The Staircase of Dragon Jerico
Chapter Eleven
“MS. SCOTT,” Preston said on Thursday morning. “I have a standing engagement on Thursdays, so I would appreciate it if you would leave early and take a long lunch. Plan on being back about two o’clock.”
“Certainly, Mr. Carver. I’ve looked over your grocery list and noted a couple of items that we should have added. I’ll take care of that over my lunch break.”
“Hmm. Well, that’s what I depend on you for. After lunch, let’s plan on finishing the hotel model and positioning it on the map. You are doing a good job on the painting.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a good lunch.”
Erin picked up her jacket and headed for the elevator. Jacqueline had told her to expect this. When she’d looked at Mr. Carver’s grocery order, she recognized two of the dishes he was planning. She quickly checked his kitchen and discovered he was missing two ingredients that she would normally use if she was cooking. It was a little cheeky, she supposed, but better to have the ingredients on hand than to reach a critical part of the recipe and not have them.
Mr. Carver’s routines were rather comfortable, even though she’d only been in his office three and a half days. She didn’t mind the domestic work and found some of the office work challenging. She’d started with editing drafts of an outline for a presentation that would soon be given to the board, and forwarding them to Mr. Duval. Then Mr. Carver had shown her the model painting supplies and she’d begun painting the miniatures that would be placed on the terrain map. It was almost like working on handcrafts, and she’d always enjoyed that.
She ate her lunch in the deli section of the supermarket. She figured she might as well get her own groceries while she was there. She had plenty of time to take them home before returning to work.
While she cruised the aisles, she saw a guy in a gray hoodie sweatshirt and caught her breath. No. It wasn’t Jerry. Under the open front sweatshirt, the guy was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt. He wore no mask, and had a full gray beard. It reminded Erin that her regular lunch customer would be at the diner today. She should have gone there to greet him and tell him of her good fortune in landing the job. She knew Dolores would take care of him and tell him where she was, but it would have been better if she’d told him herself.
She would consider going to the diner next week. It wouldn’t be too late to tell him then.
She got back to the office right at two o’clock. If she judged him correctly, punctuality was important to her boss. He was at his desk, head down over his project. She quickly hung her jacket and took the spices to the kitchen. She’d taken time while brewing coffee in the mornings to check the organization of the space. His spice drawer was unsurprisingly in alphabetical order. She carefully moved the bottles to insert the two she’d purchased. Then she hurried back to her desk.
“Miss Scott!”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is ready for you to paint.”
She went immediately to his desk and he pointed to a model of the hotel. He had a sheet of color samples and bottles of paint.
“This is the color of the logs I want on the bulk of the hotel. You should be able to tell what is concrete and should paint the windows so they have the appearance of glass.”
“I can do that.”
“Of course. Take it and g-go!”
“Are you well, Mr. Carver?” Erin asked, concerned at the tone of his voice. “Can I get you anything?”
“J-j-just take it. I’m going up… stairs to r-r-r… sleep.”
“Yes, sir.”
Erin gathered up the model and the paints and took them to a secondary work table next to the larger model. The light was better on this table than at her desk, so she was able to carefully examine the tiny lodge-type hotel and the paints. He’d spent some time the previous day carefully explaining the painting process and color palette, showing her some of his techniques. He’d even supplied a kind of lab coat she could wear to protect her suit. He’d been remarkably patient, not at all the short and grumpy attitude he’d just displayed. She supposed his luncheon engagement must not have gone well.
She watched out of the corner of her eye as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, conscious that at any time he could come to the railing and look down at what she was doing. She quickly checked her calendar to be sure he had no appointments or virtual meetings this afternoon. He was clear. She started painting.
About thirty minutes later, he came back down the stairs looking far more refreshed and pulled together. He looked over her work and nodded, then returned to his desk where he had drawings open on four screens.
They worked on in silence until five o’clock. Erin cleaned her brushes and made sure everything was in its proper place, then circulated around the room resetting cubes and making sure everything had been wiped down once again. In his bedroom, she smoothed out the bedding where he had apparently lain down on top of it.
“Good evening, Mr. Carver,” she said once she’d retrieved her jacket and turned off her desk light.
“Yes. Good evening. Better day tomorrow.”
Erin left.
He hadn’t meant to be so short with his assistant, but… Damn it! He’d gotten used to his once-a-week lunch in the diner and actually liked the waitress, Maizie. They didn’t talk much, but it was… comfortable. He’d even imagined that he might ask her out that day.
But it had been a disappointment. Another girl—a bumbling trainee—had been wearing Maizie’s nametag. The owner of the diner did her best to fill in and told him Maizie had succeeded in getting a new job and was no longer at the diner. He knew she’d gone through some rough times, including a divorce and selling her house. He wished her the best in the future. But he just hadn’t considered that would mean he would no longer see her.
