AND THE HEAT GOES ON... & on (Part 175f)

AND THE HEAT GOES ON… & on (Part 175f)

Morris and the branch committee meeting had my attention all day Tuesday. After what Morris and told me I fully expected Hobie to tell me about the meeting… but there was not a word. It was about mid morning on Wednesday when he called me to his desk. Even though I knew (at least I hoped I knew) what he was going to tell me, I was excited. But, all he had to say was there would be a branch committee meeting. He didn’t say anything about Morris or what it was about. Confused, I took the opportunity to ask if he knew the purpose and if there had been any ‘movement’ on the branch application. I remember the look he gave me. He frowned and paused before asking me if he hadn’t told me that the application was on the Banking department’s schedule to be approved. I told him that that was “news to me”. He apologized and told me to take a seat and brought me up to date. In a way it was hard not to smile because Morris had kept me ‘in the loop’. What his telling me did was to give me the opportunity to ask if I was to be in attendance.  Again, he frowned. He asked if I’d not been at the last committee meeting and when I shook my head in a negative motion he asked why. He’d been on vacation so wasn’t aware that I’d been told it was a “closed meeting”. After I told him he was a bit upset but was more forthcoming with what was on the agenda for this meeting.

When Morris had told me about the meeting he said nothing about what was to be discussed. When Hobie told me that Morris was bringing an architect who did nothing but design branch bank facilities I got excited. The news told me, for sure, that Morris was in control. I don’t remember anything else until early that afternoon. It was impossible to miss Morris.. Fairly short and a bit stocky, he always looked unkempt. As soon as he started across the lobby I pointed him out to Trish telling her a little bit about him. I do remember her kind of snickering. Seeing me, he walked up to the entry gate of the platform. There was a youngish looking woman with him and, at first, I didn’t want to believe she was the architect, but she was. Morris introduced her to me and I was trying not to be negative about it. Any time Morris opened his mouth you knew he was from the city. But the woman, probably in her early 30’s, had no accent at all. Her name was Maryellen and after Morris gave me her credentials I felt better. One statistic I made note of was that she’d designed over two dozen branch bank buildings. Morris added that her specialty was in working with branch sites that were “unusual”… and, after the problems we’d had with getting ingress and egress approvals and providing adequate parking, there wasn’t much space left to work with. I couldn’t wait for the meeting.

I should’ve expected that it wouldn’t go that easy, especially with “Polack Joe” a member of the committee. The chairman had been given the title because he was the longest tenured Trustee, not because he had the most to offer in the way of leadership. Maryellen stated her background, showed some unique branch designs and was asked if she thought our space was “workable”. I wrote down her answer… “I can make any space workable.” There was some discussion before someone made a motion to contract with her. There were some concerns expressed but nothing major.

Once she was approved for the project it got crazy. I won’t bore you with details but there was one thing that came up that was unbelievable. One Trustee asked if she could design the space in such a way that should the branch not be successful it could be readily sold as a restaurant like a McDonalds. I sat there in disbelief… as did Morris. Before the woman could formulate an answer another Trustee made it a motion. Luckily, reason was restored and the motion never came to a vote. However, it had taken so long to get to this point that it was time for the Mortgage committee meeting. Morris and the architect were charged with coming up with some preliminary plans to be presented to the committee in October before being excused. I’d just been an observer up to then and as Morris gathered his materials in preparation for leaving I almost couldn’t believe it when he stated, very pointedly, to the committee that Maryellen would be working very closely with me to make sure that, from an operations standpoint, the bank would get what it wanted. I looked at “Polack Joe” after hearing that and was waiting for him to make some sort of comment… but he didn’t. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled inwardly.

Morris and the architect had driven out from the city. Hobie and I were pinning down some deadlines when she abruptly asked where the restrooms were. As I’ve previously written, space had become a problem as the bank had grown and Hobie’s ‘area’ was actually under the curved stair that led to the mezzanine level of the bank. It was also the area right outside the lone restroom allocated for customers. It had always been a problem to keep it constantly maintained during the day as Mike, the messenger/custodian, was often out on his ‘rounds’ and was unable to stay ‘on top of it’. Maryellen stepped to the door and started to go in but stopped abruptly and then backed out. Making a motion to hold her nose said that it needed immediate attention. She then asked where the restrooms on the second floor were located. I told her to take the elevator and upon exiting they would be the second door on the right. When she excused herself from our little group Morris continued by telling me that Maryellen was a good architect but not too good about meeting targets. Knowing some of the Trustees as I did made that not very good news.

I’d been so fixated on making progress with the branch application and what Maryellen would be showing I’d not spent any time looking closely at Maryellen herself. Nothing special to make her stand out in a crowd, she was definitely with the “in crowd” as far as fashion was concerned. When she was sitting in the Board room waiting to make her presentation I was watching the hem of her very short skirt as she got up. It was oh so close! When she was handing materials out I caught her leaning over the table to push some to the other side of the table and, again, it was… oh so close. Sometimes that’s as good as it gets. So, when I saw her start to walk down the stairs I almost couldn’t believe it. As I’ve written before, being in Hobie’s area sometimes paid big benefits… and this was one of them. Stair protocol calls for climbing up to be on the right side and coming down on the opposite side. She had just finished the turn and was now on the straight part of the stairs Morris was right there and as much as I wanted to look up… I didn’t… that is until Morris elbowed me and nodded his head upward. Naturally, I followed his lead and I got a fairly quick view of a pair of red panties. I couldn’t tell if they were bikinis or full briefs but it didn’t really matter.

To be continued…