Territory Manager

Where I had sadness thinking about my lost marriage, I now had anger at this egomaniacal asshole. There was going to be a confrontation.

I called John Gomez back and got a little more information. It sounded like Crystal, Dobler and that other asshole Barnes all went to the Tiki Hut virtually every night after work. I did a mental calculation. If I left now I would be there about five thirty this afternoon. Since it was a Thursday none of them would expect me.

I headed west.

During the four hour drive I thought of a lot of things. Many of my thoughts were of Crystal and Dobler, but some of them were about Canadian Pacific and that opportunity. I began to formulate a plan regarding Graham's proposal. At one point I even tried calling Mr Bellows. That call went to voicemail. I didn't leave a message.

Five twenty four PM and I pull up outside The Tiki Hut. I am doing my best to stay calm. When I opened the door it took me a moment to adjust to the darkness of the bar. I think I heard them before I actually saw them.

The four of them Crystal, Dobler, Darin Barnes, and Jules the big breasted receptionist sat in a booth. Dobler had his arm possessively around Crystal, his hand dangling over her left tit, perhaps lightly touching it.

"Isn't this cozy?" I said surprising the foursome.

"Roger!" Crystal exclaimed. "What, what are you doing here? It's only Thursday." she went on, disentangling herself from Dobler's groping.

"Yes, it is just Thursday." I said. "I heard there was a company party tonight. I decided to attend." I said, my emotions high and tense.

"Easy Pal, " Dobler said to me. "Why don't you just calm down. We're just having some fun." Dobler stood.

I glanced briefly at Dobler and then stared at Crystal. She was looking down. Avoiding my gaze, caught doing what a married woman probably shouldn't be doing.

"So, are you fucking this guy?'" hooking my thumb towards Dobler but staring at Crystal.

She was silent to this but big titted Jules chimed in.

"So what if she is." Jules said. "You're out in bum-fuck Montana all week. You expect her to sit home waiting for you?" She told me.

With that Barnes started laughing.

"You fucking bitch." I quietly, tensely said to Crystal. "I'm trying to sacrifice and make a life for us. And meanwhile you're fucking this loud mouthed douche! What is wrong with you?" I asked her.

Crystal, was quiet for a minute them looked me in the eyes and said to me,

"I made a mistake." She said to me.

Here it comes, I thought. Some pathetic apology, how it only happened once, and it doesn't affect us. How it will never happen again.

But I mistook what she meant about her 'mistake'.

"Sometimes you realize that you made a mistake with a relationship. I was young and immature when we met. I have matured and unfortunately I need something more in my life." She told me.

I was shocked by her words. Need something more? I just stared at her, incredulous.

"And this is something more!?" I asked, my finger pointing at Dobler while I locked eyes with Crystal.

Dobler, apparently, didn't like my finger that close to him and he swatted it away.

Though my focus was still on Crystal, not quite understanding this complete change in attitude. I involuntarily reacted to the slapping of my finger and snapped my hand up grazing Dobler's chin.

As I continued to look at Crystal trying to wrap my head around this woman who in all likelihood was going to be my ex-wife, I was coldcocked.

Dobler was big and fairly strong. I was completely blindsided by his punch to my jaw. In boxing I'm sure I had been hit harder before but this time I was completely, unknowingly defenseless. He knocked me out.

When I came to, Crystal, Dobler and company were gone. The bartender was patting my face with a cold towel.

"You okay bud?" He asked. "All of a sudden those people left in a hurry and then I saw you on the floor. You okay?" he asked again.

I told him I was okay, but asked for a bag of ice for my jaw. I drove home. I was pretty sure if Crystal or any one of them had been at my house I would have killed them. Fortunately it was empty.

I spent the evening thinking about my plans. I will likely leave B&B. I wanted to at least talk to Ted Bellows, probably Monday. I knew there was no way I could work with Dobler. I was leaning heavily toward taking Graham McKenzie up on his proposal. I was going to dump Crystal. I think I still had the business card of the lawyer Arthur Bellows used when Crystal and I signed our prenuptial agreements.

