“I would have done anything, anything to not get dragged away from her, no matter how sick and tired and pale she looked. My dad took me back in, holding my hand, and Mama reached to me from the bed, saying, ‘Come here, sugar.’
“I looked around to see if it was okay, and even though the big people all looked at each other and shook their heads, Mama kept reaching. Daddy lifted me up and held on so I wouldn’t put too much weight on her or get tangled in the cords. I didn’t care about the medicine smell or how I could see her veins through her skin. I was with my mama again and I was doing more than just giving her a quick kiss or letting her hold my hand.
“She put her arms around me and tried to pull me close, but she was so weak. Daddy was still holding me so I wouldn’t hurt her. And then she started singing. ‘You are my sunshine.’” Rachel’s throat caught and tears streamed. “‘My little sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.’” She whispered now. “‘You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.’”
Rachel couldn’t go on. She wanted to tell Elvis how her mother was never able to do that again and how even though Rachel had promised, she couldn’t help crying and screaming again when her dad finally had to pull her off her mother. She had taken those words to heart and believed with everything in her that she was her mom’s sunshine and that Mama didn’t want anyone to take her away.
Rachel stopped walking and tried wiping her face with her hands. Elvis had turned away and his shoulders heaved. “May I use your sleeve?” she said.
He turned, sobbing, and offered his arm. She bent and wiped her face on his shirt and he embraced her. He cried and cried on her shoulder, then backed away and wiped his own face.
Finally they walked on. “See?” she managed. “Truth hurts. It’s easier to just remember that when my mom died she was finally not sick anymore, she was with Jesus. It was what I’d been taught and needed to believe so bad. That was sure easier than what I just told you, which I haven’t even talked about to my dad since the day it happened. I don’t know if he even remembers it.”
They reached Rachel’s house and sat on the front steps. “Let me tell you something,” Elvis said. “I’ll bet you anything he remembers everything about it and that it hurts him just as much as it hurts you.”
They sat inches apart for several minutes and finally Rachel leaned over until her shoulder touched his.
34
I never really sleep till Rachel’s home. I heard her and Elvis on the front porch till late that night. I couldn’t make out their words, but she did most of the talking. That girl can talk to anybody. Wish I was as good at it. Wish I had her faith too. Rachel really believes God answers prayer. I do too, course, but not like her. Even keeps a prayer list. I’m on it. So’s Elvis and the school and the town, even American Leather. I don’t know how she keeps it all straight and I worry when she doesn’t get the answers she wants. She just keeps it up anyway.
I dozed off and on for a couple of hours and thought about going out there and telling them to call it a night, but finally Rachel came in and Elvis left.
It didn’t take me long to conk out. Next thing I knew the alarm was going and it didn’t seem I’d moved a muscle all night. Man, I needed that. Ginny had things under control at the office, and as usual I arrived to dozens of notes asking about Bev.
“Mr. Charles for you,” Ginny said over the intercom.
Chucky Charles. I grabbed the folder labeled “Dixie States Association of High Schools,” not that there was a thing in it I didn’t know by heart. Chucky was their commissioner, a big man with huge hands who liked smacking his friends on the back. I’d received my share of good-natured whacks over the years. I picked up and asked him how were things in Little Rock. Unlike usual, he wasn’t small talking.
“Calvin, am I a straight shooter?”
“Nothing but, Chucky. Fire away.”
“I ought to do this face to face, but I can’t get down there and can’t expect you to get up here before you might hear it from somebody else. I can’t have that.”
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” Chucky said, and he swore. “We’re going a different direction starting next fall.”
I couldn’t speak. This was it. This was the company. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die. Well, I saw hundreds of faces of people I’d worked with.
“I know we’re a big part of your business, Cal.”
He didn’t know the half of it, and I sure wasn’t gonna tell him now. “Worldwide, Inc.?” I guessed finally. They were hurting everybody.
“Yeah. And you gotta admit I told you we were being courted.”
“Too late to counter? We can’t sharpen the pencil, look at some ways to—?”
“You can’t compete with em, Cal. I wouldn’t ask you to. They gotta be losing money on us the first two years. And even when their standard pricing kicks in during the third year, it’s so much lower—”
“They manufacture in—”
“Korea, yeah. I went over there, Cal, because we don’t make changes like this lightly. I had to be convinced they could match your quality. I wouldn’t have switched otherwise. It’s a bottom line thing, bud. I got people to answer to.”
The longer I sat there the harder it hit me. We hadn’t taken Dixie for granted. They were the core of our business. He was shutting us down and didn’t even know it. “I appreciate you being straight with me,” I said.
“Never had complaint one with you guys, Cal. You know that. You fixed problems on the spot. And I’ll never forget you driving those balls up personally during the shipping strike.”
“So, nothing we should learn from this?”
“Well, yeah. You know you got to go overseas, pal. Handwriting’s on the wall.”
“I know. Thanks for telling me yourself.”
“Only wish I could’ve come there. But I just came outa the board meeting, and you know this is gonna get out quick.”