It had ruined his lunch. He wasn’t sure what the special of the day was. He’d eaten it, head down and eyes shaded. It would have been much better if Maizie had served it. That wasn’t even her name! Well, it was the end of an era. That was all.
Preston had resolved last fall that he would make some changes in his life. He would conquer his irrational anxiety over being out among people. It was why he’d agreed to the one disastrous date his mother set up for him. And it was why once a week, he pretended to be someone else and went out to eat the special at the little diner. He’d intended to choose a different restaurant each week, but having met Maizie and discovering how accommodating she was to his quirks, he’d never gone anywhere else.
In all this time, he’d learned very little about her. She’d mentioned planning to start a family, but then her disastrous divorce changed her plans. Her husband must have been a real idiot to cheat on a treasure like Maizie—or whatever her real name was.
If she’d been my wife, I’d find a way to show her how important she was every day.
That was a laugh. As if she’d even consider dating him unless she knew how rich he was. If he could just be Jerry, like he’d told her he was, maybe he’d stand a chance. If he could find her. Perhaps he could get Ms. Scott to search for her. He thought she would just consider it part of her job.
Not that Ms. Scott wasn’t pleasant company in the office, but she was an employee. He’d automatically erected some mental barriers against thinking of her in any other way. She was a good co-worker. She liked things perfect, just like Preston did. If he could keep from blowing up at her whenever something went wrong, maybe he could keep her as an assistant.
He hadn’t wasted time on niceties with her. In fact, he’d given her tasks he wasn’t sure Mrs. Armstrong could have handled. In her first week, she’d been his interface with Duval and compiled his notes on the upcoming board meeting. She’d proven herself capable in painting the models he gave her. She’d spotted a missing ingredient for his Saturday meal, and had replenished his moisturizer, even though he hadn’t mentioned it was running low.
His mother had either done an extraordinary job of training her, or Ms. Scott was a natural. He could even imagine them becoming friends, sort of. Nothing more, of course. She was an employee first and foremost.
He thought of Maizie again. It was silly. He didn’t really know what she looked like. She wore a mask in the restaurant, just as he did. He thought her hair was blonde, based on a few strands that escaped from her little waitress hat. She had nice legs. The diner uniforms stopped about mid-thigh and showed an expanse of lovely bare leg down to her ankle socks and tennis shoes. The waitress uniforms were not form-fitting, but Preston had immediately jumped to the conclusion that she was pretty.
So few clues about the real Maizie. They’d simply hit it off and he liked her. He had no idea if she shared an attraction to him. After all, she’d been married when they met.
“We structure it as a limited partnership,” Preston said to his mother and grandfather during their Sunday dinner together. “Interlake Land Holding brings the property to the table. You’ve done a great job keeping it debt free. That means the partnership can borrow against the land to establish the infrastructure. By the time water, sewer, electric, and streets are begun, we’ll have enough evidence to attract a major investor.”
“The board is going to complain the site is too remote,” Lawrence said. “They’ll want to leverage the land to acquire something nearer to Jerico City.”
“We’ve ample evidence of traffic past the site now,” Preston answered. “And we have the State forecast for expanding the highway between Jerico City and Falmouth. That is our major access route. The one thing that makes this stand out is that it is designed for remote workers. Everything online will have rapid interface. Workers could live in paradise and not leave home to go to work.”
“Are you going to allow your employees to become remote digital employees?” Jacqueline asked.
“We currently have fifteen percent of our general office employees working remotely,” Preston said. “It’s trickier to convince the management staff. They wanted to cut those positions first when we had layoffs. I’m thinking we’ll even give a bonus or purchase credit to any employee who decides to buy in Cloudhaven and work remotely. Of course, there are some jobs that simply can’t be done from home. Construction is the big one. But you could consider everything they do to be remote since they don’t come to the office. They go to wherever the jobsite is. There are sales people who will need to be face-to-face in order to close the deal. It’s still likely they will be able to work as much as 40% remotely. Say three days a week in the office.”
“And you?” Lawrence asked.
“I live as if I were remote already. The toughest part for me is having a dependable assistant. She needs to be hands-on.”
“Speaking of which, how is Ms. Scott working out?”
“I’m still waiting for a huge disappointment,” Preston laughed. “She’s stubbornly not giving me one. Utterly dependable. I have the feeling she is able to project herself into my shoes. She tries to anticipate what I need. This week, she even spotted two spices I needed for my Saturday cooking, and had my moisturizer replenished before I asked for it. Her work on the model has been meticulous. I’ve reviewed her intraoffice emails and she’s been right on. She chose exactly the right ones to forward to me.”
“We promised her a better job if she could last six months with you,” Jacqueline laughed.
