Once Upon A Time In My Life: Fall 1988
I'm an accountant working at a small firm in Nashua, NH called Newton & DiBenedetto following my May graduation from Miami University. It is late fall and already I know I'm in trouble at work. It's only been four months, but getting through the day is becoming harder and harder. I've used up my now famous "I'm not sick, I just don't feel like coming to work today" bit on the secretary, which produced laughs throughout the office and incredulous stares upon my return the next day. If I try that again I'll surely be canned. I know I won't last too much longer at this entry level job, but my father has been getting some work from the partners at N&D, and I don't want to embarrass him when I quit (or get fired).
Working as an accountant is a lot like having to take a 40 hour math test every week and needing to get 100%. Pressure and not many laughs. The stereotypes are true I am finding out. Part of being a public accountant is doing what are called "audits", which is where a team of us go out on site to a client's place of business and check out their books, trying to make sure everything is kosher. It's better than being in the office, that's for fucking sure, but usually not by a whole lot.
I'm given directions for our next audit, which will be at a small outfit in Portsmouth, NH. The company has branch offices in Boston and maybe one or two other cities, but their NH headquarters is tiny and located in a converted barn on a beautiful plot of land close to the ocean. They are owned and operated by an older couple who live in the attached house, but us accountants (or at least I, the lowest of the low) deal mostly with the two bookkeepers, both women in their late 20s. Both are friendly and funny and seemingly nice.
One of them, named Shannon*, is attractive in a bosomy blonde sort of way. I am a child in a man's body, and do not immediately think of her as someone whom I might want to date, as I'm more concerned with making it home to my parent's house each day without making a fool of myself than fucking anyone.
My boss Doug, I can see, has ideas. He wants to set us up. I give in and ask Shannon if she wants to have a drink. She says, good naturedly, "Sure..." and suggests a place down the road from the old barn for a beer when we finish for the day. I leave before she does, my heart pounding out of my chest with nerves, as I am a dry virgin (I haven't been with a woman sober in my life). I stop at the first place I see that looks like it serves alcohol, a restaurant/tavern located in a very old building, one with the dark greenish paint pealing off the exterior. But the decor isn't too bad on the inside. I wait. And wait. For about an hour and a half. I know what I've done after just ten minutes of isolation but am powerless to move: I've gone to the wrong place. This is pre cell phone, so I have no chance to make amends to my date.
At work the next day it's "no big deal", she tells me. Cool. But I don't try again.
We wrap up the audit.
A week later, maybe two, Doug tells me he has an assignment for me: Drive a couple of financial statements out to the company we just audited. I jump at the chance to get the hell out of Dodge for the afternoon (which he knows: that's why he asked me to go).
As I'm driving to the coast from downtown Nashua, a plan is coming together in my mind. Our firm is going to have a holiday party and I can invite the babe. I'm sweating when I arrive at my destination, but am able to ask the question. Shannon kindly and sweetly agrees to go with me.
The night of the office party I drive from my parents house in Amherst to Shannon's apartment near downtown Portsmouth. She is dressed in a killer black dress, and I'm feeling good about the night to come. Not too uptight yet. We arrive at the restaurant on the North Shore of Mass early evening. Mixing with folks at a sizable party is something I have never attempted sober, and certainly never with older people dressed nicely like they are tonight. Doug introduces me to his hot wife, who everyone in our office knows makes more money than him at her job selling houses. Having the other employees kid him about it always pisses Doug off royally. I'm scared of her and it shows, I guess. I ask her about her life in a stumbling manner. No good, I can tell, as she clearly doesn't suffer fools very easily. I slink away, back to Shannon and safety. (Doug would tell me the following Monday how his wife had sarcastically noted to him that I was "definitely partner material." That comment would cut me to the bone because I knew it was true.)
