Granny Parker opened her eyes feeling like she had been hit by a truck. She had gone to sleep while the doctor was discussing putting something in her chest to open up her arteries. She remembered them saying something about her going to surgery later. She looked at the face watching her and said, "I must have died and gone to hell."
"Nope. It's me, Granny Parker," Ernie said with a smile.
"What are you doing here?" she asked staring at him. He was absolutely the last person that she expected to see at the hospital.
Shrugging his shoulders, Ernie answered, "I wanted to see how you were doing. I can't have my best critic croak on me."
"What time is it?" she asked.
"Eleven thirty in the morning. You've slept a lot since they brought you in. At least that is what I heard," Ernie said looking at her.
"Seriously, what are you doing here?" Granny Parker asked.
"I'm worried about you," Ernie said. Tears welled up in his eyes as he said, "We almost lost you. Mr. Parker saved your life."
Seeing the tears in his eyes, Granny Parker said, "You're serious."
"Yes, ma'am," Ernie said, "I know that you don't really like me, but you're honest with me. I realized I needed that in my life. I need you. I don't want you to die."
"Thank you, Ernie," Granny Parker said feeling a little choked up. She had no idea that he had felt that way about her. She managed a weak smile and said, "I don't want to die."
Ernie sniffed and rubbed his nose. He said, "There are a lot of kids back at the pizzeria that are worried about you. Is there anything you want me to tell them?"
"Tell them that I'll be okay," she said.
Nodding his head, he asked, "Are you really going to be okay?"
"You never know," she answered deciding to tell the truth.
"I know what you mean. Nothing in life is certain," Ernie said. He sat there for a minute watching her and said, "I met your son. He's a nice man."
"Which one?"
"Mr. Parker," Ernie answered realizing that didn't tell her anything.
"You've got to learn to pay attention to those little details, Ernie. How are you ever going to know people if you don't take the time to learn who they are?" she asked gently.
"Yes, ma'am," Ernie said with a smile. He said, "Your son said he flew in from Nashville."
"Ah, that would be Joe," she said. It was nice to know that he had made the trip to see her. She wondered if he brought the wife and kids with him. It would be nice to see her grandsons again.
"Well, I better go. I don't want to tire you out, Granny Parker," Ernie said. It was hard looking at that feisty woman hooked up with tubes coming out of her arms. The plastic oxygen feed under her nose looked uncomfortable.
"Okay, Ernie," she said.
"I'll tell Mr. Joe Parker that you're awake. He was off looking for someone to tell him about your condition," Ernie said.
"Thank you, Ernie."
"You're welcome."
Downstairs in the same hospital another woman was dealing with her doctor. Nervous, she listened as the doctor said, "There's a lump in your left breast."
Hearing the words that no woman ever wants to hear, the room started spinning. She took a deep breath and, through will alone, forced the room to stop. Feeling sick to her stomach, she asked, "Is it ... cancer?"
"I don't know. We'll know more after a biopsy," the doctor answered.
She sat there for a few seconds staring at the floor. The room kept tilting from one side to the other. She said, "I think that I'm going to be sick."
She realized that she was about to lose the fight to keep her food down. She stood up and rushed out of the room in search of a toilet. Feeling a little off balance, she careened off the wall. She found a bathroom just in time. It didn't matter to her that it was the men's room.
After looking at the numbers that Dan had brought in, Mr. Harrison looked across the desk at Dan and asked, "What are you going to do with your profits?"
"I'm not sure," Dan answered. He had been a little surprised when he had looked at the business numbers at the end of the month. He had passed the twenty thousand dollars a month sales level and sales were still increasing.
"You can give them away to the government," Mr. Harrison said with a smile.
"I'd rather not," Dan said with a smile. He knew what Mr. Harrison was going to suggest that he could do with the money.
"You can give yourself another raise," Mr. Harrison suggested.
"I was thinking about giving myself a nice little bonus," Dan said.
