The Fourteen Day Soul Detox, Volume Two

by Rita Stradling

  After starting a shower for Sarah and encouraging her into it, I unzipped the new garment bag. Seeing that this one was a pantsuit, I sighed and shook my head. Carefully, I took the snot-covered suit off and hung it back up before putting the clean charcoal gray pantsuit on. After a few minutes, Sarah started singing in the shower.

  I examined the high-heeled stilettos that were sitting next to where the garment bag had been. Then I looked over my shoulder to where my flats sat next to the guest bed.

  “Definitely flats,” I said to myself, and walked over to slip them on.

  When I heard the shower turn off, I called over my shoulder, “Sarah, there’s a towel hanging beside you and pile of clothes on the toilet for you to put on.”

  After a minute of silence, I said, “Your toothbrush and toothpaste are by the sink.” I sat on the bed.

  Susan stuck her head in the room. “Hey Jamie, what do you two want for breakfast?”

  “I’m going to wait for Sarah to get out so she doesn’t get upset again,” I told her.

  “No problem. I’ll just cook you up some food while you’re waiting.”

  “Thanks, Susan. I can really eat anything. Sarah usually wants something light, like yogurt and fruit, but she can eat other stuff too if you don’t have that.”

  “We have yogurt, I’ll just set some up for both of you, that work?” she asked.

  “That’s perfect, thank you so much,” I said.

  Sarah came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, fully dressed and smiling.

  “Are you feeling better, angel?”

  “Yes!” she said, jumping around the room and making loud noises.

  “Okay, great. Let’s go eat some yogurt, and then aunt Beza is going to drive you to school,” I said.

  “No bus?” Sarah asked.

  “No bus today.”

  She made a loud, excited sound.

  “First, drive with Aunt Beza, and then?” she asked.

  “And then school,” I said.

  “No school,” she said.

  “It’s Tuesday, you have school on Tuesday,” I said.

  “No school!” she shouted, then she ran out of the room, down the hall and when she got into the dining room where everyone was sitting, she pulled over a chair so that it fell backward.

  “Sarah! Stop!” I said, as I ran up behind her, grabbing her arm.

  Everyone at the table looked over.

  Sarah screeched loudly and tried to kick over another chair.

  “Sarah, stop doing that!” I yelled. “Stop it!”

  I righted the chair while holding her with one arm.

  “Sit down!” I yelled at her.

  Sarah smacked me right in the nose.

  A white hot surge of pain shot up my nose. I closed my eyes, concentrating on my breathing.

  “Hey, I got this. Sarah, come over here and eat please,” Susan said sternly. “Sarah, now.”

  I let go of Sarah and let Susan lead her to a seat with a bowl of yogurt with chopped fruit in it.

  “I’m sorry about the chairs,” I said.

  “Jamie, it’s fine, come eat,” Susan said, pointing to the chair next to Sarah.

  “I think I need to take a walk around the block or something,” I said.

  “No problem, take your food, it will make you feel better,” Susan said.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, grabbing my food from the table. Exiting into the morning air, I ate as I walked down the sidewalk under the archway of branches. The fog sat just above the trees, giving the world a low, gray ceiling.

  I dug my spoon into the yogurt, scooping up a couple slices of strawberry. The sweet, milky, fruity taste burst in my mouth as I chewed, contrasting starkly with the dark, gray morning.

  A middle-aged man walked out of one of the houses to stow his briefcase into the backseat of a luxury sedan.

  “Morning,” he said, waving.

  “Hello,” I said, trying to disguise the fact my mouth was full, and raising my spoon in a wave.

  Crossing the street, I walked back the way I came. A block and a half away from Susan’s house, I passed a realtor’s ‘For Sale’ sign. I peered over my shoulder up the driveway to the small, cottage style house. What looked like brown shingles covered the entire exterior all the way up to its slope roof. A tall shuttered window looked out on the street.

  I committed the house number and realty company to memory, then crossed the street. When I approached the house, Susan, Beza and the kids were just stepping out the front door.

  “We’re going to keep this open for you. Mind locking up with your key when you leave?” Susan asked as she held the front door open.

  “Yeah, I definitely will but I’m thinking that maybe I should cancel my meeting and keep Sarah with me,” I said.

  “Of course, if you like. And, the house is yours. But, you know, Sarah did fine over breakfast,” Beza said.

  “Yeah, she calmed right down and ate every bite,” Susan added.

  “Oh.” I sighed. “Maybe she was just feeling my stress. If that’s the case, it actually might be better if she doesn’t spend the day with me.”

  “There’s a pretty easy solution to your stress,” Susan said while unlocking her car.

  “Yeah?”

  “Eliminate your stressors. Go sell your shop,” she said.

  “Maybe. I’ll go grab Sarah’s booster,” I said.

  “No need. Beza bought one for Sarah,” Susan said.

  “I realized I didn’t have one for her when I went to pick her up from School yesterday,” she said.

  “Wow, thank you. I’ll pay you back for it,” I said.

  “You don’t need to pay me back… or maybe pay me back by getting one for Aiden in your car? We’ve been silly just switching back and forth for all these years,” she said.

