Chapter 7
At the end of the school year, Peggy and I closed up the apartment house and our apartment and headed back to Glendale. Since my parent's house was so small we decided to search for a temporary place for Peggy to spend the summer. I knew that it would be hard to find a place that could be rented for a few months and still be affordable.
Peggy and my parents got along great and my two brothers ignored the age difference and started hitting on her right away. I finally had to rescue her by taking her to meet Dan and Abby.
I saw Abby talking to one of the employees and waited until they were finished talking and then introduced Peggy to her. Abby led her into her office and motioned for us to sit down.
"Abby, I was wondering if you still thought that you could use Peggy in the office for the summer. As I told you on the phone, Peggy is taking accounting in college."
Abby began questioning Peggy to try and find out how much she knew about accounting. Soon they were talking about everything under the sun except accounting and I was sitting there like I was invisible or something. I murmured that I was going to go in and see Dan and I don't think they even knew that I was leaving.
When I walked into the office I saw Dan at his desk and tears almost came to my eyes. It looked like he had lost about twenty pounds since I last saw him and I was sure that he didn't even weigh one hundred pounds. He smiled and waved and motioned for me to come into his office. His hand shake was weak and his hand hardly had any flesh on it.
"I'm glad to see you kid. You'll be working with me this summer. I can't drive too much anymore. You'll drive me to the job sites and sit in on the meetings for me. You drive my truck and I'll co-pilot. Use my truck this summer; take it home at night so that you don't have to use your car. I'll drive in with Abby. I'll teach you what you have to do at the progress meetings. When you're in the meetings watch out for the barracudas. Stand your ground and make sure that everybody lives up to their contract. I've always played fair and I demand that everyone on the project does the same. Now, who's that girl you walked in with, your girlfriend?"
I couldn't answer him for a minute, "No, we just room together. She doesn't have any family and she needed some help so..."
I began to think. I had never thought about Peggy that way. We were comfortable around each other and got along pretty good but... well, Peggy was... she was just Peggy. She was my room mate; not that I hadn't thought about how sexy she was a couple of times.
Dan went over all of the projects that he had under way and told me about some of the problems that he was having on some of them and what I would have to watch out for. When he had gone over everything I looked at the clock on his desk and saw that we had been talking about two hours.
I stood up, "I left Peggy with Abby. I'd better go get her. I'm sure Abby has a ton of work to do."
Dan pushed his keys over to me and told me to take the truck home and to pick him up the next morning. Dan's truck was a Ford diesel pickup that had every available option. That truck was more luxurious than some so-called luxury cars. He had had it modified with everything that Banks made for diesels. It's fast and gets great mileage. The truck turns heads when it drives down the street.
When I walked into Abby's office she and Peggy were laughing and talking like they had known each other for years. Abby was explaining what she wanted Peggy to work on so I knew that Peggy had a job for the summer. I stood for a few seconds before they even knew that I was in the room.
Abby looked up at me and I got a chance to talk, "Abby, we have to go. We have to find a place for Peggy to stay over the summer."
Abby looked at me like I had two heads, "Nonsense! We have that big house. Peggy can stay with us for the summer. It will give me a little more time to spend with Dan. Pick up her clothes and bring them over to the house so that I can get her settled in."
I looked at Peggy to see if she was comfortable with that and she had a pleased look on her face and I got the impression that both of them had known from the moment that Peggy walked into Abby's office that Abby and Peggy would bond.
I didn't know it at the time, but that was the minute that sealed my fate. There was no turning back after that. It was like falling down a mountain; you didn't have any control over anything, you just had to go along for the ride and hope that you didn't kill yourself on the way down the mountain.
I took Dan's truck and Peggy drove my car to my parent's house where we had left Peggy's things. After we had loaded up the truck with Peggy's things we headed out to Dan and Abby's house. Dan and Abby had bought a nice piece of ground with a grand view of the Superstition Mountains. They bought the twenty-five acres of desert property before Phoenix started booming. Dan built the five bedroom house and had it completed and presented it to Abby on their tenth wedding anniversary. Abby had no idea that the house was being built but she had picked out the plans a couple of years before. The house was her pride and joy.
When Peggy saw the house she couldn't believe it. If you've ever seen the desert homes in Architectural Digest magazine you'll know what I'm talking about. As Abby took her around the house and pointed out everything Peggy was speechless. I finally got tired of being ignored and began to carry Peggy's things into the house. I didn't know where Abby was going to put her so I dropped everything in the foyer.
When they came back Abby gave me hell, "Damon, take Peggy's things into the bedroom. Don't make her carry everything herself."
Dan was lying down in his bedroom and Abby took Peggy back to the bedroom that she was going to use for the summer. It was like I wasn't even there. I told them that I was going to leave and all they did was give me a quick wave and then they turned and began to head for Peggy's bedroom. I shrugged, left and went back home.
I won't bore you by telling you how many miles I drove each day, how hot it was and all of the other mundane things that goes on in everybody's life each day. Let's just say that Dan gave me a crash course in running a construction company. He had me doing everything it takes to run a company. He stood behind me to catch me if I fell but he made me do everything myself. A couple of times I made a big mistake and he made me work my way out of trouble with minimal guidance from him. He made sure that I never got in so deep that I couldn't save myself.
Peggy immersed herself in the business also. After about a month Abby began to take a day or two a week to be with Dan. Abby had the same training philosophy as Dan; throw the trainee into the deep end and make the trainee save themselves. I could see the change in Peggy almost immediately. She began to get self confidence in herself and she worked like she had a stake in the company. She would often stop in my office to discuss different things that she was learning. Peggy took to the construction business like she had done it all of her life. Abby began to buy her clothes and taught Peggy how to conduct herself in the business world. By the end of the summer we had both matured quite a bit and we both assumed greater responsibilities each week. Peggy became a very happy person, confident in whom she was and she was a pleasure to be around. Her vibrant personality that had always been just below the surface bloomed and contractors that stopped by on business would always stop by her office to chat with her.
Several times that summer, Abby told me that I'd better marry Peggy before some guy snatched her away from me. I knew that a beauty like Peggy would never go for a guy like me. It wasn't that I didn't have confidence in myself; it's just that she was so beautiful and sharp that I couldn't envision her with me.
On the last weekend before we had to go back to college, Abby insisted that we take a four day weekend and use their vacation home up at Upper Lake Mary. Arizona is dotted with man-made lakes. Upper Lake Mary is one of the closest to Flagstaff. It gets heavy use in the summer but not as much as the lakes closer to Phoenix. Peggy welcomed the chance to get away for a while as much as I did.
On Thursday Morning we headed north toward Flagstaff and Upper Lake Mary. Dan and Abby used to use the vacation cabin almost every weekend during the summer but, with Dan being sick, they hadn't been to the cabin in almost two years. To call it a cabin was really doing it an injustice. Dan had drawn the plans himself and had his company build it. It was a three bedroom house nestled into a hill and was as luxurious as any of the homes in the Upper Lake Mary area.
We took our time and made the one hundred and twenty-five mile trip
by noon. I had been to the cabin a few years before and had no trouble
finding it again. Peggy seemed to enjoy the drive and marveled at the
rugged Arizona beauty. She had never had the time to really see much of
Arizona. When she left Idaho she immediately enrolled in Arizona State
to take advantage of the scholarship.