Chapter Twenty-Six
Before leaving for the final day of the seminar, Danny reached into his wallet and slid out his Visa card. Then, while kissing his soon-to-be wife good-bye, he slipped the card into her hand. “Here, take this and go get yourself some clothes for the trip to Las Vegas — no limit. Find a new dress or two for the night life. Sorry I have the seminar, or I’d go with you.”
“Come on Danny. Are you serious?”
“Of course.”
“Can I get shoes and a purse too?”
“Whatever you want. My clothes budget is way under-spent.”
She hugged him around the neck. He would try to be home by six, he said. She promised to have dinner ready.
Over lunch with Bud Morningstar, Danny quickly became the interviewer. He wanted to know about Transtaff’s business plan and customer base, its sales methods, how the company was organized, and especially, whether they had an employee development budget. Bud laid the answers out for him in painstaking detail.
If he were responsible for recruiting, Danny speculated, would he be able to build an adequate team and get the company’s support to make changes and amend processes? Could he influence salaries and benefits in order to make Transtaff more attractive to highly desirable professionals?
Bud remained unruffled while feeding Danny the answers he sought.
Danny liked Bud’s demeanor and open-mindedness, and especially his honesty. This man did not seem even remotely capable of telling a lie. He was simply tell-it-like-it-is transparent — someone Danny felt confident he could both admire and work with amiably.
“Who would I be reporting to?” Danny asked.
“Well, I don’t see any point in putting you under HR, and this is definitely a strategic initiative, so I guess you’d report directly to me. I don’t think it would be wise though to give you a VP title right off the bat.”
“No problem, titles aren’t that important to me.”
Next, Danny went into a mini-presentation on the approach he planned to use to organize an in-house recruiting process for Transtaff, explaining some of the steps he would take to assure that enough of, and only the right people made it onto the payroll. He then described a tentative time line indicating what results Bud could expect over the first six months. This was obviously not something new to Danny.
Bud’s only concern went to Danny’s motivation to function as a recruiter again instead of purely in a management role like he currently did with Base Line.
“I actually would welcome that,” Danny told him. “To me, recruiting is challenging, stimulating, and fun. Plus, I’ve found that management can be a little stifling when that’s all you do. I think what you are proposing would be the best of both worlds.”
“Well, Danny, there’s just one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“If we offered you the job, when could you start?”
“You could have me within two-and-a-half weeks if you want, the sixteenth of February, I believe. Or, if you prefer, we could wait until the first week of March.”
They discussed salary and benefits. The graduated incentive plan would easily get him over one hundred thousand for six hires a month — child’s play to him. Bud said he would call his secretary and get a formal offer put together by the time the seminar wrapped up later this afternoon. Danny got directions to the office in Costa Mesa and promised to meet him there around four-thirty.
They shook hands and headed to their respective break out sessions.
With a bottle of chilled California Champagne under his arm, Danny used his own key to let himself in through Julie’s security door. He stepped across the sun porch but stopped at the living room door and knocked. Julie opened it and found him standing in the semi-darkness, grinning like a kid on Christmas.
She kissed him. “You didn’t have to knock, you know.”
“This will be the last time. I promise.” He handed her the bottle. “Here, I got us something to celebrate with.”
Julie eyed the label. “I thought you didn’t like Champagne. Besides, what’s the occasion?”
Danny glanced around the living room, then answered somewhat facetiously, “I don’t think there’s room enough in here for all the other furniture, do you?”
Her eyes sparkled. “What on earth are you getting at, Daniel?”
“I’ve got some big news.”
“And that would be...?” She tapped her foot and feigned a look of impatience.
“I got a new job up in Costa Mesa. I start February sixteenth.”
She squealed loud enough to be heard in Dana Point. “You’re kidding?!”
“No, and I even got a raise. Meet the newest transplant to the coast.”
They hugged and kissed and mussed each other’s hair until Danny took a step back and suggested in deadpan fashion, “Nothing against this little hideaway of yours, but maybe we should start looking for a house to buy, something with a dining room and a larger tub.”
“Promise?”
“Promise. Now, what do you say we open the Champagne?”
“In just a minute. I’ve got some news too.”
“You do?”
“Yep. I got a legal document in the mail from SunBurst today — some kind of Affidavit and Hold Harmless something or other.” She grabbed it off the snack bar. “Here, have a look. What I think it says is — if I sign away my rights to sue him, Mike will agree to pay me an entire year’s salary — forty thousand dollars.”
“Wow!” His eyes dropped to skim the document. “That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.”
“Pretty good, nothing. It’s fantastic.”
“It says here, among other things, that: ‘EMPLOYEE,’ which is you, of course, ‘agrees that any and all activities in relationship with MANAGER, both professional and personal, were of an entirely and mutually voluntary and consensual nature, and therefore not actionable under any Federal or State, civil or criminal statutes; and EMPLOYEE further agrees to hold MANAGER entirely harmless in any and all matters relating to EMPLOYEE’s term of employment at SunBurst, Incorporated...yadda, yadda.’ So, in other words, he’s making sure you can’t get the District Attorney to bring him up on rape charges or criminal sexual harassment, which is, by the way, a federal crime. This guy’s slicker than synthetic motor oil.”
