Chapter 10 Cohabitation

I have to admit that I was somewhat distracted at work the following week. Thankfully, Terry and Petra had a good handle on the training and I wasn't really needed. If anyone knew I was involved with Michelle they didn't say anything. It wasn't as if I was trying to hide from it but then again I wasn't advertising that I was intimate with one of the partners.

She called me at work to invite me to the theatre and dinner. We settled on my meeting her at her place and then taking a cab. The tickets were for Friday night and it was a given that I would stay over at her penthouse. At least it was a given for Michelle. Who was I to fight it? I'd take an overnight bag with a change for Saturday and a backup for Sunday.

The play, a well-worn Agatha Christie mystery, was a delight. The actors, if not British, certainly had their parts down pat in the appropriate vernacular. The setting had been updated from the Victorian era to the nineties and the dialogue was a good deal more risqué but it was never vulgar and it was consistently good. We were in high spirits when we walked from the theatre to the nearby restaurant.

I was more and more aware of just how comfortable I found myself in Michelle's company. She was a big part of that, of course. I never felt I had to behave in a certain way to live up to her expectations. She didn't act the part of the rich socialite. I couldn't imagine that she ever did, despite some of the company she and her late husband might have kept. She was a natural as the girl next door, whoever that might be.

It was nearing midnight when we arrived back at her apartment. I wasn't tired, in fact the opposite. The evening had been a real tonic and Michelle was showing no signs of fatigue either. As I closed the door behind me she slipped into my arms and kissed me. It seemed so completely natural that we would be together. I didn't feel any hesitation in responding to her or accepting that we belonged together.

We made love, that natural, quiet, flowing act of joining that you long for but don't always experience. It seemed to have lasted quite a long while but I wasn't keeping track and I really didn't care. It was so easy and satisfying that I didn't want it to end.

"Will you move in here?" she asked as we lay in the afterglow.

"Do you want me to?" I asked stupidly.

"No ... or course not," she laughed. "You fool, Dex. Of course I want you to. I want you all to myself every night."

"Then I will. But it does ask a question."

"What question?"

"What happens when my assignment is finished?"

"Will that be soon?"

"The truth? For all intents and purposes, I'm done now. Everything we wanted to accomplish at Trent is in place. The business is going to be fine now. Rueben will be a good general manager and Terry and Petra will make sure the design department stays on course. Janice, of course, will continue to be Janice. Wolf is already generating new work so I'd say I'm pretty well finished."

"But you're still here."

"I don't have another assignment and Dorothy has done a great job taking over for me in Vancouver. I'm thinking I might take a vacation if Tom doesn't have something for me. In the meantime, I've sold my home and my car and aside from my daughter, I have nothing to call me back to the west coast. I have enough money to live comfortably on for some time."

"But you'd move in with me, just the same?" she tested.

"If you're serious about us, yes."

"Does that mean you're serious about us?" She seemed uncertain about my decision.

"Yes. I know we haven't known each other for very long but something about how we connect makes this very different from a normal 'getting to know you' relationship. If you're willing, I want to find out just where we can go with this."

She looked at me intently, studying my face, her eyes unblinking.

"I want that too. You're right, this is all happening very quickly but like you, something about it feels right. In fact, it feels natural ... as if we've known each other for a long time. Strange, isn't it?"

"Very strange but all good from my point of view," I smiled.

I moved my few belongings to the Penthouse the next afternoon and cancelled the lease. I was now a "kept man."

It was too nice a weekend to spend it entirely in bed so we took Michelle's car and drove around the metropolitan Toronto area, sightseeing and just spending time together. I thought that's what we needed ... time together. If I had any nagging doubt, it was related to how quickly all this was happening. We'd known each other little over a month since the picnic. It still felt right but just the same, my generally conservative nature was holding me back slightly.

We were sitting in a little Bistro Saturday evening, having a light supper when Michelle decided it was time to tell me more about herself and her marriage to David Gauthier.

"My maiden name is Catchpole. I hated it. I can still remember some of the taunts of my schoolmates. So I am happy with my married name. I married David when I was just twenty-one and able to do as I wished and not as my mother demanded. I was the only daughter in a family of five. My two brothers are older and we don't see each other very much. Martin lives in Montreal, and Michael lives in Calgary.

