The Contract Ch. 03

This is my third installment on my first submission. I hope you enjoy.

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Eddy, the owner of the glass supply store, was beaming as I handed over my credit card. In all, I felt pretty good about dropping only six grand to get me started. I had two weeks before I was going to take off for two week long classes in the upper northwest. I figured that if my average fusing schedule was less than 12 hours, and I took only four hours to clean up and set up the kilns for the next batch, I would get 20 firings from each of my three kilns before I left. Each piece usually needed three or four firings, and figuring in for breakage, I figured that I may get 40 pieces out of this effort.

I knew that I have to talk to Tonya tonight, and that put a damper on my enthusiasm, but just a little. I felt that Tonya had left the marriage when she started the affair with Ben, and I now knew that it had started before the band trip to Orlando. That meant that her affair with Ben had been going on for at least seven months. Mary had also had something going on with Ben less than a year ago, so I felt fairly sure of the duration of Tonya's infidelity was between seven months and one year.

I didn't care much anymore. We had drifted apart, and were leading separate lives. I had been immersed in my job as a contract negotiator, and she was an English teacher and drill team coach. We were living in the same house, but living separate lives. I don't know how this happened, but I believe that both of us were to blame. We married when we were only 22, right out of college. We had no real work experience, and both of us would change as we left academia and entered the real world.

I have been told that the optimal age to marry is around 28, which may be true. I have also been told that it takes about 10,000 hours of experience to become a master craftsman. If one works 2,000 hours each year, it takes 5 years to apprenticeship to become a master. If I graduated from college at 22, and did 5 year apprenticeship to become a master contract negotiator, this would place me at 27, stable in my job, and ready to take a wife. I am 30 years old, so that point would have been three years ago. I tried to think about how I felt about Tonya three years ago; would I have started to court an English teacher and drill team instructor? I wasn't sure.

I flipped the question and mulled it over. Would Tonya want to marry a contract negotiator? Oh, no! My answer was emphatically no! Tonya had to teach these girls to smile and be perky all the time; they are putting on a show. Tonya may have been a modern dancer, with multiple nuances of emotion, but she had stifled them into a model of what she wanted her girls to be like. The Tonya that was now would not want a careful plodding contract negotiator. She may have wanted a graphic designer brimming with new ideas, but not a contract negotiator.

I can't cry out "Do Over!" and go back eight years. It's just not possible. What I did need to do is figure out where to go from here. There were no children at this point, and for all I knew, Tonya was now sterile from Chlamydia, and could not even fulfill my desire to bear children at this point. I might have felt bad about dumping Tonya and moving on, but she had already moved on and found a lover. It was time for me to do the same.

One other thing that was bothering me was that I did not seem to be possessive about Tonya. Other men might have beaten the crap out of their wife's lover, but I only laughed at the thought at how easy he would have gone down. This may have been my eighteen years of martial arts training coming out, and my instinct was that I was the superior fighter, and the superior fighter does not engage such a novice. Hell, I had seen this guy get nosebleeds trying to run to the top of the stands to check the marching band's formation on the field. The other part of the equation would be what Tonya would have thought about me beating Ben to a pulp. I would be the bully, and Ben would be the victim. Even though Ben had in a sense "violated my property", I think such a mismatch would result in Ben getting more sympathy than I would get feelings of security. And yes; a woman feels safe and secure when a man defends her.

I went back in my mind to the incident in the parking lot with the idiot harassing Sherri. Why did Sherri have disgust written all over her face? It was simple; she was not my girlfriend, or my property. If anything, Sherri belonged to Mary. I felt I was right in my feelings at the time; I was standing in as proxy for Mary. Sherri had known that my marriage was on the rocks, but she was not interested in me as a husband, just as a sperm donor. The gap between a potential sperm donor and a potential life partner was too huge a gap for her to see me as a protector. She would have feelings for Mary standing up for her, but not me. The incident in the parking lot was more like a male war zone, with Sherri as the prize. Entering a war zone does not make a woman feel safe, it just the opposite. Besides, Sherri was fed up with men objectifying her, and her being the prize of a fight is possibly the worst form of objectification there is.

Sherri wanted a person to look beyond her enticing flesh and bones, and fall in love with the pure soul within. With the amount of ogling that I did when I was near Sherri, I had no clue what she saw in me. Even Mary knew that my brain was helpless as were many other men, when Sherri sauntered by me. Maybe the martial arts training of control had paid off here, too. Other than being in good physical shape, and having a college degree, I was still absolutely clueless why Sherri had selected me.

I pulled into the driveway to an empty house. This was Thursday, the last day of midterms, and I expected that Tanya would be at school grading papers tonight. Since the midterm grades needed to be posted by tomorrow, many teachers elected to work late into the evening at school. It was a tradition to send out for pizza, and many teachers would end up in the cafeteria in a group grading session. I opened the detached garage, which I had made into a studio, and started unloading glass. Once I was done, I went into the house and retrieved my video camera, ordered five pizzas to go, and headed in my car towards the pizza parlor.

