Chapter 5

Mickey and I finished our classes that Spring and managed to graduate, each with a degree in Engineering. With his grade point above the clouds, Mickey finished first in our class of Engineers, graduating with high honors and all the accompanying publicity. We had both received several job offers which we carefully scrutinized and rated over numerous beers at a local pub. Although we were in different areas of engineering, we shared a mutual interest in automotive engineering, and especially in the rapidly growing fields involving hybrid technologies. Mickey accepted a position in design at a Tier 1 automotive supplier while I chose to go directly with one of the original "Big Three". What was truly great was that we would both be in the same metropolitan area, and thus able to share an apartment.

One of the truly unique things about living in Michigan is that, no matter in what city you choose to live, there will be a college or university there, or at least nearby. Where there are colleges, there are young ladies. When one has graduated and is gainfully employed and sharing his living costs with his roommate, one (that would be me) finds that he can afford to go "scouting" more often. Of course, Mickey was far more proficient at enticing the quarry to our table, but he had good enough taste in women that I never minded taking whichever "quarry" he didn't select. Freed of our textbooks, labs and homework, we had more free time than at any time in our friendship. It was easy, very easy, to gravitate to the college hangouts nearly every night. More often than not, we managed to find companionship for the evening and sometimes the weekend.

Communications with my family went from letters and telephone calls to emails and voice mails as the certainty of my being 'at home' at any given moment was low. In the Fall, Mickey convinced me that I should take up the game of golf, something that I had previously shown little interest in doing. It didn't take me long to at least master the basic fundamentals, and from that point on, we reserved our after work weekday hours for a quick nine holes at one of the local courses. Before the first snow fell, I was actually consistently breaking 100 and knew that if I was ever able to master the putter, I would knock another ten strokes of my score immediately. When the snow began to fall in earnest, our weekends changed to ski slopes, where we discovered another multitude of single, available, and away from prying eyes young ladies.

I had been a bit disheartened, saddened would be a better word, that Caitlin had not found a way to attend my graduation ceremonies. It had marked the end of a very long haul for me personally, and I wanted to be able to celebrate the occasion with her. Her parents, too, were more than a little 'miffed', but Hanna was the one that really blew her top. She actually proposed sending Caitlin a plane ticket so that she would not have any excuse for not coming. I tried to make the issue disappear, making up excuses for her and pretending to my self that Caitlin's absence did not hurt.

As fall arrived, I realized that even our letter writing and emails had tapered off, at least hers had to me. I began to consider the possibility that our relationship would never progress beyond where it once had been. Even though Mickey and I had found many young ladies with whom to spend evenings and weekends, I was always careful to not suggest any kind of permanence to the relationships.

Mickey, conversely had found a young lady on the ski slopes, or more accurately, Sharon had found Mickey, who had become disoriented sitting at a table of seven sorority types who were more interested in themselves than him. That he was a bit under the schnapps that he had been sipping for most of the evening may have been apparent to the girls, but he was oblivious to it.

In a very bold move, Sharon walked right up to the table, looked Mickey directly in the face and said, "So this is where you have been hiding. Come on!" When Mickey stood up, she led him back to her cabin, plopped him down on the sofa and allowed him to sleep it off until morning. At some time past mid morning, he recovered enough to realize he was unfamiliar with his surroundings and that he may actually have been kidnapped by a beautiful woman. About that time, Sharon announced her presence, introduced herself to him and laid claim to him for the rest of the weekend.

Much later that afternoon, Mickey graced the slopes with his new companion. By that date, I believe that I had known Mickey for more that five years and been with him through almost every type of relationship a guy can get into with a girl. But in all those years, I had never seen the look on his face that I saw at that moment. Mickey had found his match! Sharon had been in several of Mickey's engineering classes, although he had failed to notice her. (I'm not sure how the hell that happened because Mickey always notices pretty girls.) She was completing her final semester and would graduate in June, with high honors just as someone else that I know did. Being from the Midwest, she is warm and gracious, not at all like some of the "east coast" girls that Mickey had been seeing of late. She is very attractive, fitting Mickey's profile of the ideal woman to a "tee", but most importantly, she was able to challenge him and meet him equally, no matter what gambit he tried or threw at her. My guess is that she is just as smart, just as quick and has just as much common sense as my friend the "Wonderboy" here.

Many weekends later, when we were all sitting in our apartment, Sharon explained how she had tried numerous times to interest Mickey in going out. She had seen his work in class and knew of his brilliance as an engineer, and also had heard plenty from other girls in her dorm about his exploits with the "gentler sex". Undeterred, she continued, even asking one of her girlfriends to befriend Mickey and point him in her direction. But Mickey slipped away before that could happen, and then we graduated and were gone from the campus and from her dreams. Until that fateful afternoon on the ski slope when Mickey got entangled with schnapps and several conceited sorority sisters. She recognized her opportunity and their relationship began.

I wrote to Caitlin asking if she would be home for Christmas this year, but her reply was a long time in coming, and when I did receive it, I was discouraged. She said that she expected to be invited to more of her parents' relatives, although nothing had been finalized yet. I told her that I missed her very much and had been hoping that we could spend the few days that I had off together. The response that she sent was even more discouraging, saying that her workload was just too demanding to allow herself the time to spend with me.

Caitlin did not know what to make of the note that she had found. It was not threatening; in fact it appeared to care more about her than anything. She doubted that it was written out of jealousy. However, she had no idea who might have put it there, or when. She had been one of the last to leave the lab before the holiday break, and had retrieved her book before the break ended. Compounding it all, she had been involved with Redmond O'Rouke for more than a year, being careful to not be seen together near campus, yet someone else obviously knew of their relationship. What struck her the most was the strange wording. It was not accusatory, or libelous in any way; it put the burden of investigating on her own back. After more than a year of dating, she thought she knew Professor O'Rouke pretty well. What was it that she didn't know, and how was she going to find that out?

She began to have a less than comfortable feeling in the stomach. She could not very well go to the administration and say, "I've been dating Redmond O'Rouke for more than a year. What don't I know about him?" although that probably would have been the most direct way to find the answer. She couldn't ask his coworkers, for fear they may complain about it. And she certainly couldn't ask him.

The next afternoon, truly in need of a break, Caitlin called a fellow Doctoral candidate and asked if she wanted to break for coffee and a roll. They agreed to meet at a small cafe quite some distance from the campus, spending an hour talking about their goals and ambitions. While they sat inside the little cafe, unhassled and unhurried, Caitlin realized that they were sitting directly across the street from Redmond's apartment. She had only been to it once, and had never been inside, he having opted to meet her on the street. While Caitlin sat enjoying her coffee and sweet biscuit, a small blue car stopped in front of the cafe. From the car emerged Redmond, followed by a woman and two quite young little boys, both of whom looked remarkably like their father. They walked, hand in hand, in a direction away from the cafe, which was a good thing because he was not able to hear her scream when she spilled her hot coffee onto her lap.