Heather's 'One Percenter' Goal Pt. 01

They were silent after the identification was made and walked into a small office where Heather signed about 10 forms and awaited a notary to certify them. While waiting, the old doctor said, "Enough talk about death. How did you enjoy Aida last night?"

This opera conversation continued on until after Gibbons had walked her to the taxi stand where he opened the door and she sat down. He handed Tyler's briefcase to her and said after shaking her hand, "The wallet, jewelry, cell phone, and all business papers are in there. The suitcase will be freighted to his home along with the corpse as his wife requested. It was a pleasure to meet you, even under unusual circumstances like these."

As the taxi sped away, Heather breathed a chuckle to herself, "The old doctor obviously doesn't shed tears for suicides with a silver spoon in their mouth, and rightly so I think, now that I see the whole picture. I just want to get home and hold my husband more than ever."

Later Heather stopped at a sign in table outside the cocktail party room and picked up her badge. She placed Jerry Tyler's badge in her purse. She noticed that the three Bid Services staff of ABX had signed in and picked theirs up already. She walked into a crowded room where some 50 or 60 people milled around chatting and drinking wine. Spotting the department head they greeted and then Heather asked, "Would you find our other staff members and lets have a quick meeting in the hall?"

Once the five were alone, Heather whispered, "Mr. Tyler was found by housekeeping dead in his hotel bed alone this morning. I learned of it when his wife, the board chairman, called me with the news and asked me to be acting CEO for the company for the time being. There will be an announcement in your Outlook inbox in the morning. For us, its business as usual. If there are any questions about the deceased just say that I am acting CEO and change the subject."

Their computer specialist raised his hand and said, "I have VPNd into my mail box and the announcement has already been made."

Heather asked, "Would you read it to us, Richard?"

The tech brought it up and read off almost verbatim what Heather had said. At that the acting CEO told everyone, "Have a good time. See you in the office on Tuesday."

These parties are given by the selling organization so that its principles can get to know the players who might be bidding on real estate loan packages in the future. Its in the seller's interest to receive many sealed bids for the real estate loans they sell. The seller then looks at two or three high bidders and then starts to evaluate how effective they are at turning the usually vacant houses now into income producing properties.

The first person to come up to Heather was Mark Ashcraft, who wore the same tuxedo he wore last night, with possibly a clean shirt. After greeting her and raving about the good time they had last night he asked, "My old friend Jerry Tyler is running late. I thought you guys traveled as a team?"

"Mark, apparently his ticker finally quit after threatening to for many years. The big steaks, the drinks, the stress, and sleepless nights finally caught up with him apparently. The ABX board chairman asked me to pinch hit for him temporarily."

"Well, your company is in good hands, Heather. After you and Marilyn left us, we did put away some drinks but when I dropped him off at your hotel lobby he had had black coffee and appeared fine when he said good night."

Heather smiled and said, "Marilyn and I had a marvelous time and I sure hope that invitation for John and me to visit will still be extended soon. John and I have a home on a finger lake and if you two were to visit in the summer, we would take you out fishing in our boat." They both laughed at that as she walked off.

After networking briefly with old acquaintances in the real estate investment trust industry she felt a tapping on her back and heard someone say, "Ms Mason, excuse me." This overweight woman was dressed in very poor taste for an obese person at a cocktail party. She identified herself as a Techie for for an ABX competitor, and said, "Your former technical services specialist sends her greetings and says you really ought to look at this video clip."

Heather recognized her company as one of the 3 bids they lost by fifty dollars recently. She answered, "I am not interested in anything she has to say or wants me to look at. Good evening, Miss."

The lady caught up with Heather and said, "But wait look at this photo." Her cell phone displayed a naked Heather behind Jerry Tyson obviously massaging his shoulders. The intruder continued, "I can show you the whole video clip if you would like."

By this time Heather was trembling and feeling dizzy. Her entire focus, however, was on her husband and enjoying life in their home together so that her face maintained a stone like placid image as she face the intruder. She said, "Good. I know Mark Ashcraft personally as well as your CEO. Lets get them both together so you can play it for everyone. Then afterwards you are welcome to play it for my husband. Come on lets go, lady. You then can be named in an indictment of our former Guru for sharing our bid summaries with competitors - and trust me, you will never work in this industry again."

"Wa...ait a minute, Ms Mason. Your company pays a generous dividend quarterly while we are struggling just to survive. We need to be successful tomorrow morning and I was stupid enough to think you might withdraw your bid out of fear - your boss withdrew ABX's Fifth Chesapeake bid two months ago when I approached him with a similar video clip. I wrongly assumed you would as well. Please forgive me," she said as she scurried away and out of the meeting room.

Later in her hotel room Heather packed her suitcase to be ready for the airport limousine service pick up at 6:30 Monday morning. She alternately cried and vomited until she had the dry heaves. She kept reaching for her phone to call her husband to confess everything and beg for his forgiveness but chickened out at the last moment. She kept seeing herself once again living alone in a small apartment having to leave their nice home on the lake that both had worked so hard for over the years. Now that she had been on top of the world for one fleeting moment, her vision of John racked with pain when she told him of her perfidy, catapulted her into a deep, life threatening depression.

The alarm sounded and awoke her from a fitful sleep. Sleep had finally came when she had concluded, "I will take what comes." She refreshed herself and made her way to the lobby. She then boarded the limo and ultimately her flight, where she even managed to nap even more after eating the meal.

