Water Lessons by Chadwick Wall Read Free Book Online

with that. But I just… I just don't see how you could be friends with a couple like that back there. Maybe we're two very different people."
    Jim and Maureen remained silent as they walked to the restaurant. He wondered if he had made the wrong decision, pursuing her.

   
    CHAPTER NINE

    Mondays were always particularly trying at the Henretty & Henretty brokerage. From the outset at seven-thirty, Jim slogged through the morning, counting the hours until lunchtime. Then he could enjoy twenty or thirty pleasant minutes, but a building dread of the second half of the workday often filled the remainder of the lunch hour.
    Jim could not let slip this secret, either in his face or by confiding to a fellow broker.
    Maureen's father, Walter, was the chief executive and owner, as Walter's late father had been.
    To reveal his true ennui and disappointment would endanger his employment and his courtship of Walter's daughter. Jim even balked at the thought of showing the slightest ingratitude to the venerable old man.
    Jim had first met Walter on Boylston at Abe and Louie's Steakhouse one Tuesday afternoon after the markets had closed. At the dark-oak-and-mirror-backed bar, Walter introduced himself. The old man posed a thousand questions as to Jim's experiences during and after the great storm. He also learned much about Jim's struggle as a fledgling writer.  
    Jim wowed his new friend with the breadth of his knowledge of Scotch whisky and military trivia, unleashing the latter once he learned Walter was a retired Navy Commodore who had served in Korea and Vietnam. After hearing of Jim's certifications and his year at the New Orleans branch of New York Life, Walter offered Jim the new opening at his firm. To his amusement, Jim often wondered which he feared more: disappointing the old man or his daughter.
    Those first few minutes after the market opened were like any of the eighteen or so Mondays Jim had endured since his first day at the brokerage in early November. He had seen all the other twenty brokers and the president/floor manager and the IT tech and the HR lady but still there was no sign of Walter Henretty.
    The old man lived in Osterville on the southern shore of Cape Cod and owned a townhouse in Louisburg Square in Beacon Hill a few doors down from Senator Kerry. But most of Walter's days were spent on the Cape, and he had a driver take him up to check on his brokerage perhaps twice a week. Regardless, Walter always made a point of popping in each Monday.
    The old seafarer rose each Monday long before dawn to inspire his officers and deckhands as they set off into battle. The Commodore would saunter in with some inspiring or even hilarious exclamation, platitude, or dance, and the floor would unleash a cheer every time. But this ritual always occurred before the markets opened. Still there was no sign of Walter and it was nearing eleven o'clock.
    Jim dialed away, trying his utmost to reach a client, all the while staring out the window. Jim had earned one of the cubicles against the glass, the Henretty & Henretty version of a window office. He could take in the broad view of the Boston Common with its famed Frog Pond, the lush Public Gardens, the Financial District and Beacon Hill, some of Boston Harbor, the northern periphery of South Boston and the Four Points Channel.
    Even better was the view belonging to the president and floor boss, Walter's younger brother Dewey. Foremost was the magnificent view in Walter's own office. From inside, one could see the Charles, Cambridge, MIT, the Victorian brownstones, and strolling shoppers of Back Bay, the well-landscaped Esplanade, the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, and the oldest neighborhood in the city, Beacon Hill.
    As he held the phone's receiver to his ear, Jim stood and pushed his face against the window. His client did not answer. Jim left a message, pondering as to whether he would remain in his recently attained position at the brokerage. While he was not the broker with