Babel Novel
Chapter 116
Chapter 116
Chapter 116
Logan noticed Lorraine hesitating to pick up the call and became worried. He asked, “What’s wrong? Who’s calling you?” Property © NôvelDrama.Org.
“Oh, nothing it’s another one of my long–time fruit merchants,” replied Lorraine as she picked up the call
It was a call from a fruit wholesaler named Thomas, ite had a much bigger business, which included his own cold storage truck that allowed him to specialize in purchasing fruits and shipping them to other cities,
As such, he was also Lorraine’s biggest customer. He often purchased large quantities of every single variety of fruits grown in forraine’s orchard.
Lorraine had a bad feeling lingering in her heart, but she made sure not to show it through her tone. She continued the phone call with Thomas with her usual polite demeanor.” Hello, Mr. Walker”
Thomas did not greet her back and just went straight to the topic at hand. “Ms. Somner, I’d like to cancel all the orders I’ve made for your cherries, mangoes, grapes, and such. I’m canceling everything. Please return my deposit as well. I’m sorry.”
The abrupt apology at the end of the sentence was added because Thomas felt slightly guilty about suddenly pulling out from their years–long business cooperation.
But the thoughts about the benefits he would receive over this decision would clear any doubt he had about going through with this.
It could not be helped that Lorraine had offended someone much more powerful.
Lorraine fell silent for a short while before asking a question, “Can you give me a reason, Mr. Walker? Did I scam you with a lower quantity of fruits than you had purchased? Or perhaps the quality of fruits is inferior?”
“You don’t have to ask for the reason or anything. It’s simply just because I don’t want to work with you anymore. There are plenty of other orchardists willing to cooperate with my bustling business, that’s all. And remember to return my deposit,” replied Thomas before hanging up.
As soon as Thomas hung up, Lorraine received another phone call from Derrick. “Ms. Somner, I forgot to tell you about my deposit just now. Please return it to me as soon as possible, sorry”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Brown. You know better than anyone else that I’m a trustworthy person. I’m on my way home right now, and I’ll transfer the deposit back to you once I’m back home Not a penny less.”
Derrick fell silent for a while before replying, “You’re quite the straightforward person, Ms. Somner. It was good working with you for so many years. But not everyone thinks of you the same way.
“There are always people out there that you won’t be able to get along with no matter what, and they would even hate you so much as to paint you a target.
“Folks like us need to remain neutral and not offend anyone for the sake of our business and our livelihood,” added Derrick before hanging up.
His parting words caused Lorraine’s expression to become stern.
She could not help but wonder why her long–time client base was suddenly calling her to cancel their orders.
Lorraine had lost almost a hundred thousand dollars of revenue with just two major fruit merchants canceling their orders.
She realized that she was being targeted by someone after listening to Derrick’s words. But who could be targeting her?
Lorraine did not have the time to think about it as all the fruit merchants that she had been working with started calling her to cancel their orders, except for the fruit merchants who resided within the town.
The fruit merchants in town were all just small retailers and did not have a very high number of sales. The bulk of her sales were mostly from wholesalers.
It was a bumper harvest that year while the amount of fruits ordered by the wholesalers was still the same amount as the last year.
Lorraine had been racking her brains over how to deal with the excessive amount of fruits. And before she could even come up with an answer, the original bulk of sales to the wholesalers had come to naught.
Lorraine already managed to sell off two large batches of fruits before Easter, so she could still leave the cherries and mangoes on their trees for now. But even so, she could only afford to leave them untouched for a week before they started to rot and fall off the tree.
Especially the Sentennial cherries that were about to hit the market. Lorraine had hoped that the cherries would make her a lot of money that year.
she personally managed the cherry orchard and made sure that the cherries were in tip–top shape, which in turn bore bright cherries of the highest quality.
When she finally returned home, Lorraine immediately plunged herself into her study.