It's Tracey. Gordo's wife, remember? I don't usually write and no one really gets to see me since I completed my wifely duty and popped out two sprogs (one of each, natch). It's like I was shunted into the background for some reason, like I don't exist in my own right or anything. Not that I'm bitter, no, not at all. OK, well, maybe I'm bitter about something, yeah. Like how it's fricking November and we still haven't received a thank you card from Mr & Mrs Anthony Caine for the six, count 'em, six limos my husband handed over to the greedyweds free of charge!!! I didn't even go to their wedding. Rosie had six friends for a HSM-themed sleepover the night before, so there was no way I wanted to get up bright and early to watch the world's weakest love story limp to a conclusion.
We used to be a lot closer to the Pattersons, but that was back when Mike and Gord and Lawrence were friends and we all hung out together. Now we barely see them. It's like Mike has inherited his mom's snobbish belief that people without a university education are just a bunch of blue collar hicks -- yeah, well, where's her degree? I suppose I shouldn't be quite so harsh now that she's gone off the deep end. I hear that John just shuffles through the growing mess in their house and pretends that everything's just fine.
Business has been slowing down and although I'm not particularly worried about the long-term future of the garage -- hey, cars aren't going to stop needing repairs, eh? -- I am worried about the Pattersons continuing as investors. I've asked Julia to look into what we'd need to do to buy them out. Neither of them are in a state to try to direct our decision-making simply by virtue of being our initial investors. Obviously I'm not about to ask Anthony to look into this for me, as he'd try to convince us not to proceed and he'd probably moan about how ungrateful we are for being touched by the Pattersons. It's not ingratitude: it's reality these days, and our business comes first.
I'm sure you have already heard that Elizabeth is pregnant. Big shock. I remember when Elizabeth babysat Paul one summer and she seemed to be completely bewildered by how much work it was to look after a baby and was forever bringing him to me to comfort, claiming that she'd tried everything when it was obvious that she hadn't because he just needed changing or a bottle or something simple like that. I used her only in emergencies after that summer. What is she going to be like with a child of her own?
I expect Anthony will be asking for paternity leave above and beyond his legal entitlement, and home-working arrangements afterwards. The last time this happened we wound up hiring Julia to pick up the slack and she's so much more competent than Anthony, who has spent the better part of the last five years or so spending most of his working hours moaning about his domestic situation and pursuing Elizabeth (and I do regret my part in those escapades -- I'm doing my best to stay on the wagon these days but sometimes I see things I've done and just want to forget it all...)
I'm carefully laying hints with Gord that perhaps, what with things being as they are these days, we might need to downsize a little bit. We already know that Julia is more than capable of doing Anthony's job, and it would save us some money to have only the one on staff...well, I'll let you know how this goes.
Tracey