My parents had been invited to the shindig by the partners. Shannon notices my Mom, who as usual is quiet and watching the goings on, staring at her a little bit and thinks that my mother is judging her in some way. Maybe she is. But I couldn't tell my date that Mom had never seen me with a girl before. I figured having a strange family was better than me being a total loser. I am not drinking, as my father had been sober for several years and would have noticed me downing a few, which makes the tension I feel worse. The folks attending, though, are making no attempt no stay sober. They get drunker and louder. Shannon and I make an early exit, and I drive her back to her place.
She invites me in. We settle on the couch and watch some tv. I sit stiffly next to her, not registering what is on the television set because I'm trying to figure out a way to kiss her without my beer can courage. Somehow we start to kiss. I start to breath heavily, comedically. She asks me, in a dead serious manner, if I "was OK?" Embarrassed of my ineptitude, I pull back and move to the other side of the couch. That would be all the fondling and smooching for the night. Shannon eventually retreated to her bed, me sleeping on the couch. The next morning I wake early, realize what a fool I've made of myself, and leave without dropping a note.
I call her that night, mostly because I have nothing else to do, and am hoping she'll have forgotten what an arse I was. We talk pleasantly about nothing in particular. I call back in a day or two. We make plans to spend the day together the coming weekend.
On a gorgeous late fall day we drive to the Maine Mall in South Portland, just an hour's drive from Portsmouth though it feels like a trip to Siberia to me as I have never been to Maine before. Shannon notices a pretty pink sweater in one of the stores but doesn't buy it. I make a mental note. We have dinner and drive back south. She doesn't invite me to spend the night and I am not surprised.
We talk once or twice during the week. I don't know how well things are going between us because I have nothing to compare it to. In college I had had some dates and a little sex, but nothing meaningful.
The first chance I get I drive the two hours from Amherst back to the Maine Mall and buy that sweater. It's going to be her Christmas present.
The next time we speak she tells me about her mother's death. It had happened when Shannon was a teenager. She described being the first to find her Mom's body, and how traumatic the experience was. I listen intently and am silently glad she is opening up to me. I may not know much about relationships, but I believe this to be a good sign.
The next day I phone and Shannon tells me she doesn't want me to call her again.
I wind up giving the sweater to my Mom for Christmas. It doesn't fit her but she wears it anyway out of love.
===============
* = Not her real name.
Working as an accountant is a lot like having to take a 40 hour math test every week and needing to get 100%. Pressure and not many laughs. The stereotypes are true I am finding out. Part of being a public accountant is doing what are called "audits", which is where a team of us go out on site to a client's place of business and check out their books, trying to make sure everything is kosher. It's better than being in the office, that's for fucking sure, but usually not by a whole lot.
I'm given directions for our next audit, which will be at a small outfit in Portsmouth, NH. The company has branch offices in Boston and maybe one or two other cities, but their NH headquarters is tiny and located in a converted barn on a beautiful plot of land close to the ocean. They are owned and operated by an older couple who live in the attached house, but us accountants (or at least I, the lowest of the low) deal mostly with the two bookkeepers, both women in their late 20s. Both are friendly and funny and seemingly nice.
One of them, named Shannon*, is attractive in a bosomy blonde sort of way. I am a child in a man's body, and do not immediately think of her as someone whom I might want to date, as I'm more concerned with making it home to my parent's house each day without making a fool of myself than fucking anyone.
My boss Doug, I can see, has ideas. He wants to set us up. I give in and ask Shannon if she wants to have a drink. She says, good naturedly, "Sure..." and suggests a place down the road from the old barn for a beer when we finish for the day. I leave before she does, my heart pounding out of my chest with nerves, as I am a dry virgin (I haven't been with a woman sober in my life). I stop at the first place I see that looks like it serves alcohol, a restaurant/tavern located in a very old building, one with the dark greenish paint pealing off the exterior. But the decor isn't too bad on the inside. I wait. And wait. For about an hour and a half. I know what I've done after just ten minutes of isolation but am powerless to move: I've gone to the wrong place. This is pre cell phone, so I have no chance to make amends to my date.
