Chapter 3

Things do not always go the way we want them and in the end June and I tied for Valedictorian of our class and she had a guaranteed job in Southern California and I was recruited by a firm in New Hampshire, who eventually moved back near my parents home in New York. Although we both admitted that we loved each other, we both had career obsessions. At first I still had delusions of pitching again and thought going to California would afford me the time to get back in shape. The offer I got from Mahoney, Jenkins and Smith Construction Services was far too great to pass on. I worked out at night with my old High School coach for 8 weeks after settling back in New York. Each night as I began throwing I began to feel like my old self, but as soon as I began to throw any kind of breaking ball my arm began to throb. Orthopedists took x-rays and saw the radius bone had become much thicker than previous, a result of dependency of the ulna becoming less than normal since that bone took much longer to heel. If the day I took the line drive I had an MRI, discovered the split, and rested for 2 or 3 weeks I would have been normal. But I insisted I was OK and opted out of the MRI after the x-ray didn't show anything.

June and I had a torrid 2 and a half year relationship with nary a harsh word said between us. We got along like the happiest couple on earth, but she had put her mind on recapturing what she threw away when she defied her parents and went to live with Willie. Everything seemed to go her way from the time she put her mind to fixing her life. The only thing she hadn't planned on was meeting me and falling in love. As much as it broke her heart, and mine as well, to end our relationship, we parted amicably, promising that perhaps in another time in our lives, or another life, we might find each other. We talked a few times a week at first and that slowed to a couple times a month. Just before Christmas, almost 3 years since the day we first kissed she called me and told me she had met a good man. She called because she thought she might sleep with him and it meant she had really moved on and hoped that I had too. At first I was furious at her after hanging up, but soon realized she would not have called me if she still didn't care for me and those feelings were going to last for a long time.

I never heard from June again after that call and calls to her old cell number went null and after 6 months another person had the number. Through our jobs we knew how to contact each other, but never did again.

I had become involved in the development, design and construction of a huge chip plant in upstate New York. Half way through construction they were bought by a firm from Norway and decided to expand the operation to twice our original design. I was given an office and a team to work on the site to develop the expansion to adjacent land. I came up with a plan to connect both buildings with a bridge over the 4 lane highway between the properties. We only needed to settle on a price for the air space over the state highway in a first ever of its kind deal in the county. I had become quite obsessed with the project and worked many 12 and 14 hour or more days.

One night, or I should say early one morning just after 2 a.m. I left the building and drove my usual way home and I noticed a billboard reading, "Coming Soon to Channel 5, The Six O'clock News with Chelly Katz." The billboard also featured a huge head shot of Chelsea Katzenbaum. I had seen her on network newscasts over the two years since college. She had been reporting from a lot of Middle East locations and I always thought she looked good, but all too serious from the Chelsea I knew. And now, with the name Chelly Katz she was realizing her dream. I was happy for her and thought I might look her up to congratulate her if I ever got a free moment. That was a testament to procrastination since the chip plant facility was right next to the office plaza where Channel 5 was. Every time I passed by I thought of her saying, "I'll have to look her up".

Chelsea had been there for about 6 months and on a morning when I was actually going in at what was "supposed" to be my starting time with the rest of the drafts men. I sat at the light waiting to turn into the plant and I heard a toot of a car horn. Looking up I saw the little smile of Chelsea Katzenbaum. Before I could wave back the light changed and she was off. I made the mental note to call her again and once again immersed myself in my work. Drafting, surveying, drawing blueprints seems like it might be any easy job, but most days I might rather push loads of brinks up steep stairs. To figure and refigure and then go stand in an empty field and try to imagine what I knew would be feasible in my mind was frustrating when you couldn't translate it to paper (actually computer cad programs). Then suddenly it all falls together and it's like rolling marbles downhill. I was having one of those days when the doubling of the project seemed to fall onto the keyboard and hit the screen, suddenly making sense, when a secretary from NorFab (the new merged companies name) came in and said there was a reporter with a camera crew at the front desk who wanted me specifically. They wanted to do a piece on the expansion as the clearance for the bridge over University Boulevard had just passed the city council the night before.

At first I sort of blew her off, telling her they should have made an appointment. Then I thought of Chelsea and ran out to catch the Executive Assistant (if I called her a secretary to her face I would lose her nice ways with me). "Hey, is that reporter named Katzenbaum?" I echoed up the hall way.

She took the card from her hand and said, "No, just Katz."

"Alright send her in."

The secretary who had given me the eye many times, just smiled and shook her head and said under her breath, but amplified in the hallway, "Is that what it takes, a TV star?"

I was put out by the remark and might speak to her later in private about it, but I wanted to get back with the crew as things were just going too well.

About 8 minutes passed and I began to wonder about the supposed visitor when security came in asking me if I authorized the visitor and didn't I know the plant was under a strict NO CAMERA policy.

