Layla, Act 1
The report before her did not lie. It never had, in any of its iterations. Sure, yes, there had been inconsistencies and errors from time to time, but that was to be expected. No spreadsheet was going to be perfect every time, not when it was programmed and put together by a fallible human being. That was part of what made the errors forgivable, however, the human element that went into constructing each and every one.
Layla fondly recalled how one time, just four or five years earlier, Gordon’s Goods’ quarterly sales report had arrived on her desk with the labor cost and import costs switched on the sheets, resulting in quite the kerfuffle for a few weeks when regional managers, panicked over the enormous numbers, had tried to slash employee schedules to cover their asses. Layla had caught the error and quietly insisted that they all return their staff to previous levels and schedules, calmly and concisely explaining what had gone wrong to each of them. The collective sigh of relief had been unmistakable; regional managers hated layoffs or cutting people’s hours. Their employees counted on a full schedule in order to make end’s meet.
The final page of the current quarterly report sat in front of her on the desk, its very bottom lines almost trembling before her as she faintly rocked left and right on her rolling office chair. Gordon’s Goods stores across the Empire had turned a profit of $437 million before officer-tier salaries and incentives; once all of those were doled out, Layla was looking at bringing in just over nine million dollars herself.
It was certainly more money than she would ever need to make on an annual basis, she recognized, but it was also less than half of what she’d made the previous year. Angling herself toward her computer, Layla Gordon clacked away at her keyboard, bringing up the previous year’s information. The home office had been arranged with care by her partner, Shelly, to provide a maximally soothing aura. “I don’t mind you bringing work home, honey, but I want to be sure it isn’t a prison cell,” she’d cautioned. Soft, cream colored carpeting, vanilla and sage aroma dispensers mounted at shoulder-height at a few spots along the walls, and a sound system loaded with relaxing classical music all aimed to reduce the external stressors that Layla might otherwise face in a professional setting.
But for all of these tinkering, the fifty-seven-year-old heiress and CEO of Gordon’s Goods could feel the tightening of her shoulders, the stiffening of her fingers as she reviewed and compared the previous year’s performance in this quarter to the current report. A handful of program tools came online as she clicked and maneuvered skillfully around her console, and Layla swiftly computed the primary differences and factors.
Ganges had cut her stores’ business flow by a little over a third from the previous year. She eased back in her chair and let out a sigh, reaching for her coffee. “Shit,” she muttered, looking into the empty mug. Much as she loved Shelly, as she looked around her warmly lit home office, she wanted to poke her, hard; there was no coffeemaker in here.
Strolling down the hallway between her office and the kitchen, her thick gray socks muffling her movements, Layla slowed momentarily to reminisce at te sight of the various framed photos along the front hallway. She and Shelly had a touch of the old-fashioned in them, opting for static photos in frames as opposed to the digitally networked and battery-operated clusters that a lot of folks used nowadays, offering constantly shifting imagery and unlimited combinations for display in their homes. She paused at the last one in the hall before stepping into the entry space that joined this hall to the stairway up on her right, and the west wing of the house straight ahead. Layla reached one finger out, running it down the glass front of the frame gingerly; it was a picture of her and Shelly in front of their first house, with Layla standing behind the shorter, auburn-haired Shelly Angstrom, her arms wrapped lovingly around her front.
The photo within was twenty-two years old, and Layla still found that almost as much as she loved recalling and reliving those times, she also flinched away from some aspects of those days. Within the photo itself, even, one could just spy, along the right edge of the picture, one Jack Hargraves, one of their neighbors at that first house, the gruff-looking man glowering disapprovingly at the couple, his hands gripping the handle of his push mower.
“If you could see us now, Jack,” Layla mused aloud, shaking her head. Hargraves had been what was colloquially referred to as a ‘hard-liner’, a devout follower of the Emperor’s every decree during his early days as leader of the nation. This included, of course, a rather unkind take on homosexuality, since Emperor James Orry had been a leader in the Evangelical Church of the ‘fire and brimstone’ sort when he was named Emperor by unanimous vote by the Church’s Council.
