Roswell Fanatics

Christna: thank you...I tried to make this one a fun fic that included all of the girls ( it had a lot to do with the banner actually) so, yeah, they're a little different but not too much I don't think. I'm glad you're enjoying this.
Eve:Hang in there, they're going to get found out soon, they're still digging themselves into a hole here.
Carolyn: the shoe is still getting untied...

***

Chapter: 10
After dropping Michael off Max headed straight home for a sorely needed shower. Michael and he had really worked up a sweat today and he was smelling “quite ripe” to quote his dad.

When he walked in through the back door his mom greeted him and nodded, she was going to give him a hug but on quick notice had changed her mind and Max grinned as he passed her in the laundry room and told her he’d be down shortly…

“Liz called earlier Max...said to tell you she’d be at home if you needed her.”

“I’ll give her a ring after I shower mom, I smell so bad even I can’t stand it.”

And Diane Evans had to laugh; he really did smell pretty badly. It was a combination of sweat and dirt and that was nothing to bring home for sure…’he should have stood under the garden hose before coming in’ and then she laughed to herself at the thought.

It didn’t take long for Max to get out of his filthy clothes and into a shower, it felt wonderful just letting the water run over his back and through his hair. ‘God, how did those old Elizabethans ever stand to be in the same room with themselves’ he thought? That must have been one horrible, nauseating experience for the entire population. No wonder they said “don’t throw the baby out with the water!” It was a nightmare just thinking about it.

After Max had his shower and felt semi-human once again he lay down on his bed in his boxers and gave Liz a call…

“Hey sweetie…did you have a good game?”

“Well, I don’t know how good it was but I certainly got a work-out; either I need to start exercising more or stop it all together.”

“Hmmm, well, I know some exercises that might make you feel better.”

“Oh you do, do you? And just what did you have in mind little one?”

“Well, I don’t know? Bowling, jogging to name a couple…sound like fun? How about you? I have to work the late shift tomorrow and Monday the girls and I have some plans during the day but I think I can squeeze you in Monday night if you’re too tired for something tonight. Say dinner and a movie?”

“Well, tell you what…how about I put some clothes on, stop at the deli and pick up some sides while you go down to the kitchen and get us something along the lines of sandwiches and I’ll pick you up about six. Then we can drive out into the desert, our favorite Oasis is waiting you know, and have us a little picnic.”

“Why not a picnic in the park?”

“Because the park is a little crowded right now if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, everyone wants some alone time and they are all winding up at the same place huh?”

“That about covers it …so, the desert sound good?”

“Yep. See you in about 45 minutes or so.”

“That you will.”

And they hung up.

*

Michael made it home and took a shower in record time, checked his cell and saw that he had a message from Maria…he smiled and dialed,

“Hey M’ria…what’s up?”

“Hey yourself…did you have a good game?”

“How did you know I was playing basketball?”

“Michael, you’re kidding…right?”

“Well I guess…anyway, what are your plans for tonight?”

“I have none unless you want to do something.”

“That sounds bitchin’ M’ria…hey, I know…how about a picnic but not in the park. It’s a little over crowded right now but we could go out to that place in the desert that has the little lake. I think it would be cool to have a picnic out there, take your bathing suit and a towel, I’ll pack up some hot dogs and I have some potato salad in the fridge. What do you say?”

“Oh Michael I’d love to. Mom has a nice fruit salad in the fridge and I saw a pie on the counter. Not sure what kind it is but I’ll just stick it in the ice chest with the fruit salad and I’ll pick you up in about half an hour or so. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great M’ria…I’ll bet busy putting the stuff together and then when it starts getting dark we can come back here and watch a movie or something, okay?”

“Sounds wonderful Michael, just give me a half hour or so. I’ll have to dig the ice-chest out of the garage. I’ll tell mom to hitch a ride home with the sheriff, she’ll be glad to hear that I’m sure.”

“I’ll bet she will. See you soon…and M’ria…”

“Yes Michael.

“I love you M’ria.” The line went silent for just a second and then Maria smiled…

“I love you too spaceboy, more than you’ll ever know.”

And they hung up.

Maria picked Michael up right at thirty minutes later and they were off to the little lake out in the desert just as Max and Liz were headed to the same spot…oh well, so much for planning.

*

Just as Liz and Max started to lay the blanket out on the ground under, possibly one of the few trees in the area, they heard a car pull up and when they turned their attention to the occupants Max rolled his eyes and Liz started to giggle…

“Well, look at it this way Max, we surely won’t be getting into any trouble.”

“You are certainly right about that Liz Parker, now let’s just lay this out and plan on a long evening.”

“HEY GUYS! Over here!”

Michael looked up as he was unloading the Jetta and just nodded…’oh what the hell! At least there aren’t eight of us’ he thought to himself.

“Liz, did you bring a deck of cards?” Max asked…

“No, but I do have my bathing suit on.”

Max grinned at the thought, he had planned on skinny dipping!

“Maaax…don’t tell me…”

“I won’t tell you Liz, but I guess I won’t be swimming.” Liz giggled…

“Well, we could always turn our heads while you dive in or, here’s a thought, how about your boxers?”

“Let’s just play this by ear, okay?” Max grinned…

“Okay.”

And about that time Maria and Michael plopped their stuff down close to the other couple and Michael laid out their blanket and positioned the ice chest for easy access.

“Well, the comment was made earlier as I recall, great minds think alike.” And Max smiled at his friend…

“That they do Michael. What have you got in your bag of tricks?”

“We have some men in blackberry pie for desert Max; I know you’ll like that.” Maria added with a grin as Liz watched the entire scene with a big twinkle in her eye. All in all the guys were taking this very well.

“What else do we have?”

“Why don’t we just lay it all out here and see?” Liz added.

“Sounds great.” Both boys said at the same time…if they weren’t going to get any one on one time with their girlfriends they sure as hell weren’t going to go hungry. Maria and Liz just watched and smiled at each other as they started laying out paper plates, forks and napkins. Michael and Max were already munching on sandwiches as they unloaded the rest of their fare.

And so all the couples spent the evening enjoying other company besides their girlfriends but in all honesty, they all had a very good time.

*

Eve,

If you win the state lottery you don't have to pay state income taxes but you have to pay federal income taxes. If you win more than six hundred dollars in any public gambling house they have to withhold 10% of your winnings and submit that 10% to the Internal Revenue service and have you fill out a 1099 form which they have to send to the government by Feb. 15 of each year and at least three copies has to be sent to the winner of the money. The winner of the money in turn has to report the winnings to the federal government on their income tax return along with a copy of the 1099 that the gambling establishment provided them with. If the gambling establishment withheld the taxes, and the choice of paying taxes at the time of winning or waiting until they do their tax returen, then the recipient of the money claims that as income tax paid. If the establishment did not withhold the funds then the recipient of the funds must pay the taxes due by April 15th of the year the winnings were declared. it really isan't that complicated, the US government is going to get it's piece of the action one way or the other.

I hope that helps...nothing is free in the U.S.

Ginger

Eve,
Yes they will have to pay income taxes on their profits but that is covered in the story. Mucho income taxes as a matter of fact but now I'm giving stuff away too soon....

Cardinal: Thanks and you're not far from the truth...
Eve: Well, I hope I was able to answer your questions effecitvely, I don't know a whole lot about many things but setting up a business is some of what I know...a little anyway.
Carolyn: Let's hope they continue to have time for fun, the way this thing is snowballing they could be pretty well tied up just like those shoes!!!

***
Chapter: 11
6/10/02

Monday morning came soon enough and the girls were on their way to Las Cruces armed with breakfast sandwiches provided by Jeff and big smiles on their faces as they discussed the events about to take place. It was decided to go to the bank first. They figured they should be there just about the time the place opened.

Kyle was busy headed off to his now full time job at Toby’s hoping to earn some spending money before heading off to school in Las Cruces. He had managed to earn himself a nice baseball scholarship but he still needed spending money. His dad could help him some but Jim still had a few years left on his mortgage and the cost of living wasn’t getting any better, so it left Kyle to sort of depend on himself.

Kyle thought about his decision to study mechanical engineering as he got ready for work; since his job at Toby’s he discovered he really liked engines and their inner workings; it was a real eye opener for him and he felt if he could design the things to run more efficiently he would be enjoying himself as well as doing good things for the world in general. He suddenly laughed out loud…he sounded like Liz and her “you’ve gotta have a plan” scenario, this tickled him to no end.

Max was headed to the UFO center and Michael had the morning shift at the Crash.

