SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER... Good & bad (Part 169d)

SLOGGING THROUGH WINTER… Good & bad (Part 169d)

Timing is just about everything in life. It wasn’t but days after lugging the heavy trays of ledger cards down to the sub-vault that I got a letter from an attorney wanting copies of his client’s deposit records for the last three or so years. It was usually a job for Bret except he hadn’t been a part of moving the records and had no idea what I'd done with them. For me it meant making a trip to the basement and I took Bret with me. Both of us were around six feet tall and the height of the sub-vault was only 4 1/2 feet. If someone had come upon us they would’ve thought we we both hunchbacks. It didn’t take all that long and when shutting the space up Bret noticed that some of the junk in the main storage area of the basement had been moved around a bit. That was the result of my doing a little exploring. I’d not mentioned what I hoped was the upcoming project to him but decided to bring him up to speed… including telling him about the possibility of Mae helping me. The lie I’d told Hobie was weighing on me so I asked if he had any interest in it. I can still picture the look on his face. Even without speaking I got the message, loud and clear… ‘you’ve got to be kidding!’ However, I did ask if he’d give me a hand getting to some of wooden file cabinets while we were down there. When I first saw them I was really intrigued and wanted to know what they held. Because the bank was open to the public we knew we should be upstairs and decided to make another trip to the cellar after three o’clock.

In spite of his size, Bret was not all that strong and we had a devil of a time moving some of the things that obstructed the file cabinets. By the time we got access to them he was almost as interested as I was to see what they held. I could say I was disappointed but without any idea of what might’ve been in the drawers that wouldn’t be fair. It turned out the first cabinet held copper plates mounted on wooden blocks that were used, ‘back in the day’, for printing. Everything is reversed when looking at them and we weren’t sure just what was on them. We didn’t waste a lot of time after we discovered that all three drawers were filled with the same kind of plates. The cabinets themselves were rather interesting in that they were solid wood. The two of us tried to move the one we were working on but could hardly budge it. I looked deeper into the space were were working in and was relieved to see that when they’d moved the cabinets they’d left them facing out so they could be perused without moving them. By then I’d seen enough and as we climbed the stairs wondered if Mae was really right for the job. As stated earlier, I’ve always been an impatient person. If something needs to be done… do it and get it finished. Waiting for Hobie to give me direction was a real problem for me and having ‘scratched the surface’ I wanted to get on it. However, I’d learned early on at the bank not to ‘push’ Hobie so I had to wait, frustrated, for him to come to me.

The IPO presentation by the stock brokerage was scheduled for 7pm. It didn’t allow me enough time to go home, eat and then get back to the library where it was being held. Of my eating choices, Michael’s was the closest as it was on the way there. I swear I never gave a thought to the fact that the office staff from the brokerage might be there. As I walked in I saw Bill, the manager of the office and Stan, my broker, sitting at the bar. Before I could think about turning around and leaving I heard my name and saw Stan waiving me over. He was in good spirits (probably from ingesting some from the bar) and there was no indication that there was anything from our meeting back in January left over. I joined them and was invited to order something to drink as well as to eat. I never really got to do much talking as Stan was ‘gushing’ about the performance of the stock I’d recently purchased. As 7pm approached I saw Lynda walk in and that made me a bit uncomfortable. Having spurned her invite to stop in at her house a few weeks earlier I hadn’t talked with her and, knowing her, expected to be called out on it… but like with Stan, it was just like old times.

Because parking at the library was limited Bill suggested that we walk. It was only a short way and even with the cold, wasn’t all that bad. Still a bit wary of Lynda, I chose to walk next to Stan. Excited about the return on my recent investment I was trying to find out if there would be some hints as to others like it during the upcoming presentation. He laughed and told me he’d continue to do the same as he’d been doing… picking a number of stocks for my consideration… but that was all and I was a bit disappointed. When we arrived at the library and about to go inside Lynda reached out and grabbed my arm. It took me by surprise and caused me to stop. Now, I really can’t remember the key word she used… it was either “need” or “want”… when she, in a pleading voice spoke. “I need/want to speak to you.” I had expected that she would follow up to the invitation she’d made for me to stop at her house a few weeks earlier but didn’t expect an approach like that.

Both Bill and Stan had gone inside which gave us a few seconds. She went on saying that it was really important and that she recognized that I was concerned about what might be thought about us being together. I appreciated that she recognized that without me bringing it up. But she didn’t stop there. Still with a pleading in her voice, she asked if I couldn’t come up with a place that I’d feel safe. I didn’t know how to respond but knew we needed to get inside. To be truthful, I spent more time thinking about that than I did to the presentation. In my mind I went over places we could go and kept rejecting the ones I came up with. I remember wishing that it was Summer because there were some locations that would give some privacy. By the time the program was over I was out of ideas.

Walking back to the office the conversation was about Bill’s newborn twin girls. I knew very little about Bill’s family and knew nothing about the births. Twins had been a definite possibility for Elle and I as they ran in her family. The concept of twins, both boys and girls, had intrigued me. However, one thing I’d observed was that the parents seemed to want to tie their names together… Linda and Lois… Ronald and Robert… and I thought it was unfair to them. So, with that in mind I asked Bill what his twins were named. I really don’t remember my reaction, and it didn’t matter as it was dark, but when he said Rebecca and Regina it triggered something beyond being in disbelief of another case of similar names. I hadn’t thought of Gina who had worked at the bank a while back in a long, long time. But, when I did I remembered that we’d had some ’talks’ out at the bowling alley located by the lake just outside of town. It had worked because it was on the road to where Gina lived and there was no one else from the bank that lived in that direction. I finally had a place we could go. However, with the way we were walking and the fact that Lynda’s car was in the first parking space we came to there was no way to let her know. Telling her would have to wait.

To be continued...