Season 2, Episode 19: The Source Of The Issue

I was downtown at Stafford Oil's offices. I'd just been in a meeting with Michael and two of the new C-suite hires, going over some high-level stuff and, frankly, I felt like I was in over my head.

It wasn't better that Michael was as bad or worse than I was.

He was leaning on me, probably too much. But the two old vets we'd hired - one had been with Anadarko for 25 years and had taken early retirement to move back home to St. Francisville, the other had worked all over the industry and had just sold a small oil company for a large pile of cash - were coming on board specifically to lend the experience I couldn't offer Michael.

He wasn't just getting one Tenzing Norgay. I had gotten him two. And one of them was mine, not Leigh's. That made me feel good. If I didn't know what I was doing, at least a couple of people in the building would.

The conversation in the meeting was running into technical oil-industry stuff I didn't know anything about and didn't need to. So I excused myself, and ducked out.

And then I noticed Erica was in her office. Which had very bare walls. I would have expected her to decorate the place when she moved in. Then it struck me that maybe she never had. And I thought about it, and I'd never actually seen her in an office in this building.

Anyway...

"Hey, I said," knocking on the door. "Got a minute?"

"Of course!" she said, in a manner far friendlier than I would have expected given how we'd left things a few nights before. "I was going to call you, but I... chickened out. I'm sorry."

"Oh, no. I'm the one who's sorry," I said, sitting down on the couch opposite her desk.

"No, Oscar. Don't be sorry. I'm mortified at how I acted the other night. I know better than to have led you on only to shut you down like that."

"Well, that was... frustrating," I said. "But still. I handled it horribly, and I can't apologize loudly enough for that."

"I don't want you to apologize," she said. "Besides, I wasn't telling the truth, and I'm a coward."

"A coward? What's up with that?"

"Oscar, I didn't stop you because I saw Jim in the room, OK? That was a lie. I didn't have the guts to say what was really going on. I don't even know if I do now."

I didn't know what to say. I just looked at her.

"It was the arboretum," she said, after a moderate pause. "The young mother and her baby."

"Oh, yeah, OK," I said. "She was adorable. But I don't understand."

"I saw the look on your face. I know that look. That's the happy dad look. Yours was classic."

"Well, OK, but I'm not that baby's dad. So I..."

"But you want to be, Oscar. It's as plain as the nose on your face. And you should be. It's such a shame you aren't one now."

"I mean, maybe. But..."

"Oscar, I've had four of 'em. And I'm too old for another one even if I wanted to go through that again."

"Oh, I dunno. You're pretty healthy."

She looked at me for a second, trying to figure out if I was serious and then recognizing that I was teasing her.

"I'm wrong for you," she said. "It would be selfish of me to claim you when I can't give you what you really need. And it tears me apart, because I love you."

"I love you back," I said. "I always will."

"I don't know where that leaves us."

"Well, let's not forget that you lost your husband not three months ago. You're still a grieving widow, and I'm pushing you into a serious relationship that you aren't ready for."

"You're sidestepping this issue," she said. "And you can't. It's too important."

"Look, I agree with you that being a dad is the big unachievement of my life," I said. "It is a big deal. Every time I see my folks it's like a wall that goes up between us because they aren't grandparents to any of my kids. I'm not gonna deny it's a problem. But the other thing I've been thinking about and it's kicking my ass, so I'm going to put it out there, and please don't get offended..."

"I promise I won't," she said. "I want us to be honest with each other."

"When I popped off about being the hired help," I said, "it was an assholish thing to say. Problem is, it's how I feel. A couple of times you've told me I'm a regular guy, and Michael has said it to me too. And I've tried to let it roll off my back. But when you told me I couldn't fix that issue about the transition here at Stafford Oil, I just couldn't let it go, and therefore I made an ass of myself."

"Oscar, I never meant that in a negative way."

"Except you can't avoid it. And it's the truth. I am a regular guy. My people aren't lords; they're yeomen. We're the folks who give an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. We aren't fancy, and we don't need fancy things. I drive that old Explorer not because I can't afford something nicer, but because I don't want something nicer. That old ride is who I am and I'm comfortable with it."

