Chapter 2

I pulled out my cell and asked, "What's your name?"

I could see the question marks in her eyes as she answered, "Joyce Chambers."

I extended my hand and said, "Bill Hunter, glad to meet you, Joyce."

I flicked my cell open and searched my contact list. I found the number I was looking for and hit the send key. Almost as soon as it began ringing a female voice answered, "Delmar Resort, how may I help you?"

"Dana, I thought this was your private number? When did you start answering the switchboard?"

"Bill, is that you? I haven't heard your voice in too long. How have you been?"

"I'm fine, Dana. I was wondering if you could do me a favor."

"Anything, Bill, we probably wouldn't be here if you hadn't convinced your bank to renegotiate our mortgage after the last hurricane."

"You know I'm retired now, Dana?"

"Yeah, I heard that. The new guy from the bank was out here last month looking around. He seems to be a nice guy."

"Well, I'm calling for a new friend of mine. Her name is Joyce Chambers. She missed her job interview with you this morning, and I feel it's partly my fault."

Dana chuckled and said, "I'm not going to ask what happened. Can she be here at three?"

I put my hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and asked, "Can you be there by three?"

Joyce mouth dropped open and I answered, "She'll be there."

There was a pause on the line and Dana finally said, "Umm, Don't say anything to her but I had already decided to hire her based on her transcripts and her last interview. I was really disappointed when she didn't show up, this morning. Knowing she's a friend of yours is just icing on the cake. Just make sure she gets here this time."

"I'll drive her over myself. Thanks a lot, Dana."

"You take care of yourself, Bill, and don't be a stranger."

"I won't. Bye now."

When I turned back to Joyce she smiled at me and said, "Thank you but, you didn't have to do that. None of this was your fault."

"True, but it wasn't really your fault, either. Now, we have about two hours to kill before your interview. How about I treat you to lunch? The crab cakes here are the best I have ever eaten."

As soon as she finished her lunch Joyce used the restroom to change into business attire for the upcoming interview. She looked very professional albeit a bit nervous as I dropped her off in front of the resort. I gave her my cell number so she could call me when the interview process was over with.

I guess I have mentored at least a dozen young eager college graduates during my banking career. I didn't really think of this as anything much different. I mused that she was certainly far and away the best looking young executive I had ever mentored. I also knew in my mind that my help would need to extend way beyond a friendly word of advice.

I drove over to the nearest branch of my bank and drew out five hundred in cash, so that Joyce would have some walking around money. With debit, credit and all the other cards I usually never carried more than fifty dollars around with me at any one time.

I stopped and topped off the gas in the car at the convenience store next to the bank and went inside and picked up a newspaper after gassing up. My Mustang drew some appreciative stares and one waved greeting from a gaggle of jailbait teens, as they rode by on beach bikes.

I waited for traffic to ease up enough for me to leave the parking lot. All of this had taken less than an hour, but I decided to get back as I doubted that Dana would take too much of Joyce's time knowing that I was waiting.

I was obviously wrong, as I finished all of the interesting articles in the paper, and still there was no Joyce. I was getting a little impatient when my phone rang. It wasn't Joyce, it was Dana. She almost giggled as she said, "I didn't know your tastes ran to petite blondes."

I laughed and said, "You're the second person today to make a remark about my taste in women."

Dana replied, "Really, I don't even have to guess who the first one was. Your ears must be really red as we spent most of the last hour talking about you. When I asked Joyce if she had any questions they were all about you. She thinks you walk on water and I didn't disabuse her too much.

"She's a sweet girl and I'm in your debt, again, for keeping her from slipping away from us. She'll be out as soon as she finishes filling out her W-4. I only had her fill it out today, to keep her busy while I made this call. Bye, Bill, looks like she's calling you now."

I hung up from Dana and immediately got a call from Joyce. "I-got-the-job--I can't-believe-it--When-can-you-pick-me-up?"

All of this was non-stop. I told her I was waiting out front. Almost before I could hang up, she was out the door and in my car.

All I got a chance to say was, "How did it go?"

After that, I got a blow-by-blow account of at least the first part of the interview.

She ended things up by saying, "You know, I thought this was a rotten day, until this afternoon. Now I realize that breaking down in that old beater was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. To hear Dana tell it, your recommendation counted for almost as much as my four years in college."

I modestly replied that it was merely a demonstration of the power of networking.

We rode along for a while with Joyce saying nothing. She was sitting there smiling, staring straight ahead with one arm lazily resting along the window ledge and the opposite fingertips almost absentmindedly dancing across the top of my shoulder.

I looked over and noticed that her skirt had ridden up a bit. Actually much less was exposed to my gaze than I had already seen in the shorts she had worn earlier but somehow it seemed sexier to have her legs revealed this way.

I only glanced at her legs for a moment but as soon as I looked up I knew I'd been caught. Joyce smiled and took both hands and moved her skirt up another inch or two and then giggled as the blush that spread across my face.

She turned serious after that and said, "You can't know how good I feel having that job. Dana is so nice, and she really wants me to work for her. I'll be her administrative assistant for six months, and then she'll cycle me through all of the departments at the resort. I was so sure I'd blown it. Now all I have to do is get a place to live and a way to get to work."

