Lost December

by Richard Paul Evans

CHAPTER

  Thirty-One

  I was given the chance to help Carlos.

  It felt wonderful to be on the giving end for a change.

  Luke Crisp’s Diary

  After I finished helping the residents with dinner, I returned to Carlos’s office to discuss marketing ideas.

  “We run at a thirty percent vacancy,” he said, “The national norm is about thirteen. I’m doing something wrong.”

  “How competitive is the care center business?”

  “Cutthroat,” he said, running a finger across his throat. “Cutthroat.”

  “What kind of advertising are you currently doing?”

  “I run ads in some of the local retirement publications.”

  “Can I see them?”

  “Sure.” He went to a cupboard and brought out some magazines. All of the Golden Age advertisements were marked in the magazines with Post-it notes. I looked at the ads. They were poorly written and amateurishly designed. I looked over the magazines. “These magazines are geared towards wealthy people.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me ask you something. If the Golden Age were a hotel, would it be a five-star? Four-star?”

  “I’ve never thought of it that way,” he said. “Most of our residents don’t have a lot of money.”

  “Then you’re in the wrong venue. It’s like you’re trying to sell Hyundais to people who only drive Rolls-Royces. Do you have a pad of paper?”

  “Right here,” he said. He handed me the paper with a pen with the center’s name on it. “That’s some of the advertising we do as well,” he said. “We had these pens printed.”

  I clicked the pen open. “Tell me, why would someone stay at your place instead of your competition?”

  “We’re cheaper than most of them.”

  I wrote this down. “Anything else?”

  “Our staff is nice. We don’t have a lot of the frills like the more expensive places, but we’re careful about who we hire. We do special personality tests.”

  “You didn’t with me.”

  “I did my own version.”

  “So you’re less expensive and you have better employees. What’s your advertising budget?”

  “About a thousand dollars a month.”

  I thought about it. “Where did you get these residents you have now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I scribbled on the pad. “We need to find that out. I can make up a survey for you. Who usually makes the final decision to come here, the resident or someone else?”

  “Usually the resident’s family. Their adult children.”

  “Who, I’m guessing, want what’s best for their parents but—and they’ll never admit this—don’t want to see their inheritance gobbled up either. We’re onto something. What’s the average age your resident comes in?”

  “Late seventies.”

  “Then their children are probably in their fifties, late forties?”

  He nodded.

  I thought for a few minutes, then scribbled something on a piece of paper. When I was done, I handed the pad to Carlos. “I think we should run something like this in the local newspaper.”

  He looked at what I’d written:

  Trying to decide how to

  care for the parents who cared for you isn’t easy

  You want them treated with dignity, respect and kindness.

  Money can’t buy those things, so we don’t charge for it.

  Exceptional care, reasonably priced.

  You could spend more, but you won’t find better care.

  Golden Age.

  Let us care for those you care about.

  Carlos looked up. “Hey, that’s good.”

  “Do you have someone who could put the ad together?” I asked. “A graphic artist.”

  “I usually do it.”

  I was glad I hadn’t said anything derogatory about the ads he’d shown me. “Why don’t I take a stab at it,” I said. “Then we’ll run it in the local newspaper community section.”

  “Okay,” he said, looking excited. “We’ll run it up the ol’ flagpole and see if anyone salutes.”

  CHAPTER

  Thirty-Two

  “How many hired servants of my father’s

  have bread enough and to spare?”

  That’s what the Bible asks.

  I figured out a way to get more bread.

  Luke Crisp’s Diary

  Saturday morning Carlos and his wife, Carmen, drove me to Henderson to buy some clothes. It was a little weird leaving the facility still dressed in my scrubs, but people just thought I was a doctor and treated me with respect. Clothes don’t make the man, but they certainly make his image.

  When Carmen asked me where I wanted to go shopping for clothes, I told her the places I used to go, not thinking through the fact that, on my new income, I wouldn’t be able to afford anything at those stores. She just thought I was kidding.

  We ended up going to a nearby Target. I bought some Levi’s, khakis, loafers, a new pair of tennis shoes and a few polo shirts, spending only half of the advance that Carlos had given me.

  I was overjoyed to wear normal clothes again. I had Sunday off and, for the first time since I’d come off the streets, I went out for a walk. At the first intersection away from the center, I ran into a homeless man panhandling. I gave him a $10 bill and told him where in the tunnel he could find my sleeping bag and air cushion.

  I kept on walking. About three blocks from the care center I stopped at an In-N-Out Burger for a cheeseburger and a strawberry shake. As I was eating, I looked out the front window. Across the parking lot was a Crisp’s copy center. I noticed that there was a DAY SHIFT, HELP WANTED sign in the window.

  At that moment I knew exactly what I needed to do—the employees at Crisp’s got paid well, received health and dental insurance just a month after they started and had a chance to grow a real career. It was no accident that Crisp’s had made the Top 100 American Companies to Work For list for the last ten years. My father saw to that.

