Chapter 15

It was almost six when I called Anna. She was the girl Joe and I met after the basketball incident. She answered, "Hello?"

"Hi Anna, this is Britt. Is now a good time to talk?"

"I just walked in. Let me set down the phone for a second and unload ... There, I'm back."

"I just got back in town, and wanted to see if you had any time available to get together?"

"Do you mean tonight or this weekend?"

"It means that on Monday morning I have to catch a flight to Orlando, and I can make myself available anytime between now and then."

"I'm free for dinner tonight. I told Molly that we could get a drink after work tomorrow, so if you want to meet both of us, she could invite Joe as well.

"I wouldn't mind meeting for drinks tomorrow with Molly and Joe, but would also like to have some alone time to get to know you better. Can we have dinner tonight?" I asked

"That would be great. I need twenty minutes, but after that, you can pick me up when you're ready."

I received directions to her apartment out east of the city. I picked her up, and we decided to have some German food, so we went over to Gerst Haus, and had some beers and oyster rolls while we talked. She grew up in Memphis, but decided to attend school at Vanderbilt, and when she graduated, she stayed close to the city. She landed a great job working in the marketing department of the Grand Ole Opry.

She has two older brothers, and a younger sister. She's been out of school for just a year. I asked her how she liked her job, and she said, "I like marketing and advertising, but I think I need to find a new company to work for. The people who own my company have a gem of a company, but they want to squeeze every nickel out of everyone that even walks by the place. When I get home in the evening, most days I feel like I need to take a shower."

"That's too bad. You should enjoy what you do."

"I love working with the groups that come in, and setting up the marketing for their events for them. I just don't like the way things are run."

"I may need some marketing and advertising help. I don't think you have enough experience to run the place, but I could put in a good word for you with whoever they hire."

"What kind of advertising or marketing will you need?"

"I'll have over a half-million rolling billboards that we'll need to sell, design, and maintain."

"What's a rolling billboard?" she asked.

"A rolling billboard is on the side of a tractor-trailer. You see, I work for a trucking company, and we have trucks driving all over the country. It's different because there are three sides that we can use. Some people will be right next to the truck, others will see it from a distance or some actually going in the other direction. The billboards will need to have great graphics. The key point of the advertisement is that we'll be looking to promote brand recognition."

"That sounds interesting and different. Most of the trucks I see just have plain trailers behind them."

"That's because you haven't placed a call to them yet, and sold some advertising."

"You're funny Britt. When are you going to hire someone to run the division?"

"When I get around to it, but it's something I should do sooner than later."

"I met a lady when I was interning over the summer that would be a great fit. She worked for Lamar Outdoor Advertising. Their home base is in Louisiana, where she hates the heat, and the men there treat her like a dumb lady. Sales have tripled in her division, but her boss thinks it's just luck."

"Have her call my assistant and set up an appointment," I said as I reached for a card. "We'll need to have a lot of people, and it shouldn't be too difficult since we'll be hauling freight for most of the people you'll be calling. No cold calling is the best type of sales. When we can find other ways to help out our customers, then it's a win-win situation."

"Well, we like that kind of work. My friend's name is Barbra Holcomb. She's very good, and I bet she'd love to get out of the sweatbox down in Baton Rouge."

"Have her give me a call and we can see if she has what it takes."

We both had the Beef Rouladen for dinner, and a Hefeweizen to drink. She showed considerable interest in my story, and I learned about growing up with brothers and a sister. We had a good time, and we even made out a bit before she left me standing on her doorstep.

I met with Craig the next day and discussed the rolling billboard Idea. He had safety or timing concerns depending on whether we wanted to wrap the truck or paint the truck to have the advertising. He thought that we needed some tests, and I tended to agree with that assessment. It would be a good idea to test them before we hired anyone. I'd still want to move forward even if we had to paint the trucks, but it would take longer, and besides, we would have to make the contracts longer to recoup our costs of labor, materials and out of service time. However, after a month of testing, it turned out that Craig was happy with the wrapping method.

