Exception to the Rule

  Exception to the Rule

  By

  Zelma Orr

  (C) Copyright by Zelma Orr, May 2013 (C) Cover art by Mariah LaMott, May 2013 ISBN 978-1-60394-794-7 Smashwords Edition

  New Concepts Publishing Lake Park, GA 31636

  www.newconceptspublishing.com

  Chapter One Butterflies flitted around in her stomach as if she were sixteen instead of thirty-nine. It wasn’t that she hadn’t been down this path before, a lot of years ago as a matter of fact. Funny, she hadn’t looked ahead to facing this man again and certainly wished she didn’t have to, unsure whether she despised him or just his status.

  What sin had she unknowingly committed to be forced into such a defensive, unutterably undesirable position? She was a nice enough person, minded her own business, worked hard, didn’t hurt people, but she must have offended her guardian angel somewhere along the way.

  The supercilious attitude of the man in front of her wasn’t helping the situation a bit. What she should do was get up and walk across the sinfully plush carpet and wallop the clown up side of his head. She wasn’t usually vicious-minded, but it was a wonderfully tempting thought just now for Garnet. It was strictly non-productive being in jail, however, so she resisted. But it was difficult. Very difficult.

  “You see, Garnet,” Donald Baskins said. “The problem is that you have an outstanding loan, payments up-to-date notwithstanding, and you’re a single parent without backing. Actually, I should have held off a bit longer with that first loan.”

  He shrugged beautifully tailored shoulders, the navy material stretching just the correct amount over an enviable physique. And Donald Baskins, President of Conestoga Banking, knew it.

  She had hoped to speak with one of the lower vice presidents or loan officers rather than face Baskins. It would have made her request so much simpler. The first time she’d applied for a loan from Conestoga, what? Five years ago now, Baskins was a lowly vice president of the bank.

  We’ve come a long way, baby, she thought, and it wasn’t a compliment to Mr. Baskins. “I still wouldn’t have dated you, Mr. Baskins,” she said. “If I had never gotten the loan.” His face flushed and black eyes sparkled from a tanned face, product of those luxurious athletic clubs available to a businessman of his stature. Long, slim fingers clasped together and a three-carat diamond sparkled in the wide gold band on his little finger. Showy.

  He opened his mouth to reply, but Garnet wasn’t through. “Had I known then what I know now, I’d have reported you for sexual harassment.”

  Baskins swallowed hard. “That would have gotten you nowhere. Respectable businessmen, especially bankers responsible for millions of dollars in loans, are always being threatened and no one would have believed you.”

  “Perhaps you’re right.” She drew in her breath, let it out again. “What about my current request?”

  Damned if she’d lower herself to beg. She could go to another loan institution, but that would mean starting over with red tape, a jillion forms. She hated it, but if she had to, she would.

  Donald Baskins leaned back in the padded executive chair, a benevolent smile curving a perfectly shaped mouth over even white teeth. In truth, he was a handsome man -- on the outside.

  “There’s a show in New York I’ve been wanting to see, and a friend sent tickets and offered the use of his apartment for the weekend.” The diamond winked as he brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his lapel. His voice was softly compelling. “We could discuss the loan while we enjoy the good things of life.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Baskins, but ….”

  “We’ve known each other long enough, Garnet, that you can call me Donald.” He leaned forward, folding his hands to show off the ring. “Think about it. The loan will be difficult to approve as it is, so if we have this extra time to plan, it will help matters along.”

  “Mr. Baskins, my credit rating with your bank is tops. Since that first year, I’ve doubled my payments on the loan, and this request is for a much smaller amount, but I do need this new truck. I realize my cash flow is negligible, but my collateral is outstanding.”

  “Ah, yes, collateral. But cash flow is high on the list as marketable assets, and you do owe on the first loan.”

  “Isn’t that a standard business arrangement?”

  “We aren’t speaking of standards, Garnet,” he said. The sexiness of his husky voice slid through his words. “As I’ve said, you have no one backing you, no man to co-sign.” He spread his hands.

