"Hello Alison," Dan said from his seat at the corner table of the burger place.
"Hello Dan. You're looking good," Alison said while taking a seat next to him. She said, "Hi Tom. How was college?"
"It was great. How are you doing?" Tom asked while raising his frosted mug of root beer. He pointed at it and then raised three fingers once he had the waitress's attention.
"I'm fine. I'm so glad to be out of school for the summer," Alison said. It seemed to her that the last two weeks of college had been miserable. She said, "Final exams nearly killed me."
"I know what you mean," Tom said.
Dan grinned and said, "I'm smarter than both of you. I just audit the courses and don't have to take the final exams."
Tom tapped Dan on the shoulder in a friendly mock punch and said, "That's it. Just rub it in why don't you?"
"At least you have the summer off. I'm working full-time at the restaurant, part-time at the construction company, and I'm going to audit another course at the community college," Dan said.
Alison looked at Dan in surprise and asked, "You're taking another course?"
"Yes. I've signed up for an intro to business course," Dan answered. He wanted to take the course on business law, but that required the intro to business course as a prerequisite.
"You must not have any kind of social life," Alison said with a frown. She had tried to set him up with one of the women at the restaurant and had wondered if she had been successful. From the description of his life, it didn't sound like it.
"I wouldn't say that," Dan said looking away rather embarrassed. During his first Saturday night date with Ann and Sally, things had heated up very quickly. He figured that the painting had been fueling some fantasies or something on their part. For his part, he was amazed by the attentions of two attractive women.
"Oh, tell us about it," Tom said sensing that there was a good story in there.
Ellen entered the burger place and looked around. Spotting Dan in the corner she headed over to him. On arriving, she said, "I see that your friends have arrived. You must be Tom and you must be Alison."
"Allow me to introduce you to Ellen," Dan said gesturing to her.
While Alison exchanged greetings with Ellen, Tom raised his mug and gestured to it. He turned to Ellen and said, "I've ordered you a root beer."
Ellen sat down between Tom and Alison. Leaning over to Tom, she said, "Thank you. I love frosty mugs of root beer."
"Tom drinks root beer like other people drink water," Alison said while examining Ellen. She thought the woman was a little too old for Dan. There was at least ten years difference in their ages.
"It is the only drink worth drinking," Tom said with a grin. He was pretty impressed with Ellen's appearance and thought that Dan had done well for himself. Dating an older woman had to be interesting.
Alison noticed Tom's lopsided grin before she turned to look at Ellen. She asked, "So are you Dan's new girl friend?"
"No. I'm just a friend," Ellen said with a smile. She said, "Dan warned me that you would want all of the details about his love life. He's got two girlfriends, although that is a little too simplistic of a description of his relationship with them."
"Two?" Tom asked looking at his friend with a shocked expression on his face. He didn't even notice when the waitress put four frosted mugs of root beer on the table. He was too busy having visions of being sandwiched between two naked women while they did nasty things to his body.
Having enjoyed many evenings with Dan, Alison said, "I'm sure that you're keeping them both satisfied."
"Actually, they are a couple and invite me over occasionally," Dan said trying to downplay it.
"He keeps them both very happy. I know, they've told me that," Ellen said grinning over at Alison. Dan turned red at the exchange.
Tom sat back in his seat. He said, "I haven't had a date in four months. How did you manage to get two girlfriends at the same time?"
On hearing the bit about four months, Ellen looked over at Tom. He was a good enough looking young man. Deciding that they might have some mutual needs, she turned to Dan and asked, "Can I?"
"Be my guest," Dan answered with a smile. He grabbed one of the root beers and raised it in a toast.
"Come with me," Ellen said rising from her chair. She grabbed Tom's hand and pulled him out of his chair. She said, "We'll be back in an hour."
"We'll be waiting," Dan said with a smile. Tom was looking around wondering what Ellen meant by the suggestion that they'd be back in an hour.
Watching Ellen drag Tom off, Alison asked, "Is she going to do what I think she's going to do?"
"Yes. She's been a little frustrated lately," Dan said. He slid a root beer over to Alison and gestured to it.
"Why haven't you taken care of it?" Alison asked. She picked up the mug and took a sip. Although she wasn't a great fan of root beer, she had to admit it was a hundred times better when it was served in a frosty mug.
"We're friends. She doesn't want it to develop beyond that," Dan said.
"So when do I get to meet your girlfriends?" Alison asked. She was wondering if she'd have to find a new friend with benefits. Last Christmas it hadn't seemed like a good idea to continue the benefits, but a whole summer without them would be too long.
"In about an hour and a half we'll go over to Ellen's house. She's throwing a little welcome home party for you and Tom," Dan answered.
