Chapter 8

Getting together and he really did mean getting together physically with Rachel in the afternoons turned out to be a weekly event that at times turned into an overnighter. Rachel just wanted to make love until Tom couldn’t do it anymore. He had resorted to taking Cialis and while that helped, if Rachel knew he was doing that he would bet she would have told him to double the dose.

Going out together in the evening still was much too soon she told him and she said she would let him know when the time was right.

A shock to Tom’s social life occurred when he received a phone call from Carrie. After some minor chit chat with her asking him how he was doing, she broke the news to him that she was going to be moving down to Dallas permanently. Her daughter who was now a widow, had followed in her footsteps and had two bridal stores that were open and was planning on opening another bridal store. Carrie was involved in these bridal stores and was going to help her daughter manage these stores. She said it was an untapped market here. While Carrie had become bored with the bridal stores she had in Tom’s area, working with her daughter had reinvigorated her as to the bridal business.

Carrie went on to say that a realtor she had contacted told her he had a list of people who wished to purchase condos in Carrie’s building. He told Carrie that her unit being on the top floor would sell in a day. The realtor thought it could turn into a bidding war among the buyers.

Another thing Carrie mentioned was that she had been thinking about moving for a long time. Paying the state income tax was getting to her especially because of the recent increase in the tax rate. She had been deciding between either Texas or Florida on where to move since those states didn’t have a state income tax although they made up for it somewhat in the property tax levy. Her now widowed daughter and grandchildren living in Texas made this a no-brainer as to which state she was going to move to.

After ending the phone call Tom thought long and hard about Carrie. Should he pursue her, should he move to Dallas, should he ask her to marry him were just some of the thoughts that were running through his mind? He didn’t have an immediate answer to those questions and wondered if he ever would.

Later in the week he received a phone call and in answering heard, “Tom Martin, my name is Ed Cunningham and I am the director of Adult Education here at the junior college. I heard you did some investment training that was very effective and I was hoping you could teach an adult education class on investing here at school. Oh by the way, my neighbor Julie Berg recommended you.”

“Ed, please understand that I am a self-taught investor and do not have any professional designations in investing. I do have a bachelor’s degree but that is in political science. Wouldn’t someone in the business as a financial advisor be better suited to teach a course like this?”

“Well, we tried a two hour class with a number of financial advisors but the students told me that didn’t work out and they didn’t get much from that approach. It seemed that the financial advisors further confused the students by pointing out what the students didn’t know and were more interested in selling them their services. When the advisors learned most of the students didn’t have sufficient assets to generate adequate advisors fees, they became uninterested in the students. I want to try something different and Julie said you were a good teacher and seemed interested in wanting to have the students learn.”

After more discussion on the class materials it was agreed that Tom would teach a six week two hour session summer class starting at seven in the evening on Thursdays.

Tom thought about teaching the class and knew he had enjoyed teaching a class like this before. He could use most of the material from the prior class in teaching this one. He probably would need to do some minor modifications to this material since it was doubtful these students would be as affluent as were the ladies were and there could be a range in the student’s ages. He thought that if he gave pass out materials covering the points talked about in class that would alleviate the problem of the students not having significant assets already to manage or analyze.

Carrie had come and gone. She did sell her condo in one day and came in for the closing as well as to pack and have the movers take her belongings to Texas. She spent one last glorious night with Tom that just told him how much he was going to miss her. Carrie invited him to visit her in Texas and he said he would. He debated long and hard with himself if he should tell her he had some feelings for her, but he never said anything. He also wasn’t sure if Carrie was expecting him to say anything about their relationship as she hadn’t hinted in any way that he should.

The time seemed to be flying by and next week Tom would start teaching his class. He was told there were nineteen people who had signed up. He did a little modification to his slides and had some copies made of material he would pass out.

He received and interesting and yet disturbing phone call from Linda. She called to ask him what he thought about a stock she was considering buying. He told her he had just purchased that stock himself. What was disturbing was when he asked her if there was anything new among her circle of lady friends,

“The only thing of any note is that Rachel has been going out with Kevin Newton who is divorced and a gynecologist. I always thought she was sweet on him and from what I saw they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. It wouldn’t surprise me if they are doing the nasty. I shouldn’t say this but Ray at one time told me Kevin’s nickname was ‘horse’ because of the size of his male appendage. Oh I forgot to tell you that Ray and I are going to do a tour of South America that Mel and Lana raved about this February for about sixteen days so you can use our condo then if you want.”