  “Alright, I will definitely do that,” I said.

  Beza and Susan loaded up the kids in the car and I walked over to Sarah’s side.

  “Have a good day at school, angel,” I said, kissing her at the top of her head.

  “I love you so much, Mom,” she said, patting my cheek softly.

  “I love you too,” I said, sniffing back a sudden wave of emotion. “So, so much.”

  Walking back into the house, I washed my plate and grabbed my purse. My phone read five minutes to eight o’clock when I extracted it from my purse.

  “Crap,” I said, stowing my phone and heading for the front door. After locking the house and climbing in my car, I used my Maps app to speak out directions at me.

  “Head West on North State Street,” the vaguely female mechanical voice said.

  “Alright, which way is west?” I asked her as I started driving.

  “At the next intersection, do a u-turn to head West on State street,” the voice said.

  “Okay, that way is west,” I said, glancing into my rearview mirror.

  After doing a three-point turn, I followed the directions the disembodied voice gave me. The voice led me to the freeway and told me to go North.

  The sun had already burnt through large patches of the fog layer by the time the freeway pulled up along the ocean.

  “Take the next exit onto Sea Breeze Way,” the voice told me.

  “Okay,” I said as I merged into the right lane. I exited the freeway, turning left and going through the underpass. The road drove along a large freshly mowed park. Ducks settled on large ponds, avoiding the many fountains in their midst. Framing and webbing through the park were paved footpaths, interspersed with unoccupied benches.

  Several large matching buildings approached on my left, their walls made of glass, each curving in an out in an ‘s’ shape. As I drove past the building and the reflected light followed me, the buildings looked almost as if they were rolling waves.

  “In three hundred feet, your destination will be on you left,” the voice told me.

  I turned into the parking lot, driving around until I saw a man standing next to a Mercedes Benz with a brief case.r />
  I parked several spaces down and rushed to get out of my car.

  “I’m sorry, am I late?” I asked him.

  He looked down at his wrist watch. “No, you’re just on time.” He walked over, stretching out his hand to me. “Nice to meet you. I’m Mark Hamm.”

  “Jamie Scott,” I said.

  “Let’s walk and talk, Jamie,” he said, gesturing an arm out toward the large wavy glass building ahead of us. He wore nice suit that fit well on his trim body and complimented his handsome square-jawed face.

  “I thought your car was going to be black,” I said with a smile as we passed his Benz. “You know, because it’s a black series.”

  “They had black, but I prefer the gun metal shade,” he said with no trace of a smile on his face. “I’ve looked over your files and though I believe you will be able to sell and satisfy your judgment lien with little trouble, I don’t think you should verbally agree to sell or sign anything until you’ve spoken to the Timepiece Company.”

  “Do you think there’s a possibility they’ll refuse to settle early?” I asked.

  “I just don’t want you to get in a legal bind. They have the right to not let you sell the property before you settle,” he said. “My paralegal called Timepiece to see if their accounting team had any availability this morning, they said they could accommodate us. I, of course didn’t give them any personal information about you. If it’s before nine-thirty I can accompany you there. Would you like to go talk to them?”

  “If that’s okay with you. It would be amazing,” I said.

  “Ideally we could get an update offer that addressed the lien and bring it to them,” I said.

  “Thank you so much for doing this Mr. Hamm, this is such a kind thing you are doing for me and I sincerely appreciate it,” I said.

  He nodded brusquely, then opened the glass entrance to the office building for me.

  We entered into an entrance hall lit with natural light from a windows roof five stories above. Walkways crisscrossed the open gallery, each at an angle and echoing the wave design of the building.

  A small café opened out to one side. On the other side of the building, elevators lined up in a perfectly spaced row.

  “Good morning,” a petite woman security guard said from behind a wave shaped reception desk. “Are you visitors?”

  “We have a meeting with Nicole Murphy,” I said.

  She typed something into her computer. “Jamie Scott at eight-fifteen?”

  “Yes, and this is Mark Hamm, a property lawyer,” I said.

  “Alright, please step in front of this camera,” she said, pointing to a camera mounted on her desk. We took turns getting our photo taken, then waited for her to print our name tags.

  I looked down to the black and white photo of me grinning next to my printed name. Leaning in just a little, I looked at Mark’s name tag before he stepped away. He wasn’t smiling in his picture.

  “You can go on up to the third floor,” the security woman said, turning back to her computer.

  We walked to the side of the building and pressed the button for the elevator. “So did Cameron work on your car?” I asked.

  “He customized the stereo system,” he said.

  “Neat. I didn’t even realize that Cameron did that,” I said as we entered the elevator.

  “He’s good,” he said.

  “How long have you been a property lawyer?” I asked.

  “Twelve years,” he said.

  “Wow, you must have started young,” I said.

  “When I was twenty-five,” he said.

  “So, are you really into cars?” I asked after a moment of silence.

  “Moderately,” he said.

  The doors dinged open onto another open reception area. Large freestanding banners hung down in front of the wall on each side, each depicting coffee related images. A woman sat at the reception desk, grinning at us as we made our approach. Frosted glass doors stood behind her on both sides, each with the Harrington’s logo.