"Really?" Alison asked. Ellen must be someone special to throw a welcome home party for a couple of people that she didn't know.
"Yes. I hope that you don't have a problem with lesbians," Dan said.
"Lesbians?" Alison asked looking at Dan with a raised eyebrow. It was hard not to laugh at him. She said, "I think that if they are sleeping with you then you can't really call them lesbians."
Dan laughed at her comment and said, "No, but a lot of my friends are lesbians."
"I don't have a problem with lesbians," Alison said. She had experimented a little with her cousin Mary in the past. It hadn't really done much for them, but she wasn't so hypocritical that she would say anything bad about a woman who preferred that kind of action. It made her wonder what all had been going on in Dan's life since she had returned to college after the winter break.
"Good, I think you'll have a great time," Dan said. He did wonder how she would react to the fact that there would be a lot of women at the party and only two men.
After taking another sip of the root beer, Alison asked, "Are we still friends with benefits or does your relationship with your two women mean we are just friends?"
Surprised that she still wanted the benefits, Dan considered the question before he answered, "We can be friends with benefits if you want that. Ann and Sally are in a committed relationship with each other. I am just a little excitement on the side for them."
"I seriously doubt that," Alison said. She figured that she'd have to talk to the two women and find out for herself if there would still be benefits.
"You sound like my friend Sue," Dan said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Are you making any progress on opening your pizzeria?" Alison asked as a way of changing the subject. She knew that they only way she'd find out how the two women felt was to ask them.
"Parker's Perfect Pizza is now a corporation. I don't have a store and I'm not selling any pizzas, but I have a company," Dan answered with a smile.
"Congratulations," Alison said. Wondering how you could have a company that wasn't doing any business, she asked, "So what does that mean?"
"It means that all of the money that I spend on the pizzeria from now on is a real business expense. All of my training, purchases, and expenses count as an investment in the company giving me equity. That will help when I go to get a loan," Dan answered.
"You sound like you really understand this business stuff," Alison said.
Dan shook his head and said, "I'm still learning. You wouldn't believe how much there is to learn."
"I can imagine," Alison said.
Dan said, "You won't believe this, but I've been studying harder now than when I was in high school. I spend almost every evening working on building this business. I spent yesterday afternoon talking to an insurance agent about how to best protect my business against fire, theft, and lawsuits."
"Sounds rough," Alison said.
"I'm investigating how much it costs to put security cameras in a store," Dan said. The insurance agent said that protecting the business against theft using alarm systems and surveillance cameras could lower the insurance rate.
"Security cameras?"
Nodding his head, Dan said, "If I'm ever robbed, then the cameras can provide evidence that could lead to a conviction. If anyone tries to stage an accident, then a recording of them can help get them convicted of fraud."
"Who would do something like that?" Alison asked. She couldn't believe that someone would try to stage an accident to sue a little business.
Dan shrugged his shoulders and said, "Two weeks ago someone claimed that there was glass in their food at the restaurant where I work. Fortunately, another customer had seen the guy put the glass on his food and told the manager before the guy had a chance to raise a fuss. The glass didn't correspond to any glass product that we had in the entire place."
"That's so sick," Alison said. She shouldn't have been surprised. Cheating was rampant at the college and three of her classmates had been expelled for plagiarism. That was pretty bad since it required getting caught at it twice before they would expel them.
Dan had heard a number of stories about customers trying to do things to bring lawsuits against the restaurant. One person had tried to sue on the claim that she had gotten food poisoning. The woman was arrested when it was discovered that she had never been inside the restaurant. So far nothing had happened on his shift, but that could change in a minute. He said, "You wouldn't believe the things that happen in a place of business."
"I guess not," Alison said with a worried frown. She had a sudden image of someone coming into the pizzeria and robbing him at gun point.
"That's why I went with a corporation. I discovered that if the corporation got sued then my personal assets were protected. Right now that doesn't mean much. All I have is an old car, a computer, and some cash. Once I get established, I'll have a home. I don't want to lose my home," Dan said. On his last visit with the lawyer he had found that lawyers were good at answering questions. His problem had been knowing what questions to ask.
"You've really been thinking about this, haven't you?" Alison said looking at Dan with pride. She remembered when she used to think that Dan was the class dummy. She was pleased to have discovered that she had been wrong.
"Yes," Dan said. He looked over at Alison and said, "That's enough about me. What have you been doing? What are your plans for the summer? When is Mary coming to visit you?"
"Nothing, nothing, soon," Alison answered. She laughed when he rolled his eyes at her answer. She said, "I've gotten through my first year of college. I thought I was a good student until I got there. All of a sudden my A's turned into C's. I was shocked. I ended up at the writing center almost every afternoon for three weeks learning how to write an essay that didn't get a C."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Dan said.