Nodding his head, Mr. Harrison said, "You should definitely give yourself a nice big bonus before your business year ends. The difference in tax rate between what your business will have to pay and you will have to pay is pretty significant. A bonus will let you keep as much of your money as possible."
"My CPA suggested the same thing," Dan said glad to hear the advice echoed by another person.
Mr. Harrison said, "Let's assume that your sales figures level off at a thousand a month more than what they are currently running. I figure that over the next year that will bring you somewhere between fifty and sixty thousand a year in profit. What are you going to do with that money?"
"You've already suggested that I open another pizzeria," Dan said casually.
"Or two," Mr. Harrison said watching Dan's expression of disbelief at the suggestion of opening two more pizzerias.
"I couldn't handle two," Dan said with a frown. He would still have to get a loan to cover the build out of another pizzeria. They would have to be in different parts of town so that they didn't steal business from each other.
"You're probably right if you run the business the way you've been doing it," Mr. Harrison said.
"I'd have to train three people to be managers," Dan said.
"That's true. You'd also need to set up your bookkeeping a little differently," Mr. Harrison said.
"What do you mean?" Dan asked. Keeping track of the accounts and paperwork was already consuming a major portion of his time.
"Well, you'd need to set up a set a pair of operational books for each individual pizzeria and then a set of books for the overall business," Mr. Harrison answered. He was pretty sure that Dan already understood that. Dan had taken the accounting course from his wife.
Dan wondered who he could find that would help him. It didn't take long for him to think about Terry. He said, "I'll look into the matter. Would Professor Harrison be interested in looking over what I come up with?"
"I'm sure that she'd love to see what you are doing."
"Great," Dan said. If he was going to do this, then he needed to start planning. It had taken him two years to put together the first pizzeria. There was no sense in rushing into the second one.
"Who are you?" Granny Parker asked the bright eyed young woman who had entered her room. She was dressed in clothes that screamed hospital employee, but it wasn't the same as what the nurses wore.
"I'm Sally."
"Are you here to take some blood or something?"
"No. I work here at the hospital over in respiratory, but that's not the reason I'm here. Dan wanted me to check up on you and let him know how you're doing," Sally answered going over to the bed.
"Dan?"
Sally said, "I'm his girlfriend."
Granny Parker frowned on hearing that. She didn't know what to say. Ann had been introduced to her as Dan's girlfriend and Alison had made the same claim. She finally managed to croak, "That's nice."
Sally laughed at the expression on the old woman's face and said, "You're wondering if I know about Ann and Alison."
"Yes," Granny Parker admitted.
"All four of us live together," Sally said, "There aren't any secrets there."
"So he has three girlfriends?"
Fluffing the pillow, Sally said, "We prefer to say that the three of us have got one boyfriend."
"That's interesting," Granny Parker said not quite sure what to think of the matter.
"You know Dan. What young woman could possibly resist his charms?" Sally asked with a smile.
"Very few," Granny Parker admitted. She could think of only one and that was her granddaughter.
Dan gestured to the seat across the table and said, "Have a seat, Kevin."
"Sure," Kevin said sitting down. He looked across the table at Dan and wondered why he was so serious. Concerned, he asked, "Is there anything the matter?"
"No," Dan answered with a smile, "How is your leg doing?"
"Fine," Kevin answered.
"Are there any health problems looming on the horizon?" Dan asked.
Wondering why Dan was so interested in his health, Kevin answered, "No. Why do you want to know?"
"Would you be interested in becoming the assistant manager of this pizzeria?" Dan asked.
Kevin nodded his head and answered, "Sure. That would be great."
"This afternoon I'll start training you on your new responsibilities," Dan said. It was hard to believe how unsure he was about this decision. It was hard giving up control over the business, but he had become convinced that it was necessary. He had come to the conclusion that Mr. Harrison was right. If he didn't start delegating the day to day operations of the pizzeria he wouldn't be in a position to open another one.