Tom thanked her for offering the use of their condo and said he would get back to her on that since he hadn’t made his wintering plans yet.

Linda telling him about Rachel openly dating Kevin Newton gave Tom a bad feeling about Rachel. It wasn’t a feeling that he felt she was cheating on him, it was more like she didn’t respect him and thought he was beneath her. She would be embarrassed if people knew she was dating Tom. He could only conclude that she thought people in her social set wouldn’t think highly of her if they knew she was dating Tom. That feeling he had of Rachel grew into Tom not wanting to be involved with her anymore no matter how good the sex was. She lied to him and appeared to only want to have a carnal relationship with him. This just turned him off on her and while he thought that at one time there could have been something more with her, now he didn’t want anything to do with her.

How to end the relationship if it wasn’t already ended was a minor concern of his. He knew he needed to watch his temper and not go off the deep end. He wished to end it with some class and maybe make her realize she had made a big mistake when she relegated Tom to the second team.

In signing on to the net he received an email from her wanting to come over the next day. He responded and said no, he was busy. She came back asking for the next day and he sent back the same response. After this went on with three emails Rachel phoned Tom.

“Is something going on as it seems that you are always busy?”

“It’s just that I think we should cool it.”

“Why has something happened?”

“Yes something has happened! It is apparent to me that you don’t want people to know we are seeing each other and yet at the same time you want to have sex with me. I think it’s probably best if you give your beaver shots to Kevin, although he probably sees a lot of that already in his work. Have him give you the stud service you apparently want. I hear his nickname is ‘horse’ but you probably know that already.”

There was a long pause and then he heard, “I don’t know what to say.”

“Rachel, you don’t need to say anything. It’s been nice knowing you but now it’s over. I hope you are happy with him” and he ended the call.

Tom thought if he would have continued talking to her any longer that his temper would have taken over and it would have gotten nasty which wouldn’t have done either of them any good.

With Carrie now gone and his relationship with Rachel over, this had to be the start of a new valley in relationships with women he was going into. He hoped this valley wouldn’t last long.

Walking into the classroom at the junior college, he hoped teaching this class would distract from the recent downturn in his love life. He noted that he now was up to twenty students by the class roster he had been given.

He started out the class by introducing himself and said he was going to call the roll not for attendance purposes, which was optional on the student’s part, but he wanted to put the faces with the names he had been given. In doing this Tom had two surprises. The first surprise was when he called out Kimberly Adams and saw it was the same Kim Adams that had taught the excel class.

The second surprise was when he called out Ellie Swanson’s name and a classy lady in a gray business suit raised her hand. For some immediate unexplained reason, Tom felt Ellie Swanson seemed out of place in being in this class. He didn’t know what it was, whether it was the way she dressed, her posture, her grooming, her attractiveness or something else. There was just something about her that told him she didn’t belong here but he didn’t know what it was.

Tom gave an explanation of how the class was going to be conducted and what the students needed to do to benefit from the class. He explained what he hoped to accomplish in teaching this class. He covered in this first session what he did in his first teaching endeavor and finished up explaining investment allocation. For homework he gave out some problems asking the students compute what the proper income allocation would be which would be discussed next week. He thought some of the students may not have a brokerage account which was the reason for this pass out homework. He did say that if anyone there did have a brokerage account for them to see how what he just taught compared to their present investment allocation.

At the end of his presentation he asked if there were any questions.

Ellie Swanson raised her hand and said, “Do you feel you are better qualified to instruct this class than a certified financial advisor?”

A somewhat combative question he thought but he answered, “No I do not. I don’t have the formal education they have but I have been investing for more than forty years and feel I can relate to the average individual what I have learned during that time. I have no interest in signing up any of the students to use my services and will not lose interest in them if their net worth is such that I couldn’t make some money if I was an advisor and they were my clients. My goal is to teach them to understand investing and how to invest on their own and not need a financial advisor if all the advisor is going to do is to recommend a few stock mutual funds and bond funds for them to invest in.”

Tom finished his answer by saying, “I am also not teaching this class for the money which is paid for teaching. I have already asked that those funds be donated to St Jude Children’s Hospital.

Ellie put her hand down and seem to be taken back a little by Tom’s answer.