Hostile Takeover Ch. 01

On my way home I spotted Charlotte's car a Saturn Sky roadster that her Dad had bought her when she tore up her first car, a Corvette. The car was in the parking lot of Manny's a club that a lot of the guys went to after work to blow off steam. I went in and saw her at a table with three guys who didn't work for us. The four of them were all huddled into one of the smaller booths. Charlotte's hands weren't visible but one of the guys sitting next to her had his head back and Charlotte seemed to be really interested in his crotch.

I walked over to the table and looked at her. As I supposed, she was jacking the guy off under the table.

"See you at work tomorrow, Miss Stevenson," I said loudly. She jumped back with the stupidest look on her face.

"Preston, no," she said. "I can explain. Two of the guys got up.

"No need for any explanations," I said calmly. "We aren't married. I just thought that we had something. Sorry, it's my mistake."

"Preston, I'm sorry," she whined, her eyes filling with tears.

"Why don't you give the little girl a break Preston," said one of the guys.

I turned towards him and punched him in the mouth as hard as I could. I hit him so hard that he spit out two teeth and my hand was bleeding.

"Why don't you shut the fuck up," I replied. His friends including the guy that Charlotte had jacked off, came out of the booth, while he just sat there holding his mouth.

Before they could do or say anything, several of my guys who were in the club were around me.

"Is there a problem Press?" asked Clay Thompson. Clay was one of my CNC operators. He was also as big as a house.

"Nah, no problems Clay, I'm just leaving," I said.

When I got to the parking lot, Charlotte came running out of the club. I started my car and drove slowly away from there. I didn't need a ticket and there were always cops around the club. Brightly colored muscle cars tend to draw far more tickets.

The next day at work was interesting. I came in went right into the office. As usual Myra was there already. I told her that I'd be working on the floor all day. I needed to make sure that the problems we had with the robot were actually solved. I asked her to forward anything from the office side that I needed to know about to my cell phone.

"When Charlotte comes in, should I ask her to join you on the floor, or stay here in the office with me?" she asked.

"It would probably be better for her to stay here with you," I said. "At least until I can figure out a way to get rid of her." There was no disguising the gleam in Myra's eyes when I said that.

At about 11o'clock Charlotte showed up. Her eyes were red, and she was looking around the floor for me. Luckily it was a very large building, and had a lot of machines scattered around. There were conveyors and CMM labs and all manner of things that I could hide behind to avoid her. After a while she changed tactics and called my cell phone. When I saw her number I just let the call go to voice mail. That day, was the first one since Charlotte came to work with us that she and I didn't go to lunch together. Charlotte often went to lunch twice. She shopped on one lunch period, and ate with me on the other. I sat down for lunch with Charlie Parreda, in his small office, just off the floor.

"So the bloom is off the rose?" he asked. I just nodded sullenly.

"It's my fault Press," he said. "I should have said something sooner. Sam is one of the good guys. He started this business out over thirty years ago, before you were even born. He started out in his garage with a refurbished Bridgeport mill, drilling holes and making slots in plates for anyone who needed parts. He's just like you and me. He's really only happy in front of a machine making something. Once the business got going he started hiring guys and getting bigger jobs. He was constantly expanding and making things better. You've helped a lot over the past couple of years. I see a lot of him in you. I know that he wants you to take over for him when he retires, and I guess he was hoping that you could tame that hellion he sired as well."

"That girl has never been worth a damn. Between Sam, and her mother, you couldn't ask for two classier people. The problem is they indulged her, and now she just has no boundaries. When she turned 20, she started showing up here at the plant. That first summer, she got caught in a compromising position, with two of our top salesmen. They both had to be let go and Sam just sent her off to another college. Last year, she wrecked her Corvette, just left it behind one of those huge trucks that come in every week to pick up our scrap metal. When the driver backed out, he couldn't see that little car because it sits so low, it wasn't visible in his mirrors. He just backed up and crushed it."