"Excellent," Kevin said thinking that what he had initially considered a job of desperation had turned into something more than that. It had suddenly become a career. He was silent for a moment and then asked, "Is there is raise?"
"Yes, there's a raise," Dan answered with a grin. He looked down at the table and said, "I've been thinking that in a year's time I'll open another pizzeria. I'm going to have to train you to be an assistant manager. If it works out, I'll promote you to manager in time to prepare you to run the new store."
"Great," Kevin said. He looked at Dan thinking that he hadn't seen that much of a future cooking pizzas when he had first entered the pizzeria. He had been searching for a way to make a living until his medical problems had cleared up a bit.
At a loss for what to do next, Dan said, "I've never trained anyone to manage something. I guess we ought to start with all of the lists that I've compiled since I opened the pizzeria."
Having seen all of the lists that Dan used, Kevin realized that he was in for some work. Nodding his head, he said, "That sounds like a reasonable place to start."
Dan held up the first list and said, "This is my master list that covers the basic operations of the pizzeria. You'll notice that the first item on the list is the check list for opening in the store. You're going to want to make sure that everything on that list has been done in the morning."
"Uh, how many lists are we going to cover?" Kevin asked.
"A couple dozen," Dan answered shuffling through the folder that held the lists he had compiled for everything from opening the door of the store to getting the papers to the tax preparer.
"Would you like me to get us some root beers before we start on them?" Kevin asked. He was going to get something for the headache that was threatening to descend upon him.
"That's a good idea," Dan said shuffling through the papers. There was a lot of stuff to cover.
"You're awake."
Having seen him enter the room, Granny Parker watched Dan make his way to her bedside. They had operated on her the previous evening and her she was feeling very weak. When he was close enough to hear her, she said, "Yes."
"How are you feeling?" Dan asked looking down at her. She looked very old and frail lying in the hospital bed.
"Much better," Granny Parker answered pleased to have a chance to actually talk to him. It seemed that every time she had taken a nap, Dan had chosen that time to visit. She'd heard about him stopping by from her sons, but he had always left before she woke up. It bothered her a bit that no one would wake her so that she could talk to him and thank him for saving her life.
"That's good," Dan said. Looking around the hospital room, he noticed that there were flowers, stuffed animals, and cards wishing her well. They contrasted with the stark sterility of the rest of the room. Winking at her, he said, "This doesn't look to be too bad of a place to rest up for a while. Of course, my friend Tom would probably hate it here. Any place where you can't get root beer is hell as far as he's concerned."
Granny Parker laughed at the comment. She said, "That's as lame of a definition of hell as any that I've heard."
"I'll admit that Tom's view of the world is a little simplistic at times," Dan said with a grin.
She looked at him for a second and then said, "I heard that you saved my life."
"I don't know about that. The paramedics restarted your heart," Dan said shrugging his shoulders.
Recognizing that he wasn't going to take credit for his actions, she said, "Ernie was quite positive that you saved me."
"He was quite upset when you collapsed," Dan replied changing the topic of the conversation over to Ernie.
"That boy really surprised me," Granny Parker said looking over at the bouquet of flowers that Ernie had brought her. He dropped by before and after work to check up on her. She said, "Did you know that he's been by here every day?"
"I kind of suspected that," Dan said. Ernie had suddenly taken a lot more interest in the people around him. He listened more than he talked. He helped when there was any opportunity. It was an amazing transformation from the sullen young man who didn't care about anyone or anything.
"I didn't know he cared," Granny Parker said. She thought that after living such a long life that she understood people. This was the first time in years that anyone had ever surprised her like that.
"Maybe you should talk to him about that," Dan said.
Startled by the suggestion, Granny Parker looked at him and asked, "Why do you say that?"
