The Writers' Circle

It was appropriate that Nancy Sonnymyra should die in public. Although the exact time of her death was difficult to ascertain. This was because she died during a formal dinner, and no-one noticed that she had stopped breathing until she slowly slumped forward culminating in her face becoming buried in a plate of sherry trifle.

It was remarked afterwards that because of her known meanness, most people were surprised that she hadn't waited until the coffee and mints had been served before expiring.

Until that moment, Nancy had been the major shareholder of Cleveland Work-wear. A highly profitable distributor of hard wearing, reasonably priced clothing.
As far as most people were aware, Nancy had no heirs, and she had been such an unpleasant domineering old rat-bag that no-one had, had the courage to approach her on the subject. 
It was therefore with some interest that the board of Cleveland waited for the reading of Nancy's will in order to discover who their new owner was to be.

Much to everyone's surprise, it turned out that Nancy had actually given birth to a child. It had happened fifty years earlier during a grand tour of Europe. The birth had taken place in Turin, and the child had been named Romeo. It appeared that when Nancy returned from Italy, she had left the baby there in the care of a paid nanny. Over the years she had sent considerable sums of money to Italy to provide for the care of her child, and had set up a generous trust fund for him.
She had kept his existence a secret for half a century.
Nancy's will left all of her shareholding to her son.
A company lawyer was despatched to Italy to break the sad news of his mother's death to him, and the somewhat more cheerful news that he was now a multi-millionaire.

After some discussion the company board issued a statement to the press, stating that the company would continue to be a family business, and that the major shareholding had passed to Nancy's son Romeo.
The Managing Director thought ruefully to himself that he hoped that the son would be a bit more user friendly than the mother had been.

The name Sonnymyra was not a common one. Even less so was Romeo Sonnymyra, but there was one man in Cleveland who had it. He worked as a junior quality control inspector at the Chocco Crunch breakfast cereal factory. American Romeo would spend his working day watching box after box of breakfast cereal trundle past him. Every so often he would take a box from the line, check the printing, open the top and check the bag inside. He would then re-seal it and send another 15 tons of the stuff through. The job was so mind-numbingly boring, that he would occasionally slip a note into the box before re-sealing it. The notes varied from "Enjoy your breakfast" to "Get me out of here" The only other distraction he had while working was the radio that was permanently tuned to KTFM, and blared away without interruption during the 8 hour shift. Romeo knew the names of every daytime DJ, every weather and traffic reporter, and every advertising jingle.

One the day of the Cleveland Work-wear press release, Romeo made his way home from the breakfast cereal factory as usual. When he reached his apartment he saw that there was a man standing outside apparently waiting for him. 
"Romeo Sonnymyra?" The man said. Romeo wondered if he owed the man some money.
"Yes" he said cautiously.
"Today's a good day for you" The man said. Thrusting a tape recorder under Romeo's nose.
Romeo relaxed. Now it all made sense. The phrase "It's a good day for you" Was used by the radio station. They sent people out onto the street with recorders, and if you replied "Yes I listen to KTFM" They gave you 50 bucks.
"Yes I listen to KTFM" he said.
The man looked a little taken aback, but quickly recovered. "How will the money change your life" he said.
Romeo considered the question.
"Not that much" he said. "I might take in a baseball game"
The man produced a camera and asked Romeo if he would pose for a picture. "Sure" said Romeo, putting on his best grin.
With his photo secured and quote safely recorded, the newspaper reporter - for that's what he was - thanked Romeo for his time and hurried off down the road.
It took Romeo a few moments before he realised that he had not been paid.
"Hey! Where's my fifty bucks" He yelled at the retreating figure.

The following day, Romeo's photograph together with a short article appeared in the business section of the newspaper. The headline read: CLEVELAND HEIR JUST A REGULAR GUY;
Romeo didn't see it. He and just about everyone else at the breakfast cereal factory never read the business section.
The working day passed as normal, apart from Romeo swearing at the radio a lot.
Other people however had seen the article, and a few days later Romeo's photograph, together with a re-write of the original report found its way into the general news section of the newspapers.
One of the other workers at the factory showed it to him.
Romeo was astounded. He had only got his photo in the newspaper once before, and that was only due to a culmination of errors that ended with his house being accidentally demolished instead of the one next door. The newspaper had obviously made a mistake, and Romeo laughed along with everyone else. Although when he got home that night and found the owner of the local Ford dealership waiting for him with yet another photographer and a new car that the man was prepared to loan him for a year, all for the price of having his photo taken, Romeo thought it prudent to keep quiet. It might be a couple of weeks before the man realised his mistake, and asked for it back, and the transmission was failing on his old car.

