Julianna’s Story….
“Stop biting your nails!” her mother whispered harshly.
Six year old Julianna immediately whipped her hands out of her mouth and hid her broken nails behind her skirt. She didn’t want her mother to know that she’d been doing it at night. She sighed as she followed her elegant mother through the white room filled with flowers. It was the gardening committee’s monthly meeting and Julianna was required to parade around for her mother’s friends, all of whom would then provide the obligatory praise on Julianna’s looks or height or whatever struck them at the moment. It was such a tedious pretense.
It irked her that the old ladies acted so surprised when they looked upon her at these sorts of gatherings. Had she been a troll as a child? Or are their kids so ugly that they are now surprised someone from their social group could have an attractive child? Not that she thought she was particularly beautiful. She was just a normal kid with blond hair and blue eyes. Boring blond and tedious blue, she thought as she looked at one of the blue hydrangeas on the table in front of her. Yes, she almost blended in with the décor. Her blue eyes were virtually the same color as the flowers, she realized. How uninteresting.
She took her white gloves out of her small white purse and slipped them on, thinking to cover her fingernails so that her mother wouldn’t see the damage she’d done last night. If her mother discovered the bitten nails, she’d put that horrid liquid on them that made her eyes water and her tongue hurt.
Julianna looked around, seeing other girls among the old ladies in their stiff, uncomfortable looking suits. The other girls didn’t seem to mind being here. But Julianna minded very much. She didn’t want to be here, she didn’t want to eat the tasteless food and she definitely didn’t care a hoot about silly flowers. In her opinion, everyone should just plant a bunch of bushes that didn’t bloom so that these kinds of meetings, where boring, elderly ladies discussed rotting blooms and shrubs that didn’t bloom ‘quite as brilliantly as last year’, or even worse, when the discussed bugs in those ridiculous secret terms. She had gotten into trouble last month when she’d rolled her eyes after a comment about a particularly bad infestation of aphids which were described only as ‘disgusting bump bugs’. It was the combination of the description as well as the knowing nods of the many grey heads that got to her. There was no way, in her six year old mind, that all of these ladies could figure out that ‘disgusting bump bugs’ were really aphids. The only reason Julianna could translate was because she’d read in her science book about the issue on roses. Seriously, couldn’t they just order a bunch of lady bugs and be done with the problem?
So here she sat, perfectly still and not rolling her eyes, smiling politely when someone commented about her hair or her dress, or whatever it was that caught their eye at the moment of approach. The compliments weren’t genuine, just another requirement of polite conversation during these sorts of meetings. It was all agonizingly superficial.
“Sit up straight,” her mother snapped under her breath while maintaining her polished smile, and Julianna’s back straightened even more than she thought possible.
Two hours later, Julianna was sitting at the dining room table at home, her spine hovering the required two inches from the back of the chair, her hands placed on her lap as she chewed her food twenty times before taking the next small bite. As her mother admonished constantly, bites of food should be small enough to swallow quickly so that one may respond to one’s dinner companion’s questions or conversations. She could never understand why the small bites were necessary when it was just family, she thought, because her parents’ conversations were mainly malicious sniping at each other. Her mother and father hated each other but presented the perfect family to the outside world. Images must be maintained, she’d been told over and over again.
“Honestly child! How can you do something so inappropriate?”
Julianna’s startled blue eyes shifted to her mother’s censorious expression. She wasn’t sure what rule she’d broken now, but she stopped moving, going completely still as she waited to hear about her latest infraction.
Julianna’s mother scowled across the table, then sighed as if her patience had run out. “Just go to the kitchen to eat,” she snapped with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Margo, please take my daughter’s plate to the kitchen, I can’t stand watching that kind of behavior any longer.”
Julianna’s father didn’t even look up from his newspaper, just turned the page as the maid who had been standing sentry by the dining room doorway stepped forward and took Julianna’s plate and glass of milk, carrying both to the kitchen silently.
As Julianna entered the kitchen, the warmth and smells of freshly baked bread hit her full force and she stopped, looking around in awe and wonder. The kitchen was nothing like the sterile elegance of the dining room and she desperately wanted to move about and explore this new area. Instead, she sat down on the stool that had been moved to one of the old oak tables, her plate placed in front of the stool.
