Colleen – chapter 03 – part-04

SaraJane and Miss Jennings were quiet for a moment and then SaraJane spoke.

“Thank you for letting us meet with you Harold. There is something we need to discuss with you and since it will affect both you and Robert we thought it would be simplest if we told you both at the same time.”

Peterson and I looked at each other and it was obvious from the expression on his face that he had no better clue than I what was going on. We looked back at the two ladies and waited. Finally Harold said, “Yes…what is it that you wanted to say to us?”

SaraJane seemed to be struggling to find the right words so Miss Jennings, being Miss Jennings, jumped right in.

“We’re pregnant.”

Peterson sat there expressionless then he suddenly sat up straight and looked as though he had been slapped in the face.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, would you back up there a minute and repeat what you just said?”

The two Sara’s looked at each other and then back at Harold and I with that same soft smile that I recognized from Colleen’s face each time she was pregnant. Again, Miss Jennings spoke.

“SaraJane and I are both three months pregnant.”

From the corner of my eye I could see that Peterson was trying to do the same mental calendar calculation that I was trying to perform. I opened my mouth to say something but Harold caught my attention and with a sharp negative shake of his head indicated that this was not a direction the conversation should take. We sat waiting for the other shoe to drop when SaraJane spoke.

“Since Sarah and I are both due on the same day…”

Peterson’s jaw visibly dropped.

“…and we will be going on maternity leave together, we thought we should give you enough time to prepare for our absence.”

Harold’s shoulders relaxed and he slumped back in his chair.

“Oh thank god. I thought you were going to imply that Robert and I were responsible for this.”

This time it was the two ladies who jerked up straight in their chairs with a startled look, then started to giggle.

“Harold…perfect gentleman…you and Robert…best bosses anyone could ever hope to have…the idea that you and I could…that we would ever…I mean…ridiculous…” the sentence just faded off into uncontrolled laughter.

They certainly knew how to build up a guy’s self image.

The two Sara’s were wiping the tears from their eyes as they stood to leave. When they reached the door they turned and opened their mouths to say something else then stopped and looked at Harold and I. This sent them into a new round of giggles and we could hear them reach a crescendo of laughter as they walked down the hall.

Peterson and I sat there staring at each other, uncertain as to what to think.

“Who do you suppose was responsible for…”

Harold raised his hand to cut me off before I could speak any further. He looked me square in the eye and spoke.

“Robert, there are some subjects that are best left alone.”

Later that night after the kids were in bed, I shared the news with Colleen about Miss Jennings and SaraJane. Although we could only speculate about who the father might be, I remembered the relaxed and satisfied expression I had seen so many times on Ryan’s face. But as Harold said “…there are some subjects that are best left alone.”

Colleen and I had always enjoyed the company of the two Sara’s and had frequently socialized with them outside of the office. But now that the three of them were pregnant at the same time, it was like there was some type of tribal bonding thing going on. Because Colleen had the most experience, this being her fifth time around, they were constantly talking, sharing even the slightest nuance of the experience. It got to the point where it felt like Colleen was conducting a pregnancy support group meeting every Saturday in our living room. Our neighbor Linda was also pregnant and then there were the times that Mi Lin and Sharon would show up and the six of them would be there and…

Sweet merciful crap, I was drowning in a sea of pregnant women.

I found myself spending a lot of Saturday afternoons next door, having a cup of coffee with Frank on his back deck, desperate for the company of an adult that didn’t possess a uterus. I was so desperate I began accepting the invitations to pay golf with the twins and Harold, an activity I loath with every fiber of my being. But everytime I came back into the house, Colleen would stop what she was doing, kiss me on the cheek and whisper in my ear, “I missed you.”

Miss Jennings going on maternity leave did create a problem for me, a huge problem. When she returned she would no longer be my secretary. She would still be working for me, but because she had obtained her college degree, she was being promoted to an account rep position. Finding a new secretary was going to be one horrific pain in the ass.