"Martin is gay and has a live-in lover whom I've only met once. We get along fine but we don't have much in common. He's a graphic artist and does quite well I understand. Michael is married with one son and works in the oil industry. I don't know exactly what he does but apparently he's fairly high up in his firm. He takes after mother in many ways. So both my brothers are successes."

She stopped for a moment a I saw a far away look for a few seconds before she returned to her narrative.

"David was a very dynamic personality. He had a clear vision of what he wanted when he graduated from university and he set about achieving it, dragging me along with him."

"Dragging?" I quizzed.

"Virtually. His ambition to own his own civil engineering and consulting firm consumed him first and foremost. He worked long hours and was relentless in achieving his partnership in Trent. When he did, I thought things would calm down a little and we could live a normal life but it wasn't to be. 'Success breeds success' he would chant.

"When things started to decline at Trent he worked even harder, as if he could turn it around by himself. He couldn't, of course, but it didn't stop him from throwing all his energy into trying. It finally killed him. He had a brain aneurism one morning at the office and he was dead before his head hit the desk.

"I grieved. He wasn't the ideal husband. He wasn't there all the time, emotionally or physically. But he was true and faithful and dedicated to us, the boys and me. He just didn't have enough time for us. I hated Trent for what it did to him but, in a way, I understood how he could be obsessed with its success. It was all part of his original plan for the future. He made an awful lot of money and yet never got to enjoy it."

"And that was three years ago?"

"Almost. It seems like yesterday at times and at other times it seems like ancient history. I suppose it depends on my mood. Since you've come along I haven't been dwelling on the past. In fact, I've been thinking about the future, just like you have," she smiled.

"You said you have two sons. Where are they?"

"Carter works for his Uncle Michael in Calgary and I'm told he's on his way up. He's a chemical engineer, which upset his father. David was sure Carter would take up civil engineering and follow in his footsteps. I think Carter is a little better balanced than David was at that age.

"Our other son, Kyle, is single and living in Montgomery, Alabama. He works for a big paper company in their development department. They specialize in making products from recycled paper so they are high on the 'good guy' list with environmental people. Kyle says it's a good thing most of the advocacy groups don't know much about the recycling processes. They wouldn't be quite so supportive," she grinned.

"So your family is spread around then," I said. "Are your parents still alive?"

"Yes. My mother and father are divorced. Dad couldn't handle Mother's manipulative ways any longer and they split up after I married. He lives on the beach in Amherstburg, not far from Windsor-Detroit. He loves it there and has a girlfriend that lives with him.

"My mother and I don't see each other at all. She and I don't get along and haven't since I married David. In her opinion, I married 'beneath myself.' Sounds very English, doesn't it? Well, no surprise, my mother is English and still clings to the old class system."

"So ... you've been alone since David died?"

She nodded. "I thought for a while that I probably would be alone for the rest of my life. I don't know why. I'm forty-five, hardly dowager material," she smiled. "I had been thinking about getting out and trying to find a new life for myself, whatever that means. I had become interested in the fate of Trent Engineering when your Tom Yardley and Wolf called to invite me to discuss a merger. I thought it was important to get myself up to date quickly.

"John Flannery rejected the idea of course, but I knew that if he was the only dissenter, Rueben, Dick and I could out-vote him. I'm not dependent on Trent for my future but I wouldn't want to see it fail so why not get involved? I'm glad I did. It gave me a sense of purpose, something to preserve what my David had worked so hard to build.

"Your principals were very nice men and, with the exception of John, we all got along very well. When they made their proposal, John stomped out of the room claiming he'd never agree to anything that would hand over control to a 'bunch of cowboys.' It would have been funny if you didn't know what was eating at him.

"Rueben, Dick and I met privately and discussed the proposal. In reality, we knew we couldn't save Trent by ourselves. We needed help and Pinecone offered that help. In addition, we were offered autonomy to run the business in a manner appropriate to the values of the old Trent organization. Naturally, we needed to coordinate the accounting, design and administration, but the Trent name would be preserved because it had value. It took us very little time to decide that this was in the best interests of both ourselves and our employees.

"John, of course, was livid. We had outvoted him and he took it personally. But we stuck to our guns and the merger/acquisition went through. We were no longer the majority partners but we weren't an afterthought. Besides, all our background checks on Tom and Wolf came up the same. They are talented, aggressive and honest. They do what they say they are going to do and are well respected in the community. Your competitors spoke highly of Pinecone, which counted for a lot as well.