Christmas at WJTW - 1590 AM Ch. 01

It was clear that Kimberly wanted her mother to accept the offer, but Traci was still unsure. Even though I knew they desperately needed a place to stay, I wasn't going to push it. It had to be her decision.

"Look, if you want, I'll put the locks on right now," I said as I glanced at my watch. "But if you're not interested, I've got to be going. You can start tomorrow at 9 am."

Traci looked down at her daughter and then back to me. "I would really appreciate it if we could stay here. You were right; we don't have a place yet."

It took me about fifteen minutes to put the new lock on the bedroom, and then I handed Traci the keys. I pointed to the refrigerator in the kitchen. "I think there is some leftover pizza in there and cans of soda. Help yourself to whatever is there. That's the rule here in the station. If you can find it, you can eat it or drink it. Oh, and don't forget the cookies in my office. Please finish those off, so I won't eat any more of them."

And that was how Traci came to work and live at the station. Traci kept up the pretense that she would soon find her own place for the first week. But I knew that Traci wouldn't be able to rent a closet with what I was paying her. Finally, at the beginning of the second week, she confessed that she had no place to go. Traci told me she had left her abusive boyfriend when he started hitting Kimberly. I told her to stay as long as she wanted.

Hiring Traci was one of the best decisions I've ever made. She picked up the spreadsheet program in less than an hour. Then Traci reorganized the file system, so we could actually find something. She set up a billing schedule for our clients and a template for our invoices. I only hired her for twenty hours, but Traci worked at least forty each week and never complained.

After the third week, I felt guilty, so I raised her pay to two hundred and fifty dollars a week. Then I told her that if she wanted to try her hand at sales, I'd pay her twenty-five percent of any advertising dollars she brought into the station. Traci took to sales like a duck to water. Before long, she was making four or five hundred dollars a month in commissions.

I loved having both Traci and Kimberly around. Traci was willing to tackle any job I had for her, and I never knew where I would find Kimberly playing. However, she wasn't allowed in the transmitter room, which I kept locked. She could play in the studios as long as there wasn't anyone working there.

Amanda was upset with me when I told her about letting them stay in the residential side of the station. Even when I explained that they were living out of their car, Amanda didn't care. She was concerned by what people would think of a young woman living there, even with her daughter. That should have been another red flag for me, but I missed that one also.

Still, I thought Amanda and I were living the dream. I thought we were closer than ever, and I didn't think I could love anyone more. Also, Amanda's business had grown to where she was now making more than her old job. The ads on the station had really helped.

Everything was going so well. Even our neighbors were warm and friendly. As I had mentioned, Mrs. Myers baked cookies and cakes for us. The neighborhood kids played stickball, street hockey, and dodgeball in the road in front of the station. Sometimes when I wasn't busy, I'd go out and join them. But since I was much bigger, I had to use my left hand for everything because I was naturally right-handed. When we played hockey, I was only allowed to be the goalie, and my goal was twice as large.

My favorite neighbor was Henry Wilson, who lived right across the street from the station. He was a retired marine who had fought in Viet Nam. He would come over to the station three or four times a week to have coffee with me and shoot the breeze. He had the greatest stories, and not all were about the war. And yes, some of them were X-rated.

Henry lost his wife, Ellie, five years ago, and I could tell that he still grieved for her. When he talked about Ellie, you could see the love in his eyes. I really enjoyed my time with Henry, but I could see that was beginning to fail as the years passed. He had cancer, probably from agent orange, and a bad heart. He'd had open-heart surgery ten years ago and five stents put in since then. Still, Henry never complained, even though he hurt most of the time, and money was always in short supply. He lived on his social security and his military pension. But his medical bills that weren't covered by insurance left him just scraping by. I suggested that he go to the VA hospital, but he told me he'd rather die than go to that rat-infested place. I had to agree that our local VA hospital was one of the older ones. As such, they were chronically understaffed and poorly maintained. It was criminal in my mind how poorly we treat so many veterans.

