What if we sold your car and got another low cost commuter for you?”

“My car? We’d take a big loss selling that now. I love that car. If we’re not going on any vacations this year then I want to drive that car to work. We’re already living in a rental house. What else do I have left?”

Zack pulled out the kitchen finance drawer and shuffled around in the stack of paid bills. “Here, this and this, these are our last three credit card payments.” Zack went down the list flagging anything that seemed extraneous and easy to cut, “We could take this much a month off our spending. Those are all clothing stores. We can buy sweatshirts and jeans for the kids when they grow out of what they have now. I’m already dressing like a pauper, I’m still wearing the four pairs of ten dollar jeans I bought at that store sale five years ago, I don’t think I bought any shirts since then either. You could probably weed down your closet and avoid buying any new clothes for the next year?”

“Weed my clothes? I need to look professional at work.”

Zack circled a string of items, “These all look like restaurant meals. We can cut down to taking the kids out once a month. They’d be happy still. We trim bad things like all that caffeinated pop and potato chips out of our grocery shopping, and it’s doable.”

Lydia squeezed her head in her hands, “I can’t believe this. I thought we were improving and finally catching up to the foreclosed house losses.”

“No we’re not talking about that. We’ll argue all night and for the next week if we dredge all of that up.”

“You don’t want to talk about it because it’s money you lost.”

“Sunk costs –”

“– Losses –”

“– That are behind us. We have to look forward and I think we can make it.”

“You can’t go to California every month.”

“If I don’t go then we don’t have the money to pay up the capital call either. My working out there is conserving our cash needed.”

Lydia shrieked. She turned to Zack, her fist punctuating her sentences, “This is your fault. I feel like I’m drowning. We can never get ahead and it’s your fault.” She shoved one of the kitchen chairs under the table, “What’s this?” She pulled a yellow T-shirt off the seat of the chair. She spun and held it up in front of Zack’s face, “I spent my time emailing and reminding you! I even found the shirt in Noah’s closet and put it out here and you didn’t put it on him for school today?”

“My customers called with an urgent question while I was getting the kids ready. They were fighting and it was all a big mess.”

“You can’t handle two kids and another phone call? So you forgot to put the shirt on him? How do you think he felt at school when all the other kids had their spirit shirt and he did not? I wasted all of my time getting him set up and you even managed to screw that up. I don’t know what else I can do!” She threw the shirt into Zack’s face and stomped into the living room. She snatched the television remote from the side table and flopped on the couch. “What are you making for dinner? It better not be noodles.” She powered on the television. “You need to apologize to Noah.”

“And you need to apologize for that wine shipment you signed for. I found the empty bottles when I wheeled the recycle can to the curb. Unless you had a party you neglected to tell me about.”

Lydia turned away.

Zack went to his office and answered the ringing phone.

“Hi, this is Philip Gangli” I wanted to call you. I still think we have problems. I’ve been getting some of the investors together to discuss ousting Martin from managing the winery.”

Zack sat down in his chair, “That’s not the problem. We need more investors contributing; can you talk to them to get involved? I’ve been fighting here on the home front so I can go out there. I’ve also strained my job with remote working in the evenings.”

“Yeah, I think I could talk to the others.” Then Philip said, “I have another guy interested in putting money into the winery. He’s in the technology industry and has buckets of cash, apparently. The problem is he wants to cash everyone out and take complete control. He won’t have any partners. I guess he was burned once or twice losing control. We need all the shares from all the current investors to do it. While I’m not in the situation that Jacob Winters is fighting, I sympathize with him and I really want to get out from under my stock in the winery too.”

“I’m going to be honest, Philip.” Zack avoided revealing too much, “It’s the one thing going right in my life right now. It’s a wonderful industry.”

“The winery is still losing money.”

“But sales are going up and customers like the product. It has a future. Can you hold off? I would have a challenge selling at the moment and I think there will be others that are tied up too much financially and emotionally.”

“Probably right but I’m talking to others in the computer industry – a web startup that just sold spilled out a bunch of big money investors seeking the next promising project. You have to admit, the wine business is romantic and sexy. Especially since that’s how we got in there.”