I met Joe, Molly and Anna after work that afternoon. We had dinner together and some drinks. Anna said that she'd called Barbra, and that she had some interest in learning more about the job. I didn't say anything about my meeting with Craig, but would set the proper expectations for Barb if she called to talk.

The country girls wanted to dance, so I did some more two-stepping and tried some spins, and other tricks to break up the walking in a circle thing. One day, when I was out shopping, I ended up buying a pair of boots, and the ostrich skin looked nice. Molly and Joe were close, and I found out that they had gone out a few times while I was traveling. Joe also informed me that I might want to stay away from the basketball courts for a while. When I hit Mark, I did indeed break his nose, and he had to get stitches in his tongue. This started the girls asking about what had happened, so Joe told the story in a way to make me look good, since it was all in self-defense against a bigger guy.

Anna gave me a hug and a kiss under the eye where Mark had hit me with his elbow. I told her that it felt better, so she kissed it again. I then told her that he kneed me in the nuts, but she slapped my arm, and told me that I should put some ice on it.

"Anna, I didn't think you were one to give your man blue balls on purpose."

"I think you're making it up to get me to kiss it and make it better."

"Well, it could be that you are right, but it also could be great fun to play doctor. I can help you out with any boo boos you may have."

"That may be fun cowboy. Take me for another trip around the dance floor before you show me how clean your apartment is."

I took her out dancing for another song, and then she said goodbye to Molly. She'd left her car at the office, so she got into the Land Cruiser with me. When we pulled into the parking garage, she asked where we were going. I told her that she should just follow me. As I mentioned before, the building I bought had six stories and a parking garage. I had a huge apartment that took up the entire top floor or almost five thousand square feet. Craig had some carpenters do some redesign, but left me with half of the floor, and converted the other half to two extra units. I had a balcony that overlooked the river, and a rooftop garden that had one potted plant.

We stepped off the elevator into my perfectly clean apartment. It was a wide-open space with just one small area walled off for a toilet and a sink, along with a closet to hang clothes and store some things. The rest of the unit contained my bed, which defined the bedroom area. My glass block ten by ten shower, with a rainfall shower head defined the shower area. The cabinets and appliances defined the kitchen while the other furniture defined the dining and family room spaces.

She loved it, and walked directly over to check out the view. She said, "I never knew that someone lived here. This is so cool. I love the open space. If you're single, this would be perfect."

"I'm single, and since my office is down one floor, it's close to work. As the company grows, they'll probably kick me out, but as of the moment, there's just the people doing the start-up, so they let me use this space. In the beginning, I had twice the space, but we have had some others come to town, so they built out two more units to keep the costs under control. It also gives the cleaning crew some more work since the building is mostly empty. I also like that a decent restaurant has rented out the first floor. It's like having room service. They just send me a bill at the end of the month."

"That sounds crazy. It's like living in a hotel suite."

"That's what I do when I'm away from here, so it's nothing new when I'm home."

"Do you see yourself slowing down any time soon? I know it seems that you've been gone for the last month."

"I was just told that I may have to travel more. They're opening more truck stops, and I'm trying to make sure the managers are running them properly. We have some new divisions and companies that will be ramping up, and the CEO wants me to help the lobbyist in DC to make sure that the regulatory end is kept running smoothly."

"That sucks; I was kind of hoping to see you more, not less."

"If we both get undressed, we can immediately see more of each other."

"I guess that would be alright for now, but long-term that won't help much."

"Anna, you're a smart and very pretty woman. I don't want to lead you on thinking that there's a future with us, because I can't settle down for at least the next ten years. If you want to go on dates, talk, have sex or go dancing when I'm in town, then I'd love to spend time with you. If you're looking for a monogamous, long-term relationship, then I'll break your heart and disappoint you. I want to have sex with you tonight, but I'll understand if you want to wait for someone else."

"I understand what you're saying, and thanks for making sure that we were both on the same page. I haven't been with a guy in a while, and I was really looking forward to spending the night, so maybe we can have a one-night stand. If we both have fun, then next time you're in town, if I'm still free we can have another one."