People always say that the only two things you can count on are death and taxes, but they're wrong. The only two things you can really count on are death and change. And that's what happened to my perfect slice of paradise. Everything began to change.

The economy started to collapse with the closing of the Windward factory. Then Walmart left, followed by one of the major drug stores. But this area had known hard times before, and the people struggled to adjust. Then the economy nationwide took a sharp downturn. This affected everyone's business, and the radio station wasn't immune. The ad revenue withered another twenty percent, and I was struggling to offset this. To a degree, I eased the blow by bartering with businesses. For instance, I set up an account at the local gas station. I got gasoline for our cars for spots on the radio. I worked out the same deal with the gym that Amanda and I used.

It appeared things were beginning to stabilize for a while, but the financial hits weren't over. The Braxton Machine Company announced they were moving their production to Mexico. Braxton machined parts for commercial and military aircraft. They employed four hundred people.

The loss of Braxton sent shock waves through our community, especially when some of the smaller businesses started to go under. The local Chamber of Commerce decided to try and entice new businesses to the area. If they couldn't replace the lost jobs, things could get really bad for the local economy and the people living here.

I was elected to the committee that would search for new businesses and, hopefully, entice them to locate in or around Milton. I had just begun working on that when a snake slithered into my little paradise. The snake was named Chad Duncan III.

Chad's family now owned a hundred and ten small and medium-sized newspapers. The small papers were mostly the ones that were thrown onto your lawn free. They also owned twelve regional magazines and four television stations. Two were CBS affiliates, and two were NBC affiliates. The family business plan was simple. Regardless of whether it was a newspaper, magazine, or television station, they only kept it if it was profitable. None of the individual entities made a ton of money but combined, they threw off a hefty cash flow for the family.

One day, Amanda came home later than usual, bubbling over about a new client, Chad Duncan III. He had hired her to decorate the office of their newest newspaper, the Milton Free Press. I was uneasy about Chad showing up after all these years, but I wasn't overly worried. That was another red flag I missed.

The Chamber welcomed Chad with open arms as they saw his opening a new business in town as a good omen. That was a joke. He hired only three people, a reporter, a salesman, and an office manager who could double as a reporter or a salesman. But everything else that the new newspaper used came from somewhere else. All their supplies came from elsewhere, and the actual paper was printed in Greenville.

I actually had an opportunity to chat with Chad several times at Chamber and other civic functions. He seemed to be pleasant enough, and I mistakenly believed that our differences from college were behind us. He seemed at ease in our community, making several generous donations to local charities and joining several local service clubs.

Chad had come south to expand his family's media business into the southeast. Before Chad had run into Amanda, his family had already purchased the Greenville Times. He was in the process of opening eight more small-town newspapers and starting a fishing and hunting magazine. Four of those small papers were to be located in towns in this county.

But Chad seemed more interested in helping my wife build her business than building his family's business. Soon, Amanda was coming home later and later. Then she started staying overnight in Greenville for early morning meetings. That was a bunch of red flags that I finally didn't miss.

I could feel Amanda pulling away from me. But I wasn't willing to give up without a fight. I sent flowers to my wife, bought her small intimate gifts, and tried to take her on romantic dates. Nothing worked, so I put a tracker on Amanda's phone. I found out Amanda was spending her overnight stays with Chad. The war was over, and I had lost. I seriously considered going to Greenville and beating the shit out of Chad. But that would just land me in jail, and Chad could smirk at me through the bars.

So, on top of my economic shit storm, my wife of eight years had betrayed me. Amanda had gone running back to her first love from college. It was bad enough that Amanda was planning on leaving me, but to be leaving me for someone I despised was a whole other level of hurt. Yet, if I let myself think about it too long, I'd start to hyperventilate.

I had finally decided that I had to have it out with Amanda. I wasn't going to be like my uncle Fred. His wife divorced him to marry her boss. He made a fool out of himself, begging and pleading with his wife for months to come back to him. Uncle Fred finally had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized. It was sad and embarrassing to watch. And I swore that I would never be like my uncle. So, I decided that the best way to handle this situation was to be the one to tell Amanda that it was over. But she beat me to the punch.