The cook was a large woman with a ruddy complexion that tsked the moment she saw Julianna’s skinny frame perched nervously at the wooden counter. “Just sit right down there, dearie and have a good meal. Don’t you worry about anything,” the cook said with her heavy Manchester accent.
Julianna stared at the bustling woman, amazed at how much she looked like the cooks in her fairy tale stories. Her whole body was round and her cheeks were red from the heat of the stove. Her eyes even sparkled like the pictures of Santa Claus.
She’d never seen anyone this merry in her life and the atmosphere almost terrified her. She didn’t understand how to sit or eat when so many people were bustling about. Her father employed a household staff of more than fifteen people including maids and gardeners, most of whom she’d never met before because they were required by their contracts to stay out of sight. But to a six year old’s eyes, the staff were completely different from the people she knew from her mother’s meetings and her classes.
She sat carefully on the stool and picked up her fork, her eyes wide and her ears attentive as she listened to the magical sounds of the kitchen and household staff. They joked and teased, each of them passing her by and nodding in her direction, some of them bold enough to actually greet her with a smile. Her fingers touched the rough surface of the wooden countertop that had been in the kitchen for centuries, the wood sanded down when needed. The result was a rough, somewhat flat surface with nicks and dents, gouges in places even where some unknown chef had angrily chopped something and missed.
The smells were so delicious and she ate her meal in peace while she watched and absorbed everything around her. From that night forward she ate her meals in the kitchen and loved it. Gone were the upset stomachs and headaches and she went from being a pale, almost sickly looking child to one that blossomed like the English roses each summer. Her pale beauty shone out to all who bothered to look at the quiet, elegant woman.
She still had to attend functions with her mother and occasionally with both parents. But she didn’t cower in fear and confusion, terrified of breaking some rule with her horrible behavior. Eating in the kitchen changed her life, for the better.
Ten Years Later….
“Julianna, you’ll be dining with us tonight,” her mother announced as she made her way down the grand staircase in a black, silk dress.
Julianna had just returned home from boarding school. Receiving perfect scores once again this year, of course. Her father would not accept anything less than perfection from his offspring. Julianna’s heart sank because she had been eagerly looking forward to catching up with the household staff after her return home.
“Of course, mother,” she said politely as she carried her bags up the staircase to her room. “It’s good to be home.”
Her mother turned and looked up at Julianna, a confused look on her face. Understanding dawned on her. “Ah, yes. Of course, welcome home dear.” With those words of welcome, her mother continued down the stairs to greet the guests who were arriving for dinner. “I’ve selected appropriate gowns for the evening. Go change and hurry downstairs, Julianna. You’re expected.”
Julianna entered her room and set her suitcase down just inside the doorway. Russel, the chauffer, would be bringing her other luggage and trunk up later so she had a few moments to enjoy the peace of being back in her home.
Funny, but her room seemed to greet her more than her mother had. The gracious furniture was exactly as it had been before she’d left with the Queen Anne headboard and dressers placed at perfect angles in the room. Everything had been done by a decorator when she’d been ten at her mother’s direction.
But there were secrets in this room. Things her mother didn’t know about. She ran her fingers along the back side of her bed, feeling the nicks where she’d counted out the days until she went away to boarding school last summer. There were seventy seven of them, she knew. On the inside drawer of her large dresser, there was a calendar hidden on the bottom. She hurried over and slipped it out of her hiding space and looked at the dates there. Yes, only eleven weeks until she was back in school.
She glanced at the bed and selected the dress she would wear for the night. There were two options. A pink one with bows or a blue one with no bows. Julianna hadn’t worn bows since she was eight years old, but her mother didn’t know that. She showered and dried her hair, brushing it into a smooth, sophisticated twist. Adding a touch of makeup, she then pulled on the blue dress. It was still youngish looking, but if she snipped a bit here, and tucked in a seam over here, she might just make this into something more fashionable.
As she stared at her appearance in the mirror, she found that she liked her reflection. Perhaps just a bit too thin still. And she wished she had larger breasts, but hopefully those would still come in time. But she wanted her image to be approved by her parents. Her fingernails even looked good, she thought as she opened the door to descend the stairs.
James’ Story….
“This way!” James called out, running through the field at a breakneck speed while he looked up in the air, his tongue off to one side as he concentrated. With a whoosh, the baseball fell right into his baseball mitt and he held it up high, showing the crowd that he’d caught the ball.
