She quirked her head. "I guess I'm spoiled for choice. She really did that to you? Oh you poor thing!" she commiserated. "What are you going to do?"
I couldn't help but chuckle. "I don't think that is going to work out like they planned. But it seems I'm getting a divorce." A grimace crossed my face. "It's been a rough couple of days."
She grabbed my hand and looked at me earnestly. "That was a rotten thing to do and you don't deserve it. I'm sorry I came over here to yell at you now. My problems aren't nearly as large. Do you think you could at least give me a good recommendation?"
"Of course." Hesitating, I had to ask the next question. "How did the staff take it?"
It was her turn to pause. "No one knows what's going on. The good mood from going public is all gone. All they know is that you attacked Hector and that Andrew is acting like you are gone. There was a hell of a lot of shouting today and all the big bosses; Mr. Jenkins, Loeb and Schwartz were meeting all day. Greta" Schwartz's secretary, "told me about it. You aren't very popular with them for some reason."
"Be still my heart." came my dry response.
Continuing, she said, "No one is happy. But they need to work, you know? It's a very bad economy. It was really nice to be at a place that was doing well...hopefully IS doing well. What's going to happen?"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean with you. With the company." She watched me searchingly.
"Well, I'm already served with divorce papers and I won't work with Andrew again. Since I don't see him resigning, I guess that means I'm out of there. As for the company, that is not my problem anymore."
"Are you going to be okay?"
Sighing, I nodded. "You know what? It's a divorce. They happen a lot. I'm not sick. I am still the programmer I used to be so I can find something and I made a bunch of money from the company so far. It hurts and I hate them both, but life goes on. I'd love to get drunk, but Prathee is running around so..." It struck me that it might be why Swati brought her granddaughter here, to keep me from becoming self destructive.
"Well, she was very pretty but I don't think your wife is nice and I think she's foolish. Andrew isn't respectful or responsible. And he already knows what kind of a woman she is."
"Mister REEnalds. Deener!"
By mutual agreement, we tabled my marital woes and I actually enjoyed the meal. It was curry prawns and I'd never had anything like it. She got a tour of the house and murmured admiring comments. The stack of pictures got a rueful laugh and we agreed to keep in touch.
***
Since I didn't have to write code for those bastards anymore, I adjusted my schedule. That meant I was awake at 1 a.m. when my front door opened and a strange Indian man in a coverall came in. He waved to me. "Hello Mr. Reynolds." Then he started to dismantle my locks. I wandered over to the windows, checking outside for U.S. Marshals or cops.
"Did you get let out of jail?" I asked him.
He gave me a strange look. "Yes Mr. Reynolds."
"Good. I hope bail wasn't too high."
He looked very offended and muttered in Hindu at the doors. He left, leaving me the new keys and refusing to take any money.
The weekend was spent on the phone. I started by calling my mother. That turned into a long and dragged out conversation. She offered to come to California, but I said that my house was already full of people, which required its own explanation. She felt sorry and had quite a few harsh words for Allie, whom she had originally liked a lot. You had to hand it to Allie; she made a good first impression on people. Too bad she had the morals of a snake.
In some ways, I should have seen it coming. She was very pragmatic in how she approached our relationship and that should have raised a few warning bells. But I honestly thought we had some bedrock attraction and affection. It seems that I was only half right.
Next up, I sent a long email to Karl, telling him exactly what had happened. I told him that just because I didn't work there, that there was no reason for the both of us to be fired. I reminded him that he had a girlfriend now and he needed to think of both their needs. If nothing else, he should talk to Sheila about it before he made any rash discussions. In fact, I joked, he might be able to take Hector's job.
Swati showed up in the morning. "Swati. Aren't you off on the weekends?" I felt sure that she wasn't around when it was just me and Allie.
"You need me to clean Mr. REEnalds. Did Pradeep fix the locks?"
"Yes, he did. Thank you." I didn't want to mention that I wasn't exactly comfortable with a felon fixing my locks. "What's he doing now?"
"He's back in jail."
"Oh...is he on a work release program?"
"Not released! He works there. Good job. He's a locksmith."
