*Author's Note: The idea for this story comes from a reader who sent me a link to a story about a couple whose first 'kiss' came during the CPR the woman performed on him after he collapsed on the beach. She happened to be a medical doctor, so it seemed reasonable to make the female main character in this story an MD, too.
I was amazed at how much the photo of this doctor looks like a former blonde White House Press Secretary, but there's also a resemblance to the actress, Julie Benz. She played a character named Rita in the TV show Dexter, the name of the male character in my last story, Eye Exam. So it only seemed fitting to call her Rita in this one.
*****
Late August, 2018
"Brian? Will Ellison."
"Will. Must be getting close to September 11th."
"Yeah. I'm afraid it is."
"I'm glad you called, but I wish there was some other reason."
"I almost didn't. I know you don't mind talking about it, but you'd prefer to forget it happened, and I understand that. I really do. But there's something about us both having lost a parent within minutes of the other I can't shake."
"It's okay. Really. It's a part of our lives, right?"
"Yes. Yes, it is," his friend said. "So anyway, I walked by your old office today, and I knew I had to give you a call."
Brian laughed and asked who was in it now.
"I'm surprised you care," Will told him.
"I really don't. I guess it's just idle curiosity."
"Some new hotshot. He's good, too, but not as good as you were."
"You know most of that is just a matter of luck and timing," Brian tried telling his old friend.
"No, a small part of it involves luck, and yes, timing is important, but you either have a knack for this stuff or you don't. And you have it."
"Had it," Brian reminded him.
"Okay. Sure. Fine. I know you walked away, but something tells me you could step back in here tomorrow and be making money hand over fist again in a week."
"You got the main part of that right, Will. I walked away. The money part no longer interests me."
This time Will laughed.
"That's easy to say when you made a shit load of it. Hell, I've been here for fifteen years now, and you made ten times what I've earned in all that time in just five."
"Luck and timing," Brian said again.
"You still doin' the Kidd Rock thing?" Will asked to get off the subject of money.
"The what?"
"You know, the Kidd Rock song—Picture. With Sheryl Crow."
"I'm still not following," Brian told him.
"Geez. Okay. I'll give it to you. The line in the song that goes 'different girl every night at the hotel'. That was you. Work your ass off all day then screw some piece of ass all night long. I hope you know I had a serious man-crush on you, dude."
Brian finally laughed when the light came on.
"Sorry. Good song, I just haven't thought about it in years. But I'll tell you, I was completely burned out on that, too. The 'different girl every night' thing."
"Yeah. Poor Brian. Making millions and fucking gorgeous women by the bushel basket. Sucks to be you."
Brian sighed as he thought back to his days on Wall Street. He'd gotten a break just three months out of college and taken advantage of it in a big way. He really had made a sh...ton of money. And yes, there had also been a ton of beautiful women. But at some point none of it made sense anymore. None of it brought him an ounce of satisfaction. Money became numbers on a computer screen whenever he bothered to look at his bank account which, by then, he was paying an accountant to do for him. And the endless parade of women left him ever colder and more alone.
So two years ago, at the age of 27, he closed up shop and left and never looked back. Except when Will called on or near the anniversary of the day he lost his father and Brian lost his mother during the 9-11 attacks.
He'd been just 10 years old the day he learned his mom was among those missing. Her older brother, his Uncle Mickey, had taken him in while they waited. Three days after the towers fell they had their answer. She was killed as was the father of a 17-year old boy who lived just two city blocks away he didn't yet know.
They'd worked together for five years. Initially, Will had been his all-knowing mentor. But within a year, Brian had forged his own path and had a client list no one could explain. The money started rolling in, and by the end of the third year, Will was working for him while Brian set up shop in a corner office in a high rise from which he could see 'Ground Zero'.
From the day he left the City, he never once looked back or missed it or anything about it.
He'd been to Aspen once on a three-day mini vacation, and fell in love with the town. It was expensive as all get out, but when you had the kind of money Brian Erickson had, terms like 'cost of living' were meaningless.
Shortly after his arrival, he bought a nice, but relatively modest new home, and after calling in a couple of favors from former investors, found himself able to do the two things he loved the most: teaching skiing during the winter and golf during the summer.
He wasn't the best at either sport, but he had an uncanny ability to teach the finer points to others. He was pretty good at both, but wouldn't have made the Olympic Team in skiing or the Ryder Cup Team in golf—or anything close to it for that matter. But he was a scratch golfer, and that was more than good enough to give him the bona fides needed to teach the sport.
So for the last 18 months or so, he'd done both, building a new reputation for himself while charging a nominal fee for his services. That was something he knew was important to make the customer think they were, well, getting their money's worth. He'd have done it for free, but people always thought something was wrong when they didn't have to pay, so he let them.
The only exceptions were kids who couldn't afford to pay, and he held free clinics in both sports as often as he could to give them the opportunity to learn and have some fun.
Over the course of the two years he'd lived there, he'd met a lot of people, but couldn't claim a single close friend, and as odd as it seemed, that suited him just fine.
Being the final week of August, he was getting ready to start his last week of golf lessons before taking some time off waiting for enough snow to accumulate to let him switch over to skiing. All in all, it was about as good as it could get with one small-but-rapidly-growing exception.
At 29, he was at the point where the one thing he wanted more than anything else was neither money nor fame but someone to love. Not a friend. Not a pal. Not someone with whom he could make love but someone who looked at life and love the way he did; someone who was ready to give love as much as receive it; the kind of love he'd often dreamed of but never had.