Alex was still working on his mom’s projects, and even though that was rewarding in and of itself, to quote Alex, it didn’t put money in his pockets. He felt like a jerk asking for money but it didn’t seem to bother his parents half as much as it bothered him. He needed to find something for the summer before heading off to Las Cruces. As he continued working on the project his mom needed he continued to ponder the coming semester and he really wished Isabelle would realize that she wouldn’t be taking any really big law courses for a couple of years yet and just go to school with him. ‘Why does she need Albuquerque this soon anyway?’ He thought, ‘it would give us a chance to get used to being away from home before setting out into that great big world alone’. He would bring it up to her again…and soon. What Alex was not aware of was the fact that the organization that his mother volunteered at had a budget set up for contracting outside help and Alex would be paid quite handsomely when the job was completed.
*
When Tess pulled up into the parking lot of Wells Fargo all the girls sighed, got out and straightened their slacks, and headed in through the front door.

They chose to wear nice slacks and blouses today since they wanted to look somewhat professional. They chose Wells Fargo because there were branches everywhere and they would all have easy access if any problems should arise; one of them would be able to deal with it in the event something happened, which was a very wise decision on their part.

A very nice looking young man greeted them as they entered the bank and wanted to know what they needed and of course Liz took it upon herself to announce that they would like to open an account.

Of course he showed them right over to one of the new accounts desks that was free and introduced the four young ladies to John Baxter, but they were to call him John.

Tess whispered to Liz…”Boy what a fox!” Liz brushed her away and smiled at John while trying very hard to ignore her very astute, very articulate friend. Liz held out her hand first and introduced herself then the other three girls, but John was having some thoughts of his own about the four of them and sort of stuttered his way through the introductions. “Hello ladies, what were you interested in today”, he managed to get out.

“Well, we need to open a checking account and we need to be able to make online deposits using credit card charges. So I guess what we need from you is information on how to accomplish all of this” Liz informed him, using her biggest smile.

“Of course, will this account be in all of your names?”

“Not exactly, it will be in our corporate name, we are going to incorporate, but we will all be signers on the account. Is that possible?”

“Of course, what is your corporation called?”

“Oh Shit Oh Dear” they all thought at the same time; we don’t want to be calling it “Calendar Girls” at the bank!!!

“Well, I guess we have to decide that don’t we? Just a minute…”
And Liz turned to the other three…

”What do we do now?” She mouthed to the other three!! !

They all looked like deer caught in headlights and then Tess grabbed the pencil sitting next to them and wrote down… T M I L.

The other three nodded and then Liz took the pencil and wrote….LIMelighT, Inc. She underlined L I M and ended with the T indicating Liz-Isabelle-Maria and ending with Tess. They all nodded in agreement.

“We will call ourselves “Limelight Inc.” how’s that?” She said as she absolutely glowed with satisfaction.

John smiled…they’re pretty quick…and so agreeable for women.

“That’s great…let’s just get this started.” He started typing and then asked for the officers names.

Isabelle took over with that one. “In order to incorporate we have to have a president, vice president and Secretary/treasurer, we can add a CEO if we want to but we need the first three for sure. It was in dad’s law book, I forgot.”

“Okay, I think Tess should be the Treasurer, how about the rest of you, do you agree?” Liz asked…

Maria grabbed a pencil and a note book out of her purse and started writing all of this information down; a lot was going on. They were going to need it for other business transactions as well. Tess noticed this action and nodded to the other two…

“I think Maria should be secretary.” Isabelle and Liz nodded…that left the president and the vice president…

“Let’s toss for the other two positions.” Liz suggested and the rest nodded…
Maria produced a quarter and ‘heads was president’…Isabelle won the toss.

They all looked at John and smiled; John shook his head and smiled back.

“Okay; Isabelle ---?” he asked.

“Evans, Isabelle Evans.” John smiled and asked for some I D. Isabelle produced her driver’s license and John continued on with the president’s information, working his way all the way down to Maria DeLuca, secretary. ‘These are really cute girls’; he just wondered what they were up to…that would be very interesting to find out.

After they had given John all of the information he needed and had signed all of the signature cards, entered pin numbers for their ATM cards that they would receive in the mail they were then all provided with folders containing all of the information they needed to make their deposits and to do their on line banking, then they started asking questions of their own.

“John, do you know any good accountants in the area? We have a print out of the ones listed on the internet for the Las Cruces area but maybe you could point us in the direction of a really good and honest one.”

John wasn’t really permitted to recommend anyone but he looked at their list and noticed one that stuck out from all the rest and he sort of pointed to Les Biby as he told them that he wasn’t permitted to make such recommendations. He had gone to school with Biby and knew that he would take good care of the girls. They nodded to the young man, thanked him for all of his help and headed out the door. They had arrived at the bank right at 10:00 a.m., it was now noon. They wondered if they were going to get everything they needed to do finished in time to be back by 6:00 for their shifts.

“God, did you ever think this was going to be this involved?” Maria asked.

“No, not really but I think our corporate name sounds cute...” Liz interjected; they all agreed and giggled like the teenagers they were.

They found their way to Les Biby’s office, who had been forewarned by the way, and were escorted right in.

They explained what they wanted from the young man and he was as impressed with them as John had been.

“Just what kind of business are you ladies starting?” Les wanted to know.

“Internet sales…” Liz answered without hesitation.

“Hmmm…and just what is it you need from me?”

“Well, we’re all headed off to different universities and we can’t handle this ourselves so we needed someplace where one of us could be in touch with you. Tess is going to attend Las Cruces in the fall while the rest of us will be scattered across the U.S. So we figured, since Las Cruces is close to our home base we would use Las Cruces. John at the bank really didn’t recommend you… he just sort of pointed to your name for us since we don’t know anybody in the area.” Liz answered.

“I see, but you still haven’t answered my question? What do you need from me?”

“We need someone to prepare our financial statements for us, to do our tax preparation for us and to be an all around business advisor for us. Can you handle that?” Tess wanted to know. She was the only one who had any kind of bookkeeping knowledge and that was minimal at best; one high school semester elective, but it was better than nothing.

“I think I can do that for you. Just how involved will I be in this business?”

“Just the accounting end of it so far and if we have any questions, like where do we get a federal ID number, maybe you would be able to point us in the right direction.”

“I see. And who would I send my billing to? “

“Can you e-mail it to Tess Harding? She’s our treasurer and will handle the finances. She in turn will e-mail us information as needed. Maria DeLuca is our secretary, so if you need other information you can contact her, how’s that?” Liz asked.

“It sounds like the four of you have given this a lot of thought.”

“Not really, we’re just basically putting one foot in front of the other; things seem to be moving right along in spite of our ignorance.”

Les laughed…

“All right ladies. Let me take down all of your information and I’ll be glad to do your books for you. Aren’t you interested in my fees?”

“Whatever they are I am sure they’ll be fair…I don’t know why but we sort of trust John’s judgment.” Liz answered with her killer smile.

“Well, I’ll tell John what you said. I charge $75.00 per hour, that pays my bookkeepers and then I oversee their work. Is this agreeable to all of you?”

Liz looked at her friends and they all reluctantly nodded…

“I guess it will have to be. As we said before, we need an accountant and we will have to trust John’s judgment. So far I don’t think we have made any bad decisions and we certainly don’t want to start now so $75.00 an hour will be fine.” Isabelle answered. The other three just sat and nodded in agreement.

After giving John all of the information they needed and he informed them of all the information they would have to provide to get a federal ID number they were off. They asked John if they could use his computer and printer for a quick little letter and he of course agreed.

Maria immediately sat down and composed a letter of corporate minutes indicating that they had held a meeting and made all of the decisions regarding the name and officers of their business and when they were finished they had Les look it over and he was very impressed. They had done a marvelous job; they even back dated the letter to last week which was going to work out just fine at the federal building. The part they liked best was their name at the top of the letter: “LIMelighT, Inc.” They used Maria’s address as a mailing address; they would discuss getting a post office box on the way home…

“Now Les, can you tell us where to get this federal ID number.” Liz wanted to know.

“Of course Liz…” and he gave the tiny brunette the address to the federal building that happened to be only three blocks away.

The girls were thrilled. It was now 1:30 p.m. and they needed to really get hopping if Maria and Liz were to get back to Roswell before 6:00.

They were in the federal building exactly 45 minutes…there was no waiting, if you can believe it, and they were out of there and even had time to do a drive through before heading back to Roswell.

The conversations in the car on the way back bordered on fear, excitement and then more fear bordering on terror. They each took turns calming each other down, interjecting thoughts and then they would get excited again.

They hadn’t had time to get to Kinko’s but Isabelle and Tess decided they could handle that tomorrow since Liz and Maria had day shift. The post office box was tabled for a later date since Maria’s mom worked as did the other three mothers…so any mail that came to the houses could easily be diverted from the parents.