And he had not kept quiet about his perspective, not for the entirety of the three years that Layla and Shelly had lived next door to him. Even when the nation’s High Council, in a rather bold and unprecedented rebuke of His Holiness, had unanimously voted to legalize same-sex marriage in 1985, the Emperor’s truest devotees continued to quote his decrees and commentary on the subject. Jack Hargraves did so at every opportunity.
Layla pulled her finger away finally and continued on across the entryway and into the kitchen and dining room area. Standing at the granite countertop island in the middle of the kitchen space stood her loving wife, still dressed at nine in the morning in a deep scarlet bathrobe, her dark red hair hanging about her head in an unkempt poof, a sleepy grin on her face as she looked down at her tablet.
“Well, morning, sleepyhead,” Layla declared, wrapping around the island and giving Shelly a quick peck on the cheek. Shelly replied with a wordless groan of sorts. Layla darted a quick look down at the tablet; she still appeared to be making her way through Ronald Malfi’s ‘The Night Parade’, a brilliantly written if somewhat disturbing end-of-the-world thriller novel that Layla had powered through in a few days before recommending it to Shelly.
As she poured herself a refill of coffee, Layla angled her head back a little, Shelly asking, “What’re you up to at this hour?”
“The quarterly report is in, I printed it out and I’m doing a look through and comparison,” Layla responded, opening the fridge and fetching her creamer without looking.
“Navi, play Slvan Harmony track three,” Shelly said. On the island countertop, a small black box with several illuminated green buttons released a small blinking light on a narrow diode, made a low electronic ‘beep’, and then a soothing, quiet melody began to quietly stream from the device. It was a Ganges Home Assist, a kind of personal digital assistant that was operated chiefly by audio command, and Shelly had set hers to respond to commands when the word ‘Navi’ was used to prompt it. Layla hated having the device in their home, but she adored that her wife had used a reference to an old video game as its command prompt.
“I don’t need to be soothed, honey,” Layla said evenly. “And to tell you the truth, that little box is part of the issue.” Shelly slowly turned around and raised an eyebrow at her wordlessly, and Layla let out a sigh. “I’ve done a quick analysis. I think Ganges is the main competitor causing the drop-off.” Shelly sipped at her own coffee, nodding.
“I don’t think either of us is surprised by that,” she offered. “They practically own the online retail space. I’ve written about it a few times,” she pointed out, referring to the column she contributed to in the Cleveland Review.
“If they didn’t outright own it before, they almost surely do now,” Layla said.
“Well, what about the Gordon’s website?”
“We’re not doing very well there,” Layla said. “Even with the online options, we’re not catching up. People know Ganges as the place to shop online, and they still think of us as a brick-and-mortar department store. That ‘People of Gordon’s’ site doesn’t help much,” she grumbled.
Shelly shrugged and set her mug down on the island. “Well, I’m going to go take a shower and get dressed. My editor wants to meet with us all in a couple of hours. Love you,” she said, giving Layla a quick kiss before heading toward the stairway to head upstairs. Layla made her way back to her home office, put her printout of the quarterly report in her messenger bag, and grabbed her thick red sweater wrap. She then went out to the garage, got in her Jeep, and started toward the corporate headquarters downtown.
She was going to have to make some hard decisions, and she wanted to have the board present to hear them.
**
“This is unacceptable,” Randall barked, looking at his copy of the quarterly report. The other six members of the board of directors sat around a long black teak table in the boardroom, the wall to Layla’s right composed entirely of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out and down on the sprawl of downtown Cleveland. She stood at the head of the table, arms folded protectively over her chest. She’d known they wouldn’t take the news well, but she was mildly surprised that it was Randall who had been the source of the outburst; he was normally one of the more staid and steady members of the upper levels of management.
“I know this looks bad,” Layla said, reaching for a multi-buttoned remote on the table in front of her. Stepping to one side, she aimed it over her shoulder at a projector screen and clicked a button, bringing up a colorful pie chart. “But I’d like to remind you all that we haven’t put a great deal of effort into improving our online element,” she said. She pointed to the pie and stepped closer to the projector screen, tapping the largest portion, then the smallest slice. “Now, our in-store, spontaneous purchase share still comprises the vast majority of our sales, while our ‘Order and Pickup’ option for the website is the least of our revenue. Mind you, we’ve only been doing this for a couple of months, so the data isn’t going to reflect the total potential for this option to our customers. And the online order and delivery,” she said, pointing to the second-smallest slice. “Well, you can see here that it isn’t doing very well.”
