Sister's Passport - Flying Off To New Life - Part 2

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Ken walked out the front door and down the street, admiring the houses in the neighborhood. They looked historic, many three stories high, and with wings added on to create sunrooms, conservatories, or extra bedrooms. The lawns were beautiful and the trees were enormous.

 Some, like the Johnson's home, had large wrap-around porches. Ken walked down the street, found a bench, and sat down to wait.

He had dressed in a dark green jumper and a light cotton blouse with lace around the collar.

"I look just like Julie," he thought to himself. The truth was, Ken didn't have many options. Despite objections from the Dickinsons, he had insisted on wearing only dresses.

They were a kind of security blanket that he felt would help fool others into thinking he was female. Sandra and Sarah had insisted that he could wear anything and he would still be fine, but Ken was unconvinced.

Anyway, on his limited budget, Ken had only been able to afford just four dresses, and now after being attacked by the wall in the loo, only one was clean.

"Hi there!"

 Ken looked up.

A young man was standing before him.

He was in his early 20s with short colored hair and a friendly, cheerful face.

"Hello," Ken replied.

"Waiting for the school bus?" he inquired.

"Yes, and what are you doing here?"

 "Well, um," the question seemed to throw him.

"You know, I guess I just saw this beautiful woman sitting here in my front yard, or rather my Dad's front yard and I guess, well, I just thought I should investigate."

Ken looked at him in surprise.

Someone had gone out of their way just to talk to him?

No one had ever done that before. "Well, thank you for keeping me company," Ken said, with a warm smile, making a space on the bench.

 "By the way, my name is Kathy, I'm the new Au Pair for the Johnsons."

"And my name is Tim Downey. Pleased to meet you!"

 Ken suddenly had a thought.

"Hey! Do you know a good household repairman?"

"What kind?"

"Well, the wall in my loo collapsed, right into the tub!" Tim laughed in amazement.

"Are you serious?! The entire wall collapsed?"

"Yes," Ken replied, glaring at him.

"And I happened to be in the tub at the time."

"No way! Are you okay?"

 "I guess so."

"Well, loo repair. Nope, no one in America knows how to repair a loo. But I'm sure we could find someone to repair the bathroom."

Tim grinned at Ken, who rolled his eyes at the tease.

"I don't know anyone personally, but I'm sure my Dad does. I'll ask him and get back to you."

 "Thank you!"

The two sat in silence for a second.

"So, what is your occupation?" Ken asked.

"My occupation?"

Tim mulled that over for a second.

"Well, I'm just a student right now. I'm working on my MBA, it should be done next year. I'm looking for an internship this summer. I'll probably just work for my Dad, but I would like to find something more finance-related."

Beep Beep A small yellow school bus drove up. Julie jumped off the bus.

"Look, Kathy! Look what I made for you!" She held up a paper with smears of finger-painted handprints. Ken took a serious look at it.

"Why it's beautiful, Julie! I love the colors."

Ken stood up.

"Julie, this is Mister Tim. Say hello."

 Julie quickly hid behind Ken and peeked out at Tim.

"Hello," she said in a small voice. Tim knelt down.

"We've met dozens of times, Julie. Don't you remember me?" Julie hid her face in Ken's skirt, pressing her head against his legs.

"No," she said, muffled. "Oh well," Ken said, smiling.

"Tim, I must be going now. It was a pleasure to meet you."

 "And you too, Kathy. I hope we meet again soon!" Ken took Julie by the hand, but Julie slipped away and ran ahead. Halfway home she stopped, turned around, and started singing at the top of her lungs:

Kathy and Tim! Sittin' in a tree!

"Julie!" Ken hissed, blushing scarlet. He glanced back and saw Tim with a huge grin on his face. 'He's not embarrassed at all,' Ken realized, 'he likes this!' Ken's skin broke out in goosebumps and his stomach seemed to twist up, all on its own.

First comes luuuuuuuv, Then comes marriage! Then comes the baby in the baby carriage! 'That's not bloody likely,' Ken muttered to himself. But the thought made him sad, and it dissipated some of the delicious thrills he had just felt. Ken looked back at Tim, shrugged his shoulders, and waved goodbye. Ken finally reached Julie and picked her up.

"You silly silly girl! Ooooh, you're in so much trouble!" But instead, Ken gave her an extra big hug before heading inside.

"Are you in here?"

Ken opened the door with a flourish. The closet was empty.

"Where are you?"

Ken called. Ken finished his tour of the first floor and then went up the curved staircase to the second. 'This place is massive!' Ken muttered to himself, climbing the long staircase.

'And all out of sorts,' he added. The curved staircase was enclosed in a tiny closet-sized area.

Why so small? And why was the den the largest room on the first floor? And why were all the details so strange with dolphin-shaped brackets and wavy-cut shingles?