"You sound like Harlan Voss."

"Maybe I do. It's one of my biggest projects to get the two of you on the same page, by the way."

"Oh, God. Can we discuss that one later?"

"Of course we can."

"So where does all of this leave us?"

"As friends," I said. "Like we were always destined to be, I think."

"Oh, I don't think that," she said, getting up from her desk and plopping down next to me on the couch. "The more I look back on things, the more I think breaking up with you was the worst mistake I made."

"Erica, it wasn't a mistake," I said. "I wish you'd stop saying that."

"Michael told me you've read all of Jim's emails. I'll bet there's some terrible stuff in there. He told me about some of it. We're in the wrong where Voss is concerned, aren't we?"

"Rather than answer that, I'm going to just give you the file. You deserve to know what's in there."

"Like what?"

"From 2008 to 2011 he had you followed."

"Really?"

"Two private detectives. Everywhere you went."

"I KNEW somebody was watching me! Nobody believed me. I even saw a therapist about it. This was about you, wasn't it?"

"In the sense that he concocted the scenario that you were cheating on him with me and set about trying to prove it, yeah."

"He was a real sonofabitch."

"He was who he was. I mean, he did take care of you, you've got a beautiful family, you own lots of great stuff - there's always a downside, but at the end of the day you can make peace with the choice you made."

"You're letting me off the hook again, and I know why, and I wish you wouldn't."

"Explain that," I said.

"This is you doing that thing where you're not good enough. You won't take up for yourself, and I hate it." she said, reaching her hand to touch my cheek. "Stop doing that."

"Yeah, OK," I said. I didn't want to go round and round with her about my lack of self-esteem.

She gave me a look, and I was about to beg her for a change in the subject when we were interrupted.

"Oh, sorry," said a voice. I turned to look, and it was Leigh. "I didn't mean to walk in on you when you were..."

"It's not a problem," said Erica. "We're just breaking up, is all."

"Oh," said Leigh. "Wish my breakup was that friendly."

"Wait," I said. "You just had a breakup?"

"Six years, and I finally told Miles to shit or get off the pot. He got off. So I'm on the market, I guess."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Erica.

"I wasted a lot of time in that relationship," Leigh said. "Listen, I came by to let you know that your offer to make me the HR director up here is really generous, but I'm a hired gun. That's who I am. Just put me on retainer as a consultant."

"Done," I said. "Hey, do you want to get lunch?"

"I'd love to, but I've got my Valero guy today. How about tomorrow?"

"Again, done," I said.

"Cool. I'll text you to confirm," said Leigh. "See ya!"

And she took off, with that long-stride New Jersey hustle of a walk of hers.

Erica gave me a shocked look. "Boy, you move fast," she said.

"It's business, E. Just business."

"That girl is a firecracker. If she's available, you should go get her."

"So is this us now? We're going to be each other's yentas?"

"Well, you've needed one for 30 years, so apparently I'm gonna have to do it for you."

I just rolled my eyes.

"We're going to find you a wife you can have kids with," she said. That's what we're going to do."

"Ohhhh, here we go."

"And I have something else to ask you. This is more immediate."

"OK, what's that?"

"Sam Harbison just had a triple bypass over the weekend and he says he's done. We need to replace him on the board. I want to replace him with you."

"Erica, I'm not an oil man. I don't think..."

"No," she said. "You're doing it again and you absolutely have to stop."

I sighed.

"And you had better not turn down a hundred thousand dollars or I'll have you committed."

"Fine," I said. "I'll join your board if it'll make you leave me alone."

She laughed.

"I'm not gonna leave you alone. If all I get is to be friends with you, then I'm gonna be the best one."

"I believe you," I said. "But you know, at some point I'll have to introduce you to this great concept out there. It's called friends with benefits."

"You are so bad," she said. "Hey, I forgot to ask you - can Amber start before the 16th? I really need her to help me with the board meeting."

"I'm sure we can work that out," I said.