“What’s our marketing appropriation look like there,” asked Tara Wheeler, a mousy, brown-eyed, brown-haired woman who had risen through the ranks of management like a meteor, proving herself time and again capable of turning around the performance of any Gordon’s location. So impressed had Layla been with her capacity for success that six years ago, she had recommended she be added to the board, and the others had thrown their support behind the move without question. Aggressive and committed, Tara’s input was always welcome in the boardroom.
“We’ve been focused on advertising on television, radio and in print, largely,” said Layla, clicking the remote once more to bring up another pie chart, this one showing the breakdown of the company’s advertising and marketing allocations. “But as you can see, this last quarter, we threw a great deal more resources into our online element, including paying a rather high premium to get our commercials playing on NetTube.”
“Our click-through rate there has been pretty dismal, though,” offered Samantha Parks. A few years older than Layla, she had been one of her father’s closest and most trusted advisors before he handed the company’s primary responsibilities over to Layla twenty-two years earlier. Once the owner of her own smaller department store chain, Parks had sold the company to Gordon’s under the condition that she be made a member of the board of directors immediately, and Timothy Gordon, always on the lookout for talent and courage in business, had taken her up on the suggestion.
“What’s click-through,” asked Randall.
“It’s the rate at which people online click on our ads when they pop up in locations other than our own website or domains,” Tara replied. “NetTube’s better-known personalities have been largely coming together to undermine our advertising efforts there, telling their own viewers and subscribers to either ignore the ads, skip them entirely, or use browser add-ons called ad blockers. When they run an ad blocker, users don’t even see our ads at all.”
“Isn’t there something NetTube can do about that,” Randall asked.
“Unfortunately, not much,” Layla responded. “If they try to prevent people from using tools like that on their own devices, they’ll be accused of overreaching, and they’ll lose users. Services and sites like NetTube can’t afford to lose users.”
“So, we’re pretty much pissing money away there,” Randall griped.
“Not entirely,” Layla said. She then pointed to the section of the graph marked ‘Television’. “It certainly isn’t doing as much for us as traditional television and services like Hulu or Sling. We actually made a commercial that’s exclusively aired on Hulu, and customer response to that one has been exceedingly positive.”
Tara snickered here. “Are you talking about the ‘Milkbone’ commercial,” she asked.
“Yes. We saw a lot of positive feedback on WeNet and Hoots for that one, and we actually saw a brief two-week surge in sales, from the second through the fourth week of February,” said Layla. She continued through her presentation for another ten minutes, after which she opened the floor to suggestions and took her seat at the head of the table.
“Have we given anymore thought to looking into buying out Fairley’s,” Bob Digby asked. He was a fox-faced sort, and the only member of the board who occasionally wore casual attire to the office, as he had today. His black t-shirt bore the band logo for The Ramones, and his narrow jeans matched its dark hue.
“We might have at one point, but somebody else bought them out two weeks ago,” said Parks.
“Who?”
“Ganges,” Parks replied. “Fairley’s is going to keep their name and operate mostly unchanged, but now they’re going to have the backing of Zack Dorros’s money and people. They may even actually start to expand.”
“Are there areas where they don’t have stores already,” Layla asked.
“The 3rd, 7th, and 10th Territories,” Parks said evenly. “But you can count on that changing, and probably before the year’s out.” Layla could feel the tension in the room rising as the rest of the board looked to one another, all conversation suddenly cut off. Finally, Parks angled her head slightly to her right to meet Layla’s gaze. “Have they contacted you yet,” she asked softly.
“Excuse me?”
“Have they reached out to you with an offer,” Parks said, restructuring her question slightly, but still leaving the ‘who’ unannounced. Layla could easily infer who she meant by ‘they’, however.
“No, they haven’t,” she said. “What about you, Samantha?”
