Alison plopped down on the blanket and looked up at the sky. Dan paused in starting the fire and looked over at her. She was wearing a simple wraparound skirt and a blouse. It was pretty obvious that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath the blouse. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. For a change, she looked like the nervous one on the date. He smiled at her and said, "I hope that you're not disappointed."
"This is lovely. A little too romantic, but lovely," Alison said smiling over at him. She had to acknowledge that she couldn't have planned a better place for them to have a little fun. She was worried about the discussion that they were about to have.
"Too romantic?" Dan asked. He had been concerned that it wasn't romantic enough. He didn't like the suggestion that it was too romantic. He wondered if she was going to tell him that their relationship was coming to an end.
"How's the fire coming?" Alison asked changing the subject.
Turning his attention back to the pile of wood in front of him, Dan lit the starter log. They were supposed to bring their own wood to the park. He had brought one of those fireplace instant light logs and some scraps from the building site. It made starting a fire rather easy. He lit the match and held it against the starter log. Watching the small flame grow, he said, "It is lit."
"Good. Come sit beside me. We need to talk," Alison said patting the blanket.
Worried at how serious she sounded, Dan joined her on the blanket. He looked at her concerned that the date was coming to an end and wondered what he had done wrong. He said, "You sound serious."
"Oh, I am," Alison said with a worried smile. She turned and pushed against his chest so that he was forced to his back. She climbed on top of him so that she sat astride him and grabbed his arms to hold them down. Looking down at him, she said, "I want to make some rules clear before we go any further."
"Rules?" Dan asked.
Alison said, "I like you. I like you a lot. You're a nice guy and I don't want you to get hurt."
"Hurt," Dan echoed with a frown. He liked the part about her liking him, but wondered about the part concerning him getting hurt. He figured that he was about to get the 'I like you like a brother' speech.
"I'm going off to college in a month and a half. Until then, I'd like to have a little fun. I would like it if some of that fun involves you and me having massive quantities of sex," Alison said. She emphasized her words with a suggestive wiggle of her body.
The idea of massive quantities of sex really appealed to Dan, but he knew there was a major negative coming. He said, "But?"
She said, "You just have to accept that it is a summer fling. Enjoy yourself and our times together. I don't want you getting all romantic and mushy. We'll be friends with benefits, but not boyfriend and girlfriend."
Before reading the paper on the pursuit of happiness, Dan would have probably been upset by her assertion that a more intimate relationship was out of the question. He recalled the section on not pushing relationships beyond their boundaries. Nodding his head thoughtfully, he said, "I can accept that."
His easy agreement to her terms surprised Alison and she wondered why he wasn't a little more upset. She wondered if she had misjudged him. She said, "You accepted that a little too easily."
"I read an article that discussed relationships. It described all kinds of relationships and the happiness benefits of each kind. It warned against trying to take relationships further than they were intended or rushing them faster than was reasonable. I'm pleased that you want to be my friend. That's important to me. I'm overjoyed that you want to include benefits. Sure, I'm a little sad that you don't want it to go further than that, but I can accept it," Dan said looking into her eyes as he spoke.
Alison looked down at Dan amazed at his calm acceptance. She had expected him to fight the limitation a little, but his suggestion that he understood limits was reassuring. She smiled and said, "Overjoyed?"
"I've got to warn you that I'm a virgin," Dan said looking up at her. He was afraid that he wouldn't be able to satisfy her.
Alison thought that she had been running into a lot more virgins her age than she had thought existed. She said, "I guess that means that you're going to want lots and lots of sex."
"Yes," Dan said liking the way she thought.
"Good," Alison said with a giggle.
The smile on Dan's face went from ear to ear. After taking one look at him, his mother said, "You look happy."
Dan had just returned from his evening at the lake with Alison. When she had mentioned massive quantities of sex, she had not been kidding. He smiled and said, "I'm very happy."
She looked at him and guessed what had happened on his date. Worried that he was going to go overboard with Alison, she said, "Don't rush things."
"Don't worry. We talked about it," Dan said.
Curious, his mother asked, "What did you talk about?"
Dan answered, "You're worried that I'm going to fall in love and be hurt when she goes off to college. We talked about it. She was very clear in what she wanted out of our relationship. I'm fine with it."
"I like her," his mother said, "She seems like a very level headed young woman."
Dan nodded his head in agreement with his mother's assessment. Alison seemed to understand exactly what she wanted and was quite willing to go after it. He said, "She knows what she wants and is forthright about it. There is very little guessing involved."
"That's good. We've been worried about you," his mother said. She had been afraid that he'd fall in love with Alison and spiral down into a depression when she left for college.
"Don't be worried," Dan said. Thanks to the articles that Tom had given him, he knew what he wanted out of life. The only problem that he had was how to achieve it and he suspected that the final article would give him the knowledge that he needed.
