River Rules

by Stevie Fischer

  “They’d pay us $5 million each year for the first three years, assuming at least three lines and water use over 500,000 gallons. They pay Bridgeville zero taxes except for property taxes since they have a 100 percent tax abatement. So, the major expenditures are for equipment, and they’ll use whatever depreciation technique they want.”

  The Consortium assumed no risk and it received a very straight-forward cash payment for water, with built-in incentives for Eautopia to use more and more.

  “Eautopia purifies the water, bottles it and then sells it. Fucking great business model—no complications. We get the guaranteed annual payment, so we can cover existing bond payments and modernize. Our financials will look great. We could even lower rates to residential customers.”

  Josh looked at his watch. “Not bad for four days of work.” He got up to present his findings to his boss.

  “Hey,” Josh knocked on the semi-closed door. “Oh, sorry.” Brock Saunders sat in a big leather and teak armchair, his tasseled loafers kicked off to the side. Josh’s boss waved him in.

  “I’ve got some forecasts that I’d like to discuss. Here’s a copy of the spreadsheet.”

  “Make a copy for Brock. Meantime, we’ll share.”

  Brock looked Josh up and down. “You play golf?”

  “Uh, yes. About a ten handicap.”

  “Good, we’ll get you out on the links with clients. So,” Brock asked. “Is it a winner?”

  “Hell, yeah.” Josh’s boss took a highlighter and made some marks on the spreadsheet.

  “Nice. Let’s get this baby zooming through Bridgeville’s approval process.”

  “Actually, that’s the biggest what-if and my major concern. What if Bridgeville says no to building the facility?” Josh looked at both men expectantly.

  His boss laughed “Funny.”

  “A real rookie comment,” Brock said. He leaned closer and enunciated very clearly. “It’s just for show; they don’t get a say.”

  “I don’t get it. Doesn’t all this need to go through like a thousand committees and hearings?”

  Brock brushed Josh’s words aside. “What are you, a boy scout? It’s already a done deal. It’s our land and our water. We can do what we want, but that’s not how we play it to the public.”

  “Oh, OK—that’s not what I expected. So, what do you want me to do next?” Josh’s palms began to sweat. The project had just gone from proposal to fait accompli in a matter of seconds, definitely not how he saw it playing out.

  “How about you project Eautopia’s production costs and profit, so we can see where to squeeze them. Do it tomorrow, you did enough for today, kiddo.”

  Brock nodded. “I see big things for you, Jim.”

  “Josh.”

  “We should hit some bars sometime soon. Bet the ladies love you. I want you as my wingman.”

  Excusing himself, Josh knocked off for the day. He took off his tie and unbuttoned his collar before climbing into his car and made it across the river in decent time, considering the afternoon rush hour started at 3:00 P.M. and lasted until 6:00. With a nearly cloudless late afternoon enticing him, Josh decided to check out the reservoir. He changed quickly into shorts and made it up to Devil’s Falls by 5:00 P.M.

  Emmie’s Group Groove classes were back-to-back that evening, so Josh had time to explore. It had been a while since he got to hike impulsively, following wherever a trail might lead him. Once he got past the trash carelessly strewn near the dam, the beauty and tranquility of the reservoir took his breath away. Josh snapped pictures with his phone, framing the landscape with artful shots of trees and rocks. Dogs splashed near the reservoir’s banks, chasing sticks thrown by their owners. Officially on the list of no-no’s, dogs had been swimming in the reservoir forever. He waved at a woman paddling a canoe, another forbidden activity.

  Josh decided to wade in up to his knees. The water, cool and crystal clear, invigorated him. He found some flat rocks perfect for skipping across the water and played like a kid. After he got one to skim the surface four times in a row, he moved on. Squinting into the setting sun, he tried to imagine a 500,000 square foot water bottling plant along the reservoir’s shores. He couldn’t do it; all he could envision was a brutally industrial facade like the fuel cell facility on Maple Street. It felt as disconnected as scotch-taping together two halves of different people’s faces from his mother’s old magazines, a long-forgotten way he’d passed time at home while his father lay sick and dying.