“You know what to do Prez…just give them the disc and let them handle it. We can e-mail the addresses, print them out and mail them or just phone them in. Whichever works for them. We won’t ship any merchandise until the credit card has cleared and appears on our account. John said it would take three days. We have over a 2500 hits and we need to see how many of those hits are actual orders. Tess, can you check that out tonight or do you have candy striper duty?” Liz asked.

“No, I can check it out when I get home. Should I deposit the funds if we have orders?”

“Absolutely, we have to let our customers know that it will probably be two weeks before delivery. We need to set up Kinko’s, see how much money they want up front, if any, and then get the information to them. I think two weeks is reasonable don’t you?” Isabelle asked.

“Yes, I think two weeks is quite reasonable. Now all we have to do is start depositing and shipping. God, this is going to be so much fun.” Tess giggled out cheerfully,

“So far it is anyway. Let’s hope we aren’t in over our heads.” Maria interjected.

“It doesn’t look like it. We have our ID number and we have hired people to do the work for us. Of course Tess will have to pay the bills, which might not be fun.” Liz thought out loud.

“What’s to pay, the accountant, Yahoo and Kinko’s, hell I pay more than that with my personal stuff.” Tess added…

They all laughed and continued on home.

*

Lizza: Thank you so much, they'll find out soon enough...
Carolyn: I sort of thought that with Kyle's experience with motor homes that he might like to be something more than a mechanic, he deserved it.
Eve: So glad to hear it's making sense and it's just a piece of fluff, like all of my fics.
Cardinal: Anything worth doing is worth doing right. For this story Kyle needed to be part of the collegiate picture and mechanical engineering just seemed to fit. We'll let Alex do the electronics engineering...

***

Chapter 12

Maria and Liz barely made it to the Crashdown in time to make their shifts and Jeff wanted to know if they had anything to tell him…wondering why they were gone all day.

“Where did you guys take off to so early this morning and what took all day?”

“Oh, we just ran over to Las Cruces to check it out. Isabelle is thinking about going there instead of Albuquerque” Liz answered as Maria looked on in shock.

“Well yeah, we checked out the campus, available subjects, the guys…” and Liz grinned at her dad who only shook his head and went upstairs to have some of Nancy’s dinner.

“God, you better tell Isabelle what you just told your dad, I don’t think she’s going to be real happy about that.” Maria told Liz in no uncertain terms…neither girl really knowing that the thought had crossed Isabelle’s mind in the past couple of days.

*

Tess checked the internet when she got to her room and they now had 3000 hits. She started to plow through to see how many credit card numbers were listed and out of the 3000 hits there were 1785 credit card numbers. ‘MY GOD I’m going to need help with this shit’ she thought to herself and then called Isabelle.

“Hey, Isabelle…there are over 3000 hits and 1785 charges; I don’t’ think I can handle this all myself.”

“Don’t panic Tess, we’ll get over to Kinko’s tomorrow and see what they can do for us. Let’s check out the local one first and see what the story is on all of this and then go from there.”

“Fine…but this is insane.”

“I know…we’ll handle it Tess; remember this is going to be fun.”

“Yeah; fun!”

And they hung up.

In the meantime Max’s shift was over and Michael had just clocked out, Kyle was headed out the door as his phone rang. “Hey Mike, what’s up?”

“Just clocked out and headed to my car. What did you have in mind?” Kyle wanted know.

“Well, I just got off too, why not come on over here to the Crash for some dinner…I’ll catch Max before he heads out.”

“Hey, sounds great buddy, see you in a few.” Kyle answered as he reached out and unlocked his car.

So the three of them met up at the Crash before heading on home; Jim Valenti had night duty so there wouldn’t be anything at the Valenti house. Michael definitely didn’t feel like fixing anything after he got home and Max hadn’t seen Liz since yesterday and besides Diane’s cooking wasn’t anything to write home about anyway, so that’s where they all met up.

Max walked right back toward the back door when he didn’t see Liz and caught her coming from the break room, stopped for a little sugar and some friendly smiles and they walked out into the dining room together. Max headed to his booth and Liz to the back of the counter for two cherry cokes, Michael already had his.

The guys sat and talked about their day, Michael wanting to know how Toby’s hand was, and Max just wanting to watch Liz. She would pass by his table, give him a dreamy smile and continue on with her duties. The young men had an enjoyable meal together before they all took off for home. Maria promising to stop by Michael’s after work and Max promising to come back at 10:00 to see Liz. She was floating.

It had really been a good day.

Isabelle got home and started to read the brochures John had given her from the bank and became very intrigued; it seemed that they were also connected to a maximizer account as well and $75.00 per month would automatically be withdrawn for a service charge free account. That sounded really wonderful. If this thing took off the way it looked like it was going to then they could use the forced savings, maybe they could add to that amount.

Soon her phone rang, this time it was Alex and she was thrilled….

“Hey Isabelle, are you going to be busy tonight, I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“Hey Alex, of course I’m not busy come on over anytime you’re ready.”

“Can we go to the park or something?”

“Yeah, I’ll be ready. Just come on over.” And they hung up. Isabelle immediately went to her closet and pulled out a pair of ¾ jeans, a tank top and some sandals. It wasn’t that the slacks were uncomfortable but she was uncomfortable from being on her best behavior all day and she was ready for some relaxation.

After she was dressed, with fresh makeup and a brush out and fresh pony tail she was ready to head on out just as the door bell rang.

“ISABELLE…Alex is here.”

“Coming Mother.” And down the stairs she ran.

“Hey Alex.” And she gave her boyfriend a little peck on the lips as she grabbed her clutch, told her mother goodbye and headed out the door.

When they arrived at the park Alex found a nice shady tree to park under, went around to the passenger side of the car and helped Isabelle out, he would have it no other way; he then opened the trunk to retrieve a blanket and a six pack of cherry cokes that he had placed into an insulated carrying case. Isabelle watched her boyfriend as he made every move deliberate as though he was rehearsing something…’what are you up to Alex?’ she thought to herself.

“Over here Isabelle, I think this is a nice spot.” As Alex found a quiet spot where there were no people and he spread the blanket down on the grass. Isabelle was getting a little concerned…She took her place on the blanket after it was laid and sat Indian fashion as Alex took a spot across from her.

“What’s up Alex; you look worried.”

“No. I’m not. I was just thinking about something today as I worked on Mom’s volunteer project she’s got going over at the Senior Citizens Home. You know Isabelle, you can’t start taking any law or pre-law classes for a couple of years yet.”

Isabelle interrupted Alex’s thought with an

“I know” she figured out what was on his mind.

“Well, I was wondering, why can’t you spend the first couple of years at Las Cruces before heading on out to Albuquerque?”

“There’s no reason at all Alex, I’ve been thinking of that too.” What she didn’t tell him was, instead of Albuquerque she was thinking of Harvard Law after that. Maybe he could transfer to Harvard, Yale or even Boston after a couple of years too. Something they could think about while at Las Cruces.
Alex brightened up and said…

“You have. Oh that’s wonderful Isabelle. I am so happy, you have no idea. I didn’t know how to bring it up and here you were thinking of it too. That’s just wonderful…” Alex was all but bouncing off the blanket and Isabelle’s heart swelled just watching him. He was so sweet and so easy to please. She couldn’t wait to start school.

“I guess I’ll have to see about that the first thing tomorrow. I just hope I’m not too late. They are all universities of New Mexico so I don’t see how it could hurt.”

“Neither do I Isabelle…want to go home and get on the internet and see what you can do?”

“Oh Alex, let’s just enjoy each others company for tonight. We haven’t been alone in weeks and that seems like forever.”

“All right, that sounds good too. Hey, I’ve been working on a new song, I have my guitar in the back seat of the car, want to hear it?”

“Yeah, I’d love to.” And Isabelle lay back with her hands under her head looking up at the leaves on the tree and she smiled. This was going to be great. She wasn’t ready for a total separation from everyone and if she went to Albuquerque she would be the only one there. She liked this idea better…and it was going to work right in with Liz’s lie to her dad. The lie Isabelle knew nothing about.

*
When Kyle got home he gave Tess a call before jumping into the shower and she answered immediately on recognizing the number…

“Hey Kyle, are you home for the evening?”

“Yeah, I just got in…met Max and Michael at the Crash and we had some dinner together. What are you up to tonight?”

“Nothing, absolutely nothing, what did you have in mind?”

“Wanna come over? Dad’s working tonight, its Owen’s night off.”

“Sure, what time?”

“How about now…by the time I’m out of the shower you’ll be here.”

“I’m on my way…see you in a few.”