“You have to announce it?”
“Better than just letting it get around, hey?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Wish you could give me some time so I could tell my people myself.”
“They know about individual accounts and care that much?”
“They know about yours, Chucky. Everybody here was proud to be your supplier.”
“You’d better do it today then.”
“Gonna miss you.”
“Well, Cal, thanks. Anything goes sour with Worldwide, we’ll come crawling back in three years.”
To what?
Ginny didn’t know me well enough to tell I’d just got the factory’s death blow. She brought some mail while I was staring at the ceiling, trying to imagine breaking the news to the company. “Find me the number for Mr. Seals in Malaysia, would you?” I said. “International Athletic something or other. And before I call him could you get Marion Grant on the phone for me?”
I ran a hand through my hair, waiting to talk to my chief financial officer. I wouldn’t just roll over, but I’d been through this before, trying to keep the place breathing as business went overseas. It didn’t take a genius to know we were out of options. The intercom crackled. “Mrs. Grant is in a meeting, sir.”
“Tell her it’s an emergency.”
“Tell me it’s not Bev, Calvin,” Marion said a minute later.
“She’s better today.”
“Thank God. What’s up? Ginny said it was an emergency.”
“As in Dixie High Schools.”
“Oh, Cal. No.”
“I wouldn’t kid ya.”
Her sigh made me feel better, but not much. “You know we’re remarkably profitable, Cal, but we haven’t got enough to carry us a quarter if we can’t replace that business. And where do we find—”
“We don’t. Can you imagine how many new accounts it would take to—”
“No,” she said. “You’re right. Dare I suggest the O word?”
“No choice but ov
erseas anymore, Marion. I know this won’t be scientific, but can you tell me what the numbers say if we outsourced the rest of the business at half the production cost?”
I heard her tapping her keyboard. “We could make that work,” she said, “but we’ve always known that. Our reserves would be eaten up with severance packages.”
“I know.”
“You considering that?”
“If I have to let everybody go anyway? Might as well make some money on the accounts we have. I wouldn’t lay people off because I was going overseas, but if I laid em off cause business was down, somebody’s gonna get our accounts anyway.”
“We’re going to have a public relations nightmare.”
“Not if I give the profits back to the workers.”
“Cal, don’t be rash. Everybody knows you’re fair, but you mustn’t feel obligated to—”
“Sure, I do! I’m not saying I’ll give it all away. But, Marion, these people have, have—” I couldn’t go on. The emotion of years of fighting washed over me. “They’ve hung with me.”
“Of course,” she said. “Let me do some more crunching here.”
When I hung up Ginny knocked and poked her head in. “Excuse me, but could I ask what the emergency is? It’s not Miss Raschke, is it?”
I shook my head. “Just business. I’d appreciate your confidence in this.”
“You mean not tell people something’s going on?”
“That’s what I mean.”
• • •
I wasn’t gonna sit there doing nothing. I can stand being a victim for only so long. My mind was reeling with what I was supposed to do about everybody who ought to know. I had to tell Bev; I sure didn’t want her hearing it somewhere else. And what about Rachel? She’d been praying for American Leather.
Maybe if I cashed in on the deal I could donate money to the county to keep the high school open another year. That would get Rachel through. I was mad at the people who had signed her petitions. She didn’t know it was mostly parents of the kicked-off football players making sure no one got the money. Anyway, if you could believe the newspaper, the fund wouldn’t begin to fill the hole the school was in. I had to face it. Business was going belly up, school was closing, town was dying. Only thing we had left was a ragtag football team starting to show promise, but I was probably kidding myself about that too. Had we beat anybody good yet? Could we win the conference and get into the play-offs without getting our helmets ripped off?
I called Mr. Seals in Asia and woke him up, but he came alive quick. “Have you thought about a trip over here with an associate, Mr. Sawyer? Can I pencil you in for—”
“Let me cut to it,” I said. “I need some numbers. I’m gonna fax you info and you’re gonna keep it confidential or every contact I got in the business will know you’re not trustworthy.”
“You can count on me, sir,” he said, sounding hurt.
“I assume I can,” I said. “I’m just trying to impress on you how important this is.”
“I got it.”
“I wanna know, if I start having my cowhide supplier send you the raw goods, dye, tackiness, and texture built in and ready for cutting, what the bottom line is.”
I could tell he was scribbling and I could hear him breathing. “Um-hm,” he said. “Okay. Yes?”
“I’d have to lay off my staff, cept for sales, and finance severance packages, unload my equipment, which—as you know—is probably worth something only to one other company in North America. Then I’d have to sell my building and property, which is fast declining in value cause the loss of this business is gonna kick the last crutch out from underneath a crippled town.”
“Yes …”
“But I basically become the middleman, my sales guys brokering the pretreated raw goods, you assembling em to our specs and quality satisfaction …”
“Absolutely.”
“Then you ship to our accounts and handle all the billing and collection.”
“Got it.”
“What I need to know is my profit per unit.”
