They’d been hiking for hours. Sweat trickled down his face from the top of his hairline to his neck, a tiny drop detouring to touch the corner of his eye, momentarily blurring his vision. The intensity of the day’s heat had grown from warm and inviting to suffocating.

“How much longer, Dad?” asked his seven year old son.

He looked three paces back to Corbin. The boy was pushing a wisp of his strawberry blond hair out of his eyes. His freckles seemed to multiply under the hot sun.

He took a breath to answer, then paused. He didn’t really know how much longer. He didn’t know because he had insisted they wander from the trail. He had wanted to teach this little guy, the one who was too comfortable with quiet pursuits, that the world was big and he needed to match its wildness with strength of his own. It had been his idea to take this hike into the woods filled with blackened trees and matted leaves and heard but unseen animals so that his boy would learn about manhood even at this young age. A boy had to learn.

How much longer? As a father and as a man he had never been comfortable with acknowledging ignorance, even to himself. When faced with a question, he always had an answer, even if he really didn’t. Never in his adult life had he uttered the words “I don’t know”.

Upon first discovering their situation, they had hiked on and found the opposite edge of the woods. Progress, he had thought. They would certainly pick up a trail without the obstruction of branches to keep them from seeing far. They hadn’t.

“Dad?”

Corbin’s voice was small in the grand expanse.

He stopped, then turned aside to sit on a large rock near the path.

“Let’s sit down for awhile. Pretty out here, isn’t it?”

As their breathing slowed from the huff of hiking to the soft in and out of rest, a sound, nearly imperceptible, quenched the silence.

Corbin’s eyes followed the sound of a muffled whine, and he slowly got up and tiptoed to where he could better observe its source. It was a puppy, old enough to wander, young enough to need its mother. The mother trotted up from behind some bushes that grew crookedly out of the rocky soil. She sat, nudging the puppy, and licked it with her hot tongue.

“She’s kissing him,” Corbin whispered to his father.

The dog picked the puppy up by the scruff of its neck and followed the distant call of her master.

Father and son watched as the dog trotted off. He hesitated, then reached down and hugged his son, kissing the top of his head.

“Let’s follow them,” he said.

Photos: goodfreephotos.com, 1280px-Dog_nose Elucidate CC by 3.0 en.wikipedia.org Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

“I’m just saying that if everyone does what Norton’s is doing,” Julia swallowed, “there won’t be anyone left to pay the utilities.”

It had been nine months since she had first joined the coop, and Julia was sitting in their quarterly coop meeting. Since the coop had started, they had gained three new businesses.They were bound to run into difficulties here and there, she knew; but when she’d received her last utility bill, she’d nearly fainted. Three businesses had followed Norton’s lead and declared that they could not meet their utility payments, leading to larger bills for everyone else.

Caesar O’Swiffy cleared his throat.

“We all know that Norton’s had unexpected legal expenses,”

“From the lawsuit you filed on account of running into a stack of boxes,” thought Julia.

“And the other three had lower profit margins than expected,” he declared. “I suggest you just calm down, Julia. You seem, hmm, rather unregulated in your comments today. It’s bordering on hateful. What do you have against these four businesses anyway?”

Everyone turned toward Julia, and she sank down in her chair.

“Nothing. I have nothing against them. I just don’t want to use my profits to pay for their electric. . .”Julie’s voice faded under Caesar O’Swiffy’s gaze.

“I didn’t realize the depth of your selfishness, Julia,” Mr. O’Swiffy countered.

Members of the coop began mumbling to each other, but Julia didn’t stay to find out what they were saying. She wanted some chocolate, wanted it now, and the candy dishes set out at the beginning of the meeting were empty.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Julia stared at the wall wondering how everything could have gone so wrong. After the meeting three months before, the one from which she had walked out, things had gone from bad to awful.

A series of events including unexpected expenses with the meal programs had led to her finding it necessary to lay off some of her employees. Julia, herself, had taken a cut in pay and could barely meet her mortgage while she juggled bills from the coop. As it was, she was eating breakfast and lunch at work to save on personal grocery expenses, and her cat refused to eat the generic cat food she was now buying and most days had taken to hiding under the couch. 

Her alarm woke her gently, as always, but each morning she had begun to feel alarmed at the sound of it. Allmart employee morale had sunk to an all time low, and although Mr. O’Swiffy had tried to encourage and support Julia by increasing her allotment of Dove Chocolates, Allmart became a place where dissatisfaction was palpable.

There was a knock at the door, and Lexie stepped in quietly.

“Thank you for hiring me back,” she said as she sat some papers down on Julia’s desk.

Julia waved away her thanks.

“I shouldn’t have fired you in the first place. You were – are – one of my best workers. It’s just when Mr. O’Swiffy kept suggesting things about you, I lost my focus.”

Lexie nodded imperceptibly.

Julia looked at Lexie who looked steadily back at her. She opened the store account book and threw up her hands.

“Look at this! I don’t even know where to start. I feel like I don’t know anything about running a business anymore! And, and I’m losing my self-respect,” she finished softly.

Julia jumped up, bumping her knee on her drawer.

“This is where the trouble started,” Julia mumbled as she caught sight of a Dove caramel milk chocolate just inside the barely opened drawer. “Mr. O’Swiffy offered chocolate provided by the coop . . .”

“I miss your cookies,” interrupted Lexie.

Julia sat back down in her chair, the cushioned desk chair, the one where she belonged as owner of Allmart.

