Chapter 40: Relocation

I flew down to New Jersey on Monday morning, getting to TCI headquarters about nine o’clock. I checked in with Pam, who’d taken over as the woman in charge of ‘me,’ FDC, and all of the TCI projects across the company. My company was now earning about a six to eight million dollars or more in consulting and systems development fees from TCI each month, so this was no small endeavor.

Separate from that body of work, I had the strategic planning work with Brady going on at a little over a hundred thousand dollars a month. I knew that sooner or later, I’d be promoted to officer of FDC, only I didn’t want to become an ‘in office’ officer; I wanted to stay on the road working on the same kind of projects I was already involved in ... and, of course, meeting and enjoying the companionship I’d found among my many friends in other geographies.

Pam broke away from her schedule to call in a man named John Ringler, who was the executive assistant to the president of the company. John was about to be anointed as the head of strategic planning for all of TCI, and Pam wanted the two of us to meet since I was already deep into the planning effort for the Rocky Mountain Division that Jane was currently managing.

John and I hit it off, and I spent the rest of the morning with him in Pam’s conference room detailing the work in Denver. We even got Brady on a teleconference so that there was a good sharing of information going on. The TCI regions were roughly the equivalent to the time zones and then an east-west line drawn across the center of the country; plus there was an Australasia region that included Japan and China, and a Eurasian zone that also covered Europe, the Middle East, India, and part of northern and South Africa. The only truly strategic planning going on was the effort I was doing in Denver. Everything else that got labeled that way really amounted to a two-year budgeting cycle and nothing more.

John and I broke for lunch, and Pam rejoined us. We had a few good philosophical discussions about strategic planning over lunch, and again Pam wowed me with her astute observations and logical thinking. John was impressed, too, as the two of them had never interacted much prior to that day.

I put on my computer systems hat in the afternoon, and nudged a couple of the larger projects along, helping to problem-solve with the project heads. I also got to know a wide number of people on the TCI side of things and not just our own consultants and developers. I saw things from a project perspective and didn’t draw lines between them and us; because of that I saw improvements and ways to speed things up that the others often didn’t. Jane and now Pam had liked my approach and perspective in that regard.

Pam and I collected René at the house, and went to dinner in Morristown. René entertained us with a few details about her OB/GYN rotation in her PA program. She had us chuckling with her about how everyone in her rotations ‘caught’ whatever diseases or symptoms their patients had. Thus, in her womanly part of the program, she found it humorous that the male students were feeling menstrual cramps, labor pains, sore breasts, and other female-only symptoms.

We went back to the house, and the three of us made love for a few hours before winding up the day and going to sleep.

We were all up early the next day: Pam and I to get to work at TCI, and René to head off to her classes and rotation. René dropped a bit of a bomb on me just before she left, “Steve, I should have mentioned this last night, but it looks like I might have a job just outside Boston after the end of the semester. I have to do a year’s residency, just the way doctors do. This one is in Concord at a place called Emerson Hospital. It looks nice on the Internet; do you know it?”

I stammered and stuttered, “Of course, I know it. It’s a beautiful place with a great reputation in the area. I think it’s affiliated with Mass General Brigham, too, so you’ll end up with a great set of credentials.”

René said, “In a month, I have to go up there to find a place to live. Maybe I can travel with you when you go home on a Friday.”

I blurted out, “Oooooh, NO! You already have a place to live! It’s with me. You’re MY sex slave, so you’d better deliver on your indenture, slave.” I gave a diabolically sounding chuckle.

René laughed as she put her dishes in the sink, “You’re kidding, right? I don’t want to be a burden.”

“No, I’m very serious. I want you to come and live with us. You’ve been part of this crazy extended family of mine almost from the start, and you’ve met most of the people closest to me. I know Fran, Sheila, and Ally would be upset if you didn’t at least consider moving in with us. We have the room, and we want you.”

René studied me to test my sincerity. “Let me think about it. I’ll be home about eight-thirty tonight depending on my patients, and we can talk some more.” I winced because she was off to one of her ‘regular’ twelve-hour shifts.

Pam pulled me through the door in the direction of the car. She yelled back at René, “Wait to have dinner. We’ll go out again. I’ll be here, too.”

Pam’s availability was news. I had a million questions about whether Jane knew about René’s departure in two months. I had the feeling that she didn’t, and I didn’t think it was my place to tell her. I’d see what René said that evening and make that suggestion.

I did call the apartment as soon as I got to TCI and had some privacy in the conference room. Fran and Ally were still there, but Sheila had already left for work. I quickly described what I knew about René’s plans and asked whether I’d was out of place inviting her to be our roommate.

Without hesitation, the two effused over the idea that René could stay with us. They loved the idea and assured me that Sheila would too. Nonetheless, after ending the short call with them, I called Sheila and got her just before she got to her job. I repeated the situation with René, and she also made me swear to insist that she come and live with us.

Personally, I worried a little about the dynamic of one guy – me, living with four women, and trying to please them sexually. The three girls in Cambridge were sisters, and I considered myself engaged to all of them with Fran being a primary of some kind. That was the vocabulary they used, so I’d adopted it. How would René’s presence affect the balance between the sisters, or me and the sisters, or me and René for that matter? Would Jane be pissed at me or us for stealing her sex slave? I chuckled to myself as I posed the last question.

I sent Jane my usual morning text shortly after I guessed she’d gotten up. I also texted Marge just so she wouldn’t think I’d forgotten about her. Shortly, I heard back from each of them with short ‘I love you’ messages. Marge had told me that my messages to her also reminded her that she needed to communicate with Malcomb back in New Jersey. Apparently, as Marge was spending so much time in Denver, her widow friend Marion had moved in with Malcomb and the two of them were fucking up a storm, now that Malcomb had reestablished himself as a sexual animal.