Dan looked over at Tom wanting to talk about his time with Alison, but he held back. Gentlemen didn't kiss and tell. Tom looked very happy. Curious, Dan asked, "What's up? You look like you got laid."
Tom wasn't going to admit that he had sex with Susan. He shrugged his shoulders and said, "I had a good date with Susan last night."
"That's good," Dan said looking at his friend.
The two young men burst out laughing. They didn't have to say anything to know the truth. It was obvious by how they were avoiding details about their dates that they had both been lucky. By mutual consent, they dropped the subject. Tom asked, "Have you given any thought to Parker's Perfect Pizza?"
"Yes," Dan answered. He had started reading the last article. It was about how to establish lifelong goals as a way of focusing and directing one's decisions. It had used a trip to the grocery store as an example about how knowing your destination allowed you to make decisions at each intersection. It didn't matter if there was a detour along the way, knowing your destination allowed you to arrive at it eventually. He said, "I've just gotten to the part about the importance of setting goals."
Tom nodded his head and said, "That's a really important section of the document. The section on what constitutes a good goal is even more important."
"I haven't gotten that far," Dan said.
The article had suggested that a person establish a set of goals for every aspect of their life. There should be career goals and personal goals. The goals shouldn't be trivial or accomplishable in a few days, but goals that should last for most of a lifetime. When a goal was satisfied, then it should be replaced by a new one. Tom said, "I finished those articles a little before we got out of high school. I'm still working up my list of goals."
Surprised at Tom's admission, Dan asked, "Why is it taking you so long?"
Tom said, "Basically you are establishing goals that will direct you for the rest of your life. I don't think that is something that should be undertaken lightly."
"You're right. I hadn't thought about it like that," Dan said. He hadn't finished the article so he was pretty sure that there were lots of little details that he hadn't considered so far.
"I hadn't thought about it until I began trying to create my list of goals. All of a sudden I realized that I was deciding what I wanted to do with my life," Tom said. In the beginning he had pursued college because everyone else was telling him that is what he should do. After reading the article, Tom realized that he had been acting without knowing where he was going. That had changed over the past few months. He was going to college because it would take him to where he wanted to be at the end of his life's journey.
Dan frowned as he thought about the significance of what he was doing. It seemed like he was making a major decision without knowing enough on which to base it. He said, "Maybe I'm not ready for this article yet. I'm not sure that I know enough to plan out my life like that."
Tom said, "That's what is rather remarkable about this article. You aren't really planning out your life. You are establishing a general direction for it."
"There's a difference?"
Nodding his head, Tom said, "A very big difference. How many of the people who graduated with us talked about their plans?"
"Everyone," Dan answered.
"That's right. They said things like they were going to go to college, get a job, get married, and have children. Some of them even stated what their major would be. A few even talked about the company they were going to work for when they graduated."
"Right," Dan said.
Tom said, "Of course, it doesn't take much for those plans to get derailed. Maybe they get married while they're in college. Maybe they have a kid and have to get a job while finishing college part- time."
"I can see that happening," Dan said. He recalled a line from the article that basically said that everything in a plan has to go right for the plan as a whole to succeed. It only took one thing to go wrong and the plan had to be modified or abandoned.
"A lot of them give up and they accept what life has to offer. They take a job and spend the rest of their life doing something that they don't really like," Tom said.
"There are a lot of people at my job site that talk about that," Dan said nodding his head. He'd heard more than one person on the construction site talk about how if this or that plan hadn't failed that they'd be someone by now.
"What they don't understand is that while their plans may have failed, their goals remained the same. They never stopped to reformulate their plans to pursue those goals. If they had thought more about their goals rather than their plans, they wouldn't end up doing something they hated for the rest of their life," Tom said with a smile. He knew that Dan was going to get the point.
"I see. By distinguishing between plans and goals, you are able to focus on your goals. The plans can adapt to changing circumstances," Dan said. It was the goals that were important. The plans were just means to achieve those goals. He realized that this article had the potential of being far more life changing than the other two that he had read.
"Exactly," Tom said.
Thinking he knew the answer, Dan asked, "So is Parker's Perfect Pizza a goal or a plan?"
"I'd say it is a plan," Tom answered.
That answer surprised Dan. He asked, "Why?"
"Because Parker's Perfect Pizza could fail, but the goal of the independence that such an endeavor provides can still be realized. You might have to start Parker's Imperfect Pizzeria before you realize your goal," Tom answered.
"I didn't think about it that way," Dan said.
"It's a whole lot more difficult to come up with a good set of goals than you might think," Tom said. Shaking his head, he added, "I hope that I can finish my goals by the end of the summer."
"What's the hardest part?" Dan asked thinking that a warning might help him while he was reading the article.
