“I’ll do you one better. Let’s eat there together,” he suggested.
“OK, but I sure hope you are a bit more talkative than you’ve been today.”
“I will be. I promise. In fact, I kinda want to talk with you about something.”
It actually worried me a bit but I kept my mouth shut until we were sitting across the table and a pile of food was between us. After my first few bites of a juicy, world-class burger, I was feeling better so I decided to ask him what was on his mind.
“Yeah, sorry I’ve not been more upbeat, but something happened last night that bugged me.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Linda called. She was pushing for us to get together again. Said she’d talked with you and…”
“Wait, Tank, if you’re upset with me I can explain.”
“No, no. I’m not upset with you. I’m kinda upset with her and me both, really. I am glad you told her nothing happened that night. It seemed to reassure her, but then she was angling for a dinner, and, you know…”
“What’d you say?”
“I told her ‘No.’ I see no reason to get back together with someone who doesn’t trust me when I say something. So, I was upset with her.”
“Why are you upset with you?”
“I was pretty blunt, I guess. I didn’t dance around the issue of her not trusting me. Anyway, she started to cry when she hung up. And I hate it when women cry, dammit. Maybe I need to apologize.”
“Oh, Tank, no, don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong. She was the one who accused you of sleeping with me and she was the one who parted ways. When she wanted to get back together, you said ‘No.’ I see nothing wrong in what you did. And if she’s that insecure, would you ever want to get into a long-term relationship with her?”
“No, I guess not. I thought we were just having a few laughs together, some fun sex, you know. And you were right. She was looking at it with a longer-term commitment in mind, I see it now.”
“Ah ha! Your little helper gal knows a thing or two, huh? Admit it!” I teased.
“Luce, you know a hell of a lot. I can’t believe how lucky I was when you applied for the job. Things have been so much better since then.” He looked me right in the eyes and went on. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Wow. That sounded, oh, I don’t know, really deep. It was almost like there was a second meaning to his words. But Tank had never, not even once, tried to put a move on me. I knew that was basic labor management rule number one. You don’t shit where you eat. You don’t sleep with your bosses or employees. So maybe he was only talking about the work aspect, but it sounded like something more and it did make my heart beat a tiny bit faster.
I didn’t know what to say so I tried to make a little joke about it. “I guess you owe me a beer,” I chuckled.
“Done, and I’ll have one, too.”
With the beer we relaxed a bit more and eventually we ended up joking and teasing each other. It seemed like the old Tank was coming back.
Tank
I felt a lot better after that evening. Lucy was friendly, funny and a good person to talk with. For the next few weeks, we made very good headway on the two jobs. On one slow day I sent her out to collect the info for two other bids. You would have thought I’d given her the moon but I knew she had an excellent head on her shoulders. She had mastered theBid-All computer program and when she gave me the details and her estimates, she was spot on. When one customer accepted her bid, she was in hog heaven, particularly since I’d never even been out to the site. I was a bit nervous about it, but once I saw the work that needed to be done, I realized she nailed it. I let her take the lead on the job and she actually was the one to direct things, arrange for supplies and subs and she even told me to take care of things that needed to be done. By the time we, that is she, finished, it was apparent she was a great ‘boss’ as well as a great employee.
I invited her out to a ‘business dinner’ at a local steak house one Thursday evening. Over our drinks and dinner, I told her how proud I was of her work and how I was going to pay her extra for the job. She beamed like a kid who had his first base hit in Little League.
I went on, “Luce, I’d like to make a proposal, a business proposition. We can quite do well when we run two or three little jobs simultaneously and with your new skills, you could be running more of them. Ah, so, what I’m proposing is we split all the bidding fifty-fifty. Any that you win, you’re in charge and I become your assistant. And any that I win, you’re my assistant. And the job boss takes all the profit from the job for pay and the assistant gets the standard union wage. What daya think?”
“Tank, that would be a huge raise for me. Are you sure you can afford it? I mean, you’d probably be earning less.”
“I doubt it. With more work, better efficiency and less down time, I think we’d both be doing just fine. We’d have to figure out how to split office expenses, but that isn’t much. If you’re interested, I’ll have Jeb draw up an outline of a partnership deal and you can review it.”
“Partnership? Tank, did you say partnership?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“But usually when there are partnerships, the new guy, or in this case the new girl, has to buy into the deal. I don’t think I can afford to…”
“No buy-in. Look, this business is worth only its reputation. I’m giving you the opportunity to work more, earn more, get more respect for your work.”
“What do you get out of the deal?”
“I get someone I can work with and work with well and get her shoes nailed to the floor so she doesn’t take off, move or go to the competition.”
“Tank, I’d never do that.”
“Yeah, well your boyfriend a while back moved and there’s always the possibility you’d find someone and take off. This way you’ve got a real good incentive to stay.”
“I love my job. I don’t think there’s a guy on the planet who could take me from here. Really.”
“Well, the deal’s still on the table. I’ll let Jeb know to pencil things out and I’ll get you a copy.”