Amanda stopped by Tom's house to pick up Terry so that they could have a cup of coffee and talk. As she walked up to the front door of the house, she decided that the summer was not working out the way that she had wanted. Although she had never really thought about it, she had expected to spend a night or two with Terry and then a night or two with Tom every week. So far, she hadn't had a chance to sleep with either one of them.
She had just reached the door when Tom's mother opened it. Smiling at the younger woman, Tom's mother said, "Come in, Amanda."
"Thanks. I just came by to take Terry out for some coffee," Amanda said feeling a little strange at talking to her boyfriend's mother without him around.
Tom's mother said, "We have coffee here."
"That's okay. We don't want to bother you," Amanda said concerned about how the woman viewed the situation. She hadn't yet figured out how Tom's parents were dealing with having her lover live with them. She rethought that and realized that both of her lovers were living here. Her expectations were rather low since her mother hadn't accepted Tom or Terry. Her father was dealing with the situation much better than she could ever have imagined, but it was obvious that it was a bit of a strain on him.
"It is no bother. Terry is in the kitchen," Tom's mother said with a smile. She had just finished listening to Terry complain about not getting to spend any time with Amanda. It looked to her like Amanda had the same complaint.
"Just for a few minutes," Amanda said. She really wanted to be alone with Terry for a little while.
Terry waved to Amanda rather than greet her with a kiss like she would have if they were alone. Being surrounded by strangers all of the time really put a crimp in being able to display affection for her lover. As if oblivious to the tension in the room, Tom's mother set a cup of coffee in front of Amanda. She said, "There's cream and sugar on the table."
"Thank you," Amanda said. She looked over at Terry and sighed.
In a very cheerful voice, Tom's mother said, "Well girls, I'm off to the mall to buy something. I'll stop at the grocery store on the way home and do my marketing."
Thinking that Tom's mother was intending to buy something for dinner that evening, Terry said, "Tom mentioned that we were going over to Dan's house for dinner tonight."
"I know. I'll be back in about four hours. You girls have fun while I'm gone," Tom's mother said picking up her purse. She waved and slipped out the door.
"Bye," Terry said watching her leave.
Amanda's first reaction to the woman leaving so quickly was that she had said something to offend her. She stared at the closed door trying to replay the conversation in her mind. Well after the woman was gone, she said, "Goodbye."
Rather surprised by the sudden departure, Terry shook her head and said, "I wonder what that was about."
"I think she's letting you and I have a little time alone," Amanda said.
Terry shook her head in amazement. Her mother would have been standing over them during the entire visit to make sure that nothing happened. Her stepfather would have been standing in the bushes outside her bedroom window hoping that he could see her doing something with her girlfriend. She said, "That's one very nice lady."
"Yes, I agree," Amanda said. She looked over at Terry and said, "Now we know where Tom gets his good manners."
"His father is a real charmer, too," Terry said.
"My father speaks highly of him," Amanda said nodding her head. She had heard all about how Mr. Eldridge was respected by everyone in the company where he worked. He described the man as one of the rising stars.
Terry looked at Amanda and then at Amanda's coffee cup. She smiled and asked, "What are we doing in here when we could be in my room?"
"Good question," Amanda said rising from her chair.
Hell is not at the center of the earth and didn't smell of sulfur. The devil's name isn't Lucifer or Satan. The devil isn't a little red man with horns and a tail who carried a pitchfork. Ernie had no idea how the Bible had managed to get so many details about Hell wrong. It made him wonder if he shouldn't read the Bible and double check some of the other details in it.
Ernie had discovered that Hell was on a rooftop in the middle of summer and it smelled like tar. The devil went by the name of Leo and he was a big baldheaded man with a scar across his face and a gold front tooth. Leo did not appear to be a happy man and, from Ernie's perspective, that was not good. It was not much fun having the devil angry at you.
Pointing at Ernie, Leo shouted, "Get your ass up that ladder now."
"Yes, sir," Ernie said even as he raced towards the ladder. The first time he had climbed the ladder he had been terrified that he was going to fall. Now, he didn't even think enough about climbing the ladder to worry about falling down. Down there was Leo and getting up to the roof quickly was preferable to having Leo shout at him. Ernie had discovered that Leo didn't even need a reason to shout at him. It was his normal tone of voice.
