This one's a little different from my usual offerings – hope you enjoy.
*****
How did I get to this point in my life? Waiting for my wife to come home; I have news that will shock her when she hears it. As I sit here some old song keeps playing in my head, I'll have to look it up when I get a chance, don't know where I heard it.
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife, so for my personal point of view, get an ugly woman to marry you.
My name is John Capone (yea, I take a lot of garbage for it) and I'll begin my tale on the day I met Tess, but we may skip around a bit to fill in the blanks.
Tess and I both worked at a family owned regional bank headquartered in Austin. I'd been recruited from Chicago by Jeff Owens, a headhunter who just happened to be a classmate of mine from Northwestern's Graduate School of Management. My job was to help the bank enter the 21st Century with new back office automation. I was a senior vice president making six figures on the corporate ladder to EVP/COO. I was also a divorced father of a beautiful six-year-old daughter named Robin.
Tess was the branch manager at one of the downtown branch offices. She was another of the fast track 'kids' in the bank, thanks in part to her MBA from SMU and her drive to succeed. At twenty-seven years of age she was managing the second most profitable branch in the bank.
I'd been managing the back office operations division for almost a year and up to this point hadn't met Tess, just knew of her 'rising star' reputation. Tess Baker called my office to complain about a supervisor in my division. It seemed Joyce Denby had a loud disagreement with one of Tess's tellers; it was one of those situations that happens in any industry, sales versus operations.
After hearing Tess Baker's version of the incident, I responded, "Ms. Baker; this is the first I've heard of it and I'd like to talk to Ms. Denby before I do anything. Seems only fair; I'm certain you'd handle any complaint from a bank customer regarding any of your staff the same way. I promise to get back to you before the end of the day."
"You're right, I would. Thanks for checking into it."
Before I even got off the phone Joyce was standing at my office door.
"John, can I talk to you a second?"
"Sure, come on in and close the door if you have to."
Joyce closed the door and got right to it. "John, I screwed up. I let a teller at one of the branches get under my skin and I pretty much blew up on her."
"The branch manager just called me. I said I'd talk to you about it."
"It was my bad, I had a lousy morning and I let it affect my work. I'll try not to let that happen again."
"Joyce, are you willing to call the teller and her manager to apologize?"
"Just as soon as I leave your office."
"Great, try and call soon because I owe the branch manager a call before the end of the day. Joyce, you coming in here and owning up to this, not to mention willingness to apologize are two reasons why you'll be managing your department when Jim Benson retires next year."
Joyce made her calls and before I left that day I made mine. Tess Baker was very pleasant and appreciative of how both Joyce and I handled the situation. I asked Tess whether I could buy her a cup of coffee some morning and she accepted. It wouldn't be the first time I met with a branch manager to smooth interdepartmental relations, so this wasn't out of the ordinary. We made a date to meet at the Starbucks around the corner from her branch the next Tuesday.
When Tess Baker walked into the Starbucks I was gob smacked. I had heard she was an attractive woman and she was; tall, athletically lean, stylishly dressed and a beautiful face. I don't remember ever being so immediately attracted to a woman before. My grandmother would call it lampo-amare (love like lightning).
I did everything within my power to keep my act together as we sat over coffee and chatted about work related issues. I could have sat there for hours just listening to her southern voice and looking into her brown eyes, but with our coffee cups empty, I excused myself and said I had to get back to my office.
"Ms. Baker, would you like to have dinner with me one evening this weekend?"
"Yes I would, but only if you start calling me Tess and drop the Ms. Baker routine. Would Friday work out for you?"
My heart nearly exploded; she said yes. We made arrangements for me to pick her up at her apartment on Friday for our first official date.
Our first date was at an upscale Creole restaurant followed by a drink at a downtown jazz bar. We had a wonderful evening sharing our pasts and talking about where we saw our careers headed. I dropped her off at her apartment and gave her a chaste kiss. She asked me to join her at a picnic with friends the next day.
Tess much later confessed she was as smitten with me as I was with her when we met for coffee; that's why she chose Friday for dinner, knowing if we continued to hit it off we could spend Saturday at her friends' picnic. I floated on air back to my car after making certain she was safely behind her front door.
Saturday's picnic went well. Her friends seemed to like me with one exception. I'm certain her friend Ted was a bit jealous, but he didn't act out, so the day went without a hitch. I picked her up Sunday morning and took her to church. This Catholic boy walked into the Methodist church and did his best to keep up with the unfamiliar hymns. We sat in the pew with her parents, me on one end, her father Henry on the other, Tess and her mom in the middle. In the pew behind us sat her two older brothers with their wives and children.
After the service we went to her folks' house for brunch. Her mom and siblings were wonderful, but her dad was a bit standoffish. Later I found out he was a bit of a bigot against Catholics and it didn't help my last name was Capone. But I'll hand it to him, according to Tess he never said an ill word against me.
Our courtship was traveling at the speed of light, so I arranged for Tess to meet my daughter Robin the next weekend. Saturday I picked up Robin from my ex's house and the three of us went to the Austin zoo. My luck continued, Tess and Robin got along great. We had dinner together and after we dropped Tess off at her apartment Robin was sitting in the back seat talking about how much she liked my new 'girlfriend'.
Robin and I spent Sunday together, just the two of us before I dropped her off at her mom's Sunday night. I even got a call from Sandy (my ex) on Monday at work.
"Robin spent Sunday night telling Roger (her husband) and me about, as she put it, quote, dad's beautiful and super-nice girlfriend, end-quote. What's going on John? Who is this beautiful, super nice Tess?"
OK, I have to tell you about my relationship with Sandy, my ex, because most people either hear our story with their mouth hanging open or just shake their head.
Sandy and I were best friends in high school. Sandy was the head cheerleader and I was the captain of the football team. We both ran track in the spring and we had most of our AP classes together. We both received academic scholarships to the University of Illinois.
Sandy is absolutely knock-down gorgeous and probably the nicest person you'll ever meet. Whenever we weren't dating other people we dated each other; in fact, we broke each other's cherry and continued to be friends with benefits from the time we were juniors in high school until the time we married. I only had sex with a few other women during college and Sandy only slept with two other guys. None of these relationships lasted, so we always ended up with each other. But here's the thing, we never fell in love with each other, our hearts just weren't there.
So why did we get married? That would be Robin. Sandy stopped taking the pill for health reasons and was using a diaphragm. A couple of bright college seniors ended up doing the same thing couples have been doing for centuries, getting knocked up. I know a lot of couples would have walked down to the clinic to have the problem taking care of quickly, but that wasn't us. We went home, told our parents and said our "I dos".
And life was good. Sandy and I both graduated, moved back to our hometown and got jobs. I worked for a bank in downtown Chicago, Sandy for a local law firm in their accounting department, Robin was either in daycare or with one of our moms. I even went to night school to get my MBA. When the bank in Austin recruited me, Sandy jumped at the chance to move somewhere warmer. It didn't take her long to find another accounting job with a law firm in Austin, which is where Sandy met Roger.