  After Emmie came home, and they made love until they couldn’t even move, Josh voiced his doubts. “I’m not sure I can do it, babe.” She lay on his chest, his arms wrapped around her fit body.

  Emmie kissed his shoulder. “Just do the projections or whatever. It’s not like you’re responsible for what happens to the reservoir. They’ll do it with or without you.”

  “Yeah, but maybe I’m on the wrong side of this. I mean the land and the reservoir are fucking awesome.”

  “So’s the money you’re being paid. That’s our move to California.” She teased him with her fingers until he got hard again. Josh forgot about everything as she eased him into her.

  The next day, Josh went to work and downloaded copies of all his forecasts and spreadsheets. After printing and tucking them into a folder, he uploaded all his calculations onto the official IT flash drive just in case he had time to work on them from home. But he and Emmie landed a last-minute invite to stay with some friends on Cape Cod, so he barely touched his laptop.

  Surprisingly, it took him the better part of the next week to generate ways the Consortium could wring more money out of the deal. The biggest problem ended up being Eautopia’s secrecy.

  Josh requested more information about Eautopia’s production costs from an analyst at Eautopia who hedged about giving him real numbers.

  “Until the deal is signed, they’re proprietary. So, you’re going to have to work off guesstimates.”

  “That’s not very helpful,” Josh said. “What if I come up with some projections and you give me guidance, like if I’m too low or high.”

  “Yeah, I should be able to do that.” The analyst ended the conversation abruptly.

  Josh hunkered down to research historical and current water-bottling industry averages. He plugged in percentage increases based on the sheer size of the facility to approximate Eautopia’s profit margins. When he had gotten as far as he could without guidance, he reached out to the analyst at Eautopia.

  He hadn’t heard a thing back by the weekend, so he re-sent his request by email and left two more voicemails. Josh’s boss kept pressuring him for projections, so he went with what he had.

  “I can’t get through to Eautopia. The guy I was working with just disappeared. Like he vanished.”

  “Alright, we need to circulate the deal to the board. Who knows what shit’s going down at Eautopia. You believe in your numbers?”

  “Without guidance, it’s hard to be 100 percent certain. But, even my worst-case scenario for us shows good wiggling room to maximize more profit.”

  “Terrific. Write a formal report but, in the meantime, send me the numbers. I’ll present them to the Board ASAP. And don’t forget charts and graphs—they love visuals, the bigger the better.”

  Josh did as told but again he made a copy for himself and downloaded the work onto the corporate flash drive. He had a weirdly unsettled feeling, but he reminded himself of what Emmie said. The deal would happen with or without him, so he might as well bank the Consortium’s money.

  When he went for a run along the river, the first one he’d taken in a long while, he saw Kenny Johnson jogging in the opposite direction. He had dated Kenny’s sister in high school, so Josh crossed the street to Kenny’s side, and they chatted briefly, running in place and dripping sweat.

  “Hey, Kenny. Catch any bad guys today?” Josh panted hard and spat.

  “Couple hundred, nothing special.” Kenny lightly punched his shoulder. “Kinda outta shape there, dude. What are yo
u up to—still doing guidance counseling?”

  “Yeah, too bad we can’t all be buff like you. But, nah, doing a little corporate work. Gotta make some money before I go out west.”

  “Good for you. You’re gonna live the dream.”

  CHAPTER 43

  IAN’S RECRUITING EFFORTS STARTED CLUMSILY. NO one wanted to talk to him, and one woman threatened to call the police. But the next week, he started to get some nibbles. Using a roomy tea shop in Stonefort as his meeting place, his sessions, featuring the first cup free, brought more customers than the staff could ever remember.

  Ian retrieved his mail every other day; he disliked the tyranny of the post office delivery schedule. But when he saw the thick cream-colored envelope, so obviously an invitation to something swank, he thought it was another in a series of careless sorting errors.

  “Typical,” he snorted. But it said Ian Edwards in fancy calligraphy and had his correct address. Ian felt it in his hand, enjoying its tidy weight. He didn’t open it. When he brandished the invitation proudly after getting to the gym, Andre grunted his acknowledgement.

