by Anne Beiler
I was on the verge of panic. But Jonas just looked at me with a confused look on his face, remained completely calm, and told me exactly what I needed to hear.
“Honey, it’s not tomorrow morning yet.”
But Jonas’s words, as wise as they were, didn’t comfort me. I thought to myself that maybe I had missed the green light, and I began going back over all of the events leading up to that day. Did God speak to me in circumstances I didn’t fully understand? Could the green light have been the fact that we got so far, that we actually found someone willing to give us the money in spite of my refusal to budge on giving? Not good enough, I thought to myself. He had told me it would be a clear yes or no. I fell asleep.
The next morning my stomach felt jittery as I prepared to go into the office. Finally they arrived, five or six men in very expensive suits looking out of place in our rather simple office building tucked away in the hills. The brokers were there with the gentlemen from the venture capital firm in New York, three or four of whom I’d never met before. I was the only woman. Eventually we made our way into the boardroom and talked the polite talk of businesspeople.
All the time I kept thinking, Why am I doing this? I don’t have a green light. I cannot sign those papers without a green light. But I was also thinking about how these businessmen had come all the way from New York. How could I disappoint them by not signing the papers? I just went through the motions, feeling completely dazed.
One of the new guys spoke up. It was time to get down to business.
“Well, it’s really nice to meet you, Anne, and obviously you’ve built a very successful business. We are tremendously excited about the opportunity of getting involved with your company.
“First we would like to clarify our position on going public: if you do not feel prepared to take the company public within the first few years of receiving our investment, we are not sure this is a deal that we would be interested in finalizing.”
My stomach dropped. I didn’t know how I felt about going public, and didn’t know enough about the process to have a firm opinion either way, but I knew I didn’t like how it sounded. But that wasn’t the end of it.
“Before we go on any further,” he continued, “I must admit there is one question that has been nagging me for quite some time, something I have to ask you.”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said, my stomach feeling rather sick.
He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, looked me square in the eyes, and asked me the question.
“I am just puzzled. Why do you think you have to give away such astronomical amounts of money?”
The blood drained from my face, and I could feel the room beginning to spin, but I returned his gaze.
“I am very disappointed that you would bring that up at this point in our negotiations,” I said, “because I felt I was very clear with your people up front that, although you don’t understand this, and I don’t expect you to understand it, we are a company created to give. I know you have made provisions for that in the agreement, but I am very disappointed that you have to ask that question, at this time, because I thought that was answered at the very beginning of our negotiations.”
“Oh no,” he said quickly, “we applaud that; we respect that. I just needed to ask you the question. I was just curious on a more personal level.”
The meeting continued, but I didn’t think I could go on. I began feeling like I was about to have a panic attack, feeling as though I had to get out of that room at any cost. I was feeling hot and finding it difficult to breathe. About fifteen minutes after he asked the question, I excused myself and made my way to the bathroom. At that point I wasn’t even thinking about the red or green light; I simply thought about the fact that if I didn’t get out of that room, I was going to make a fool of myself.
As I walked out of the room, one of the brokers, Tom, followed me—he had been such a huge encouragement throughout the entire capitalization process. He, along with his firm, stood to make thousands of dollars if everything went through, just for bringing the deal together.
“Anne,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder, “you are not comfortable with this, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” I said, feeling embarrassed. “Do you think anyone else noticed?”
“No, but I feel I know you pretty well, and I can tell you weren’t happy with his comments on going public and your decision to give so much.”
“Tom, I can’t do this.”
“Well,” he said confidently, “then we won’t.”
“You mean we can just say the deal is off?”
“We’ll go through the rest of the process here today. Then Jim and I will meet with you and Jonas tomorrow morning at a restaurant for coffee. Does that sound okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and eventually I went back into the meeting room for the rest of the three- or four-hour meeting. I felt much better since Tom had assured me I didn’t have to sign on the dotted line that day.
Finally, at the end of the meeting, Tom thanked everyone for coming and said to the gentlemen, “Just give us a couple more days to talk things over, and we’ll be in touch.”
After the meeting, I felt embarrassed that they had come all the way from New York when I didn’t even think we were going to do the deal. I also felt bad for Carl and the team and dreaded telling them my decision, or what I thought my decision was going to be. The management team would have benefitted financially if the deal went through. I couldn’t take the pressure, so I just left and went home.
The next morning Jonas and I met with the brokers of our venture capitalist deal, Tom and Jim. It was early, and the sound of stirring spoons against the insides of coffee cups seemed the loudest sound. Tom eventually broached the subject, jumping right into the topic I wanted to talk about.
“Jonas and Anne, Jim and I have talked at length about your situation, this deal that’s lined up.”
Then he said something that made my eyes open wide as saucers.
“. . . And we don’t think you should do it.”