Gesturing wildly, Alison said, "I'm so pissed about my education. I got out of high school thinking I knew something. I knew nothing."
"I know exactly what you mean. I keep running into these huge gaps in knowledge and end up spending a month having to learn something really important on my own. There's no one to check my knowledge, but if I'm wrong then I have to suffer real consequences," Dan said.
"Do you know what one of my education teachers said to me?"
"No what?" Dan asked.
"She said that we are to teach to the lowest student in the class. The average ones will make A's and the smart ones can take care of themselves. I was furious when I heard that," Alison said.
"Why were you so mad?" Dan asked. Even talking about it seemed to make her angry.
With real anger in her voice, Alison answered, "Because I made A's in high school. She was basically telling me that I was an average student. I keep asking myself who were actually the smart ones. Were my scores better than theirs because I was too dumb to be bored?"
Dan said, "Don't be angry. Tom was the smartest guy in school and he made all A's."
"It is not fair," Alison said. She took an angry sip of her root beer and set the glass down a little harder than she intended.
"Life is not fair," Dan said, "You have to get beyond it. Accept the unfairness and get on with your life. Don't let one little piece of bad news ruin it for you."
"You're right, but you're also wrong," Alison said. "Why should we accept a system that is bad? Shouldn't we want to change it?"
'Shouldn't we want to change it?' Dan asked himself. He was just one person and the education system was so bad. There were so many gaps, holes, and bad practices that it was basically broken. Nodding his head, he said, "You are absolutely correct. We should want to fix the education system. I'm going to make that one of my goals."
"So what are you going to do about it?" Alison asked.
Dan took a long drink of his root beer. He looked at Alison waiting for the tension to build. When she leaned forward in anticipation, he answered, "I don't know. I just now made it a goal."
Alison burst out laughing. She had enjoyed the little dramatic buildup to nothing. It didn't matter what going on in her life, talking with Dan always left her feeling better. There were times over the past four months that she had really needed him. She said, "I really missed you."
"Same here," Dan said giving her a hug.
Dan stepped out of the bank where he had just deposited his paycheck and looked at the balance printed on the receipt. He had fourteen thousand dollars saved. He didn't make much money and spent very little of what he did make. The income tax refund, pitiful amount that it was, had gone directly into his savings account.
Fourteen thousand dollars sounded like a lot of money, but he figured that he would need at least twenty-five thousand before he talked to a banker about arranging a loan for his business. Richard Harrison had said that banks liked to see a debt to equity ratio of less than four to one. With twenty-five thousand dollars he would be able to borrow a hundred thousand. With fifteen thousand dollars, he would be able to borrow sixty thousand. Every thousand dollars in savings that he was short represented a five thousand dollar shortage for the business.
He left the bank and went to work at the construction company feeling down. This job was paying him fifteen dollars an hour, but four hours a week didn't add up to much. In fact, he was using that money to cover all of his expenses. That allowed him to deposit almost a thousand a month in his savings account.
Once he arrived at the trailer that Mr. Foreman used as an office, he took his seat at the computer ready to work. With his mind still on his money problems, started the computer. Although it felt like forever had passed, the computer finally booted and the program he needed to use had loaded. Dan started entering the hours worked by different individuals into the computer. Mr. Foreman watched him and asked, "What's the matter, Dan? You look a little down."
"I'm having trouble saving enough money to get to a position where I can borrow enough money to start my business," Dan answered.
Mr. Foreman swiveled around in his chair and looked at the calendar. He asked, "When are you going to need to do your build out?"
"I'm looking at January and February," Dan answered.
"How much do you expect that to cost?" Mr. Foreman asked. He knew that getting the store ready to open was going to require most of Dan's money.
"I figure about sixty thousand dollars plus the cost of the cooking equipment," Dan answered.
"That sounds a bit high to me," Mr. Foreman said.
Dan frowned and said, "I thought that's what you charged the hamburger place."
Mr. Foreman smiled and said, "That was in the summer. I figure that you can get a ten percent discount doing it during the off season."
"I didn't think about that. That's a little better," Dan said. Six thousand dollars saved on build out costs could pay for a pizza oven and a preparation table.
"It also helps if the contractor you use is willing to float a loan to cover part of the costs. That means you won't have to borrow as much money from a bank," Mr. Foreman said while examining his finger nails. He wasn't going to come out and say that he should be the contractor. He said, "A smart business man who takes the time to form a relationship with his suppliers can sometimes arrange to have thirty days net as their payment terms. In my line of work, that means that I can actually build something and get paid for it before I have to pay for the materials I used."
