* * *
—
When Jerome walked into Charlie’s office on Friday night, he looked disgruntled. Charlie was fairly certain it was about a new set of stickers Charlie had ordered to have printed and applied to an entire line of toys, with safety warnings for the parents.
“They look like shit. What’s the point of telling them their kids can break their necks, or an arm or a leg? Why not just put a sticker on the box, telling them ‘Don’t Buy This Toy.’ ” He was angry at Charlie, who looked unfazed by the comment. He’d heard it all before. It was a recurring argument between them.
“That’s always an option. You don’t want someone getting hurt, Jerome. Think of the lawsuits that would result.” Charlie knew a lawsuit would concern him, not the safety of a child. They were different-sized trampolines, which kids of all ages loved, but they had considerable risks if not properly supervised.
“They’ll sue us anyway, even with your damn stickers. I want you to cancel the stickers.”
“That wouldn’t be wise, Jerry. And you know it.” Charlie remained outwardly calm, respectful, and polite, as always.
“Then make them smaller and put them underneath the product where parents won’t see them.”
“That defeats the purpose. I don’t want to wait to do it until after someone gets hurt, and if you think about it, neither do you. Imagine some little girl paralyzed because her older brother let her use his trampoline.” The thought horrified Charlie but not Jerome.
“We’re not babysitters, we’re toy manufacturers. It’s the parents’ job to watch out for their kids, not ours,” he said cavalierly.
“It’s our job to wake the parents up and remind them of that, and that some toys could be dangerous,” Charlie insisted.
“I’m giving you till Monday to recall the product and get your damn sticker off before we put it on the market.” Threats usually worked for Jerry, with everyone but Charlie, who knew how to reason with him. Charlie usually won the argument, but Jerry needed to drag him in the dirt first. And, when he absolutely had to, Charlie gave in. Not this time. The issue was too important. They were within government guidelines, but Charlie wanted to go farther than that with this particular product. It was too potentially dangerous not to. The stakes were just too high for them not to go the extra mile with a more explicit warning.
“I’m not recalling the stickers, Jerry,” Charlie said firmly.
“You’ll do what I goddamn tell you to. Don’t forget who owns this place. My name is on the front of the building, not yours. I call the shots here!” Jerry shouted at him, which made younger employees cringe. Charlie knew him better than that and how to handle him.
“You pay me to give you sound marketing and merchandising advice. Don’t make it a waste of money. You need to listen to good sense here,” Charlie said seriously.
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Jerry shouted at him, stormed out, and slammed the door to Charlie’s office. Charlie closed his eyes for a minute, trying to keep his composure. For the first time in eleven years, he was tempted to do what he’d done before, and march straight into the owner’s office, quit, and walk out. But then what would he do? He knew what that looked like now. At fifty-three, there would be no jobs comparable to this one at the very top of the heap, even more so now than when he was forty. Thirteen years later, if he quit in a rage, it might be his last job forever, and he wasn’t ready to face that. He knew what Isabelle’s reaction would be. She would call her father’s attorney about a divorce the next morning. Charlie had money saved, but there was never enough to support her lifestyle for long. He needed to keep working for many years to come. How much was enough? He had never been able to determine that number. It was always more than he thought, because of some new luxury she couldn’t live without.
He got up to leave then. It was eight o’clock. He had a three-hour drive ahead of him, or longer in weekend traffic. He thought about stopping to get something to eat on the road, but after Jerry’s shouting at him at the top of his lungs, he wasn’t hungry. He could eat the leftovers from the dinner party when he got to the château. And he had had a big business lunch. He could have used a drink too, but not before driving on the long, winding last half of the road to the château. He would have liked to storm into Jerry’s office and quit before he left, but he knew better. He was fully an adult. He didn’t have the right to quit just because it would feel good to do it in the moment. The severity of the consequences just wasn’t worth it, no matter how it ate at his soul to deal with Jerry.
Charlie was tired when he got in his car in the parking garage, underneath the Jansen Plastics offices, in an industrial part of Paris, in the 11th Arrondissement. His parking space was marked CEO. He drove a small compact car, instead of something fancier. It was better suited to getting around crowded Paris streets than bigger cars were. Isabelle drove a Mercedes. He didn’t like showy, expensive cars, although he dreamed of having an Aston Martin one day, maybe when he retired, whenever that would be. He thought of buying one to restore it but didn’t have time.
He followed the traffic out of the city. It was heavy at that hour. People were still leaving work, an hour after most offices closed. He got a text from Isabelle once he was on the road, telling him to come in the morning if he was too tired to drive that night, since he would miss the dinner party anyway. He didn’t bother to answer. She’d see him when he arrived. He was lost in his own thoughts, thinking about Jerry and the scene in his office, and Jerry’s orders to get the warning stickers off the trampolines. He was tired of the battles with Jerry, tired of all of it. Maybe he’d feel better on Monday, but for now he felt like a schoolboy who had been scolded by his father or the headmaster. His father had been stern with him when he was a boy, and unfair at times, and as an only child, all his father’s hopes and expectations had rested on him, and he had tried to live up to them. Now Isabelle’s did, and his children’s, and Jerry’s. They all expected a lot of him. It was a heavy mantle to wear at times.
Charlie was still a handsome man, even in his fifties. He had dark hair with only a little gray at the temples, and warm brown eyes. There was an air of kindness to him, which enhanced his good looks. He was tall, athletic, and in good shape, although his wife no longer noticed or cared what he looked like.
It was an easy trip until halfway there, and then he had to leave the highway at Étretat and took the smaller local roads, which followed the coast and wound around hairpin turns, taking him dangerously close to the edge of the enormous cliffs along the coast. Some were a hundred feet high, others smaller. There were always spots along the road with heaps of flowers and makeshift crosses where unwary drivers had gone over the edge of the cliff and fallen to their deaths on the rocks below. Seeing the flowers of homemade memorials was always a good reminder.