At work the next day it's "no big deal", she tells me. Cool. But I don't try again.
We wrap up the audit.
A week later, maybe two, Doug tells me he has an assignment for me: Drive a couple of financial statements out to the company we just audited. I jump at the chance to get the hell out of Dodge for the afternoon (which he knows: that's why he asked me to go).
As I'm driving to the coast from downtown Nashua, a plan is coming together in my mind. Our firm is going to have a holiday party and I can invite the babe. I'm sweating when I arrive at my destination, but am able to ask the question. Shannon kindly and sweetly agrees to go with me.
The night of the office party I drive from my parents house in Amherst to Shannon's apartment near downtown Portsmouth. She is dressed in a killer black dress, and I'm feeling good about the night to come. Not too uptight yet. We arrive at the restaurant on the North Shore of Mass early evening. Mixing with folks at a sizable party is something I have never attempted sober, and certainly never with older people dressed nicely like they are tonight. Doug introduces me to his hot wife, who everyone in our office knows makes more money than him at her job selling houses. Having the other employees kid him about it always pisses Doug off royally. I'm scared of her and it shows, I guess. I ask her about her life in a stumbling manner. No good, I can tell, as she clearly doesn't suffer fools very easily. I slink away, back to Shannon and safety. (Doug would tell me the following Monday how his wife had sarcastically noted to him that I was "definitely partner material." That comment would cut me to the bone because I knew it was true.)
My parents had been invited to the shindig by the partners. Shannon notices my Mom, who as usual is quiet and watching the goings on, staring at her a little bit and thinks that my mother is judging her in some way. Maybe she is. But I couldn't tell my date that Mom had never seen me with a girl before. I figured having a strange family was better than me being a total loser. I am not drinking, as my father had been sober for several years and would have noticed me downing a few, which makes the tension I feel worse. The folks attending, though, are making no attempt no stay sober. They get drunker and louder. Shannon and I make an early exit, and I drive her back to her place.
She invites me in. We settle on the couch and watch some tv. I sit stiffly next to her, not registering what is on the television set because I'm trying to figure out a way to kiss her without my beer can courage. Somehow we start to kiss. I start to breath heavily, comedically. She asks me, in a dead serious manner, if I "was OK?" Embarrassed of my ineptitude, I pull back and move to the other side of the couch. That would be all the fondling and smooching for the night. Shannon eventually retreated to her bed, me sleeping on the couch. The next morning I wake early, realize what a fool I've made of myself, and leave without dropping a note.
I call her that night, mostly because I have nothing else to do, and am hoping she'll have forgotten what an arse I was. We talk pleasantly about nothing in particular. I call back in a day or two. We make plans to spend the day together the coming weekend.
On a gorgeous late fall day we drive to the Maine Mall in South Portland, just an hour's drive from Portsmouth though it feels like a trip to Siberia to me as I have never been to Maine before. Shannon notices a pretty pink sweater in one of the stores but doesn't buy it. I make a mental note. We have dinner and drive back south. She doesn't invite me to spend the night and I am not surprised.
We talk once or twice during the week. I don't know how well things are going between us because I have nothing to compare it to. In college I had had some dates and a little sex, but nothing meaningful.
The first chance I get I drive the two hours from Amherst back to the Maine Mall and buy that sweater. It's going to be her Christmas present.
The next time we speak she tells me about her mother's death. It had happened when Shannon was a teenager. She described being the first to find her Mom's body, and how traumatic the experience was. I listen intently and am silently glad she is opening up to me. I may not know much about relationships, but I believe this to be a good sign.
The next day I phone and Shannon tells me she doesn't want me to call her again.
I wind up giving the sweater to my Mom for Christmas. It doesn't fit her but she wears it anyway out of love.
===============
* = Not her real name.
posted by joe sweeney at 4:59 PM
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