"That car cost $60,000 and she just left it behind a truck so she could catch up to the married guy that she was fucking. He was trying to break things off with her, and she wasn't having it. He quit the next day. He said it would be easier for him to get another job, than to deal with her."

"You've heard of guys who can't keep it in their pants, she can't keep her legs closed. Sam loves her, but she's too old for him to spank. And she's too used to having her way." He looked at me with a mixture of sympathy and humor. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Update my resume," I said slowly. "I guess I'll need a new job."

"Where are we going?" asked Charlotte, from behind me. "If you're leaving, I am too." I hadn't heard her come in.

She looked at Charlie, and said, "Hey old guy, is this your office?" he nodded. "Well we're going to need it for a while, If you don't mind."

"I was going back to work anyway ma'am," he said politely. "My lunch will be over soon."

I got up to leave with Charlie. As I passed by Charlotte in the tiny office, she grabbed my arm. "Press, where are you going? We need to talk," she said.

"Miss Stevenson, I think you're a bit over qualified to be wasting your time as my assistant. I'm going to ask your father to see if he can assign you to a position of greater importance in the company. Especially since you're not doing what you've trained for or aspired to." I said. "Maybe he can find something, where you can use those meeting people and helping them to relax skills. I've recently discovered exactly how good you are at that," I said. "However for the rest of the day, you still work for me, so please return to the office. The state safety regulations don't allow you on the manufacturing floor dressed the way you are. You could also consider taking the rest of the day off as a well earned reward for your faithful service and hard work over the past six months."

"Preston, we're supposed to be going to that concert tonight, and I'd really like to work this out before we go," she said.

"I'm afraid I have to work tonight," I said. "Perhaps you could get one of your friends from last night to go instead."

"I don't even know those guys. Preston, the only guy I'm going out with is you. I love you," she said. When she said she loved me. I almost folded, but stuck to my guns.

"I've been thinking about that, Miss Stevenson," I said. "It's totally my fault, but workplace romances aren't in the best interest of the company. They tend to lead to unpleasant circumstances among the employees, and usually result in lowered productivity. It was totally my fault for allowing it to begin. I'll report it to your father, and have him reprimand me."

"Preston, will you stop being a jackass. My father pushed us together because he was hoping we'd hit it off. I was hoping I'd hate you, but I don't. I love you. We're going to get married, have kids and run this company. We just need to get over this. It wasn't anything serious. I just made one mistake. It won't happen again," she said.

"Charlotte, the only mistake that you think you made, was getting caught," I said. "I'll talk to Sam when he comes in tomorrow. I don't want you working for me. There's nothing left for us on a personal level either. I just plain don't want to be around you. I'm sure that when the shit hits the fan, your dad will choose you over me, in a heartbeat, so I'll just spend the rest of today saying goodbye to everyone. That way I'll be ready to leave after I see him tomorrow." Then I walked away and left her there crying. I felt badly about hurting her, but decided that it was the lesser of two evils. I'd rather have her hurt for the few hours that it would take her to get over me, than me broken hearted over her for months.

Unfortunately Charlotte wasn't used to rejection in any way shape or form. She trashed Charlie's office and destroyed a bunch of his personal property during her rampage.

Everyone on the floor and in the offices was talking about both my fight yesterday, what there was of it, and Charlotte tearing up Charlie's office.

"Hey Press, I heard you hit that guy so hard that his kids will be born without any front teeth," said one of the mechanics. I smiled and watched as another one picked up a chair and pretended to throw it, imitating Charlotte.

The next morning I was already on the floor when Sam came in. I excused myself from the guys I'd been working with and went up to his office.

"Holy shit, what is all of this stuff?" he asked, pointing to the mountain of files on his desk.

"Production reports from everything we're running right now. Metallurgical reports and QC data," I said. "There are also master copies of every program we use and possible modifications to them for different scenarios on the disks. The rest are incident reports, Sales figures, Cutter designs, time studies..."

He held up his hand for me to stop. "What I mean is why, is it on my desk? This is stuff for you to take care of. That's your job now. I don't need to look over your shoulder every day. If I did you wouldn't have the job. If something is wrong, or you think something may go wrong that you can't handle, then you call me. But for the day to day stuff, I don't need to know," he said.

