Chapter 46

Diana straightened the small stack of papers, and inserted them into the three-hole paper-punch. Leaning down on it, she punched the holes into the papers. She opened the project folder and inserted the sheets. After folding the metal clips to hold the papers in place, she closed the cover. Looking through the plastic front, she read the title aloud, “Personal Definition of Happiness and Goals for Diana Parker.”

With a sad expression on her face, she put the folder down. Working through her personal definition of happiness had been pure torture. Things that she had thought important to her had evaporated in the light of self examination. Her sexual revolution fell flat on its face as being trite and superficial. The portrait by Sue had shown an innocent girl on the verge of becoming a woman. She had shed her innocence like an old pair of shoes.

Things that she had dismissed without thought had come back to haunt her. She was reminded of those Saturday mornings when she and Dan would make breakfast and talk. She missed them and the only one to blame for it was herself. She had pushed Dan out of the house. Dan was always willing to listen to her, but she was unwilling to share. She didn’t share her life with anyone. All her relationships were superficial.

Working through her goals had been the toughest thing she had ever done. As she identified each goal, she thought about her behavior over the past few years, and how she had worked against what she had wanted to accomplish. Her life had spiraled out of control. Fortunately, she had caught it before she had ruined her life.

Diana sat back in her chair thinking about Dan. She wondered when she had become convinced that she was better than him. It hurt to think that she had bought into the ‘school dummy’ label that had been hung on him in school. Dan worked hard, but only because he had not been given the right tools to succeed in school. Diana softly said to herself, “I’ve been such a fool this past year. Dan is the smarter one of us.”

Diana looked at the project folder for another moment, and then put it down on the desk. High school graduation was this coming Saturday afternoon. She wondered if Dan would attend. She expected him to show up to watch her graduate, but she would understand if he didn’t come.

She looked over at the other stack of papers on her desk. She was the class valedictorian, and was to deliver a speech at the graduation ceremony. She wasn’t pleased with the draft that she had given the Principal. It was filled with the kind of drivel that made graduation speeches so boring. How many valedictorians were going to give speeches about facing a brave new world? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t want to give one.

She picked up the speech and looked over it with a frown. She glanced at the project folder that she had just finished. She turned to the computer and said, “I’m not giving that speech.”

Fifteen minutes after Dan opened the pizzeria, a line of customers formed at the counter. Working as fast as she could, Vicki handed out coffees and blueberry muffins. In just a one week, word about the muffins had spread beyond the folks who worked at the shopping center. Housewives now included a stop at the pizzeria in their morning routine. Dan brought out another tray of muffins to where Vicki was working and said, “Here’s another dozen muffins.”

“That’s the third dozen today,” Vicki said as she rang up another sale. The people who worked in the strip mall came and left, but the housewives stayed while they ate their muffins and drank their coffees. She kind of missed the quiet of the first hour and a half of the day.

“Do you think I’ll need some more?” Dan asked eyeing the line of people. A rough calculation led him to believe that there would be four or five muffins left after serving everyone in line.

“No, three dozen should be enough for today,” Vicki answered. At the rate that they were getting more customers, she figured that they’d be selling four dozen of a morning, before long.

Three dozen muffins translated into an extra seventy-two dollars worth of sales in the morning. There was also an extra twenty cups of coffee sold. That resulted in a hundred and twenty dollars worth of business within the first hour of opening the pizzeria. Dan nodded his head after thinking through the implications of his sales.

He said, “I’ll get to work on the pizza dough.”

Introducing the muffins had ruined his original cooking schedule, but he had shifted the schedule around so that he still had fresh pizza dough for lunch and dinner. Unfortunately it left him with almost no time to deal with paperwork until after the lunch rush. As he kneaded the dough, he said, “I’m going to have to hire another cook.”

Having slept late that morning, Tom entered the kitchen and headed for the breakfast table where his mother and Terry were seated. He had entered the room just in time to hear his mother ask, “Are you sure you want to stay in the guest room?”

Terry frowned upon hearing the question. Her first thought was that his parents already wanted to kick her out. She glanced at Tom and then looked back at his mother. She asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

Tom’s mother shook her head and answered, “No. I was just wondering if you would be more comfortable sleeping with Tom. We can get a larger mattress for his room. There’s no reason for you to sleep in separate rooms.”

“No, that’s okay,” Terry said looking at Tom’s mother with wide eyes. She hadn’t seen that one coming.

Rather than enter the conversation, Tom looked around the table for some way to occupy himself. Salvation was right in front of him in the form of a box of cereal, an empty bowl, and a jug of milk. He grabbed the box of cereal thinking that the wisest thing to do was eat breakfast. As long as he was eating he couldn’t say something stupid.

“I know how it is to be young and full of hormones,” Tom’s mother said licking her lips nervously. She hadn’t known how to bring up the subject of her son sleeping with a girlfriend in a tasteful manner. She added, “Things are different, today. You’re both young adults.”

Thinking about what kinds of things Terry would say to him when they were alone, Tom said, “Mom, the sleeping arrangements are fine. We don’t have that kind of relationship. She’s a friend, not a girlfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed,” his mother said feeling uncomfortable. She looked at Tom and then over at Terry. She wondered why Terry had come here with Tom if there wasn’t something romantic between them.