  A blonde woman opened one of the glass door and held it open for us. “I have this, Miranda,” she said to the receptionist. “Are you Jamie Scott?”

  “I am,” I said.

  She grinned at me, and crow’s feet lined both sides of her beautiful face. “I’m Nicole, come on in.”

  “This is Mark Hamm, the property lawyer I mentioned on the phone,” I told Nicole.

  Nicole gave Mark a wide grin. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Hamm.”

  We walked down a line of office buildings, many with assistants in desks before them or in small offices leading to bigger offices.

  I peeked through open doorways as we passed, mostly seeing people on phones or computers.

  “So this is the offices for Harrington’s?” I asked.

  Nicole glanced around. “Some of them, this whole building is the Harrington’s headquarters.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said.

  “Well, we do have eighty locations across the state and four coffee roasting warehouses,” she said, grinning back.

  “You look incredibly familiar, have you been into The Coffee Stop before?” I asked.

  “I’ve checked it out.” She opened the doors to a wide, open meeting room. “Right through here,” she said, gesturing us to a long black table. “Let’s just all gather to one side here.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking a seat at the end.

  Nicole took a seat behind a big stack of paper. “Would you like something to drink? We have tea, coffee and water,” she said looking between us.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “A water, please,” Mark said.

  “Oh definitely,” Nicole said with a grin on her face, she stood walking across the room to a small mini-fridge. “Bottled water okay?”

  “That’s great,” Mark said.

  “You sure I can’t get you one, Jamie?” she asked.

  “Since you’re up, sure,” I said.

  Nicole returned with our waters and a smile. “So, do you want us to go over this offer from beginning to end or would you rather just ask me questions?” Nicole said.

  “Best you go over it,” Mark said.

  “Well, the offer is two point one million dollars. Included in the purchase price would be all the personal property at eight four two Main street, all property at the site and/or associated with the business, including but not limited to furniture, tools and fixtures, all permits and special licenses. In addition to this we require goodwill, all customer lists, accounts payable, and stock and trade. For real property, the building and lot at eight four two Main street, the recorded casements of public utilities would be included in the price. As for special conditions, we would require an employment contract with you, Jamie Scott, and to retain the current employment contract with your employee Christopher Johnson. We—”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said.

  She looked up, a small grin on her face. “No, go ahead.”

  “When you say an employment period, are you asking us to work for a transitional period?”

  “Well, both your and Christopher’s employment contract renegotiation would go a little differently. In your case, we will be requiring you to sign a three-year contract.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That is an unusual length of time,” Mark said, leaning over the table.

  Nicole put her elbows on the table, threading her fingers together. “Let me be frank with you here, Jamie. We’re interested in your business and its location enough to make an offer on it. But we’re making this specific offer because of your shop’s twenty-five percent profit margin. With only thirty-five open hours open a week, you have outperformed every one of our shops in the county, all of which have twice as many open hours. You also surpassed three of our shops in gross profit. We would like you to join our team.”

  I played with the sleeve of my suit. “Honestly Nicole, I’m flattered, but it really wasn’t due to my efforts. It’s pretty much all because o
f Chris. He’s an incredibly talented person and I can’t speak for him.”

  “I’m going to have to disagree with you there, Jamie,” she said. She pulled out a stack of papers. “Christopher—Chris is an incredibly talented young man. I’m not fighting you on that point. We have every intention of utilizing his skills to the fullest scope of their potential if he chooses to remain with us. However, Chris has been working for your company for six years, and until this year you made a steady eighteen percent profit margin for all five years, except for dipping down to seventeen percent last year. After you took full management of the shop, it almost immediately increased its profitability.”

  “I—I have very specific hours I can work, and—I… Nicole, truly, even with the sale of the business and the money I’m going to be making from the sale, I can’t continue to work for minimum wage for three years,” I said.

  She grinned wider at me. “We’re not asking you to work minimum wage.” She pulled out a small stack of papers clipped together from her pile. “We’re asking you to be the general manager for all the Harrington’s in the county—seven store locations. It’s a salary job with benefits. As for the hours, you can continue the thirty-five hours you have now.”

  “Jamie, I’m going to recommend that you talk to an employment lawyer about this,” Mark said, leaning in. “This isn’t my area of expertise—”

  “No, it isn’t,” a voice I recognized said from behind me. I turned to see Pat, the regular from the shop, standing with his shoulder leaning into the wall just inside the open door to the meeting room.

  “Hey Pat,” I said, raising my eyebrows at him. “Do you… work here?”

  “This is actually my company—one of them,” he said, walking across the room and taking a seat next to Nicole.

  “Oh,” I said.

  He grinned at me, flashing his dimples. Tapping the paperwork in front of me, he said, “If you want to get a lawyer, by all means do it. But there’s no hidden agendas in here, no misleading language that says ‘promise’, but isn’t binding. I’d like you to work for me; I’d like both you and Chris to work for me.”

  “Okay—thank you for the offer, Pat, I’ll take this with me and go talk to Chris. I have a lot to consider,” I said, starting to stand.