[This story is a work in progress and is not yet finished. My two main characters have yet to fully reveal themselves to me. If you wish to read only when completed, please check back here periodically.]
They had met young and again later in life. The first time, it had been youth and carelessness and sex. They had felt that they were facing the same injustices, were seeing the same storms on the horizon, united in their rebellion, or was it their repulsion? It had lasted for almost two years and then it didn’t. The breakup was sudden and they both quickly moved on.
Years passed. Other people moved in and out of their lives, other relationships some of which were good, some that were great. None that mattered. Jack’s career was taking off while Carole’s was a careful work in progress. After switching majors a few times while in college, Jack fell in love with a course he took just for fun, an Intro course in civil engineering – and it called to him and he again switched majors for the last time. Carole knew she wanted to teach and majored in education; when she graduated, she was ready for a big move to somewhere different, exciting. More important, she knew she wanted to choose a great school system where she could flourish and hopefully, make a difference in her students’ lives.
She knew that most students just move on but that a few see something, hear something that makes them pay a bit more attention to that teacher. She wanted to be that teacher, not just the “textbook” teacher but the cool one, who students might remember ten years later.
She had had a teacher who had made an impact. It was probably Mr. Simpson who had made her decide to be a teacher. Mr. Simpson was one of her History teachers in high school and he just had a way of holding the classroom’s attention, even those who usually daydreamed or shut out the lessons. Carole would always remember how he had raised certain questions that made her think beyond the obvious. Helped her see other sides to complex questions. She wanted to be the same inspiration to her students. She wasn’t stupid or naïve, she knew it would take years to acquire the gravitas and insights and even then, she might only inspire a handful of students here and there. But that was enough.
Jack flourished and worked hard after graduation to become a licensed professional engineer. He gradually became respected in the field of site development and planning, Nine years after graduating, he received an offer on a major real estate development project that had just been announced in Texas. Texas? He had never imagined himself moving there but it sounded like a new adventure, a chance to get away from the East coast for a while. He had had several girlfriends since graduation but none had been serious enough to be the one.
Carole had been careful in choosing her first school and she later ended up teaching English in a high school located in a suburb outside of Portland, Oregon. She found her first teaching job in a school district in Massachusetts. It was rocky at first as she knew it would be since teens are pre-loaded with attitude, boredom and sometimes, despair. But she persisted to win them over and after a few years, she was becoming one of the cooler teachers. Students wouldn’t admit it, but privately, many were happy when they discovered she would be their teacher at the beginning of the school year.
It was during a trip to Portland to visit her sister that she became curious about moving to the West coast. If she was going to make the move, better to do it now since she wanted to become tenured. She did not want to stay in Massachusetts just to get tenure and then always look back with regrets or always wonder about what would have happened if she had moved out west or elsewhere.
Sure, she met several teachers who she got to know in Massachusetts, some of whom she dated for a while. It was a great “meeting ground” but that was not why she was in the teaching game. She truly loved thinking up new lesson plans to challenge her students but also make it interesting, so they would attend the next class with a little more effort or curiosity.
Carole:
“It was 1978 and I knew I had to put up or shut up. I had to commit to staying at Bellport High School and get tenure and that was going to take another couple of years. But after I visited my sister Pam out in Oregon, I saw a whole new world. I loved the beauty of the West coast. Not that Massachusetts isn’t beautiful – it is! But not in the same way. Either way, I knew I had to stay near the water. Looking back I guess it was either the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean, nothing in between!”
“Luckily, I had some solid experience in teaching at Bellport High and I had a great support system there. The faculty was great, the administration was great, everyone was really supportive when I was looking to make the move. I had discovered a cool school district out near Portland, about an hour out, where I thought the school, the community and the location were all a perfect combination of the mindset and the type of community where I would fit in. I took a chance and made the move after school was out for the summer and I’ve never looked back.”
“It was shortly after I had moved to Rumson when I first met Rick. Rick’s a dentist in Rumson. I was at a local wine store one day and I saw him and I knew he was kind of checking me out but trying to be cool about it. You know? I mean sometimes you can just sense it, other times it’s obvious. This was a little bit in between. I knew he was just trying to be cool about it and I was okay with it. He casually approached me and said, ‘I’m sorry but I couldn’t help overhear you when you asked the owner about the Chardonnay. Is that a New England accent I thought I heard?’ As he asked me I noticed a shy smile on his face. I looked him over, smiled back and said, ‘Well you caught me, I was trying to run away but now my ruse is up.’ He laughed and we began chatting. After I revealed I was new in town, things progressed quickly to a first date, dinner at a really cool restaurant a few miles away. Unfortunately that restaurant is long gone now, but it was a great meal and Rick was great too.”