Thinking that it had been a mistake to come there, Terry said, “I appreciate the offer. If I was interested in Tom, I’d probably take you up on it.”

“Oh,” his mother said. She studied Terry for a minute wondering why Tom wasn’t good enough for her. Of course, she was of the opinion that any young lady who knew him would want to be his girlfriend. The thought that it might be that Tom was the wrong gender flashed through her mind.

Tom had a pretty good idea of what his other was thinking. Shrugging his shoulders, Tom said, “It’s nothing weird. I’m just not her type.”

She said, “I understand. You’re her beard.”

Terry stared at Dan’s mother in shock. She was surprised on several levels. It was hard to believe that his mother had figured it out so quickly. The idea of using Tom to deflect other men who were interested in her had never crossed her mind. She shook her head and said, “No.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I misunderstood,” his mother said. She didn’t think that men and women had changed that much since she was their age. It wasn’t natural for a young woman and a young man to spend much time together without sex getting involved.

Uncomfortable with the topic of conversation, Tom concentrated on his cereal. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as he had made the previous evening. The cereal was sitting heavily in his stomach.

Terry looked over at Tom and said, “We share a girlfriend.”

Surprised at her admission, Tom looked over at Terry. He could see that she expected to be asked to leave now.

He said, “We are both fortunate enough to be loved by the same woman.”

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Tom’s mother said. She didn’t know what to make out of that little announcement. She stared at her coffee cup for a minute and then asked, “Where is the lucky lady?”

“She’s at her parents’ house,” Tom answered after glancing over at Terry.

Tom’s mother shook her head and said, “You and Dan. I love you both, but you two boys just seem to attract complicated relationships.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Tom said studying his bowl of cereal.

“How would you describe it?” his mother asked.

Shrugging his shoulders, Tom said, “We just fall in love with exceptional women.”

She knew there was a lot of truth in that. Turning to Terry, his mother asked, “Is there anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable?”

It was after lunch when Pat stepped into the pizzeria. She had been to see the new house that Sue was buying. Since she was in the area, she thought that she’d stop in to say hello to Dan. He looked up from his computer and waved to her. Smiling, she went over to the table and took a seat.

She looked around and, in her gravelly voice, asked, “Where are all of the customers?”

“We chased them off,” Dan answered with a smile.

Pat laughed at the idea of a small business owner actually chasing away customers. She said, “I wish we could afford to do that.”

“This is our quiet time of the day. It’s after lunch. Now that school is over, the teenagers will start showing up around two and spend the afternoon here,” Dan said. School had been out for three days and he had already spotted the trend. He hoped that it continued since it represented a good bit of business. A lot of the turnkey kids bought their lunches at the pizzeria, and that represented a significant amount of income.

“Ah,” Pat said looking around the pizzeria. There were some similarities between it and her bar. Each place of business was designed to support a specific kind of client.

“So what are you doing here?” Dan asked.

“I went over to see Sue’s new place. She’s still over there with the real estate agent trying to negotiate the price down some more,” Pat answered. She had walked around the house and had been impressed with what Sue was trying to buy. The little house in the back looked like the perfect place for Sue’s painting studio.

“I’m sure she’ll manage to get the price she wants,” Dan said.

Knowing how men tended to view her, Pat winked at him and said, “I told the guy that I’d sleep with his wife if he’d lower the price, but he didn’t seem all that interested.”

Dan laughed and said, “One of these days someone is going to take you up on your offer and Betty is going to skin you alive.”

Pat said, “Betty would have understood that I was only doing it for Sue.”

“You’re going to miss having Sue as a neighbor,” Dan said looking over at Pat. He knew her well enough to know that her light- hearted banter was to hide her real feelings.

“Yeah,” Pat replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

The fact of the matter was that she was happy to see Sue getting on with her life. In a way, it freed her and Betty to get on with their lives. The two women had felt a lot of guilt over what had happened to Sue. Both felt that they could have done something to prevent the death of Annie, but neither one knew what it was. They had wanted to move out of that apartment for years, but had stayed to watch over Sue.

Almost as if reading her mind, Dan asked, “So what are you and Betty going to do now, move out of that apartment?”

“We are thinking about moving to a townhouse,” Pat answered glancing over at Dan. She knew that she shouldn’t have been surprised by Dan’s question.

“You don’t strike me as the kind of person that would choose a townhouse,” Dan said, “I can imagine you living in an old wood house with a motorcycle parked in front, a big front porch with chairs, and a lazy dog.”

Pat laughed at the comment and said, “Believe it or not, neither one of us enjoys yard work. There are lots of advantages to living in a townhouse. At least it won’t be a waste of our rent money.”

“I see,” Dan said. Once again he was amazed at how choices were made to optimize happiness. If you didn’t like lawn work or gardening, then move into a place where those things were done for you. It was simple, but he wondered how many people got caught up in the idea that they were to own a house rather than establish a home.

“What have you been up to since I’ve last seen you?” Pat asked. She knew that most of his time was spent at the pizzeria. You didn’t start a new business by staying away from it all of the time. It was a lot of work.

“I’ve been watching over the pizzeria for the most part. We just moved into Ellen’s house and are still settling in. I’m trying to figure out when I’ll have time to mow the lawn and take care of the pool,” Dan said.