Caroline -- Part Eighteen

As things turned out, it wasn't a bad day, and was certainly eye-opening for Caroline, as she was given an assignment to do several business follow-ups, studying how several deals were structured and learning how the company did business, and sought new business. She went and had lunch with Joel at a local IHOP, and listened impassively as he ranted about Rachel, whom he apparently despised nearly as much as he feared her. Caroline made a mental note to find out more about this, and found herself personally in something of a quandary about the rant. Did she tell Allen and Rachel about this, or did she keep her own counsel and Joel's confidence? The complication for her was that her relationship with Allen, and with Rachel, went outside the office too, and she was emotionally attached to both of them, obviously. She was bright enough to know that she couldn't afford to get labeled by the A-Team as the bossman's (or his henchwoman's, for that matter) snitch, because any effectiveness she would have there would be cast out the window as though it was never there. But she was also well aware that if Joel's conversation with her came to light, Allen would certainly, and perhaps even rightly, see her silence as a display of disloyalty.

But then she decided that Rachel and Allen were both smart people, and that Joel hadn't indicated any intention of harming the company in any way, or even doing Rachel any harm. He just hated her ass, and in Caroline's experience, such feelings were usually mutual. She did decide, coldly, that if Joel rode off the range in any way whatsoever, Allen would hear it from her that instant, though. Her loyalties were to the company, and to Allen and Rachel, and so she set her unease aside.

"--car," Joel said, and Caroline jerked some, embarrassed that she had been wool-gathering while he talked merrily away.

"I beg your pardon," she asked.

"I asked if they've made arrangements for a company car for you," he said, smiling. "To give the devil his due, Allen takes good care of the A-Team people, and the bonuses and pay are pretty good. One of the perks is a company car, which gets replaced annually. I'm surprised they didn't tell you."

"Things have been hectic lately," Caroline said. "I guess that got overlooked in the mix. They're supposed to give me a clothing allowance, though."

"Yes," he smiled. "When I got promoted to the A-Team, I didn't even own a fucking necktie, so they cut me a check and told me to go buy no less than ten new suits, with shirts and ties. I had to go to my parents' house to get my dad to teach me how to tie a tie, even. I've been on the A-Team for three years now, and there's been an annual clothing allowance to go with the Christmas bonus checks. The only thing with the allowance is that we have to prove we indeed spent at least ninety percent of that money on business clothing, but it at least keeps us from looking like failed Fuller Brush salesmen when we have to go meet with clients and all."

"Why the company car," Caroline asked, surprised that Allen's Lexus was owned by the company. "It seems awfully excessive to spend that kind of money, no matter how nice the cars are."

"Allen's philosophy is that if you want to succeed, you have to look the part," Joel explained. "So he has us dress for success, and puts us in cars that make us look successful, and you know, he's right in his philosophy, Caroline. People see someone and decide in that first second if this is a winner or a loser, and we mostly only want to do business with winners. When you get sent out to meet a client, you want that son of a bitch impressed with you in every way, and you'll find out he cooperates better with you for that."

"Any recommendations on a car," Caroline asked.

"Just get the top-of-the-line model of whatever you buy," Joel suggested. "Honestly, I could take or leave the Lexus, but they're high-dollar cars that only rich pricks and drug dealers usually drive, and I think I don't quite look like the drug dealer at a kindergarten near you."

"Good point," Caroline laughed. The hell of it was, she liked Joel, despite his hatred for Rachel. He seemed like a helluva nice guy, and she wondered again what was at the bottom of his dispute with her.

"Make sure you ask him about that when you get back to the office," Joel said. "I saw that piece of shit you drove to work today, and that's just not going to cut it."

"It's seen its better days, for sure," Caroline said, trying to not feel embarrassed. She'd bought the Honda secondhand, or maybe fifth or even sixth-hand, with over one hundred thousand miles on the clock already, but it was cheap, and all she'd ever wanted was a transportation car anyway. She'd often reflected that she spent more every year on liability insurance for the car than the car was worth, but she had to have a car. Public transportation was a joke in this part of the country.

"Once it's time to trade it off, if you want, Allen will let you buy the car," Joel said. "The first one I had, I bought from the company, and my daughter drives it. It's a pretty nice Land Rover, and Allen lets us buy them with a one percent interest loan. Most of the A-Team's spouses are in our grounded company cars. I suppose if I still had a wife, she'd be in the Land Rover and my daughter would be in a junker like your little Honda."

"You're divorced," Caroline asked.

"I divorced her after she went to prison," he said, matter-of-factly, not offering more details.