  I mused over the idea. Could it be possible to get a job at Crisp’s without anyone in corporate finding out? Of course it was. Even my father, who could name just about every one of the 2,000+ cities we had a center in, couldn’t tell you the managers’ names. Who can remember two thousand names? As an employee, I would be lost in the sea of Crisp’s employees.

  I finished my shake, then walked across the parking lot to the copy center. I pulled open the glass door and stepped inside, welcomed by the familiar smell of ink and paper and the light hum of copy machines. To me the sound of the machines had the same impact as a lullaby. I suddenly felt emotional. Walking into the center was like coming home.

  A portly young man with acne smiled at me from the counter. He looked like he was maybe eighteen or nineteen. “May I help you?”

  “I’m looking for the manager,” I said.

  “That would be Wayne. He won’t be in until the morning.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll come back.”

  I lingered a moment inside the shop before I walked back to the care center.

  The next morning I got up at seven, put on my new street clothes, ate breakfast and returned to Crisp’s. The same young man I had seen the day before greeted me. “You’re back,” he said.

  “And you’re still here. Don’t they let you go home?”

  He grinned. “I was putting in some overtime.”

  “Is your manager in?”

  “Yes. May I tell him what this is regarding?”

  “I saw your help wanted sign. I want to apply for a job.”

  “Cool. I’ll get him.”

  A moment later a man emerged from the back office. He looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties. He had thick-rimmed glasses and white hair. If he were dressed in lederhosen, he’d be a dead ringer for Gepetto. I instinctively glanced at his name tag as he walked up to me. The name tags were the same in every Crisp’s—I had helped approve the design myself f
our years earlier. WAYNE.

  “Wayne Luna,” the man said, “Like the moon. May I help you?”

  I looked him in the eye. For the first time in a long time, I felt strong. This was my element. “Hello, Wayne. My name is Luke. I’d like to talk to you about the job you have posted.” He looked me over. “Okay, come on back to my office.”

  I followed him, stepping inside the office behind him. He sat down behind his desk. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have any experience working in a copy center?”

  “Actually, I do. In fact, I know how to operate every machine in here.”

  He folded his arms across his chest, and I couldn’t tell if he was impressed or skeptical. “Really?”

  “Four years ago I managed a copy center in Phoenix.”

  “That’s where our national headquarters is. What copy center did you work for?”

  I looked at him, unsure how to answer. “Probably nothing you’ve heard of,” I said. “It was just a little mom-and-pop store.”

  “How long did you work there?”

  “About eight years. Up until I went to college. I was the manager for six years.”

  “Six years,” he said. “How old were you when you started, fourteen?”

  “Close. I was kind of a copy center prodigy.”

  He laughed. “All right, I’ll take your word for it. Do you have a résumé?”

  “No. But if you like, I could put one together on Crisp’s state-of-the-art résumé preparation software.”

  He grinned. “That’s okay. You mentioned you have some college?”

  “I have a bachelors from ASU and an M.B.A.”

  “An M.B.A.? From where?”

  I probably shouldn’t have shared this detail. “Wharton.”

  His brow fell. “Wharton? I think you’re probably overqualified for this job.”

  I nodded slowly. “You know, Wayne, I’ve never understood that phrase. Why wouldn’t you want someone to be overqualified? If I needed heart surgery, I’d look for a surgeon who was overqualified.”

  He chuckled. “Well, that’s true. But this isn’t a hospital and people who are overqualified don’t stay put very long.”

  “True,” I said. “But in my case, you don’t have to worry. I’m not looking for something else. I love this business. I always have.”

  He nodded. “Your name is Luke?”

  “Yes.”

  “Last name?”

  “Crisp. Just like your copy center.”

  “That’s peculiar. You’re from Arizona, you have the same last name as our founder and you managed a copy center for six years.” He raised an eyebrow. “You sure you’re not some relation?”

  “Would I be asking you for a job if I was?”

  He smiled. “Probably not. So where do you live now?”

  “I live just about three blocks from here, on the corner of Ann Road, just west of 95.”

  I could see him thinking. “I can’t think of any apartments over there. There’s just that chiropractic office and a convalescent home.”

  “Care center,” I instinctively corrected. “It’s near there.” I looked him in the eyes. “Look, I’ll make you a deal, Wayne. Hire me for one week. If you’re not completely satisfied, I’m gone. You don’t even have to pay me for my time.”

  He crossed his arms at his chest. “Why would you do that?”

  “At the risk of sounding insufferably cocky, it’s because I know I’m what you’re looking for. I just need the chance to prove it to you.”

  He considered my offer. “You didn’t ask how much we pay.”

  “I already know,” I said without thinking.

  “How would you know that?”

  I had to think of something fast. “… Because our copy center kept losing employees to Crisp’s. So I knew they paid better than we did.”

  “That makes sense,” he said. “Well, it’s ten an hour to start. After thirty days we do a follow-up interview. If you’re doing well, we increase it to twelve. At your six-month review it may be raised as high as fifteen. But what Crisp’s is really known for is our benefits. We have an excellent retirement plan for our vested employees, and top-shelf health and dental insurance available after your thirty-day review.”

  “What’s the ceiling at this location?”