“Yes,” she said. “All of us have been approached, and all of us have said the same thing; no.” Layla let out an exhausted but relieved sigh. “Mrs. Gordon, you hold a fifty-two percent stake in the company, while each of us holds an eight percent stake. Even if all six of us agreed to sell, you could deny us. That’s how it was meant to be, but we also understand that you value our input. It’s why we’ve always done our best to give you our honest feedback.”
Layla looked around to each board member, trying to get a feel for what they were thinking. “So, if we’re going to continue along that line, I want to know what each of you is thinking. Samantha?”
“Never,” she said immediately. “Your father took a chance on me, and I’m not going to betray that.”
“Randall?”
“I’d sell,” he answered after looking down at his copy of the quarterly report, tapping it with a yellow highlighter he gripped between pointer and middle finger. “I don’t see this trend reversing course. Ganges is just too big to take on over the long term.”
“Tara?”
“I’m with Randall,” she said. Layla felt the sting of something tiny but lethal driving into the back of her head, the shock of Tara’s reply disheartening. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gordon, but we can’t fight them off forever.” Layla nodded, but found herself looking now out the window wall, rising from her seat slowly and approaching it.
“Robert?”
“Honestly? Fuck Ganges,” Bob Digby said, his coarse language causing a couple of cleared throats behind her. Layla smiled, thankful for the diminishment of the pain in her head granted by his response. “I’ve got a cousin who worked at one of those Processing Centers for a few months, and they ground him into the ground. He’s got a herniated disk now, and sciatica, all because they push their people as if they’re machines. And if you get hurt, they just pull someone else in off the street and use them up just the same. I’d say no deal.”
Going around the rest of the board, Layla found herself with only Samantha Parks and Robert Digby supporting the notion that Gordon’s Goods should remain as it had always been, its own entity. She thanked the board members for their time and declared the meeting over, watching them depart one by one. Digby hesitated at the doorway, pausing to give her a soft smile.
“Don’t let it get you down, Mrs. Gordon,” he said. “Remember, this is your company. We work for you.” Layla nodded, unable to summon her own matching smile to his.
“Thank you, Bob. And please,” she added. “Call me Layla.”
**
Unlike her father, Layla had ceased employing a driver to transport her around the city after her second date with Shelly. Her paramour had found the whole thing somewhat unsettling, so Layla had declared then and there that she would drive herself from then on, despite her father’s protestations and disapproval. “Your girlfriend should be flattered to have someone to take care of things like driving while you two have an actual conversation,” he’d tried to reason.
“I can drive and talk at the same time, dad.” He hadn’t pushed the issue, and had assured her driver that the man would always have a job, but that it would now exclusively deal with the maintenance of her vehicle instead of its operation. Now, cruising along toward her and Shelly’s home, she realized that they were almost out of creamer, sugar, and a few other odds and ends.
“Opportunity knocks,” she said to herself, taking a turn at the next stop light and then turning into the broad, unevenly paved parking lot of a Gordon’s Goods Superstore. As she crept along the aisles, hunting for an available parking spot, she made a quick mental note to talk to the store manager and give him or her the go-ahead to get someone out here and repave the lot; when she finally did spot a space for her vehicle, she felt like she’d been riding around on a dirt rally race track.
Once inside the store’s entry vestibule, between two sets of automated doors, Layla snagged a cart and angled it toward the interior doors, noting that the interior of the store was only a few degrees warmer than it was outside. Given that winter still clung with slipping fingers to the region, she thought this should be addressed as well. Nobody wanted to be in an air-conditioned store when it was already barely above freezing outside.
Another curiosity that she took note of right away was the absence of a greeter, though there was somebody in a Gordon’s associate red vest a few yards away. The gentleman was busy at the moment, however, checking somebody’s receipt since they had unbagged items in their cart as they were heading out of the store.
Layla was able to navigate the sprawling store easily enough, with the aisles all clearly labeled and well-organized, and the shelves appropriately stocked. Not a single associate seemed to be loafing or goofing off, though she did notice that there was a young mother with her infant standing by the secured formula case, repeatedly pushing the nearby ‘Associate Assistance’ button several times while trying to occupy her child’s attention with a rattle. Layla hung back and watched, waiting almost ten minutes before an associate finally approached the young mother.
“I just need to grab that formula,” the mother said, pointing to indicate which one she wanted. The associate nodded and unlocked the case, then grabbed the container and locked the case back up.
