Ride Your Heart ‘Til It Breaks, Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
December, 2007
“Stop,” Judge Karen Morgan told herself as she turned away from the french doors, went back to her study, and picked up the trial brief she had thrown aside earlier. “Don’t think about the past. Don’t think about Stan.”
But the temptation was too strong. As soon as she sat down at her desk, the words on the page began to swim in front of her eyes until she closed them. In the darkness, she relived the first Saturday of November 1994.
* * *
November, 1994
It was six o’clock, and she was supposed to be meeting Harry at the club at six thirty. But she was still trapped in her office. The Burnett accountants wouldn’t stop calling with new numbers for the IPO.
Her head ached with the effort to keep their changes straight. By seven-thirty, she could take no more of their relentless nervousness over the upcoming deal. She left for the club, hoping Harry would understand why she was so late.
“It’s ok,” he said, when she arrived. “I’ve got the books in my office. I’ll send some supper. I’m on stage at eight, but I’ll be in at the first break, and you can tell me how it looks.”
Karen took a deep breath as she sat down at Harry’s desk and opened his ledgers. She was crossing a Rubicon that could forever bar her from partnership at Warrick, Thompson. If anyone found out what she was about to do, she would be reduced to hanging out her shingle as a solo in some seedy executive office suite.
Harry had sent her filet mignon. She was starving after nothing but stale vending machine sandwiches all day, and the food was heaven. As she went through Harry’s numbers, month by month, she could hear Stan performing. Even at this distance, his high, clear sound penetrated her soul. If I just didn’t love him, she thought. If I could walk away, heart intact. But I can’t.
He played “I Can’t Get Started,” and she wondered if Harry had told him she was in the office. She hoped not. The fewer people who knew, the better. She cursed herself for not swearing Harry to secrecy.
He appeared at the break, around nine thirty. “How was dinner?”
“Terrific. The club always has good food.”
“It’s a draw for the music. People come to eat and find they like jazz. How does it look?”
“I’m not finished yet.”
But Harry read her face. “You see a problem.”
“I’m trying not to. But of the last ten months, you’re in the black in only four.”
He sighed and sank into the folding chair in front of his desk. He was sweating from the stage lights. He wiped his forehead with his hands, then sat back in the chair and closed his eyes.
It felt like a deathbed vigil. Karen’s stomach tightened, and she wished she hadn’t eaten. “I’m not completely finished looking over last month. It was a pretty good one. And you are so close to showing a profit in August and September that maybe your attorney could argue those months should count, too.”
“I can’t afford an attorney, honey,” Harry said, quietly. His expressionless eyes were fixed on the floor. Then he looked at her. “Unless you’d do it for me.”
Karen felt like a trapped animal. She stared at the pictures of Harry and Kristin in performance on the wall, trying to think of what to say. “I would if I could, but I – I can’t.”
She saw the moment the light went on in Harry’s eyes. “You can’t because you work for them, don’t you?”
She closed her eyes and nodded slowly. When she opened them, Harry was still staring at her.
“You came to spy on us? To see what the crowds were like? Why didn’t you just shut us down after the first week?”
The tears in his eyes made her hate her job and Waterfront Development with all her heart.
“Because I don’t want to,” she managed to say. “Before you jump to a lot of conclusions, would you let me explain?”
“I guess it’s fair to hear you out.”
“I’m up for partner at my firm this year.”
“The one on the letterhead?”
“Yeah. And Alan Warrick – the one who signed the letter – is my boss. Alan brought me here to San Diego, and my work has made a lot of money for the firm. He wants them to make me a partner.”
“What if they don’t?”
“Then I’d be expected to leave. It’s like losing your job if they don’t make you a partner.”
“So a lot rides on this year for you?”
“My whole future. Just like you and keeping the club open.”
Harry nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, Alan wants the firm’s clients to like me and to get to know me. So he involved me in the Waterfront Development deal. They bought this land from your old landlord.”
“Ok.”
“After the deal was done, Alan announced Waterfront has big plans to redo all of this. And they want some of the existing tenants out.”
“Meaning me.”
“Meaning you,” Karen agreed. “So he instructed me to come down and scope out your audiences and tell him you weren’t meeting the lease term because that is what he wanted to hear.”
“Why didn’t you tell him that?
