“Julian! Welcome. Please won’t you come in?” Sandra, opening the door let out a surge of cool air. It was the middle of July in Alabama and here Julian wore a long-sleeved, button-down forest green shirt buttoned up at the wrists, black jeans, and Birkenstocks with his stark white socks. Sandra Fredrickson, a co-worker, invited him to her husband’s celebration of his twentieth year in the switch industry. She stood in the doorway wearing a black evening gown, a thin, eligant gold chain hanging from her neck, with a pair of candy apple red leather heels.

James Ellington’s brainchild, Flippy, led the dynamic and static switches industry with only three competitors worldwide. How James capitalized on switches or that they were the future of digital technology and the future of every electronic component was anyone’s guess. Switches came from Flippy, Twitch, or Carter Industries. Every manufactured switch in the United States? That came from Flippy, even though Twitch bought some of their switches because they couldn’t manufacture them. One more reason James had over his competitors was his connections to big suppliers.

“Thank you, Sandra,” Julian answered. “I didn’t know what to bring, so I brought this.” He held out a bottle of 1995 Château Margaux Bordeaux. “I hope it’s good.”

Sandra’s face lit up. “Oh, Julian! This is perfect. How did you know?”

Julian shrugged. “You said you loved French cuisine, so I assumed a French wine would work with whatever you are serving.”

Twitch, Ellington’s corporation, was the 2nd largest switch supplier. Based out of New England, one of his dearest friends chose to compete against him. Darby Merrit told him about his idea, building competition between them, without being hateful. Now that both businesses were netting over 300 million a year, neither man had anything to prove. They met regularly in New York to discuss new products and contracts to bid on, knowing full well what the other company could or should do. Unlike Flippy and Twitch, Carter Industries was based in India, doing their ‘level best’ to capitalize on a Western-sounding name. Carter couldn’t compete on scale with Flippy or Twitch because Carter was selling sub-quality products, often breaking or needing replacement in less than three months, each product being produced in China. Most of their market share came from countries as poor or poorer than India’s, which meant a larger share of the rest of the market to be split between Twitch and Flippy.

But Mrs. Sandra Ellington shared everything about switches to any of her colleagues, those who would listen, that is, Julian being the most captivated by the technology. James loved his wife very much, and knowing that she loved to talk, being the extrovert who never met a stranger kept her away from any speculative or proprietary data. Sandra assumed, correctly this time, that Julian was interested in the technology therefore, would love to come to dinner.

Julian was on even footing with Sandra, with a similar educational background in accounting. “You can’t screw with numbers,” Julian was often heard saying. “You just can’t. A three is always a three.”

“What about people who try stealing, changing numbers in the books?” Sandra asked.

Julian snickered at the idea. “Who would want to? Why would they want to? They’d get caught! Just as sure as rain comes from rain clouds. It’s like an object in motion. Once it starts moving,” he waved his hand at Sandra, “it obviously won’t stop. Unless it runs into something else,” he slapped his hands together, “or something else runs into it. It’s not hard to understand. If you steal from an accounting firm? Or better yet, from a CPA who knows the books? You will be caught. Not if. It’s when.”

“You love your numbers, don’t cha’?” Heather inquired, popping her gum. It was the one thing that really annoyed Julian. Her spearmint gum chewing. In Julian’s opinion, chewing gum was okay as long as you did it at a reasonable volume. Nothing about Heather was done at a reasonable volume. She was the most annoying colleague of Sandra’s and Julian’s. Sandra didn’t mind having several girlfriends who were as loud or louder, something Julian wasn’t looking forward to.

Julian knew all this because Sandra couldn’t stop talking about her husband’s business and success, sharing that she didn’t need the accounting job. Sandra just liked being around other people. With no kids and no pets, Julian figured her for a bored housewife. To be fair, she wasn’t all that good at her job, either. But how do you fire a woman with more money than she knows what to do with? James trusted her implicitly with all his finances. After all, Sandra had an accounting degree from a four-year college. How could he go wrong with that?

“You didn’t tell me it was formal thing,” Julian eyed her black dress. “I wouldn’t have come had I know.”

“I know, silly,” she answered. “It’s not a big formal thingy, really. Please. Come in.” Ushering him inside she introduced him to what Julian assumed the caterers. “Raul, this is Mr. Julian Forsythe. Julian, this is Raul. If you need anything at all, he’s the one to see.” Raul bowed politely in Julian’s direction.

“Can I get you something to drink, Mr. Forsythe?”

“Yes. Ice water, please.”

“Very good, sir.” Raul bowed again, and then to Sandra. “Miss.”

Sandra grabbed Julian’s arm, the bottle of wine safely in the care of another staff person not important enough to warrant an introduction. “Come on, Julian. I want you to meet everyone.”

What would you like to read next? Let me know in the comments! Thanks for reading.