"I see," Caroline said, feeling inane. She obviously didn't see a damn thing. She had a natural curiosity that was craving satisfaction, but she wasn't about to look nosy or intrusive by playing Twenty Questions with Joel. If he wanted her to know the details, he'd tell her. Elsewise, he would not, and it was none of her business one way or another.

The balance of the afternoon went quickly enough, and at five o'clock, Caroline hopped into her rattletrap car and headed over to Rachel's house, as directed. Rachel was just getting out of her own car as Caroline pulled into her drive, and she waved Caroline into the house. Rachel went to the bathroom and then sped through the kitchen to fetch them each a bottle of Coke, and in moments they were on the road to the shopping mall. By the time the mall closed at nine that evening, they'd completed one hell of a mission, and Caroline had clothes like she'd never had before in her life, as well as shoes and other accessories, and her feet were as sore as she could ever remember. Rachel had also bought Caroline, from her own pocket, some work clothes and work boots, along with a couple changes of simple clothing that would go to her own house for those times when Caroline would need clothes.

Rachel suggested that they drive straight to Caroline's house so that she could help Caroline get everything moved in, and Caroline was only too happy for the assistance. Rachel, of course, was genuinely happy to help, but she also wanted a peek into Caroline's home, to see how the little three-bedroom tract house, built in 1966, was being laid out and utilized. She had her reasons for this, beyond mere nosiness.

Caroline's house was well-maintained, Rachel saw, but terribly small, as was the custom of the time when it was built. She could look up and down Caroline's street and see exactly five different house plans, despite different facades and decorations. Two of the house plans, she was certain, were merely mirror-imaged. Caroline's garage was a two-car model, attached to the house, and containing junk from corner to corner, but for her washer and dryer. A pity, Rachel reflected. It would've made a nice dungeon for her house, and would have cost little to have arranged, but like most Americans, Caroline had a garage full of shit that would need to be thrown out or stored elsewhere, and she would probably oppose that. Well, Rachel decided, there were other options. She'd just have to go to the hall of records and get the blueprints to Caroline's house. They were a matter of public record, after all, but having eyeballs on the house helped her as much as anything.

Fifteen years before, Rachel had been about to embark on her last semester of college, and had been an architecture major at the University of Texas, when her parents decided to come visit her over the Christmas holidays. They didn't survive the trip, having been clobbered by a dump truck before they even got out of town. This left Rachel with a younger brother and sister to raise, and no other family, and so she had to drop out of school to handle feeding and raising them. She promised herself that she'd go back and complete her degree, but life broke that promise as surely as a crystal glass hurled into a stone hearth. On the upside, her brother Tommy got through UT's school of business with his MBA and was making good money working for Exxon in Houston, and her sister Jeanette got a degree in psychology and was now a major in the Army, doing some sort of psy-ops work that she couldn't talk about to Rachel. But that last semester of school mattered little to Rachel, who had designed her own house, and built it from scratch over three years with local help. It was the only way she could have afforded such a palace, despite the fact that Allen paid her quite well. She'd also designed an enormous house for Allen, and it was going to be underway as soon as he found the right patch of land for it.

And so, retrofitting Caroline's house with a dungeon wouldn't really be a challenge at all to Rachel's talents or imagination. She had a few ideas and would just need to monkey around with her CAD program for a while, and then would see what Allen and Caroline thought of the idea. Even if Caroline parted company from them, which was obviously altogether possible, at least they'd have left her with the gift of a nice dungeon to use with whoever came in her future. It seemed a nice gesture, and Rachel figured it could be done for far less money than they'd spent on clothes at the mall.

"You're also getting a company car," Rachel remarked to Caroline as they got back into her Honda for the ride home. "Stop by my office tomorrow and we'll give you the specifications. Find the one you want and bring us a salesman's card and the VIN number of the car you want, and we'll have it in the parking lot by close of business on Friday, okay?"

"Okay," Caroline said. "Joel had mentioned something about a company car, but I didn't know if I'd qualify for one, considering my status."

"Joel's an ass," Rachel remarked as Caroline's eyebrows rose. "But he's right. You get a company car if you're on the A Team, Caroline, and so far as anyone's concerned but Allen, you just got a huge promotion, and you'll be treated like anyone else there, because you really did earn his trust and faith. Also, be at my house tomorrow night at nine o'clock after you've done your car shopping. Allen wants you there, and so do I."

"Okay," Caroline said, wondering what the heck kind of car she was going to get now, and what to do with her Honda. After she dropped Rachel off at her house, she drove back home and studied the manuals for a while, but was sound asleep by midnight.