Even from this distance in outfield, literally way out in the field with knee high grass all around him and cicadas doing their chatting, he could hear the applause. The runner was out and he jogged back to the field, grinning from ear to ear.
As soon as he was close enough, his whole team converged on him at once, jostling him every which way as they dog piled the guy who won the game for them.
“Enough!” a stern voice said from above.
James and twelve other boys all froze, looking up at the coach, James’ blond hair caked with dust from the dog pile and sweat and his big, teenager body scuffed in various places from his antics both on and off the field. “Get up, you Neanderthals,” Coach ordered. Then lowered his hand to James and another boy who were at the bottom of the dog pile, both of them covered in red dust. “Good job,” he said and patted both boys on the back. “Go get cleaned up.”
James nudged his friend Bobby. “Race you to the dugout,” he said. A nanosecond later, both boys were racing to the dugout, almost bloodying themselves to get there first, laughing hilariously as they slid into the doorway and almost knocking their heads on the cement block wall.
“You’re both idiots,” Liz scoffed. His youngest sister was standing near the dugout with her brown hair cascading down her back in unbrushed glory. “Mom says you’d better get home quick because it’s your turn to take out the trash.” With that, she turned on her heel and ran away, determined to not be around when her oldest brother was off the ground. That was always bad news.
James glanced up at the summer sky, the heat beating down on him but he didn’t care. At sixteen, life was pretty good.
“Are you taking Diane to the party tonight?” Bobby asked as they both gathered up their equipment and slung it over their shoulders for the walk home.
“Sure am,” James replied with a grin.
“I think you should break up with her. She’s no good for you.”
James scoffed. “Right. You just want a shot at her yourself.”
Bobby laughed. “Of course!”
James punched his friend on the arm as they walked down the street. “I got a job for the summer though. Want to help me? The foreman over on Jersey Street needs helpers to clean up the lot.”
“How much does it pay?” he asked, not sure he wanted to commit to something that tedious.
“More than you’d get paid sitting around playing video games,” James teased, again with another punch which earned him a punch right back.
“Okay. But if it interferes with my attempts to break up you and Diane, the deal is off.”
“Right,” James came right back.
The following day, James and Bobby reported to the work site. James was bigger than Bobby, in fact, he was almost bigger than most of the other workers, so he had the harder jobs like loading up the big wheel barrows and dumping the heavy construction materials in the dump truck. But that also meant that he got paid a little bit more so he didn’t mind too much. One afternoon in late summer, James was playing gopher with the foreman and the architect as they visited the work site that was about to break ground. James stood off to the side, a long piece of grass in his mouth as he chewed on the end.
The other two men were looking at the drawings and James, curious, wandered over to look at what was happening. The site was a complicated map of the buildings and where they’d go, how they would fit in with the current streets and city sewer lines. His eyes took it all in at once. He’d never seen anything like it before, but to his sixteen year old mind with a knack for math and geometry, he easily pictured the rows of houses and townhouses that were scheduled to be built.
“Why did you do it like that?” he asked, pointing to the drawing’s bottom corner.
Jordan Miller, the architect scowled at the teenager. “Just stand off to the side, son. We have to figure this out.”
The foreman, Derrick Hicks, took a bit more interest in James, having worked with the kid over the past several weeks. “The project might not happen James. The profit margins aren’t wide enough. At least not in this market.”
James didn’t move away as instructed. He stared down at the drawings, his mind angling things differently than what was currently planned. With half an ear, he listened to the conversation and absorbed it all. “Why don’t you just build another set of townhomes over here,” he suggested, interrupting their conversation.
He ignored their scowls and turned the drawings around. Grabbing the slide rule out of the architect’s hands and the pencil off of the foreman’s right ear, he moved the ruler around on the drawings. “Here, you change these from single family homes here,” he said, pointing to the left bottom corner where a field was placed. “Then shift those single family homes so they are over here. Drop a foot of space between these homes,” he looked up at the other two men with a let’s-be-real look, “will they really miss that extra foot?” then pointed to where he was looking, “And put three more homes here. That would push the profits over to…” he used the numbers the two men had been discussing to re-calculate the cost and profit margins, “Twenty percent and you’ll have the needed margins for the project instead of the three percent that this drawing will generate.”
The architect looked down at the numbers and the lighter drawings the boy had made. At first, he was going to snap at the foreman to get this kid out of the way. But as he examined the suggestion, twisting the plans to the right and left, then did the calculations in his own although doing them on paper and with a calculator, he realized that the kid was right.