You know, maybe Allie had a point about my social skills. Luckily, Swati brought Prathee along again and I was able to tender apologies for my idiocy last night with her acting as translator. She thought it was hilarious. They stayed the entire weekend, including Tripti, my new cook. My plans to play X-Box and drink Scotch were stillborn.
There was one unpleasant task to do. You see, Allie and I used to have a very developed social schedule, more her doing then mine. We had planned to catch an art gallery with another couple. In fact, it was Phil and Terry from the party just last weekend. How much life had changed in a week! I caught Terry on the phone and I told her rather bluntly that Allie and I were getting divorced, that I had caught her cheating with our prior host and I would regretfully be unable to attend the opening. Yes, I felt embarrassed as hell, but I wasn't going to sugar coat things and be the villain of the piece. Since we had just met, she felt awkward asking questions of a virtual stranger, but made sympathetic sounds and hurried good byes.
Monday came as it does and while I felt twin holes where my work and my marriage used to be, it still felt good to be able to wake up late and not be responsible to anyone. My good mood lasted until about ten, when there was another knock on my door.
There stood the same process server in a different cheap suit. "You have been served." he said, displaying an envelope, his eyes shifting around nervously, perhaps looking for another psychotic secretary or picture taker.
"Listen asshole. I already got the divorce decree, or don't you remember?"
"How could I forget? Why don't you read the papers and have a nice day." he said mildly, trudging away, muttering. I guess that process servers develop a thick skin.
I started to read the papers. It seems that our primary underwriting bank was suing me for violating our lock out agreement.
I had just finished reading it when the doorbell rang again...
***
"Are you Mr. James Reynolds?" the young blond woman with acne scars asked me, eyeing us with trepidation. We had moved a picnic table to my front yard and Mindy, Roland, and I were parked at it with a pile of papers in front of us.
"Yes yes. Please give the summons to Ms. Johnson there. Let me sign. Who is this one from?"
"It's from a Troy Anderson. He's seeking damages for lock out." Mindy said in a bored fashion.
"Do you get served a lot?" the woman asked.
"You have no idea." I said honestly
In fact, it had been a constant rain of summonses since this morning. After the third process server arrived, I called Mindy and Mr. Thurman give me a hand and work on my divorce. We moved the entire operation outside. It was a very pleasant California day. Why not enjoy it? The woman walked off, muttering under her breath. I seemed to have that effect on people.
"I have to admire a man who bears up to such a...train wreck as well as you have, Mr. Reynolds. And thank you for getting me out of the office today." my attorney said.
"Don't mention it. Every time I say 'things can't get worse' they do. So I'm just going to smile and let this all play out. How many summonses is that now, Mindy?"
Picking up her legal pad, she nibbled her lower lip as she mentally counted. "That's eight from underwriters, three from Ipswitch: one for property damage, one for a hostile workplace environment, and another for taking actions harmful to the company in violation of your board responsibilities; a civil action by Hector and one from the bitch to freeze community property transfers, a little late if you ask me. Thirteen total."
*** When a company goes public, they go to a bank to actually sell the shares. They can do it more efficiently then we could. They don't tell us how to fix computer routers and we don't tell them how to sell stock.
When they first go public, a company does not want to flood the market with shares. The bank and the company made money off the sale of the stock and they wanted to control the number on the market. Our net worth, at least on paper, was about $50 million dollars. If we offered 50 million shares, it would be a dollar a share at best! So only a small portion of the company was offered for sale to test the waters and set the price higher.
Since the owners usually owned a majority of the shares, they had to sign a 'lock out' agreement. Essentially it says that I'm not allowed to sell any shares for at least a 3 month period. There were close to 8 million shares in our company and we originally only sold a million. I had, with my action, unwittingly doubled the amount of shares on the market, cutting the price by at least half.
I would like to be clear on this: I didn't know what I was doing. I'd been signing papers for days. I specifically farmed out all the business details to Harry and Andrew and depended on their advice, which I foolishly thought would be in my best interests. That doesn't make what I did less wrong.
My only intentions were to leave the company with my dignity and my assets intact, while denying my wife a share of the company I built and keeping Andrew from getting control and screwing everyone else over. It didn't matter that Gordon had suddenly become a backstabbing weasel. He shouldn't profit from his treachery. And I had no intentions beyond that.