Overall the house was. Majestic. There was no other word that Ken felt was appropriate. It was your best friend, the scullery maid, who turned out to be a princess and heir to the throne.

She was beautiful and graceful, but somehow down-to-earth and welcoming. The perfect hostess. From the outside, the house had a wide round tower attached to the front left corner of a square house. The den was in the tower, and this was Brian's office.

The rest of the rooms on the first floor were all small and included the kitchen, dining room, guest bedroom, living room, breakfast room, two bathrooms, and a sitting room off of the bedroom.

The second floor was strictly a series of bedrooms, the master bedroom occupied the second floor of the tower, the nursery, Julie's bedroom, a second guest bedroom, Ken's room, another bedroom used for storage (full of boxes, clothes, and miscellaneous bags), and three bathrooms.

For Ken the third floor was the most fun, too bad it was just used for storage. It had three servant's bedrooms with dormer windows, all full of boxes, and best of all, a wonderful open attic space in the turret of the tower.

If you stood in the middle of the attic and looked up, the point of the turret was a good 20 feet above you.

 "There you are! Gotcha!" Julie was hiding behind one of the boxes in the attic. Ken grabbed her and tickled her. Julie squealed with laughter.

"Now it's your turn! Now it's your turn! Go hide someplace!"

With exaggerated motions, Julie turned towards the nearest box, hid her eyes, and started counting. Ken was happy to be playing hide-and-seek with Julie it was much better than earlier when it seemed that Ken could do nothing right.

First, he had botched her sandwich, using the wrong bread, buttering the bread instead of using mayonnaise, and cutting the sandwich lengthwise instead of corner-to-corner. Julie actually threw his first attempt to the ground. Ken picked it up, brushed it off, and saved it for himself.

He picked out a jar from the fridge.

"Uck!" Julie grimaced.

"Not that grey mustard!"

"She likes the yellow stuff," Tina said.

"This?" Ken held up a jar for Tina to see.

"No, that has onions. You know, the ordinary stuff."

"This?"

"No, that has whole mustard seeds. She hates that."

Ken went through 5 more jars of mustard, "No, that's got caraway seeds. That's too spicy. That's the brown mustard. On no! That's Japanese wasabi - that won't do." Finally, Tina walked over to help Ken look.

"My gosh, she said, "I had no idea I owned so many different types of mustard." Finally, she found what she was looking for, hidden behind the catsup. After lunch, Ken went to the toilet, and when he got back, there was Julie, in his room, drawing a picture in crayon on his wall.

"See what I did?" She pointed, proudly.

"That's you, and that's Tim, and there's the school bus"

"Julie, you shouldn't be drawing on the walls, don't you have some drawing paper?"

"No," And that was how the day had gone, Julie getting into trouble, Ken cleaning up. Julie throws a temper tantrum, and Ken tries not to give in. It was exhausting. Finally, Ken had suggested they play this game, and Julie had agreed.

Ken tip-toed out of the attic and went down to the second floor, wincing whenever a stair creaked. The stairs from the third to the second floor were servant's stairs, narrow, winding, and steep and Julie loved to run up and down them over and over again. When he got to the second floor, Ken crossed the hall and went into Tina and Brian's master bedroom.

The bedroom was haphazardly decorated, with a scan-design bed, an old sofa, a fancy screen, a Chinese rug, two old dressers, and a table with a mirror on it. Ken crossed the room entered the closet and closed the door behind him.

The closet had a window! Ken had never seen a closet with a window before. Ken looked around. Apparently, the closet belonged to Brian since it contained only his clothes. Lots of expensive suits, Ken noticed.

Ken listened to Julie walking back and forth out in the hall.

"Kathy?" she called from down the hall.

"Where are you?"

Eventually, the door to the master bedroom opened and Ken heard someone moving about, crossing back and forth around the room. Another door opened, then closed.

Ken held his breath: the door to his closet rattled, but the door didn't open. After a little bit longer Ken heard the person in the room leaving and walking downstairs.

"That's strange," he thought. Ken reached to open the closet door.

The doorknob came off in his hand.

"Damn!" Ken quickly put the knob back on the door and tried turning it. Nothing. Ken was locked in. Taking the knob off again, Ken fiddled with the mechanism inside.

"If only I had some kind of tool," he muttered.

Looking around the closet Ken spied a box in the corner. He walked over and opened it -Golf magazines. Ken dug down a little further. Old "Home and Garden" magazines. Ken rolled his eyes.

"If this were my closet," he muttered. Ken heard footsteps in the bedroom.

He quickly put the magazines back in the box and covered it up. Ken ran to the door and banged on it, "Help!" he called, "I'm stuck in the closet! Help!"

