STIRRED 6 page

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 452.

Anna hoped their afternoon together would cushion the blow of what she was about to say. "We should do it every chance we get, I think. But there may not be many more chances for awhile, at least not for me." Lily didn't respond, so she continued. "With the Sweeney acquisition sewn up, we've started negotiations for the two dealerships in Palm Springs. I'm probably going to have to go down there tomorrow afternoon, maybe stay for a couple of days."

Lily had known this was part of Anna's business plan for Premier Motors, but she wished it wasn't all happening now. "I don't suppose there's any way you could put this off for a couple of weeks, is there?"

"I wish. But now that we've tipped our hand, any delay could get us into a bidding war with somebody else, and we won't be able to go much higher."

"It'll be alright. I've got a couple of appearances in court this week and preliminary motions on the docket for Monday. I won't have any time for you anyway, Miss Wheeler-Dealer." she said haughtily. "Hey, that's actually pretty funny. You're a wheeler-dealer. Get it?"

The car dealer groaned and rolled her eyes dramatically. A change of subject was in order. "Oh, I meant to tell you. I collected your mail. It's on your desk, but I pulled out everything that looked like a bill and paid it so you wouldn't get late charges."

"Well, aren't you handy to have around?"

"You just love me for my money," Anna pouted.

"I've got money now, Amazon! I just love you for your body!"

* * *

The saga of Maria and Miguel Esperanza was never-ending. Over the past three years, the Braxton Street Clinic had handled two restraining orders, a divorce, and six different custody hearings for the couple's children, Sophia and Roberto. Today's motion was a request to return the children from their aunt Serena to their mother, as she and Miguel were making plans to remarry. As she watched the once again happy couple leave the courtroom, Lily couldn't help but think that the reconciliation would only start the destructive cycle again.

"Lily!" The attorney stopped as she heard her name.

"Go ahead, I'll get the next one," she said to the man holding the elevator doors. "Sandy! Hi!"

"I wasn't sure you were back."

"Yeah, I got back on Sunday. Sorry I didn't call."

"That's okay. I know you've been busy."

"Just trying to get caught up and back into the swing of things." That and I got really mellow last night on a $9 bottle of cabernet. "You know, I really appreciated you and Suzanne coming up for the funeral. I can't tell you how much it meant to have my friends there."

"We were glad to come, Lily." She placed her arm on her friend's shoulder, wanting badly to ask how she was doing, but knowing that Lily would probably lie. "Say, would you and Anna like to come out for dinner? I've got to stop at the store and get some fish to grill. It's just as easy to get four fillets as it is to get two."

"Thanks, but Anna's down in Palm Springs on business, and I still have some work to catch up on." Lily loved her friends, but she didn't really want to be with anyone right now. Except Anna, of course. "Thanks for the invitation, though. How about a rain check?"

"You've got it." Sandy could sense that her friend was still hurting, so letting her set the pace for social activities was important. "Call me if you need anything, okay?"

"Of course." As an afterthought, Lily added, "And you'll call me if you need anything too, alright?"

Sandy smiled and nodded. That was how Lily would get back into things, by coming out of herself to help someone else.

* * *

Chester heard the car door first and lumbered to his feet, padding eagerly down the stairs to welcome the new arrival. Maybe it was the woman with the black hair!

Lily heard the back door open, and threw the covers back on the bed. Anna's two days in Palm Springs had turned to four, but she was finally home, just in time to enjoy the weekend. Excitedly, the blonde headed for the commotion that always ensued when Anna greeted Chester. "You better save some of that for me."

Anna jumped up from the floor and grabbed the smaller woman, whipping her around and pulling her back into the strong arms. Now secured in a one-armed hold, Anna used her free hand to playfully scratch Lily's stomach. "Is this what you want?"

Lily screamed and tried to wriggle free. "Stop it!" she pleaded.