Tess closed off her computer, changed into some jeans and a tank top and was on her way in record time. This other stuff could wait until tomorrow; they had to have a corporate meeting about it anyway.

*~*~*

Carolyn: Things are really moving along in their lives that's for sure...
Lizza: Oh, I think that they'll get caught somewhere along the line, no doubt...
Eve: Oh it's going to overwhelm them real soon now...
Cardinal: Chapter 11, they hired a professional accountant but they still have to do the merchandising, just like you said, and the only thing this accountant will do is the year end accounting, they'll do the ordering, paying the bills, and depositing the funds...the accountant will do the books.
Smilieuk: Here in the US you can open an account at any time...of course a business account usually requires a business license to do business in a city, which the girls really aren't doing actually, they will be scattered all over the US so they have not applied for a city business license. They have applied for and were granted a Federal Corporate ID number in order to conduct their business as a corporation and to use in order to file and pay income taxes. As long as the IRS gets their pound of flesh they don't care as do the banks; as long as they get their money they pretty much don't care either. The accounts at the bank are open to the scrutinazation of the auditors but in most cases the audits are to make sure the banks are being run properly. It all gets very involved and is not really pertinent to the story per se'. So, in all honesty, having set up three businesses myself...just go to the bank, fill out the paper work and give them your money. The bank will require operating numbers, such as the corporate ID number but that will have been given to the bank as soon as they had it and now that I think about it I did not put that part into the story. But keep in mind the banker and the accountant have been very helpful to them. I hope that answers your questions, somewhat, I do have a degree in accounting so I am familiar with a lot of this stuff!

***
Chapter: 13
Date: 6/11/02

The next morning Tess called Isabelle at about 8:30 just as Isabelle was waking up.

“Hey Tess, are you ready to go?”

“Not to Las Cruces; I think we need more information and I think we can find that out locally. What do you think?”

“Sounds good to me…Shall I pick you up this time, oh, and Tess, I read something in Dad’s books…did you keep track of your mileage yesterday? We need to do that so we can be reimbursed by the company. So if you didn’t we’ll need to get a rough estimate on how many miles you traveled.”

“Oh Isabelle, don’t worry about it. My dad pays for my gas.”

“No Tess, that’s not right. If its business related then the company will pay it. Listen to your president.”

Tess giggled and said fine, “I’ll pick you up in about 45 minutes and I’ll take my little note book and write down my mileage. How’s that?”

“That sounds great, now let me get a shower so I can be ready when you get here, just come on in. Nobody is home today; they’re all working but me.”

“Sounds good. Give me forty five minutes.” And they rang off.

When Tess and Isabelle got to Kinko’s they were filled in on all kinds of information they had misunderstood.

“Yes we ship and deliver to the company that placed the order…no we do not ship individual pieces that were ordered to your various addresses. You can purchase a scale and some postage labels and address labels; go on line and order your postage from the post office. They don’t charge you any fees except the postage you order and then you print out the amount on the labels; put them on your parcels along with address labels you have printed out and take them to the post office for shipping. Actually it works out quite nicely.”

“Hmmm, that’s interesting. And how many, say calendars, can you print in a week?”

“Well, once we have the layout and place the initial order you can keep adding to it. I would say… the initial order should take about a week to get back to us. We’ll deliver it to you or you can pick it up. If you know who you want to send them to you can do an address and postage printout immediately. If you are adding to the addresses you can figure out how many addresses are in a sheet of labels and just add to the list until you have a full sheet and print it out. You can get all of that stuff right over at the office supply across the street.”

“Thank you. That’s great.” And the two girls went across the street and they started checking out labels, a scale and also print cartridges.

“Isabelle, look at these cartridges, they range from 19.00 clear up to 59.00 dollars. Which one do you use?”

“You know what, let’s just buy a printer that uses the cheapest cartridge and charge it to the business. We can e-mail addresses to you or Maria, whoever decides to print this stuff and just work from there. It’s a business expense after all, why wear our printers out when we are going to need them for school.” Isabelle was thinking out loud…

“Right, we need a corporate meeting. Shall we do that tonight? I think Liz and Maria are working days all summer from here on out. What do you say?” Tess didn‘t want to make any decisions without everybody’s input.

“I think you’re right, it’s time for a meeting. In the meantime should we get the damned stuff? Did you bring your check book?” Isabelle just wanted to get things done.

“Yeah, I stuck it in the other end of my purse so I wouldn’t confuse it with my personal stuff. Let’s call them first and see what they say.”

“Great, you call Maria, I’ll call Liz.”

“Let’s hope they have time to talk.”

“Yeah…”

So Tess called Maria, who just happened to be on her break and Liz’s phone went right to voice mail…

“Hey curly, what’s up?”

“Cut that out Maria…hey we’re at the office supply store. Kinko’s will deliver to us but they aren’t going to ship each individual envelope like we thought. Should I purchase the labels, the scale and a printer and a couple of ink cartridges? We thought we’d get the printer that has the cheapest cartridges. What do you think?”

“I say do whatever you have to do and I know Liz agrees; she’s covering for me right now so she can’t talk but I’ll tell her as soon as there’s a lull. We’ll get together later. Oh, and Tess, didn’t we already figure the weight of the calendars? What do we need a scale for?”

“You’re right Maria; can you guys take lunch together?”

“Not technically, but come over around 3:00, we get off then and we should be able to have a conversation on the roof.”

“Great, 3:00 it is.”

“Well, what did she say?” Isabelle asked

“She’s on her break and Liz is on the floor but if we go over about 3:00 they should be able to talk to us. In the meantime she said to get what we needed. We should have listened to Liz when she thought about adding overhead to the COG (cost of goods sold).”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We can get on the internet and add shipping and handling to the orders that should cover it. We’ll have to contact the credit card customers and ask them if that’s agreeable though before we tack on postage and label and ink charges.”

“Yeah, and that’s not going to be that easy.”

“Hey, we’ll do a form letter, copy and paste it and split the names into four and just e-mail the information to them. It’s going to cost more to ship overseas than the $2.15 to ship in the states, so we’ll have to figure that out. The handling charges will be a set fee based on the cost of labels and such. You know this is really getting involved don’t you?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have anything else to do really, and I think it’s going to pay for itself. We can stop the orders anytime we want to…and since it’s next years calendar I think we should stop mailing sometime in Oct. or Nov. because we’re going to be having finals and holidays and we don’t need this business during that time.”

“No we don’t…more to discuss at our corporate meeting. Let’s just get this stuff and be on our way.”

“Great, do we need a cart or something?” Tess wondered.

“No, we take one of these slips for the printer and the rest is easy to handle…”

So off they went finding what they needed and an hour later they were loaded with the necessary office supplies they needed, along with four mileage note books, and they were happy as clams. They should be, the orders were piling up faster than you could say ‘lickety split’. It was the beginning of June; they were planning on stopping in Oct. or Nov. That would give them four or five months of business…one good thing about a corporation, it never dies.

*

So Isabelle and Tess headed back to Tess’s house and set things up in her room and started to work on the internet. They decided not to deposit any of the money into their account until they composed a notice to all buyers of the added charges…explaining that the costs would vary due to the location in the world because they were getting hits from everywhere and had no idea what the postage would be for the various areas.

After they had the letter composed they printed it out and then logged onto the post office site. There they found many menus to choose from and decided that they should check out bulk mailing; they had never heard of it but the post office gave very explicit instructions that were easy to understand. There was a nice discount if you used that site and maybe if they could set their computer to sort the addresses by zip code they could take advantage of presorted mail as well…then they could just haul the calendars to the post office and do bulk mailings.

They researched that, checked the pricing on the various countries they intended to ship to so far and some of the costs were going to be almost the cost of the calendar. They incorporated this information into their news letter and decided that it was time, past time, to hold another corporate meeting.

The two young ladies headed out to Tess’s SUV and promptly made their way to the Crashdown…thank God they missed their significant others who had just headed back to their own jobs. Isabelle spotted Alex taking off the other direction as they pulled in and parked. Damn, she wasn’t ready to talk to him yet.

When they walked through the door Liz immediately poured four cherry cokes and headed over to the back booth to where Maria was headed from her exit through the back door.

“Agnes, you’re in charge now, we’re clocked out. If it gets busy though we’ll join you for a while until Dad gets back.”

Agnes looked at Maria with a disgusted look on her face and was about to say something when Jeff walked out of the back room with a box of straws to stock the dispenser behind the counter…She looked over at her boss and decided that it was time that she just accepted the fact that those two girls ran the place and went about her business.