"Get back down here, you fool. You forgot to take that roll of felt with you," Leo shouted while pointing to a roll of tar felt. Ernie climbed down almost falling as he scrambled. Leo shouted, "Watch what you're doing. Jesus H. Christ, do you what to die or something?"
"No, sir," Ernie answered picking up the roll of tar.
"Now get back up there," Leo shouted pointing up to the roof. He figured another dozen trips up and down the ladder and Ernie's legs would turn to rubber.
Leroy climbed to the roof and set the tar felt on the roof. One of the men working up there gestured to it and pointed to the edge of the roof. Leroy picked up the roll of felt and carried over to where the man had pointed. He stood there for a minute thinking about how he couldn't even complain about how he was being treated. No one working with him except for Leo understood a word of English and Leo was the last person to whom he would complain. He shook his head realizing that he was running errands for people who probably weren't in the country legally.
Leo turned his back to the roof and smiled. He had the kid for one more day and was going to make sure that he got a good workout. By the time he was done with him, the kid would appreciate working in a nice air conditioned building. He spotted a truck pull up and headed over to it.
James Vic got out of the car and looked over the construction site. As Leo approached, James asked, "How's it going?"
"Good. We're about three quarters of the way done on this job," Leo said. He gestured up to the roof and said, "You can check it out, but I'd recommend that you do it a little later. It's hot as hell up there."
"I'll check it out when it is done," James Vic said. He knew what to expect if he were to go up to the roof in the middle of the day. Until the gravel went down on the tar, it would be miserable up there.
Ernie looked down at Leo and the man with whom he was talking. One of the crew came over and looked over the edge. Ernie said, "What's up, Juan?"
Shaking his head, Juan pointed to James and said, "Big boss."
"Ah," Ernie said figuring that the man had just covered all of the English he knew.
"Big boss good man," Juan said.
"I'm glad," Ernie said wondering why Juan was talking about the man like that.
Ernie didn't know that James Vic had asked Leo's crew to do a special rush job two weeks earlier and had promised that he'd cater lunch once a week for a month if they came in one Saturday. Grinning over at Ernie, Juan said, "Food come."
Ernie looked at Juan and asked, "What do you mean, food come?"
"Big boss bring food," Juan said with a smile.
"Get down here you maggots!" Leo called out to the roof. He'd seen everyone looking over at James. They knew what was coming and he wasn't going to get any work out of them until after they ate.
The whole crew scrambled for the ladder. Ernie was the last in line to get down. He couldn't remember any of the crew moving that fast. A car pulled up and a person got out carrying a box. Looking over the edge of the building he spotted a very familiar tee-shirt just as Miguel said, "Pizza!"
"Dan Parker Pizza," Juan said giving Ernie a thumbs-up gesture.
"You know Dan Parker?" Ernie asked staring at Juan.
"Si. Dan Parker work here. Good man, Senor Parker," Juan said with a nod of his head. He let loose with a torrent of Spanish that Ernie didn't understand.
Ernie followed Juan down the ladder trying to figure out what Juan had said. He had just reached the ground when the Leo scowled at him and said, "I forgot about you. Go ahead and get some food. After you've eaten get back to work. I'm not paying you to daydream."
"Yes, sir," Ernie said as he got into line to get a slice of pizza. The rest of the crew was really enjoying the pizza. They were standing around eating, talking, and laughing. It struck him that he had never really thought about the effect pizza had on people. They sure didn't act that happy when they ate their sack lunches.
James Vic said, "I don't recognize him. Did he just join your crew?"
"No. Dan Parker sent him over to learn how to work. Tomorrow is his last day," Leo said looking over at Ernie.
James Vic asked, "Dan sent him over here?"
"That's right," Leo said speaking loud enough for Ernie to hear. He said, "Dan decided that a week of honest work just might help him set his priorities right."
"He must have really been a problem for Dan to do that," James said looking over at Ernie and shaking his head. He wondered why Dan would send someone here rather than just fire him. He had discovered first hand that Dan often had less than obvious reasons for doing things. His position as the number two man in Foreman's General Contracting was a result of Dan helping a friend.
Ernie couldn't believe what he was hearing. People were standing around discussing him as if he wasn't even there. It would be okay if they were saying nice things about him, but they weren't. He realized that he would have a difficult time moving into construction since the big boss already had a bad opinion of him.
Frowning, Juan stepped over and asked, "You bad to Dan Parker?"