Instead, the scratching turned to merciless tickling, and the blonde dissolved into a heap on the floor. Chester always interpreted humans sitting on the floor as an invitation for his kisses, so he happily complied. Lily dragged Anna down by her shirttail, which was more than the frenzied Chester's poor bladder could stand. What might have been a simple hello was now all-out mayhem.

"Ewwww! Look what your dog did!" Lily shrieked.

"My dog?"

"He's your dog right now!" Chester knew he was the object of their disgust and he sulked away, obviously ashamed of his loss of control.

"Look, you've hurt his feelings."

"He peed in my lap!"

"He's upset."

"I'm upset!" Despite her hysterics, she couldn't keep a straight face. "Oh, alright! Come here, Chester. It's okay boy." The hound put on his best pitiful look and ambled back to the blonde woman's lap. That got him a scratch behind the ears; he was obviously forgiven.

"I'll clean this up. You need a shower. Ewww!" Anna made a face and extricated her long limbs from the pile on the floor.

To her delight, Lily was joined in the walk-in shower by her sexy lover. Anna was usually all business in the shower, but once in a while she would linger as they soaped one another intimately. Tonight, though, was not one of those times, and Anna stepped out after only a couple of minutes. Lily finished up, and then hastily dried her hair so she wouldn't get her pillow wet. Finally reaching the bed, she found her lover sound asleep.

* * *

"You can't be serious! You've been gone all week." Anna was rushing around to get ready for work.

"That's the problem, sweetheart. I've been gone all week. I need to go check on things at Sweeney today, and tomorrow, I'll probably have to be in my office at Premier all day."

Lily was trying desperately not to throw an absolute hissy fit. It had been a very long week alone in the big house. Her only salvation had been going to her office every day. Now it was Saturday, and Anna was leaving her alone again.

"Why don't you go hiking today like you usually do?" That was possibly the worst thing Anna could have said.

"You mean like I did with Mom the last time she was here?" Anna really hadn't deserved the biting response, but Lily was hurt and wanted to hurt back.

"Oh sweetheart, I…" Anna tried to think of something she could say to fix things, but there was no use talking to a retreating back. The car dealer picked up her purse and keys and walked through the family room. Chester sat mournfully at the closed office door. Anna started to open the door, but changed her mind and knocked. She would rather not know if her lover had locked the door. "Honey, I'm sorry."

Slowly the door opened to reveal a somber blonde. "PMS?"

Anna reached out and hugged the smaller woman. "You want to come with me today and watch me kick some ass?"

That was a pretty tempting offer. Lily had never seen her lover "kick ass" before, but if she handled problem personnel the same way she handled jerks like Steve French, that would be a sight to see. "No, I'm just being a baby."

"But you're my baby," Anna assured.

"Go on, sweetheart. Get your work done so you can hurry back home."

Anna kissed the top of the blonde head and pulled away. "Chester, be a good boy. No peeing on your mother." And she was off.

* * *

"I don't care who she is. I've been working here 14 years and I don't need her telling me how to do my job!" Tommy Russell was the sales manager at Sweeney Volkswagen, a chain-smoking 51-year-old with a quick temper, a heart attack waiting to happen. Given his dedicated service to the Sweeney family, Tommy was understandably angry at being left out of the loop when the dealership changed hands.

"I hear she's done a pretty good job over at Premier," offered Ben Dunlap, the fleet manager. "I'm sort of looking forward to the change. We've only hit quotas once in the last two years." A little dig at the sales manager.

"That was her old man that kept everything running over there," Tommy argued. "She's nothing more than a pretty face."

"Wow, you weren't kidding about the pretty face!" Salesman Terry Smythe stood up and watched the dark-haired beauty unfold from the BMW roadster. "And pretty lots of other things!"

Three pairs of eyes followed the tall woman in the black pantsuit through the double doors, up the stairs and into the administrative offices. Moments later, the knell sounded. "Tommy Russell, please report to the conference room. Tommy Russell, report to the conference room."

