LITMIR.BIZ

      This was turning out to be a busy day.

      Diane Sexton wasn’t due in Parkers until two o’clock, well after I would finish lunch with the Calico Cat, Effie Humbolt. By lunch I mean a piece of Dominos pizza, catered by Effie from the pizza shop located in the far end of our building. To call our offices a professional building may have been a stretch. We had an insurance agent, who was independent, meaning he represented a lot of companies when he was sober. Fortunately, there are a lot of insurance companies out there so you can go through quite a few in a lifetime of overindulgence. We also have a second hand clothing store, which does quite well because we have so many available customers. And we have a real estate firm that deals almost exclusively in local property. Its owner is Pippy Plotkin, who is called “Pigskin” because it is alliterative and because Pippy paints his car in maroon and gold colors with Washington Redskin logos on the doors and an Indian in full headdress on the hood. Pippy makes a lot of money churning beach houses and fishing cottages, then he spends it all attending out of town football games. I’ve only met him once, but Effie says he’s a pip.

      Effie is about forty-five and married to a local appeals court Judge. The courthouse is in Annapolis so I seldom see him, which is fine because then I can dream that Effie loves me. She is a peach, knows everyone who ever lived in Parkers, and comes from one of those “crossover” families who were poor about three generations ago, but through farming and a good Maryland law school, found themselves at the top of the heap with a new house on Jenkins Creek and respectability as well. Everyone tells me she is the most valuable friend I can make in Parkers and I hope it’s true. She’s dark complexioned, with defined legs and thin ankles, and shoulders that imply either weightlifting or good ground strokes. In any case, I like talking with her, and immediately accepted the offer of a pizza lunch as soon as Burl was out the door.

      “Now listen, Mr. Ned,” she said, “we have to get you a bigger office, with a secretary, and a waiting room. You can’t have clients just walk in on your meetings.”

      “Sure I can. First of all, I have this handy dandy answering system that takes all phone calls and records messages. Second, I don’t schedule overlapping meetings. And third, I can’t afford a secretary, and probably don’t need one if I’m going to be on the water all morning.”

      Effie sat in the client chair in front of me, pushed her can of Coke across the desk, and crossed her legs. There was condensation on the can and it left a streak of water across the top. I snatched the can before it could leave any more tracks, and she wiped the water with a Kleenex.

      “Are you settled in, Ned?” she asked. “How’s this gonna work? Will you have a schedule?”

      “Don’t know Effie. Depends on the crabs.”

      “Well, I expect we’ll get a lot of people looking for you who end up in the Calico Cat,” she said. “And that’s all right. Maybe I can sell them a little yarn while they wait.”

      “I hope so, Effie. You have been so kind,” I offered. “And this pizza is pretty good too. Not the Willard, but pretty good.”

      “Are you a Willard fan?” she asked.

      “It’s my secret love. If you ever need me on a Saturday night, call the Willard.”

      “Why you little scoundrel,” she mocked. “You’ve got two lives here and a third one in Washington. I hope you’re not dangerous.”

      “No Miss Effie. Now you’ve got to go because I have another client coming.”

      “Two in one day,” she commented. “Let the good times roll. Bye Ned.” Then she flashed those great legs and left, never looking back.

      I always wanted my own office. For a blue collar kid with white collar ambitions, it’s like driving a Saab. It’s a symbol of freedom and success that doesn’t really cost much, but you don’t need it or even want it until you’ve reached that station in life where material luxury dreams are possible. It all comes in stages. I remember in Parkers Elementary School, about the fifth grade I would guess, there were no white collar jobs in our career day. There was a policeman, but we all knew him, or at least his car. And most of us feared him or hated him for arresting our fathers and brothers. To think of him as a role model was preposterous.

      There was a fireman. Old Jim was the only name we knew. He sat in front of the station all day in a metal folding chair, leaned back against the building, and slept during those times he wasn’t washing the trucks. His ambition was well hidden and it was never clear to me that I should follow in his footsteps. I understood that he put out fires, and possibly saved lives, and his trucks were fascinating to climb on, but still there was something missing. We also had a waterman who brought oysters to career day and showed us how to crack them open and eat them, although many of my classmates had trouble with the sight of fresh oysters sliding out of the shell like egg yokes. My dad caught these things for a living, so I had oysters more often than hamburgers.

      We never had a professional man at career day, not even “Pigskin” Pippy Plotkin. We had carpenters and plumbers and clam diggers and one very exciting fellow who dove for oysters. He strapped air tanks on his back and ran an air hose out the window of the school to his rusted pickup truck parked on the grass. His brother, who was only a year or two ahead of me, ran the air pump in the truck and we all got to breathe some of the air from the compressor tank. It was neat. But I did have concerns about the younger brother. Once I had seen him smoking behind school and giving some guy the finger. Not exactly a lifesaving character in my mind.

      All of these people worked with their hands, in highly commendable occupations, but they didn’t teach me anything about being a professional worker, or how money worked, or about the world of people who spent everyday in tall buildings. What were those people doing? I saw them on television. I saw their new cars and some of the houses being built on Jenkins Creek that implied wealth, but my school didn’t offer a clue. It wasn’t until high school that I began to sense a larger universe of occupations.

      I suspected that Diane Sexton came to this issue from the opposite direction. She grew up in Long Island, New York, someplace I had never visited, and went to college at Vanderbilt in Nashville. Her folks thought a little southern gentility might hone the sharp edges of her life in New

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