I assured Barney Fife that the camera would be a fixed camera for head shots only. Those signs were all over the lobby before you stepped into the labs and manufacturing rooms, but he insisted on carrying the camera in and making sure Channel 5 wasn't going to go into the Chip-Fab business next week.

In a moment the camera man, mic-boom, and Chelsea came into the room, but my eyes went right to Chelsea. She still a knock-out little body, if not just a bit wider than her super slim high school days, and that cute smile she had used to win over Matt Bardon almost 10 years ago. She and I were the closest to Matt and neither of us were able to attend his funeral.

Once out eyes met we embraced and both started crying, sort of a mini-wake for Matt. He was what we both thought of at the moment our eyes touched that morning.

She hugged me tightly saying in a low whisper, "Fuck, I'll have to reshoot my reaction shots back at the studio, my eyes are a mess. How are you? So glad to see you. I've thought about you and Matt so much over the years. Don't ask about Megan, she dropped out of school and lives in some commune now she had 4 kids, with 4 fathers."

We managed to collect ourselves and do a short interview with me giving her some idea of the plans in the works, but an open invitation for the station to come back when more of the project could be made public. As they packed up the equipment she came over and took me aside.

"Please let me buy you dinner some night. I would love to catch up. I just don't know anyone here anymore." She asked.

"Sure, How about this weekend? Friday night, Saturday, either can work." I said.

"I have to do the 10 o'clock news on Friday, covering for a vacation, but Saturday would be nice. I'm in University Plaza. Suite E on Floor P, it's easy, it rhymes." She said softly to be private. I wrote if down anyway and looked up and asked "Six o'clock?"

"That would be fine. I'll pick the restaurant and make the reservation, my treat." She said before turning on her heel and walking out up the hall with her crew, oh, and Barney Fife followed as well.

It felt so good to see her, get close and smell her and touch her hand. I suddenly remembered how much I like women. I had been over 2 years since June and been laid once, and I think I was too drunk to finish. It was at a Frat mixer for the same Greek I was in at NC. Except for the long scars on my right arm I was still in good shape and pretty fair looking, even if I do have to comp myself. I know the secretary at the entrance has made eyes at me, but I sort of ignored her. I decided I would stop and strike up a conversation the next time we saw each other. We worked for different firms so it should be OK. Just I shouldn't call her a secretary, then I'm sure nothing would happen.

That night I dreamt of eating pussy and when I looked up it wasn't June, it was Chelsea. Odd, because I dreamt of June a lot. Sex with June was definitely dreamable, she had and made sex like she invented it. I remembered Matt's tales of Chelsea's blowjobs and how she didn't like sex as it hurt too much. I'm sure being in the Navy for four years had cured that, or maybe she got something fixed. I began thinking that Chelsea was very possible. She made a point of telling me she was still single and knew no one in the area.

A few mornings later I had to go into my own office downtown and didn't show up at NorFab until almost 9 and the pretty Executive Assistant was at the front typing, all smiles, probably waiting for me to go by with barely a nod. But her smiling glance to me was met with my own smiling face.

"Hey, I want to thank you so much for showing the news lady in the other day. We're old high school pals, we dated each other's best friends." (I wanted to make the point that she wasn't an old girlfriend)

"Oh, that's so sweet, Mr. Glynn" She gushed. "I thought you might have been more than friends and I guess in that way you were. I've seen her on TV for a bit now. I think she was an overseas correspondent when my brother was in Qutar."

"I believe she was. That was the first time I saw her in person since the summer we graduated." I told her.

"That's so nice. It was the first I saw you smile in a long time, you workaholic. Whenever I get here or leave your car is always here." She said resting her hand in her lap away from her keyboard.

"Well, we got the breakthrough we needed to get the project out of the mud, so I'll have a lot more free time. Oh, and please call me Rance. We should meet up for a drink some night." I said, giving her my best smile.

"That sounds like fun, just let me know. My name is Carrie-Ann Poulson. Now that I know you smile, I would love to meet you out." She said with a wink and then began to set her hands on the keys again, obviously having work to do.

I just said "Great!" and headed up the hall.

"Sort of a bimbo, but a bimbo with great tits and a sweet smile", I thought to myself. But, I immediately scolded my thoughts for thinking her a bimbo, despite the great tits. Actually, to sit in front for NorFab, she would have to have quite a bit on the ball. Their world wide operation was mega billion and in meeting with the top guns for their ideological input on the design of the further construction they stressed how first impressions meant so much and they wanted a building that screamed ultra professional.

It was just that night when I was headed out around 5:30, very early for me, that I saw Carrie-Ann walking up the hall to the employee lounge and locker area to get her things.

"Oh, you stayed a little late tonight Miss Poulson. You're usually long gone when I leave." I said with the big smile she said she rarely saw.