  “I haven’t had a man backing me for years, Mr. Baskins. You reluctantly gave me my first loan because it meant you could stand up at the Equal Opportunity meetings and stress the fact you’d helped a minority, a female minority, get started in business. I was your first, and it boosted your tremendous ego and your standing in the business community. Well, that was five years ago, and I need another chivalrous gesture on your part. And no, I cannot go to New York for a fun weekend.”

  He smiled, that too-perfect smile. “Then I guess this discussion is finished, Garnet. I don’t see how I can, in all fairness to this banking institution, give ….”

  There’s an unwritten law against what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do it anyway. She stood.

  “Very well, Mr. Baskins. Should your wife inquire about the phone calls saying you spent several hours at the Sweetwater Motel with different women, including me, you’ll know who instigated them.” She turned towards the door.

  “Ms. Madigan!” The voice was no longer gently persuasive. “Sit down. Please.”Miriam looked up from the account sheets she was studying, started to smile, and then caught the look on Garnet’s face.

  “What happened?”

  Garnet dropped into the straight chair at the side of Miriam’s desk. “I just came from the bank.”

  “You didn’t get the loan. Why, that pompous jackass. How dare he --?”

  “I got the loan.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  Garnet gave a brief account of her morning.

  Garnet gave a brief account of her morning.

  year-old Garnet Madigan, newly separated from her husband, Bart, attending university classes and struggling for her new identity, appeared before a then lowly vice president of Conestoga Banking. Miriam knew the sly innuendoes, the covert sexual harassment her boss was capable of when dealing with attractive women. She’d seen them cry, beg, and give in just to further a questionable banking career. She’d seen anger, disbelief and stubborn persistence in Garnet, but she’d never seen her break faith with herself.

  Garnet Madigan was a woman Miriam admired and trusted. She might not be a big woman, probably five feet, four inches, maybe 110 pounds, but she was a fighter. After all the hassling and her first loan from Baskins was secured, Miriam applied for a job with Garnet. Now she gave Garnet a troubled stare.

  “He gave you the loan, but Garnet, he won’t forget. He’s never forgiven you for persisting through his first try to make out with you, then when I left him to work for you. Well, I’ll bet if he could cast a voodoo spell on you, he would. When that man finds something or someone he can’t control and manipulate, he gets even. I’ve seen it happen many times.”

  “Dammit, Miriam, why do women have to put up with crap like that? I’ll bet if I’d been a man, he’d have fallen all over himself to approve the loan.”

  “Right. I’ve handled his books enough to know your account is in as good or better shape than the majority of small businesses around the city, and they’re mostly male owners.”

  Garnet sighed, tired now that the adrenaline surge had dropped.

  “Well, I knew it wouldn’t be all roses and sunshine when I decided to go into this business. Bart told me enough times. Maybe I should have listen
ed.” She rubbed a hand over her face, lightly tanned from being out in all kinds of weather.

  “Baloney. Bart Madigan should be as smart as the wife he can’t believe has a brain, much less a darned good one. He and Donald Baskins would make a good pair, you know that? One thinks he’s the answer to every woman’s dreams, and the other one thinks no woman has a right to a life of her own unless it’s orchestrated by a man.”

  “Someday, Miriam, it will be different, should we live so long.” She laughed a little. “You’d think, with all the choices of jobs, that I could have been a mite easier on myself than this.” She swung her arm towards the yard at the back of the office where awkward pieces of equipment stood.

  “Uh huh. One wonders if you weren’t being a bit masochistic when there were other nicer choices.”

  “There must have been eight hundred and thirty openings listed in that job opportunities letter I found in the library. Auto salesman. Bricklayer. Computer programmer. Dog Catcher. Doctor. Lawyer. Indian Chief.” She grinned at Miriam. “Probably even bank president. Name a job and someone would hire you.”

  “Or offer wonderful sex instead.”

