I waved the letter of invitation in excitement and went running from my office to share my good news with my secretary/assistant and the others who worked for me in my small business, Dandy Designs.  I am an Interior Decorator and I created absolutely wonderful designs for a living.  I love what I do, and am extremely passionate about giving people the wonderful living spaces they desire.  I’ve worked hard to get my business up and running and the letter in my hand was proof that I had arrived and was in competition with the ‘bigger’ names in our city!  I was elated as I danced my way across the floor, getting everyone’s attention as I did so.

“Are you taking up dancing now, Dandy?  Or did we get a big contract?” Curt grinned at my antics, but was willing to step out beside me and join in the dance, even singing a song we could dance to.  I was always surprised by what a good singing voice Curt had, but he did, and Paige and Piper got up to dance with us, the mood in the office festive as could be.

My father picked that particular moment to walk into the small office and just that quickly our impromptu dance ended.  Abner Willis was the type of person who cast a spell over whatever room he was in, and his frown correctly conveyed his disapproval of our antics.  “Am I to assume there is something to celebrate?” he asked, pushing his glasses up on his nose, and managing to look down at me at the same time.

“As it so happens, there is,” I replied, not about to let him spoil the moment.  Listen to this, I ordered and then read aloud:

Dear Ms Willis:
            Every year the Realtors Association, in cooperation with our local home improvement retailers, sponsor a contest between the best Designers and Carpenters in our city.  Your name has been selected to participate in Week Four of the Contest.  Your team will be required to redo a bedroom for someone selected at random from a drawing held at the Crossings Mall on September 6, and the competition will be held in the same place on October 4.  You and your fellow designer will be given thirty minutes before the competition begins to ask questions of the lucky winner, and then you will be given eight hours to complete your design.  The winner will receive….

“Isn’t this wonderful?” I asked triumphantly.

“Sounds like a lot of work to me,” Curtis shook his head, but I wasn’t fooled.  Curtis loved a challenge.

“What if we come down to a crunch on time with a client, Dandy?” Paige questioned.  “Our deadline for the Morris lake house is that weekend,” she reminded me, her expression telling me what I already knew.  We would all be working a lot of extra hours if we agreed to the competition.

“We’ll just have to put in some evening hours to complete the job before the contest, Paige.  It can be done… and I would truly love to have all of you on my team.  Not you, Father!” I hastened to reassure him when he flashed me a shocked look.  “I know how much you detest working with your hands.”

“Dandy, have you considered how this could affect your business?” he asked, his frosty tone full of disapproval.

“No, Father, I decided to leave that to you since it is your specialty,” I added a smile to my words to take away some of the sting, but Father wasn’t fooled. 

He frowned at me.  “Dandy, if you lose the competition people will assume you are a terrible designer, and you will see a decline in business, and we all know what that would mean to your bottom line.  You are barely staying in the black as it is.”

“I have no intention of losing, Father,” I told him with confidence.  “Bedrooms are my specialty, and eight hours is ample time to do what needs to be done.”

“You also have to work with a carpenter who will also be competing to win in his area!”

“Or her area, Father.  I know several women who are great carpenters,” I couldn’t resist telling him.

“Yes, yes…” Father shook his head and raised his hand in irritation as he continued, “It is not a field for a lady.  If you are paired with another woman, you will find your name linked with hers and people will assume you are gay!” he made the pronouncement in a loud whisper.  “That will hurt your business,” he predicted.  “You call those people right this minute and thank them politely for asking you to participate, but tell them you are too busy with commitments to partake.”

I couldn’t help rolling my eyes; my Father loved to tell me what to do.  I sighed and then walked over to Paige’s desk, picked up the telephone, and quickly pushed in the number listed in the letter for me to call to inform the committee of my decision.  I knew how many struggling designers would kill to receive this letter, and I was truly flattered.  Once the telephone was answered on the other end, I told the receptionist who I was and asked to speak to Deborah Jackson.  I had to wait for a few minutes to have the call put through since she was on another line, but I didn’t mind.  I was busy tapping the toe of my shoe on the floor and sneakily watching my Father grow more and more irritated at the noise.  I lived for these little moments of pleasure. 

A female voice came on the line and said, “Hello…?  This is Deborah Jackson.” 