“It’ll be aisle twelve,” the associate said, turning to walk away.
“Wait, can’t I just put it in my cart,” the mother asked. Layla noticed the pinched lips, clenched jaw, and narrowed eyes. Clearly, this woman felt inconvenienced.
“No, ma’am, we get too many people stealing them, so the policy is to hold it at a checkout,” the associate answered. The customer scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“So I have to go to the aisle you randomly pick because other people steal this stuff? Why can’t I use one of the self-checkouts you people have up at the front of the store?”
“I’m just telling you the policy, ma’am,” the associate said, turning and walking away without further comment or exchange. Layla observed that there was a security camera hanging from the ceiling right nearby, with a video playback bordered by a plastic tag that stated, quite plainly, ‘RECORDING IN PROGRESS’, while a red light blinked constantly on the right side of the screen display.
“Fucking ridiculous,” the customer said with a shake of her head. “I’m on camera for Christ’s sakes.” Layla resumed pushing her cart, allowing herself to pause beside the young mother.
“What’s that about,” she prompted. The customer shook her head, staring after the associate with one hand partly to her side and behind her, shaking the rattle at her babbling baby, while the other came up to flip the middle finger at the associate’s back.
“Oh, these people are fucking stupid, that’s all,” the woman huffed, turning to face her child. “A handful of folks steal something, so they lock it all up. And they wouldn’t have to steal it if this shit wasn’t so expensive.”
“Well, clearly you can afford it,” Layla pointed out.
“Yeah, well, not everybody’s so lucky,” the customer commented. “And so what if some faceless company loses a few bucks. Babies have to eat. I swear to God, it’d be easier to just order it in bulk off of Ganges,” she added, pushing her cart onward and rolling away.
And that’s how we lose them, Layla thought dismally.
**
“I should be home early in the afternoon, if you want to grab a late lunch,” Shelly said the following morning, giving Layla a quick kiss before heading down to the driveway where she had parked her Prius. It was Layla’s turn to be lazy and sleep in, standing in the front doorway in her blue terrycloth bathrobe, mug of coffee in hand as she waved goodbye to her wife. When the Prius turned the corner down the street, she headed back inside, making her way to the basement where she and Shelly had set up a home gym.
Climbing on the stationary bike, she tapped around on the attached touchscreen display to bring up her Hulu account, turning on a mindless sitcom while putting the picture-in-picture display on her front porch camera, in the event she should receive any visitors. Changed now into a pair of sleek black training pants and a sports bra, she started with a low pace, high resistance program, straining to get going at first and then settling into a good groove.
She was two episodes and seven miles into her program when she spotted someone coming up onto the porch. Pausing her show, she enlarged the camera display and activated the intercom controls, eyeballing her guest. He was a fair-looking man, probably in his mid-to-late 30’s, dressed in an impeccable dark blue suit and black overcoat, his hair thick but showing even on her camera display touches of gray on top. The doorbell rang, and she pressed the ‘Speak’ button on her screen.
“Hello,” she said. “Can I help you?” The gentleman’s head swiveled around, until he finally looked slightly up at the camera embedded in the doorframe fronting the house. He smiled broadly at her, exposing the handful of creases naturally worn into his face. Whoever he was, he smiled a lot.
“Yes, hello. I’m looking for Layla Gordon,” he said, his voice rising a little at the end. “Have I got the right address?”
“You have,” she replied. “And you might be?” The man reached into his coat and pulled out a business card, which he held up to the camera.
“I’m Tom Jameson,” he said, which matched the name on the card. Underneath his name was the title, in bold print- ‘GANGES VP OF ACQUISITIONS’. “If I could have a few minutes of your time, Mrs. Gordon?” Layla found herself, for the tiniest fraction of a moment, wishing intensely that she had some kind of active threat deterent system installed on the house, and that she could set the well-dressed Ganges officer on fire with a hidden flamethrower. Down here in her gym, she wouldn’t even have to smell his boiling flesh or frying hair, and better still, she could mute the microphone on the camera and just minimize the screen, going back to her show while occasionally checking to see if the man were dead yet or not.