  Ian opened it carefully with the blade of a scissor. “Wow, thank you Lori and Marti. I rate a plus-one. This might be the one wedding worth going to.”

  “You want me to fix you up?” Andre looked up from his phone.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Something you want to tell me? Only Peter’s allowed to bring a four-legged creature.”

  “Actually, I have several candidates in mind.”

  “OK, right. Describe one of them. And I’ll be able to tell if you’re lying.”

  “You’re on. Dark hair, dark eyes, mocha skin, funny, and smart.”

  “In your dreams, dude.”

  Ian shrugged his shoulders and gnawed on a corner of the invitation.

  Ian’s outreach efforts hadn’t yielded any new converts, but he met more and more people searching for meaning in their lives. All of the searchers who wanted to talk seriously were female, and aside from a few terrifying maniacs, Ian’s chats brought him face to face with women who skewed towards being damaged, depressed, or disgusted.

  “The world is full of possibilities. America certainly isn’t perfect, but it is a country that promises second chances,” he said earnestly, picking up on their angst. “Look at me, that’s why I’m here. I’m a seeker. Whoever you were yesterday or the day before, you’re not that same person right here, right now. The journey is everything. Take a chance on a change. What do you have to lose?”

  Recruiting for PARSLEY involved a multi-step process. Soul-searching, a critical step in bridging the divide between conversation and commitment, took a long time. Ian hadn’t gotten any of his potential converts past extended introspection, but he had a strategy.

  “I’m using a soft sell approach,” he explained to Andre. “No hard marketing.”

  “I wouldn’t buy water from you in the Sahara even if I was dying of thirst.”

  “Well, there’s you dead.”

  “So, let me get this straight. You ask total strangers if they are happy with their lives. And then, when they say ‘no,’ you say, what?”

  “What?”

  “So hilarious. Really, I’m curious—like what the hell do you say?”

  “I might tell them to buy a Powerball ticket and, when the astronomical odds indeed fail and all their dreams of material wealth crumble, to come see me for a cup of green tea and an interesting conversation.”

  “And they come back. Unfuckingbelievable.”

  Ian contemplated his invitation options. After a few minutes, he nodded. “The universe will tell me.”

  He drove to the retreat to work on the fire pit he’d started building near the outdoor patio. As he rummaged in the woods for more fieldstones, he heard someone calling his name. He turned in the direction of the voice and saw the woman he’d been describing to Andre.

  “Ian, hi. Jade—remember me?” She brushed aside some branches and planted herself in front of him. Dark hair spilling out from beneath a baseball cap, she wore cargo shorts and a tank top that revealed a striking tattoo of a thorned rose on her left shoulder.

  “Well, hello. Fancy meeting you here,” Ian said. “Watch out for that poison ivy.” He pointed to a patch near her feet.

  “Hey,” she said, moving towards him, “I wanted to continue our conversation, so I took a chance you’d be here.”

  “Great. I just need to get these rocks moved. Care to help?” He gestured to the wheelbarrow he’d loaded with stones of every hue and size. Jade bent down to grab a few remaining rocks, and his eyes were drawn to the firm cleavage peeking out from beneath her sports bra.

  “Steady, steady,” Ian said to the wheelbarrow, teetering under the load’s weight. Descending slowly down the rocky slope, his ropy muscles bulged with effort.

  “You’re strong.” Jade stopped to retrieve little rocks along the path. “These are good for small crevices.”

  Grunting, he dumped out the load by the rectangle he’d marked in the dirt and flicked dripping sweat off his brow.

  “So, you promised me some tea and a good conversation.” She pointed to the cafeteria. “In there?”

  “So I did. Just let me wash up first.” In the bathroom, Ian looked at his dirt-streaked face in the mirror and raised an eyebrow at his reflection before splashing cool water on his head and neck.

  “Over here,” Jade called from a high window ledge when he emerged. She motioned to the two tall glasses she had filled with ice and green tea. “Have some.”

  Ian hoisted himself up easily and downed the tea in two gulps. “Aah. So, who are you, Jade? Tell me more. I remember you saying you had spent time at a monastery or hermitage.”

