VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [61]
“You like ’em? I painted each one myself.”
Inside, the decor was less Marine. True, there was the wall in the dining room filled with photographs from his days in the Corps – the centerpiece being a picture of Tom seated in the cockpit of his F/A-18 Hornet grinning and giving the camera a thumbs-up. But there were knickknacks from all over the world, and some watercolor paintings that Amy really admired. Then she discovered, slightly to her surprise, that he was a reader. There was a large bookcase in the hall filled mostly with history texts, but also mystery and spy novels, a lot of Pat Conroy – The Great Santini caught her eye – and Larry McMurtry.
He cooked dinner: grilled shrimp marinated in a teriyaki sauce, served with grilled asparagus, white rice, and a basic lettuce salad. Everything was tasty and good, although Amy suspected that this was about the limit of his culinary repertoire. Dessert was Buster Bars from Dairy Queen.
They ate on the back porch, then sipped the wine she had brought until well past sunset, talking easily about everything and nothing in particular. He told three or four stories from his Marine days that had her doubled over with laughter.
Afterward, in his living room, they watched a movie. But they never made it to the ending – or in any case, were paying no attention to it as the credits rolled by.
Driving home some time past midnight with a big, lazy smile on her face, she said herself, “Well … it might work.”
“Amy!”
Seated at her desk, but with her back turned to the door, Amy Cieolara startled at the cry of her name. She turned to find Elaine Eisenway, who was Hi-T’s vice president of finance, and who had barged into Amy’s office without so much as a knock.
“What’s the matter?” she calmly asked Elaine.
“It’s the inventories again! Here, see for yourself!” said Elaine tossing down a printout of the latest financial reports onto Amy’s desk blotter. “Both finished goods and work in process, they’re high and getting higher!”
From long experience, Amy knew that Elaine was an alarmist. Elaine had her virtues as a financial manager; she understood the business, she was ethically rigorous yet inventive at problem solving, and she did answer to reason. Yet she was also a drama queen. At even a modest downturn, she was given to running willy-nilly and proclaiming that the sky was falling.
Amy reached for Elaine’s printout and slowly went through the pages, which bore a multitude of Elaine’s notations, including exclamation points, big circled question marks, and various remarks in the margins.
“Okay, you’re right,” Amy said to her. “The inventories seem a little high.”
“More than a ‘little’! Look at the comparisons with last year!”
“All right, all right, I agree; inventories are high.”
“I thought Wayne Reese was supposed to get this under control. Didn’t we talk about this last month?”
“They’ve been having some problems at Oakton. To be honest, I don’t fully understand why. But Wayne says he’s dealing with it.”
“Amy, it’s not just a matter of inventories. Look at the payroll. Look at the overtime, and especially look at the temporary workers they’ve added.”
“Yes, I know about the overtime and the temps. I authorized them. Wayne assures me that it’s all just, you know, temporary.”
“Well, all of this is starting to affect our cash flow! Our cash reserves are down and our receivables are slowing. Our accounts payables are through the roof!”
“Through the roof?”
“As in rising! It’s not a good trend, believe me! And then on top of everything else, we’ve got all the costs for Wayne’s program – the training costs, the travel costs, and so on.”
“Now, Elaine,” Amy said, deliberately lowering her voice and slipping into her soothing tone, “we’ve been through all this. And as I have explained, we are in the midst of a turnaround.”
“Turnaround? I would hardly characterize what I am seeing as that. A turnaround implies that there has been a turn in performance. Yet there has been no turn in all these months. We are still headed downhill and the pace is accelerating.”