I was spoiled. The entire time I had been working for Willis, Goldman & Reed I had only two secretaries, Mrs. Lopez in Chicago and Miss Jennings here in San Miguel. They were two distinctly different personalities but they shared a common trait. They knew exactly what needed to be done and could probably do my job better than I. They anticipated every thing I ever needed or wanted. I could have skipped going to the office for six months and no one would have known the difference. Miss Jennings took her leave about two months before Colleen’s due date and this started the process of finding a replacement.

And so the nightmare began.

I am a flexible and easy going person. I don’t think I’m a difficult boss to work for, but with the responsibilities that I had, the person who sat at the desk outside of my office door had to meet the standards set by Mrs. Lopez and Miss Jennings or it just wasn’t going to work. At the end of six weeks I had gone through eleven secretaries. Two of them simply went to lunch on their first day and never came back.

On Friday afternoon I was leaving for the day when Peterson called out to me from across the lobby.

“Your new secretary starts Monday morning, don’t be late.”

“Ah geez, is this never going to end? How long is this one going last?”

Peterson’s face was one large grin.

“Don’t worry Robert; I think this one is going to be a keeper.”

“Why, who is it?”

“Don’t even worry about it. Just go home and have nice weekend. I’ll see you Monday morning.”

I followed Harold’s orders and didn’t think about it that weekend, knowing that the situation was hopeless.

Monday morning I decided to go into the office an hour early to try and get some work done before I had to greet the next batter up in the endless line of minor league players known as “Robert’s Secretaries.” As I headed towards my office door I noted that someone was already sitting at the desk. Her head was bent down as she was going through the desk drawers. I thought that I would dump my briefcase inside before I sent the new person off down the path of failure. As I walked past she raised her head and smiled.

“Good morning Robert.”

“Good morning Mrs. Lopez.”

I got as far as the door when I dropped everything in my hands and literally sprinted back to her desk.

“Mrs. Lopez…what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to get settled in a bit before I started work.

“But…but you’re in Chicago.”

“No, unless we took a wrong turn somewhere I believe that I’m here in San Miguel. I am still your secretary aren’t I?”

“Oh please dear God, tell me this isn’t a dream.” I grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to her desk. “Now tell me everything, exactly what’s going on here?”

After thirty years with the Chicago City Police Department, Detective Sergeant Ramon Lopez retired, turned in his badge and his gun and told his wife to start packing.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t care; as long as it’s sunny and a thousand miles away from this frozen corner of hell.”

John Gordon didn’t want to loose his secretary and trusted friend but he made the necessary phone calls and Mrs. Lopez was transferred to the San Miguel office. Harold Peterson had kept it a secret from me for the past five weeks saying, “It will brighten his day.”

If only he knew.

I heard a sound behind me and turned my head to look. Peterson was standing there grinning from ear to ear.

“Harold you rotten bastard, why didn’t you tell me Mrs. Lopez was coming. You could have saved me all this grief.”

“What, and miss the expression on your face? It was worth every minute of it. Welcome to San Miguel Mrs. Lopez, I believe you already know this fine gentleman that just sullied my family’s good name.”

“Yes I do Mr. Peterson…”

“Hey now, none of that, my name is Harold.”

“Ok Harold. Yes I do know him and he’s always had a potty mouth so don’t listen to anything he says.”

“What makes you think I listen to him now?”

Harold and Mrs. Lopez were enjoying a good laugh at my expense but I didn’t care. Now my life at the office would regain a sense of stability.

“Robert, introduce Mrs. Lopez around and then we can get back to business. If John Gordon was telling me the truth, your unit should be back to normal by lunchtime.”

Still smiling, Harold clapped me on the shoulder and headed off to his office.

Harold wasn’t far off the mark. By the afternoon break Mrs. Lopez was functioning as if she had spent the previous twenty years here in San Miguel instead of Chicago. During our conversations through out the day we were both surprised to discover that she and her husband had bought their new home just five blocks away from Colleen and I. Somehow we had missed running into each other after they had moved in last week. I called Colleen to let her know that we would be having two guests for dinner. She immediately picked up on my excitement.

“Sounds like the new secretary is going to work out.”

“Sweetheart I’ll explain it all to you when I get home, but yeah, this is the one.”