"Every goal has to have a real outcome by which you can measure success. You have to be able to say, 'I have achieved this goal.' How do you know if you've achieved financial security? The whole world could change on you the next day and you have nothing. On the other hand, there are some things that you can achieve and no one can take it away from you. Those are your goals," Tom said.
"You mean like graduating high school," Dan said.
"Exactly. You worked hard and graduated. No one can take that away from you," Tom said nodding his head.
Dan looked over at Tom and asked, "Did you come up with any goals that would surprise me?"
Tom laughed at the question before he answered, "Well, there's one that is a little surprising. I've always wanted to go to Antarctica and check out the penguins."
Dan laughed at that and said, "I thought you hated the cold."
"I do, but I still want to see Antarctica. No one said that each particular goal had to be perfect," Tom said with a grin.
It was six in the morning when Diana stumbled into the kitchen. Her eyes were red and she looked tired. Dan looked up from his breakfast and asked, "What's the matter?"
"I spent the whole night reading," Diana answered. Although she hadn't immediately downloaded the article that Dan had recommended, she hadn't forgotten about it. With nothing to do the previous evening she had decided it was time to read it. Looking at her brother, she could see how reading that article had such an effect on him.
"Ah," Dan said understanding what she had been doing.
"That's one intense article," Diana said. Still locked in the high school social scene, the article had shattered a hundred little myths that had dominated her life. Her happiness didn't depend on being accepted by acquaintances. The opinion of her classmates only mattered if it turned violent.
"Yes, it is," Dan said in agreement.
"I think I'm a little too young for it," Diana said going over to the refrigerator. She was going to have a small glass of milk and then head to bed.
"I wish that I had known about these articles years ago," Dan said with a frown. He said, "I might have been able to deal with insults a little easier. I could have looked at Kim and thought to myself that I was working towards my happiness, not hers. Her opinion wouldn't have mattered so much."
Diana poured her milk while thinking about what her brother had said. By all rights he should have been a bitter young man who hated everyone and everything. The abuse he had taken in school had been horrible. It amazed her that he was still a nice guy. She looked over at him and said, "I'd really like to talk to Alison."
Surprised at the change in topic, Dan asked, "Why?"
Diana said, "I like her. She's a little unconventional, but deals with it very easily. She seems to be a very strong woman."
"I'll leave her number on my desk," Dan said with a smile. He wondered what kind of advice Diana was seeking from Alison. In many ways, his positive impression of Alison had increased after his last date with her. She intuitively understood what would make her happy and pursued it without the kind of recklessness that could end up destroying her happiness. Their little discussion about their relationship was an excellent example of that. If he had thrown a fit, she would have been gone in a minute. There was no need for her to put up with an immature male ego.
"Good," Diana replied. She drank her milk and then said, "I'm off to bed. I'll see you tonight."
"I'm going over to Alison's tonight. I'll swing by the house to shower, but if I don't see you, let the parents know that it might be a little late when I get home from her house," Dan said.
"I'll let mom know," Diana said.
Mr. Foreman swung by the apartment construction site to see how things were going. He watched as Dan learned how to tape a dry wall. The young man wasn't too confident, but he was attentive to details. He wondered how much longer Dan would remain on the crew. The guy was a good worker and seemed to get along with everyone.
Dan stepped back after taping the last bit of a wall and said, "It looks simple, but it isn't. It takes a lot more skill than I thought."
"If you were to do this for a couple of weeks, you'd be a pro," the man who had been teaching Dan said.
Dan shook his head and said, "You'd be cleaning up my messes for the entire time I was learning."
"Probably," the man said with a laugh. He liked Dan. When he needed a hand he knew that he could count on Dan to step up and help. It was nice having someone on the crew that would help regardless of the task and would do so without any of the normal complaining.
"Nothing probable about it; you're going to straighten that tape as soon as my back is turned," Dan said pointing to the first tape that he had laid out. It wasn't straight up and down like all of the others on the wall.
"No. That can be fixed without pulling it," the man said. He was about to explain further when he looked over and noticed Mr. Foreman watching them. He said, "You'd better get back to work. Your boss is here."
Looking over at Mr. Foreman, Dan realized that it looked like he was doing nothing. He said, "Right. What do you need?"
"I'm going to need another bag of the taping compound," the man said.
"Yes, sir," Dan said before turning to get it. He walked off to the truck where the taping supplies were stored.
When Dan left, Mr. Foreman walked over and said, "Hello, Joe. What do you think of him?"
"He's a good one. I'd add him to my crew," Joe answered looking in the direction Dan had gone. There weren't too many young men that worked that hard.
"I'm not going to be able to keep him," Mr. Foreman said.
"So why are you showing him the ropes?" Joe asked. His crew had worked with Mr. Foreman for years and he never thought of him as a particularly generous man.
