"Excuse me, I'm afraid I didn't get your name." The Dean asked Walter as Paige stood.
"Walter O'Brien." Walter told her.
"I'm Carol Billingsley. You are very impressive Mr O'Brien. Where are you going to school?"
"I'm not, I'm working to build up capital to get our dream started." Walter told her.
"With your computer skills, you really should be getting a degree. Companies will be salivating over the prospect of you. You could make a very comfortable living." Carol explained.
Paige laughed even as Walter blushed.
"Richard Elia, tech entrepreneur extraordinaire, is all over Walter to return to work for him, Ms Billingsley." Paige told her.
"You used to work for Richard Elia? And you quit? Why on Earth would you do that?" Carol asked incredulously.
"Walter and I formed our own contracting business and we're partners together. Richard hired us to help get his researchers back on track. Walter worked on the actual problems, I managed everything else. Including attending the meetings so Walter could solely work on the problems. And while Walter might still work in a reduced capacity for Richard on a contract basis, Walter's main goal is in securing the start-up capital for our problem solving group." Paige told her proudly.
"Problem solving? That sounds really intriguing. Didn't you think a college degree for both of you might help?" Carol asked.
They both shook their heads.
"Walter is a brilliant genius. If he really wanted he could probably test out of any program you got in this school, other than medicine, he might need to read a book or two." Paige grinned at Walter blushing.
"Really? I could arrange the tests, would you be interested in getting your degree through us that way?" Carol asked quickly.
"Oh, uh, I don't…" Walter frowned seeing Paige nod. "Umm, how about we discuss it first along with Mom and Dad and get back to Ms Billingsley?" Walter asked while just staring at Paige.
Paige nodded.
"What about taking a career aptitude test? Would that be something you would be interested in?" Carol asked.
"My interests are so broad any such test would be meaningless because I would score high in almost any category." Walter tried to explain.
"Still, it might provide some insight into something you might not have considered. But in any case, let me know as quickly as possible. I'll be happy to set it up." Carol told him.
Walter gave her a half smile and nodded before leaving with Paige.
"I didn't think you cared if I went to college or not." Walter said as they walked along the sidewalk with Paige's agents on their way to the SUV.
"I don't mind if you don't go to college Walter, but I do think if you had a degree from a college, especially Harvard, that would carry extra weight when negotiating contracts with companies." Paige said as she looked at him. "You aren't upset at me are you?"
"No, I just didn't think about challenging their courses." Walter told her.
Walter had started walking for the front door of the main house once they got home but Paige pulled his hand and led him to the basement apartment entrance. Paige was planning to rock his world.
"Hey Mom." Paige said as they came in the back door of the house after making love with each other.
"Hey sweetheart. Good evening Walter. Dinner will be ready shortly." Veronica told them.
"Good evening Mom." Walter smiled.
"Did everything go well with your appointment?" Veronica asked.
Paige kissed Walter's cheek and walked on into the house to find her Dad.
"It did, thank you. I was wondering, do you think on the days I see Toby that I could take lessons from you on playing the piano?" Walter asked.
Veronica turned quickly, completely surprised by his question.
"Of course. I'd be thrilled. What brought this up?" Veronica asked.
"Well Paige really likes music and while I have some fascination with the mathematical expression in it, it doesn't resonate with me like it does her. And I thought maybe by learning how to play music it might help me learn to appreciate it more." Walter told her.
Walter's phone dinged and he stopped and pulled it out and saw he had a message. He tapped the icon on the screen and pulled up the message app and saw Toby's name. He tapped his name and saw an address listed.
"Hey Walt, this is the first place I thought of and thought I'd send it to you. Don't step on her toes!" Walter could almost see Toby laughing.
"Anything important?" Veronica asked.
"Oh, Toby said he'd send me an address where I could take Paige to do some dancing." Walter smiled even as he typed a response and advised Toby he'd need to reschedule their Friday appointment.
"Oh, what a lovely idea. I'll have to make sure Ralph asks when he can try dancing again and maybe we can double date one day." Veronica grinned.
"Sounds good to me Mom." Walter smiled as he nodded before leaving the room.
"Well how did school go today?" Ralph asked as they all sat down for dinner.
Walter froze mid bite on his fork.
"Walter?" Veronica asked, seeing it happen.
"Yeah, well most of the day was fine, it started off really rocky and then ended rocky but got better before we came home." Paige told them.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ralph frowned.
Paige went on to explain what happened with Becky.
"Forever more…what is wrong with that girl?" Veronica asked.
"Beats me." Paige shrugged.
