My father was an air conditioner repair specialist. He always wanted me to be a tradesman and a doctor. He felt I should have the best of both worlds-upper class and middle class.
As I grew older, my dad started taking me on jobs with him; he ran an air conditioning business on the side. One of his clients was the apartment complex next to the high school I went to. At 20 years old, and a business major in college, I did AC repair to help furnish my education. I'd go with him on these jobs, helping him out with the ladders, installing freon, swapping out compressors, etc. Occasionally, we'd have to go into the apartments to make sure that the air conditioner would kick on and cool down the apartments.
Well, one day there was a problem with the air conditioner in apartment #230l. Since it was a Saturday, I went with dad to help him. We went to the apartment manager's office to get the work order, and then proceeded to the apartment. When we got there, we found that there was a leak on the roof, and that it would require only a small soldering job, along with filling up the unit with more freon. After doing this, we went down to the apartment itself, and knocked on the door. A woman, I'd say in her teens, answered the door. We told her that we had worked on the air conditioner, and wanted to check to make sure that it was cooling her apartment. She invited us in, and let us go to the thermostat. She went into the other room to call her parents.
My dad started to play with the controls, as I just scanned my eyes around the room. She seemed to be into computers and music (which was my pastime; I was programming in three different languages, and enjoyed computer music/synthesizers). We started to get into a conversation, and then wouldn't you know - dad said all looked okay and that we should go. As we were leaving, the girl gave me a slip of paper and smiled. Not thinking anything about it, I put it into my pocket.
Later that day, when I was at home and in my room, I started to empty out my pockets. I came across that piece of paper--it said that she wanted me to call her and gave her phone number. Not knowing any better, I went to the phone and dialed the number. After a few rings, the phone was answered--it was she.
"Yes, who is it?" she asked.
Not thinking anything was wrong, I said, "it's the guy you gave the note to earlier today; from the air conditioning job." All of a sudden, her voice changed-- she sounded mysterious. "I wanted to talk more to you about things, but you had to go. Could you come over some time so we could talk more?"
I guess that I might have found a new friend, so I said that I could ride my Honda motorcycle over. I told my parents that I was going over to a friend's house to help him out with calculus, and would be back later that
night.
When I got to the apartment complex, I found a place to park my bike and lock it up. I went to the apartment, and knocked on the door.
"Who is it?" I heard her call out.