Too Young, Too Soon, No Chance

"I just wanted to be sure you were up to speed on the risk factors. Look, Dennis, I tried to get you to fuck me once and you took a pass. So I'm not afraid you're going to jump me and force yourself on me...have your way with me---until we both know it's right...am I on track here?"

"Could I just save us a lot of time here and ask you to marry me? I don't mean marry me right now, of course---but someday? Because at this very minute I can't imagine that I'm ever going to meet a girl as absolutely captivating as you are---cute, funny, smart. So why keep looking?"

"Is this just a clever line to get in my pants? 'Gee, mom, he said he wanted to marry me, what else did I need to know?'"

"You seem to be forgetting our history; I was in your pants---or more accurately you had lost your pants and..."

"Do you think you are in love with me, Dennis? I mean, this is awfully early to be talking about marriage---even years down the road."

"If I'm not, it's just because the message hasn't gotten from my heart to my brain. Wait, here it comes. Yep! I think I am."

"You are delightfully silly. Have you had good results with this approach in the past?"

"Never tried I before. How's it working for you?"

"Oh, you're hitting on all eight cylinders, stud. We've been talking for half an hour and I feel like we've known each other forever. Think of all the time we're saving! Whatever comes into our head---we just say it! I'm feeling pretty good about this. Let's go somewhere and just get to know each other, you know, personal saga, hopes and dreams and see if we really have any basis for a...relationship. Even though I think I already know the answer. Then lets go somewhere else---your place or mine---and make out for a while. How does that grab you?"

"There is a small coffee shop that's open, quiet music, dark corners."

"Lead the way!"

Three hours later they walked back to the special dorms tightly holding one another's hand. They were going to his place this evening.

"You know what is so damn scary about this, Dennis?"

"Sure. I just met my soul mate...quite probably the girl I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with---and we're not even half way through our first semester of college. Think of all the things that can go wrong between now and the day we graduate, find jobs...get married....that's what scares me."

"Yeah, me too. If it really did work out, then you'd spend the rest of your life wondering what you missed by not sowing some wild oats. There just isn't a prayer in hell that this will work out---that we'll still be a couple four or five years from now. It makes me sad, more than ir scares me."

"So we should just bag it before it gets painful?"

"Well, not so much. I mean we'd be fools not to at least give it our best shot, wouldn't we?"

It's just too easy to fall in love when you are eighteen and you enjoy that first time with a boy or a girl. Everyone remembers that first time. The build, the heat, the nakedness, the discovery...the dizzying reality that you are crossing a seminal threshold in your young life. Unless you are a complete jerk as a boy or a total slut as a girl you have to believe that this is the one...the one you are destined to marry and have babies with...live blissfully in perfect harmony with 'til death. How pathetically naïve and sadly idealistic young people can be.

Allison Stevens and Dennis Steiner had an idyllically perfect first coupling. It was tender, romantic, passionate---everything it could possibly be...fairy tale. The sad reality is that it was doubtful it would last through their freshman year, let alone long enough for them to actually marry.

It actually lasted all the way through their sophomore year, a year in which they lived together in a small apartment off campus. That year was even more magical than the freshman year of stealing back and forth between their two dorm rooms.

Somebody got cold feet or maybe started to believe that it would never be better than that year living together. One of them began to push away the summer before their junior year; it doesn't really matter which one because the other chose not to fight it very hard.

Dennis was away for most of that summer attending military training. There was a draft and a war and he wanted to at least have some options. Her letters became less frequent. The last one he received right before the fall term began dropped a bombshell. Allison had elected to transfer to a private university on the other side of the country in California.

She had received a full scholarship to one of the top ten universities in the nation and it was an offer only a fool would have refused. Neither had the money in the era before cut-rate airline fares to visit each other. The letters became less frequent on both sides. They never broke up. They just ceased to be a couple---ceased to communicate. While both felt tinges of regret both also rationalized that, "maybe it was for the best."