Karen smiled. The second set had begun, and Stan’s version of “My Funny Valentine” filled the club. Now Karen’s eyes spilled over. Harry’s face softened. She said, “That’s why.”
“You fell in love with him.”
“I did. That first night. And now if I can’t come to see and hear him, I’m not sure how I can go on.”
“That means more to you than making partner.”
“A lot more.”
Harry smiled and leaned over to put his hand over hers as it rested on the books. “You’re a good girl, Carrie Moon. And Stan Benedict ought to love you, if he has any sense at all.”
“But I don’t think he does, Harry.”
“Love you or have any sense?”
“Both.” Karen managed a smile as she wiped her eyes. “Look, I have to tell you the rest of the story.”
“Ok.” He withdrew his hand and leaned back in the spindly folding chair. “Shoot.”
“I honestly couldn’t tell what your profit margins were from observation. Some nights you have standing room only. Other nights, I can see you don’t break even. But I was pulling for you to make the lease term. So I told Alan he had to review your books before ordering you out. I hoped maybe there’d be something in here that would save the club.”
“Do you think there might be?”
“Give me another hour. I studied accounting as well as music. Both are all about numbers. Let me see if I can’t find some way to move things around. Delete some expenses or something.”
“Is that legal?”
Karen gave him an ironic laugh. “Harry, me even being in this room right now and saying what I just said is so illegal that a little more isn’t going to matter. Accounting is creative sometimes like music. You stretch a tempo; you change a key. Let me think about it a little longer.” And pray for a solution.
At that moment, the door burst open, and Stan appeared. He stared at Karen, obviously surprised to find her in Harry’s office. “What are you doing here?”
“I asked her to take a look at something for me. Nothing important to you.”
Harry treated Stan like a son who needed protecting, even though he was only about ten years older.
“You’re up next. We need you on stage.”
“No problem. Karen and I are finished here. I’m going to send you a glass of wine.” Harry took Stan by the arm and walked him toward the door. She wanted Stan to look back, but he hurried away with Harry, his mind focused on his upcoming performance.
Although wine and accounting were not good partners, she drank the zin
anyway, as she went over Harry’s numbers. He managed to stay in business despite not turning a profit, month after month. There had to be an answer.
At ten thirty, Harry came back.
“Any ideas?” he asked as soon as he shut the door.
“Yes. One.”
“Which is?”
“Look here,” Karen pointed to the income column. “Every month you show $2,000 in investment income that you put into the business. That’s the way you get by in the months you are in the red. And that money is enough to put you in the black for all ten months of this year.”
Harry’s face brightened. “So they can’t jerk my lease?”
“It depends. Where does that $2,000 come from?”
“My auntie back in Atlanta died the year that I opened the club. She left me a pretty nice lump sum. I invested it, so that I could draw on the income to keep this place afloat during the early years. The lump sum has never been touched, thank God. But I’ve been used the income to keep the club going.”
“Whose name is the fund in?” Karen felt her heart constrict when she asked. So much depended on the answer.
“I actually hold it in the name of the club. My accountant told me to do it that way.”
“Your accountant is an angel, Harry. Waterfront can’t touch you. You just need to have that income shown on these books on this line, here in business investment income.” Karen’s heart was so light she felt as if she could get up and dance on Harry’s desk.
“Is that all?”
“That’s all. Just tell him to do that, copy these, and mail them to Alan Warrick.”
“And what happens then?”
“Then Waterfront will probably offer you a lot of money to buy out your lease.”
“What if I don’t want to sell? I like this place by the water.”
“Then they are going to have to recognize Jazz By the Bay as the centerpiece of whatever they plan to do.”
Harry’s face lit up. He pulled Karen to her feet and hugged her. When he let her go, he said, “No one will ever know about any of this. Not even Kristin.”
“I’m relieved you understand. Stan can’t know, either.”
“Of course not. Do you think I’ll ever be called to that fancy firm of yours?”
“It’s not mine, yet, Harry. Not until I make partner. But, yes, it’s possible they’ll want you to come down if they make an offer to buy you out.”
“Then I’ll be sure they never guess I know you.”
“Thanks, Harry. My career is in your hands.”
“It’s mutual, Carrie Moon. It’s mutual. Now, on Monday night I want you in here at eight sharp with that flute of yours. No excuses.”
