Chapter 59

Terry struggled to make sense of her notes taken during the session with Dan. It had all seemed so clear when he had asked the questions, but after a day or two, everything had blurred together.

She looked up at Tom’s mother and said, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Sure you can,” Tom’s mother replied.

“Dan really understands business,” Terry said.

Shaking her head, Tom’s mother said, “Dan is a very organized and methodical individual. What you need to do is get methodical in the same way that he is.”

“What do you mean?”

Tom’s mother looked at Terry for a second. It amazed her that such a smart young woman was so slow to pick up on some things that she thought was very obvious.

She said, “Dan will ask the same question over and over, long after everyone else gets tired of it. You’re laying out goals and activities for his business. He’s going to ask the same questions of each goal. How is it significant? Does the goal provide a clear and unambiguous direction for him? How will he know that he’s reached it? What happens if he doesn’t achieve it?

“For each activity you’re planning, he’s going to ask a different set of questions. Does it take him towards his goals? How long will it take? How much will it cost? What is necessary to occur, before he can begin it? Is there a clear endpoint? Where can it fail? What happens if it fails? What can he do in case of each potential failure?

“If you can figure out what his questions will be, then you can make sure that you have the answers.”

“Really?” Terry asked.

“Dan probably has a checklist of questions that he’ll ask you. He does things like that. Even if he’s done something a thousand times, he will go to his checklist for that activity and make sure that he’s covered every item on it. He’s very methodical,” Tom’s mother answered.

“Wow,” Terry said wondering why she had never noticed that. She looked down at her notes and realized that the same questions appeared in a dozen different places.

“You should watch him work sometime. You’ll be amazed by what you see,” Tom’s mother said with a smile.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

“Yes. He was the best thing that ever happened to Tom. Believe it or not, Tom was too clever for his own good. There were times when I despaired that he would ever become successful. Dan taught him how to work hard to achieve something. I love that boy to death,” Tom’s mother said.

Tom had always been a good boy, but he was a better person after becoming friends with Dan. Dan had tempered the little streak of wildness inside of Tom.

“I’ll admit that Dan confuses me at times,” Terry said.

Tom had explained to her that Dan had wanted to discuss the business plan rather than read it, because he had difficulty reading. It was difficult reconciling his poor reading skills with his success.

“Dan is a straight arrow. He’s loyal to his friends. He’s a hard worker. He’s got good values. He’ll do anything to help someone out who is in need. You don’t find many people like that any more,” Tom’s mother said.

“I’ve noticed that,” Terry said.

She’d heard about how Dan was taking care of some woman who was dying of breast cancer. It had to be tough on him. He never talked about it around her, but Tom had left work one day to cheer him up.

“How are things going with you and Tom?”

Terry shrugged her shoulders and said, “I think we’ve become pretty good friends.”

“Is that all?” Tom’s mother asked looking at the young woman with an expression of concern.

She was worried that Tom was getting into something more than he could handle. She was convinced that things could get real ugly sometime in the future if the three of them didn’t come to some sort of real understanding.

“Yes,” Terry answered.

“That’s a shame. You and he should be a little more intimate than that by now.”

Terry flushed with anger for a moment and then said, “I don’t like having sex with guys.”

“I wasn’t talking about sex,” Tom’s mother said shaking her head. Terry was too quick to jump to the wrong conclusion.

“You weren’t?” Terry asked wrinkling her forehead. She had always known that Tom’s mother wanted her to be intimate with Tom. She felt that meant that she was supposed to take care of Tom’s sexual needs when Amanda wasn’t around.

“I was talking about love,” Tom’s mother said.

“It’s the same thing isn’t it?” Terry asked slapping the table top to make a point.

“Tom and Dan are two of the straightest guys around. They don’t have sex with each other, but they love each other. When one of them accomplishes something, they call the other one to share the news. When one of them has something bad happen to them, they call the other one to share the burden. There’s a bit more there than friendship. They are brothers. That’s love,” Tom’s mother said.

“Oh,” Terry said.

“You need to find that with Tom or this weird little relationship that you three have is going to fall apart,” Tom’s mother said.

“Why do you care?” Terry asked rather stunned by what she had been told.

“Tom said that he and Dan fall in love with exceptional women. There’s a lot of truth in that. You’re an exceptional woman, too. He could fall in love with you. I want Tom to be happy and I think that he could be very happy with you and Amanda in his life,” she answered.

“Oh,” Terry said.

Nodding her head, Tom’s mother said, “The only thing keeping that relationship from blooming is you.”

“Oh.”

Tom’s mother looked at Terry for a minute. She realized that Terry didn’t understand Tom or Dan at all. She smiled at Terry and asked, “Does Tom make a big production out of root beer when you’re around?”