As the years went on and maturity ensued, both came to the realization that they had let something very special slip away. Sadly, pride or whatever wouldn't let either of them go back to find the other---see if the magic could be rekindled.

*** Two years shy of his fortieth birthday, Dennis Steiner took stock of his improbable life to date. He had graduated with top honors from the university with a degree in aeronautical engineering. That education coupled with his summer military training had gotten him into military flight school. He'd done well enough there to get his choice of type of aircraft. Every flyboy with the option to choose always picks fighters. Not sensing that he really possessed the fighter pilot mentality, he had chosen transports. With some dream of being an airline pilot one day, it was a smart choice.

He'd flown into the combat zone on numerous occasions at the controls of a four engine transport. The war had begun to wind down and the need to move massive qualities of men and material out of the war zone well surpassed the need to have transport pilots actually flying in the combat area. With the end of the war he, along with thousands of other young pilots was offered a substantial reduction in his active duty commitment and relegated to the reserves for the remainder of his obligation. It hadn't actually been an offer, it had been an order.

Following his release from active duty, he had accepted a job as a corporate pilot for a relatively young entrepreneur with a growing regional distribution business spread over the midwest. His boss, the CEO and founder, lived on the road, or more accurately, in the air. He was not one to travel with an entourage. Often it was just the two of them.

The company owned several small planes and as the geography of the business had expanded, Dennis had convinced his boss to buy a jet. When conditions dictated it, Dennis would call any of a number of former military pilots, desperate to build turbofan hours in the hopes of someday getting on with an airline, to serve as his copilot. Many of the guys he knew who had gotten a second or third seat with a major carrier were soon looking for other work when their respective carriers failed financially.

His boss had at one time flown his own small single engine prop job until the company went public and the board of directors and the insurers insisted he no longer do so. Still, Bob Watson was a very competent pilot who seldom rode in the back unless he was simply exhausted and needed a cat nap.

In the time between take offs and landings the two men, barely a decade apart in age, would talk, more often than not about the business. Dennis had picked up an MBA while in the military, not because he was particularly interested in business but because it was the only graduate program available where he was stationed and he had time on his hands.

In Dennis' third year on the job, the CEO fired him as his executive pilot. He hired him as a vice president---reporting directly to him.

"Dennis, you know more about this business than anyone other than me. You've become my unofficial counsel over the last three years and your advice has invariably been right on. You're wasting your time and your brain as a glorified taxi driver. You know as well as I do that the airline industry is a disaster with a new bankruptcy every few months. Forget about it---it's just a bus instead of a taxi. If I was a nice guy---which I'm not---I'd a give you a choice. Look, I don't see any reason why you can't still log some stick time when you travel for the company. But as of today, go hire your replacement, because one way or the other, you are out of this job as of right now."

The company had just passed the $100 million mark on that fateful day. Thanks to shrewd acquisitions and timely market entries, it was one of the fifty largest company in the country a decade later. In another ten years it would be listed by Fortune in the top ten in gross revenues. Dennis had more than been along for the ride; he'd been Bob's copilot all the way. Most assumed he'd take the reigns when Bob decided to hang up his spurs.

Who would have guessed that the poor German farm boy from the most remote region of Appalachia would have uncanny ability when it came to acquisitions? He was considered a guru and a genius. He lived for the company; his life was the company. While he had enjoyed a steady stream of leggy young women in his bedroom, none of them had caught his fancy enough to separate him from his wife---the corporation. He had money---more than he could spend and more than he would ever need. He had provided for his aging parents in style, freeing them of the 24/7 duress of running a small dairy farm. He had adopted causes and written numerous checks for those causes. He was considered one of the city's most eligible bachelors.

As he contemplated how far he had come two years prior to his fortieth, his thoughts drifted back to his first two years in college. It seemed to occupy his thoughts more often with the passing years. Allison Stevens. He'd even made a half-assed attempt to look her up via the Internet though not sure with what purpose. It seemed so long ago, almost twenty years and then almost as if it had been yesterday. He cleared those thoughts from his mind and he walked into Bob's office. He'd made a decision; he'd given it a lot of thought.

