Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man(47)

“Yes ma’am,” Edna said, tight-lipped and firm. Jenay wasn’t sure if she was determined to get her job right, or just angry that she was being forced to get it right. Charles was sure it was the latter.

“That’ll be all,” Jenay said to Edna. And Edna left.

Jenay looked at Charles, certain he approved of the way she handled the situation. But she was wrong.

“You should have fired her ass,” he said as he stood up.

“Fired her?” Jenay asked, stunned.

“Yes,” he said, as certain as she was stunned.

“But she hadn’t been warned yet. She’s a middle-aged lady with responsibilities I’m sure. I can’t fire her without warning her first. If she doesn’t abide by what we discussed today, then yes, she’ll deserve to be fired. But after working here for nearly twenty years, I feel she deserves to be warned first.”

“Stop feeling,” Charles warned Jenay. “I didn’t hire you to feel a damn thing. I like your judgment, and I’ll go with it in this case, but you need to keep your feelings out of it.”

“So you would have fired her?”

“On the spot,” Charles responded. “I should have hired a GM when I first took over this place, I understand that. But since I acquired this place, she and the rest of these people were paid every single week, with my name on every single one of those checks. And they cashed every single one of those checks. They were paid to do a job regardless of what I did or didn’t do. She wasn’t doing her job. I would have fired her on the spot.”

“With no warning?”

“When you don’t do your job, you get fired. That’s your warning. She didn’t do her job and she knew she wasn’t doing it. She’d rather sit behind some desk playing around with timesheets than to walk the plank and find out what level of work her staff is really doing. I paid her to do that, she didn’t do it. As soon as I found out she wasn’t up to the task, it would have been over as far as I was concerned. She would have been out. Because I’m going to tell you something, my dear. Kill problems as soon as they arise or they will fester and become bigger and bigger problems until they become a disaster. People destroy businesses. Not the other way around. Let’s go,” Charles said as he headed for the exit.

Jenay wasn’t accustomed to this side of Charles, and it was a little disheartening to see that he could be so heartless. She followed him out of the room, and she still wanted to see where their relationship would lead, but she also realized now she needed to pump the brakes a little and ease up a bit. After last night, she was ready to give it her all and fully commit to this man. But now, after the way he so easily fired Beatrice, and after the way he would have so easily fired Edna, and that whole Big Daddy nickname, she knew she had to slow her roll. To wait and see. To watch and learn.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN



The front door of the small brown home was opened by a tall, lanky teenage boy, and Paige Springer hurried in. “Where is she?” she asked the boy.

“In the kitchen,” the boy said.

Paige hurried in that direction.

Beatrice was seated at her small kitchen table, nursing a cup of tea, when Paige hurried in.

“Tell me it is not true,” she said as she sat at the table across from Beatrice.

“Wish I could tell you that,” Beatrice said.

“It’s true?”

“It’s true.”

“She fired you?”

“He did. In front of her.”

“Why that bastard!” Paige roared.

“It was the most humiliating experience of my entire life, Paige,” Beatrice said. “I will never forgive that man for how he treated me this morning. Never!”

Paige shook her head. “No,” she said.

Beatrice looked at her. “No what?”

“No, we will not do it. We will not let that . . . that woman come to our town and take over. She just got here and she’s firing you?”

“Charles was the one who fired me, just so we’re clear. But he did it right in front of her.”

“Which makes it worse,” Paige said. “It was as if he was attempting to impress her at the expense of your livelihood.”

“That’s how I feel about it too,” Beatrice agreed. “He was impressing her. As if she was the only one who matters now. Where did he dredge her up anyway?”

“I don’t know. I’ve asked everybody, and no-one has ever heard of her before. It’s strange in the extreme, in my view. And I tell you we will not sit idly by and let this take root.”

“But what can we do about it?” Beatrice asked.