"I screwed up," Ernie said shrugging his shoulders. He didn't think there was a good way to answer that question without sounding like a complete jerk. It didn't help that he had come to recognize that he had been a complete jerk. Jimmy had explained that life wasn't fair, but Dan had given him a chance to make it a little fairer. Ernie knew that he had blown it. Blowing it accidentally would be one thing, but doing it intentionally was quite another matter.
"Not good. Dan good man," Juan said and then turned to walk away. He had worked with Dan for a week and had been impressed by how hard he had worked. There hadn't been the normal tensions when a white man joined the crew. Rather than look down on the crew, Dan had been polite and helpful. He even gave some of them a ride home in his car after work.
Ernie stared at Juan as the man reported the conversation to the other members of the crew. They glanced over at him and shook their heads in disgust. He realized that he had just disappointed a bunch of people because of how he had treated Dan.
Having left Kevin in charge of the store, Dan sat in the office of Mr. Harrison watching as the man examined the sales charts he had generated for this meeting. He felt a little like he was at a doctor's office waiting to hear the results of some medical test. The business looked good to him, but he didn't trust his judgment.
Mr. Harrison looked over the figures that Dan had provided him and nodded his head. Looking up at Dan, he said, "It looks to me like your business is taking off. If I'm reading this right, you are a year ahead of where you thought you'd be by now."
"Right," Dan said.
"I could say that I told you so," Mr. Harrison said smiling over at Dan to take the bite out of his words.
"I think you just did," Dan replied with a smile.
"If this trend continues for a couple of more months, I think you'll be in an excellent position to open another pizzeria even if your business levels off after that," Mr. Harrison said. He knew that Dan would approach this decision in a very considered fashion. He wouldn't have made this suggestion so early to most of his clients, but knew that Dan would take a lot of time to plan his next business move.
Dan stared at Mr. Harrison as he considered the suggestion that he was to open another pizzeria. Frowning, he said, "I'm still working the bugs out of the pizzeria. I'm not ready to start another pizzeria."
"I'm not saying that you should open another one in a month or two. Give it a year and then decide. Until then, plan out what would be necessary to open your next store," Mr. Harrison said.
"There's no way that I can run two places," Dan said thinking about the amount of work that would be involved.
Mr. Harrison said, "I agree. You won't be able to run two places the way you're running your pizzeria now. You're going to have to change your management style in order to do that. It is time for you to start training someone to manage your current store. When you're ready to start a new store, you'll have to train someone to manage your new store."
"I'll have to think about it," Dan said with a frown.
"I know you will. That's why I mentioned it now," Mr. Harrison said with a smile. He looked down at the figures thinking that Dan's concept for a pizzeria had really taken off better than he had thought.
Dan knew that Mr. Harrison understood how he worked and said, "You're not going to be happy until I have a chain of stores from coast to coast."
"That's right," Mr. Harrison said with a grin. He looked over at Dan and said, "Ninety-nine out of a hundred small businessmen would love to have your problems."
"I guess you're right," Dan said.
"Hello, Dan," Diana said sitting down in the chair across from him.
"Hello, Diana," Dan said. He glanced over at the clock surprised to see her there that early. It dawned on him that she had been coming into the pizzeria early every day and she had been staying late to help close up the store.
"You look a little down," Diana said.
Dan shrugged his shoulders and said, "Mr. Harrison thinks that I should start to consider opening another store."
"He might be right," Diana said. She looked around the pizzeria thinking that Dan had achieved something pretty significant already. It was only four months old and the place was packed most of the time.
"I'm not sure that fits in with my personal definition of happiness," Dan said leaning back in his chair. He had visions of getting locked in some office away from the ebb and flow of the day.
Diana said, "That sounds like a problem. However, I suspect that growing Parker's Perfect Pizza into a slightly larger company might take you a lot closer to your definition of happiness than you are at the moment."
"What do you mean?" Dan asked looking over at his sister. He wondered if she was going to say something trite about not being able to buy happiness, but that it sure helped.
"You want to help others and owning a successful business can make that happen. It might sound a little simplistic, but money can allow you to help a lot of people. It takes a lot of money to build a hospital wing, support after school programs, give out scholarships, and fund research. It can give you time to be a spokesman for causes that you think are important," Diana said.
"Maybe," Dan said with a frown.
"I don't think that your friend Mr. Derkins spends all of his time in an office," Diana said looking over at Dan.
"That might be true, but I know that Mr. Foreman doesn't have that much spare time," Dan said. That wasn't as true now as it had been when Dan had been working for him. James Vic had taken over a lot of the work.