Jeff just turned his back to her and grinned. He was going to miss Liz and he was also going to see that her final couple of months before embarking on a new life was as pleasant as possible and the rest of the crew could just suck it up. He shook his head at the thought and then noticed Jose’ looking at him through the pass through and the man grinned right along with Jeff. Jose’ had known these two since they were in diapers and nobody was going to hurt them on his watch…

*
“Well pres…what did you find out?” Liz asked excitedly.

“We bought a printer, a couple of ink cartridges and some labels for addresses and postage. Kinko’s will ship to us or deliver to us but they won’t be shipping each calendar individually…that’s up to us but the girl gave us great tips and we checked them out on the internet.”

“We can do bulk mailing, which will cost us less and we can buy our postage on line from the post office. We deposit money to an account set up for us and as we deplete the funds the post office keeps track and then we’ll need to deposit more.”

“We checked out the addresses of our depositors, who by the way are all over the world, and we decided to send a letter to them via e-mail before depositing any money. The one’s that live out of the country will have to pay more postage than in the continental U.S. so we want to make sure they are aware of the extra charges. We don’t know what to add onto to their bills for handling charges yet, so we’re going to figure out how much per calendar it’s going to cost based on the ink and label usage.”

“I think the printer should be an overhead item since we don’t know how long it will last. I would think it shouldn’t take too much of a beating just printing labels. We bought the printer based on the price of the ink cartridges.”

“Oh, and we got each of us a mileage note book…our business miles are tax deductible so anytime we do an errand for business write it down. We won’t be reimbursing ourselves since we are the principles of the business and all the money we earn is ours but Les will need to know this. Just keep a record. Keep the note book on your dash board, in your purse or somewhere. Jot down the odometer reading before and after, it’s no big deal.” And Tess was practically breathless.

“Boy, you guys have been busy. What do you think… is it going to work? You know we have to stuff these things and mail them, are you willing to do all of that?” Maria asked.

“Of course we are…” Tess nodded and the other two agreed.

“Well, okay…let’s have a look at the letter.” Liz said. Tess passed it on over to her and she read it and gave it to Maria who read it in silence.

“That’s pretty straight forward. Explaining that the U.S. postage would most likely be $2.15 and the out of U.S. would be $4.33 or there abouts.” That was pretty clear to all of them and they decided to go ahead and post it and see what happened.

They were all starting to feel a little giddy.

“When are you going to go to Las Cruces and set this up with Kinko’s?” Liz asked.

“Probably tomorrow, I don’t think we should wait any longer to get this started. They will ship the calendars to us once the initial order is set up and then when we get there for school we can just pick them up there instead of having them shipped to us.” Isabelle added.

“What do you mean ‘we’?” Tess asked.

“Well Alex and I talked it over and we decided that I should probably go to Las Cruces to school for the first two years and take as many courses as I can and then move on to Albuquerque or even Yale, maybe Harvard. Alex said that by that time we should have a pretty good idea of what paths we really want to follow. We may find something that is totally out there that we never gave a thought to before. I think it will be fun to be with Alex away from home.”

Tess scooted over in the booth and gave her friend a great big hug, she was so happy to know that one of them would be with her that she could hardly contain herself.

Jeff caught this action from his station behind the counter and smiled, it looked like Isabelle had made her decision to go to Las Cruces so their trip yesterday was not in vain. He wished Liz was going to be that close to home but she had her mind set for years on Harvard, and he smiled…so had he, and it didn’t look like anything was going to change her mind. What with Maria headed to Julliard for music and Michael headed to New York to the International School of Cooking they would be together also. This was going to be a big change for all of them. Wow…and reality started to set in, he was not only losing Liz and Maria but Michael as well.

When the girls had finished their meeting, Maria, being the good secretary, wrote down the minutes in her mileage note book to transfer to her computer when she got home and Tess smiled. Maria shrugged her shoulders and smiled back. We’re business people ladies; we have to act like it. We don’t want to be doing anything wrong here. And they all laughed, it was getting scarier by the minute. Maria was right.

When Tess got home she sat down and built a spread sheet to handle their assets and liabilities…she made an entry for Capital Investment and offset it to Cash in bank, she set up her expense accounts, using the expenses they had accumulated so far, categorizing them according to her text book, and continued on from there. She couldn’t imagine needing too much at this point and then she started to test her calculations to make sure everything was working. When she was finished everything looked great. She added Les Biby’s address into her address book, sat back and smiled. So far it had been a very productive day. She then proceeded to copy their notification letter over to their depositors and was going to send it off when she took a better look at the job before her…there were now over 6,000 hits but only 4230 depositors. She had to copy over 4230 letters and decided to call on her cohorts for help; this could take her all night. If she e-mailed each one of her friends a copy of the letter they could each take a little over a thousand it would be a whole lot faster, she smiled and then got busy.

To” Liz@AOL.com,Maria@AOL.com.,Isabelle@AOL.com

From; Tess@AOL.com.

Tess sent them a message telling each of them where to start and attached a copy of the letter and then started working on her 1000 plus. It only took her the better part of an hour and she decided that any new ones that came in after this group could wait until tomorrow.

Maria, Isabelle and Liz all received a text from Tess to check their e-mails and they laughed. Tess was making an excellent Treasurer and they were all pleased with the way things were working out.

They all did as Tess asked and when they were finished they texted her back at various hours during the evening advising her that the mission had been accomplished…Tess was with Kyle when she started getting the messages and Kyle wanted to know why she was so happy…

“Tess, you look like the cat that ate the canary…what’s got you so tickled?”

“Nothing Kyle…life is good. Did I tell you that Isabelle has decided to go to Las Cruces with us? Isn’t that great! You know what Kyle; I’ll bet we could afford to get off campus housing cheaper than dorm living with the four of us chipping in. What do you say? We could do our own food, have a washer and dryer and it would be so much nicer. If we all chipped in I’ll bet our parents would help.”

Kyle looked at Tess’s happy face and out and out belly laughed…

“Tess, do you think our parents are going to help us shack up?” And he laughed even harder.

“Kyle Valenti, what a thing to say!”

“Tess, it’s the truth. My God, the four of us living together, that’s a parent’s nightmare.”

“No it isn’t Kyle, do you think they’re all stupid? We’ve been friends forever and we’ve been couples for over three years…get real Kyle, they were our age once. They know the score.”

“Do you think so?” Kyle was a little embarrassed and shocked by Tess’ statement.

“Think so Kyle? I know so…come on!”

“Well, let’s run it by them and see what they say.”

“I don’t know about Jim but my mom is going to laugh.”

“I don’t think she’s going to laugh Tess.”

“Trust me I know her better than you, she’s going to laugh.”

“Yeah, laugh right before she says “NO”!” Kyle picked Tess up and swung her around…”You have a dad too you know.” He chuckled as he planted a kiss on her cheek before setting her down again…

“Yeah, he might be a problem.” Tess said, and they both laughed.

*

Eve: The boys are okay so far!!!
Carolyn: Kids seem to forget that we all started out as babies. At least that's been my experience, little do they know that we've been there too. You're right.
Smileeuk: I'm no genius honey, honest, and I'm also retired with nothing to do, this keeps me busy.
Cardinal: Max is going to Harvard along with Liz. Sorry, I thought I'd included that...

****

Chapter: 14
Wednesday: June 12/02

The next morning Tess and Isabelle met Liz and Maria right at 7:00 a.m. to get their breakfast sandwiches and to head on out to Las Cruces once again.

“Do you have your mileage book with you?” Maria asked before she even poured their morning coffee into the Styrofoam cups…

“Yes mother, it’s on my dashboard and I entered my odometer reading before I took off…are you happy?” Tess grinned as she pinched Maria’s cheek…

“Very, now why so early today?” Liz wondered aloud to her two friends.

“Well, Isabelle wants to go over to the admissions at Las Cruces and see if she can transfer, ALREADY.” And all four of them laughed.

“We’ll do that after we go to Kinko’s of course so we probably won’t be back until later today. Do we have any plans for this evening?”

“None that I’m aware of…I’ll check the website as soon as I get upstairs and see if we need to do any work there, other than that I think I’d like to spend some time with Max so if any of you mind speak now or forever hold your peace.” Liz said as she pushed a stray hair behind her ear with her left hand…

All three of the others noticed this…and the ring on her finger.

“LIZ!” Maria yelled…

Liz jumped a foot back and looked at her friend like she had just been shot…

“WHAT!” She screamed back…and Jeff heard the commotion…

“What’s that on your finger?”

Liz looked down at her left hand and smiled, then she looked back up into three sets of eyes staring at her…

“This is my graduation present from Max.” And she held her hand out for the rest of them to have a look…they stood there in shock.