"It just seems to me like he listens to everything you say to him. The more critical you are of him, the more he listens. I think that he wants to be a better person and feels that you are the only one who tells him what he's doing wrong," Dan said.
Granny Parker snorted and said, "Everyone was telling him what he was doing wrong. You spent most of the time he was working for you telling him what he was doing wrong."
Dan nodded his head and said, "I agree. A lot of people told him what he was doing wrong. There were very few people that he listened to."
"I noticed that," Granny Parker said shaking her head. She had watched him like a hawk and criticized everything he did. She did have to admit that it was getting harder to find things to criticize.
"The point is that he listens to everything you say to him. He's stopped acting like an idiot. He's been trying real hard to be a decent person," Dan said.
"I know," she said.
Dan looked at her and said, "You need to tell him that he's doing right from time to time."
"I know," Granny Parker said. She was slowly coming to accept that Ernie had changed for the better. She had no idea what had happened to the young man to change his attitude, but she was positive that Dan was behind it all.
"Good," Dan said. He rose from the chair and said, "I've got to go now."
"Leaving so soon?" she asked.
Dan pointed to his wrist watch and said, "I've got to open the pizzeria."
"I'm glad you stopped by," Granny Parker said.
"I hope that you'll be back soon. The kids really miss you," Dan said. He smiled and said, "All of us miss having you around. I think everyone needs a Granny Parker in their lives."
"Thanks," Granny Parker said. It was nice to know that even at her age there were people who saw her as an integral part of their everyday lives. Too many people discovered that they were sidelined from life at her age.
Eric showed up at the pizzeria and ordered a plate of spaghetti. As it was being prepared, he looked around at all of the people there. Four teenagers wearing Parker's Perfect Pizza tee-shirts were hard at work cleaning and restocking the restaurant. The guy with the limp was at the oven cooking pizzas.
He wandered over to the back of the store where he could watch what was happening. He'd had a strange idea the night before that he could invest in Parker's Perfect Pizza and help Dan grow the pizzeria into a chain. It was perfect investment as far as he was concerned. Dan was a friend of his and he respected Dan's drive to succeed.
Dan entered the store and spotted Eric sitting in the back. He made his way over to the young man stopping once or twice along the way to make sure that everything was operating correctly in the store. On reaching Eric, he said, "I've been meaning to give you a call."
"Oh, do you want me to leave so that you can call me?" Eric asked with a grin.
"No need," Dan said waving the offer aside as if it had been serious.
"I heard that you saved someone's life," Eric said.
"I performed CPR on a woman who watches out for the kids in the afternoons," Dan answered.
"That's what I heard," Eric said. He looked over at Dan and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"
"You know how you said that saving someone's life is private?" Dan asked.
"Yes."
"You were right," Dan said. It didn't matter that others were there watching what he had done, there was something private about it.
"I understand," Eric said, "I assume that you'd like to change the subject now."
"That would be nice," Dan replied smiling at Eric. Before Eric had saved that man's life, he would have wanted to find out every detail about the episode. Now, he was a lot more circumspect about things.
"I was wondering if you were going to open any more pizzerias," Eric said.
"I'm thinking about opening one or two of them in the next year," Dan said wondering what had prompted Eric's interest.
Pleased at getting what he hoped to discover confirmed, Eric said, "I'd like to invest in your company."
"Oh," Dan said taken by surprise by the suggestion.
Eric said, "Yes."
"I have to think about it," Dan said. Seeing the hurt expression on Eric's face, Dan said, "I'm still in the planning stage. I can't agree to anything until I know what I'm doing."
Realizing that Dan was not turning him down, Eric said, "Please keep me in mind when you are ready to take the next steps. I want to be a part of this."
"I will," Dan said with a smile.
Despite having known him for almost a month and a half, Terry still wasn't sure what to make of Dan. They had never really had much of a chance to talk. When they visited at Dan's home, she and Amanda spent most of their time talking with the three women with whom he lived while Tom spent all of his time talking to Dan.
