Author's Note: See Chapter 1 for disclaimer.
A/N: Please hang in there with me on this chapter. There will be elves, soon. Some you will recognize, and some you may not..yet.
* * * * * THE TALE OF MARIAN
CHAPTER 3 - FIRST, DO NO HARM
The next day after work I coaxed Marian and Billie, our friend and fellow Ed-suffer-ee, into celebrating with a glass of wine at the Winesmith down the street. Don't think it sounds snobbish - we lived in California wine country, after all. No, not that wine country you are thinking about, but that better, I think, wine country in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Gold country makes for very, very good wines.
We walked down Main Street and squeezed ourselves into a table in the tiny, cramped, noisy wine bar. I shared half a chair with Billie, as there were only two left. Billie raised her voice over the crowd, asking if our meeting had been a success. I said loudly that the clients had loved the design. Marian corrected me by saying that the client had loved it after they had picked it apart and moved everything around for two hours.
"Minor interior revisions," I declared, waving my wine glass rather closely to the back of the balding gentleman sitting just behind me. I was glad that we actually had wine in our hands by that time, as the owners, a long- married couple, served both wine and good advice on tasting it and making it at their own rather maddeningly relaxed pace. It did no good to become impatient, you either accepted it or you went elsewhere. Marian looked concerned that I would spill my wine on this gentleman's head. Shame on her; I am not so clumsy, especially since it would take another half an hour to get another if I lost this one. Thankfully the people gathered around the next table were occupied in a rather boisterous and apparently highly amusing conversation and didn't notice.
"Marian stood firm and maintained the integrity of her design, Billie."
"Our design, Jason," she insisted, and I raised my glass in salute. "More importantly, Ed liked it, too."
"After another hour of "minor revisions", that is," I added with a smile.
"They were good revisions, Jason. I wish I had thought of them." Just like Marian, to be too modest. She never did give herself enough credit, for all that she accomplished.
"The boss liked it," savored Billie. "Congratulations are in order. Now, wish me the same luck tomorrow for the middle school project."
"You don't need luck, Billie," I said. "You've gotten a long way in the past couple of weeks. Ed will see that immediately. And," I tried to sound seductive, but it was kind of hard to do when I had to yell, "if he doesn't, you can always come to me for. . . . consolation."
"I'm going to ignore that, Jason, and scoot over an inch before I dunk that ponytail of yours in your glass, this room isn't THAT crowded." Actually, in my defense, it was. "So what's next for you guys?"
"Finishing the library drawings. Then I am going to start in on Ed's preliminary sketches for our new office building," I said importantly. That was a mistake.
"I am going to quit," Marian said flatly, pouting into her wine glass.
"What?" Billie said, and leaned across the table.
"I AM GOING TO QUIT!" she yelled. Billie gasped, and suddenly the room went quiet.
"Let's go talk about this outside," I suggested, and put my half-full glass down. Darn it, I was enjoying that wine.
We tunneled out to the sidewalk while other standing patrons immediately jostled for our seats like a game of musical chairs, and Billie turned on Marian. "No. . . you. . . are. . . not. You are not leaving us here alone. Besides, the library is only half done, you have months to go on it, and it's your favorite project!"
"She is tired. She has had too much wine. I will take her home," I declared wisely.
"Twenty-three people is hardly leaving you alone, Billie."
"If you leave some of us, I wonder who, will have to divide your workload, and I for one don't have time, girlfriend!" Billie accused, laying the guilt-trip on thick.
Was I being ignored?
Marian took in a deep breath and plunged in, describing how the library committee had finally decided to pursue an energy-conservation grant program that would evaluate the building and help pay for the energy-saving features the committee wanted us to incorporate. This program was, I knew, a way for Marian to get the office to take baby steps towards green building design, a philosophy that was dear to Marian's heart and to mine, but not to Ed's. Ed's rationale for allowing Marian to promote environmentally responsible design at all was that it appeared to be good marketing material. Marian had proposed this program to the committee when the project first started, but they had told her no. Now they had a new influential committee member who was pushing the program, so they had changed their minds.
"Well," said Billie carefully, "who convinced them doesn't matter, does it, as long as they are going to do it?"
"Here's what matters, Billie. Today after the meeting, Ed came over and asked me whether it was their idea or mine. Like an idiot, I told him I had made them aware of the program but the new guy had convinced them. I was excited, Billie. I was thrilled. Do you know what Ed said? He said he didn't want some analyst telling us how to design our building. He didn't want to spend any of our time and money dealing with them, and that I was complicating the project for no reason. He went ballistic on me, Billie! I mean, God forbid we should make the effort to create a better building!"