She smiled and asked, "You got any more connections."

I started to say something, but she giggled and added, "I was kidding, Bill. You've already done more for me in one afternoon than anyone else has, since college."

I joked, "I'll do almost anything to get a pretty girl to ride shotgun."

Then turning somber I added, "Seriously, Joyce, this is almost nothing. You heard me telling Dana that I'm retired, but you probably don't really understand what that means. I grew used to an active life. I was working ten to twelve-hour days during the week for over thirty years. I ended up being responsible for hundreds of people. Since my retirement I've had to hunt for things to do! I do volunteer work, day trade on the computer, do all of my own housework and gardening, but it still leaves my life pretty empty. I'd go back to work in a minute, but there are young men that I trained to replace me that wouldn't appreciate me hanging on."

Joyce nodded and said, "Dana told me that you retired when your wife was diagnosed with cancer in order to spend more time with her. She said she didn't think you were really ready for it."

We were stopped at an intersection, waiting for a light to change. I closed my eyes as the memories of those days came flooding back.

Answering her unspoken question I said, "I doubt very many people are prepared for those types of life changes. I had the idea when I retired, that we would have a few years to spend together. It was less than four months. After that, I wasn't fit to go back to work for at least a year. That was four years ago and I've somehow managed to move on."

Trying to move the discussion back toward her situation I continued, "I don't really like to talk about those times. Look, I've got a simple suggestion for your housing and transportation problems, if you'll consider it."

Joyce smiled and said, "Bill, I've already got it figured out. You'll drop me off at the next bus stop and I'll head back to the city and move in with my girl friend and her boy friend, until I can afford a place of my own. The bus runs both ways on a fairly consistent schedule, and after a couple of paydays I'll have enough saved up to get a place a closer to work. There's a new apartment complex in Midway Village that's only thirty minutes from here by bus. See, I can do some stuff for myself."

I was beginning to see that Joyce was a more complex person than I had first thought.

"Hmm, that will probably work. Not well, but it will work. Let's see as Dana's assistant you'll be working a minimum of ten hours a day, with some days being much longer. If I remember correctly it's an hour and a half ride from the last bus stop in the city to the first at the beach ... what with all the stops along the way. If you can get ready for work in a half hour without waking your girlfriend, and skip breakfast or eat it on the bus, that will mean your days will start with you getting up at five-thirty in the morning and getting home at seven in the evening. Of course, that's on a light day, and assumes the busses run according to schedule, something that almost never happens."

I have to hand it to Joyce, she didn't show any chagrin but came right back with, "I've done it before, and I can do it again. I'm not helpless, you know."

I chuckled (hopefully, under my breath) and said, "I know that. I never said you were. My point is that you don't have to do that. You have another friend who lives closer to the resort office, and has a spare car ... several of them, in fact. Why knock yourself out when you don't have to?"

Joyce smirked and asked. "This friend wouldn't happen to be a retired banker, would he?"

I answered, "Could be. Look, it's not a mansion or anything but I do have a rather large empty house in Stonebriar Estates that has three large spare bedrooms just gathering dust. I also collect vintage cars and even have an almost brand new SUV so you could have a ride that I doubt would ever leave you stranded. If you take the expressway the drive time would be less than thirty minutes. Added to that, is that your bedroom would be far enough away from mine that you wouldn't have to worry about waking me, if I decided to sleep in."

Joyce asked, "Could I pay rent and for gas? I like to at least maintain the appearance that I'm paying my own way."

I laughed at her phrasing, knowing that to say anything else would discourage her acceptance, I answered, "Certainly, that would be appreciated."

I left the rest for the evening. I knew to try to offer her the walking around money, or asking her about her wardrobe might make her question her decision to stay with me. I quickly made a u-turn at the next break in the median, and headed back towards home. In case Joyce wasn't familiar with the route, I drove back via the expressway, to help her get her bearings.

After I merged into traffic on the expressway I asked, "So when do you start work?"

"Dana told me Monday would be fine. She said it would take that long to get me added to Payroll. Had to have my W-4 right away but said the rest could wait until I started. I figure I can use the extra time to get the rest of my stuff from Jeff's apartment. I'd better do that soon, because I have a feeling that as soon as the landlord sees that I've moved out, he's going to kick Jeff out as well."

Without thinking I said, "We can go over and get your stuff tomorrow, if you want." I winced almost as soon as I said it realizing that the 'we' might be a bit presumptuous.

Joyce didn't seem to mind and replied, "I suppose we should."

I found myself smiling at that 'we'. Maybe the rest of the things that I wanted to do for her wouldn't be as hard for her to accept as I'd first thought.

One of the few advantages of the aging process is the lessening of the sex drive that has allowed me to better control my libido. I figure my libido is getting hard to control when a bulge appears in the front of my trousers. Up until the point of my wife's illness once a week sex had been enough to allow me this control. After my wife died I went a long time without. For a while thought that I would never want sex again.

The spring after my wife's passing I found that was not the case, but also found that I could manage all the control I wanted via once a month sex. As I mentioned earlier, that was usually accomplished by the use of some out of the area's local amateur talent on Craigslist.