Tommy lit a cigarette and strolled casually to the door. "Anybody want a coke?"

"You better get up there, Tommy. You don't want to get off on the wrong foot," Dunlap urged.

"I not worried about it. She needs me a hell of a lot more than I need her," Tommy said smugly. "I can get a job at any dealership in town."

Thirty minutes later, the sales manager walked into the conference room, taking a seat on the opposite end of the long table.

"Mr. Russell, glad you could make it," she began. It looked to Anna as though Tommy Russell was going to be a pain in the ass. "I have a number of charts I'd like to go over with you this morning. Would you mind moving up to this end of the table, or would you have me bring all this down there?" She kept her tone light, but her temper was on hair-trigger at the moment.

Grudgingly, the sales manager moved down the table to take the seat to her right. Anna was overwhelmed by the stench of stale cigarette smoke that seemed to radiate from his pores.

"Mr. Russell, I'll get right to the point. One of the reasons I wanted to buy this dealership is because I believed I could improve the sales performance and the service revenues. Your sales staff has been missing quotas for much of the last two years. New car sales have fallen 31 percent since 1997. Used car sales are off too, probably because you don't bring as many cars in on trade when you miss your quotas."

Through the picture window, Anna and Tommy watched as a boom truck began disassembling the tacky yellow and green Sweeney Volkswagen marker. A nearby truck held the new beacon, a dignified black and white sign touting this dealership as Premier Volkswagen.

Tommy squirmed in his chair. "We haven't had much support. A couple of years ago, Mr. Sweeney pulled all his advertising budget out of the paper and started putting it into cable TV. The only people that come in here are the folks that find us by accident, or the freaks who watch those weird infomercials at three o'clock in the morning."

"An astute observation, Mr. Russell." Anna was indeed impressed that Tommy Russell had connected those particular dots, but she knew he didn't have the whole picture. "I'm going to spend some money here to sell Volkswagens. I can increase the traffic on this lot, but I'll expect to see a sizable increase in closings, and in used car activity."

"You get ‘em here, we'll sell ‘em cars," he bragged.

Anna wasn't convinced. "I have a small problem, Mr. Russell. Your closing rate is much lower than the industry average, unusually low for cars of this caliber. Your sales staff is writing 15 contracts a week that don't close. That's something I'll expect you to fix. I can send you for training, or I can get a trainer to come in here and pump up the whole staff. But I'm going to expect results, and pretty quickly."

"We don't need a trainer! Just get the traffic. The guys are chomping at the bit to have people walking onto the lot."

"Why don't we come back to that issue in a moment? You've just brought up another point I wanted to talk about. I've noticed that there is not one single female on your sales staff, nor have I seen one single person of color. I'd like to see that change immediately. I want the next eight hires to be women or ethnic minorities, and we'll discuss the distribution again after they've been here a while."

Tommy was flustered. "I wouldn't mind hiring a woman if I had one show up who knew the first thing about cars. All due respect, our customers would rather deal with men. They trust men more."

"Well, we're going to try to broaden the customer base, so maybe we'll find a few out there who aren't so narrow minded." Her implication was unmistakable. "You know, three of the top five sellers at Premier last year were women. I'm sure once we get a little diversity in the sales staff we'll see the numbers go up."

Tommy was grinding his teeth. "So which one of us is going to be in charge of hiring the sales staff? That's always been a part of my job." He reached into his pocket for a cigarette.

"Don't light that," she directed. "Hiring of the sales staff will still be your responsibility. But I'll expect you to do it according to my guidelines. In fact, Mr. Russell, I'm going to expect everything at Premier Volkswagen to be done according to my guidelines."

"Is there more?" Tommy couldn't wait to get out of this room and tell his staff what a bitch they were now working for.

"Yes, there's much more, but I want to make sure I get the chance to talk with all of the senior staff today, so we can schedule another time next week to go over my specific guidelines. But there is one more thing I'd like to take care of this morning." She looked at her watch. "Effective at 9:32 a.m. today, there is to be no smoking anywhere on the property by any of the staff."

