My executive assistant called me at five in the morning. “Hello? Mr. Lockwood?”
“Make it quick.”
“The board said they have all the information they need regarding the assignment. They said you can come back now.”
Now? I’m not ready!
“Um, tell them I’m still looking into some things and I’ll need to stay here the full six weeks, maybe a little longer,” I hung up.
I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted to spend a lot more time with Selena—we hadn’t even had sex yet. But I promised myself I wouldn’t be intimate with her until I admitted that I was the CEO of Autumn Wonder, until I was as honest with her as she’d been with me.
I thought about numerous ways to break it to her, but every time I attempted to she went into another memory she had of Sweet Seasons, another story about how the community members were trying their hardest to save it from the “greedy dickheads at Autumn Wonder.”
My phone rang again. Barry.
“Hello?”
“What’s her name?” he laughed.
“What are you talking about?”
“What’s the name of the woman you’re dating? You were just complaining about not wanting to be there and now all of a sudden you’re trying to stay? Longer than six weeks?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Barry. I think I need to survey some more of our competition and make sure our files are all in order,” I said as convincingly as possible.
The line went quiet, Barry’s way of calling my bluff.
“Her name is Selena,” I sighed.
“Well, Selena better be amazing buddy.”
She’s more than amazing…
“She really is. Hey, is there any way we could hold off on announcing the Southern menu items for the rest of the stores? I’m not so sure about those pies now…”
“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed. “Those pies are incredible! We’re not taking them off our menu unless you have something better to replace them with. Do you?”
“No, but I was thinking we could find something new over the next six months. We could start the whole project over to make sure we’re selling the best possible product.”
“Are you on drugs?” he sounded concerned. “I don’t believe we made you submit to the mandatory employee drug test before shipping you down there…”
“Shut up Barry. No, I’m not on drugs…I’m just—I’m feeling really guilty about crushing a small business that means so much to the community.”
“You never have before! Wasn’t it you who said, ‘Never make it personal, businesses don’t have faces’?”
I was silent.
I never realized how cold-hearted that line was until now. I’d said it over and over, had it printed in bold on all the corporate training manuals, and I never thought twice about how it affected the small family owned businesses.
“Yeah, I said that…”
“So why the sudden change of heart?” he asked and I could practically picture him pacing his office. “If sales continue at the rate they’re going, especially with that great idea of selling our products at local events, we’ll have surpassed Starbucks by twenty percent in six months. Twenty percent! And we’ll have shut Sweet Seasons down by Christmas. We may be able to crush them way before then…I’m looking for the problem here, Ethan. Where is it?”
“There isn’t one,” I sighed.
“I thought so. Now, I can keep the board off your back for three more weeks, but that’s all I can promise. They want you back so we can go over the marketing details for the Italy stores.”
“Okay thanks,” I hung up.
“Happy Halloween!” Selena called me an hour before my alarm went off.
“Umm Happy Halloween? I didn’t realize it was today.”
“Well it is! Do you want to go on a date tonight? How about trick or treating?”
How old are we again?
“I don’t really do trick or treating…And I don’t have a costume so—”
“Excuses! Just wear jeans and a T-shirt. Meet me at Sweet Seasons at nine! Talk to you later!”
“Selena, wait I—”
She hung up.
If she had been any other woman, I would have simply said “no” to trick or treating and that would have been it; but Selena had a way of disarming me and I always found it quite difficult to tell her no.
As a matter of fact, even when I did tell her “no” all she had to do was guilt me with one gray eyed glance to get me to change my mind.
I pulled up to Sweet Seasons at eight forty five and took a seat at the coffee counter. Although the shop was due to close in fifteen minutes, there were a lot of people standing around.
An elderly man handed me a pink flyer and put his hand on my shoulder. “Make sure you come out and support the best bakery in town all next week.”
I looked over the flyer and tried to force the sour taste of guilt back down my throat:
Support Sweet Seasons!
Show Autumn Wonder where the heart of Fayetteville really lies!
Half-priced Sweets and Pies for the next week!
Save Sweet Seasons!
I tried to tune out the conversations that were happening all around me, but it was no use: “Did you hear how Autumn Wonder stole their mile high chocolate pie? They stole the exact ingredients!” “Why do these big companies always come and stomp on us? Don’t they have enough money from the big cities?” “Maybe we could organize a bigger rally.” “We should contact their corporate office and try to talk things out.” “Or maybe we should burn it down!”