“Maybe I need to withdraw membership from the coop.”

Lexie looked hopeful.

“It was such a good idea, though. I hate the thought of losing those connections.”

“Must they be lost if you aren’t in the coop?” Lexie answered, raising her eyebrows.

“Maybe if we hired a different accountant, one who sticks to accounting,” Julia pondered softly, reaching for her phone, “though I do love it when Mr. O’Swiffy brings me chocolate.”

As she picked it up, something new dawned on Julia; or maybe she had known it all along. She would always love chocolate with a love bordering on desperation. There would be days when chocolate would be just the thing to carry her through until she got home to the soft cuddles of her cat (although at this point it would take at least a month of coaxing to get it back to its former self). But as wonderful, alluring, and oh so amazing as chocolate was, there was something it wasn’t. Necessary. And on those days when Julia could almost believe it was, it was not necessary for someone else to give it to her. She would find a way or make one to get it herself.

The clerk behind the counter at Allmart waved cheerfully to Julia as she stepped over the threshold of the store. She nodded an acknowledgement and headed straight to her office. She nodded, because that was what was allowed. If she had waved, it could have been interpreted as something other than a greeting according to the manual adopted by the coop three months ago. Heaven forbid she stop to chat. Julia stopped the thoughts strolling through her mind. No, she told herself, she would not be negative about a regulation intended for her own protection.

It had been exactly six months since her first meeting with Caesar O’Swiffy. The first delivery of chocolate had been wonderful, and it really perked up the entire staff. Julia was glad she had joined the business coop. Mr. O’Swiffy, their accountant, seemed like a dream come true.

The fourth week after that first chocolate delivery had been icy, and three employees were in fender benders; one, a rear end bump at a stop sign, and the other two, minor crashes on side streets. Julia, herself, had had a near miss. So when their accountant had suggested providing transportation to workers who faced some difficulty getting to work, everyone in the coop had agreed. It was worth it to keep their employees safe and, besides, it would minimize hours missed due to taking care of car repairs.

That icy week had made everyone hesitant to make the short run to the McDonald’s down the street over their lunch breaks and those who hadn’t packed a lunch had gone without. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was chocolate in the break room, and some of them had a few pieces. The next coop meeting had resulted in a lunch provision to employees. Breakfast soon followed.

With the provisions had come more paperwork, though. Julia had found every increasing demands on her time to follow coop regulations and to record any deviations from them.

Julia looked up at the sound of a knock on her door.

“The mail came early,” Julia’s assistant, Lexie, said as she walked into the office. “Umm, let’s see, not much here except a few flyers and something from the business coop. The electric and water bills are usually here by now. Would you like me to make some calls and see what’s holding them up?”

“No, Mr. O’Swiffy said we would get a lower rate if the businesses in the coop were billed all together, so the coop is taking care of it now. You have to admit it’s more streamlined.”

Julia slit open the coop’s envelope with her letter opener. She held the contents up for Lexie.

“See? Here are those bills. We just pay the coop instead of the electric and water companies now.”

Lexie bent over and peered at the multiple lines in small print.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing.

“It’s the charge for the coop to pay the bills.”

“And this?” persisted Lexie pointing to another line.

“That’s the charge to help any business in the coop should they they fall short a month.”

“Doesn’t that negate your savings?” Lexie asked under her breath.

Julia laughed.

“You’d better not let Mr. O’Swiffy hear you. He’d be offended. This is his baby, you know.”

“Hear what?” asked Mr. O’Swiffy as he entered Julia’s office and tossed a Dove sea salt caramel dark chocolate on her desk.

Picking it up and unwrapping it, Julia thought that she could find it in her heart to love this man.

Lexie quickly left as Julia answered, “I was just explaining about the utility charges arrangement.”

Caesar O’Swiffy massaged his back and carefully sat in the chair in front of Julia’s desk.

Julia jumped up.

“How’s your back, Mr. O’Swiffy? I heard you had a run in with a stack of boxes. Here, take my chair. It’s padded.”

The accountant moved to Julia’s chair as Julia sat in the one she reserved for office visitors.

“Thank you, Julia. Yes, it was at Norton’s Grocery during inventory.”

“Why were you there during . . .” Julia began, but Caesar O’Swiffy cut her off.

“I think it’s important, Julia, that the staff is made aware of expectations. That,” Caesar O’Swiffy waved in the direction of the door through which Lexie had recently left, “assistant needs to be reprimanded for her lack of support for our efforts.”

“Oh Lexie’s fine. She’s always been a great employee and is an excellent assistant,” Julia replied.

“Hmmm, we shall see,” Mr. O’Swiffy countered. “Our efforts here are only because we want to make things easier on everyone. Don’t you want to make things easier?”

“Of course!” Julia assured him. No one had ever accused her of a lack of compassion and no one ever would.

“Everyone needs to be supportive. A house divided against itself, well you know the rest. It’s employees like that who bring everyone else down.”

“Lexie has never broken a rule, Mr. O’Swiffy,” Julia defended her assistant.

“Rules can be broken in thought as well as deed,” Caesar O’Swiffy cautioned her.

He placed a stack of papers on Julia’s desk and stood.

“I’ll be back next week to check on staff compliance,” he said, tapping his finger on the papers he’d brought.

Julia stood as he left, then sat back down, then realized she was sitting on the wrong side of her desk.

to be continued . . .