"You can't be serious! Not even outside?"

"No, not even outside. It's my prerogative as owner, and I'm exercising it. I don't want our staff and customers exposed to second-hand smoke. Furthermore, the sales staff who smoke will no longer be allowed to get inside the cars for any reason. Not for a test drive, not to show the features, not even to wipe the dashboard. One of the best features of a new car, Mr. Russell, is the way it smells, and I want to leverage that asset."

Tommy spun out the door. He was sorely tempted to light a cigarette right outside the door, but something about the woman's warning tone stopped him. As he stormed down the stairs, the knell sounded again. "Ben Dunlap, please report to the conference room. Bill Dunlap, report to the conference room."

After closing at the end of the day, Anna called a general meeting of all available staff. She had managed to meet most of them, and assured them she would soon learn all their names. Tommy Russell failed to show. "Mr. Dunlap, would you please find Mr. Russell and let him know that his presence at this meeting is mandatory. He'd be well served not to test my patience." She liked Ben Dunlap, and was already seeing an expanded role for the team player.

Moments later, Ben returned to take a position near his new boss. Tommy strolled in nonchalantly and leaned against the wall at the back of the room. "Brown noser," he muttered.

"Thank you all for coming. I'm not going to keep you long. I know you're all eager to get home to your families. I want to thank those of you who welcomed me today, and assure you that I'm really glad to be here. As I told many of you today, you're going to see some changes here over the next few months as we complete the transition of ownership. I'm excited about our opportunities, and I'm confident that if we can work together as a team, we'll all share in the rewards." Applause broke out at that overture. It had been two years since anyone got a raise.

"At this time, I'd like to meet briefly with all of the senior staff in the conference room. Goodnight to the rest of you, and I'll see you next week."

Anna followed the senior staff up to the conference room and closed the door. "Gentlemen, today was a good day for me. Today, I saw just how much potential there is for this dealership. However, the reason for that potential, I'm afraid, is your current poor performance." She paused and made eye contact with each of the men around the table, with the exception of Tommy Russell, who had found something very interesting under the table. "I want each of you to understand that I am not dependent upon you to make this company successful. I am dependent on the competency of a sales manager, a fleet manager, a service manager and a finance manager, but who actually holds those positions is irrelevant to me. I will work with each of you as necessary to turn this dealership around, but I expect nothing short of your complete cooperation."

Tommy couldn't stand it any longer. "Look, I don't care if you do own the place. Threatening us with our jobs isn't exactly a brilliant motivating technique. If I did that with my staff, half of them would quit."

Anna looked coolly at Tommy, sweating him just a moment for effect. "Mr. Russell, let me tell you a little bit about management theory. I do own the place, and it is therefore not necessary for me to prove my abilities to you or to justify my means. You're the one in the grace period right now. If you believe yourself to be incapable of working as a productive part of this management team, I've already got two strong candidates on my other lot."

Tommy would not be humiliated by this bitch! He had some money saved, and now seemed like a pretty good time to sign on with his friend at that dealership in Palm Springs. Those guys didn't have hiring quotas for "people of color," he thought cynically. "Then you should call one of them." He lit a cigarette and calmly walked from the room.

* * *

Driving down Wilshire Boulevard, Anna was at a crossroads… literally. A right at the next light would take to her to Premier BMW, a left would take her home. She'd been away from her desk for five days, and judging from the backlog of paperwork she'd found upon returning from Eleanor's funeral, she knew the mountain awaiting her attention would be high. It was almost nine o'clock. Perhaps if she just stopped in to review her inbox, that would help her organize her Sunday.

Nah! Lily was a whole hell of a lot more tempting than a pile of paperwork. Ten minutes later, she was pulling into the driveway of the quiet house. A light at the side door guided her into the family room, where Chester greeted her enthusiastically. "Honey?" There was no response as Anna continued to play with the dog. "Lily?" she called, louder this time. Anna walked through the downstairs, finally spotting the unlocked patio door off the kitchen. With the light on inside, she couldn't make out where lover was.