“Hello, Miss Jackson.  This is Dandy Willis of Dandy Designs.  I received your letter today asking me to participate in the designers’ challenge in September…”  She listened to the other woman respond enthusiastically for a couple of minutes as she basically repeated everything that was said in the letter, and added a few more details that I found very interesting.  Of course, my Father was glaring at me, and pointedly looking at his watch in a pointed reminder that I was wasting time, both mine and his.  I looked him in the eye, smiled, and said demurely, “Of course, Miss Jackson.  I would love to participate.  I can’t wait, in fact.”

Father shook his head, and then headed for the front door of my office, slamming the door behind him as he left.  He was more than a little angry, but I just didn’t care.  Being selected to participate in this yearly event was quite an honor and I was up for the task.  I had every confidence in my ability.  Once I hung up the telephone, I smiled at my staff and said, “Dinner is on me tonight!  We’re going to Mama Colleti’s tonight and celebrate.  Piper, don’t forget to call David and ask him to join us, too!”

“Girl, are you sure you want to run the risk of making your Daddy good and mad?” Curt asked her with a worried frown.  “You know how he feels about your working in this field in the first place, and doing a competition draws all sorts of attention he won’t want.”  His features suddenly relaxed into a huge grin and he shook his head.  “That’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it?”

“No…” I denied, but decided to be honest, “That is just the bonus.”

“I knew it,” he chortled. 

“Seriously, Curt…  This is a wonderful opportunity to make Dandy Designs known all over the city.  The Mall is packed on Saturday, especially with teenage girls.  If I design a winning room a lot of those girls will go home to their parents and say, ‘I want a bedroom like that!’  Daddy and Mommy will call me then, and we’ll be so busy we won’t know what to do.  I am excited at the opportunity.”

“I am too,” the shy Piper spoke up, her brown eyes sparkling.  “We will do our very best and hope we get lots of new clients.”

“Sounds like a back ache to me,” Curt shook his head, but I knew he was just teasing.  We met one day when he rescued me from a group of teenage boys.  I had a flat tire on my old, beat up van, and it couldn’t have picked a worse spot in town to happen.  I was beginning to think I was going to have to start swinging the tire iron to defend myself from the three when Curt walked up and started talking to the three in a firm tone of voice.  He gave them a lecture about gang behavior and promised to talk to their parents if they didn’t straighten up.  He then proceeded to finish changing my tire and when I offered him a job, he grinned and accepted.  I warned him I couldn’t afford much, and he told me that was more than he was making presently.  All he wanted in return was my promise not to complain or fire him if he said he needed some time off now and then.  I agreed and shook hands, and Curt had proved invaluable.  Father didn’t like him, either, and that was another plus in my opinion.

My excitement over the competition continued to grow over the next few days as we all worked hard to keep ahead of our contracts and finish them satisfactorily while working on more proposals to keep the jobs coming in after the competition was over.  While we certainly weren’t booked to capacity, we were still operating in the black, much to Father’s dismay.  He still couldn’t believe I was doing something so menial when I could be a lawyer and join his law firm, and eventually marry another lawyer.  The fact that I wouldn’t even date a man if I learned he was a lawyer never failed to upset my parent.  I liked to think that Mama would understand completely if she were alive.  She and my older brother, Denton, were killed in a car accident when I was a small child, and Father never remarried.  He was content to immerse himself in work and ignore me unless I did something he didn’t approve of, which was fairly often, to be honest.

The promised letter finally arrived, and I would finally learn who my carpenter would be, and who our competition would be.  I certainly didn’t want to be the sacrificial lamb for one of the firms that had been in existence before I was born, but if I was to be taken seriously, I had to beat someone who was known as a ‘good’ decorator.  I held my breath and opened the letter.  The carpenter I was assigned was named Lee Phares; I didn’t know him at all, which meant I didn’t know if his work was good, or how much I could throw his way and expect him to get the job done right. 

I wasn’t upset about that.  I figured I could work with the man if he was half competent.  But, the other name, my competition, was the one person I did not expect or want to see ever again in this lifetime!  His name was John Benoit, and I hated him.  In fact, just reading his name on the paper made my temper flare.  I stomped my foot angrily, and then let out a scream of frustration as I turned and ran up the steps to my private living quarters, slamming the door behind me and locking it for good measure.  The last thing I wanted to do right now was talk to anyone.  I needed to be alone to figure out how I was going to handle this mess.

John Benoit! John Benoit!  It wasn’t fair!  The one man in the entire world who would upset me just by being in the same building, and he was my competition in a challenge that would either make or break my business.  He was a despicable, annoying, vile, contemptible, disgraceful, vile, loathsome, aggravating, irritating, egg sucking, infuriating Neanderthal!  And he believed in spanking grown women!  Namely me!  Of course I couldn’t stop my mind from reliving the incident:

“What do you think you are doing, young lady?  I had my tag on that sofa!” John scolded as he picked up his green tag from the floor where I’d thrown it and put it back on the leather sofa.