I arrived home one night to find Chad and Amanda sitting in the living room. Amanda looked nervous, but Chad sat there with a smirk on his face.

"Tom, we need to talk," Amanda said as she smiled at Chad.

However, keeping a stiff upper lip, as the British say, was really put to the test that night. Yet, this whole sorted mess finally clicked into place in my head. Chad had promised to pay me back for the college newspaper prank, and I guess he finally did; he stole my wife.

Two things helped me through my divorce. The first thing was the tone I set when my wife announced that she was divorcing me. It took everything I had, but I just nodded and said, "Okay with me."

I could see that my lack of emotion unnerved Amanda a bit, and Chad was clearly annoyed that I didn't dissolve into an emotional wreck. That convinced me that pretending that the divorce was no big deal was the way to go.

As to how I would play out the divorce would be another matter altogether. I knew that Amanda wanted our house, and she knew I wanted the radio station. Amanda's idea of fair was getting the house and half of the radio station. Even in this negotiation, I showed no emotion. I told Amanda she was welcome to half of the station. Since it was losing money, she would be responsible for half of the station's debt. That cooled her jets as far as wanting any part of the radio station.

After much back and forth, Amanda agreed to get an appraisal of the house and the radio station. If the station was worth more than the house, I'd pay Amanda half of the difference. On the other hand, Amanda would have to pay me half of that value if the house was worth more. We had two appraisals for each property, and they came back showing that the house was worth between twenty and forty thousand dollars more than the station. When that was revealed, Amanda bitched about paying me even ten thousand dollars if we used the lower estimated values.

Amanda's attitude about paying me for different values really bugged me, but I didn't let it show. Instead, I asked my attorney to inquire about Amanda paying me alimony. At that time, she was making more money from her business than I was from the radio station. That was mostly thanks to Chad. Chad's whole idea of seducing my wife by getting involved in her business was coming back to bite them in the ass.

When my attorney broached the subject, Amanda had another fit. The divorce was stalled until I suggested that we have a face-to-face meeting. While things ground to a halt, I still had to keep the station's head above water financially. During this time, I also spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking of how to get revenge on the two cheaters. However, most of my ideas were stupid or would land me in jail. Finally, I came up with two ideas that I thought would hurt them both, at least a little.

The first thing I did was take all of Amanda's commercials off the air. Then I made a proposal to a small interior design company, Maggie's Interior Designs, two towns over. I made the cost ridiculously low, so Maggie wouldn't refuse. As soon as Amanda realized that her commercials had been replaced with a competitor, she called me. She demanded to know why her commercials were not being played.

"You've got to be kidding me, Amanda," I said incredulously. "We're getting a divorce. You didn't seriously think I'd continue to run your commercials for free."

Yet, that was just my opening shot. When Amanda wanted to buy time, I told her I didn't have time slots. My soon-to-be ex-wife went ballistic. I simply hung up with a smile.

The next thing I did was attack Chad's businesses. If I had been in my right mind, I don't think I would have done what I did. What I did was go to each advertiser in Chad's papers and try to sell them on the idea of splitting their advertising budget. The idea was to have the businesses buy smaller newspaper ads and use the balance on radio spots. People would hear about their business over the air, and we'd be calling attention to the ad in the paper. To my utter surprise, my plan actually worked. We convinced about forty percent of Chad's advertisers to go for the deal. The extra revenue helped the station a little, but we continued circling the financial drain. Needless to say, Chad was furious, which made me very happy.

The divorce was still languishing, but Chad and Amanda strutted around town like a married couple. This irked me, so I told my attorney to tell Amanda's lawyer that we would just go to court if we couldn't work things out beforehand.

Finally, they agreed to meet at her attorney's office. I agreed, even though that didn't make my lawyer happy. When my lawyer and I walked into the conference room, Chad was sitting there smirking at me.

I smiled and nodded at him. "Chad, you're going to have to leave."

"I'm not leaving," Chad snarled, and Amanda nodded.

"Well, then I guess this meeting is over," I said as I turned to my lawyer. "We'll just let the court sort it out."