I winced. "Be patient, Marian, he will come around in time." I put a reassuring arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "You WILL get to design "green buildings." Our own new office building could be the turning point. Stay, Marian, we'll convince Ed to try it."
"So far, the only one I've been able to convince is my dog. What if we can't convince him? Then I'm back to square one and I am still churning out work that does damage to the environment when it doesn't need to do any. I want our buildings to work with nature, not against it. I want it to feel just as great to be inside a building as it is to be on the beach, or in the woods."
"Then," I said with a mischievous look at Billie, "if Ed says no, we'll sneak in as much as we can anyway. Come on, let me take you home and we'll feel good because we're carpooling."
"And how will I get my car back?"
"You will come back downtown with me tomorrow morning and help me pick out a new backpack."
"All right, it's a deal," she sighed wearily.
"So it's a deal, you'll stay." Billie insisted. "Well," Billie modified when she saw the look on Marian's face, "You'll sleep on it over the weekend, then."
"I don't think a weekend is going to make any difference, Billie."
"You are tired right now," I reminded her. "You've been overworked for months. Why don't you go on a nice long vacation out on the beach or in the woods instead, somewhere you can get away and think it over first."
Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, she said then.
* * * * *
I have found a treasure.
I found it under the mattress of the bed upon which she died. I didn't know that Marian kept a diary. I knew of course that she kept copious notes on everything she learned here - she was always so afraid she would forget something and then it would be too late - but I didn't know she wrote anything personal. If I had, this would probably have been the first place I would have looked for it. I should realize by now that no matter how close we were, there would be a few more things, the knowledge of which she kept from me. Don't misunderstand me; Marian deserved her privacy as much as anyone. It's just that some things would have been easier for her if I had known about them.
I don't want to open it. Maybe there are things that are too intimate, or maybe she thought unflattering things about me that I'd rather not know about. No, Marian had never had any trouble telling me out loud exactly what she thought of me, good or bad. Maybe I am afraid to discover that I didn't know her as well as I thought I did, that my dear friend wasn't exactly the same person I thought I knew.
But there are gaps in what I know about the tale I am telling you, like when Marian went on her vacation alone, gaps that need to be filled to tell the whole story. So, I will make a deal with her before I break the lock, a compromise that I know she would have agreed with. I will only use what I need, to tell what needs to be told, and keep the rest private like it was meant to be. Like Marian tried to do, I will do no harm - if I can find enough wisdom to help it.
A/N: Please hang in there with me on this chapter. There will be elves, soon. Some you will recognize, and some you may not..yet.
* * * * * THE TALE OF MARIAN
CHAPTER 3 - FIRST, DO NO HARM
The next day after work I coaxed Marian and Billie, our friend and fellow Ed-suffer-ee, into celebrating with a glass of wine at the Winesmith down the street. Don't think it sounds snobbish - we lived in California wine country, after all. No, not that wine country you are thinking about, but that better, I think, wine country in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Gold country makes for very, very good wines.
We walked down Main Street and squeezed ourselves into a table in the tiny, cramped, noisy wine bar. I shared half a chair with Billie, as there were only two left. Billie raised her voice over the crowd, asking if our meeting had been a success. I said loudly that the clients had loved the design. Marian corrected me by saying that the client had loved it after they had picked it apart and moved everything around for two hours.
"Minor interior revisions," I declared, waving my wine glass rather closely to the back of the balding gentleman sitting just behind me. I was glad that we actually had wine in our hands by that time, as the owners, a long- married couple, served both wine and good advice on tasting it and making it at their own rather maddeningly relaxed pace. It did no good to become impatient, you either accepted it or you went elsewhere. Marian looked concerned that I would spill my wine on this gentleman's head. Shame on her; I am not so clumsy, especially since it would take another half an hour to get another if I lost this one. Thankfully the people gathered around the next table were occupied in a rather boisterous and apparently highly amusing conversation and didn't notice.
"Marian stood firm and maintained the integrity of her design, Billie."
"Our design, Jason," she insisted, and I raised my glass in salute. "More importantly, Ed liked it, too."
"After another hour of "minor revisions", that is," I added with a smile.
"They were good revisions, Jason. I wish I had thought of them." Just like Marian, to be too modest. She never did give herself enough credit, for all that she accomplished.
"The boss liked it," savored Billie. "Congratulations are in order. Now, wish me the same luck tomorrow for the middle school project."
"You don't need luck, Billie," I said. "You've gotten a long way in the past couple of weeks. Ed will see that immediately. And," I tried to sound seductive, but it was kind of hard to do when I had to yell, "if he doesn't, you can always come to me for. . . . consolation."
"I'm going to ignore that, Jason, and scoot over an inch before I dunk that ponytail of yours in your glass, this room isn't THAT crowded." Actually, in my defense, it was. "So what's next for you guys?"