“Tell me about it. But I’m sure if I don’t sign that agreement, he won’t pay me a cent.”
“Of course not. But then again, you weren’t going to have him charged either way.”
“You know that, but it’s not what I said in my letter.”
“Remind me never to mess with you again.” Danny hugged her and stole another kiss. She tasted like coffee. It was a taste he had grown to love over the years. “You won, Julie. Do you know that? You beat this guy at his own game.”
“I know I did, and it feels pretty damn good. But I wish I’d never played at all if you want to know the truth.”
“Shhh. That’s all history now. Do you think it’s time to open this bottle yet? There’s nothing worse than warm Champagne, you know.”
“It’s time. It really is.”
After making love for what seemed like hours, Danny slept hard and long for the first time since crossing the continental divide. It took the smell of fresh coffee to bring him back from dreamland. Julie had put a pot on to brew and left for her run, so her note indicated. It also said this was the last time she was going to let him laze away the best hour of the morning. If she were going to marry him again, she expected a running partner in the deal. She did, however, sign the note: With love to my one and only — Julie
Danny smiled at that and poured himself a mug-full of Tracy’s special blend of Arabica Coffee. In addition to being about as rare as pure gold, Julie’s best friend obviously had good taste. He was looking forward to having her among his circle of friends.
They had packed their suitcases last evening, so they could leave for Las Vegas while the day was still young. It was a fairly long drive but they were not in any particular hurry. And since he and Julie were getting on so well, he didn’t have the slightest apprehension over springing his last few surprises on her. In fact, he was actually looking forward to watching her react.
He sat at the snack bar and thought back over the past few days. So much had happened to alter life as he knew it, as recently as one week ago. And there were more disruptions and changes ahead, what with a new job and a new home and a new wife. But Danny wasn’t worried about any of it. He’d learned over the years how to weather the storms of life, and how to survive the tremors that move the very earth itself. He’d discovered that, when the wind and rain stopped and the dust settled, there was often more good to be found in the aftermath than evil. Take his marriage, for instance. Had it not been for the divorce, he and Julie would most likely not be as happy as they now were. And then there was his career; his new job exemplified the same extraordinary phenomena. It was just like someone had once described the theory of evolution: akin to a tornado blowing though a junkyard that somehow manages to build a Boeing 747. Too amazing for words, he realized — totally inexplicable. But, whether happenstance or not, this principle was clearly operating in their lives of late.
He heard the squeak of the front grate. A couple moments later, Julie emerged through the door. She looked flushed and windblown. Danny went to greet her with a hug.
“I don’t think you want to do that. I’m all sweaty.”
He squeezed her anyway. “I can’t miss an opportunity. Eighteen months of abstinence is a lot to make up for.”
“Just so you don’t get tired of it from doing it too much.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
When they reached Barstow, Danny pulled the Taurus off the Interstate and stopped at an Indian jewelry shop near the exit. Julie looked at him funny. “What’s up?”
“I thought we’d make a little stop here to pick out some rings. You can’t get married without rings, you know.”
“Daniel...”
He could see gears turning in her head.
“I don’t know what you have up your sleeve, but I’m not marrying you in the Chapel-O-Love.”
“Aw, come on. It’ll be fun, especially since you’ve got a brand new dress and shoes for just such an occasion. We can always have another church wedding if you want. But at least this will settle the legal question, and make a virtuous woman out of you again. Unless, of course, you prefer to go on shacking up with me.”
“I’m not shacking up with you. You’re my husband and have been since I was a mutton-headed teenager, and I promised to love you until death do us part. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah. I remember. Which, the way I see it, is all the more reason to renew our vows in the Chapel-O-Love, as you so graciously referred to it. Besides, we’ll be making a memory. Oh, and there’s one more reason too.”
“And what might that be?”
“You have to first get married if you’re planning to go on a honeymoon.”
“What honeymoon?”
“This one. The one which begins here in Las Vegas and then continues in Lake Orion, Michigan for the next two weeks. The one I’m sure you won’t want to miss since you’ll be able to see your kids again and all your old friends, and you can help me decide which stuff is worth moving out here. Besides, I’ve already put the cost of your plane ticket on my AMEX card.”
She remained speechless with her arms folded, looking right past him and out the driver’s side window.
He went on, “All right, I know you might have to drop your classes at Cal State. But, come next semester, you can enroll full-time if you want.”
She rolled her green eyes at him. “Danny, you’re a little shit. Do you know that? When are you going to learn that women like to be consulted about things like when and where they get married or take their honeymoons or what they’re going to do with the rest of their lives?”
“Probably sometime in the next incarnation, I suppose.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“Maybe sooner, then.”
“Definitely sooner.”
“Okay, then, sooner. I’ll work on that. Now come on. Let’s go pick out some rings for the big ceremony.”
“Only if you kiss me first.”
“That, I think I can do properly.”