And she kissed me. It wasn't a friends-kiss. I guess this would take some time to work itself out.

----------------------------

Craig Vallas was an asshole. I'd put it a different way, but there really isn't one which captures the rich tapestry of his... assholery.

I knew him from playing golf. I used to play in practically every charity golf tournament there was around town, as that was one of the little extravagances I was able to put on my expense account when I was working for the food service company and later the restaurant chain holding company. And every time I played in one, Vallas was there.

Plus I had some friends who were members at the two really nice country clubs in town and I'd get calls to be in foursomes on weekends, and Vallas would end up either in them or he'd be in the men's grill afterwards.

So I got to know him. As you can probably tell, I've never been impressed.

Here's who Vallas was: He was the guy who'd miss a putt and then get on his cell phone and summon the club manager to bitch about the quality of the greens. I knew of two different times he'd done that. I saw it with my own eyes once.

On the golf course, he was really like a 15 handicap. But he told everybody he was an 8. So when he got on teams for these charity tournaments, his team would always lose and he was usually the reason. He was like a reverse sandbagger. So nobody invited him to be on their teams anymore - he had to sponsor his own team.

He did it under the banner of the medical clinic he was a partner in.

Craig was a neurosurgeon. They said he was good. For his patients' sake, I hoped that wasn't the same kind of lie he told about his golf handicap.

But he looked like one of those TV show docs, and he was super-fastidious about how he looked. Every hair was in place, or else they were fastidiously out of place. If he'd kept an article of clothing for longer than six months in his life I'd have been shocked.

And he had a perfect house in a perfect neighborhood. He mostly had roommates, and not because he needed help paying the bills. People interpreted that as evidence he was gay; when he heard that rumor, he immediately kicked out the poor guy who was living there and he'd lived in that house by himself ever since.

But now he'd be living with Katie, or rather she'd be living with him. When I heard about their arrangement, I texted him and asked if he wanted to get together, because I'd be happy to answer questions and show him the ropes where Factory Girls were concerned. He texted back to tell me that all he had available was a 3:00 that afternoon. I had to move around a meeting with the Senorita's people and a get-together with Keegan, so when I said yes I was already pretty put out by the whole thing.

And then I met him in this hole-in-the-wall bar close to his clinic. He ordered a White Claw, because of course he did.

"So what's all this shit I need to know about Factory Girls?" he asked. "I mean, it's not like they're all that complicated."

"Well, I don't know," I said. "You might find there's a little more to having one than you think. And Katie's kind of an interesting case."

"Why is that?"

"Well, first, let me ask you this - what has she told you about her background?"

He laughed.

"She's a walking, talking sex doll, dude. The fuck I care about her background?"

"Well, are you aware she has a sister?"

"You mean your girl? They aren't really sisters."

"That's fair. They've kind of operated that way since Katie came to town, though, but they aren't exactly getting along lately, which is one of the things you're going to need to know about."

"I couldn't give a shit about Factory Girl family dynamics, dude. Come on."

"This isn't really the thrust of what I'm talking about. So after you hooked up with Katie, we recoded her for you, and there are things about that you'll want to know."

He gave me a disinterested look. I plowed ahead.

"What I mean by recoding is that we essentially replaced all of the factory software that governs her brain functions, personality and so forth with some better code. Have you noticed that she's different now from the first time you met her?"

"Yeah, a little."

"See, originally she was coded to be a worker bee. She had a job with an accounting firm that sent her to clients to do their books on site."

"Yeah, eye candy. I get it."

"Something like that. But they went under, and that's when she moved in with us. She did some secretarial work for me, but then she got the job with the French maid service and that's how you met her."

The disinterested look was back.

"What I'm getting to," I said, doing my best to hide my irritation at the idea I was wasting his time letting him know about the individual he had just brought into his home, "is that she's got a brand-new personality specifically designed to get along with you."

"Yeah, great. Thank you, I guess."