“Oh, God! Does he ever,” Terry answered rolling her eyes. She said, “Dan is just as bad. When those two are together, you’d swear that root beer could cure the common cold.”

Tom’s mother laughed and shook her head. She said, “Tom only does that as a way of expressing how he feels. To hear him talk about it, you’d think that he drinks gallons of it every day. He doesn’t. He wouldn’t have a tooth in his head and he’d weigh three hundred pounds if he actually drank that much root beer.

“He only drinks it with people that he cares about. When he offers you a root beer, he’s actually offering you his friendship. Dan knows this. When Dan offers him a root beer, he’s telling Tom that he’s got a friend. It was some weird little ritual those two invented years ago. I think that Tom started it and Dan just played along. It took on a life of its own after a while.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No. I’m serious,” Tom’s mother said.

“I can’t believe it,” Terry said thinking back on how many times Tom had brought along a root beer ready to share it with her and Amanda.

“When he’s waxing poetic about the God’s true beverage, he’s saying, ‘I like you and I think that by sharing this magical elixir we’ll bond.’ I know it’s stupid, but that is what it means. Lots of men do that with regular beer. Watch them sometime. You’ll see that it’s as if they are talking to each other by talking to the beer.”

“Wow,” Terry said sitting back in her chair in amazement.

Tom’s mother said, “The next time that you see Dan and Tom together, watch how they interact and what role root beer plays in their conversation. You’ll be amazed.”

“Life is hell without root beer,” Terry said repeating something that Tom had said to her on more than one occasion.

“That’s right. Life is hell without a friend,” Tom’s mother said smiling at Terry.

“Oh my God! I never realized!” Terry exclaimed.

Every interaction with Tom had taken on an entirely new meaning. From the very first time they had met, Tom had been offering her root beers. She had turned him down over and over.

“Dan is going through a tough time right now. You might consider keeping a six pack of cold root beer around for Dan and Tom. They are going to need it,” Tom’s mother said.

Alison came into the pizzeria and sat down at one of the tables. She wasn’t wearing her Parker’s Perfect Pizza tee-shirt. It was a while before Dan noticed that she was there. Seeing how quietly she was sitting, he went over to her and asked, “Are you okay?”

“I was just over at Betty’s to deliver lunch. I went in and saw Pat,” Alison said. She had thought that she was going to do something nice for Dan and talk to his friend to see how she was doing. She hadn’t expected to find what she had seen.

“Oh,” Dan said. He sat down beside her and hugged her.

“It’s so unfair,” Alison said with tears in her eyes.

“I know,” Dan said holding her tight.

Groping for words to express what she felt, she said, “You can’t understand it. The idea that what makes a woman a woman can kill her is just so ugly. I mean...”

Seeing that she was at a loss for words, Dan said, “I know. Maybe I can’t understand it in the way that you do, but I do recognize the ugliness. Men have been losing their lovers to this for ages. It’s hard for us to watch someone we love wilt away like that. I agree. It isn’t fair.”

“Betty said that Pat has only a day or two left,” Alison said.

“She told me the same thing when I talked to her earlier today,” Dan said. He talked to Betty at least twice a day. The conversations were often strained, but he made the attempt to comfort her. More often than not, Betty rambled on about Pat’s condition, barely coherent in how she described it. He listened and tried to say the right words at the right time. It was the only thing that he knew to do.

“I’m not up to working today,” Alison said. She hadn’t ever seen anyone who looked so bad in her entire life. There weren’t words to describe what the cancer had done to that woman’s body.

“I understand,” Dan said. Pat had known what was going to happen to her. She had wanted to spare everyone that knew her from seeing her like that. Dan had prevented Pat from disappearing. It was hard on the friends, but infinitely easier on Pat.

Granny Parker made her way into the pizzeria. She was feeling a little weak, but the sparkle had returned to her eyes. She had timed her arrival for when the teenagers would be most numerous. Amazingly, she was wearing the same orange wig that she had worn on the day she’d had her heart attack.

Surprised and delighted to see her, the teenagers swarmed over to her to ask questions about how she was feeling. They helped her over to one of the regular tables recognizing that she wouldn’t be able to climb up onto the picnic table. One of the teenagers held out the chair for her as he said, “Granny Parker, it hasn’t been the same without you here.”

“Thank you, Johnny,” she replied as she took a seat. She looked around at the teenagers who had gathered around her and spotted one of the kids who had been going to summer school.

She asked, “Harry, how’s school?”

“It’s fine, Granny Parker. I’m making an A,” Harry answered pleased that she had remembered him.

“That’s great, Harry. I knew that you could do it,” she said.

He had cried to her about having to take summer school. It was a sure way to get a reputation as a dummy. He was positive that kids would point to him and make crude comments. She had assured him that if he did well in the course that there would be little they could say. How many of them could boast of an A in that course?