"Finishing the library drawings. Then I am going to start in on Ed's preliminary sketches for our new office building," I said importantly. That was a mistake.
"I am going to quit," Marian said flatly, pouting into her wine glass.
"What?" Billie said, and leaned across the table.
"I AM GOING TO QUIT!" she yelled. Billie gasped, and suddenly the room went quiet.
"Let's go talk about this outside," I suggested, and put my half-full glass down. Darn it, I was enjoying that wine.
We tunneled out to the sidewalk while other standing patrons immediately jostled for our seats like a game of musical chairs, and Billie turned on Marian. "No. . . you. . . are. . . not. You are not leaving us here alone. Besides, the library is only half done, you have months to go on it, and it's your favorite project!"
"She is tired. She has had too much wine. I will take her home," I declared wisely.
"Twenty-three people is hardly leaving you alone, Billie."
"If you leave some of us, I wonder who, will have to divide your workload, and I for one don't have time, girlfriend!" Billie accused, laying the guilt-trip on thick.
Was I being ignored?
Marian took in a deep breath and plunged in, describing how the library committee had finally decided to pursue an energy-conservation grant program that would evaluate the building and help pay for the energy-saving features the committee wanted us to incorporate. This program was, I knew, a way for Marian to get the office to take baby steps towards green building design, a philosophy that was dear to Marian's heart and to mine, but not to Ed's. Ed's rationale for allowing Marian to promote environmentally responsible design at all was that it appeared to be good marketing material. Marian had proposed this program to the committee when the project first started, but they had told her no. Now they had a new influential committee member who was pushing the program, so they had changed their minds.
"Well," said Billie carefully, "who convinced them doesn't matter, does it, as long as they are going to do it?"
"Here's what matters, Billie. Today after the meeting, Ed came over and asked me whether it was their idea or mine. Like an idiot, I told him I had made them aware of the program but the new guy had convinced them. I was excited, Billie. I was thrilled. Do you know what Ed said? He said he didn't want some analyst telling us how to design our building. He didn't want to spend any of our time and money dealing with them, and that I was complicating the project for no reason. He went ballistic on me, Billie! I mean, God forbid we should make the effort to create a better building!"
I winced. "Be patient, Marian, he will come around in time." I put a reassuring arm around her shoulder and squeezed. "You WILL get to design "green buildings." Our own new office building could be the turning point. Stay, Marian, we'll convince Ed to try it."
"So far, the only one I've been able to convince is my dog. What if we can't convince him? Then I'm back to square one and I am still churning out work that does damage to the environment when it doesn't need to do any. I want our buildings to work with nature, not against it. I want it to feel just as great to be inside a building as it is to be on the beach, or in the woods."
"Then," I said with a mischievous look at Billie, "if Ed says no, we'll sneak in as much as we can anyway. Come on, let me take you home and we'll feel good because we're carpooling."
"And how will I get my car back?"
"You will come back downtown with me tomorrow morning and help me pick out a new backpack."
"All right, it's a deal," she sighed wearily.
"So it's a deal, you'll stay." Billie insisted. "Well," Billie modified when she saw the look on Marian's face, "You'll sleep on it over the weekend, then."
"I don't think a weekend is going to make any difference, Billie."
"You are tired right now," I reminded her. "You've been overworked for months. Why don't you go on a nice long vacation out on the beach or in the woods instead, somewhere you can get away and think it over first."
Maybe that wasn't such a bad idea, she said then.
* * * * *
I have found a treasure.
I found it under the mattress of the bed upon which she died. I didn't know that Marian kept a diary. I knew of course that she kept copious notes on everything she learned here - she was always so afraid she would forget something and then it would be too late - but I didn't know she wrote anything personal. If I had, this would probably have been the first place I would have looked for it. I should realize by now that no matter how close we were, there would be a few more things, the knowledge of which she kept from me. Don't misunderstand me; Marian deserved her privacy as much as anyone. It's just that some things would have been easier for her if I had known about them.
I don't want to open it. Maybe there are things that are too intimate, or maybe she thought unflattering things about me that I'd rather not know about. No, Marian had never had any trouble telling me out loud exactly what she thought of me, good or bad. Maybe I am afraid to discover that I didn't know her as well as I thought I did, that my dear friend wasn't exactly the same person I thought I knew.
But there are gaps in what I know about the tale I am telling you, like when Marian went on her vacation alone, gaps that need to be filled to tell the whole story. So, I will make a deal with her before I break the lock, a compromise that I know she would have agreed with. I will only use what I need, to tell what needs to be told, and keep the rest private like it was meant to be. Like Marian tried to do, I will do no harm - if I can find enough wisdom to help it.