She knew that Dan's girlfriends thought the world of him, but that was to be expected. Her opinion of him was colored by the fact that she didn't think that much of someone her age that didn't go to college. She asked, "What did you want to talk to me about?"
Dan slid the document across the table to her and said, "This is my original business plan. Look it over and tell me what you think."
Terry opened the cover and started to read. Although she had only seen a few examples in her business classes, she was stunned by the thoroughness of his business plan. She read each section taking in all of the details. By the time she had finished reading it, she realized that Dan would have taken the top spot in her classes. She looked over at him and said, "Impressive."
"Thanks," Dan said. He gestured to her and said, "Open it to the section where I discuss the long term sales targets."
She flipped through the pages until she found the charts detailing the sales projections. She looked over the figures and said, "A little ambitious."
Dan smiled and slid over a printed page with his actual sales figures. He said, "I opened the pizzeria on March first. We're in our fifth month."
Terry picked up the piece of paper and looked at the sales figures. She looked back at the business plan. Wide-eyed, she said, "You're almost two years ahead of schedule."
"That's right."
"You're sales are still increasing," she said looking at the chart he had provided her. It is a very impressive growth and one that she didn't expect from a business like a pizza parlor. When she thought of businesses, she immediately thought of Fortune 500 companies and not little corner pizzerias. Sure, they used little companies like that in their classes, but those were tools to understand the concepts for application to the 'real' companies.
"That's right," Dan replied.
She frowned and studied the figures. By every measure that she had learned in school, Dan was a very successful young man. It was obvious from the business plan that he had taken the time and energy to plan things out for success. She said, "I'm impressed."
"Thank you," Dan said modestly. Gesturing to the chart, he asked, "What advice would you give me in terms of going forward from here?"
"Well, it is a little early, but I'd start thinking about starting one or two more pizzerias," she answered. She'd love to see what one of her professors would say about what Dan had accomplished.
Dan nodded his head and said, "Mr. Harrison at the Small Business Administration gave me the same advice."
"You're working with the Small Business Administration?" she asked surprised that he had used that resource.
"I've been doing that ever since I was about three quarters of the way through my accounting class," Dan answered.
"You've gone to college?" she asked. Tom had said that Dan had a reading problem, but hadn't mentioned that he had gone to college.
"Once I decided that I was going to open a business of my own, I audited an accounting course and a business course so that I would know what I was doing," Dan answered.
Terry sat back in her chair studying Dan like he was some kind of alien creature. It was hard to believe what he had done. She asked, "So why have you asked me here?"
"I need your help," Dan answered.
"Doing what? It looks to me like you are doing fine," she said looking down at the chart in her hand.
Biting his lower lip, Dan said, "I need to start planning how I will run multiple locations. I need to set up operational books for each location. I need to set up the corporate books. I have to decide how I'll handle personnel and purchasing."
"Oh," Terry said thinking that she didn't know enough to really be able to help him with any confidence. Afraid that she'd kill his business, she said, "I haven't studied this, yet."
"Neither have I," Dan said with a weak smile. He took a deep breath and said, "We'll have to work through it together. Mr. Harrison will provide advice when we really get stuck."
"What does he think about your chances of success?" she asked.
"He thinks I'll become a national chain," Dan said shrugging his shoulders.
Terry thought about that for a moment. She was a senior. Tom and Amanda were juniors. If she were to stay in school for an extra year to become a CPA, then all three of them would leave school at the same time. It wasn't the first time that she had considered staying in school for an extra year to be with Amanda. By the time she graduated, Dan would need a CPA to help run his business. She figured that he would have four or five pizzerias and would be planning on opening more.
Dan interrupted her thoughts when he asked, "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that I'd like to join your management team when I get my degree," Terry answered.
Surprised, Dan asked, "My management team?"
"Yes. I figure that in two years you're going to require a team to manage your business," Terry answered.