Dismissing this daydream, she finally replied. “Give me a minute, I’ll be right up.” She put her small towel around her neck and clambered down off of the stationary bike, heading to the stairs and climbing up into her living room. Then making her way to the front door. She took several steadying breaths, unlocked the door, and pulled it open on Jameson.
The camera was high-definition, but even high-def doesn’t do justice to an in-person meeting with someone. Where before she’d assumed him to be in his early 30’s, she could now tell that he was probably closer to 40, but still in good condition overall. Also face-to-face, she detected a slyness behind the forward charm that lit his eyes. Wolves are good looking animals too, Mister Jameson, she thought. But they are still predators.
“How are you doing today, Mrs. Gordon,” Jameson began, offering his hand. She wanted to recoil from him, but took his hand instead and gave it a single pump before drawing back.
“Quite fine. What can I do for you, Mr. Jameson?” That smile hadn’t left his face, and neither had the thinly veiled hunter’s glint in his eyes.
“Let’s not beat around the bush or try to be coy, Mrs. Gordon,” he said in a level but quiet tone. “We both know full well why I’m here.” Layla allowed herself a closed-lip grin and leaned against the doorframe, rotating her right leg back and forth by pivoting her foot on the toes of her shoe, planted on the floor.
“I assume they sent you with a figure to offer me, and that you’ll give me a day or two to think it over, yes,” she asked, folding her arms over her chest. Jameson nodded and reached once more into his coat, pulling out a folded index card and handing it over to her.
“I believe you’ll find the offer to be more than fair,” he said as she opened the card and looked at the figure Ganges had sent him with. She tapped the card on her fingertips for a few seconds.
“This is quite a generous sum,” she said. When she looked at Jameson, he was handing her his business card, and she plucked it from between his fingers.
“Twenty-four hours,” he said succinctly. “Give me a call and let me know where we stand, Mrs. Gordon.” He didn’t wait for any further reply, pivoting away from her and heading toward a sleek black BMW sitting at the curb in front of the house. Once he had pulled away, Layla headed back inside, put the index and business cards on the kitchen island, then headed back down to the gym for another attempt at a workout. She wouldn’t think about the cards until Shelly came home.
**
Layla carefully pinched the tin foil over the lip of the pan and pulled the oven door open, wincing back from the blast of heat coming out of it, and slid it down onto the lower rack. Shelly, seated at their dining room table just past a wide archway that divided the two rooms from one another, poured the two of them a modest measure of wine from their small selection, a moscato that Shelly quite enjoyed and that Layla said wasn’t as bad as all that. Layla preferred her reds over whites, but she rarely complained about her wife’s selections.
“Should just be about an hour,” Layla said as she sat down to Shelly’s left at the table. She looked at the empty chairs with them, taking up her glass into hand before sipping. “We really should have Tom and Celia over again some time, they’re just delightful,” she remarked. As she angled her eyes back to Shelly, her emerald eyes glittering back at Layla, Shelly held up the two cards right next to her own face. Layla felt herself sink downward, shoulders slumped as she exhaled like a punctured basketball.
“Were you going to tell me about whatever this is,” Shelly asked snappishly, flicking the cards down to the table between them. “Honey?”
“He, he came by this morning, while I was on the bike downstairs,” Layla said, explaining the brief dialogue she’d engaged in with Jameson. When she was finished, Shelly took the index card between thumb and forefinger, then started flipping it end-over-end between her fingers.
“This is a lot of money they’re offering,” Shelly observed.
“It would have to be split between myself and the others on the board.”
“Right, but you’d get a little over half,” Shelly said, her hand and the index card pausing. “That’s how you have it set up, right? I mean, that’s still more than enough for the two of us to sit back and live off of, maybe make a few investments for down the line, yeah?” Shelly looked around the dining room, until finally her eyes settled once more on Layla. “We could retire early, maybe actually see more of the country.”
“You and I have seen plenty of the country, plenty of the world, Shelly,” Layla replied.
“Sure, yeah, for work,” Shelly shot back hotly, a flush of color suffusing her cheeks. Seeming to sense her own emotions creeping close to taking over, Shelly took a few deep breaths with her eyes closed, and started again. “All I’m saying, honey, is that we should think about it, talk it over. Would it be the worst thing? To sell the company?”
