Survivor

by Mary Alford

  Grandma Ruth had said those exact same things since my mother’s funeral. But I still wasn’t able to believe them any more than I could while watching my mother suffer through the final stages of breast cancer. I had the history—I stood the chance. I’d spent most of my life looking back over my shoulder, expecting history to repeat itself.

  “I know, Gran…but still.”

  “But still nothing. Let it go, Gracie! Let go of the anger once and for all.”

  “I love you, Gran.” No matter how many times I’d prayed for the strength to forgive my father, I couldn’t. Maybe because it was too closely connected to my own fear of dying alone like my mother did. Over the years, the pain had become part of who I was. I didn’t know how to move on from it, and I wasn’t sure I knew how to believe I wouldn’t come to my mother’s tragic end.

  “We love you too, honey, and I’ll be praying for you. Both your grandpa and I always say a prayer for you. We love you. We’ll see you soon, won’t we?”

  I wanted nothing more than to get in my car and just keep on driving all the way back to Amarillo, even if it took all night.

  I missed them both so much at times it almost hurt physically. I had to keep reminding myself I was in this sometimes cold and lonely city by my own choice. No one, certainly not my grandparents, were forcing me to keep after my crazy goals.

  After the day I’d had, and facing an empty apartment, I called my best friend Deb to talk me out of running back to Amarillo.

  She had long ago gotten the truth from me. After all, we were sisters from the beginning, and sisters shared.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t get in the car and drive back home to Amarillo and forget I ever saw this town.”

  I was standing in front of my living room window, eating instant soup from the can and thinking about how pathetic I must have looked. What was I doing? I didn’t belong in such an unforgiving city. I had people who loved me and would do anything for me waiting back home in Amarillo.

  “Because this is what you’ve worked hard for. You’re going to be fine, you know? And nothing bad is going to happen to you, because I’m not going to let it.” I always heard those exact same words every single time I went to her with my fears. I guess Deb figured, why change a good thing when it worked.

  “Did Mr. Ogre bring you coffee?” This was my cue it was time for me to fess up, otherwise Deb would hear it through her grapevine and never let me live it down.

  “Did he ever! Mr. High and Mighty brought me coffee and he got it right—first time. Yep! Right before he offered me the job.”

  Deb squealed into the receiver so loud I had to hold it away to keep from rupturing an eardrum.

  “Oh, Grace, it sounds wonderful! Okay, tell me everything that happened and don’t you dare leave out a thing. What exactly did he say to you?”

  I spent the next half hour telling her the details of my odd conversation with Aaron Severn.

  “You actually said that? You told him you weren’t sleeping with him? Oh, you’re my new hero! I wish I could have seen his face. I bet it was a Kodak moment if there ever was one.”

  “Well, I’m sure it definitely had to be a first for him. I hate to admit this since I just took the job, but I’m already beginning to regret saying yes. I’m pretty much committed to staying with LoneStar for another year now. What if something better comes along?”

  “Better than Aaron Severn?” I knew what she was thinking because it was along the same lines as Grandma Ruth’s thoughts but for way different reasons. Deb’s thinking wasn’t nearly as sweet and innocent as my grandmother’s.

  “You know what I mean, don’t you, Deb?”

  “Yeah I do, kiddo, but who knows? This one sounds full of possibilities, and anything can happen right?”

  That, as I was soon to discover, was not going to be a good thing for me.

  When my alarm clock did its usual five-thirty thing, it felt like I’d just closed my eyes. I showered and stood in front of my meager little closet trying to decide what to wear for my first day in the official role as a real assistant.

  Not that there was a whole lot of choices in there. I only owned a couple of nice outfits I liked to refer to as my interview togs. They were tucked away in back behind my normal work uniform of jeans and plain and simple shirts. I picked my best black, tailored pantsuit that I’d spent too much money on. I’d bought it on a whim while shopping with Deb one day.

  I was dressed and ready in what had to be some sort of record, which meant I had too much time on my hands to sit around and worry about the consequences of my decisions lately. So I went to my little office and cleared up the few remaining projects still out. Then I cleaned out my desk and left Susan a quick message to let her know what had taken place since I’d last talked to her yesterday.

  By a quarter to seven, I was knocking on Aaron’s open door. In contrast to my nervousness, Aaron was both calm and completely at ease. He glanced up at my knock, waved me inside and began sizing me up from head to toe.

  “You look nice, Grace—professional. But I liked the jeans. Would you like some coffee?” I stood in the doorway, trying to decide what he meant.

  “Is that a trick question?” I was finding the guy a bit unpredictable. I didn’t understand him at all.

  Aaron gave me another quick smile. He was finding my uneasiness amusing at least. “No—it’s not a trick question. There’s coffee in the break room around the corner. Two sugars and cream, right?” He walked away before I could answer and left me standing there with my mouth open, too surprised to move. When my common sense finally returned enough to remind me I was probably failing miserably on my first day as a secretary, I went after him.

  Aaron met me at the door holding a cup of coffee out to me. “Why didn’t you call Jenna yesterday?”

  “How do you know I didn’t?”