Jack:
“Texas, can you imagine it? I knew from a young age I eventually wanted to move somewhere cool, not be locked in to the winters of the Northeast. New York where I was born was great, it was exciting, nowhere had more diversity and culture and power than New York. But after a while it left me cold, you know? Not just the weather, but I wanted “new.” I didn’t know where. Or how. My first few jobs were great, I learned everything there. All about the planning and the design, the political landscape, learning the lay of the land you are planning on distorting and transforming into something, sometimes beautiful and at other times, something that will be practical, an improvement in how traffic is routed or waterways are dealt with. That’s the thing, you can’t just re-route a river or eliminate it. It’s there, you have to incorporate it into the development – even a small stream. Man, there are thousands of streams everywhere. That’s one of the biggest things I learned – and that was on the job training, not college courses. Until you see it, experience it and plan around it, you can’t imagine the impact and ubiquity of our waterways.”
“Anyway, I was part of a team where we needed to reimagine old developments into new ones. Find the best solutions to transform an old strip mall into something that better serves the needs of a place that had been a small community but now, because a new highway exit is being built nearby, might soon be growing into a much larger town. We take it for granted but that town would require more and wider roads, new restaurants and stores, new sewage systems and all kinds of infrastructure that would need to be designed. So that was a challenge and it was exciting. I found I was good at it. Not all parts. I steered clear of the politics of it all. That was up to senior management and they enjoyed that part of it. I didn’t think of them so much as engineers as lobbyists. Oh well, they did their job well and that allowed me to think more on the solutions side of things. I guess that is my “art”, my sense of creativity. It jazzes me, what can I say? Like I said, I was good at it and it played into my wheelhouse as we now like to say.”
“But Texas. Let me be clear, I wasn’t unhappy. But at a convention I attended in Atlanta, GA, I was at a presentation and if I remember, they were talking about several of the biggest challenges that were coming up in the next year or two. The speaker mentioned the Texas project. As he talked about it, I became intrigued then obsessed. Something was pulling me in. So I talked to him after he finished and I asked him a few questions. One thing led to another, I gave him my business card, told him I was interested in more info and I mailed him my resume and a short letter when I returned home. I was out there a week later to meet with him and some of his team. Of course I brought designs and drafts of my work and I was offered a job on the spot. I took it! I knew this was my destiny and Texas was as big as they say it is.”
“When I got back to the office, I had a long, great chat with Bill, my boss. He didn’t try to talk me out of it. ‘Jack, I remember my first big opportunity to move on and it was the best thing I ever did. You’ll take this job and we will miss you but I have a feeling you will do great. We all need this – it’s important to take what you’ve learned here and share it with a new culture, a new landscape and see what you’ve really learned.’ We spoke for a while and he assured me there were many other candidates in the wings to step forward with their new ideas. So I didn’t need to feel guilty – they would survive (as I of course, knew). It took a while to close out my work, pack up and move and begin looking for a new home.”
. . .
A year passed. Carole and Rick dated, became engaged but never made it to actually planning a wedding. One day Carole had an epiphany where she saw her future with Rick and it was not a happy vision. She didn’t tell him and she tried hard to forget it. But a few weeks later, one of the insights she had envisioned came true when Rick revealed that he had recently seen his ex-fiance. It hadn’t been a date, they had run into one another and chatted and continued on for a drink together to catch up. Nothing more, Rick reassured Carole. But for Carole, the details matched exactly with her epiphany and she just knew how this movie was going to end. Without her. She wasn’t rash, she didn’t end their relationship right away. But she was shaken and she tried to carry on. Then she found out Rick had met his ex for a second time and that was it. She wasn’t a fool. Here they were engaged and Rick was seeing his ex?
It was a clean break. She explained to him that it was obvious to her that he and his ex still had unfinished business. And she didn’t always want to wonder if he might end up having an affair with his ex. Either way, the damage was done and Rick was free to pursue his ex and Carole could feel better that she wasn’t being made to feel she was patsy.
She was so glad about the way her teaching career had been going. She had had so many great students in the short time she had lived in Rumson. And once she crept back into the dating scene, she saw there were a lot of guys she had known who now seemed a bit more intrigued, a lot more interested. They had given her distance when she was seeing Rick but she made herself available and revealed a new confidence in place of feeling dejected. She decided to just take it slow, she was in control and she was in no rush to jump into another intense relationship. She would just take things easy for a while, then see what developed.
. . .
Things were taking off for Jack down in Texas. He settled in once he bought a house near his job. Part of being an expert in the field of planning and development of geographic areas is knowing where the best areas are to purchase real estate. Since you know where the growth is going, you know which areas are going to grow in prestige and value. So Jack searched several areas where he knew the newest hot spots would develop over time. Since he was getting in early, he would be able to find some great deals where the values would skyrocket in a few years as the community transformed itself into a new mecca.
