I lived in Orlando but spent quite a bit of time in Cocoa Beach, so much so that I maintained an apartment there. I liked the name of the complex. It was called The Lovely Arms after a comic strip apartment complex in which Brenda Starr lived. I averaged spending a week a month there but sometimes the week would stretch into two or three weeks. The length of time was generally dictated by business but sometimes other interests kept me there.
I had a successful consulting business in the field of Organizational Behavior. A lot of my work was with companies at the Kennedy Space Center. The bad boy supervisors and managers of the various companies made me a lot of money advising on how to handle sexual harassment and hostile environment in the workplace cases. My job was not to get the bad boys off but to insulate companies from their bad boy's behaviors. They would rather pay me exorbitant amounts of money rather than get a black mark on their record from NASA or the Air Force.
Each consultation was basically the same. I would meet with senior company officials usually at NASA's headquarters building and go over the strategy of handling the case. Except for minor details to fit the particular case, the strategy is the same. My next step was to interview the people involved as well as friends of the accuser and accused, supporting casts, and possible witnesses. I would then make my report to the company and if the accusations had merit, I gave recommendations concerning disciplinary actions that should be taken against the culprit. Based on the manager's track record, the discipline could vary from a few days off without pay to termination of his or her employment. I often wondered how many times these companies were going to pay me to do this when their staff Human Resources people could do the same job. My argument was that an outside independent investigator would hold more weight and remove the suspicion of a cover up.
On the way to my apartment, many afternoons I would stop at Bernard's Surf. The Surf was an upscale restaurant and lounge. Although I ate there at irregular intervals, most of my time there was spent drinking. I would stop by and have a drink before going home to bathe, change clothes, and come out for the evening. It was definitely not a pick-up bar, so most evenings I went home alone but once in a while, I did get lucky. Not many women sat alone at the bar. Most of those who did were waiting for their dates or husbands. Every woman I talked with there seemed to have class.
I had made friends with a young couple who lived at the Lovely Arms. They were Jim and Linda Bartlett, originally from East Tennessee. He was in the Air Force and was stationed at Patrick, an Air Force Base just south of Cocoa Beach. He was a pleasant guy to talk with, about five feet eight and slender. I would guess him at about 145 pounds. She was about five feet six, had a well-rounded figure with a little extra padding, and was as cute as could be with her natural dark blond hair pulled back across her ears and held with a clip. She was by no means fat, she just had a little extra padding. I would guess them to be in their mid-twenties.
When I got to the apartment that afternoon, they were sitting on their front porch. "Hi Jim, Linda," I said. "Have you had dinner yet?"
"No we haven't," Jim answered. "We were just talking about what we were going to do about it and were wondering what your plans were. We want to do a little payback for the several times you've treated us."
"I would love your company and will be glad for you to pay sometimes but tonight I have my mind set on eating at the Surf and it can be a bit pricey," I said trying to be as diplomatic as possible. "Why don't we let my company pay for dinner tonight?"
They looked at each other and answered stereophonically, "Okay, sure."
"Come on over to my place when you're ready," I said. "Remember you don't have to get all dressed up."
They arrived earlier that I had expected and when I answered the door, I was barefooted and in the process of buttoning my shirt.
"You must be hungry, good," I said. "I'll be ready in a minute."
As soon I dressed, we left. We drove my car the few blocks to the Surf. It would have been a pleasant night to walk to the restaurant but it might have been a little far walking back after a few drinks. When we got there, we were told that we would have a twenty to thirty minute wait before we were seated. That wasn't a problem since we were shown to a booth in the lounge. Jim and Linda were not drinkers but would have a drink now and then. Tonight they both ordered Tom Collins.
The cocktail waitress was Kathy, a petit redhead who was about thirty. She claimed to be Polish but I from talking with her that she was Hungarian. Even when I sat at the bar, we chatted and joked. She was quick with a joke and laughed easily at other's stories. She was very busy tonight and spent only the necessary time plus just enough more to make us feel special. We had just finished our drinks when we were summoned to the dining room.
As we were being seated, Linda said, "I'm always amazed at the production they make of dinner here."
"They do but it's good for business," I said. "Notice how many people are here?"
During dinner, Jim and Linda were silent most of the time. It was not as if they were upset about anything but rather that they were preoccupied with something. They were so withdrawn that I wondered if they wanted to borrow money even though they never had asked before. I decided that if it was something that they wanted to share with me, they would in their own time. I spent my time cutting up with our waitress, Maggie, an English girl in her late twenties. She was kind of stiff but I thought that with the proper attention, she would loosen up.
"How are you tonight, Sir?" I looked up to see Cindy, a fiftyish waitress with whom I had been out with a couple of times even though it was strictly against the rules for waitresses to fraternize with customers. On the first date, there were a lot of rules including "no sex." But on the second date, the rules were thrown out of the window and I spent the night at her house until her daughter was scheduled to come home from a slumber party.
"Very good," I said. "And how are you?"
"Very good," she said with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.
I was not neglecting my guests but any attempt at conversation with them was mostly one-sided. I did notice that each of them had three more drinks. That would not be a lot for me but it may have been a personal high for them. On the way home, Jim finally broke his silence and spoke.
"When we get home, we would like to come up to your apartment for a while," he said. "We have something we would like to talk with you about."
"Sure," I replied. "What is it?"
"We don't have much time in the car," he said. "Let's talk at your place."
Once inside my apartment, Jim began, "We know that you do consulting out on the Space Center and it has something to do with sex. Linda and I have a problem and would like it if you would consult with us. We don't have a lot of money but would be glad to pay you what we can."
"First of all, I don't do private consulting," I said. "My field is behavioral psychology, mainly as it applies to companies. But my studies have covered almost every facet of behavior. If sometimes when we are sober, you would like to sit around and talk about any problem, I'll be glad to discuss it as a friend and help if I can."
"I guess we had better get going for now," Jim said. "I have to be at work at six in the morning."
We all arose and I put my arms around their shoulders as we walked to the door. "I'm lucky that I don't have a meeting until two in the afternoon," I said. "You kids hang in there. It's probably not as bad as you think it is."
"I'm luckier than both of you," Linda said. "I don't have to go to work at all."
We said our goodnights and separated for the night. The following morning I slept until about seven-thirty, showered, and made a pot of coffee. I put on a robe and took a cup of coffee out on the back stairs to get a little air. I found myself looking down on Jim and Linda's back stoop. She was lying in a lounge chair in a bikini. She was facing me and I liked what I saw.
"Good morning, Linda," I said. "You look well relaxed."