I took a moment and silently thanked Mr Bellows for making us sign that agreement. I will keep my house and my investment account with all my savings. I wondered for a moment if Mr Bellows had sensed something may go wrong in my marriage.

On Friday and over the weekend I changed out the locks on the doors of the house. I changed the garage door remote code. I then scoured the house for anything that was Crystal's and put all her possessions in six large black garbage bags. One bag alone for her shoes. On Saturday afternoon I texted her:

"Your stuff is packed in garbage bags. They will be in the driveway tomorrow from nine AM until noon. If you haven't picked them up by then, they're going in the dumpster'.

Sunday, when I got back in the early afternoon, the bags were gone.

Monday morning I called Ted Bellows. I explained that I could no longer work at B&B. I said my faith in Dobler's leadership was gone. That's all I said about that. I said nothing about Crystal. I thanked him for eight years of mostly positive experiences. I sent a formal resignation letter to Ted Bellows effective immediately.

Later that morning I contacted Robert Patton, the attorney Mr Bellows used for the prenuptial agreement. He said it would not be him, but someone in his office would handle the divorce. I also confirmed with him that I did not have a non compete agreement with B&B.

With that in motion I spent the balance of the week seeing my old territory customers, explaining my plan with Can Pac Lumber. I asked them to keep this information confidential.

When I talked to Henry Lee, the owner of North Idaho Lumber, he said "Hell Yeah" he'd buy from me.

He then asked about my staff. I told them the operation would be a little lean at first and all I really needed at this time was one other office person.

"I've got the perfect person for you." He told me.

It turns out it was his sister, Martha. She went by Marty. Marty was nearly as tall as Henry at just under six foot. She also weighed I'd guess close to two-fifty. But she was smart and personable and at one time had a high level office-accounting job in Chicago. She had just moved back home. I told her, give me a few days. She seemed excited about the opportunity.

I called Graham McKenzie toward the end of the week. I told him I was interested in his proposal. We talked about details for the better part of an hour. I was all in.

"Congratulations Roger, what are we calling this operation now?" He asked me.

"Big Sky Forest Products." I told him. The name came to me on the spur of the moment.

I called Marty Lee and we discussed the terms of her employment. After reaching an agreement we started the task of setting up an office and putting together the infrastructure of the business. At one point Marty said to me.

"Roger, you go out and sell, I'll take care of the office."

I did just that. I was calling or visiting customers and Marty was organizing the office. We worked long hours, but things were coming together.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Ted Bellows had just gotten off the phone with one of B&B's long standing customers. Not good news. He walked down to Gordon Dobler's office. Darin Barnes, Dobler's sales and marketing specialist was sitting in the chair across from Dobler, feet on the desk. It didn't look like they were discussing business.

"You got a minute?" The younger Bellows asked.

""Yeah Tab, what's up?" Dobler said, a half smile on his face, not a care in the world.

"I'm hearing that our ex-employee Roger Winters has started his own business and is now distributing for Can Pac." Bellows said. "His prices are at least 10% less than ours. If we don't do something we're going to lose a lot of business." He added.

"Tab, relax." Dobler calmly said. "There is no way we are going to lose that business. Winters does not have the ability to compete with us. In fact one of the reasons I let him go was that he was so disorganized. His salesplan entries were terrible. He graded out as BELOW AVERAGE. Between Darin and I we'll make sure we don't lose any business. Guarantee it" the confident Dobler said.

"Well, okay I guess. Sounds like you got it under control." Bellows said, and left.

Walking back to his office Ted Bellows was unconvinced. And what was that about "letting him go"? He quit. We will have to monitor business closely over the coming weeks, he thought.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Part of my plan for selling the Can Pac lumber was to continue to expand my sales in Western Montana. I found myself there every other week, overnight. I worked my schedule so my overnights were in Missoula. When I could, I tried to get together with Gail and the girls.

Gail and I discussed all that was happening in my life. She knew about Crystal. We talked about that alot. She knew about my resignation from B&B. And she knew, and was helping me with Big Sky Forest Products.