Jack identified three areas where he would want to live, all with tremendous potential to grow into prestigious neighborhoods. On weekends, he would scope them out, see which ones felt and looked right. It took a couple of months of getting familiar with neighborhoods, favorite houses and eliminate those areas he knew would not appreciate as much in value. He could buy one of the new homes that would soon be built as the area started to blossom – but he knew he would be paying top dollar. Better to find a hidden jewel where he knew the house would be a bargain now and in about ten years be worth a whole lot more.
One Sunday he was driving around one of his favorite neighborhoods and he noticed a For Sale sign that had just been placed. Intrigued, he parked his car, walked around and later jotted down the phone number on the sign. Within a month, he was closing on the house. That was a major milestone to take off his list. Within a few weeks he was completely moved in and he could concentrate more on becoming a member of the community. He felt like this was home, he had arrived.
Meanwhile work was going great. He had thrown himself into the whole project and it utilized every bit of experience he brought to the table – and it also required him to stretch and learn from others on the team which he did. He was a good team player and he shared his expertise as well as soaked up new ideas like a sponge. Texas was going to be a great move after all, as he knew.
. . .
Carole had adjusted well and after a while she was glad things had ended with Rick. After all, she didn’t want to always wonder about him and his ex. Now it was time to concentrate on herself and figure out what she wanted to do next. Her career was solid and she loved her work, enjoyed seeing her students mature and grow into adults as they faced challenges within and beyond the classroom. She began working as an Advisor to students in the school system. She loved it, especially when students would set up an appointment with her to discuss career options. There had been several students who asked her about a career in journalism or writing. She would discuss with them their writing skills and styles and review old papers or essays they had written to help them see where they needed to develop their ideas a bit further or explore their characters’ deepest conflicts. Mostly she persuaded them to take appropriate courses when they went off to college: English Literature or Intro to Journalism or perhaps a few courses in History depending on each student’s interests. Instead of convincing each student to major in any one field, she instead advised them to use their free electives to explore areas that matched up with their best topics in their writing. It was all very insightful and rewarding to help guide students who were questioning their own strengths and weaknesses; her belief was with the right courses, they would discover their strengths on their own – and learn a lot more in the process.
Outside of her work, Carole’s life had been going well. She had found a charming small house and she moved quickly to make an offer when she realized the price for the house was a bargain. It would be a little bit of a stretch for a while but she realized it would make a great investment and she loved improving the house in her spare time. She learned to remove old wallpaper, make some minor repairs and give the entire house a new coat of paint. She found she had a knack for decorating and she would occasionally visit stores or antique shops for the perfect accent piece or accessory. In less than a year, she had made the house her own. She was proud and excited for her future.
She hadn’t met any men since Rick who were a great match. Some she had become great friends with, some just lacked the chemistry to proceed to a serious relationship. But she was in no rush. It had been a few years since she had moved to Rumson and she was soon approaching her 28th birthday. She wasn’t measuring her life in timing segments (20s, 30s, 40s) but she also did not want to lose out on the possibility of starting a family. But she could feel the beginning of a slow drum beat that might progress into a ticking clock warning her time would run out one day. She just wanted to hold this moment, enjoy it and not have to worry or plan out her entire future.
In the mail, she received an invitation to her 10th high school reunion. Oh no, how can that be, she wondered. She fondly remembered her high school friends and she wondered about several of her closest girlfriends. She called a few and revisited great memories and enjoyed a lot of laughs with her friends and they got caught up about their lives. She marked her calendar for the Reunion weekend because she really wanted to see them all again in person.
. . .
Jack took to his new home and his career with tremendous energy and enthusiasm. His job challenged him and he answered by improving each phase of his portion of the project. He learned the way the land fell, observed its contours and he could envision the way the community would thrive on its roads and new services. He encouraged an approach that modified and improved existing routes in place of all-out rerouting or replacement. He found holistic solutions where others just wanted to tear everything up and start anew. His bosses appreciated his approach since it meant saving money by working with the environment that was already in place.
By redesigning and consolidating a school system that was connected from grades K to 12 instead of having schools in three separate locations, it meant resources and school busses and playing fields would be centralized and shared. And widening and improving main roadways and traffic signals would lead to better traffic flow even though the quantity of traffic was expected to double over the next decade with all the improvements being planned.
Then there were the special projects, the “add-ons” such as a modern library which he envisioned evolving into a new community center.
[to be continued…]
Chris Ebel
3/23/22
Featured image: @stellab