“How did you do this?” Jordan asked, staring at him with awe and disbelief.
James grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “It just makes sense,” he replied, then pushed his hands into his pockets and went back to leaning against a tree with a fresh piece of grass in his mouth.
That evening, James walked into the house and raced upstairs to shower before his mother found, or rather smelled him. “James, hurry up and come help set the table,” her mother called out.
He groaned, wondering how she had heard that he was even in the house. He’d been quiet! At least he’d thought he’d been pretty stealthy. James hurried into the shower, tying knots in his sister’s bra just because several were laying across the top of the shower stall and he knew it would infuriate her. He then jumped into the shower and lathered himself quickly before jumping out again.
The banging on his door told him that the gig was up. “James! If you’ve done anything to my clothes in there, you’re gonna get it!” Gracie, his middle sister called out in warning.
He grabbed a towel and dried himself while scooping up his own clothes at the same time. Opening the door, he barreled through the doorway and down the hall to his bedroom, slamming the door only moments before he heard her screech his name, followed almost immediately with, “Mom, would you look at what he did to my bras?”
As the oldest of five, James was also the only one that had his own room. But that didn’t mean it was ever empty. Thomas let the car magazine drop so he could watch James pull on his boxers and jeans. “What did you do to Gracie?” he asked, unperturbed by the noises coming from the floor below them. In their house, someone was almost always yelling or in trouble. Thomas was just glad it wasn’t him this time.
James laughed as he pulled a clean tee-shirt over his head. “The temptation was too great,” he said as he grabbed a pair of socks. “I tied four of her bras in knots. They were there, the idea occurred to me, I had to act.”
Thomas snorted and lifted his magazine, his mind already absorbed in the intricacies of cars, his latest passion.
“Boys!” his mother called out from the bottom of the stairs.
Both James and Tom froze, staring at each other as they waited for the next part of her bellow. “Come downstairs to help set the table.”
With a grin of relief, James ran his fingers through his hair, then pushed his brother off his bed. Since it was a tiny room, Tom fell onto the floor and almost hit his head. James didn’t wait around, but rushed through the door and down the stairs, Tom right on his heels.
Their mother was at the doorway so both of them had to screech to a stop. “You!” she said, pointing to James, “are in charge of plates and glasses.” Turning to Tom, “You have condiments. Get to work.”
The two brothers immediately set about doing as she ordered, but as they passed by each other while doing their assignments, they took precious moments to punch one another or smack the back of his opponent’s head. Life in the Cavanaugh house was always a contact sport and if you couldn’t handle it, just step to the side and stay out of the way.
Within five minutes, the table was set. A moment later, Mr. Cavanaugh stepped into the house, putting his briefcase down by the door. He kissed his wife on the cheek, then both of them sat down. All five children knew that the moment their parents sat down was their cue to take their own seats. Anyone not sitting down during the dinner prayers would not be allowed to eat. With three huge teenage boys and two preteen girls, food was as essential as breathing.
The only calm moment of the day at the Cavanaugh house was during the prayers as their father’s deep, resonant voice thanked God for the food present and asked for the continued health of his wife and children as well as continued hope for peace in the world. A fraction of a second after seven voices said, “Amen,” hands were flying across the table.
The wooden spoon had to be brought out tonight as his mother smacked hands that were reaching inappropriately. “Calm down Mike,” she said to the youngest boy who was in between Gracie and Liz. “You’ll get fed. There’s no need for any kind of grabbing.”
As the meal progressed, teasing was doled out to anyone who deserved, or even didn’t deserve it. Activities throughout the day were discussed, politics argued over and challenges issued about almost any subject. After the initial feeding frenzy, things calmed down and an all around conversation could be had. That didn’t mean that the meal was quieter, just that it wasn’t as crazy.
Cleanup was just as dangerous as the setting of the table with lots of ducking going on. The boys taunted the girls, the girls teased the boys and the boys smacked each other around when a particularly good zinger was tossed out.
The phone rang about eight o’clock that evening and everyone looked up from their books or computer as their father picked up the phone. “Hello?” he asked with an authoritative voice.
James swallowed hard when his father’s eyes moved in his direction, his eyebrows narrowing as he listened. “I see,” his father said, nodding his head. James had the knotted up bras on his lap and a pair of tweezers as he worked out all the knots he’d tied in Gracie’s underwear before his shower.