"I'll call tomorrow and touch base with Carol and make sure everything is taken care of." Ralph told them.
"That also brings up something we wanted to ask. Ms Billingsley seemed really excited and she wants Walter to take a career assessment test and then perhaps challenge some courses and get a degree from Harvard." Paige explained how the meeting ended.
"Now that sounds like an excellent idea." Ralph nodded, clapping his hands together before rubbing them.
Veronica just shook her head at him.
"Let's talk about it." Ralph said.
Thursday 9:08 am:
Walter walked into the Jack Frost art school. He looked about the small twenty foot by twenty foot open room structure. The smell of the unfinished pine wood used to trim the interior was strong but not unpleasant. He saw a number of work areas, three of which were currently in use as people were painting.
A pleasant looking red haired woman in her late thirties walked away from one of the painters and up to Walter.
"Good morning. I'm Glenda, one of the artist instructors, welcome to the Jack Frost art school." Glenda introduced herself.
"Good morning. I'm Walter." Walter said and briefly shook her hand.
"Well Walter, what brings you here? Where does your passion lie? Are you looking to just hone your skills or are you a beginner?" Glenda asked.
"Definitely a beginner. I've never been too big on art, but my fiance has a strong artistic side. She enjoys many things. I'd made her a piece of string art for her birthday one year and she really liked it. But that is about the extent of it." Walter told her as he pulled a picture of the art up on his phone.
"My, that is very expressive." Glenda smiled. "The only physical art we do is clay and ceramics, if you think working in a medium like that would be interesting. But we also teach all kinds of sketching, drawing, and painting." Glenda reached over and pulled up several brochures for Walter.
Walter took the pamphlets and looked through them briefly.
"I think the clay might be interesting. Plus it is at a time that would work well with my schedule." Walter told her.
Glenda smiled as she nodded. She sat down at a desk and began filling out some forms and Walter sat down beside the desk. Walter read through the course contract and nodded before he signed it. After pulling out his checkbook he wrote a check and gave it to Glenda who gave him a receipt.
"We'll see you here tomorrow morning then." Glenda smiled as she held out her hand.
Walter nodded and smiled as he shook her hand and left.
"So, you're becoming a bit of a regular on these cruises." A man said to Walter as the ship was about midway to that magical seven mile line where gambling would be legal.
"I've had a little good luck. Figured as long as it was smiling, I might as well try my best." Walter said. He'd already recognized the man as one of the security people who pretended to be a gambler.
"You really seemed to know what you're doing, more so than luck." The man pried.
"Well not exactly, see when I first went to play Texas Hold'em I honestly knew very little. I knew poker and had a rough knowledge of Texas Hold'em. But the key was to play like I didn't know anything." Walter grinned. I lost some money at first which made the other players underestimate me, and it let me learn a few things from their tells. And it allowed me to come back and win much more than I lost."
"You seemed to do pretty good at blackjack too." The man told him.
Walter frowned as he looked at him.
"How do you know so much about what I'm doing? Are you spying on me? Are you trying to figure out some way to rob me?" Walter's voice rose several levels.
"Whoa whoa whoa young man. I'm just making conversation. No need to go on high alert." The man tried to calm him.
"Still this has passed general politeness and seems more to border on something shady." Walter told him even stepping back a few feet.
"Alright I'll leave you alone." The man said even as a security guard in uniform stepped up.
"Is there a problem?" The guard asked.
"No, I was just talking to this young man and he seemed to think I might have taken too much notice with him." The man said while trying to act embarrassed.
"Well we would appreciate you not disturbing the other guests like this. Please move along and wait somewhere else." The guard told him.
The man nodded and moved away.
"Sorry, if he bothers you again sir, let us know." The guard tipped his hat to Walter.
"Thank you." Walter told him while grinning inside. As if their little charade couldn't have been worked out.
Walter took it easy on the betting. They were obviously becoming more guarded over him. He kept himself winning no more than three grand without losing no more than a grand. He varied the amounts to try and emulate the natural betting pattern he'd formulated. But then his prediction showed he had the potential for a golden hand with what had been dealt through that shoe. The dealer was waiting on him to drop his bet to deal, as he sat looking at it. He looked up at the dealer.
"I'm feeling like this might be my hand to turn things around for me. What's the table limit?" Walter asked even though he knew it was ten thousand.
"It is ten thousand sir." The dealer told him.
Walter nodded as he acted like he was considering it.
"So, if I bet ten thousand and I get say two tens, I can split those for another ten thousand and if I miraculously got two cards worth ten each I could double that for a total of forty thousand?" Walter asked.
