The Coach House Read Online Free PDF Page A

quarter was also part of her responsibilities. Catherine was a master negotiator, and she taught Marie to be just as shrewd. The suppliers loved Marie. One lingerie manufacturer gave her a bigger discount merely because he didn’t have to deal with Catherine anymore.
    Marie did things differently from Catherine on many levels, but the most significant was the way she worked with the floorwalkers and sales clerks. Catherine couldn’t have cared less about what they thought. She bought inventory based on her knowledge and intuitions. Marie, on the other hand, paid attention to everything the clerks had to say. She made it a point to walk around the store at least weekly, and often stopped in the break room to chat with them. She believed they were the closest to the customers and more in tune to what they would buy. She encouraged her fellow employees to inquire as to what their customers wanted, a concept that was foreign to Catherine, but more in line with the owner’s motto of “Give the lady what she wants.”

CHAPTER 3
     

    Richard
     
    As Richard gradually shared information about his background, Marie found some of it interesting and some disturbing. He grew up in Johnston City, a small coal-mining town in southern Illinois, with his parents, Alan and Bernice; a brother, Thomas; and a sister, Malia. Like most of the other local men, his father worked in the mines. They were poor, Richard had told her. They had clean clothes, ample food, and proper schooling, but nothing more.
    He told her when he was five years old, he orchestrated a backyard circus comprised of all the neighborhood pets who could do at least one trick. He charged the neighbors five cents to attend. The neighbors thoroughly enjoyed the show, and Richard had made enough money to buy a metal dump truck he had seen in the window at the local hardware store. Now proudly displayed on one of his bookshelves in his home office, it was still one of his most prized possessions.
    At eight, without discussing it with his parents, he took his dog Brandy over to his neighbor’s fenced in backyard where their male dog was allowed to run freely. Richard watched the two dogs play, chase each other, and jump on top of each other. After an hour or so of play, he took his dog home and waited for her to have puppies. He had no idea how that worked, but after Brandy had had her last litter, he had heard his father say, “She must have been playing around with that mongrel next door.”
    When his father discovered Brandy was pregnant again, he threatened to shoot the dog. Not wanting his plan foiled, Richard begged him not to do it. Eventually Alan gave in to his pleas as long as Richard had the dog out of the house before the puppies were born. Brandy had her litter behind their shed, and when the puppies were old enough, Richard peddled them off on their neighbors, going door to door with his sad little face and tale of woe about how his family couldn’t afford to keep them. He never told his parents that he made over twelve dollars selling the puppies.
    It didn’t surprise Marie that his salesmanship skills stemmed from an early age, but she found it unsettling that he was looking for opportunities to make money so early, not to mention the duplicity in the puppy story. Richard had laughed when he told her the story, but Marie hadn’t thought it was at all funny.
    Also unsettling to Marie was that Richard didn’t talk about his family with much feeling or emotion, not like when he talked about his childhood shenanigans or ways to make money. Marie would have chosen family over material things during any point in her life. Richard treated his family as a thing of the past—just something he had to tolerate until he could go out on his own.
    After high school, with no money to go to college, Richard went to the nearest big city, Chicago, to find work. He landed a job at the largest medical supply company in the country. He sold his heart out until he discovered