  “I talked to her last night. She called me wondering why she hadn’t heard from you.”

  “I don’t need to talk to Jenna.”

  “Because you trust me?”

  “Because I trust me…and I trust you.” He seemed pleased at my answer, but I had the feeling he was just a little embarrassed by it as well. But only for a second. It didn’t take long before the moment of weakness was gone, and Aaron was getting around to the business at hand.

  “Okay, this first meeting will be with only the top level executives of LoneStar. I’m going to introduce you first and then it’s going to get ugly—so be prepared. This is not going to be a pleasant meeting.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what exactly he was expecting me to add to such a meeting, but I was about to discover that Aaron was always one-step ahead of me.

  “I’m not going to ask you to say anything. I don’t expect you to do anything but listen. As will be the case in all the meetings throughout the day, and I will expect you to attend them all with me.” Aaron was busy putting on his jacket while he spoke, and I felt my anxiety level start to climb up another notch, multiplying the butterflies flying around in the pit of my stomach. I was completely unprepared for any of it.

  “Relax, Grace—it won’t be all that bad, I promise.” We were walking toward the elevators as he spoke. I found myself having to run just to keep up with his longer stride. Aaron moved fast, worked fast. Everything about him was fast.

  “What other meetings are you talking about?” I knew I should be asking something—lots of things, probably. I just wasn’t sure what.

  “After the first announcement meeting with the executive team, there will be an additional broader-based announcement encompassing the entire staff. Then I’ll be meeting with each one of the executive team members personally, which I expect you to be a part of as well. There will be many people losing their jobs after today, Grace, and you need to know that going into the first meeting. LoneStar is in serious financial trouble. Its management has made some destructive decisions, in my opinion, but they can be fixed if we eliminate the entire overstaffing of the executive
positions. We need to get rid of all the excess weight and we need to do it quickly. Now…” We stopped outside Mr. Donaldson’s private conference room. “Are you ready for this?”

  I knew he was asking about more than just the meeting inside, but to his simple question, I could only nod. I wasn’t ready—I wasn’t even close. Not that it mattered, because Aaron had already opened the door, his hand on my arm guiding me inside, making my decision final. Ready or not, I was smack dab in the middle of it all.

  The conference room was filled to capacity with all the fat cats of LoneStar. Old Stephen Donaldson sat at the head of the table along with his trusted executioner, his assistant…Marge.

  I just caught the hostile expression on her face before Aaron held out a chair for me. He seemed completely at ease amongst the antagonistic atmosphere pervading the room.

  “Stephen, I think we can let Marge go now.”

  I was as surprised as everyone else seated at the table, including Stephen Donaldson. After a second’s hesitation, the old guy didn’t argue with the man who was about to turn his lifelong dream around. He simply nodded to Marge, confident he was still in control. The poor shlup.

  Marge gave me another nasty look that made her opinion of my new position in life perfectly clear. I’m sure in her mind I was nothing more than a little nobody lacking in any proper training, not to mention I was a temp.

  While the table went silent, Aaron waited patiently as Marge proudly stood and left the room.

  “Aaron, let me introduce you to your new team here in Austin. I took the opportunity before you arrived to announce my little retirement plans to the group, and I let them know as of today I am officially retired. I also gave them a little bit of background information about you for those amongst us who aren’t familiar with Severn Advertising and all of its…accomplishments.”

  Aaron politely inclined his head, but I was certain he hadn’t missed the meaning behind Donaldson’s words. Stephen might need Aaron’s money to bail him out of a fix, but he didn’t have a whole lot of regard for him as a professional. The tension between these two was obvious and had me wondering what had gone on between them in the negotiating phase of their meetings together.

  As soon as Stephen finished going around the room with his introductions, Aaron put an end to the pleasantries quite effectively.

  “Stephen, I appreciate the kind words. If you don’t mind, I’ll take it from here. After all, LoneStar is, as of five o’clock yesterday afternoon, officially part of the Severn portfolio, and as you have so thoughtfully pointed out, today is your last day.”

  This didn’t exactly go over big with the old guy. In fact, I think he was in some sort of shock. Donaldson was used to taking charge of meetings. Having his every wish met with respect and humble obedience. Aaron wasn’t offering him any of those things. I think he was so surprised by the dismissal in Aaron’s tone that it shocked him into silence.

  “First of all, before we go any further, I’d like to introduce you all to Grace Caldwell. Grace will be my executive assistant starting today. She will be working directly with me, so all appointments will need to have her final approval. Get used to seeing a lot of Grace, folks. In addition, Sally Foster, whom I believe everyone is familiar with, will be handling most of the minor clerical tasks. Sally will be reporting up through Grace. These two women will make up my administrative team here in Austin. I expect each of you to show them your complete cooperation.”

  While the room around me was silent, all gazes fixed on me; I fought to keep from losing my cool and blushing in front of all these good ol’ boys.