Zack spun in his chair, “It comes down to earnings. If we can get sales to move forward at enough of a pace, we can make more money owning the business than selling. We’re at an inflection point solving all our problems if we get sales. Time and patience will win. We do have to be aggressive and work sales hard – maybe some of our investors have lines on retailers or reviewers that can help us?”

“Yeah, that might be the way too. Let me think about it.”

Zack stared at the phone he hung up. The winery seemed like the only thing going right in his life and it was still losing money. Well, maybe not the only thing. He loved his kids. However, he wanted a little business success.

-:-:-:-O-:-:-:-

“Claire! What’s going on?” Joan’s voice quivered over the phone.

Claire asked, “What do you mean?”

“Tyler is at the hospital with Dad. But his phone battery ran out while he was telling me what happened.”

“Which hospital?”

“The one near Dad’s house.”

“Everet Hospital?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. He had Dad in the emergency room.”

“Did he fall or have a heart attack?”

“No. Tyler was with Dad watching college hockey. Dad stood up and started flailing his arms around and Tyler couldn’t make him stop. He was incoherent. Tyler took him to the emergency room and then his phone died talking with me. Can you go and find out what happened? I’m all the way out here on the East Coast and can’t do anything!” Joan leaned away from the phone, “… I’m going to fly out tomorrow. Can you take care of the kids and call for a substitute teacher for me until I get back? Thanks … Claire? Claire, I’m going to get a flight out.”

Claire slipped her arm into her jacket and dragged her key chain across the counter toward her front door. “I’m on my way,” she shoved her toes into a pair of flats by the door, “I’ll call you when I know more.” She locked the door more from habit than thinking about it – thinking was difficult. She hurried to her car.

Everet Hospital stood tall against the sky. It wedged in between several glass-sided technology company headquarters with its sandstone facade and aluminum clad windows. She entered the visitor parking structure and spiraled up and up and then down and down. She felt she found the last two open spaces in the whole parking garage. “Follow the blue line to the red line then turn at the green line and the blue line again but don’t take the yellow line because that way leads to madness.” Claire nodded to the information desk clerk giving her a clip-on visitor badge. She followed the lines until she lost them. Then she followed the overhead signs with arrows for the departments.

“Tyler!” Claire yelled to her brother who happened to be walking down a side hall, sipping from the lip of a soda can he just liberated from a vending machine.

“Claire! Hey, fancy meeting you here,” he saluted her with his can. He loped toward her wearing his surfboard shoes with worn holes at the toes. Tight rubberized shorts gripped his skinny tanned legs and accentuated the beer gut hanging over his belt. He wore a loose sun faded T-shirt that the sun cut knife-like slits all along the shoulders where it beat down on him while in the ocean.

Claire said, “I got the call from Joan. What happened?”

“Dad and I were watching a hockey game. I don’t know how those people practice on the ice freezing all the time. Some referee made a bad call that Dad pounded his fist on the chair arm. He stood up and then he started wailing his arms around. I said ‘Dude, it’s not that bad a call’ but he was still swinging around like he wanted to fight someone.” Tyler pulled up his shirt showing his immense belly and pointed to his ribs. “He socked me right here. Look at that bruise! I didn’t think he had that kind of strength. I tackled him on the couch until he seemed to not want to punch me anymore.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No. He’d grunt. He seemed to calm down. Like he wigged out on some crazy drug. I know he didn’t. He wasn’t even drinking the beer I found for us in the back of the pantry. He just watched the game.”

“Where is he?”

Tyler took another sip of his soda. He smacked his lips and pointed with a finger released from the damp can, “This way. I was going back to see if any doctors showed up. They are sneaky and hard to catch but I was getting thirsty so I grabbed something.”

Claire’s shoes clicked on the institution tiles as she hurried to her father’s room. “Tyler, he’s in a private room.”

“Yeah. They didn’t think it would be safe for another patient after I told them what happened. So he’s quarantined.”

“He’s just lying there.” Claire came up to him and touched his face. Weathered lines deep like field furrows ran across his forehead, matched with laugh lines straightened in sorrow at the corners of his eyes.

“They gave him synthetic relaxers. I’ll bet good stuff. He’s been out for a while.”

Tyler glanced to the hall. “I see him.”