"Please wait for a second," Amanda's attorney called out to us as we were leaving. "Give me a few minutes to discuss this with my client."

Moments later, we were invited back in, and Chad left in a huff.

"Okay, before we start, Amanda," I said, looking directly at my wife, "I don't know what I ever did to be treated as badly as you have treated me. If you wanted out of our marriage, you didn't need to cheat behind my back. All you had to do was tell me you wanted a divorce. I would have given it to you. I expected better, and I can't tell you how disappointed I am in you."

Amanda turned beef red, but she didn't offer any apology. In truth, I wasn't going to hold my breath for one either.

My attorney jumped in at that point. "Mrs. Ambrose, I have your earnings for the last two years and Tom's earnings for the same period. As you can see, you made about $30,000 a year more than Tom. I think the court would approve between $300 and $500 a month in alimony."

"That is just pure crap," Amanda snapped. "Tom, if this is your way of trying to stick it to me, I'll fight you on it."

I just smiled sadly and said calmly, "Look, Amanda, I don't want your alimony. But you don't even want to pay me half of the low end of the difference between the two properties. I'm sure that your attorney will tell you that the court will definitely make you pay at least the $10,000 and probably take the average of the two appraisals, which would be $15,000. And there is a chance that the court might take the higher of the two appraisals, which would be $20,000. Also, they might tack on the alimony. So, why don't we compromise? Pay me $15,000, and I'll wave the alimony."

Amanda glared at me for several long moments, then the anger seemed to bleed out of her, and I could see the cold logic settle in behind her eyes. It was clear that whatever love she used to have for me was gone. After a long pause, Amanda agreed to the compromise.

"Then I think we're done," I said, trying to sound chipper.

Before I left the conference room, I walked around to Amanda to stick it to her a little more. I kissed her on the top of her head and lied. "I hope you and Chad will be very happy."

I paused at the doorway and looked back to Amanda to wave. Now there was uncertainty and confusion on her face. It was a small thing, but I felt good about it.

The second thing that helped me through my divorce, and perhaps the most important, was Traci and Kimberly. They were rays of sunshine in a sea of pain and misery. I had always maintained a totally professional relationship with Traci. Still, it was nice to have someone totally on my side. Traci was appalled when she heard what Amanda had done. Still, the divorce was forcing a lot of changes on me.

When I had to vacate the house I had shared with Amanda, Traci wanted to know if she should look for an apartment.

"No, don't waste your money on an apartment; we can share the residential side," I insisted and then tried to inject a little humor. "I'm not worried, I'll put a lock on my bedroom, so you won't be able to take advantage of me."

Traci turned bright red at my comment, and then I felt bad. "I'm just kidding. We'll just be roommates. Unless you'd feel more comfortable having your own apartment."

"No, no," Traci objected immediately. "Kimberly and I love living here. We would really enjoy having you here full time."

I was happy that they stayed because I couldn't have handled the loneliness on top of everything else. Having Traci and Kimberly nearby helped heal my soul as the weeks turned into months. We started out as employer and employee but quickly became friends. Then we became very good friends. About two months after my divorce, I got my courage up and asked Traci out on a date.

The night of our first date was a revelation for me. I always thought Traci was cute, but I realized how really pretty she was when she came out with her new sundress and makeup. Before long, we became a couple, and then we started sleeping together. Then we talked about getting married. Amanda, who was now married to Chad, was finally becoming just a bad memory. Then one day, Traci and Kimberly were gone, and it was my fault.

It started over a set of fucking dishware, or, to be specific, my family's China. The dishes had been passed down from my parents to me. My mother told me that she never used them, but maybe I would. Of course, I never used them either. They were just sitting in the garage of my former home. But then Amanda asked if I wasn't going to use them, could she have them. I said yes because the three boxes of dishes were heavy. However, when I told Traci, she got angry and accused me of doing whatever Amanda wanted. That made me angry, and the argument escalated. I found that Traci and Kimberly had packed up and left the following morning. I was beyond devastated, and I tried to call her with no success.