A weight lifted off of me in an instant, and I simply can’t explain it. That was the signal I had been waiting for, and it was most definitely red. What kind of signal could it be, when two men who stood to gain so much if the deal went through just sat there and told me they didn’t think I should do it? Energy pulsed through my body—I could have run a marathon, I felt so revitalized.
“God told me he would give me a clear signal,” I told those two brokers with tears in my eyes. “Thank you for your willingness to give me the answer.”
“This is not normal for us to do,” Tom said. “We’re not in the business of passing up on deals. But I know you well enough to know you are not comfortable, that you’re unsure about giving up ownership in your company, and I want to support you.”
We sat and talked for a while, and I felt like a new person. But as we stood up to go, the reality of the situation confronted me, and I turned to Tom again.
“Tom, what am I going to tell the management team?”
“They’re not going to be happy,” he said in a serious voice. “They’ve put a lot of time and effort into this project. They won’t like your decision.”
For a while I just sat at my desk, trying to gather the courage I needed to make my announcement. Then I went into Carl’s office and told him.
“I decided not to do the deal with the VCs. Please let the management team know,” I said.
That was it. I stood there for a few moments before walking out. That was all I said—if I said any more, I knew I would cry.
There are many difficult things about working with family, and of all the family members I worked with, I was probably the most difficult! Fortunately, through all of the trials and arguments and disagreements, all eight of us still remain great friends to this day and spend a lot of time together.
I will write more about working with family in a later chapter, but at that time in 1995, things became more difficult for me p
ersonally. It was time for some of my darkest secrets to be revealed.
CHAPTER TEN
No More Secrets
When the secret is told, the stronghold is broken.
—DR. RICHARD DOBBINS
That day in 2003 seemed nearly perfect. I felt myself bustling around, caught up in the pre-vacation mode of cleaning, organizing, and packing, before my husband Jonas and I left later that day on a weekend business retreat for our company. My mother calls it butzing, staying busy at an almost frenzied pace. I love butzing.
At some point the whirlwind that was me entered my study, slicing open envelopes, reading e-mails, making last-minute phone calls. During the summer of 2003, I found myself with some major decisions coming up, not the least of which involved selling the company, Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzels. With our 700th domestic location just around the corner, and 119 locations in twelve foreign countries, the business barely resembled the small farmers’ market stand Jonas and I started in 1988. I also hoped to finish my first shot at a book, just something simple geared toward children, with beautiful illustrations and warm images from my childhood. Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzels served as my life for the fifteen years leading up to 2003, but things seemed to be shifting. A restlessness crept into my spirit—I felt the time to move on coming just around the corner.
Even more important, though, for the first time in my life I felt completely whole. The depression I experienced off and on throughout my life began dissolving, my family recovered from many hard knocks, and I no longer depended on the affirmation of others to build up my self-esteem. I could handle conflict without breaking down. Life felt good.
Then the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Anne?” It was my personal assistant. “I’ve got an e-mail I need to show you, and you’re not going to like this.”
She told me who sent the e-mail, and immediately I knew the content. I asked her to please bring the e-mail to the house—I didn’t trust the privacy of the Internet enough for her to forward it to me. We didn’t speak long, and she made the drive from our corporate office to my house in less than ten minutes.
I watched for her car from my office window, wanting to catch her before she rang the bell or knocked on the door—I didn’t want Jonas to know she was there. He might, just in passing, ask why she stopped by the house. I would tell him, of course, but not until I could think it through, prepare myself. I paced back and forth, my stomach knotted, and when she turned into our lane, I walked outside to meet her. She handed the sheet of paper to me.
“We received this e-mail.” She knew the potential harm it could do to the business, to my reputation. “It was directed to the Web site. We’ll try to contain it. No one else has seen it.”
I retreated to my office, up the stairs, past the photos of our daughters, our grandchildren, the family picture of me with my five brothers and two sisters. Going up those steps felt like climbing a mountain. Finally in my office, I read the e-mail through tears of frustration: “Everyone thinks Auntie Anne is so perfect . . . well I know something about Anne that you don’t know . . . When everyone thought she was away . . . traveling around the world . . . affair . . .”
I cried, trying to figure out how I would ever tell Jonas about the secret I’d kept for eight years. Our marriage had survived the loss of his brother in a motorcycle accident, the loss of our daughter, the abuse of power and position by our pastor, the growth of a business: would this cost me everything? At that point I realized I could not let myself be surprised if Jonas left me. I had to prepare for the worst.
My mind couldn’t help but drift back. Just the thought of those years, from the end of 1994 up through 1996, made me shudder. That was when LaWonna told us about what happened to her as a child. I entered into major depression. Nearly lost the company. Nearly walked away from everything.
I closed my eyes. And while the anger and helplessness and sadness did not by any means vanish, I could feel something like relief welling up to fill in empty spaces. Finally this secret could no longer keep me prisoner. The truth would come out.