James grimaced and thought back to any trouble he might have caused recently. Nothing particular came to mind, but who said his infraction had to be recent?
“Yes, he’ll be there. Tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Thank you.”
As his father put down the phone, James raised his eyebrows. “That was an architect named Jordan Miller. He wants your help tomorrow in his office to work out the final details on the new site map he’s creating.” He let that statement hang in the air as seven pairs of eyes stared back at him. “Do you have something to explain?”
James laughed and shook his head, relieved that he wasn’t in trouble. “They were having problems today on the new site trying to figure out how to make it profitable. They were going to give up, so I just helped them out a little.” He looked at his mom who had a worried expression on her face. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” He heard the snort but wasn’t sure who did it. “At least not this time,” he amended with a grin and a smack on the back of Tom’s head, just for general purposes and because he was sitting next to him on the couch.
His father nodded sagely. “I see. So you single handedly increased the profit margins of a multi-billion dollar project from three percent to nineteen point eight percent profit and you didn’t think to mention this during dinner?”
James shrugged and leaned forward, pressing the knot of bras into the cushions of the sofa. “It wasn’t that hard, Dad.”
His father just continued to nod, watching his oldest son carefully. “Okay, well, you’re going to work in an office tomorrow, son. So make sure to wear your Sunday clothes at least. I’ll drop you off at seven thirty.”
And that was the end of that conversation. His mother stepped around two long legs on her way to the kitchen to get more tea. Along the way, she pulled the knot of bras out from underneath the cushion and dumped them back in her son’s lap for additional unknotting. “Good work son,” she said and bent to kiss the top of his head affectionately.
Ten Years Later….
James walked through the parking lot, heat beating down on him from both above with the sun and below as the asphalt radiated the Colorado heat back up at him. He squinted his eyes as he took in the angle of the sun, then wrote down several numbers on the note pad. After walking the site several more times, he had everything he needed.
Heading back to the office in his truck, he turned the air conditioner up to full blast, enjoying the heat now that he wasn’t in it any longer.
“Good morning, Mr. Cavanaugh,” his efficient secretary said as soon as he walked into the temporary headquarters. “Here are your messages, sir,” she said and pushed the glasses higher onto her nose. “You have a meeting with the mayor in five minutes and your foreman showed up a half hour ago saying that there were more problems.
James didn’t bother rolling his eyes, but a part of him thought about firing the idiot foreman. Every time he came to this office his foreman was coming up with a new problem instead of making suggestions to overcome the obstacles. “Send in Joe now,” he said, referring to the foreman. “Tell the mayor I’ll be right with him and call these people back and tell them that I have all the funding I need.”
“But you haven’t looked at the messages,” she said with surprise. She took them back automatically but raced after him in her sensible shoes to argue that he should probably at least talk to some of them.
“I don’t need to. I know what happens at this stage of any project. Tell them thanks but no thanks.” He turned to face her, gave her a charming wink and almost chuckled as her sixty year old cheeks pinkened, then turned around as he turned into the conference room where his foreman was standing, nervously pacing the room.
“What’s the problem now, Joe?”
Joe shook his head. “I know you have a reputation for fixing the impossible, but even you can’t get around this issue.” Joe bent over the conference room table and started talking, showing James the documents and the plans, then looked up at him with deep anxiety.
Ten minutes later, Joe walked out of the conference room chuckling and shaking his head. Once again, astounded by the way the younger man had resolved this latest issue. That was probably why he was just the foreman and James Cavanaugh was one of the richest men in real estate.
Joe almost bumped into a man as he hurried out of the office, then realized who it was and just about bowed. “Sorry, Mr. Mayor. I’m trying to…never mind,” he stammered and hurried out, eager to apply the workaround James had come up with.
James watched the man hurriedly leaving the office and shook his head. Looking around, several of the female employees glanced quickly away and James sighed. He had to get out of the office, he thought. Too many distractions and not enough challenges. He walked by his manager’s office. “Jeff, I’m going on location to find the next project with the mayor. Call me if anything comes up.”
Jeff smiled as his boss walked out. There wasn’t ever a dull moment with this man. Jeff was sixty years old this year and he’d been working for the young James Cavanaugh for the past four and hadn’t regretted his decision for a moment. The hours were long but it was always exciting working for someone with that kind of vision and intellect.