"Bob. When are you going to retire?"

"That anxious to take over, are we?"

"Not remotely what I was thinking."

"Two more years. I have children---from two marriages---grand children on the horizon...things I've never had time to do...places I want to visit...some serious giving back to accomplish. What's on your mind?"

"So, at fifty, give or take, you're going to pack it in."

"I'll stay on as chairman for a few years, then step down and stay on the board but, yes, that's essentially the plan."

"Let's talk about incest."

"What?"

"Corporate incest. We need to get some outside blood in here---sooner rather than later."

"Dennis, it's no secret who the next CEO is going to be."

"But he doesn't want to hold that job as long as you have---if at all. Look, you've got a lovely wife and a somewhat annoying ex-wife. Sweet kids from both of those adventures. I don't even have a fiancée or a regular girl friend. You know I'd never leave this company in the lurch. CEO of a Fortune 50 company at forty? A dream come true."

"What are you suggesting?"

"Bring in an outsider to replace you---there are a host of good candidates. I'll stay on as COO and retain my seat on the board. Two years after you take a powder...I'm out of here, unless the new guy fucks thing up. Look, the analysts are already shaky about your expected departure. In the same breath they take swipes at our incest and our lack of a deep succession plan. You can't please those bastards. You founded this company; you are the consummate entrepreneur. I have my gifts but my strength is not in the CEO's chair. I may have 'earned' the job---but I'm not the right person for it and we both know it."

"I'd argue that point."

"And as often as you win our arguments---you ain't going to win this one."

"There isn't another man on this planet who would willingly walk away from what is virtually an assured CEO title---except you. That's what makes you so damn good! Okay, my friend---and you are a very good, special friend---get the ball rolling."

"I've got the next three days booked solid on the Abrams acquisition. We'd really like to retain the bulk of their management for the sake of continuity but they're playing hardball. They requested an outside binding arbitrator. I told them to go pound sand up their asses and that I expected their resignations before they left the room---or they were all terminated at noon. I called the chopper and told him to crank it up and I walked out. We came to an agreement---fortunately before I strapped in, because I am sick of screwing with those people. I think I clipped their wings."

"What's the next step?"

"I agreed to an outside mediator. They preferred the term arbitrator. I told them arbitrator had the connotation of equals and binding agreements. I reminded them who the buyer versus the 'buyee' was. I told them this whole thing was too much trouble and we reserved the right to withdraw our offer. Then I called you and recommended we forget about it."

"You called me?"

"I called your summer home on the Lake."

"And spoke to the answering machine?"

"Pretty much. Look, I know these pricks are just trying to take care of their people---and themselves. It's not the money---it's about what goes wrong when you acquire someone and they never get on the corporate page. I'm prepared to trade perks and titles for real power but they need to accept the fact that we bought them---not the other way around. I'm meeting with their chosen outside mediator/arbitrator this morning---a real ball buster."

"Sounds like fun!"

"Oh, it will be. They wanted to meet off site but I wouldn't agree. I want them here in this crystal palace on my turf---just to drive the message home."

Did he recognize her when he walked into the corporate conference room? Oh, sure. Same little crooked smile...apparently, the same perfect breasts. She had aged exceptionally well. She rose to introduce herself; there was a momentary look that said he was not remotely the Dennis Steiner she had expected to be meeting with.

"Mr. Steiner. I'm Allison Cuthbertson, Attorney at Law and the arbitrator for this meeting."

"Cuthbertson?"

"Married name...I'm divorced."

"Ms. Cuthbertson, if you are here with the title of arbitrator, you can toss your crap back in your fifteen hundred dollar briefcase and sashshay on out of here. If you are here to mediate the differences, you're welcome to stay. Who in God's name are all of these other people?"

"My associates and key management representatives."

"Look behind me. Do you see any associates or key management representatives? Just me, honey, the friggin' COO of the company that owns the chair from which you just removed your pretty little butt."