  “Yeah, this isn’t my first rodeo,” she sighed. “I’m definitely on a spiritual quest. I’ve been staying at the Journey ashram over in Stonebury.”

  “So, you’re Jade on a journey.”

  “In the flesh.”

  “It’s catchy, intriguing. Say, total change of subject, but how do you feel about sitting? I notice that we’re not.”

  “No, we’re dangling. Is this some kind of trick question?” Jade stirred the remnants of her iced tea with a straw.

  “Not at all. I’m an open book.” Ian did his best to look her in the eye without smiling.

  “Right. Truth be told, I hate sitting. I need to move. You can’t imagine the trouble I got into as a kid because I couldn’t sit still in school. They wanted to drug me into submission.”

  “Classic unenlightened discipline. It’s toxic, you know.” Ian swung his legs above the floor and examined the scratches on his knees. “We’re all scarred from onesize-fits-all thinking.”

  “You’re a mess.” She grinned, pointing to streams of blood that had congealed on the sides of his legs.

  “You have no idea. So, and this is not a trick question, how do you feel about weddings?” Ian looked at her seriously.

  “What? You better not be hitting on me. Is this a proposal?” Jade’s voice rose as she looked at him coolly.

  “Of course not. Relax. I’m not the marrying kind. But, I’ve got a wedding to go to. How about being my plus-one on September 23? They’re good friends.”

  “Ian, time out. Let’s take a walk.” Jade jumped down and waited for him to follow. As they stepped outside, she grabbed his arm. “I’m not saying no, but why would you invite basically a total stranger? I could be an axe murderer for all you know.”

  Ian wanted to say her spirit sang to him, she intrigued him like he hadn’t been intrigued in a very long time, but that would seriously overstep PARSLEY-sanctioned recruiting boundaries.

  “Sorry to push one of your buttons, Jade on a journey,” he said, betraying none of his thoughts. “How about the concept of fun?”

  “So fun is allowed in PARSLEY?” Her eyes twinkled suddenly, and Ian noticed that one seemed green and the other blue.

  “Unofficially. You’re quite short, you know.” Ian stood on his tipto
es to exaggerate his height.

  “OK.”

  “OK, what? You’ll join PARSLEY or you’ll come to the wedding or you know you’re short?”

  “Two out of three. You guess.” They locked eyes until Ian looked away and pretended to think.

  “Well, I’m hoping it’s yes to the wedding and the height issue. And you probably need more time to think about PARSLEY.”

  “Bravo, you win.” Jade raised her hand for a high-five.

  “Excellent.” Ian tapped her hand gently. “This is good, very good, but I have yet to get anyone to join PARSLEY. I’m rubbish at recruiting.”

  CHAPTER 44

  PACO MANNED THE WINDOW OF THE GREAT FULL Bread truck, taking orders and money at their choice location down by the Hatfield Courthouse where offices teemed with legal professionals. It wasn’t his favorite venue by a long shot because of some of the customers’ power trips.

  “They push my buttons in all kinda evil ways,” he said to Marco when they loaded up the most recent batch of Rachel’s finest. “Damn, these fresh-baked cookies makin’ me hungry.”

  “Word. But that’s your shift, bro.” Marco didn’t have much sympathy. He had a slower burn than Paco but that didn’t mean that he was OK with being patronized, either.

  Paco paused his now well-choreographed customer routine after a white middle-aged woman gave him too much attitude, tossing her money down on the counter instead of placing it in his outstretched hand. “Ay, mamacita—I don’t bite.”

  “What did you call me?” Her ID badge swinging wildly on the rope she wore around her neck, she reared back as if a zoo animal had gotten too close. “I am not your mother. Just give me my grilled cheese. And my change.”

  Paco saluted her. “Coming right up, madam. You want the over-sixty-five discount?”

  Jeff, manning the grill, caught the interaction, including the woman’s sniffy harrumph, and shook his head at Paco who ignored him and made a great show of retrieving seven of the grungiest pennies he could find in the cash drawer.