Chapter 60

Dan walked over to the grave and laid a bouquet of flowers by the tombstone. As Tom moved to stand behind him, he looked down at the ground.

In a soft voice, he said, “Hello, Pat. It has been a year since I visited your grave. I’m sorry that it has been so long. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been gone for two years now. It feels like it was yesterday when we met.

“I’ve been watching over Betty like you asked me to do. It was real rough on her for the first year, but she’s doing better now. She’s still on the anti-depressants. I wouldn’t say that she is happy, but she is functional again. She moved out your old apartment right after you died and lived with us for a while. She moved out of our place and lived with Sue for a bit.

“The real surprise to me was Sue. She came through like a champ. That woman has an iron core of strength like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t know how many nights she spent holding Betty and comforting her. I guess she had a lot of empathy for Betty’s situation. I think they swapped Pat stories as a way of dealing with their grief.

“Betty moved out of Sue’s place a little while ago and into a townhouse. It’s a nice little place. I think you would have liked it. I remember you telling me that you wanted to move into a townhouse so that you wouldn’t have to do yard work.

“Betty finally sold the bar to Jennifer and Cathy after they ran it for more than a year. She just couldn’t face going in there every night without you. I’m sure you understand. I was kind of surprised that she kept it as long as she did. I stop by occasionally to see how things are going for Jennifer and Cathy, but it just isn’t the same without you there.

“Betty is working in a store at a mall selling leather coats. She’s a sales clerk. I’ve offered to make her a manager of one of my pizzerias several times, but she keeps refusing. I think she feels like I’m giving her charity. I’m not. She knows how to run a business. Maybe she just doesn’t want the responsibility anymore.

“It has been a busy year for me. I don’t even know where to begin. The last time I visited your grave, I had three pizzerias in one city. Now, I’ve got twelve pizzerias in seven cities. Kevin, Sandra, Cory, and Ernie all manage their own stores. People are after me to open more, but I don’t know what to do. I’m thinking of selling out.

“I’ve got my corporate headquarters in an office above one of my pizzerias here in this city. I use that store to train new managers. I can watch them at work and keep them from making any big mistakes. We had one guy who kept trying to cop a feel from all of the waitresses. I had to fire his ass.

“Running that many places is one headache after another. At least I get to go downstairs and mop the floor on occasion. People laugh at me, but I don’t care. Sometimes it’s nice just to do something repetitive and get your thoughts in order.

“Terry flies in for one week a month to go over the accounts and help with business planning. She’s already moved to Atlanta to set up a home for her, Tom, and Amanda. It would be nice if she was closer but she loves Amanda and I wouldn’t ever get in the way of that.

“Tom and Amanda are visiting here before they head off to school down there to work on their doctorates. Tom is lucky that I pay Terry so well. She can afford to pay for a housekeeper. From what I understand, neither woman can cook or clean, and Tom is hopeless at both.”

From behind Dan, Tom said, “Hey!”

Grinning, Dan continued, “Alison graduated college and hopes to become a mother, soon. We’re practicing to get her pregnant, but I don’t think it will require too much practice before we’re ready. I don’t think she is going to go to work as a teacher. She only wanted to do that so that she could help support her family and raise the children. Supposedly, I’m a wealthy man now and she doesn’t need to work. I expect that with time, she’ll change her mind about not wanting to work.

“Ann has achieved a certain national status as a painter of murals. She gets jobs around the country now and disappears for a week or two at a time. She’s really happy with the work although she wishes that she could stay here with us more. I have to admit, she’s making better money than I am. Well, not quite. I make a ton of money.

“Sally has gone back to school to become a nurse practitioner. From what I understand that makes her half nurse and half doctor. She’s happy about it, so I support her as much as I can. She’s gone during the school year, but returns to the house during her breaks. It’s really nice when all three women are there. The coming and going of women does tend to make for a rather dynamic relationship.

“You won’t believe what happened to Diana. There was this guy we called the Coder who ordered a pizza every night. Well, one night it was Diana’s turn to deliver the pizza. It was usually a thirty minute delivery. After an hour had passed without her returning, we started to get worried about her. I went down there to find out what happened and there she was sitting on his lap creating a web page for Parker’s Perfect Pizza. It seems that it was love at first sight. I don’t know which of them was happiest about the seating arrangements. Now she spends all of her free time with him.

“We use the web pages that she created with Coder. His real name is Thurman, but he actually prefers to go by the nickname Coder. He’s a lumpy kind of guy whose clothes are always wrinkled, but he’s smart and treats Diana real nice.

“Eric is an odd bird. About the time you’ve got him figured out, he does something that lets you know that you don’t understand him at all. Right after you died, he started a national campaign to end Breast Cancer. His ads are ridiculous, but they work. He raises tens of millions of dollars every year. He’s funding efforts that have some demonstration of success. I don’t know if he’ll succeed in wiping out breast cancer, but I’ve heard that they’ve had some great advances. I’m sorry that it’s too late for you.

“Eric has found a young lady with whom he is quite enamored. She’s a breast cancer survivor. I don’t like her very much and do my best to avoid her. She’s always touching him and calling him by pet names. It’s rather sickening. It all seems fake to me and I worry that she’s playing him for his money.