When I got home, Colleen was putting the finishing touches on dinner and Meghan and Molly were setting the table. I barely had time to get my welcome home hugs and kisses from what Colleen and I were now calling the “Gang of Four” when the doorbell rang. I ushered Mrs. Lopez and her husband into the livingroom where the kids were lined up to greet our guests.

Molly has holding Brigid who was squirming but immediately settled down and smiled in the presence of the new adults. Noelle was standing and holding on to Meghan’s hand, hiding halfway behind her but still peeking out with her smile as I began the introductions.

“These are our children. That’s Molly holding our youngest, Brigid. This is Meghan, she’s oldest and the shy one is Noelle, but this is the last time you will see her standing still tonight. Girls, I want you to meet Consuela and Ramon Lopez.”

At that moment Colleen came in from the kitchen.

“And this charming yet provocative woman is my wife, Colleen.”

At this point Colleen was one week away from her due date. She was dressed in her maternity overalls and her stomach had that beach ball look as she waddled over to shake hands.

“Mrs. Lopez, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Please, I’m Connie and he’s Ray. Colleen? What a coincidence, that’s the same name as…”

Mrs. Lopez stopped mid-sentence as she turned her head towards me with a puzzled look. Colleen and I glanced at each other quickly then back at Mrs. Lopez. I could see the wheels turning inside Mrs. Lopez’ head as a sudden feeling of panic gripped the pit of my stomach. I had two photographs on my desk in Chicago, one was a picture of Barbara and the other was my favorite photo of my sister Colleen taken when she was in college. Mrs. Lopez had seen the photo of Colleen a thousand times. Colleen and I were holding our breaths.

“Connie, what were you saying? It’s the same name as who?” her husband asked.

Mrs. Lopez was still staring at me with her mouth open then she broke into a smile.

“I have a very dear friend who has a sister named Colleen…”

She turned to Colleen and instead of shaking hands; she put her arms around Colleen in an embrace.

“…but I never had a chance to meet her. I am so glad to meet you.”

There was an audible sigh of relief from Colleen and I as Ray stood there looking confused.

By the time we had finished eating dinner; our immediate family had increased by two. The Lopez’s had no children of their own so our girls instantly adopted Connie and Ray. The die was cast when Ray got down on his hands and knees in the middle of dinner to give Noelle a pony back ride. The Gang of Four insisted on good night hugs from Uncle Ray and Aunt Connie before they would head for bed.

Once the kids were down for the night, we were sitting in the livingroom talking. Colleen and Connie were talking as though they were best of friends who had not seen each other for years. I went into the kitchen to make a fresh pot of tea and Ray wandered in behind me a couple of seconds later.

“So Ray, how do you like San Miguel so far?”

“Very nice place. You know, I’ve never lived anywhere but Chicago, and now I’m starting to wonder why we stayed there so long.”

Ray turned his head and watched Connie and Colleen through the kitchen door for a moment then turned his attention back to me.

“Listen Robert, there is something I want to tell you but you can’t let Connie know about it. She won’t talk to me for a week if she finds out I told you.”

“Sure, what is it?”

Ray quickly looked at his wife again before continuing.

“I thought you should know about Derrick Andrews.”

My insides immediately tightened up.

“What about him? I haven’t heard anything about him since…since that day.”

“Connie said everything happened so fast that she barely saw what happened but you must’ve done a number on him, he was in the hospital for four days. When he got out and went home to his apartment I was there to greet him.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

Ray smiled.

“Strictly business. John Gordon had the auditors working night and day going over Andrews’ accounts. The morning he was released from the hospital the D. A. issued an arrest warrant and I got assigned to pick him up. Nobody at the station knew that my wife worked for you.”

“Arrest? What for?”

“Embezzlement, he stole over three hundred thousand dollars from the company. Gordon said that it would have been spotted immediately during the next annual audit. The fool left his tracks all over the place. I only met him once before that day but I knew then he was an asshole. The auditors were with me and we had a search warrant. They found a complete set of his records five minutes after we walked through the door.”

“I didn’t hear anything about this.”

“Nobody did. It’s not the sort of thing the company wanted the stockholders to read about on the front page of the Tribune; it would be bad for business. Anyway, Andrews tried to blame it all on Barbara and the other women in the office, but he was such a moron about how he did it that the D. A. didn’t bother to interview anyone else.”

