A Promise to Cherish by Lavyrle Spencer Read Free Book Online

office like he kept his teeth—brown around the edges. Rolls of plans, soil samples, drill bits, cast-iron pipe fittings, test plugs, incoming mail, hydrant wrenches, and used coffee cups created a random scattering of litter that was rarely cleared or dusted, for F.A. raised particular hell if anyone monkeyed with his “filing system.” The room had an unpleasant smell, a mixture of rancid chewing tobacco, dust, stale alcohol, tar, and dried clay, topped off with the peculiar smell of cast iron. When Lee had taken the job at Thorpe Construction, F.A. had been in the middle of one of his sporadic drying-out periods, during which he became less abusive and more reasonable. The office had been cleaner, and so had he.
    But he’d been off the wagon for months now. His nose shone like a beacon, and his cheeks wore the mottled red puffiness of the serious drinker. It was all Lee could do to face him the following morning across the junk on his desk.
    “He what!” bellowed F.A.
    Lee took a step backward. Thorpe’s breakfast Manhattan was offensive the second time around.
    “He got my suitcase by mistake, found the bid inside, and turned it in along with his own.”
    “And took the goddam job away from you like candy from a baby!” F.A. fumed and paced, then picked up a coffee can and spit into it. Lee studied a piece of P.V.C. pipe on a littered file cabinet behind him rather than observe the distasteful sight of his brown spume. “By a measly four thousand dollars!” F.A. whammed his fist into the center of the desk, lifting dust and making the telephone dance. He dropped into his desk chair and glowered at Lee, then turned suddenly pensive. “That’s old Wayne Brown’s kid, isn’t it? Mmm . . . appears the kid’s got more brains than his old man.” Thorpe’s eyes narrowed shrewdly, and he chuckled deep in his throat. Then he turned his beady eyes on Lee again. “I hope you learned your lesson from this. Everybody’s out to screw everybody else in this world, and Sam Brown proved it!” With a quick shift of weight, he leaned back in his chair. “You thought any more about that vice-presidency I offered you?”
    “Sorry, I prefer estimating.”
    Again he banged his fist on the desk. “Damn it, Walker, I put up with a lot from you, carrying your bids in a suitcase like some green recruit, then picking up the wrong damn one at the other end of the line and losing me a job worth over four million bucks! How long do you think I’m going to put up with screw-ups like this! I want your name on them corporation papers. It’s the least you can do after the mess you made out of this Denver bid.”
    “I’m sorry about losing the suitcase, but the rest of it wasn’t my fault. If Sam Brown checked my bid against his, he wouldn’t admit it.”
    “Why, hell no, who would?” F.A.’s pot belly was so hard it scarcely depressed when he crossed his hands on it. “Tell you what, girlie. I’ll give you till Friday to think it over. Either you help me out with this here minority business thing and agree to become vice-president, or you can find yourself someplace else to work. You’re costin’ me money, and unless you help me make a little of it back, I got no use for you.”
    Back in her own neat office, Lee strode angrily to her chair, deposited herself in it with great vexation, cursed under her breath, and considered marching back in there and telling F.A.T. where to put his vice-presidency and his tobacco cud! There’d be nothing so sweet as to walk out there and show that fat, smelly boar she didn’t need his precious job or his calculating little mind one moment longer.
    But the bitter truth was, she did.
    She had no husband across town bringing in a paycheck from another job to support her. She was self-reliant now and needed a weekly salary to survive. Sam Brown had been right when he’d summed up the estimator’s job market right now—there was none! Two years ago, before the recession had gripped the