Grabbing a bottle of water from the refrigerator, Anna walked out onto the patio. The underwater lights illuminated the perimeter of the pool, and she finally spotted Lily in a chaise lounge at the far end. "Hi babe. Everything okay?" Approaching the chair, she warily eyed the contents of the adjacent table: an ice bucket, a bowl of cut-up limes and a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, the latter of which was more than half empty. Lily was wrapped in a blanket, holding a glass in her lap.

"Anna. How nice of you to drop by." Despite her sarcastic words, her tone was low and flat.

The car dealer knew she would have to play this one carefully. It was not about Lily drinking; it was about her being gone all week. "I'm sorry, hon." She made an uncharacteristic decision on the spot. "I stayed a little later tonight so I wouldn't have to go in tomorrow." She'd have to go in at the crack of dawn on Monday, and probably bring work home for two or three days, but Anna knew that Lily needed her more than the dealership did.

"So you're not going in tomorrow?" Then how am I going to make you feel guilty? "It'd be nice to have you home… for a change." That last part was slipped in to make her point.

Anna sat down on the chaise and took her lover's icy hand. From this new vantage point, she could see that the woman was very drunk, her eyes closed and her chin dipping to her chest. "Have you eaten yet?"

"Not hungry."

Probably just as well. As it was, Lily was going to spend plenty of time hanging over the porcelain bowl. "Why don't we go upstairs then?" She stood and helped the woman slowly to her feet. Anna took the position closest to pool, thinking ahead to avoid that disaster.

Chester bounded about their feet as Anna walked Lily up the stairs. "I'll take you out in a minute, boy." He seemed to understand that, at least the O-U-T word, and ran back to the family room to wait. The dark-haired woman helped her lover undress and put her to bed, where she instantly passed out.

Anna was exhausted, but she needed to take care of several things before turning in. First on her list was a peanut butter sandwich, which she ate while walking the dog. "Eating dinner with you was a bad idea," she grumbled to Chester as she scooped up his business in the plastic bag. He was pleased, nonetheless, that the dark-haired woman thought enough of his accomplishment to collect it, and strutted all the way back to the big white house.

Next, Anna went out to the pool to gather up Lily's carnage, storing the vodka on a high shelf above the refrigerator. She was astonished to see two unopened bottles in the back. They never kept that much liquor in the house.

When she turned off the lights in the family room, Anna noticed a light under the door to the office. Lily's desk was disheveled, an obvious sign that she'd been going through the stack of mail that had arrived while she was gone. As Anna reached across the desk to pull the chain on the green globed banker's light, a manila envelope caught her eye.

Photos. Please do not bend. Anna noted the return address. "I can't believe I missed this!" she whispered to herself. Underneath the envelope was a card, appropriately, Monet's Water-Lily Pond. A photo fell out as Anna opened the card, the bright smiling faces of Lily and her mom in their hiking clothes. The younger woman was sitting up high on a rock, both arms around the shoulders of her mother, who stood in front. Anna realized instantly that the picture had been taken only four days before Eleanor died.

Hi sweetheart!

Just had these developed and I wanted to send you this one right away. Aren't we a pair! I have the negative, so I'll have one made for myself too — maybe even a larger one that I can frame for my ‘Lily Wall.'

I had such a good time this weekend! I can't tell you how it warms me to see you so happy. Anna is a wonderful person, definitely "worth it," if you remember our talk of long ago.

Take care, sweetie. I look forward to seeing you soon at home.

Love, Mom

CHAPTER 8

ANNA TRIED DESPERATELY to juggle her schedule over the next week so that she could be at home in the evenings. That meant leaving the house each day by 6:30 a.m., and on occasion, bringing work home at night. But it was good that she could be home with Lily. They spent many nights in the family room, buried in their respective work, but close enough to touch and trade occasional kisses. Anna felt like their ship had righted again.