“I’m not letting Ganges take over every aspect of life in the Empire,” Layla said sternly, staring down at her hands and the base of her wineglass. “For four generations, Gordon’s has meant something, stood on its own two feet.” Shelly reached over and took Layla’s hands in her own, drawing Layla’s focus.
“There won’t be a fifth generation, though,” Shelly said gently. “We tried.” Layla closed her eyes, thinking back on all of the rejections they’d run into, the options that had been taken from them. No adoption agency in the whole of the Empire would stand against imperial tradition or Church doctrine. Similarly, the lone fertility specialist who had been willing to try and work with them almost two decades ago had been stripped of his license to practice medicine. One of his own staffers discovered that he was trying to help a lesbian couple conceive a child of their own, and reported him to the Department of Imperial Faith Enforcement.
There would be no more heirs to Gordon’s Goods. As an only child, Layla would be the last of her line to stay at the helm of the company. “There’s other people to consider in this,” she finally said to Shelly. Layla took a small sip of her wine, turning the glass by its stem when she set it down, rotating it slowly, consistently. “Not just the other members of the board, but everyone we employ. If we sell to Ganges, you know they’ll start laying people off.”
“Not if they want the stores to keep running right,” Shelly replied. “Did this Jameson guy give you a deadline to decide by?”
“He gave me twenty-four hours,” Layla said. She hitched a deep sigh, angling her eyes toward her wife. “I can tell you right now, though, that I don’t want to do it. Can you be all right with that?” Shelly reached out and took her hand once again, giving Layla a tight-lipped smile.
“I can be all right with whatever you decide,” she said.
**
It had been a week since she’d called Tom Jameson and informed him that Gordon’s Goods would not be selling to Ganges, and Layla hadn’t felt the least bit guilty about her decision. Shelly had been a little rough around the edges for a day or two, but now had an intriguing story to follow up on, one that took her all the way out to San Francisco, out in the Tenth Territory on the west coast. They spoke daily for about half an hour, just catching each other up on their days, and always ended their conversations with an “I love you”, not a pinch of the previous tension remaining between them.
It had been good, Layla thought, though now she wondered when the other shoe would drop. As things stood, with her eyes re-scanning the email displayed on her terminal, she was thinking that it had dropped without her even realizing it. She got up from her desk and stepped out into the waiting area for her office on the seventeenth floor of the building, aiming a quick look down at her executive secretary.
“David, get me Phil Ridge on the phone, please,” she said, wheeling about without waiting for a response. A couple of minutes later, her desk’s multi-line phone rang, the Line 1 light blinking. She picked up and cut off David’s connection, then said, “Phil, it’s Layla Gordon, how are you?”
“Um, just fine, Mrs. Gordon,” said Ridge, his voice raspy and deep, if bemused. Regional managers rarely spoke directly to Layla, usually dealing with other members of the board if and when they had to speak to anybody higher up than themselves. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling to ask after this email I got from one of your store managers,” Layla began. “Actually, I’ve got four of them, all forwarded from our Head of Shipping and Distribution. Your district’s drivers are all missing, Phil.”
“Yeah,” he said, and Layla could feel the man’s nervousness even through the phone. “It, ah, it started about five days ago. We had three drivers all quit on us, out of the blue, and then, uh, we had two more the next day, so we were down to just ten drivers for the whole district. And they were doing double duty now, you know, making up for those other folks just up and leaving. But, ah, none of my stores got their hauls this morning, ma’am,” he said. “No new merch, no replenishment. My store level managers are in a bit of a panic, but I think I can get some temp covers to get us back up to speed, if you’d give the okay on it?”
“Consider it green-lit, Phil,” Layla answered. “We need those trucks rolling. Thank you, and if there’s any further issues, I want you to call me directly,” she said, proceeding to give Ridge her personal cell phone number. As soon as she was done with their call, she hung up and rose from behind her desk, taking two long, slow steps over to the windows.
She gazed down over the city of Cleveland, but didn’t see the metro itself. What she saw, what her eyes latched onto hardest, stood in the distance, some six or seven blocks away, right on the outer edge of the city; a Ganges Processing Center.