Compared to the marketing strategies she worked on, she could do my marketing with a pen and a cocktail napkin. This was easy for her, but critical to me. When you start a new business you need to establish trust with customers. Little suggestions from Gail were extremely helpful for my business.

Beyond that our friendship-relationship grew. The relationship with her girls grew too. I think at first she was so grateful for my helping the girls that day that she felt indebted to me. It was far beyond that now. We had a close friendship. Not romantic, in fact we had drifted so far into the friend zone, it almost would feel awkward to pivot towards romance. I found her extremely attractive, but she was also so vulnerable. She was a single mother.

I'd have to think about all this. At some point I wanted this relationship to make that romantic pivot. The timing just had to be right.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Sometimes Crystal felt sad that her marriage to Roger was ending. She also was unhappy to realize all those papers that Mr Bellows had her sign kept any of Roger's money away from her. Gordon had told her she was entitled to one half of his money and also part of the house. But because of the papers the lawyer had them sign she wouldn't get any of it. The best her lawyer said was she may end up with around ten thousand dollars.

For the most part she was happy with Gordon. When he first came to B&B he always complimented her. She loved that. Telling her how smart she was. How good she looked. How great a job she did. And then he promoted her. And Roger was gone all the time. Gordon became her friend and then it was more than that.

She thought back to the night that Roger had caught them. Crystal knew she had to break up with Roger. She had fallen in love with Gordon. Gordon was so smart and confident. She realized this was the type of man she should be with. Gordon was successful, he was a manager. He was Roger's boss. She deserved to be with someone like Gordon.

Still there were times she did miss Roger. Roger was a good man. But Gordon was so confident and exciting. Her romance with Gordon just seemed right. Gordon had told her that he had fired Roger. Part of her felt bad for Roger losing his job, but then another part of her grew excited at the thought that Gordon had the power to fire somebody.

As she thought about Roger being fired she thought, oh well, life can be tough sometimes. I really do hope things can work out for Roger eventually.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

My sales grew and we were ordering more truckloads of material from Can Pac. I was having to finance this through my savings.

"For a new business cash flow can be the biggest challenge." Marty told me. "If there is a way to get our margins up, try to do that." She added.

I couldn't increase my margins. Not yet. My sales pitch to our customers was still the same high quality Can Pac material, but at a lower price. We couldn't provide all the extra things that B&B did. We needed to have better prices. The good news was that sales were strong and the customers seemed to like me. And Marty was amazing, I truly couldn't do it without her.

One night I was in Montana and called Gail to see if she and the girls wanted to go out for pizza.

"Roger, I'm not sure." Gail told me.

She sounded distant, not the upbeat tone that she normally had.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

There was a pause on her end.

"Gail?" I said. "Gail, are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Yes, okay let's meet for pizza. But afterward you and I are going to have to have a serious conversation." She told me.

Uh oh, I thought.

At the pizza parlor everything was normal. We ate, talked, and laughed. It was just a regular evening. There were times when I'd be talking to the girls and I would glance up and see Gail studying me with a serious expression. I began to worry about the serious conversation.

We went back to their house and shortly thereafter the girls went to bed. I got a big hug from Violet, that was very nice.

When Gail came back to the living room she looked a little misty eyed. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the palms of her hand. This looked like bad news.

"So what's going on?" I asked Gail.

She told me a story. Yesterday Violet came home from school upset. It seems a couple of girls were making fun of her, saying she didn't have a father. April was nearby and heard some of the things the girls said. Including what Violet said back to the girls.

.

"April told me this part." Gail went on. "When the girls teased her about not having a father, she told them she did have a father."

At this point Gail stared at me, tears welling up again in her eyes. She paused and took a deep breath.

"Violet told the girls that 'Roger' was her father."

I was stunned. A mixture of emotions. Sadness, surprise, confusion, and I have to admit part of me felt happy that she thought that way of me.

At this point I hadn't said a word. I was unsure what Gail was feeling.

"Don't you see?" she asked me. "My girls have gotten close to you, maybe too close. I have to protect them. After their father died we had a tough, tough time. They are just starting to break through. I can't have them go through another loss of an important person in their lives. It isn't fair to them." She told me.