  “That, too.”

  She’d often wondered what it was about a business like Waste Management and Disposal that attracted her. Maybe because it was at the bottom of the list, and she’d not yet found anything that interested her. Whatever it was, once the idea clicked, she couldn’t let it alone. She’d wanted something different and, by George, waste collection was certainly different for Garnet Madigan. And it was a growing concern, a demanded service, and you could make money if you really worked at it. If she could work herself into a management position, surely . .

  The advertisement for a trash collection franchise had appeared in the papers just at the right time for her to assume the gods were smiling favorably on her choice of vocations. That same little god must have laughed his fool head off when she fell for that.

  Garnet stood. “Enough philosophizing. Let’s hope Mr. Baskins finds a nymphomaniac seeking a loan, and they go off to New York and screw up a storm.”

  “Literally.”

  “Then he’ll leave this poor old working girl alone so she can make money to pay him back all those resources he guards so diligently against women with no male signature behind them.”

  Miriam snorted and reached to answer the telephone.

  Garnet went to her own office. She stood a moment in the doorway and recalled with a shudder her first year as owner of Cleansweep, Incorporated. She had fought for commercial accounts, institution contracts, hospitals, apartment complexes, and twentyhour days doing everything herself because she couldn’t afford to hire extra help. She juggled business demands, organization, sales and service. Should she ever give up trash collections, she could do an expert juggling act. She’d had lots of practice.

  It wasn’t bad now. She had five dependable drivers. Miriam worked under the title of Comptroller, but she was everything that needed doing, including her effort to keep Garnet from doing too much.

  The buzzer sounded on her phone, and Miriam said, “Someone wants to talk to you, Garnet. Didn’t say who.”

  “Okay.” She pushed the flashing button and picked up the receiver. “Garnet Madigan here.”

  “Cost of insurance protection is five hundred a week against small accidents. Next week it will be six hundred. If you don’t accept this policy, the following week it will be one thousand.”

  “Who?”

  There was the hum of a broken connection.

  Protection rackets. Insurance. Somebody always wanting pay for services she didn’t need. Union representatives talking strikes and walkouts. She was a small business and saw no need for unions as long as salaries at Cleansweep were competitive.

  This was the first offer she’d had of protection against ‘small’ accidents.

  What did they consider small as opposed to large?

  Coincidence? Maybe.

  Soon after her first loan had been approved, odd things happened. Small amounts of vandalism, phone calls with no one there, or with veiled threats if she didn’t purchase protection insurance. No one brought a policy for her to look at, so she ignored it.

  Mostly.

  Garnet rolled a yellow pencil over and over between her palms, laid it down, then picked it up again to frown at it. She’d reported the sand in gas tanks, distributor caps missing, and a rash of slashed tires. Police made routine reports, but she had an idea they were too busy to pursue such trivial incidents. They had rapes, murders, robberies and assaults to investigate. Her problems were mere nuisances.

  There was a hesitant knock at her door, and she looked up. She smiled.

  “Come on in, Dennis. And Calvin. What are you two doing hanging around here? Thought you’d be home watching the games.” Baseball season was winding down, and the men, Dennis Pope and Calvin Shaw, the first drivers she’d hired for Cleansweep, were avid fans.

  “Want to talk a minute, Garnet, if you have time,” Dennis said.

  “Always have time for you. What’s up?”

  Dennis shuffled to a chair, a game leg dragging a little. He’d been thrown by a horse years ago and had never fully recovered the use of the leg. It didn’t hinder his handling of the equipment for trash collections.

  Calvin followed and dropped into another chair, then looked at Dennis. Dennis would do the talking. He was the leader, Calvin the follower. They’d been friends for as long as either could remember.

  “Time’s come you oughta think about insurance and unionizing, Garnet,” Dennis said.

  “We’ve talked about this before, Dennis, and you know my feelings on it. You have any complaints about working conditions or salary?”