Later that night, after dinner and after he had put Julie to bed, Ken, not quite sleepy yet, wandered downstairs. The wooden staircase of the old house creaked noisily no matter how lightly he tried to tread.

"Tina?" Ken peeked into the kitchen. Empty. Absentmindedly Ken cleaned up, putting dinner dishes into the dishwasher, storing leftovers, wiping countertops, and straightening up.

The empty wine bottle from last night was still on the countertop, but now with a second cork sitting next to it. Ken wandered into the living room.

"Oh, there you are, Tina."

Ken had found her in the living room, in the large easy chair, wrapped in a comforter, sipping a glass of wine. Tina had a large coffee-table book on her lap and was idly turning the pages.

"Hi Kathy," Tina said.

"was Julie a good girl this time?"

"A princess," Ken replied, remembering how Julie had demanded he repeat his goodnight story no less than seven times, each time with more elaborate details.

"Where's Mr. Johnson?" Ken sat down in the loveseat by the fireplace and tucked his legs up underneath. The room was dark. Ken pulled his sweater a bit tighter, feeling chilled. Tina snorted, "Brian?

Oh, I'm sure he's at work, work, work, working away. God knows why.

"Well, he must have an important job, to be spending all of these late nights at work."

"I suppose," Tina said. Ken sat still for a moment, feeling the walls of the living room pressing in. It was a small room, actually, not much larger than a small bedroom. Strange layout, Ken realized, for such a large house.

"Do you mind if I ask you a question?" Tina asked suddenly. "Oh, sure, of course," Ken replied.

"I saw your suitcase today. Did you only bring dresses to wear?

You know, this is America, right? Land of 'comfort wear'.

You could wear jeans and a T-shirt if you'd prefer."

"Oh, well, I guess I'm just more comfortable in dresses, mostly." Ken stammered, wondering what to say.

"Um, also I was thinking that if I were too casual it might make it more difficult to control Julie. You know, to maintain my position as an authentic English Nanny, or something like that."

 "Oh, I guess that makes sense. Want to maintain some authority and dress the part, is that it?"

"Well, it certainly seemed to work for my teachers at home," Ken remarked wryly. Tina chuckled.

"I bet. And did you have to wear a uniform when you went to school?" Ken smiled. "Oh yes, in the early grades. Shirt, tie, blue pants."

"Tie? Pants? Really?"

"No! I mean," Ken floundered, "No, I meant a skirt. Right, shirt and tie, jacket, and skirt." Ken thought back. What had his girl classmates worn? He tried to picture one but failed.

"With black patent shoes and white pull-up socks," he finished lamely.

"I bet you were an adorable little girl."

 "No, rather a rascal, actually. The teachers always said: Come on Kathy, pull up your socks!"

"Pull up your socks! That's great. I love Britishisms."

"Have you ever been to England?" Ken asked, trying to move the subject to safer ground.

"Yes, actually. I went to Oxford for a summer semester."

"Oxford, really?"

"Yes. Art history." Tina held up her book, a Picasso retrospective, 'The Early Years.'

"That's brilliant. My best friend in England is a critic of Art and Architecture. Where did you graduate?"

"Graduate?"

Tina frowned.

"Oh right. Well, I guess you could say that I graduated with an M-R-S degree from the local Episcopal church."

"Sorry," Ken was confused, "an M-R-S degree?"

"Right," Tina's voice was dripping sarcasm.

"As in I became 'Mrs. Brian Johnson, and ceased to exist as Christina Everett."

"Oh," Ken faltered. He was about to say 'I'm sorry,' but at the last second changed it to, "I understand."

"No, please. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that," Tina apologized.

"I made my choice, and Julie and Michael are both wonderful." She sighed. "Anyway, you should head on up to bed. It's been a long day." "I guess you're right." Ken got up and brushed off his skirt.

"Oh, and Kathy, remember that tomorrow's Julie's ballet class."

"Well, that sounds like fun!"

"Well, it is just adorable. Oh, and they're always looking for adults to fill in the local production. Maybe you'd like to try it out? You certainly have the figure for it."

"Me? In a ballet? Oh no, I don't think so." Ken's eyes grew wide with fright.

"Oh, but why not?" Tina teased.

"Well, because." Because I'm a man! Ken wanted to shout.

"Oh, I don't know. Ah, just embarrassed, I guess."

"Well, you can talk to the instructor tomorrow.

But watch out: she's very persuasive."

Brian lay his head down on his desk and closed his eyes. 'I'll just rest here for a minute,' he thought, 'and then I'll finish up and go home.' Brian had been at work since 7:30 AM, and it was now almost midnight.

For some incomprehensible reason, he had promised the reports on these last two companies by the next day, and now he felt obligated to deliver. Brian was a stock analyst and researcher.