  “The manager position—my job—which I won’t be giving up for a couple years.”

  “You have plans to leave?”

  “I’m just two years away from my retirement. Like I said, Crisp’s has a great pension plan, so I’m looking forward to it.”

  Crisp’s retirement plan was among the best in the office service industry. I used to wonder why my father wasted so much money on it, assuming it was just because he was such a nice guy. Now I realized that there was method behind his madness—he had created “golden handcuffs” to keep his best employees. My father knew what he was doing.

  “So,” Wayne continued, “I’m not going anywhere for a while, but we have an assistant manager for each shift and I’m about to lose my day shift manager.”

  “Is that a position you’re looking to fill?” I asked.

  “Actually, I am. Crisp’s policy is to promote internally, but there are exceptions. In this case, it’s a distinct possibility, since my employee with the most seniority isn’t looking like managerial material.” He looked at me for a moment, then said, “You really know how to run everything here? You’re not just pulling my leg?”

  “If I was, you’d find me out in about two minutes.”

  He still looked at me as if he wasn’t convinced. I turned around in my chair and looked outside the office. I pointed to the nearest machine. “That’s a Xerox 4110, a black and white copier with a print capacity of a hundred double-sided pages a minute. It’s a great machine and the industry workhorse. You have two of them, your second one is fitted with a finisher which, from here, looks like it has saddle-stitch capability with the new box fold. I’m guessing you’re operating under the standard Xerox maintenance contract.”

  He looked at me and grinned. “Okay. You know what you’re talking about.”

  “Do I have the job?”

  He smiled at my directness. “I don’t see any reason I wouldn’t hire you. It’s not every day you have a copy center prodigy walk through your door.”

  I grinned. “Indeed.”

  “So I’ll have you fill out an employment application and we’ll make plans. When can you start?”

  “When do you need me to start?” I asked.

  “The sooner the better.”

  “I could start tomorrow morning.”

  Wayne looked pleased. “Perfect. Let me show you around.”

  We both stood and I followed him out of his office. Wayne pointed to a young dark-skinned man at the back of the center near the binding equipment. He was tall, probably six feet three. He looked Indian. “That’s Suman,” Wayne said. He waved to him and Suman looked up. “Hey, Suman,” Wayne shouted, “come here a minute.”

  The young man checked his machine, then left it running. “What’s up, boss?”

  “This is Luke. I’ve just hired him.”

  I extended my hand. “Pleased to meet you, Su …” I struggled with the name.

  “Not Sue,” he said. “Sooo—mon. It’s Bengali. Nice to meet you.”

  “Suman’s my day shift manager,” Wayne said. “At least for now. He’s got this crazy notion that he’s going to run off and be a neurosurgeon.”

  “I’m out of here in December,” he said.

  “Where are you going to school?” I asked.

  “Johns Hopkins in Maryland.”

  “Great school,” I said.

  “Believe it or not,” Wayne said to him, “Luke here already knows something about our operation. So put him to work.”

  “Alrighty,” he said. “Come on, I’ll give you a tour of the place.”

  Giving me a tour of a Crisp’s copy center would be like guiding the pope th
rough the Vatican. I remembered sitting in my father’s conference room playing with an Etch A Sketch when the original copy center layout was designed. Without exception, every center in America followed that plan. I could have drawn the center with my eyes closed.

  We walked back to the northeast corner of the store. “Bathrooms are back there near our break room. These are our color digital printers and large format printers, where we do our color copies, oversize prints and banners.” The young man who had greeted me when I came in was standing next to one of the machines making a large banner. He looked up at us as we approached.

  “That’s Colby,” Suman said.

  I waved. “Hey.”

  “Hey back,” Colby said.

  “This is Luke,” Suman said. “Wayne just hired him.”

  “That was fast,” Colby said. “No flies on Wayne.”

  “Wayne, Suman and Colby,” I said.

  “And there’s one more on the day shift. Rachael.” Suman started walking again. “Over here is our cutting and binding area. And here are our black and white copiers. We’ll start you out with the simpler black and white copiers, then, when I think you’re ready, I’ll train you on the color copiers. Any questions so far?”

  I couldn’t resist. “One.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I noticed that you’re still using the Xerox DocuColor 250. I was just wondering why you haven’t upgraded to the 700? The 700 has almost double the copy speed of the 250 with a three-hole punch on the fly,” I said. “And it can duplex a seventy-pound stock. These 250’s are dinosaurs.”

  Suman looked surprised, or impressed, I couldn’t tell which. “We have a 700 coming in January.”

  “Good. You’re going to love it. The duplexing rocks. It can handle one-hundred-ten-pound cover stock without jamming. And the …”

  “Okay,” Suman said, cutting me off. “You do know something about this.” He stepped along. “Here are the registers. I assume you know how to operate one as well?”

  “Yes.”

  At the front register was a young, dishwater-blond woman. She was maybe in her mid-to-late twenties, not too thin and naturally pretty. She wore little makeup, not enough to conceal the rings under her eyes. I suppose she looked a little frayed around the edges.