“So what happened? Did the company get the money back?”

“In cash and assets, they got it all except for about twenty thousand. Apparently Derrick Andrews was a big tipper. John Gordon must have a lot of influence in the company. He found out who sent Andrews to Chicago and some vice president in New York was fired the week after you left town.”

I had to stop and digest this. I was feeling a little overwhelmed.

“So what was the end result? How did it all end?”

“Well, my partner and I took him in. We were taking him up to the second floor to be booked and when we got to the top, he slipped and fell down the stairs…broke his leg in a couple of places.”

“Bummer,” I said with a tight grin of satisfaction.

“Yeah…everyone at the station house felt real bad about it. We took up a collection to send flowers when he went back to the hospital.”

Ray said this without cracking a smile. Then he continued.

“The schmuck was going to plead innocent but there was no way he could beat the charge. His lawyer finally convinced him to accept a plea bargain. He got five years and that meant he would get parole in two.”

“So is he out now?”

Now Ray smiled.

“No…well, sort of. You know those cheesy prison movies where they tell the new guy to grab the first person they see and start pounding on him to prove that he’s not somebody to mess with? Andrews actually fell for that crap and punched out some scrawny dude in the yard the day he went in. Only problem was he picked the wrong guy. They found Andrews’ body in the exercise yard the next day with a three foot piece of pipe sticking out of his chest. He was such an asshole that the prison doctor put down natural causes on the death certificate. The arrogant prick didn’t even last twenty-four hours. Just in case you’re wondering, no one came to the funeral.”

There was silence while I tried to take this all in.

“Thanks for telling me Ray, I appreciate it. I promise I won’t let Connie know you told me.”

“I hope knowing helps a little bit.”

“Yeah, it does…a little bit,” I said as we returned to the livingroom.

A while later Connie and Ray were standing in the door way making their good byes when Connie stopped and looked at Colleen. She was smiling when she spoke.

“Robert, you have a beautiful family. I think coming to San Miguel may be the smartest thing you have ever done.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” I replied.

Now Colleen spoke, “I’ll call you Saturday morning. You can’t possibly be finished settling in until you and I do some serious power shopping.”

“It’s a date. Good night guys, Robert I’ll see you in the morning.”

As the door closed, Colleen slid her arms around my waist and pulled me close.

“I love you husband.”

“I love you wife.”

“Bobby, you have some very loyal friends.”

“I can see that. It’s nice to know.”

Colleen took my hand and began slowly pulling me towards the bedroom.

“Come with me husband. We have some serious cuddling to do tonight.”

The next morning I was in my office thinking about the things Ray had told me the night before. I suppose that I should have been feeling happy or satisfied that Derrick Andrews had ended the way he did. But I wasn’t, the news left me feeling numb and a little depressed. I simply can’t find any joy at anyone’s death although I probably had every right to. It was revisiting in my memory all of the incidents that led up my leaving Chicago that had resurrected that small piece of depression. Mrs. Lopez brought in the morning mail and was returning to her own desk when I stopped her.

“Mrs. Lopez, wait just a minute. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what do you want to know?”

I waited for her to sit in the chair at the side of my desk before I continued.

“After I left Chicago, you were John Gordon’s secretary…how well did you know him?”

“You can’t be someone’s personal secretary without getting to know them pretty well, why do you ask?”

I paused, staring at the picture of Colleen on my desk, the same picture that had sat on my desk in Chicago, before I spoke.

“The last time I saw him I asked him why he was helping me. He said, ‘Because I was in your position myself a long time ago.’ I’ve always wondered what he meant. If it’s not betraying any confidences, do you know why?”

Mrs. Lopez sat looking down at her lap, a look of concentration on her face. Her head was making a slow, small nodding motion as she was internally going through the decision making process. When she looked at me again she had a small smile and her eyes were focused over my shoulder at a memory.

“A couple of days after I started working for him, I asked the same question, why was he helping you, and he told me the story. It’s not something he wants the entire world to know, but I don’t think he would mind you knowing. You’re probably not aware of it but John Gordon has a very high opinion of you.”

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