Chapter 6

In college, Paul Armstrong was continually reminded of how much he looked like a young Robert Redford, but with dark hair. He had, according to his friends, those chiseled looks of ruggedness that women found so alluring. He didn't fight the comparisons; honestly, he played off them as often as he could, and when he did, he usually found himself between the sheets with the young lady making those comparisons. If they thought he looked like The Sundance Kid, that was plenty okay with him. Just before the end of his first year, he met Mark Wilcox prowling around the same sorority house that Paul had discovered was filled with cute coeds. Initially competitive, they soon discovered that the supply of coeds was plentiful and the need to compete disappeared. Both attended the summer session that year, and by the start of the fall semester, they had truly become fast friends. If you saw one, you saw the other nearby.

Paul had a two-bedroom apartment by then. If there was a function at the sorority, or a big game on campus, more times than not both men would return to Paul's apartment with their dates, supremely confident that neither girl would feel inhibited by the presence of her sorority sister in the next room. By the third year, Paul's next morning breakfast omelets had become legendary among the sorority sisters.

He received his undergraduate degree in three and a half years, and had already completed much of his initial graduate courses by that time as well. While many of the sorority sisters had identified him as a very suitable quarry for the long term, each found herself disappointed. Paul was intelligent, ambitious, and was not about to be sidetracked by emotional attachments lasting much longer than three or four evenings.

When he finally entered the world of business, his female associates immediately identified him as "Eligible but intensely goal oriented" which in the dictionary of Women in Finance, meant, "Yes he is single, but you will play hell getting him to even talk about a walk down the aisle." Two years later, his success had proven to be more than a flash in a pan; he was accumulating substantial wealth and appeared to have his life under control-- and he was still single! Paul's attendance at any social function outside the office usually meant two things: one, that his ever-present pal Mark would attend as well, and two, that whatever the host had imagined would transpire at the party was nothing remotely like what would actually happen. The only redeeming feature was that everybody in attendance would declare it the best party of the year.

Two mornings a week found Paul at the gym, in a strenuous workout that began before dawn. Another morning, he was at the stables allowing his horse to challenge him to a very heady run. If time allowed, on the fourth day, Paul was in a one man racing scull, rowing at full speed against imagined opponents on the Chattahoochee River. It was one of Paul's favorite activities.

All of these activities, Paul believed, kept him sharp for his work. He was proud of his success, but it had not really surprised him. He knew that he was smart, very well educated, and had enough self- confidence to accept as challenges what his associates often considered significant risks. He was honest with himself in that he knew that he had not and would not succeed in every challenge, but those that had not ended well, had not ended as calamities. The weekends were a completely different matter. Weekends, in his mind, were to relax, to unwind, and to forget about the activities of the workweek. He had a standing tee time with his best friend, and two other men at a country club near his residence. Following that, it was anybody's guess. Mark Wilcox could come up with some of the strangest things for the two of them to do. Admittedly, sometimes Paul had reservations about what Mark was proposing, but eventually -- that's what they did.

Several weeks prior, Paul had seen Mark and Debbie together at a wedding reception and, in Paul's eyes, Mark was acting different than he normally did, although subtly so. Then, a few weeks later, he had met Mark after work for dinner. Mark once again mentioned seeing Debbie and, once again, Paul could notice a change in Mark's demeanor when he spoke of her. Paul had known, and had been best friends with Mark for nearly ten years. If he really knew anybody in this world, he knew Mark Wilcox. He was not sure what it was that he was sensing, but something was changing, that was certain.

This past Saturday, once again his old pal had roped him into another commitment, attending the high school graduation of a young girl that he had met somehow. Paul had tried hard to get out of this venture, to no avail, and just as planned, they had the privilege of sitting through a typical small town high school graduation ceremony, complete with speeches from every dignitary they could find. After the ceremony, Mark introduced him to the girl and her grandmother, who was her guardian, and then invited the young girl, her grandmother and Paul to join him for dinner at a super secret supper club owned by the remnants of a hundred year old Confederate Army group. To Paul's way of thinking, Mark could have prepared him a bit more for meeting these people. He had given no hint about her, about her astonishing beauty, about her maturity, her intelligence, or anything. Mark had only said that he had escorted this girl to her high school prom because some boy had given her a really bad time.

Maybe if Mark had given him a little heads up, he would not have been so tongue tied when they were introduced, or possibly, he would not have stared at her for the entire drive to the supper club. What was it about this girl that he had chosen to telephone her the next day, and the day after, and the day after that as well. He had never done that before, never! A date was a date, and the day after was a different day. That's how it had always been in college. What changed? What did Mark say about spending time with Debbie, that he felt completely relaxed and disarmed, or something like that?

Paul had never just called a girl to talk, just to talk and see how she was and how her day went. Sandy invited him to dinner at their house on Saturday, and he accepted the invitation without blinking an eye. Whatever she wanted to say, he wanted to hear. He didn't care, as long as he could hear her voice, put his arm around her, or hold his hand. This was nuts, he knew. Never had any girl so completely taken over his life. He drove to her house three nights in a row, leaving work hours early, something he had never done before. They played miniature golf, they walked around town, and they sat on her patio and talked with her grandmother about the future.

She challenged him in his thoughts and philosophies. She debated his very Republican positions on civil rights, income disparity and even world politics. She did not shy away from his challenges to her ideas, and he personally wondered how any person her age could become so worldly. The aftermath of these discussions was that Cupid's arrow moved closer and closer to his heart.