Diana looked at her brother for a minute. She knew that he still considered her to be a little out of control. It wasn't possible to earn redemption just by saying that she had changed. She had to demonstrate through her actions that her heart had changed. She said, "They are different men. Each is pursuing his own version of happiness. You have to choose your version. Don't discount growing the pizzeria into something bigger just because of what you fear will happen."
"Perhaps," Dan said reserving judgment.
Diana sighed and said, "Dan, I know that I haven't exactly been a particularly nice person the past couple of years. I guess that I've always felt that I was a little better than you. I know it was wrong, but I didn't even realize I thought that way about you. You were my brother who was struggling through life while it was all coming so easily for me. I don't know..."
"I can see that," Dan said looking at his little sister. This was the first time he could remember in a long time that she was talking about herself.
"When you really started taking control of your life, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It seemed that you didn't need me anymore. All of a sudden you weren't struggling with the little stuff. You were making real progress and doing amazing things. All of a sudden, you were a different person," Diana said looking down at the table.
Nodding his head in agreement that he was a different person, Dan said, "I took control of my life."
"Yes, you did, but I didn't. I tried to understand what was happening to you. I read the articles and could see how you were applying them. You worked hard at it, just like you've always worked hard at doing things. I was Diana; the Brainiac who didn't need to work hard. I took a superficial glance through the articles and took away from them what I wanted," Diana said.
That Diana hadn't taken the articles to heart had been obvious to Dan. He said, "I noticed that."
"Well, I did get enough out of them that I didn't destroy my life completely," Diana said feeling a little defensive about her actions.
"I noticed that, too," Dan said.
Diana was quiet for a minute and then said, "When Sue painted that picture of me things really started to get out of control. I had looked at it and thought to myself that I was one hot babe that deserved to have a man or two taking care of me. I mean that painting made me look so sexy."
Diana had been portrayed as a beautiful girl on the verge of becoming a woman. There was an undercurrent of raw sexuality that was bursting to be released. Dan had always been uncomfortable looking at that picture. He said, "It is a very powerful painting. I was never comfortable looking at it."
"With that painting as the image of myself, I took off in pursuit of my happiness. I felt at times that I was entitled to happiness and that if I didn't like how things were going that I could change it. Of course, the only person's happiness that I was interested in was mine. So what if what I was doing didn't make others happy. That was their fault, not mine," Diana said. It was difficult even saying that now.
The idea that the concepts and principles in the articles could be misused had never really occurred to Dan. He didn't know what to think. He wondered if others had twisted the ideas for their selfish reasons or misunderstood what they were actually about. Frowning, he said, "I didn't realize that."
"I became a manipulative selfish bitch who was interested in only one thing — Me. When you got in my way, I got you removed by having you move in with your harem," Diana said.
"My harem?" Dan asked surprised at how she referred to his girlfriends.
Seeing the expression on Dan's face, Diana laughed. She said, "That's how I thought of Alison, Ann, and Sally. Isn't having a harem every man's dream? You were pursuing your happiness and ended up with three girlfriends. How else was I to interpret it?"
"I never saw it that way," Dan said with a frown.
Diana sighed and said, "Of course you didn't see it that way. You were being yourself and women like that. They like a man who isn't afraid to say that he likes her, who will do little things for her to make her feel appreciated, and who is serious about her happiness. You acted like yourself and you collected three girlfriends because of it.
"I acted like Diana The Queen and ended up losing the one guy that I managed to snare. The sad thing is that I didn't really even care about him. He was a number and was to be one of my followers. I just didn't understand why I couldn't get another three guys," Diana said.
"You wanted three more?" Dan asked raising an eyebrow.
"Well, you had three girlfriends in your harem. I had to have four guys in my posse," Diana said. Not only did it sound cold and ruthless, she had been cold and ruthless in pursuing it.
"Really?"
"Yes. I didn't even realize how ugly that was until I sat down and really started working through my personal definition of happiness. It was pure torture to read about establishing relationships with others around me. I realized that I had been destroying the few relationships I had in my life rather than building new relationships. I had thought I was pursuing my happiness when I was actually digging my own grave," Diana said. She had shed more than a few tears when she thought about her behavior over the past two years.
"I didn't realize it was that bad," Dan said. Everything had developed so slowly that he couldn't say what it was that had started souring his opinion of his sister.
