I awoke.
It wasn't as if an alarm clock had gone off, I just gradually became aware that something needed my attention. In my groggy state I reached over, sliding my hand over to touch and caress my wife, but the cruelly frigid satin of empty sheets on a hot summer's night reminded me that she was not there, that she would never again be there. The realization that I was alone drove the fuzziness from my sleep deprived brain.
I opened my eyes. The oppressive blackness that heavy curtains on a moonless night create only made me feel blind. It was a self-imposed blackness; a blackness that enveloped and smothered in an attempt to deny the reality of the world; an oppressive blackness from the very same curtains that I had installed just days earlier in an effort to sleep better.
The curtains didn't help.
In fact, what was unusual about awakening to the cruel, soulless, darkness was not that it was pitch black; what was unusual was that I had been asleep at all. Samson whimpered once again, nearly in my ear; the sound providing an anchor to my self-imposed state of disorientation. Rolling over, my outstretched hand was immediately bumped against by a wet nose.
"Ok, Boy. Let's go."
I arose, walking naked through the house, kicking one of the shoes that I'd taken off and just dropped in the middle of the floor. The thought that I never would have left a shoe in the middle of the floor when she was alive passed through my mind. There were a lot of things I wouldn't have done just a few short months before.
I opened the door to a different inky blackness. The moon, just beginning to peak over the hill, made sections of the yard appear as bright as day while simultaneously hiding even better whatever lurked in the darkness of the shadows. I wasn't worried about anyone seeing me even though normally in a city, even in the semi-rural areas, it seems that someone is always around. It doesn't matter the time of day or night, someone is always up; a car going by, a neighbor arriving or just leaving. But on my hill - I was unworried. The dog brushed past me, headed for the stairs to do his business.
I followed him to the wooden balcony which swept around the downhill side of the house. Looking over the top of the citrus and avocado trees I could barely see my nearest neighbor's house; the front door and an upstairs window the only portions where people could have been that wasn't hidden by the trees of the orchard. From here, I would have been visible during the day, but not now. Standing in the moon shadow of the house I was hidden, but there was no one awake at the neighbors anyway. Looking over the top of their house the valley unfolded below me with rows and rows of sparkling lights punctuated by changing red and green stoplights at intersections - a million dollar view that we had never tired of. In the distance a flash caught my eye, followed seconds later by another. By the third I realized it was the airport beacon, identifying its location to me as if I were a pilot on approach. I would have traded it all to have my lover, my wife, my Debs, back in my arms.
The dog bounded back up the stairs and stopped momentarily waiting for me. I retreated from the balcony to the upper yard where the view of any neighbors totally disappeared. Pine and eucalyptus trees loomed above the house hiding the fact that I was nearly on top of the world. Two boulders as big as a normal house, a detached garage, the small amount of hill remaining above our house which was otherwise situated nearly on top of the hill - all conspired to create our own private oasis from reality where the outside world disappeared. A swimming pool was the dominant feature of the yard; that - and the native boulders. The pool wasn't built into the ground as much as it was built
onto
the ground. The granite boulders had dictated where the pool would be as much as the original owner had. I stepped close enough to reach out and check the water temperature with my hand. Comfortably cool -- comfortably warm.
She'd named it the "McDonald's House" when she first saw it. The realtor almost hadn't shown it to us, it was well out of what we thought to be our price range. Debs, my wife, had been looking at houses and the realtor just mentioned that she'd heard about this particular house that was coming on the market and wondered if she'd like to see it while they were "almost" in the neighborhood. After a couple of weeks of looking and not finding what we really wanted, Debs was open to anything. We really couldn't afford it at first, but that didn't prevent us from falling in love with it.
It was early evening when I first saw it; my first impression being the spectacular view of the valley some seven hundred feet below. A valley full of lights was gradually taking over from the sun of the day; rows of concrete, wood and grass, becoming rows and rows of glistening lights. By the time we left an hour later, the view was mesmerizing with the city lights twinkling through the dissipating heat of the day.