"But here's the other piece. See, the way Factory Girls work is they record everything they see, hear, taste, smell, read and do. That's a ton of information to process. So they do that by periodically uploading all that data to a server which culls the important stuff out and then gives them a downloadable file. Think about it like short-term memory and long-term memory."

"I'm a neurosurgeon. I get it."

"Great! I figured you would. See, here's the thing. Now that she's been recoded, Katie's upload-download thing doesn't work through the factory anymore. We set up our own server and file-sifting app to replace what the Z Company did."

"Oh, I bet that's a nice little business model for you. Is that what this is? It's a sales call? How much does this cost?"

We didn't have a rate card set up, and I was tired of his attitude, so I decided on a reverse discount.

"It's a thousand a month."

"Fuck you," he said. "That's robbery."

"Well, what you get with that is a ton of options. See, there are all kinds of things which can come in with the download package - upgrades, skills, languages, you name it. But that isn't the main thing."

"What's the main thing?"

"The main thing is the Chinese Communist Party isn't getting eyes on everything that goes on in your house. And also, if she tries to do upload-download to the Z Company server, there's an excellent chance she gets recoded back to what she was before."

"And I save a grand a month."

"Well, they didn't code her to be a nanny for your little girl. Trust me, Old Katie has absolutely zero maternal instincts. She also doesn't have any particular feelings, either. Not the most fun girl to have around."

"Riiight, OK. Fine. I'll pay your lousy grand a month. send me an invoice at the clinic. Anything else I ought to know?"

"Nope. That's it," I said.

I had more to tell him. But I didn't want to deal with him for one more second. So I shook his hand, begged out of the meeting, got up and left.

------------------------------------

Because I had something else to do. Namely, a first date with Ashley's friend Abby.

This was something Ashley and Amber had worked out. We were going to eat tacos and drink margaritas at a Tex-Mex place halfway between our houses, and Abby wanted to do an early thing because she had a flight to Prague leaving out in the morning.

So I got there a couple of minutes early and leaned on the bar, and then...

"You must be Oscar."

"Hey, Abby. You look really cute!"

"Just cute? I'm not gorgeous?"

"Oh no. You definitely aren't getting a gorgeous out of me on a first date."

"Why not?"

"Well, because there's nowhere to go but down from gorgeous."

"Hmmm."

"Bad answer?"

"What about fabulous or magnificent? Or radiant? Radiant is good."

"Yeah, but I don't think any of them quite rise to the level of gorgeous."

"Which I'm not," she said.

And I knew I was being cross-examined by Abby The Lawyer.

"Trust me, really cute will do nicely for tonight's purposes," I said. "Do you want something from the bar now, or do you want to get a table?"

"Oh, I already got us one."

"What'd you do, make reservations?"

"No, I just showed the hostess your picture and asked if you'd gotten a table, and when she said no I did it."

"But I thought we said we'd meet in the bar."

"It's fine. Just thought I'd help things along."

So I ordered her a margarita, closed out the bar tab and then we were sitting down in a booth.

"Ashley says I need to dial back my assertiveness with you," said Abby. "She says you're not big on strong, independent women."

"She says that, huh?"

"Well, is she wrong?"

"In my experience, chicks who bill themselves as strong and independent are really more just insecure and difficult."

"Well, how much experience are we talking about?"

"Are you asking me for a body count?"

"No! Well, maybe."

"But if I asked you for yours, you'd get all offended."

"No, I wouldn't. Come on."

"Really? Then how many guys have you been with?"

"No way," she said. "You first. I asked you first, anyway."

"Then...14. No, 16."

She gave me a suspicious look. "Did you forget a threesome or something?" she asked.

"No comment. Your turn."

"Ummmm..."

"Come on. No reneging."

"Thirty-four."

I let out a whistle.

"Oh my God, that's not that many! Besides, how are you only with 16?"

"Because I've generally just had relationships. Hookups are for low-value people."

"I went through kind of a wild stage."

"Uh huh," I said, as noncommittally as I could.

"And it shouldn't matter anyway. It's meaningless! And nobody gives guys a hard time about your body counts."

"Because men and women are different, Abby. You know that."