Dennis pulled a money clip from his pocket and peeled off some bills, tossing them on the table. "Here! We have good coffee and decent sandwiches in the cafeteria. Tell your flunkies to take a hike. And as far as the 'management representatives' get the hell out of my conference room before I call security and have you escorted from the premises. I don't have time for this crap. There's a phone behind you. Punch the number two and tell my administrative assistant when you are ready to meet with me, Ms. Cuthbertson---one-on-one. Is that clear enough? Give me at least ten minutes, though---I haven't taken my morning dump yet." With those words, Dennis left the conference room.

Fifteen minutes later, after receiving notice from his admin, Dennis went back to the conference room, pleased to find only one person standing there---Allison.

"Dennis, I apologize. I had no idea---didn't make the connection...I..."

"Why should you have? Not much chance that one of the 'special kids' could possibly be the COO of a forty billion dollar company? You look well...even better than I remember."

"Dennis, I can make a call, we can reschedule and get someone else in to handle this."

"I don't have time to reschedule, Allison. This matter has already taking longer than it should have."

"But, Dennis, in view of our history I don't think it would be a good idea..."

"History? What's it been...twenty years? Silly kids playing house and believing that hormones were actually something else...love? I have no regrets, Allison...it was fun. I don't even know what happened. Maybe one of us just grew up one day and faced reality. I certainly don't feel any animosity toward you. You were probably the more mature one who nipped our silliness in the bud before it got out of hand. So! How have you been? Bring me up to date."

"Well, as you may remember, I transferred to Stanford, then Stanford Law, Law Review, a clerkship, a little time in the public sector, and now I'm a partner in a law firm which, ah, specializes in these sorts of cases."

"Cases? Do I have to go down the hall now and grab our corporate counsel? Harvard Law, edited Law Review, clerked for the Chief Justice..."

"I didn't mean case as in a legal case. There's no lawsuit involved as of this moment. I meant, these sort of difficult acquisitions."

"There wouldn't be anything difficult about this acquisition if your clients weren't a bunch of arrogant pricks who have drastically overestimated their importance to this corporation. We'd hoped to retain their management; it's good for PR, helps with the transition, ensures continuity but, you know what? Fuck it. This just isn't worth the trouble. I told Bob---the CEO and Chairman---not thirty minutes ago that we should immediately withdraw our offer, file for breach and move on to greener pastures and he didn't disagree. How long were you married...and how long..."

"I was married for a year...divorced for four...I..."

"Children?"

"No, fortunately...that would have made things very complicated....compounded an already foolish mistake. Look, Dennis, I have to believe we can come to a meeting of the minds here...a 'win-win' sort of..."

"Win-win, my ass! We bought them. If we hadn't they'd have been in receivership in three to five years. We won, they lost. To the victor goes the spoils. Divorce can be tough. I never married."

"You never married? Dennis, ah, look I don't think what my clients are asking for is that unreasonable, I..."

"Unreasonable is being too stupid to realize that you don't get to run your own show any more. You've been acquired, dick wads! Unreasonable is thinking that they---or you---walk into this room holding a single face card. This isn't a damn negotiation---we hold all the chips! We're not inhuman; we have our public image to think about but if those arrogant shit heads think we are going to just roll over, fund their failing business and then let the same imbeciles who fucked the business up in the first place run it after we own it---they're senile!"

"Would you at least take a look at the proposal?" Allison said, sliding the stack of papers across the table. "You've changed."

"I graduated from special ed a long time ago, Allison. I fiercely protect this corporation with no apologies. It's a big bad world out there...always has been. Let me look at it---but if I get halfway through the first page and it's the same shit they tried to peddle a week ago---we're done here. You look great! You still have..."

"Clinically perfect tits?"

"I was going to say those same really big, beautiful, crystal clear blue eyes."

"Of course you were. They're still mine."

"Pardon me?"

"The tits. They're still mine---sans enhancement."