  “Now, I’m not sure what you know about me or my company or what Stephen told you, so I’ll give you a brief history of the business and its holdings.” I listened while Aaron told the group about establishing Severn Advertising, a company listed as one of the hottest businesses around on the New York Stock Exchange. Its accomplishments put our little place to shame. I glanced around the room to the people seated at the conference table. Beyond the shock, there was fear and finally realization. They were starting to understand the impact of the buyout. Their safety net was falling apart.

  “And in case you haven’t heard yet, I will be relocating to Austin within the next few weeks, so in the future some of you will be seeing a lot more of me. Until then, Grace will be in touch with me on a daily basis. If you need to reach me, you can go through her. Gentlemen, I can tell you now there will be a lot of changes taking place at LoneStar in a short amount of time, and I will be expecting everyone’s full cooperation.” Aaron glanced around the room at each of the executives seated there, including old Stephen.

  “Any questions?” he asked, but I suspected they were all still in too much shock to even consider asking questions. “Good, then as you all know, we have an announcement meeting for the rest of the staff in fifteen minutes. I will expect everyone to attend. And then I will be meeting with everyone individually in my office for the rest of the day. I’m sure each of you have figured out by now that there will be massive downsizing, most of which will be coming from the executive areas, which means the people seated around this table. We’ll be discussing each of your futures in the one-on-ones today. If there are no questions or comments, I’ll see you all in fifteen minutes.”

  He didn’t give them time to take in all the things he’d just told them. He touched my arm to indicate we were leaving.

  We were almost back to his office when the impact of what he’d told the group finally hit me. For the first time I was actually considering those poor fat cats upstairs who had just heard the grim reality of their fate.

  “Do you think it was right to tell those people they might be losing their jobs?”

  Aaron wasn’t at all fazed by my sudden burst of anger. He merely stood aside, indicating I should go ahead of him into the office.

  “Grace, trust me. This may seem harsh to you right now, but it was what was needed. I have to shake them out of their complacency. Now they have something to be worried about. You saw how confident all of them were when we walked into the room. They were certain there was nothing to worry about. I’m sure that was exactly what Stephen led them to believe right up until the time we walked through the door, even though he’d known from the beginning cuts would be a necessity. I put it all out there on the table for him at the beginning.

  “At least they know the truth and they’ll be scrambling to put their best foot forward today in the personal meetings. I don’t want any of them to feel they can’t be replaced, because, quite honestly, they can and will be for the most part. Most of the top staff members at LoneStar are made up of friends of Stephen’s, relatives, or just people who have long ago given up on having any original ideas of their own. They’re simply waiting for retirement. Those are the ones I don’t want around. I want new, fresh ideas. The kind this company was founded on all those years ago.”

  “So it doesn’t bother you to just destroy people’s lives? A lot of those guys have families depending on them.”

  I could almost picture Susan’s shocked reaction to my statement. I’d opened my mouth and forgot all about the fact I needed my job every bit as much as all those men. What was the matter with me?

  Aaron wasn’t the least surprised by my opinion or the fact that I was so naïvely giving it to him unasked.

  He indicated that I should sit down, no doubt without speaking any further while he checked through his e-mails.

  “This is what I’m going to like about you, Grace. You’re going to give me your honest opinion always, aren’t you?” His brow creased into a frown as he read through one of the e-mails. “To answer your question, yes and no. It bothers me when people who don’t deserve to lose their jobs have to. But I can’t think of a single one of those guys who won’t deserve what’s coming.” He closed the laptop and stood, glancing at his watch. “This is business and it can be cutthroat. Being successful sometimes means hurting people. It’s unavoidable…ah, I see you don’t agree.” He held
the door open for me and we started once again for the elevator in the fast-paced manner that Aaron approached most things in life. “I’m sorry you don’t agree, but here in the real world, life is tough. You’re going to have to be tough as well to survive.”

  “No thanks. Not if it means I have to hurt other people just to get ahead. I’ll leave that to you.”

  Just before the elevator doors opened and we faced the entire staff of LoneStar, I saw Aaron’s reaction to my impetuous words.

  I’d actually hurt him by the things I’d said, and that took the wind right out of me.

  And then he said something that would keep me sleepless for quite some time.

  “Too late, Grace, I think you just passed your first test.”

  Chapter Four

  “While I’m away I want you to use this office until Stephen is all cleared out, which I’m told will be by the end of the week, so make sure that happens. I want the entire floor Stephen now occupies empty by the end of Friday, okay?” Aaron took his seat and began reading e-mails, leaving me little choice but to take my usual chair across from him as he started up with the commands again.

  “I want you to turn over all the move preparations to Sally—let her handle it. You supervise—make sure everything takes place in the proper amount of time. By Friday you should be ready to settle into Marge’s space, which means Sally needs to have Marge relocated before that time. Until you have your own laptop, I’ll leave mine with you to work on.”

  “So when are you leaving?” I realized I had no clue what his schedule was like.

  Aaron stopped reading and looked at me. He was a man confident enough in himself to smile a lot. “Trying to get rid of me so soon, are you? That can’t be good. Officially, this is my last day here until the meetings I need you to set up on Friday. We’ll discuss in a minute. Privately, we’re going to be house hunting for the rest of the week.”