On the same day that Romeo was gratefully accepting the keys to a new Ford, Cleveland's lawyer was briefing the company management on his meeting with their new owner.
Italian Romeo had received the news of his mothers death quite calmly, although as he had only come into contact with her very rarely, that was perhaps not surprising.
He had spent his entire life eating the finest food and drinking the finest wine. He spent his summers on the beaches of southern France, and the winters in the ski resorts of the Italian Alps. His mother had provided well for him, and he had never had to worry where the next Lamborghini was coming from. 
Unfortunately, he had inherited his mother's looks as well as her money, which proves that there is some justice in the world.
He had been pleased to learn of the shares that he had inherited, and after he had given the matter some thought, had decided that he would slowly sell them over the next twenty years. He had no knowledge of clothing retail, or of any other type of business for that matter, and was not keen to learn.
He had never worked a day in his life, and had no intention of starting now. Provided that the management of Cleveland continued to keep the company on an even keel, he was quite happy to let them get on with it.
This was good news for the management of the company as they could continue trading as before without damaging interference from outside.

Things seemed to have resolved themselves very well.
The Managing Director breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the remainder of the agenda for the meeting. The final item was: What do we do about the other Romeo Sonnymyra.
They had seen the newspaper reports, but had not commented on them until they knew where they stood in relation to Italian Romeo.
Now that they had full effective control of the company, they debated what to do.
The simplest thing would be just to issue a statement denouncing American Romeo as an imposter. But then again, they might be able to use the feel-good stories in the newspapers to their advantage.
American Romeo was a typical average guy and looked the part, whereas Italian Romeo was a spoilt, greasy over-weight foreigner with a high pitched voice who had never worn any Cleveland Work-wear products, and was unlikely to do so. If they could get American Romeo, the regular blue collar guy from next door to work for them as a spokesman it would give the company a good image and help sales. The public already thought that he was the owner, and providing that they did nothing to disillusion them, who would be the wiser? If asked, they could just say that the company was owned by Romeo Sonnymyra.
They were not going to lie. They would just be a bit economical with the truth.

Thus it was, that American Romeo was contacted by Cleveland Work-wear and offered a job as company spokesman with triple his previous salary from the breakfast cereal factory, and a rent free apartment on the top floor of Cleveland's office block.
Unsurprisingly, Romeo did not have to think about it for long before he accepted the offer.

He was given a personal assistant by the company, and in a reversal of the normal roles, his personal assistant told him what to do rather than the other way round. He was simply there to wear the products, smile at the cameras and say what he had been told to say.
He picked it up quickly, and within a matter of months, his face was known across the country.
People referred to him as Mr Cleveland. His unassuming stance, and simple straight forward way of speaking made him popular with the people that bought working clothes, and sales and profits grew as a result.

After six months, it was decided to send Romeo and his personal assistant on a moral boosting visit to the company's main production site in India. The usual posse of TV and newspaper reporters were invited to report on the event.

Romeo found himself standing in a huge unventilated factory just outside of Calcutta. In front of him sat row upon row of grim faced women hunched over sewing machines. Porters pushed wheeled tubs of finished and partly finished clothing hither and thither. Romeo's eye's stung as sweat trickled into them, and his ears rang with the noise of a thousand buzzing sewing machines. It reminded him of his life in the breakfast cereal factory, except that it was ten times more unpleasant. Despite the intense heat, he felt a cold anger rising in him.

A week later, the board of Cleveland assembled for an emergency meeting. Before each one of them was a copy of that mornings business press. The main headline screamed out at them:  MR CLEVELAND PLEDGES US STANDARDS IN OVERSEAS FACTORIES

The Managing Director called the meeting to order. The first item on the agenda before him was: What do we do about Romeo Sonnymyra.