We thought it was out of our price range and, the reality is, it was. Our previous home had finally sold, for less than we thought it should, but at least that gave us the money to begin looking in our new city. Somehow, our taste and our budget just never seemed to match; but from that time on, everything else we saw we compared to the "McDonald's House."
Our economic reality changed a mere two weeks later. Late on a Friday I was told the CEO wanted to see me. Dread immediately came to mind - he was seldom there on a Friday, let alone in the afternoon. Puzzled as to why I would be summoned, my brain raced over everything I'd touched, looking for the screw-up that could only be the cause for such a momentous occasion. I became even more uneasy when I found the other four top executives already there and waiting.
We were a comparatively small, but very dynamic and fast paced company. The job, when I was hired had been totally new to me, but my skills were just as applicable to the needs of my new job as they had been to where I had been. I'd answered a call from a headhunter (a "recommendation" from some unmentioned "friend") that thought I was a good fit. I'd turned them down at first, not even really tempted to change. I had a good contract with my consulting business that seemed a sure thing. I'd been happy doing what I was doing, apparently secure for years to come.
It's funny how seemingly unrelated events can come together, totally unexpectedly, and the future can become quite clear. It was really a minor thing that started it, followed by an increasing cascade of "little things." A single contract, among a multitude of contracts with problems, but the only one that I was directly affiliated with; a single contractor that didn't perform to expectations; a single unexpected call from a headhunter; a single isolated case of a seemingly well done job that fell apart at the end, and suddenly I began to pick up on other tidbits here and there - little inklings that all was not well. What had seemed to me to be a long term "sure thing" just a few weeks before was suddenly seeming very shaky.
Opportunity seldom knocks twice, but when the headhunter called again a month later, I agreed to an interview just to hedge my bets. The job opportunity didn't seem like a match made in heaven, but a week later they asked me for a second interview where they offered me nearly as much as I had been making as base pay -- but with non-guaranteed performance incentives and bonuses, amounts of which remained unnamed. Other benefits, such as not commuting, tilted the balance in favor of changing although I had misgivings about "bonuses."
I didn't burn my bridges, even though technically I didn't have to worry as a subcontractor, and gave two weeks' notice that I would be leaving. A paltry four weeks after I left, due to the multitude of seemingly minor problems that I'd been noting my last couple of weeks there, my previous employer unexpectedly cancelled all remaining personal services contracts. If I hadn't left when I did, I'd have been unemployed. It turned out that I made the move at just the right time.
I don't know if I would have believed them even if they had told me the possible bonuses. Several times over the years I'd been involved with different companies that promised performance bonuses and incentives. Somehow, whenever it came time to discuss actual bonus numbers, the "company" hadn't done well that year, the "division" was down that year, or the "economy" was down that year. Always the same, "Gee, you've done an outstanding job, but...." I'd learned that bonuses were more talk than substance. Although it's common perception that "exempt" employees are exempt because they're higher paid, it's not uncommon for workers getting paid for their overtime hours to make more per year than exempt employees.
To say that I was floored, just a few minutes after I entered my unscheduled meeting with the CEO and his Top Dogs, would have been an understatement. We discussed the latest project I'd been working on - how successful several changes that I'd implemented had been; how they'd made the company millions of dollars, how thankful they were they'd hired me, and that great things required great rewards. And when they stood up one by one to shake my hand, ending with the CEO who handed me a six figure bonus check (of which the first digit was bigger than a 1) and called it a token of their appreciation - I was, for lack of a better description, floored.
We were on cloud nine when the following day our offer, with more cash money down than we'd ever thought possible, for our "McDonald's House" was accepted. To say that we were amazed when they accepted what we thought was a low ball offer would have been an understatement. For a while there we seemed to have that Midas touch - everything we touched turned to gold.
I'm not sure exactly when she started calling it the McDonald's house. Somewhere between when she first saw it and I first saw it she referred to it by that name. I thought the owners must have been named McDonald -- but something she said another time led me to think otherwise.