“Are you engaged?” Isabelle asked, because her brother hadn’t mentioned it to anybody as far as she knew…

“No, I’m not engaged, I am” and Liz held her two hands up and made quotation signs with her fingers, “ ‘engaged’ to be engaged. It’s a promise ring.”


“Well, okay…but do you wear a promise ring on your left hand?” Tess asked.

“I don’t know where you wear a promise ring to tell the truth. I’ve never had a promise ring before but I have my class ring on my right hand so it’s only befitting that I wear my promise ring on my left hand.”

“Oh.” Maria said, just a little too skeptically and returned to the task of pouring coffee with a very serious expression on her face. She figured that Max and Liz would most likely get married some day but this was one step in the process that she was not prepared for.

In the meantime, Jeff was in the kitchen preparing the grill and the French fryer and overheard the explanation of the ring and sort of smiled to himself as he worked. ‘At least it’s not what I thought it was…this is a little better, not much but a little.’ And he continued on with his kitchen duties as the girls talked.

Michael overheard the conversation as well but he had heard it all as he did the prep work for the food station and he was wondering why they had to go to Kinko’s…oh well, I guess if it was important they would share and he kept chopping onions…wow, what a job!

*

When Isabelle and Tess arrived at Kinko’s they headed straight back to the service desk with their disc and met up with, none other than one of the girls that graduated from W. Roswell last year. They stopped dead in their tracks, said hello to Courtney and said they’d be right back.

After getting out of hearing range Tess looked at Isabelle with her eyes about bulging out of her head…

“What do we do now?”

“Ask if there’s another Kinko’s around here?” Isabelle squeaked.

“Right, and if there isn’t?”

“Ask if she sees the finished product?” Again Isabelle with the squeaking…

“That’s going to arouse some suspicions Isabelle, if she doesn’t have any questions now she’s sure as hell going to have some if we go asking questions like that…she’ll make it her business to find out what this is.” Tess jabbed back…

“Yeah, well okay then, why don’t we head on over to school, get that chore done and maybe when we get back someone else will be behind that desk.” Isabelle was practically frantic now.

“Okay, but if she’s still here Isabelle, we go for it…We can’t stop now, we’ve got over 5000 paid for orders as of 6:00 a.m. this morning and we’re not stopping for anyone. Understand?” Tess was determined to get this thing rolling.

“Isabelle, I billed out over $102,084.00 this morning, do you know how much money that is Isabelle? Over one hundred Thousand .dollars and that’s our first deposit. All of those letters came in with positive answers Isabelle and I billed out 3760 of them. Isabelle that leaves 2430 to go just from yesterday, I don’t give a flyin’ flip who finds out about this…$102,084.00, do you have any idea how hard it is for me to stay calm? Isabelle, I’m about to have a coronary over here and we’re worried if someone finds out? Hell, shout it to the world, I don’t give a shit!” Tess was on a roll.

“You’re kidding?” Isabelle stood there in shock.

“No Isabelle, I’m not kidding. Now let’s get over to the school and get you transferred and get our asses back over here…now!”

“Okay.” Isabelle couldn’t say anything more; she was too shocked to carry on a conversation, one that made sense anyway.

*

Over at Wells Fargo bank John was curious as to what was going on with his new account from last week and decided to take a peek…’Good God what are those girls selling?’ He wondered…and the deposits kept rolling in. He just sat there and shook his head. He decided to make a phone call…

“Hey Les, are you busy for lunch today?”

“Hey John, what’s up?”

“Well, do you remember the four foxes I sent over to you last week?”

“Yeah, Limelight, Inc., What about them?”

“Well, they just had a deposit to their account in excess of $102,000.00 and I was wondering if you knew what they were up to?”

“I haven’t a clue but I do know that they are on the up and up. They have their federal ID number, they have their laws of incorporation filed and they are working within all the limits of the federal government. So far, whatever it is, I think they’re doing just fine and if they’ve deposited that much money maybe they just might need a financial advisor…maybe I should give them a call. It would be a shame to let that money sit there idle and collect the measly amount of interest you’re going to be paying them.”

“Maybe I should give them a call and discuss it with them…if you call they’ll know we’re discussing them and that really isn’t the way to do business. I was just wondering if you knew what they were selling…I’ll call them.”

“You do that, in the meantime I’ll check out some risk free investments for them…maybe some tax shelters. It can’t hurt. I think they’ve just happened onto a gold mine by mistake.”

“Well, whatever it is the money has started rolling in. I’ll talk to you later…do you want to have lunch?”

“No, I have plans with the partners, talk to you later John and let me know what the girls decide.”

“I’ll do that…enjoy your lunch.” And the two friends rang off.

*

Meanwhile over at the college Isabelle was busily convincing an admittance clerk that she really needed to transfer her acceptance from Albuquerque to Las Cruces…then it hit her,

“I need to be closer to home in case my mother needs me due to illness in the family.” Isabelle choked out…

Tess had to excuse herself and headed to the exit as rapidly as her short little legs would carry her…then she giggled…”that might work!”

The admittance clerk reviewed the records Isabelle presented, explained that she may have to make some adjustments to her curriculum because some of the classes were already full and Isabelle gave her the best genuine smile she could muster and told her she would be more than glad to check things out on the first day. So they worked out a tentative schedule for her and Isabelle made her way out of the building to find her friend.

“Illness Isabelle! Good God couldn’t you come up with anything better than that?” Tess barked…

“No.” Isabelle answered and strutted off toward the car.

“Well? Did it work?” Tess wondered…

“Yes!” And Isabelle pumped air as they got into the car. Both girls were giddy as they headed back to Kinko’s.


When they arrived at the store Courtney was gone and were they relieved. They explained to the clerk what they needed and presented the disc. They further explained that they would e-mail new orders weekly and they thought it would probably be right at the5,000 mark per week. They wanted the shipments sent to…

“Oh God Isabelle, where do we get these things delivered to?” Tess asked in a terrified voice…

“Damn!”

“Let’s call Liz?”

Isabelle agreed and out came the cell phones. Tess called Maria Isabelle called Liz. Both girls were in the break room at the time and both answered their phones at the same time…they heard two near hysterical voices…

“Where do we want these shipped?”

Maria looked at Liz and Liz thought for a second…

“Can they ship them out to the Roswell store? We can pick them up there until the middle of August and then you guys can pick them up at Las Cruces. Will that work?”

Isabelle looked at the clerk…

“Can you deliver these to the Roswell store until the middle of August and then we’ll pick them up here?”

“Sure, we can do that. No problem. Do you have a truck?”

“A truck?” Tess asked.

“Yeah, there are 24 calendars to a box and if you’re going to be picking up 5000 calendars that’s just over 208 boxes.”

“OH!” Tess and Isabelle said and Maria and Liz both heard…they all looked shocked, separated by miles but still in shock.

“We’ll get a truck…no problem.” Tess said and placed the order. Shit, how were they ever going to mail 208 plus boxes of calendars a week? Tess could always borrow her dad’s truck one day a week but they were definitely going to need help and a whole lot more ink cartridges.

They got back in the SUV and looked at each other; neither had anything to say and it was a very quiet trip back to Roswell.

*

Lizza: It's getting close Lizza, just a little more patience...
Carolyn: Hey, remember Johnny Cash: "How high's the water mama? Four feet high and risin'." I think it fits this situation a little...
Cardinal: When you're reading my fics. you can be as egotistical as you want to be, I don't mind. As for the girls being a little more careful, I think it's called adrenaline, no?
Eve: Yep, it's growing by leaps and bounds...beyond their wildest dreams.
Ilionka: They are surely digging a deep hole aren't they?

*

Chapter: 15
Still Wed. 6/12

Liz and Maria finished their shift in almost total silence; they did their jobs by rote and this did not go unnoticed by Jeff who was getting quite concerned. These aren’t the same two girls who were sitting over at that table yesterday morning that’s for sure.

Finally three o’clock came around and the two friends headed to their lockers to stow their head bands and aprons and then they both made a bee line upstairs to Liz’s balcony. Neither saying a word to the other…it was just understood.

“God Maria, we’re going to need help stuffing those damned things and mailing them…I can’t imagine how we’re going to do 5000 calendars in a week with just the four of us. We might have to hire some kids to help us.”

“Liz, just hold on a second and don’t panic. We don’t know how long it’s going to take us to do this. Let’s wait until we get our first order then we panic. My main concern is transporting the stuff from the warehouse to where ever and then getting them to the post office. I think that’s going to be our biggest problem.”

“Yeah well, Tess said she could borrow her dad’s truck to pick the stuff up and then we can probably use dad’s truck on a Saturday morning; the post office is open on Saturdays.”

“Yeah, that might work…” about that time Tess and Isabelle crawled through the window to join their friends.