"That isn't true."

"Actually, there are multiple studies on this," I said. "A high body count on a man doesn't have the psychological effect that it does on a woman. For a woman there's a much larger negative effect on pair-bonding and there's a greater risk of infidelity."

"You're making that up."

"I am absolutely not. You can Google it if you want after we're done here."

"OK, changing the subject..."

"I think here's where you tell me your life story so I can interrogate you and see if you can handle it," I said.

"Wait, what?"

"I'm kidding."

"Oh, haha! All right, fine. So I grew up in Chicago..."

"Brothers? Sisters? Mom and Dad split up?"

"Two brothers, one sister. Dad split when I was eight, but he and I have a great relationship. He actually got me interested in becoming a lawyer."

"He's a lawyer?"

"He does slip-and-fall cases and car wrecks. Makes a lot of money, which he spends on his three ex-wives."

"So you do international trade deals? How'd you get into that?"

"So I ended up at the law school here, and I got a job at Goldstein Smith in New Orleans, and one of the partners mentored me - he does international trade."

"But now you're at their office here and not New Orleans."

"Yeah. I moved up here when I made junior partner, and they have me handling their clients' work in Latin America and Central Europe. Which... that's why I'm going to Prague in the morning."

"You guys do enough of that work to keep you busy, huh?" I asked.

"Oh yeah."

"So you have zero time for relationships."

"I have time," she said. "I just don't make any. I work too much. It's a man's world out there and women have to be twice as good."

"Umm, OK. What's the longest relationship you've had?"

"Three years."

"And you didn't get married?"

"It wasn't...getting married was never really a possibility."

"Why? Was he already married?"

"It wasn't...really convenient."

"It smells like there's a story here."

"I mean...not really."

"Hmmm. You're not doing a very good job of convincing me about that."

"So, you and Amber," she said, forcefully changing the subject. "How long has that been a thing?"

"Since May of last year."

"And you haven't been with an actual woman in all that time?"

"No. Well, wait...actually, no. It's just been Amber."

"You're unsure about that?"

"I had a friends-with-benefits thing before I got her, and I couldn't remember whether she and I had done anything after Amber showed up."

"So you've just given up."

"Oh no. I've spent the last three months in a sort-of relationship that's just going to be a friends thing."

"And how come that didn't work?" she asked.

"It was a very serious relationship from long ago that was rekindled, and we just realized that while we really do like each other, there's some compatibility problems going on."

"Like what?"

"She thinks she's too old to have kids, and she's... probably right."

"And you're going to insist on having kids with whoever this next woman for you is."

"I don't have any. If I'm going to do it, it probably needs to be soon. Why? Is that a problem for you?"

"Well, it's kind of inconvenient for me career-wise."

"I guess so," I said. "When do you make full partner at that firm?"

"I come up for review next year."

"Think you'll get it? Do you know what you're going to do if you don't?"

"I have no idea. On either one."

"So it's just billing hours until then, huh?"

"Well, it's a career. What about you? Ashley said you're a consultant?"

"I've got a small management firm. It's just me and our business development manager, and a half-dozen subcontractors who lend some specific expertise."

"Ashley said you're doing a corporate restructuring at Stafford Oil."

"Yep," I said."

"How's that going?"

"Stressful as hell. But I must be doing something right. They just offered me a seat on the board of directors today."

"Must be nice."

"I won't lie," I said. "That was pretty awesome."

"It strikes me that I'm under all the pressure here," she said. "I'm not used to that. You can completely take me or leave me, like you're totally out of my league."

"Am I giving off that vibe?"

She nodded. And then the food came.

We had a good time. Eventually she warmed up a little, but Abby was nervous in an almost desperate sort of way, and it seemed like there was something happening with her that was very different from the bossgirl vibe she gave off.

And finding out what that was interested me more at that point than the attraction I felt for her.

So I asked her if she wanted to go out again and she nodded and smiled.

That surprised me. I didn't figure this would go anywhere, but it did nonetheless - even despite some pretty serious doubts I had about Abby.