"What do you mean loss?" I asked her, still confused.

"Roger, you have become a good friend to our family." she said. "But you have a life. In fact you're still married. You live hours away, you have a new business. You and I have become friends, but clearly that's all it is, a friendship." She added.

I sat and just stared at her. I was confused. Then I thought back to my old boxing strategy, not the counterpunch strategy, my original aggressive strategy.

I got up from the couch, grabbed Gail's hands, lifted her off the chair and kissed her, my arms wrapped around her. She was clearly surprised, but the second half of the kiss, she got into it.

"What, what was all that!?" she asked when we stopped. I still had my arms around her.

"Gail, I think you're beautiful. We have become good friends, I was just waiting for the opportunity to tell you my feelings. I love your girls, and I will soon be divorced." I told her. "Not sure how you feel about me, but I really like you. I would love to be a bigger part of your girl's lives."

She hugged me and I kissed her again, this time with a little more sensuality to it. We stood there body to body making out. All of a sudden she smiled and pushed me away. I'm sure she began to feel my erection.

"I like you to Roger, BUT," she said with a half smile on her face, "I'm not sleeping with you until you are divorced." she proclaimed.

I disentangled myself and reached for my phone.

"What, what are you doing?" She asked with a half smiling confused look on her face.

"What do you think I'm doing? I'm calling my lawyer to speed up this divorce.."

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

This time Arthur Bellows was at the meeting. Ted had called an executive meeting to discuss the state of their business. While the market was up over ten per cent the business at B&B was down close to thirty per cent.

Gordon Dobler and Darin Barnes were also present. Budget documents were in haphazard piles on the conference room table.

"Bottom line." said Ted Bellows, "We will need to have a radical downsizing if we don't reverse this trend in the next few months. We are losing market share at a rate this company has never experienced before. " The younger Bellows stated.

"I'd like to hear what Gordon has to say about our declining sales situation." Arthur Bellows said.

"What's there to say?" Dobler said tilted back in his chair. "Your boy Winters is giving shit away. We have operating overhead that won't allow us to match his prices. Not much we can do." Dobler added offhandedly.

Arthur Bellows sat silent for the moment staring at Dobler. Dobler had a look on his face as if he hadn't a care in the world.

The normally controlled Arthur Bellows stood.

"My father started this business forty five years ago. Not once have we had to lay people off." He angrily stated. "And now the strategy is 'not much we can do'? I hope you come up with a better plan than this. And do it quickly!" He barked, and then left the conference room.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Wow, Gordon's in a grouchy mood, Crystal thought. Ever since she'd been living with him he'd always been nice to her. Sometimes he wanted sex too much, but for the most part he'd been really cool.

It all started after they had some big closed door meeting with old Mr Bellows. There'd been some shouting and she'd heard business wasn't good. That's what everyone was saying.

Gordon said it would all work out. And he's always right, she thought.

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

We'd been in business eight months now and sales were strong. We were selling Can Pac products to almost all the dealers in the market. We had taken a lot of business from B&B I thought. That was the good news.

The bad news was I had depleted most of my savings feeding cash to the business. I wasn't sure how much money we were making. Marty and I met with our accountant.

We reviewed sales, looked at costs, and discussed margins. Bottom line, we weren't making any money. I had just enough cash to keep us in business for another four months. Marty and I left the meeting with a lot less optimism than when we went in.

I felt like I owed Graham McKenzie a phone call. He was a friend and I needed to let him know what's going on. I explained to him our cash flow problems and the diagnosis by our accountant.

"Listen mate, I think I may have a plan. Hang in there for just a bit, things may work out just fine." he told me.

When I asked him for more details he said he couldn't say anything yet.

"Roger, have faith." He told me.

Meanwhile, things with Gail and I had progressed. Still no sex, or rather, no intercourse, but everything else. She had an incredible athletic body with wonderful tight breasts. Beyond all that we got along great and I loved the girls. I also loved Gail too, and she knew it.

Despite the stress of my business my relationship with Gail was so good it was easy to stay positive.

A few days later I got a call from Graham.

"Listen mate, you're going to get a phone call...."