COVET

Chapter 2

October 13, 2015

On occasion, purely by nature and not intentional, Michael remembered that woman from Thadius' funeral, usually around the anniversary of his death, but this year, Michael recalled her on Thadius' birthday. He would have been thirty-three. What kind of man would Thadius have become? He wasn't sure he could even imagine his younger brother as a man. Twelve years was a long time to forget the details, especially since Michael had no desire to think about him.

But why did the woman's image stick in his mind so? Over the years, she had become like a beacon in the gloominess of the day – her soft light hair and pale face a glow amongst the awning of umbrellas. Still after all those years, he didn't know who she was and never thought to ask, always working on the assumption that she was a bystander to a curious event, stunned by the meaningless death of a teenager.

"Michael, did you hear me?"

He looked up from his desk. His secretary (she refused the title of Office Manager although it fit her job description perfectly) stood at his office doorway, hands on her hips, ready to scold him.

"I'm sorry, Peggy. What did you say?"

"I said leave the paperwork."

"Paperwork?"

"Yeah, right there." Peggy pointed to a small mound of invoices in front of him. "Are you all right?"

Michael looked at the stack of papers on his desk. He liked to review the customer invoices, not so much as to check Peggy's work because she could do them in her sleep, but just so he knew what was going on in his company. Sometimes he missed the days when he swung a hammer.

"It's still early. I can do it before I go."

"No," she said, stretching out the "o."

She watched his face. He knew she was waiting for something from him but he was clueless.

"I give up. What is it I'm really supposed to be doing right now?"

Peggy entered the office, limping ever so slightly from a deteriorating hip joint compounded by her grandmotherly plumpness. She worked for Tate Contractors & Builders, Inc. since the first year of operation forty-nine years ago when Henry Tate started the company from his barn. Michael inherited the business nearly thirty-two years ago when he was only sixteen, and transformed it into a multi-million dollar operation. It had been a long time since Peggy sat at Henry and Cecil's kitchen table to balance the checkbook. When Michael started with upgrades and improvements, including computerizing the office, Peggy kept pace with him. She would not be replaced. Nowadays she sat in a leather chair behind a reception area of deep burgundy, midnight blue and splashes of gold-tone. She managed time for Michael and his sales staff and played receptionist. He knew she liked her job most days, even after almost five decades and despite his moodiness.

"Your schedule hasn't changed from ten o'clock this morning," she shot.

"You're being encrypted," he snapped back.

She clucked her tongue, a sign that she would back down. "You're supposed to go by Nathan Ross's office."

Michael groaned and contorted his body in disapproval – something he could only do in front of Peggy. "What for?"

"Whining doesn't become you, Michael. Don't you remember anything I tell you?"

"No," he stood, "that's why I keep you around. To remind me."

Usually that backhanded compliment made her smile, but no smile broke out on her face.

Michael stood and walked by her into the reception area, opened the coat closet, and retrieved his Durham work jacket. Being the boss meant he could wear finer clothes, perhaps a nicely tailored rich Italian leather jacket, but no matter how much money he had, he still was a boots and jeans kind of guy. He heard the soft hush of expelled air as Peggy plopped into her chair. He turned just as she swiveled the two-thousand dollar seat to face him. Maybe he didn't throw away money on his clothes, but decorating his office was a different story.