Still, they hadn't made love since the day they went to the beach, their only time since Eleanor died over a month ago. Lily's kisses were loving, but she turned away from Anna on her side soon after they went to bed. Anna couldn't help but think that her lover harbored some resentment over her long hours. She was determined that Premier Motors would not come between them.

"This is Lilian Stuart." Lily had forwarded her calls to the conference room, where she'd spread out index cards outlining the prosecutor's case against her client.

"Two down, one to go!" Anna announced triumphantly.

"You made yourself watch ‘Attack of the Clones!'" Lily deadpanned.

"Never! I just got word from BMW of Palm Springs. They've accepted our offer. All we're waiting for now is to hear from Potter VW, and our little empire is complete."

"Congratulations, doll. It's all coming together, just like you planned." The attorney truly admired her partner's business savvy. "When do you think you'll hear from Potter?"

"Hal thinks we'll hear later today, or first thing tomorrow. Once they get wind that BMW accepted, they're going to worry that we'll pull our offer."

"I might have to take you out to dinner, Amazon. This calls for a celebration." Getting into Empyre's on a Friday night could be difficult, unless your name was Kaklis.

"I've got a better idea. How would you like to drive down to Palm Springs with me tonight? I want to be there when they make the announcement to their staff tomorrow so I can talk to them." Anna thought if Lily saw things firsthand, it might be easier to understand the need for all those extra hours. "I really need to win their support, or I'll have to replace people, and that would mean having to spend a lot time down there, which I don't want to do."

"Nor do I want you to," Lily groaned. "If I go, what will I do while you're at work?"

"You can come with me. You know, lurk in the back and make faces at me while I'm trying to be a bad-ass. Then we'll go have some fun. Joshua Tree isn't far. Have you ever been there?"

Lily was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, Mom and I went there a few years ago… but I'd love to go see it with you. It's beautiful."

Lily's response reminded Anna that her lover's hurt was still very fresh. "I'll meet you at home, then. How soon can you get there?"

"Oooo, are we playing hooky again?"

"You bet."

"One hour. What about Chester?"

"I'll ask somebody here to look after him. Maybe Holly." In the past few weeks, Chester stories had taken the place of Jonah stories at the staff meetings. In response, several had encouraged her to bring the dog to work sometime. Surely Holly would look after him while they were gone.

* * *

Anna got the call on her car phone as they passed Riverside en route to the desert resort. "Woo-hoo!" they shouted. The car dealer was three for three.

After sleeping in on Saturday, the pair headed over to the BMW dealership after lunch. Lily was amazed as she watched her lover take charge of the full staff meeting in the showroom. The woman simply oozed confidence and authority. Lily would add this to her inventory of her multi-faceted lover.

There was the family Anna, with the happy girl-next-door persona. This Anna would do anything for her family members, or for the families of her close friends and coworkers. She was there for all of them, especially her sister, and she paraded Jonah around as though he were her own. Lily smiled as she recognized that it was the family girl in Anna who loved Chester so much.

Then there was the grease monkey, the one who donned the grimy jumpsuit to get her hands dirty under the hood of a classic car. Lily found this Anna totally irresistible. It wasn't just the stark contrast from the runway model chic that most people got to see. It was more that the grease monkey symbolized Anna's fascination with all things mechanical. She loved knowing how things worked, and couldn't care less about the mess she made of herself. She had no idea she was so sexy!

Next, there was Anna the friend, one of the nicest, warmest people you'd ever want to meet. It was this Anna that Lily had fallen in love with. The friend had gone for help when they were trapped underground, and returned at her own peril. The friend had helped out at Kidz Kamp, and spotted her a hell of a deal on a new X-5 when her resources were tight. It was also the friend who had been a constant source of strength throughout the ordeal of saying goodbye to her mother.