"That's a good question. I like the kid. You should have seen him the first couple of weeks on the job. He looked like hell by the end of the day, but he'd show up the next day ready to work. Always gave me a hundred percent regardless of how tired he was. He even dealt with Ed without ever getting into a fight with him," Mr. Foreman answered.
"I'm impressed," Joe said. Ed led one of the demolition crews and no one got along with him. He was known to stand outside of the porto-potty and yell at the men inside that they weren't getting paid to sit on the can.
"I figure that I'm getting more work out of him than I get out of most of the gofers that I've hired. I might as well let him learn a few things while he's working for me," Mr. Foreman said. It was nice having someone who showed up for work without a hangover. It was nice having someone who returned from lunch without being stoned out of their mind.
"That's nice," Joe said. He looked over at the drywall and said, "He didn't do too badly for his first attempt."
"He tries hard," Mr. Foreman said. He looked through the door that Dan had disappeared through and added, "Someone who tries that hard is either going to succeed or be destroyed. I hope he succeeds."
Joe said, "He strikes me as a pretty resilient young man."
Dan sat at the dinner table feeling a little uneasy. He wasn't quite sure what to expect. This was basically the first time he had ever been invited to have dinner at anyone's house except for his frequent visits over at Tom's house. At least he had met everyone before. Picking up Alison at her house for their dates had meant facing the entire family. He had already gone through the third degree from her father and the less than subtle threats that he should treat her with respect.
Alison's mother set a plate of food in front of Dan. There were two pork chops, some spinach, and applesauce on it. He watched as she made several trips into the kitchen to prepare plates for everyone else. Used to a household where everyone served themselves, he wasn't sure how to act. He wondered if they were going to say grace or something. He commented, "This looks good."
"Thank you," Alison's mother said. She sat down at the table and said, "Bon Appetite."
Everyone started eating without much more fanfare. Dan shrugged his shoulders deciding that when in Rome he was to do as the Romans. He started to eat his meal by tasting the spinach. Alison winked at him and said, "After dinner, we'll spend some time out by the pool."
"I didn't bring a bathing suit," Dan said pausing from cutting into a pork chop. He tried to remember if she had mentioned anything about bringing over one.
Alison's mother, Laura, laughed at the expression on his face and said, "She bought you one."
Wondering if he was in trouble, he looked over at Alison. Her smile was not exactly reassuring. Considering her threat to buy him a Speedo, he asked, "You did?"
Practically leering at him, Mary said, "Yes, she did. I can't wait to see you in it."
Getting worried, Dan looked over at Mary. She looked way too smug. He asked, "You can't wait to see me in it?"
Harry, Alison's father, said, "If it is anything like the one that Laura bought for me, there isn't going to be much left to the imagination."
"That's why I can't wait to see him in it," Mary said with a smile. She licked her lips in an exaggerated manner.
Alison nudged Mary with her elbow and said, "You can look, but you can't touch."
"Spoil sport," Mary said nudging her cousin back.
Winking at her husband, Laura said, "Now girls, what did I tell you about sharing?"
Dan nearly choked on his food. It was such an unexpected comment that he didn't know how to interpret it. After coughing, he took a sip of his milk and apologized, "I'm sorry. You surprised me."
Laughing at Dan's reaction, Harry said, "You're in trouble now, son. When the three of them get their heads together, I usually head for the hills. If you want a little advice, you'll be jogging right along beside me."
Dan laughed at the comment despite the feeling that there was more than a little truth to it. He said, "Yes, sir."
"I met your sister today," Laura said changing the subject.
"Ah! She said she wanted to talk to Alison," Dan said. He was rather surprised to learn that his sister had actually visited there. He had assumed that she was just going to call.
"You must be a very nice young man to have a sister that worries about you like that," Laura said. Alison had told her about Diana's concerns. It had really impressed her that his sister came over to make sure that Alison wasn't going to trample on her brother's feelings. She liked families that stuck together like that.
Despite the fact that the first thing Diana had done on her arrival was to deliver a threat about what she would do if Alison hurt her brother, Alison said, "I really like your sister."
"Thanks," Dan said. He wondered what they had talked about.
Harry looked over at Dan and said, "In today's world, family is more important than ever before. A parent is supposed to provide an environment that lets their children grow, but it is a dangerous world out there. As a parent, I can tell you that it is impossible not to worry about your children. Of course, I can't be there all of the time. The role of family is to watch over each other so that no one gets hurt."
Dan nodded his agreement and said, "My parents believe the same thing. I've always felt free to bring my problems to my parents."
Harry looked at Dan and asked, "Do you believe it?"
"Yes, sir. I do," Dan said.
"Good," Harry said turning back to eating his meal.
Deciding it was time to change the subject, Laura asked, "Are you planning on staying the night?"
The three articles mentioned in this story don't exist.