Robin scarcely noticed the coffee or anything else other than her father’s voice blaring out of the answering machine. This was the call she had dreaded, the inevitability of it haunting her exhausted sleep. She grabbed the phone before Jake Manning heard Dad go off like a madman. “Dad?”
“What in the hell is going on?” he demanded the moment he heard her voice. “I heard the goddam office burned down and that you spent a night in jail for hitting a policeman!”
“I did not hit a policeman! I was arrested for driving without a license and—”
“How in the hell does someone get arrested for driving without a license!?”
Wincing at the sheer decibel level, Robin jerked the phone away from her ear for a split second, then cautiously put it back. “It’s a long story, Dad, and just a really stupid mistake. I sort of talked back to him—”
“Goddammit, Robin, that is exactly what I am talking about! You are too arrogant for your own good! You think you know better than everyone else!”
“I do not think—”
“I’ve had enough of your bullshit—”
“You don’t even know what happened!” she cried angrily. Her blood was boiling; she could feel it inflaming her face. She glanced at Mr. Fix-it, who was staring at her like she was starring in some made for-TV movie. Mortified, she turned and hurried to her bedroom for a little privacy.
“I don’t need to know what happened!” Dad was yelling at her. “I already know that you got arrested and your goddam office—”
“Stop yelling, Dad,” she said, and shut her bedroom door shut behind her.
“Ah to hell with it! I didn’t do you right, Robin. I didn’t teach you the ropes; I didn’t show you how to run a business. I just let you prance around—”
“Oh God, not this again,” she moaned, sinking onto her bed.
“I know you try hard, but you just don’t know a damn thing. Now, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I gave you too much too fast. I think the best thing to do right now is send you to school.”
“School?” She snorted. “What school?”
“The school of life. The school of the business world, of working your way up the ropes. You have no business being in a vice presidency, not with your lack of experience—”
“I’ve been with the company four years, Dad.”
“And in four years you haven’t learned enough to keep one freight yard afloat. I’ve talked this over with your mother and my mind is made up.”
Panic set in; Robin gripped the phone tightly. “Talked what over with Mom?”
“I’ve decided to put you in a position where you can learn a little about the freight industry. Iverson and I’ve been thinking of acquiring a subsidiary company—packing materials. It’s something you can do from home.”
She did not like the direction this was going. “What do you mean, ‘do from home’? Do what from home?”
“Put together a proposal for acquiring one of the two companies we’ve been considering. They teach you that in business school, don’t they? Cost-benefit analysis? Acquisition strategies? I hope so, or else I paid a fortune for nothing.”
Stunned, Robin collapsed back on the bed, blinked up at her ten foot ceilings. This could not be happening. She was stuck smack in the middle of one horrendously long nightmare.
“One of the companies we’ve been looking at is in Minot, North Dakota,” Dad blithely continued. “They make bubble wrap, foam packing products, et cetera. The other is in Burdette, Louisiana, just this side of Baton Rouge. It’s the same sort of operation, only a little bigger. You need to get out to see them.”
Minot, North Dakota? Louisiana? Robin used to New York and Paris and Stockholm—not Burdette. “Dad!” she exclaimed in horror, “you aren’t making any sense! You don’t mean I am going to Burdette! What would I do there?”
“Well, for one, you would meet with the folks and learn about packing materials—”
“Dad! You want me to learn about the stuff that goes into boxes and crates?”
“Well . . . and boxes and crates, too. You know, how they make them, what it takes to operate an outfit like that, sales volume, revenues, the whole nine yards. And while you’re at it, you are going to try and sell yourself and LTI and convince them that letting LTI buy them out is the best thing they could do for the long-term health of their company and their employees. Then you are going to study which one you think we ought to acquire and work out a deal.”
“A deal for Styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap?” she asked helplessly, teetering on the verge of torrential tears for the umpteenth time that day. “Are you trying to punish me? If you want to punish me, choose something a little more urbane, would you? I can’t go to Burdette!”