Negotiating for Joanne
Copyright© 2013 by Carlos LaRosa
Chapter 1
I'd recently returned home after graduating from college. I'd taken a degree in business, but hadn't really applied myself while doing so. I knew my father had plans for me to eventually succeed him at his factory, but I really wasn't looking forward to a career spent manufacturing women's shoes. This lack of motivation had kept me from really attending to my studies.
I'd only been home for little more than a day before I started sensing the atmosphere of anxiety and worry among the various family members. This was particularly true of my grandmother, mother, and both my younger siblings. My father was probably just as upset as the others, but he managed to disguise it from me if he was.
Matters started coming to a head at the dinner table that second evening after I'd returned home. It was my mother who initiated this new topic of conversation.
"Kevin, do you remember Joanne Dunleavy?" Her question quieted all the other table conversation when she asked me this.
"I remember her. We were friends in elementary school. I think her parents took her out of the public school after seventh grade. I think I remember hearing that she went to some boarding school in either Maine or Vermont. I've seen her, over the years, maybe three or four times, usually in the Summer. What about her?"
"Her father approached your Dad, asking about you. He wanted to know what your future plans were. He asked Dad to ask you to come see him at his office in New Haven, at your earliest convenience. Your father and I were wondering what that was all about?"
"I'm sure I don't know. I'm not sure I've even met Joanne's parents. Maybe he wants to offer me a job, or something like that."
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