Part Two - The Dancers
Author's Note: Please read part one first. Reader's comments are appreciated. And yes, Kim and Nancy will be back, as some of you have requested, but not in this part.
*****
I was beginning to get pissed. I mean, here I am with an evening free in the City of Big Shoulders, and just when I should be out sowing some wild oats, I'm stuck in the damn hotel bar talking business with Mr. and Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes.
The first day of the conference had gone well. The meetings ended about 5:00 and someone suggested dinner in the hotel restaurant. With my sister out of town for the night, I figured I might as well join them. After dinner, six or eight of us made our way to the bar. As the evening progressed, people drifted off one by one, either complaining of jet lag or remarking how early the meetings would start tomorrow. By 9:00, everyone had retired except Mr. and Mrs. Goody-Two-Shoes and I.
They were the Bennets, Roy and Janet, from Alexandria, Virginia. We were seated in a corner of the bar in one of those 'couch and easy chairs around a little round table' setup you see all the time in bars and lounges.
Roy was considering accepting a job offer from one of the national accounting companies. At a morning conference session, he'd found out I worked for the same company in their San Diego office, and for the rest of the day, he stuck to me like glue. His questions were never-ending.
Even though I'd just met him, I had the impression he wouldn't work out in a company like mine. On some assignments, I think I spent as much time wining and dining my clients as I did going over their books. Like in any large bureaucratic organization, your social skills were just as important as your technical knowledge, and in my judgment, Roy just wasn't up to par in that department.
I studied him as I answered his questions. He was a small man, not very big in height or weight. Glasses, a little mustache, and he was the only one in the bar wearing a suit. He was probably about 34, maybe 35. Perhaps what annoyed me most about him was his voice which had an almost whiney tone to it. And the way he treated his wife. Or didn't treat her, to be more precise. She'd said no more than a handful of words the entire evening, and when she did start to say something, Roy would interrupt her in mid-sentence. She had a habit of looking at him before she said anything, almost as if she were asking permission to open her mouth. His attitude toward her was at best condescending - for the most part, he just ignored her.
"We're a two person shop," Roy explained, "just me and Janet. I do the CPA work and Janet is like my gal Friday. She acts as my receptionist and my secretary. Cleaning, filing, that sort of thing. That's one of the reasons I'm so tempted to accept the job with your company, I'd get the kind of backup I don't have now."
I looked at Janet. If she'd just been insulted, she showed no sign of being put off by it.
"Janet's here in Chicago more just for fun than to learn anything," Roy continued, "I wanted her to stay home with the kids, but she insisted on coming."
They were an odd couple. Janet was at least four inches taller than Roy. She, like her husband, was dressed in formal business attire. She wore a dark blue skirt, matching dark blue jacket and a white blouse.
Dressed the way she was, I couldn't tell a lot about what was underneath the suit. She wasn't a petite woman, I could at least see that. Not overweight by any means, but not skinny either. Maybe curvaceous would be the best way to describe her. She had an attractive face and a nice smile, the few times I'd seen her smile anyway. She looked to be about the same age as Roy.
A waiter approached us. I ordered another Scotch.
"And what do you guys want?" I asked.
"I'd like a..." Janet started, but her husband interrupted her.
"One more glass of red wine for each of us," he said to the waiter. He looked at his wife. "And that will be the last, honey. We've already had two."
Christ, these guys are really heavy-duty partiers, I thought as I glanced down at my Scotch. My fourth Scotch.
"If I decided to take the job," Roy asked, "what kind of benefits should I ask for?"
I told him about the retirement plan and the health insurance everyone was eligible for.
"At least working for someone else," Roy said, "you get a regular paycheck. In our business, we might make a lot of money one month, and nothing the next."
"And the hours..." Janet began.
"The hours are just terrible," Roy completed her sentence.
"Hey, don't think the hours are any better working for a big company," I told them, "I sometimes work 12 or 14 hour days for weeks on end."
The waiter showed up with our drinks.
"And Roy, at least with your setup, if you screw around with your co-worker you won't get fired," I said with a chuckle.
Janet let out a little smile, but there was no reaction from Roy. He stared at me with a blank expression on his face. A real fun couple, I thought to myself.
Despite my desire to get out of there, I did have a lot of useful information for them, so I figured I'd stay around for another few minutes. But ten minutes became thirty minutes and he was still peppering me with questions. Every time I started to get up to excuse myself, he would ask me something else. I looked at my watch, hoping he'd take the hint. He didn't.
One of my buddies back home had given me the address of a private club in Chicago where a guy with a hundred bucks or so in his pocket could have some real fun, and I was anxious to give it a try before it got too late. Maybe if I did something disgusting, he'd leave me alone. A loud belch? A big fart?
Another ten minutes went by. Enough was enough. I stood up.
"Well, I'd better be hitting the sack," I said, covering my mouth as if yawning, "It'll be a long day...."
"Just one more thing, Tom," Roy interrupted. It was about the tenth time that evening he'd said 'just one more thing.' He asked me some technical question about how the company's bonus plan worked. I answered his question, but by now I was angry. Maybe I'd just try being obnoxious. Maybe then he wouldn't feel like talking to me anymore.
"Really, I want to know," I asked, "You two work alone with each other all day. Do you ever fool around at work?" I used the words 'fool around' figuring anything more explicate would cause both of them to go into cardiac arrest and then my evening would really be shot.
This time, I did get a reaction. Janet's face flushed a tiny bit. Roy shook his head no and opened his mouth to say something, but Janet interrupted him.
"Once," she giggled. "Once we did make out a little at work."
Oh, great, I thought to myself. They made out. They really live life on the edge.
"But someone came in and we had to stop," Janet said. She smiled and put her hand over her mouth. "I guess I only told you that because of the wine," she said.
"We really weren't doing anything bad," Roy said.
"I think if I worked with my wife, I'd be jumping her bones all the time."
Janet's face turned even redder. She looked at her husband, as if waiting to see what his reaction would be.
Roy's mouth dropped open slightly, "Oh, we could never do...that... at work," he said softly.