“Hey Izzie, did you get enrolled okay?” Liz queried…

“Yeah, I did.” Isabelle answered less than enthusiastically…

“What’s wrong?” Maria asked…

“Nothing…I don’t know… do you think we can do this?” Isabelle wanted to know…

“Hold on one second…” Maria said as she made her way back through the window while the other three watched, wondering what the hell was wrong now.

Soon Maria joined them with pen and paper in hand and they all started to giggle…it was what they needed to break the funk they were in….

“What?” Maria asked.

“You’re taking this secretary thing quite seriously aren’t you? “ Tess asked as she nodded to the pen and paper in Maria’s hand.

“Of course I am…we need to have proof that we are serious about this and if we aren’t it’s time to stop right now, so start discussing.”

Isabelle was the first to speak…

“Okay, we are going to have to figure out just how long it’s going to take to stuff and label these things. If it’s going to take too long then we are going to need help. We can:

1: ask our collective boyfriends for help or,

2: hire someone to help us and pay them minimum wage and send them a miscellaneous 1099 at the end of the year.

I checked that out in those papers we got from the federal building.

If they make under $600.00 per year we don’t have to collect income taxes and stuff like that on them and make deposits to the federal government…but it is tax deductible. It’s up to us how we want to handle this. If we ask our boyfriends for help it doesn’t cost us anything…we also have to allow for corporate income taxes, so I don’t think we should spend any of the money we earn until we know just how much of it is ours. Did Tess tell you how much money she deposited this morning before we left?”

Liz and Maria both looked at Tess, waiting

“Just over one hundred two thousand dollars.” Tess said quietly.

“Did I hear you right? One hundred and two thousand?” Maria gulped…

“Yep, and the orders were still piling in. I say, if we can’t stuff and stamp these ourselves then we hire some kids to do it for us…shit, pay them under the table in cash. I don’t have a problem with that.”
Tess said…

“That’s not legal Tess.” Maria interjected…she wasn’t writing any of this down.

“Hey, it’s kids for God’s sake, who gives a shit? The federal government isn’t going to care if a couple of kids make 30 or 40 bucks on a week-end. They want the big guys and if they came after us we could just blow the whistle on them and say that they’re picking on little kids because they can’t take the time to catch bigger fish. They’d be the laughing stock of the nation…they already are for God’s sake.” Tess was on a roll…

“Okay, before we go making plans for something we don’t know we’re going to need let’s just wait and see how long it takes the four of us to do this…We’ll use the computer to sort the labels for us before it prints them, then we’ll print out the postage we need for the various zip codes…the one’s in the U.S. will be the easiest because they’ll all be $2.15 anything after that we’ll sort and print by address labels. One of us can be printing, one stuffing and two adding labels…one addresses and one does postage. Let’s see how it goes for the first five thousand and then we’ll know more of what we need.” That was the ever faithful, logical Liz.

“The printer wasn’t that expensive; maybe we should buy another printer or two and print them out faster. That way we’ll have one more stuffer or whatever, damn we have the money, let’s make this as easy as we can.” Maria suggested.

“Fair enough, let’s buy three more printers, one for each of us. We can split the printing up by zip codes and each print out say 1250 in our spare time and that way we won’t have to do it all while we’re stuffing and labeling. We also need to make one hefty deposit with the U.S. post office to cover this mailing we’ve got going.” Tess suggested…

“Fair enough, do we all agree? Three more printers, a case of ink cartridges and a whole lot more labels. I wonder if we should print the envelopes on a printer and not use labels…that would save us time and money.” Maria suggested…

“Yes it would, but I’ll bet we need a better printer than the cheap one we bought. It’s good enough for labels but I’m not so sure it’s going to be good enough to shove thousands of envelopes through it.” Isabelle said…

“Well, how about this, go get a better printer for the envelopes and we’ll use the cheap one for the labels. We are charging for handling and I think the handling would include printers, what do you think. We know the labels are going to work out at less than a penny apiece therefore a printer has been more than covered in those handling charges…no?” Tess suggested.

“Yes, I agree…maybe get another printer for labels and two better printers for the envelopes. That’s going to save a whole lot of man hours. Do we want to do this now…I think the office supply is open til 9:00 and its only 5:00.” Liz said.

“Let’s go then.” Said Tess and they all rose to their feet to head on out through the window.

*

Just as they were pulling out in Tess’s SUV Michael and Max were pulling in to the back parking lot hoping to catch their girlfriends for some fun at the park.

*

Cardinal: We have to wait until ch. 17 to see how the young man deal with "school supplies", but we're getting there...probably boring as hell but at least it's suspenseful, no?
Eve: They are so going down!
Carolyn: They're working on it, honest!

*


Chapter: 16
Still Wed. 6/12

“Hey Mr. Parker, is Liz home?” Max asked as he ran into Jeff in the back room…

“No Max, she just headed out the front door with the other three…was she expecting you?”

“No, not really but she did say she was free tonight when I talked to her at noon. We thought maybe her and Maria might like to go bowling or something tonight.”

“Well, I’ll let her know, she and Maria were still in their uniforms so I don’t think they’ll be gone too long.”

“Thanks Mr. Parker…we’ll just go out and have a coke and wait then.”

“Okay Max, or you could go upstairs and watch some TV if you wanted to.”

“No, that’s okay; we’ll wait in the dining room.”

“Okay Max, see you later.” Jeff was beginning to feel really sorry for those two, they were both hard working young men and even though Liz and Maria were hard workers too it was getting pretty apparent that they weren’t leaving a lot of time for their boyfriends.

Across town four young women waltzed right in to the local office supply store and headed right over to the printers…one of their fellow graduates came up to them and smiled. Liz recognized Pauly immediately and couldn’t believe he was working here. She didn’t think Pauly had the sense God gave a goose…

“Hey girls, how are you? By the way Liz that was a great speech, very insightful. Thank you for the message, are you girls looking for a printer?”

“Yes we are Paul,” Liz decided to drop the “y”, it was a little childish after all, “we need something that will handle envelope printing…lots of envelope printing and a case of ink cartridges to go with it and some postage labels and a case of ink cartridges for…” and she looked at Tess.

Tess pointed to the printer that they had purchased earlier in the day and Pauly was really happy to be of assistance…it had been a very slow evening and this was going to help sales tremendously.

Pauly showed the girls the printer that he thought would do the job for them and then Maria had some questions…

“Paul, why do you think this one is the best?”

Pauly looked at the pixie looking blond and smiled, he knew Maria from way back and she always had questions and it didn’t matter about what. She just had questions.

“Well Maria, it has the best drive of all of the printers sitting here…it’s made of something besides plastic, it’s gear driven instead of belt driven and I personally feel it will do the best job for you. The printer is a little pricier but all in all it has the best performance record of all of them sitting here. If you just wanted to print out an occasional report or letter, then yeah, any of them will work…but if you’re looking for heavy duty then this is the one.”

That was enough for all four of them and they took two of them, much to Pauly’s surprise and they also bought the cheap one besides two cases of ink cartridges for each printer and 5 boxes of 1000 ea. roll out labels and returned the sheet labels Tess and Isabelle had purchased earlier. Pauly wasn’t quite sure what they were up to but whatever it was it was certainly helping his job, that’s for sure.

When they got to the checkout counter the girl asked them if this was for a business and Tess pounced right on that…

“Yes it is as a matter of fact, it’s for “Limelight, Inc.” why?” and Tess smiled very big for the girl.

“Well, is it registered with us?” The clerk asked.

“No, but we’d like to, what does registering offer us?” Isabelle asked…

“Well, you get rewards for every dollar you spend and then you’ll get a rewards coupon in the mail for $25.00 that you can use toward a purchase when you reach $2500.00 in purchases.”

“Oh, then sign us up.” They all agreed and soon they were a rewards member at the office supply store.

“See how much you learn by asking questions.” Maria said and they all laughed at her in unison.

Tess paid for their purchases, coming right in at $6248.00 and that included their $50.00 rewards discount that was automatically figured in at the cash register, and Pauly took the printers and other items out to Tess’s SUV and the girls were off in no time at all. Tess had never written a check that size before in her life and the other three had never seen a check that size before. They were very quiet once again.

“Have any of you given any thought as to where we should stuff these things?” Maria asked.

“You know what, why don’t we rent one of those storage places and set up a folding table in it and work there? They aren’t that expensive and they have electricity, don’t they?” Liz asked.

“I don’t know, but even if they don’t we can take the printed envelopes and postage labels already printed with us and just stuff and paste.” Maria said.

“Okay, why don’t you two check that out in the morning? A Storage facility would be great, that way we’ll have some place to store the calendars when it’s time to stop stuffing. It’ll work out great…let’s do it.” Isabelle said.