"I started at the Pizzeria thinking that I was going to help you. Of course, it was up to me to decide what kind of help you needed. I never really bothered to ask you. It never dawned on me that you needed another cook. In fact, it wasn't until Granny Parker talked to me about it that I realized I had been helping myself more than helping you," Diana said. It had been fun. She got to sit around eating pizza and drinking root beer until it was time to deliver a pizza. A short drive and a little flirting with the male customers would get her a bit of cash. The whole time she was enjoying herself, Dan was struggling to do everything around the pizzeria.
"Granny Parker talked to you?" Dan asked surprised to learn that.
"She told me that I was taking advantage of you. I was, but I didn't realize it," Diana said.
"Wow, I didn't know. I guess that was about the time when I was considering firing you," Dan said.
Diana stared at Dan with wide eyes on hearing that little bombshell. Her voice squeaked when she asked, "You were going to fire me?"
"Yes," Dan answered without making an attempt to soften his answer. He would have given her a warning, but if her behavior hadn't improved he would have fired her.
Shaking her head, Diana said, "I didn't even realize it. I guess the situation was worse than I thought it was. Dad was right."
"Dad talked to you too?" Dan asked.
"Yes," Diana answered. She said, "Dad told me straight out that I was acting like a spoiled little bitch and that it was time for me to straighten up and fly right. He doesn't normally say things like that. It was a real shock."
"Oh," Dan said wondering if he should have talked to her about her behavior. He was about to apologize when he realized that his words wouldn't have had as much impact as what Granny Parker and his father had said. At the time, Diana hadn't seen him as a role model.
Diana said, "It was after that when I sat down and started to reread the three articles. This time I really read them. I asked questions about every sentence. I wasn't going to make the same mistake this time and just accept what I wanted to be true and ignore the rest."
"That's good," Dan said thankful that she had finally taken that step.
"I don't think I've ever cried so much in my life. It was like I was the ugly queen in Sleeping Beauty. I had looked in the mirror expecting to see that I was the most beautiful person in the land and discovered that I wasn't. I was devastated," Diana said. She had been living a fairy tale lie.
Almost as if picking up on Diana's thoughts, Dan said, "I remember one day Tom was telling me about the original versions of the fairy tales. They were not the sweet stories that you read today. They were warnings about the ugly things that people do. Did you know that in the original story that one of Cinderella's step-sisters actually cut her toes off so that her feet would fit in the glass slipper?"
"No. That's horrible," Diana said with her face twisted in disgust.
Dan nodded his head in agreement. He said, "The story was about ambition and what people would do in their pursuit of it. It was a cautionary tale about becoming the evil step-mother, the ambitious step-sisters, and the victim Cinderella. People don't like to hear about ugliness so the stories were cleaned up for mass marketing. The lessons that were supposed to be taught were abandoned in favor of preaching that wishes can come true."
"Wow," Diana said.
Nodding his head, Dan said, "Sometimes at night, I lay awake in bed wondering if there shouldn't be a fourth article."
"On what?" Diana asked.
"On the nature of man," Dan answered. Seeing the surprised look on his sister's face, he said, "One of the greatest sources of unhappiness in life is that we are raised to expect people to be one thing when they are really something else. What is normal? What is abnormal? What is a good person? We learn that someone good has baser desires and label them a hypocrite thereby becoming a hypocrite in doing so.
"We build archetypes of character types and then expect people to fit nicely into those little defined roles that we've constructed. The constructs are artificial, but the people are not. We're shocked when we discover unexpected depths to someone we classified as stupid. We're offended when we learn that some esteemed person has baser desires. Pity the upstanding citizen who has a desire to dress up like a woman in the privacy of his own home.
"We accept the roles that are placed upon us and try to mold ourselves into them regardless of the fact that we are uncomfortable in that role. We try to adopt the manners and beliefs of those roles. People who act a little oddly are shunned until they conform. A man who does charitable deeds is suddenly vilified when it is learned that he had an affair with a married woman.
"Each and every person walking around thinks they are judge, jury, and executioner. If we find one little character flaw, then we condemn and punish the person. Seldom are we compassionate to those who fail to live up to the expectations that we place upon them. It doesn't matter that our expectations are unreasonable.
"I think it would be nice if there was an article that described the true unadulterated nature of the human animal," Dan said.
"Wow," Diana said thinking that her brother would never cease to amaze her.
Lazlo Zalezac