“Maybe I can convince her there isn’t a better job,” Preston sighed.
The doorbell at the mansion rang and Jacqueline stood. “Now you two just stay seated where you are. I invited my friend Gina Gabriola for dessert. I just thought we needed to expand our horizons.”
Preston rolled his eyes and Lawrence chuckled.
“Buckle up, son. Your mother’s friends are unpredictable.”
“Don’t I know it. I wish she wouldn’t do this.” Preston pulled his mask from a pocket and put it on before Jacqueline got back to the dining room.
“Gina Gabriola, this is my father, Lawrence Jerico,” Jacqueline said to introduce the two. “And my son, Preston Carver,” she continued. Gina offered her hand to each of the two men and Lawrence pulled out a chair for her. “We’re just getting ready to sit down to dessert. Matilda made a wonderful strawberry rhubarb pie and we have coffee. Please join us.”
“Thank you, Jackie. How lovely.”
What was his mother thinking? Gina was at least as old as she was. Preston tried not to be ageist, but dating someone as old as his mother was not on his bucket list. He lowered his mask to eat the pie. It was good. He relaxed and listened to the older people chat. He really didn’t need to say much. Occasionally, he answered a question. Mostly he enjoyed the dessert and then rose to leave.
“Oh, Preston do you have to go so soon?” Jacqueline said.
“Mother, you know I have more work to do to get ready for that presentation. It was nice to meet you, Ms. Gabriola.”
“Ah, perhaps I should be going, too,” she said, extending her hand.
“Oh, please don’t rush off just because Preston has to leave,” Lawrence said. “Why don’t we relax in the sitting room with a glass of cognac?”
“That would be lovely, Lawrence,” Gina said, taking his hand to be led to the sitting room.
Jacqueline smirked.
“Not every woman I bring home is for you, Preston,” she said. “I think I’ll take a little walk outside.”
Preston chuckled and headed back to his office/apartment.
Erin’s weekend was not as peaceful and relaxing as she might have hoped. After making sure Mr. Carver’s laundry had been picked up by the service and putting his groceries away when they arrived, she collected the entire Cloudhaven development prospectus to read over the weekend. She’d gathered bits and pieces of the plan during her first week at work, but she hadn’t yet managed to get the big picture.
What she read amazed her. She tried not to compare it to Utopia, but it certainly possessed near-perfect qualities for the people who would reside there. She could imagine herself in such a community. Living and working remotely, but still having access to services, shopping, restaurants, and recreation.
As she read the thick book, she highlighted passages and penciled in notes in the margins. There were things she questioned, things she saw that simply wouldn’t work, and things that got her excited to see they had been included.
“Well, how was the first week?” Dolores asked when the two sat down Sunday afternoon for a glass of wine and chat.
“Interesting, exciting, amazing,” Erin said. “You know, I worked for a pretty progressive company up in Cleveland. But it was really only concerned with itself. That’s what most corporations are like. There are owners—shareholders—and the purpose of the company is to make money for the shareholders. That’s what business is. But I’m finding out there is a company that wants to affect far more than the shareholders’ profit. If what I’ve read and experienced so far is true, JeriCorp wants to improve the world—or at least their corner of the world. Not just for their shareholders, but for their employees, for the community they serve, and for the employees of other companies as well.”
“My! You sound like a walking advertisement,” Dolores laughed.
“Well, don’t forget I was the senior marketing exec at the last place I worked. I suppose I tend toward flowery descriptions.”
“No problems?”
“I saw a hint of my boss’s famous temper once, but he almost seemed embarrassed by it, if not entirely repentant. I’d like to know how much of this document I’ve been reading is actually his work and how much comes from someone else in the company.”
“Well, watch your back. Remember, your husband was enthused about his new job there at first, too.”
“That’s a good reminder!”
Erin was enthused and understood better what Bruce had seen when he first went to work at JeriCorp. How easy had it been to be seduced by a coworker in that environment?
She couldn’t see herself being targeted by Mr. Carver. She didn’t think she’d heard more than a dozen sentences from him all week. Still, he managed to communicate just fine. He’d given her a thumbs up by email Friday afternoon and actually said ‘thank you’ when she’d put away the groceries.
She found editing and revising the presentation outline for Mr. Duval to be challenging, but was surprised that Mr. Carver wanted her to send the messages from his email account. Mr. Carver also wanted to be kept informed of certain numbers and progress. She summarized account balances—both personal and business—in a spreadsheet each morning. She’d learned how to read the project planning software so she could quickly identify whether any segment was falling behind.
Erin felt as though data was being shoveled into her brain at a faster rate than since she’d been in school. And she was learning the business. Far from being exhausted by the work, she was energized and ready for the new week.
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