“I saw it first and called across the room that I wanted it!” I told him.  “You’ll have to find something else to use.”

“I tagged it first, Dandy.  You pick something else.”

“I will not!” I ripped off his tag once again and slapped my red and white one on the soft, buttery leather.

He promptly removed my tag, and replaced his and said, “Touch that tag again and I’m going to turn you over my knee and give you the spanking you’re begging for!”

“You just try it and I’ll have you kicked out of school and arrested!”  I wasn’t about to be bullied or intimidated.  I ripped off his tag and tore it up in his face, while he looked at me in growing fury.  I then put my tag back on the lovely sofa I just had to have for my design and gave him a triumphant smile, knowing I’d won.  He wouldn’t dare get physical with me or the school would expel him and he wouldn’t graduate.  Besides which fact, my father, the lawyer, would sue him for every penny he ever hoped to have.

However, John Benoit didn’t seem to know any of that, and if he did, it certainly didn’t matter in the heat of the moment.  He was clearly upset and angry and when I saw him smile I felt a shiver of fear in the pit of my stomach.  The man was going to carry out his absurd threat to spank me!  “No!” I whispered, taking a step backwards, but as I knew he would, he followed me until he reached out and grabbed my wrist.  In the next moment I was dangling face-down over the back of the sofa and his hand was landing on the seat of my skirt with resounding smacks that echoed in the large warehouse.  “Stop it!” I screamed in embarrassment and shame.  He ignored me and continued to spank me until one of the instructors noticed what was happening and came to my aid.  Of course the man wanted to know what was going on.  I could have said something to get John Benoit expelled, but I was silent.  He didn’t comment either, other than to tell the instructor that it was a personal matter.  The man looked from one of us to the other and then suggested we deal with personal issues on our own time, not during our work hours.

“You can have the sofa, little girl.  I’d say you paid the price fully,” he said as he walked away. 

I didn’t use the sofa, and still couldn’t look at a leather sofa in that color without remembering the humiliation I suffered at his hands.  How on earth would I compete against John Benoit and remain focused and professional?  One thing was certain.  I couldn’t hide up here.  I went to the bathroom and repaired my makeup and then went downstairs to face my curious co-workers.

“You okay, girlfriend?” Curt asked me.

“Yes, I’m fine.  I might as well tell you all; I was not expecting to learn that John Benoit is my competition in the contest.  He attended the same design school I did, but isn’t from this area originally.  I had no idea he decided to settle here.”

“You dislike him, Dandy?” Piper asked quietly, her large brown eyes full of worry and concern.

“We had an unpleasant incident,” I said.  “We both wanted to use the same sofa when we had to do a practice room.  It was a test of sorts, and it was first come, first serve when it came to the choices we had.  He didn’t hear me call out for the sofa, and put his tag on it seconds before I got there with mine.  We had a tug of war, so to speak, and he embarrassed me terribly in front of everyone.”

“Did he put his hands on you, Dandy?” Curt asked menacingly.

I nodded, my face scarlet.  “He spanked me,” I whispered.  “You aren’t smiling, are you, Curtis James Lavender?”  I glared at him.  “You are snickering!” I accused.

“The man must have had a death wish to take you on, girl!” he teased.

“It was not funny!  I was too upset to do what I should have done, and get him expelled from school!”

“If you don’t want to do this contest, Dandy, just call that woman and tell her you have changed your mind,” Paige said firmly.

“And give John Benoit the satisfaction?  Hardly!” I squared my shoulders.  “I am going to beat him so badly he’ll have to leave town with his tail between his legs!” I boasted.  “I want to show him up, and I know I can do that.  I believe in us.  We are a good decorating firm, and my turn to laugh last will be when I beat him fair and square.” 

While I was talking the doorbell rang.  It wasn’t exactly uncommon for that to happen.  Even though we are a business, and it clearly states Dandy Designs in etching on the door window, some people are simply hesitant to open the door and walk right in.  We don’t make a big deal of it, but get up and answer the door with a smile and welcome whoever is on the other side.  If someone is looking for a decorator, the last thing we want to do is scold them for not walking right in.  Since I was the one already on my feet, I went to see who was there.  I pulled open the door, a big smile on my face, and then froze when I saw who was there… John Benoit!