  He shook his head. “No, but comes a time when you hafta think of other things.”

  “Such as?”

  “You know, family. No telling what’ll happen if you don’t insure us more and your property, too.”

  “Are you trying to tell me something? You know about somebody out to hurt Cleansweep?” She leaned forward, surprised at the sharp anger stirring in her chest. “The phone calls I’ve been telling you about. You know who’s making them?”

  The two men exchanged glances.

  “No. I don’t know nothing about that. It’s just, well, Garnet, you oughta take these things seriously. Ain’t going away, I can tell you.”

  “What else can you tell me?”

  “Why, nothing. Be easier if you listen to these people, though.” Dennis lifted his head, his voice stronger.

  “We’ve been over this before, and I haven’t changed my mind about insurance or union or protection or whatever you call these offers.”

  “Then we wanta put in for our time.”

  “What?”

  Garnet sat back, shocked at his words. They were her oldest drivers, always dependable. They’d grumbled about her attitudes before, but quitting. She’d never expected them to quit over it.

  She swallowed over a dry throat. “Are you sure, Dennis?”

  He nodded.

  “Calvin?”

  Calvin’s chin wobbled when he nodded vigorously.

  Hell.

  Their quitting was going to leave her in a hole. A big, deep hold. She wanted to beg them to reconsider. What on earth would she do? A long silence ensued before she spoke.

  Damned if she’d beg. Temper simmered just below the surface of her words. “All right, if that’s what you want, I’ll have Miriam get your pay ready.”

  Let ‘em go. She’d get by. Somehow.

  “Ain’t exactly our preference, Garnet,” Dennis said. Haunted, dark eyes stared at her from a narrow, gaunt face, loss of teeth causing sunken lips beneath an undernourished mustache, which was gray, mixed with brown to look as though half of it were missing.

  “Don’t leave then.”

  She’d hired the two of them when she first started Cleansweep, Incorporated, almost four years ago. Pope, loud-mouthed, opinionated, brash, but dependable w
hen it came to the job. Shaw, soft-spoken, always agreed with whatever Pope said or did. A follower, but also dependable. Among her team numbering five drivers, those two had been her base of steady employees.

  Pope stirred in his chair, then leaned forward, his left hand up with his right forefinger counting off the points he was making.

  “You know well as us that the union can pay better wages and give more benefits, but you refuse to deal with them. You ignore the insurance people you’ll eventually have to do business with. It would make it easier, safer, on your drivers.” He grinned, showing an ill-fitting set of false teeth he shifted about with his tongue. “Hell, Garnet, we been telling you no woman can stand up to the rough stuff in private businesses these days. You oughta sell out to McCarver or Georgio. Now, them two know how to handle the tough guys trying to scare you out. You’re too soft. You don’t know how to manage dog-eat-dog competition.”

  “Yeah, Garnet, why don’t you retire and go into something nice and easy like decorating or a dress shop,” Calvin said, “Get your’n and Lyn’s clothes at a discount, take regular vacations. Things women like to do.” Shaw’s small blue beady eyes sunk into a puffy face centered with a long nose that dipped over full lips, chin planted on a wrinkled neck and sloping shoulders.

  He sounded a lot like Bart, her ex-husband. Women fell into the category slightly below barnyard pets.

  “Cleansweep pays competitive salaries, and my insurance company is solid and affordable.” She looked from one to the other, shrugged, and leaned back. “I’m staying in business, and I can offer a small incentive for you to keep your job. A three percent increase in your salary and a base salary percentage of stock for Christmas.”

  Calvin wet his lips and looked to Dennis for his reaction. A doubtful expression touched Dennis’s haunted eyes, and nervous fingers played with his mustache.

  “Ain’t enough, Garnet. I got three kids, you know, two of them near college age.”

  “By the time they get in college, the stock will have tripled your money if we stay in business.”

  Calvin’s high-pitched voice grated on her nerves. “If? You gotta be an optimist to think you’ll still be in business two years from now.”