On a cold day in February 1995, the twenty-second to be exact, my daughter LaWonna and I drove to see my therapist. None of my family ever went along to my counseling sessions, but on that particular morning LaWonna asked me if she could accompany me and tell me something at the session.
“You can tell me now, if you want.”
“That’s okay, Mom. I’d rather wait until we’re there.”
Hmmm,I thought. Okay. Well, I always asked my daughters if they wanted to join me for counseling, so perhaps this answered my prayers. I always thought open communication and talking about our problems would help. We put on our coats and left the house.
My curiosity got the better of me, so in the car I asked her again.
“So, LaWonna, what’s this about?”
“Oh, I’ll tell you about that when we get there.”
“I know. I just thought maybe . . .”
LaWonna interrupted.
“No,” she said, smiling but firm, “I’ll tell you about it when we get there.” When she said those words, she reminded me so much of when she was just a little girl, keeping secrets.
We arrived at the rustic house that included the office. On the way inside, I couldn’t stop wondering what LaWonna would tell me. Did she have an abortion when she was younger? Please, no. I thought that would devastate me. Then I thought, No, she’s going to tell me something about drugs. Nothing I came up with in my mind could have prepared me.
We got into the office, and LaWonna and I sat across the desk from my therapist. She is a kind counselor with brown hair and brown eyes. For a few moments small talk and polite smiles made their way around the room. Then she turned to LaWonna.
“Well, LaWonna, I know that when you called me, you said there was something you’d like to tell your mother. Are you ready to tell her?”
“Yes.”
My twenty-three year-old LaWonna looked me right in the eye. While so much about her had changed in the previous twenty-three years, she still looked at me through those beautiful brown eyes.
“Mom, he did it to me too.” Her lip quivered.
Silence. Maybe I knew exactly what she meant the instant she said it, but my mind wouldn’t allow the information to process immediately. Maybe total disgust blocked my mind from traveling that road myself.
“What?”
Silence, only a second, and then it registered.
I cursed, perhaps the first obscenity I ever spoke in front of anyone. From deep down inside of me, I felt evil erupting like a volcano, and I felt victimized once again. All of my old wounds ripped open.
“LaWonna!” I yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” As soon as the words entered the room, I knew they were all wrong. They hung in the air like a foul odor. I didn’t want to accuse her. I wanted to keep her safe. I wanted to go back in time and protect her, be a better mother, the kind of mother who kept closer watch over her children and didn’t let those things happen. But I couldn’t do that. I felt utterly helpless, defeated. I felt as if I were being haunted with my past, and it felt worse than my own abuse.
Something clicked in my brain. When Angie died, we mourned her death with friends and family, the people from our church showing tremendous support. But my daughter LaWonna died, too, years ago, and no one knew. Her spirit killed by the perpetrator—no one brought flowers, no one mourned.
That day came and went, one of the worst days of my life.
During the coming months, nights would slow to a standstill. I spent a lot of time wandering the house in search of peace long after everyone else fell asleep. Even when sleep finally came, it rarely took me from those troubles, only down into the frightening depths of nightmares I couldn’t figure out.
In my dream LaWonna was six months old and I felt myself being forced to bury her alive. She wasn’t dead, but someone or something forced me to put her in a casket and bury her! “I can’t do thi
s, I can’t do this,” I sobbed. Then suddenly, in a flash, she grew older, nine or ten years old, and again I felt forced to bury her. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this.”
I woke up sweating, crying.
As 1995 progressed, I began to withdraw from my family, my friends. The business provided the perfect cover, giving me ample opportunities to travel unaccompanied, away from my house, which was saturated with chaos and conflict. I just wanted alone time, lots of it. Plus, the business made me look like a success—by the summer of 1995, we approached our 300th location and prepared for international expansion. I enjoyed the accolades I received while circulating in the business world and by choice became more and more immersed in it, drawn farther away from a home life filled with pain.
Then the deal became final: we would open our first international store in Indonesia! We never planned to expand overseas, but an Indonesian businessman persisted. Pretzels would work, he said. The product tastes too good not to work. After years and years of our turning him down because we never felt ready, he finally convinced us to give him the green light. Excitement filled the air at our corporate office. International expansion served as yet another confirmation of our success, my success, and it opened up so much potential for growth in the future. I began preparations to leave for the Far East in order to arrive in time for the grand opening of Auntie Anne’s international store number one. Privately, the thought of being alone for two weeks, literally as far away from Lancaster as I could get, filled me with a huge sense of relief.
There was something fateful about our first international location sprouting up in Indonesia. An Indonesian missionary to the United States had led me to a more Spirit-filled life way back in 1974. And now, over twenty years later, I returned to her country with pretiolas, little gifts. I smiled to myself.