“Granny Parker isn’t doing too well, health wise. She’s taken it upon herself to work with other retirement communities to find volunteers willing to pass down a little wisdom to their grandchildren’s generation. Every Parker’s Perfect Pizza has a Granny taking care of the teenagers. It’s something to watch as the kids and the Grannies bond over time. The past two Christmases, the teenagers went up to the retirement communities and sang Christmas Carols. I didn’t even know they were doing it until I read a huge article in the newspaper last Christmas Eve.”

Dan looked down at his watch and said, “I’ve got a dinner meeting coming up with Ellen Derkins-Vic. It seems to me that Derkins wants to grow by buying into my company as an affiliate. I don’t know how I feel about that. In fact, I’m not even sure what that means.

“Life is real funny sometimes. You try to get people to understand what is motivating you to do things and they just never get it. You and Betty didn’t open your bar to become a national chain. It was something personal for you and Betty to do together. I sometimes wonder how you would handle a bunch of folks trying to get you to turn that bar into something it wasn’t. You probably would have picked them up by the seat of their pants and thrown them out the door. I’m not that strong.

Dan was silent trying to remember if he had forgotten anything to say to her. He glanced down at his list of things to talk about and shook his head at how he had rambled towards the end. Tom stepped over to Dan and asked, “Are you done?”

“I think I’ve covered it all except for the goodbyes,” Dan answered.

“Okay,” Tom said taking a respectful step back.

“Well, I guess I have to go now. Rest well and watch over us. Keep us from doing dumb things,” Dan said. Feeling his throat get tight, he said, “I love you and miss you a whole lot.”

Dan stepped back from the graveside and wiped his eyes before he looked over at his friend. Tom held out a root beer and said, “That was a nice visit.”

“Thanks,” Dan said taking the bottle of root beer. He opened the bottle and took a long drink from it. He said, “I needed that.”

“Let’s head over to the meeting,” Tom said guiding his friend through the cemetery by the arm.

“Thanks for bringing me here. I wasn’t able to drive home the last time I visited her,” Dan said.

“No problem,” Tom said. He took a drink from his root beer and said, “It was the least that I could do.”

“Do you want to see Ellen?” Dan asked.

“There’s probably going to be a bunch of big shots from her company there. It would be rather uncomfortable having to explain me to them. I’ll call her later tonight,” Tom said.

“Okay,” Dan said.

Tom walked along for a moment and then asked, “Do you want me to talk to Terry about easing off on the talk about expansion?”

“No, she’s just doing her job. In fact, she’s doing her job very well. Her arguments are pretty persuasive,” Dan said.

He took a sip of the root beer thinking that the whole problem was that her arguments were persuasive. It was pretty hard to tell someone that you didn’t want to do the right thing for the company, because you just wanted to enjoy your life.

Ellen was seated in the corner booth of the Derkins restaurant in which Dan had once worked. Entering the place brought back fond memories. Holding a menu in his hand, Dan slid into the seat across from Ellen and said, “Hello.”

“Hi, Dan,” Ellen said with a smile.

“Interesting choice of restaurants for a business meeting,” Dan said. The waitress put a cup of hot coffee in front of him and then disappeared.

“This is a friendly business meeting where two old friends get to talk about their plans for their businesses. I want to see what we kinds of goals we might have in common,” Ellen answered.

“Ah,” Dan said with a smile.

“I noticed that Tom dropped you off,” Ellen said.

Dan nodded his head and answered, “He picked me up from here earlier so that he could take me by the cemetery to see Pat.”

“I forgot,” Ellen said not realizing the significance of this day for Dan. She remembered the big biker woman who scared her. She hadn’t heard about her death until after the funeral. She had heard from a number of sources that Dan had not taken her death very well.

“That’s okay,” Dan said.

“Tom could have come in and said hello,” Ellen said with a weak smile.

Dan looked over at her and said, “He was afraid that there would be other people here and thought it would be a little awkward.”

“I can understand that. How’s he doing?” she asked. They didn’t talk often enough. James Vic wasn’t a jealous man, but there was no need to wave past relationships in his face.

“He’s doing well. He’s going to graduate school in Atlanta along with his girlfriend,” Dan answered. He took a sip of coffee and asked, “Did you change the coffee?”

“Yes, Jimmy likes this brand better,” Ellen said looking over at Dan with a curious expression.

“He’s right,” Dan said with a grin. Seeing the expression on her face, he said, “This is what I serve in the morning at the pizzeria.”

“Ah,” Ellen said wondering which of the two of them discovered the coffee first and told the other one about it.

“So what is this I hear about Derkins wanting to find an affiliate restaurant?” Dan asked. He opened the menu and glanced down the items. He knew the menu except for two items labeled new.

Ellen took a deep breath and said, “We’ve grown about as large as we can. Dad is retiring and I want to grow the company some more. There is really only one way to do that. We have to introduce a different kind of restaurant that occupies a different market niche and grow that. If we were to introduce a different Derkins type restaurant it will just end up competing against the original Derkins restaurants. The new restaurant has to be completely different.”