“Copper, Cattle, Cotton, Citrus, and Climate.” She rolled her eyes, then took another deep breath. “See, when Phoenix was founded, around 1867 or so, just after the Civil War, a Confederate veteran, Jack Swilling, saw potential in a valley near modern-day Phoenix, basing his ideas off the natives that used to live there. Well, Francis White, the founder of our business, was a Union soldier veteran who had happened to befriend Swilling. McMahon was a soldier as well, in the same platoon or squad, whatever they called them back then, as Francis White, but he supposedly was very anti-south, thinking the lot of them needed to be punished for causing the war. Ass-backward thinking, if you ask me.” She grinned, feeling my soft chuckle. “Well, basically, White and Swilling made a deal and parceled off the land available. McMahon wanted nothing to do with Swilling and refused any dealings with him. In the end, it was McMahon who got screwed, not having any land in his name. Well, at first, White wanted to partner with McMahon, creating a mining and cotton ranch, with cattle as they grew their business together. McMahon, as I think I explained earlier to you, wanted to build nearer to the other communities, offering those burlesque houses, saloons, gambling centers, all sorts of stuff like that. I don’t think McMahon ever forgot, feeling like he got shafted, and has apparently passed that grudge down through his generations. Our family expanded to have all ‘The Five C’s’ covered across our lands, then expanded into water management sometime in the 1900’s. And it just kept growing. Now, word is the McMahon family wants our main plots of land, as it rests at a junction between California, New Mexico, and Mexico. I personally suspect drug trafficking down to Mexico, and some kind of oil deal with Texas. They operate mostly out of New Mexico, with some other operations in Arizona.”
“Wow. It’s way more complex than I had imagined.”
“Oh yeah. It is special that our family has run the business since the founding of Phoenix, but I have absolutely zero interest in that kind of stuff.”
“So how is the small business down there able to make your family’s company a top Fortune 500 company?” I was curious, if all they did was crops down there.
“Arizona produces over 95% of the nation’s lettuces, you know, head, leaf, and romaine. Well WFC, our corporation, produces over half of that alone. Something like $400 million annually from lettuce, then like, $300 million each from our cattle and dairy, then all the ‘Climate’ businesses. Basically touristy things. That pulls in like, $1.5 billion, I think Dad said.”
“Yeah, for not having any interest in it, you sure know a lot about it.” I pointed out.
“Of course I do! Dad makes sure to tell me every chance he gets, as if repeating the history and current crap will make me magically care about it.”
“So even though you could have the chance to take over a multi-billion dollar corporation, appoint someone else to manage it for you, thereby giving you all the money you wanted for art and still appease your dad, you won’t do it?”
She sighed. “It’s not that simple. Dad is a real hard-ass about who will ever be given the reins of his precious company. He even jammed a clause in the corporate by-laws that spells out that nobody but a direct descendent of Francis White is eligible to hold the office of CEO. When he didn’t have any sons, but me, he amended the by-laws to permit the husband of a direct descendant of old Mr. Francis, but even then the husband has to assume the White family name for himself and sign an iron-clad prenuptial agreement giving up any claim to any interest in the company in the event of divorce.” She took a large breath of air after all that.
“Uh… shit. No way around that, like my idea, huh?” This guy seemed to have thought of everything. Most everyone knew of Doug White’s story, similar to Sam Walton. Walton had started small, out of nothing, growing that massive retail giant, whereas White had inherited a mid-sized, successful corporation. However, he’d grown the White Family Corporation from a state-level multi-million dollar industry to a multi-billion dollar nation-wide one. So it figures he’d be pushing hard for Kat to take over.
“Shit. Your dad’s pretty intense, huh?” Lying here naked, chatting with Kat, I felt I had finally loosened up. Conversing with her just seemed easy.
“Only when it comes to the business. I can remember days where I’d be out on the ranch with him, he’d be teaching me to ride the horses, or telling me about this and that.” She had rolled over so she was resting her chin on my chest now, and she smiled, staring past me, seemingly lost in thought.
“Ok, so why do you think the twins kidnapped you?” That was still bothering me, why they thought a kidnapping would help them. Especially with the last two tidbits of info, Doug White probably wouldn’t budge in the least. Unless they held on to her as ransom… “Fuck, they didn’t mean to let you go…”
“What? What do you mean?” She looked puzzled.
“Kat, think. What good would it do if they just dumped you somewhere, or killed you or something? Sure it’d make your dad sad, but he’d still run the business, probably keeping it away and out of the McMahon family’s hands even more firmly. But if they had kidnapped you and kept you…”
“Ah, you’re right. They could have demanded a ransom or something.”
“Kat, are you sure you aren’t interested in this? You sure know a lot about it.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Dad’s precious business!” Kat snapped. The sudden change of demeanor made me flinch. “Sorry… I didn’t mean to yell at you. That’s just the same question I got all the time. Everyone kept saying ‘Oh you’re just like your father,’ or ‘You’ll make a great CEO when your dad steps down,’ all sorts of shit like that, over and over and over. It gets old.”
“I’m sorry I pressed. I suppose I could respect your position and your decision about everything. I knew I wanted to be a chemist, even though my parents wanted me to stay in Arizona and be close to them.”
Kat sighed, burying her face into my chest now. Her arms snaked around me, and she shuddered. That’s when I realized she was crying.
“Uh, Kat, what’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?” I tried gently patting her back.
“No…” She sniffled a little, then looked up at me with tearful eyes. “I imagine your parents just said something like ‘Ok sweetie go ahead,’ and I got a little jealous.”
“Well, actually we fought.”
“Really?” She wiped her eyes. “I guess I don’t know you or your parents enough to assume.”
“No worries. But yeah, when they heard my decision, my dad was all ‘Absolutely not, young man, you need to stay home.'”
“Wow. He and my dad could be best friends.”
I chuckled a little. “I suppose. It took quite a while convincing my parents that I wanted to be at a university that was close to what fascinated me – snow.” I grinned. “They agreed, especially when I told them the nearest university that produced artificial snow and studied it regularly was in Germany.”
“Haha, yeah, that’d do it. ‘Hey Mom, Dad, if you don’t like a day’s drive away, I can always go halfway around the world.'” She giggled and I joined her. It really was easy and fun to talk to this girl. We sat in a small silence for a few minutes, tracing circles on each other’s bodies.
“Paul, tell me again what your dissertation is about?”
“Oh, it’s about the relationship between quantum physics and the molecular complexity of snowflakes.” I started to explain, but heard her giggle.
“That’s exactly what you said in the diner. Is that your title?”
“Sort of.” I had to chuckle. I did say those exact words and that exact phrase in the diner. “The specifics are boring though, really involved technical information. Lots of mathematical proofs.”
“Can you share a condensed cliff notes version?” Her hopeful look, mixed with a slightly curious one, made me laugh.
“You… are adorable. I have to say it.” Wow, I’d gone from blushing at almost everything to now making her blush with a compliment. Maybe sex was the missing factor…
“Don’t tease…” Her playful whine, accompanied by a swat to my chest, told me she didn’t mind too much.
“Ok, ok. Seriously, I think I had mentioned to you about electrons being pretty much all the same. I also told you about the smallest snowflakes being made up of just over 275 molecules, right?” She nodded, so I continued. “There’s a link between how things behave on a quantum level, and how snowflakes form. There was a doctor who conducted a large research project that was fairly widely published, about having thoughts and intentions affect ice crystal formation. He used a method that wasn’t exactly reproducible, and had a hidden agenda of sponsoring sales of bottled water. Not exactly following the scientific method.”
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