Arriving in Rochester, she disembarked and walked towards baggage claim.

Heather's first surprise was that there stood her husband just beyond the TSA guard. This was a first in many years for the couple. Since both traveled frequently each used shuttle services independently. He had a smile on his face when she approached him, which had the effect of racking her body with angst.

John Mason, still surpressing the pang caused by having seen the video feed of her and Tyler, said, "Welcome home, my Darling Wife. I came to get you myself so that our new CEO wouldn't have to ride a common carrier shuttle home." As they kissed, John noticed her reticence but ignored it. He then said, "Traci just sent out a notice that a Mister Ashcraft of MetropolisWide Bank called her to say ABX was successful in Houston and I travel to Houston on Thursday to set things up. By then my staff will have lined up up some contractors and agents for me to visit. But, until then I want to spend as much time as possible with you - Traci also sent a suggestion you, too, take a couple of days off, and that she will be in the office until Thursday."

She replied, "I am overwhelmed, John, more by the fact that you showed up here to take me home rather than anything else right now. Thank you. Thank you."

Once in their car, Heather said, "We need to talk, John. May we just sit here for a while?"

"Sure Dear, I am all ears."

She said, "Right now the most important thing in the world to me is that you put yourself out to meet my flight. Moreover, since last evening my conscience has ached to the point that sleep was difficult, and sound sleep impossible."

John asked, "What about your conscience?"

"My dear husband, since I have worked for Tyler I have bedded two damned-near-impotent principals and I have been sexually pleasuring Tyler himself. I did this as a passive partner because of his weak heart. I chose to do these things because I imagined it to be a shortcut to executive success. But, I have felt like a cess pool ever since I started being his sex object, wanted to tell you and just leave this life with you. But I did not tell you before or after because my ambition drove everything I did in my life. I can only ask that you forgive me and love me once again."

John started to ask, "But what...," when Heather put her hand over his mouth and continued what she had begun.

She said, "At the cocktail party an ABX competitor's Techie came up to me wanting me to withdraw ABX's bid. She showed me a still from a video clip. This clip showed me passively having sex with Tyler although I refused to watch the video. When I confronted her, she high tailed it out of the Cocktail Party. I minded my manners to the host and returned to my hotel room to pack. The only way I found any relief for my treachery was to conclude that, 'I will take what comes.'"

Her husband's facial expression remained unchanged but he pulled away from her to get his cell phone out of his jacket in the back seat. Heather interpreted this move as his rejection of her.

The wife continued, "So be it. But I do love you and only you and want to spend the remainder of my life pursuing what is important - and you are what is important to me. My entire structure of values has changed now that I understand the way I chose to pursue becoming a one 'percenter' is such that I will never reach that level of success. Moreover, I am getting older and seek meaning to life, where momentary illicit passions to achieve an alien goal only demean it."

Heather looked at her husband who was now holding his cell phone but remained silent until he said, "Go on."

"John, I may reach that lofty goal - and may not - because of my extreme future productivity in our crumbling society; but, whatever happens I will not put our relationship at risk if there is still a 'we.' Nothing will do that! I ask you to forgive and forget and both are equally important to me. I love you very much, John. But, if you choose not to bet on a future with me, I will survive anyway and move on with my life and career without you." After finishing, she turned in her seat to face the windshield and didn't make a sound after blowing her nose.

John sat thinking with the phone in his hand. He asked himself, "What happens during another ten years, Old Boy? She will have moved up into an 8 digit pay package, will she then cast me aside when the really big money is within her sight? Its a better bet that she will not, because she has finally now learned what is really important."

He then found the clip on his phone and brought it up. It obviously was similar to the one his wife had alluded to. Before he pressed the arrow to start the video he had a warm smile on his face and turned towards her, displaying his phone. He asked, "Is the still of this video clip like the one the Techie in Houston wanted to show you?"

When Heather took a glance at the still she started crying again profusely and asked plaintively , "You knew already? And you put yourself out to meet my flight knowing that. You are swamped with work to get ready for your Houston trip and yet, here you are making a depressed woman have a good day."

John smiled and said, "I knew about you pleasuring Tyler, but ABX was successful on two bids that we should not have been winners and my guess was that a principal had hots for your body and you entertained him as a bribe because Tyler expected you to do it to save the day. Is that about right?"

"Yes. That is it exactly."

There was silence in the car and then John added , "Saturday afternoon I lied to a beautiful woman who visited me at my invitation. I stated that I did not have a condom in the house. Without that she lost interest in having sex with me. The lie was that, as you know, we have dozens of those in the night stand drawer. The fact was that I was very much in love with you and didn't enjoy the prospect of screwing her - and also really didn't want to for additional reasons separate from our relationship."

Again there was silence, and Heather finally broke it by asking, "You used the word 'love' in the past tense. What about now and the future? Please look at me and tell me straight one way or the other, John Mason!"

"I love you, Heather, and I will go to my grave with that thought in my mind. I, too, need to find a meaning to life and my plan is that our relationship along with our productivity is where both of us will find it."

Pandemonium broke out in the car as the two lovers repeatedly kissed all over the face of the other while laughing and crying at the same time.

Heather screamed out loud with pleasure and said, "Let's hurry home!" as the car engine revved up.

The End of Part 1