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“I’m glad it worked out.”
“It did. The next year, my favorite team was the Chicago Bears. My father took me to a game. If he hadn’t, it wouldn’t have bothered me at all. By the time I graduated high school, I had pretty much forgotten about Notre Dame and my meltdown. That was no longer important.”
He took a deep breath and smiled.
“The moral of this little tale is that I got over the worst disappointment of my life. It turned me into mush for one day. It was forgotten before Easter. Children are like that. They recover because they have to. The world keeps spinning. They have a zillion things to learn. Painful at the moment? Yep. But, the pain passes, replaced by some other pain. Do you see where I’m going?”
I nodded. “I understand. Emily will get past this week. So will I. In fact, I think I’ll probably feel worse for a longer time than she will. Short memories are sometimes a good thing. Knowing that doesn’t ease the guilt.”
“Yeah, there’s that. I just wanted you to know that Emily’s going to be just fine.”
“Until she gets dumped a week before the senior prom.”
He laughed. “That will certainly be traumatic. Cold enough?”
“More than enough. Time to work.”
By the time we reached the workroom, Codrin had returned to Dracula mode. Cold, almost stern, he recapped what we had accomplished so far, which wasn’t much. That he could go from a nine-year-old in love with college football to someone tirelessly reciting the plan for the rest of the day was a mystery to me. I certainly couldn’t shunt my feelings to the side as he could. Did I have to learn how to do that?
I spent the rest of the day mapping out how I would use the next four days to gather all the information I would need for my personnel evaluation. At quitting time, I had already acquired a user id and password to query the database and records. Not all the personnel files were online, so I made arrangements to review the paper files. Notes would have to do for that exercise. My series of interviews included all the VPs and section leads. Middle management was my primary concern…that and systems. If the systems were more flexible and responsive than the ones I used daily, I would have to report that. I knew that most of the people I talked to would hold back information. After all, they were not guaranteed a job in the merged company. Human nature prompted them to protect their positions. I would need to read between the lines to determine what was not being said.
We went to dinner at an ordinary restaurant, a place where we could all sit at the table and report—before we started drinking and eating. Codrin led the way, having a single glass of wine. The rest of us followed suit. The wine was all right. The food was passable. I was happy to get back to my room, where I could call Emily. Before I could say hello, Emily spoke.
“I hate cats.”
Chapter fourteen
“Youdon’thatecats,”I told Emily. “You might dislike them, but you don’t hate them.”
“I do hate them. There was this big black cat, and he had a bird. The bird must have had a broken wing or something because it couldn’t fly. Every time it tried, the cat would pounce. It was mean.”
“That’s what cats do. They like to toy with their prey sometimes.”
“I know, but it’s still mean. So, I chased away the cat, and that was when the cat-man came out of his house.”
“Cat-man?”
“Our neighbor. He told me to leave the cat alone. I don’t like him.”
“Was the cat in our yard?”
“Yeah.”
“Then, you had every right to chase it away.”
“You have to come home and yell at him.”
“I’m not going to yell at our neighbor because of a cat.”
“You should. They’re both mean.”
“I’ll talk to him when I get there. How was school?”
Emily started on the new topic as if she had never seen the cat and the bird. That was fine with me. I didn’t think talking about cat torture was a good thing. I soon learned that Emily had done all her work, for which she received a gold star. Gold stars were the stuff of my school experience. I didn’t realize schools still used them. I kept Emily on the line as long as possible. She was my connection to the real world. Still, we didn’t talk long. Emily had other things to do. Marcie was next, and she bubbled with enthusiasm. The day had gone well, both at work and at home. She told me not to worry. Everything was A-OK. I could hardly trust Marcie to say anything else.
I was ready for bed when someone knocked on the door. I threw on the complimentary robe and opened the door just wide enough to look out.
“It’s me,” Codrin said.