So it was decided to rent a storage facility and buy a folding table on their way home. Tess’s SUV was starting to look like a moving van.

“Hey, what are we going to do with all of these printers?” Tess wanted to know.

“Give me one of the envelope printers and a box of ink cartridges and the rest of you decide what you want to print. Tess, you copy your addresses over to me when you get home and I’ll down load them onto my computer and start sorting by zip codes. I can e-mail them to the two postage printer holders and Tess you keep track of the depositors and the money. When it’s time to print we’ll just split the boxes and Isabelle can run half and I’ll run half…Tess and Maria can run the postage labels. I think Tess should have the U.S. and Maria can research and run out of country since Tess has the biggest job as far as time investment goes. What do you all think?” Liz asked.

They all felt that was more than fair and soon they were back at the Crashdown. Liz took her printer and ink cartridges and bid them all good bye and as Tess pulled around to the back end she saw Max’s jeep.

“Oh damn, Max is here and he’s going to have questions, he’s already suspicious.” Isabelle said.

“Hey, don’t sweat it, Liz can handle this…come on Maria, let’s get you loaded up just in case Michael’s in there and the last thing they need to see is all of these printers.” Tess said

So the three remaining girls immediately got out of the SUV and started to unload a printer and ink cartridges for Maria and then Tess and Isabelle were off and headed to the Evans’ home.

“Tess, do you think we should go and rent a facility tomorrow before we get a table?”

“Yep, no doubt about it. You know Isabelle; we have the cost of all of these purchases covered in the handling charge, so we are still making $10.05 per calendar plus any money left over from the handling. That really is quite a profit Isabelle.” Tess was more serious now than she had been since this started. She was starting to realize just how big this thing was getting.

“So tomorrow sometime we head out to look at storage facilities. We don’t need anything fancy but something clean will be nice.”

“Agreed, clean is a must, we don’t want to send out a dirty product.”

And they both started laughing…hysterical laughter permeated the SUV as it rolled down the highway. Tess practically had to pull over because she couldn’t see through her tears….They needed this release, it was good for both of them.
***

Lizza: The girls really weren't looking at the scenery when they got back, they were too busy with the conversation going on in the car but we're getting there.
Carolyn: As the song goes:"You gotta' keep rollin'", so let's roll!!!
Cardinal: So glad to see someone caught that "dirty product". moving right along here!
Eve: I don't think the boys see much of each other except for sports now that Kyle has a steady.

*

Chapter: 17
Still Wed. 6/12

When Liz walked into the Crashdown she was met with the honey eyes of none other than her ever faithful boyfriend and his best friend as well. She didn’t know if she was happy or distressed to see him….she knew he was going to ask her about the ink cartridges…it wasn’t the printer so much but no individual buys that much ink.

Max immediately saw his girlfriend loaded down with boxes and rushed to help her…when he saw what she was carrying and all the ink he tilted his head toward the box and said…

“What’s this?” As he took both of the boxes from her…

“Oh, it’s nothing really, just stocking up.”

“Uh huh, well, when you’re ready to share let me know. We know you four are up to something so I guess we’ll just have to wait.” Max smiled down at her as she held the swinging door open for him.

“Is Maria home yet?” Michael asked rather loudly from his spot in the last booth.

“She’s on her way there now Michael…ten minutes.” Liz answered back just as loudly.

“Great!” and Michael settled down with his coke as Max helped Liz upstairs with her boxes.

“Okay sweetheart, I’m not going to question you on this so, how would you like to go bowling or something this evening? A movie, miniature golf…just hang out, what do you say?”

“That sounds wonderful Max, just us or are other people involved in this invitation?”

“Well, Michael was going to ask Maria to join us…do you want to?”

“Yeah, sure. Give me half an hour to shower and change and I’ll be right down.” Liz was hoping to have some one on one time with Max but a double date sounded like fun too…there was always after.

Max headed on downstairs to meet Michael who was on his cell with Maria…

“Liz is up for it Michael how about Maria?”

Michael held up one finger as Maria rattled on about all the things she had to do and Michael waited patiently. After a couple of minutes Michael asked again…

“Do you want to go out with Max and Liz and do something fun or not?”

“yes.” she answered…

“Okay then, we’ll pick you up in about” Michael looked at Max, Max held up four then five fingers and Michael nodded, “forty five minutes Maria. Get busy.” And he hung up.

“She could have been showered and ready in the time it took her to tell me all about the things she had to do…of course going out tossed all of that out the window. So, is Liz getting ready?”

“Yeah, she’s showering and changing.”

“Did she say what she wanted to do tonight?”

“No, but I don’t think she’s eaten and if she hasn’t neither has Maria…maybe we should feed them and then decide what to do.”

“Sounds good, if we go bowling we can eat at the alley.”

“I’m not sure Liz would want a sandwich after serving them all day Michael…but we can ask.” Max grinned.

Michael shrugged, food was food to him. He didn’t understand the big fuss.

Right on the dot Liz was down in the dining room in exactly thirty minutes. Max smiled, she had everything figured out right down to the minute…something most people weren’t aware of with Liz. They accused Isabelle of being structured, they had no clue that his girlfriend was probably the most structured person he knew and that included his sister whom he lived with.

Liz smiled, bent down and kissed Max, gave Michael a friendly smile and asked if they were ready. She couldn’t find her dad so she asked Jose’ to tell him that she would be back by ten, she had a 6:00 a.m. alarm to answer and she needed at least seven hours sleep if she wanted to function like a human being.

“Ten Liz?”

“Yeah Max, I have to be up at 6:00 and down on the floor by 6:30 to get ready to open…If I get home at 10:00 it will take us til 11:00 to say good night and then I need time to get ready for bed…yeah Max, 10:00.”

“She’s got you Max, right down to the minute, as always.” And Michael laughed.

“Maria’s got mornings too Michael, and so do you so go right ahead and laugh.” Liz snarked…

“Yeah, yeah, general…I know.” And with that Michael made a call.

“Yeah, M’ria, can you stay over tonight?”

“Michael, I thought we were going out.”

“We are, but Liz wants to be home by 10:00 so if we bowl or play miniature golf we can be home early and you can spend the night. We can go to work in the morning together…just bring your clean uniform and wear your jeans…that way you can ride the bike.”

“Okay Michael, how soon will you be here?”

“I’m at your door right now…ding dong!” And Michael laughed.

Maria made her way to the door with her cell phone still in her hand, opened it up and looked right into her smiling boyfriends eyes…she loved him so much it hurt sometime, she needed to tell him that more often.

“Come in and wait until I throw a bag together Michael, I’ll be right with you.”

“No problem.” And Michael waved to Max raising one hand and holding up three fingers…Max laughed.

“Well, I guess that answers the question we’ve been asking ourselves for a long time.” Liz said.

“What question is that Liz?” Max wondered what she was talking about…

“Whether they are sleeping together or not?”

Max looked at Liz with a puzzled expression and then he chuckled and pulled her in close and kissed her forehead…

“Sweetheart, we are the only ones that aren’t…I thought you knew that.” Liz was shocked beyond belief, how could he …

“No! I didn’t know that…how is it you know?” Max raised one eyebrow at his girlfriend and smiled…”let it go Liz, just trust me on this.”

“Oh. Okay.” And Liz wondered how Max knew this about her friends and she didn’t…that was a puzzle.

While Michael stood in the living room waiting for Maria he noticed a printer and a box of ink cartridges…”okay, I’m not the brightest penny in the roll but damn, I know they’re up to something now…Liz had a printer, now Maria. No way are they getting ready for school when they already have printers. We need a powwow!”

When Maria came into the living room carrying her little duffle that would fit nicely on the back of Michaels bike he took it from her and opened the door. He grabbed her keys as she exited and locked up behind them before following her out to the jeep. Liz had already got out of the passenger seat and stepped aside so Maria could crawl in back and then Liz followed her because it was easier for Michael to sit up front. Michael stowed the duffle in the small compartment behind the back seat and then sat up front next to Max and they took off.

“Where are we going?” Maria wanted to know.

“Some place quiet where we can have a conversation.” Michael answered, just a little too seriously for the rest of the people…

“What do you mean some place quiet Michael, I thought you wanted to go bowling or something like that?” Max asked, just a little surprised at the change in Michael since his little trip to Maria’s house.

“Yeah well, plans change. Go someplace quiet Maxwell…where we can grab a bite and talk.” Max didn’t question, he headed for one of the less busy diners out on the highway and pulled in while the rest of the group remained just as quiet as Michael. Liz poked Maria on the leg and raised an eyebrow in question but Maria just shrugged…she had no idea what was going on.

*