"Well I was thinking..." I began.

"You were thinking that since you and Charlotte are having problems that maybe you should bail? I never thought you were a quitter Press," he said.

I sat down in the chair across from him, and looked at the floor. "That bad?" he asked. I only nodded. "You want to talk about it?"

"Sam six months ago, I didn't know Charlotte. I thought I was happy. I love what I do. Working here is my dream job. When she came in here that first day, I thought it was some kind of test you were putting me through. Then I thought that you wanted me to babysit her for a while. The next thing I knew I was crazy about her. We were always together both at work and at home, and I just couldn't see living without her. I was figuring that some time soon I would start feeling you out to see whether or not you'd be upset if I proposed to her. I'm not sure she'd have accepted, but I wanted your approval first," I said.

"For most of my life, I've had a girl or two, here and there, but there was never anything really serious, until Charlotte. I guess I was so busy with the machines and my car, that people to me were about the same as machines. In most cases though, people were worse, they're less dependable, they're less predictable, and you can't count on them to do what they're supposed to do all of the time."

"Then Charlotte came along and I guess I was blindsided. I found out that she can't type. She doesn't know anything about filing systems. She doesn't know much about computers or our phone system at all. In fact Sam, she's a terrible assistant. That's why I had to have a second assistant. Myra is great. She actually does all of the work. But Charlotte did something different. She changed me in ways that I can't even begin to think about. I found myself smiling at her at odd moments, or holding her hand under the table in meetings when no one could see us. Just silly things like that."

"The worst thing though is I started looking forward to a future with her. I started seeing the rest of my life as "we," instead of "me," I said. "Sam I know that she's your daughter, but I started thinking of her as "my Charlotte." Then it all went to hell. When I walked into Manny's the other night after seeing her car parked out there, I wasn't spying on her, or trying to catch her doing something. I just hadn't seen in her in a few hours and I missed her something awful. That's a terrible way to be isn't it? To care about someone so much that just being away from them for a couple of hours seems like an eternity." He nodded his head agreeing with me.

"Anyway I went in and saw her in a booth in the back, in the corner, in the dark, with three guys. One of them had his arm around her and she was looking down in his lap while the other two watched. My heart was pounding so loudly that I thought everyone in the bar could hear it. As I got closer I saw that I wasn't wrong. My Charlotte was giving another man a hand job in a public place. I guess I could have just walked away, and let it go. I could have just broken things off with her, and told her it wasn't working out. But Sam I was hurt badly, and I wanted to let her know why, we weren't going to work out."

"So I just told her that I'd see her at work the next day. She started trying to talk to me, and one of her friends tried to interfere. I only hit him once, but I nailed him pretty good. I found out yesterday that he's married and has a kid, so I don't think he can afford any problems. I'm sure he lied to his wife about how he got busted up."

"I guess the thing that we need to work out, is that I can't work with Charlotte anymore. So I just figured that I'd turn in my stuff, so my replacement will have all of the data he needs. Of course I'll stay until you find the guy, and I'll even help him get going in the job..."

"Press, if you can't get work with Charlotte, put her in another department or another job, or hell, just fire her. But the problem is not going to go away until you deal with the real issue here. You might not see her at work, but you're still going to see her in your head. The fact of the matter is that you love Charlotte. It's so obvious that I'm surprised that you can't see it. She did a real shitty thing, I know it. But this pales in front of some of the things that girl has done," he said.

"As bad as it is, I see this as growth for her. And I'd be willing to bet that she's going to grow even further after this. Charlotte is really spoiled and used to having her way. That's mostly my fault I'm afraid. Press, she's been crying her eyes out for two days now. I've never seen that girl shed one tear for anything before this in her entire life. If, and I'm only saying if, the two of you get past this, I don't think it would ever happen again," he said softly.