The dealer nodded.
"Man, my girl is going to kill me if I am wrong." Walter said as he fingered his chips. Rubbing his finger across his chin he knew he was just over thirty grand in winnings right now. "Well, I mean it is only theory right?" Walter asked the dealer.
The dealer nodded.
"So it is just betting ten thousand right now." Walter nodded and then pulled ten thousand out and set it on the bet square.
The dealer pulled the cards and slid them to Walter.
"Show time I guess." Walter said, trying to sound worried. He looked and swallowed hard as he saw his predicted pair of nines. "Alright, I'm splitting them." Walter said and flipped the cards over. He slid another ten thousand out on the table.
The dealer pulled a card and slid it over to the first nine. And then drew the next card and slid it over.
Walter caused his hand to vibrate a bit as he reached out and looked at the first card. It was an ace he'd predicted and he let out his breath a little before looking at the other. It was the last ni, it was the third predicted card he had counted which left him at over a ninety two percent chance of winning both.
"Okay, well as they say, here comes the long pants." Walter said while trying to make his voice fluctuate as he slid twenty thousand dollars in chips out before him. That left him with just five hundred dollars from his initial buy in. Walter flipped the two cards over and the dealer nodded as she flipped her cards revealing she had a twelve which was a point lower than he had predicted.
The new odds of her drawing a ten were about thirty five points lower than his original prediction. But she stood a much better chance of only getting a five. The dealer drew the next card and flipped it and it was the five he'd predicted and Walter closed his eyes as he inhaled deeply.
"Thank you Lord!" Walter said with an edge of excitement as he doubled up his fists.
"Congratulations sir." The dealer told him with a smile and then moved a special tray she'd stacked his forty thousand dollars in chips on to him.
Walter grinned and pushed a one thousand dollar chip out to the dealer.
"Thank you, I think I better stop for the day now." Walter told her.
"Thank you sir." The dealer smiled and tucked the chip away in her vest pocket.
Walter combined his loose chips onto the tray and then carried the tray to the cage to cash out. Walter had won just under seventy grand after deducting the loss he had calculated to keep the casino off of him. Walter stood just outside of the casino floor waiting on them to end gambling and to head back into port. The man he'd talked to early came over.
"Well, it sure looks like you did really well again today." The man smiled.
"Umm, how would you know? I'm really beginning to believe you are spying on me!" Walter said loudly.
"Relax friend, I don't mean anything by it. Just congratulating you." The man smiled.
"Excuse me." A familiar voice said loudly and the man turned to look and Walter saw Toby. "Hey, while you are over here, there is a lady at the craps table cheating." Toby told him.
"Do I look like security?" The man asked even though he reflexively looked.
"Of course you do, why do you think I brought it up?" Toby told him. And then laughed at the disgruntled look on the man's face. "Look, I can spot a rent-a-cop a mile away. Now if you don't want to go check out the cheating going on as she's switching the dice while distracting everyone with her endowments, I'm sure your boss would be really upset. By my estimate she's already ahead one hundred thirty grand."
"You're not supposed to be trying to identify security." The man said gruffly even as he left.
Greetings! I hope this finds you all well!
Railman - Yes, Toby has been a complete surprise to me throughout this year. His snark isn't as rampant that much is true, mostly because of the help he got from the psychologist Happy urged him to go to over his drinking problem. Carol was definitely impressed and hopefully Becky now understands things a lot better! lol Harvard isn't the place for high school.
LouBe - Glad you are enjoying it so much! It was really difficult to understand what happened with Sly as a boy...definitely a hard thing to subject him to. Yeah, Carol is a decent person...too bad she automatically sided with Becky. Hopefully she's learned a lesson too. lol Oh, there might be a twist or two coming...lol Was this enough of an appearance of Walter pursuing art and music for Paige for you? hehe
2LawDog - That would be pretty horrific for sure! Only time will tell...lol I'd imagine the bigger $$$ schools had them, but have no idea for sure. Just a nice MacGuffin for the story here. lol I remember one time in the Navy, something I was never taught until it happened (thankfully a low key experience)...the rank of Colonel is the equivalent of Commander in the Navy. From O1 to O4 (Ensign/LTJG/Lieutenant/LT Commander) male officers you can call them Mr "Dodd". But from O5 (Colonel/Commander) and higher you do not call them Mr...it is Colonel/Commander "Dodd". Kenneth's words to Sly in the show inspired his breakdown over the situation. All thank you! So glad you enjoyed it so much!
To the Adventure! -Tim