"I never heard of thirty days net, but I'll definitely keep it in mind," Dan said. He appreciated the fact that Mr. Foreman was basically offering to float a loan to help him start his business. He grinned over at Mr. Foreman and said, "I've already picked out the contractor I would like to use."
"Get three bids that you can show the bank," Mr. Foreman said with a smile. When Dan frowned, he explained, "You have to be able to demonstrate to a bank that you are running your business like a business."
"Yes, sir," Dan said.
Mr. Foreman said, "You might want to talk to that fellow from the Small Business Administration about suppliers who would be good for your business."
"Thank you. You may have just solved a major problem," Dan said. Mr. Foreman always gave him good advice.
Several hours later, Dan looked up from the computer print out. Puzzled, he went back to the original time sheets and double checked the numbers. He always double and triple checked his work. He was afraid that his Dyslexia would have him reverse a number or two. There was nothing worse than shorting an employee on their paycheck. People didn't react well to that. He checked the figures again.
Over at his desk, Mr. Foreman was filling out the forms concerning the ethnicities and genders of his employees. He snorted and said, "The law demands that we act like we are blind to race, religion, and gender. Then they want us to count them every month. Go figure."
Dan had heard that little rant before. He interrupted, "Mr. Foreman. I'm looking over the figures for Mick Ferguson. He says that he has worked sixty hours a week for the past two weeks. He's the only one who is working that many hours. Is that right?"
"Mick Ferguson? Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir. I've got his time sheets here," Dan said holding them up.
His boss got out from behind his desk and walked over to where Dan was seated. He looked over the sheet for a minute shaking his head. He said, "Bring up his records for the past three pay periods."
It took Dan several minutes to figure out how to do that. There was the same number of hours across the screen. He said, "Sixty hours every week for the six weeks."
"That lazy son of a bitch... He's always late in the morning. He's always the first to leave at night. There's no way that he's putting in sixty hours a week. I bet he works closer to thirty hours a week. Now he's screwing around with the time sheets. I'm going to fire his ass," Mr. Foreman said.
Dan did a quick calculation and whistled at the number that came up on the screen. At thirteen dollars an hour with twenty hours at time and a half, Mick Ferguson had stolen over two thousand three hundred dollars over the past six weeks. He said, "He ripped you off for more than two grand."
Getting angry, Mr. Foreman said, "He's ripped more than that off of me. I have to pay social security taxes on that money."
Remembering his bookkeeping class, Dan typed on the computer for a minute. He pulled up the payroll records from the books and examined them. He said, "There's almost a two thousand eight hundred dollar difference between how much he cost and how much a different employee who makes the same amount of money per hour costs."
"I guess we'll just have to put in a call to the police."
"Can he be arrested for that?" Dan asked.
"Yes, he can. I can also sue him to recover the money taken from me," Mr. Foreman said. He looked over at the timesheet and said, "Check the entire crew that works for Dresden. That idiot signed the timesheet. I wonder how many other guys on his crew are pulling the same stunt."
Dan called Ann to let her know that he wasn't going to be over to her house until late. Mr. Foreman called a local pizzeria to deliver a pizza for them to eat. Dan discovered just how bad pizza could be. He would definitely have to get delivery as quickly as possible.
Together, Mr. Foreman and Dan went through the payroll records for the past eight weeks. It was almost midnight before they finished. By then, they had found eight guys who were all changing excessive hours.
Mr. Foreman went over to his office chair and said, "I figure they got me for anywhere between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars. A good percentage of that is coming directly out of my pocket."
"Can you prove it?" Dan asked.
"One of the things that I require the foreman to do is to call me when he shuts down a site for the night. I write it down in my little book. Now a site isn't shut down if folks are still working, so I can tell you the maximum number of hours anyone working on those sites can have," Mr. Foreman answered. The habit of writing down those times was something his father had taught him to do. He had done that for years without ever thinking about why he was doing it. He'd never needed that information until that day.
"What are you going to do now?" Dan asked.
"I'm going to go home and get some sleep. I'll call my lawyer in the morning. He'll decide how we handle this problem," Mr. Foreman said.
"You're going to let the lawyer decide?" Dan asked.
"When it comes to dealing with crooks, a lawyer can be your best friend and your worst enemy. When it comes to getting money from someone, a lawyer becomes his own best friend," Mr. Foreman answered with a snort. He didn't like lawyers. He didn't trust lawyers, but there were times when they were necessary.
Dan laughed and said, "I'm going to remember that."
"That was a good catch. We might not get my money back, but I won't lose more," Mr. Foreman said. He had been impressed with how diligently Dan had worked through the evening. He checked and double-checked everything. Thinking about what Dan had given up to work late for him, he said, "Head on over to your two lovely ladies. I'm sure they've missed you."
Lazlo Zalezac