“You understand it will vary with quantity.”
“Of course. I’d need those breakdowns.”
“And we’re doing everything?”
“Even customer service and account management,” I said.
“Turnkey. Which carries a cost.”
“I understand. How long would it take to get a figure from ya?”
“I’d say twenty-four hours from when I have your numbers in hand, Mr. Sawyer.”
“Fine, but I want a notarized document verifying that it’s not a quote, not a guesstimate, not a first offer. We’re not negotiating. If I don’t like the number, I’m not gonna come back and ask for a higher one.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Course ya do. You give me your best deal right out of the box or I take my business elsewhere.”
“You don’t want to haggle?”
“No, sir.”
“Never heard the adage, ‘The first offer ought to embarrass both parties’?”
“Heard it. Like it. Probably started it. But that’s not how I wanna play this one. You know well as I do that you got neighbors right there in the Pacific that’d be happy to take a run at your offer. I’m not giving business away.”
“I respect that,” he said, “but I have a caveat too.”
“A what?”
“Call it clarification. I need you to tell me on good faith that you’re not just fishing. Our best people will come up with an offer I believe you’ll find most acceptable, but I would like to know—since you’ve been forthright with me—that this represents serious interest on your part. You’re not just satisfying your curiosity.”
“I’m not making any promises, if that’s what you mean.”
“Yet you want an iron-clad offer.”
“That’s right.”
“Just so we understand each other,” he said.
“Well, if you want to understand me, Mr. Seals, I still hate the idea of an American like yourself taking all this business into a depressed economy and taking advantage of people who will work for next to nothing. If I didn’t feel like I was beating my head against a wall and accomplishing nothing but having bricks fall on me, I wouldn’t even consider this.”
“I wish I could convince you that we are a legitimate business that benefits Americans by keeping costs down—”
“But you know you’d probably just start to rile me, so—”
“Exactly.”
• • •
Marion Grant is a warm but no-nonsense lady, and she looked surprised to see me buzzing around energetic-like after hearing death in my voice on the phone. “I’m not laying anybody off,” I said.
“Calvin, slow down,” she said, printouts in her hand. “Emotion has no place here.”
“That’s the trouble,” I said. “Perhaps, but we’d be remiss if we did anything rash.”
“I just did,” I said, and I told her about the fax to Mr. Seals.
“That doesn’t sound rash at all,” she said. “And if we get an acceptable offer, we can couch the announcement in favorable terms. While the plant is closing, business will continue and the profits will, in part, serve to benefit our former workers.”
“I’m gonna do it by length of service.”
“Tenure, of course.”
“Some people will make as much as if they were still working.”
“Calvin, that’s not sound.”
“I’ll sleep on it.”
“At least.”
“But I won’t change my mind,” I said. “You know me.”
She snorted. “Who but you would have hung in this long?”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Same way I praise my grandson for his energy.”
35
I wasn’t in the habit of taking calls from Kim. I worried she was calling about Bev, but she started by asking how I was doing. This was the worst time for a chat.
; “You don’t wanna know,” I said.
There was a pause. “You’re right, Calvin. I don’t, as long as Bev still has a job when she’s better.” If she only knew. “Just wanted you to know,” she said, “we have one motivated patient today. This girl wants to get well and get back to work.”
“Well, that’s good, but it’ll be a while, won’t it? What’s the latest from the doctor? ”
Kim ignored the question. “What have you been doing to make her so perky?” she said. That stunned me. Bev hadn’t told her about us.
“Couldn’t tell ya,” I said. “Just trying to be a supportive boss, you know.”
“Liar.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Okay.”
“And you might not want to tell her this, Kim, but Ginny has really been working out well here. Bev should take her time and not worry about a thing, and if Ginny proves irreplaceable, well, I’m sure we can find something for Miss Raschke.”
“Go soak your head, Calvin.”
“Anything else?”
“Not till I get some details about you two.”
“What’s Bev say?”
“Not enough.”
“Well, you’re not gonna get a thing outa me.”
“Cal!”
“You didn’t call just for that.”
“Actually I did. No details?”
“Thanks for calling, Kim.”
“Give me something.”
“Bye.”
• • •
I was dead in the water till I heard back from Seals, and I figured the longer I hung around the office the more likely someone would see from my look that something was up. I wouldn’t deny we’d lost our biggest account, but it was way too soon to be playing taps for American Leather. We had to finish supplying the football season, even for Dixie High Schools, and I could truthfully say I was working to do right by my people—even if I couldn’t tell em what that meant yet.
I left for my meeting at school with Coach and Elvis, telling Ginny where to call me in case we got a fax from Malaysia. It went totally against my grain, but I dug my cell phone out of the charger—where it’d been for at least three months. Most folks in Athens City still avoided em like sushi. If I had to carry one, it sure wasn’t gonna be where anybody could see it. And I set it to vibrate instead of ring. Let people think I was running to the head if that thing started humming. Your reputation could be ruined by one custom ring in public, especially if it was some melody from a New York musical.
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