Chapter 32

Work intensifies, Liz builds a house, and the walls come tumbling down.

I had hoped we could get an airport shuttle, sneak back into Greenville, and go to my old house to rest and relax, but that wasn’t happening. Instead, a chauffeur with a sign that read ‘Mr. and Mrs. Martin Stevens’ greeted us, and with a skycaps assistance, he gathered all our luggage; and as he escorted us toward the exit, Liz excused herself and dashed off to the ladies’ room. She was in there for about ten minutes, and when she came out, she smiled and said, “I’m ready to begin work on our dream home. Marty, my phone is dead; remind me to charge it when we get home.”

The limo waiting at the airport for the honeymooners delivered us to our temporary home, and we were met in the front yard by Mom and Dad, Uncle Bob and Aunt Jolene, Dixie and Brad, and Danni and Cliff. Mom prepared a brunch for a light meal, and while eating, we were peppered with questions from everyone, although most of the questions came from female spouses.

The questions came rapidly, often before we finished answering the previous one. The last query came from Danni, and I might have snapped at her.

“Did you go see any live sex shows in Bangkok?”

I stood with my angry Marty face. “That’s it, no more questions. You’ll have to wait for the novel to hit bookstores all over America. Everyone, go home, NOW, so we can sleep for twenty-four hours.”

That outburst got their attention, and the crowd slowly moved to the front door, making me feel bad.

“Wait, sorry I snapped, but before you go, can anyone tell me what the day of the week today is?”

They all moved back in a pack, hugging and kissing, and I heard three people yell, “Saturday.” I looked for Liz, and Danni and Momma had her pinned into a corner.

Back at work on Monday, my first meeting of the day lasted all morning with Carmen and Amara. They brought me up to speed on the correspondence that came in the mail and phone calls they took while I was out of the office. Amara attended the three demos my dad and Uncle Bob handled, and she gave them high marks. Carmen went through my notebook while I was gone and spoke in great detail about what documents she added to my PC, with who she shared these documents, and showed me all the questions they asked after reviewing what Carmen wrote. Then, we had lunch delivered at one o’clock before Carmen and I met with the Stevens A&B management team for the first time.

Uncle Bob opened the meeting to discuss some of my thoughts put on paper by my able assistant Carmen. So, I stood up to address everyone and started with, “I can see that a few of my ideas have gotten some of you pretty excited, and let me tell you, I’m pretty happy, myself. Now that my honeymoon is over, I can get a lot more rest so I can brainstorm my way to solutions using what is now just words and drawings in a notebook.”

Everyone stared silently at me until Uncle Bob snapped them out of their daze, “Did the cat bite your tongue off? Do you want to discuss modifications to ion drives, or would you like a detailed description of his honeymoon?”

That brought soft laughter, and Ron asked, “Did you make a video of the highlights of your trip?”

That loosened things up, and the questions began flying at Carmen and me. Carmen was more than capable of answering any questions and had my back several times when I didn’t have the answer on the tip of my tongue. The meeting broke up shortly after four. I asked my dad about the demos they did.

“Including yours, four for four.”

“Wasn’t there one scheduled tomorrow?”

“They asked us if we could do it last Thursday, and Bob said, ‘No problem.’ When I told him I was going to be in Maryland that day, he acted just like you said, that it was his idea, and he had it covered.”

Good old uncle Bob.

“Four demos and four sales, Marty. No pressure on you, but if you screw up the last demo and Cray doesn’t get a sale from it, you have to pay for our trip to Hawaii in October.”

“Dad, why do I have to pay?”

“I’m glad you asked, son. If you nail the last demo, Cray’s CEO will send Bob, me, and our spouses to Maui for a seven-day, seven-night, all-expenses-paid 2nd honeymoon in October. So don’t blow it.”

My father challenged me? So little faith in Marty the great, I’m tempted to tank the demo, but Momma would make me pay.

A week later, I sealed the deal when I showed off the Cray to fifteen representatives working for a major international pharmaceutical and health Corporation. Later, I heard they were so impressed that they purchased one for the US and one for their European companies, based at their headquarters in Belgium.

Cray was so impressed that they made Uncle Bob an offer of free upgrades in exchange for more demonstrations. Doing that will save money, and he can sell that gun in his desk drawer. It was his decision, so I stayed away from the Cray reps.

My first week back at work flew by, and Liz even gave me one night off from sex. At least we were still christening different pieces of furniture. Then, Saturday morning at 10 o’clock, we met with Dad’s house-building architect, Charles Winthrop III, and Rachel, his junior architect who would be doing the AutoCAD design. He left us in her hands, and we explained exactly what we wanted, size-wise, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms.

Let’s back up a minute; I used the pronoun we? There wasn’t much ‘we’ involved unless Liz had a mouse in her pocket. The only input to the house I was allowed to make was a home office for me and a shed in the backyard for a tractor, lawn tools, and enough room to fit a mattress for when I was in trouble. While the women were talking, my mind visualized myself floating in my pool, drinking a cold beer.

My work cell phone rang, and it was Larry. “Marty, your dad made me call you and say you have an emergency at work. Now there is no emergency, but he said if I rescued you, there would be a donation made by you to my college fund. I’m hanging up now, and you never spoke to me.”

After Larry disconnected our call, I kept talking, “So you say the power supply showed a fault? Did you talk to customer service? Uh-huh, okay, I’m coming in, and we’ll put our heads together and see what we come up with.”

“Sorry Liz, but we have a problem with the new computer, and Larry’s not sure what to try, so I have to go in and help them. Nice to meet you, Rachel. I’ll call a cab, Liz, and see you at home later.”

She kissed me while her eyes gave me a lie detector scan, and then I became invisible when she turned back toward her new girlfriend.

The taxi driver took me home, and I ate two sandwiches and drank a couple of beers before hitting the raft in the pool. The rocking motion of the water put me to sleep, and I slept pretty soundly until someone turned the water hose on me, and I fell off the raft.

As I surfaced, Liz dropped the hose and glared at me with her hands on her hips.

“How long have you been in the pool?”

“What time is it?”

She looked at her watch, “Half-past three.”

“Let me see, I left their office at eleven, so I left four and a half hours ago, minus a thirty-minute taxi ride, twenty minutes to make and eat lunch, leaving three hours and forty minutes I was floating on the raft asleep. Did you miss me?”