"She's finally realized that there are some things that have value to her. She knows there are things that can be taken away from her, that we can't just replace," he said. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do here, but she isn't going to let you go easily either. I think my daughter loves you."

"With that being said, you have some things you need to look at too Preston," he said. "You have to realize that people, especially Charlotte, are not like your machines. You can't just program them, and expect for everything to run flawlessly, every time. People, especially Charlotte, have needs and feeling and a lot of really complex issues to deal with."

"You'll figure it out. I'm going to have someone deliver all of this crap back to Myra. If you need me I'll be at the other office," he said smiling. I decided right then that I was going to have to try golf someday.

Later that day, when Charlotte showed up for work, Myra told her that I was out on the floor again. She called me and asked me if we could talk. I started to simply fire her, but decided to be a bit more poetic. I told her that we had nothing to talk about, because everything had been taken care of.

"You mean you've forgiven me already?" she asked. "That's great Press. I love you. It won't ever happen again. You do know that nothing really happened anyway. Nothing serious happened anyway. Where are you? Can I come down there?"

"Miss Stevenson, we have nothing to talk about because you've been reassigned. I really don't need two assistants, when some of the managers don't have any. Your father owns this company, and some day you'll probably run it, so it's time for you to have some more direct information on what it does. You're still an assistant, but you've been assigned to Charlie Parreda," I said smiling. "You should probably take the rest of the day off to get the clothing and equipment you'll need for your new position.

I could just imagine Charlotte's shock as I hung up the phone. I thought it was great. Since Charlotte had trashed Charlie's office, she could be the one to clean it up.

At lunchtime I was walking to the parking lot, when I noticed Charlotte sitting on the hood of my car. I turned and went back inside. I got Myra to order a pizza and had lunch in my office.

"Myra we've never, just had lunch together, why don't you sit down and have a slice," I laughed at her.

"Oh no," she said. "I like working here. You may be unlikely to be fired, but I'm not. I have my list and I know what I can and can't get away with."

"What list?" I asked puzzled.

"Remember the day I was massaging your shoulders?" she asked.

"Yep," I said. "Charlotte had a hissy fit, it was kind of funny."

"Only to you," snapped Myra. "She gave me a list of things I can't do and continue working here. One of the things I'm not allowed to do is to have non-working lunches with you if she isn't present."

I was shocked, but Myra was serious.

"I told her that you were married and have kids," I said.

"Press, she probably thinks that everyone is like her. That commitments and things like that don't matter. Only what she wants," said Myra. "The guy she went after last summer, Anson Williams. He went to school with my husband. He's working for a different company now, but Don still sees him. Don told me that Charlotte didn't care about Anson's wife or kids. She thought he was cute and she was going to have him. You've heard I assume, of how she just left her car in the way for that truck to crush it? If she wants something she just goes after it and nothing will stand in her way."

I went home after work that day. I was relieved that Charlotte wasn't in the parking lot. I made something to eat, drank a lot and went to bed early. The phone rang several times, but I didn't answer it. I guess I didn't want anyone to know how miserable I was.

Sometime during the night I woke up. Someone was banging on my door so hard I thought it would come off the hinges. I looked out through the keyhole and saw a taxi driver standing there.

As I opened the door he pointed at his waiting cab. "I have something of yours buddy," he said. I followed him to his Taxi. I looked inside and a clearly drunk Charlotte was passed out on his rear seat. "Thirty bucks including gratuity," he said.

"Why'd you bring her here?" I asked. "She doesn't live with me."

"Look buddy, she was staggering around downtown. I asked her where she wanted to go, and she gave me your address. You can either, pay me, and take her. Or I can drop her off at the police station and she can spend the night in a drunk tank. Something else though, is your name Preston?" he asked.

"Yeah, how did you know that?" I asked.

He just hooked his thumb towards Charlotte. "Sleeping beauty, kept saying Preston loves me, all the way here. It sure doesn't seem that way though."

I gave him forty bucks, and carried Charlotte into my apartment. I laid her down on my sofa and called her house. Sam didn't answer the phone, his wife Amanda did.