It was his job to predict a company's future in terms of revenue growth, data which was then used by others to predict stock prices. Further, Brian specialized in longer-term predictions of over 5 years.

It was something he was uncommonly good at it. Once, as a finance intern in a large manufacturing firm with nothing better to do, Brian started drawing diagrams of his department, connected with arrows and lines to show how everyone worked together, who influenced who, and so on.

Eventually, he began to connect these diagrams to larger groups in the organization, such as Engineering, Sales, Administration, etc, and then also with outside influences, vendors, customers, and so on.

Soon the diagrams (which now covered the walls of an unused office) caught the interest of the CEO, who took one look and re-assigned Brian to his personal staff.

During this time Brian began to develop a theory on how good organizations operated, the "COI" theory.

"COI" stood for "Customers, Operations, and Innovation", and Brian found that the best organizations had three people who ran the place, each of which filled one of these three roles.

In larger companies, these roles would typically be filled by the VP of Marketing, the CEO, and the VP of Engineering.

But even in the best smaller companies, there always seemed to be one person who knew the customer the best, someone who focused on strictly operational issues (finance, processes, recruiting, etc), and someone who was constantly innovating on the product. The more clearly defined these roles were in the group and the closer these three people worked together, the better the group functioned and improved over time.

The CEO decided it was time to take action. Using the diagrams he restructured the entire organization and executed a 15% workforce reduction.

Brian was shocked that all his work, which he had done more as an objective observer (a kind of "Business Sociologist" he had called himself) could be used for such a brutal end result, but he had to admit that the CEO knew what he was doing.

Expenses were reduced, profits shot up, and new products (free of burdensome bureaucratic controls) burst forth. The stock tripled in two years. Brian's work had been used to create over a billion dollars in market capitalization, and he was still only an intern.

After school, Brian took a job with his father's company, Spencer and Johnson, an old-time investment banking firm initially founded by his grandfather.

He was assigned to the worst possible job, stock analyst, and was told to work his way up from the bottom. Stock analysts are the bottom feeders of American capitalism. Basically, their job is to badger company employees to reveal insider secrets and then use the information to write a report.

Now just 24, Brian applied his new diagramming techniques to the companies he was assigned to follow. The reports that followed were detailed, specific, and thoroughly researched with supporting materials.

Brian had found his niche. Ten years later his reputation as a genius within the firm and the industry was now legendary. Not that any of this mattered to his father, of course.

"I need you to run this company," he had requested, over and over. But Brian refused. He was 'I' (innovation), not the 'O' or 'C'.

But it was times like this, late at night with his head on his desk, that Brian began to wonder what he was doing here, creating diagrams to help make the filthy rich even more filthy rich.

As his mind wandered, Brian couldn't help but apply his diagramming technique to his own family.

There was Tina, and she was connected to Brian via marriage, and the information they communicated, but what was the information they communicated?

Brian could only think of things like school, money, and house repairs. Shouldn't there be more? What about love, commitment, and the future?

Originally Brian had thought of Julie as the third component in his diagram. Tina would be operations, Brian would be an inspiration, and Julie would be customer relations it all worked out.

 Except when Michael was born where did he fit in?

And also, it turned out that Julie wasn't someone that Brian could actually talk to. Well, of course, he talked to her, but no discussions like, "Julie, what do you think are the root causes of our household dysfunctionality?" Not that Brian had had these discussions with Tina, either.

So maybe Julie was the customer?

And when Michael was born, it was as if Brian and Tina had just manufactured another customer.

"There's a new business model," Brian thought to himself, with a sick sense of humor.

"Imagine if companies could manufacture their own customers!"

But clearly, that wasn't right, after all, Julie and Michael were in the family, not outside customers with goals and business plans of their own.

So maybe Julie and Michael were the product? And maybe the world (or society) at large was the customer?

This seemed to fit, Brian thought, in that Tina was constantly concerned that her children were being raised properly.

And further, it made sense that the goal of the family was to provide the best possible environment for the production of the product, kind of like the winery that Brian was currently following, which would put its port wine in special oak barrels underground for umpteen years.

But then, what about the theory of three, of COI? Clearly, Tina was most in touch with the customer. Brian was in charge of operations, finances, and whatnot. Were they missing the 'I'? Who was providing the inspiration for their family?

Could Julie do this eventually?

Brian opened his eyes for a second and stared at his coffee cup, which said, "I've either had too much coffee or not enough sex!" Brian grimaced. It was an embarrassing coffee cup, and he kept it only because it came from Tina.

It was her first gift to him.

When had he and Tina last had sex?

Brian thought back. Had it been when Michael was conceived? A year and a half ago?

With a sigh, Brian sat back up, brushed off a paper clip from his face, and continued working.