My plan was simple, meet with Tonya in a public place, and control her bitchiness by being around her peers. Mary had asked me to delay confronting Tonya until after the football game tomorrow night. Tonya had always had two faces with me, a public face of a perky drill team instructor, and the private face of the critical English teacher. I knew that my acting might not get by the private face, but the public face could not ask so many prying questions. I decided that I would choose the battleground for this confrontation, and we were going to have the "talk" on my terms. I was simply delaying the inevitable, which is what Mary asked me to do.

I also had second thoughts about how I was going to watch Tonya and Ben interact tomorrow night, and that's where the video camera came in. I had thought about the idea of watching Tonya and Ben while at the game, and I decided that if I acted differently, that they would also act differently. What I needed to do was act as normal as possible, and video tape the three of us. Ben usually sat on the bottom bench seat sectioned off for the marching band. The drill team and Tonya sat in on the benches below the marching band. If I placed a video camera to film the drill team doing their syncopated routines in the stands, while the football team played, I could also catch the first row of the marching band, and Ben. I could then re-watch the interactions between them.

I picked up the pizzas and took them to the school. Tonya was in the cafeteria with the other teachers, just as I had expected. When I held up the pizzas, I was given a round of applause. I went over and dropped them off with the other pizzas. I took two pieces and went over and sat next to Tonya. I offered her a piece, and kept a piece for myself. Tonya was not the venomous snake like she was this morning, but very polite. She was putting on appearances for the other teachers, and didn't want to look like a nagging wife.

My plan was working! I figured that bringing a stack of pizzas to her grading session would act as a peace offering, and soften her even more. I was using this time to delay our talk, and give her an out.

We did exchange pleasantries, and I told her that I had purchased some new glass. I didn't go into the amount, and she would assume that I had just purchased just a few sheets. I asked her how the drill team was doing, and when was the competition schedule. She knew that I had already made plans to be in Oregon and British Columbia during the competition, but I reminded her of that. When she started to get testy about me not "being there" for her, I just reminded her that she had not "been there" for me last night. Once again, Tonya was not about to go into mega-bitch mode in front of the other teachers, so the tit for tat stayed very cordial.

I asked her how much she still had to do, and Tonya estimated that she would be home before midnight. I told her that I would be in the garage, working at setting up the kilns for a firing, and that I might be later than that. With that, I gave her a kiss on the forehead and left the cafeteria. It had not resolved anything, but we had spoken, and that was enough for tonight. Mission complete!

I noticed that Ben Everson, the band director, was not in the cafeteria, but I had expected that. Ben was the band director, and didn't have a pile of midterms to grade. I wandered the halls and towards the band hall, and pulled out my video camera. I also thought of placing it in Mary's office in the band hall. The band hall had several practice rooms, and one of them had been converted into the drill team instructor's office. It was only seven feet wide by seven feet long, with an airtight door and a huge window. There was no privacy, but it was fairly quiet inside, even when the band was playing in the hall. I turned it the camera on and walked towards the band hall.

There were several students milling around. Tomorrow was a teacher in-service day to post the midterm results, so students wouldn't have classes. Most were decorating the halls for next week's homecoming. I had thought that Tonya and Ben might have a tryst tonight, but with the number of students milling around, it would have been reckless for them to do so. Oh well! So much for my grand idea of catching them in the act and videotaping them!

The students tapered off when I got closer to the band hall, and I did see one student, a girl exit the hall. I went in and looked around. Ben was there, and I waved at him with my free hand. "I brought some pizzas, they're in the cafeteria."

Ben waved back at me, stopped the video that he was watching, and took off his headphones. "Excuse me?"

"I brought some pizzas, they're in the cafeteria."

"Oh, OK," and with that he put on his headphones and pressed the play button. I passed by him and looked to see what video he was watching. It was the marching band routine, probably from the previous week. I put the video camera down on Tonya's desk, facing Ben. I noticed that he was watching me as I went into Tonya's drill team office and found a pad of paper. I wanted to see if Tonya did come down here tonight. She might tell me if she got the message.

Paul's Five Year Goals (Please tell me yours):

(1)Start making Glass Art, and selling it for profit. (2)Start a family. (3)Have a stay at home wife (at least until the youngest enters first grade)

It was a simple list, and I did believe that it was going to come true. I didn't believe that Tonya was going to be the mother of my children anymore, but I felt that if I did find Ms. Right, that she would be willing to stay at home with the children. I milled around the room a little more, and moved the video camera a few times, noting the position each time. The only thing wrong was a sound check. I would have loved it if Ben had been watching the video without the headphones. I also wondered about what sounds I would hear, if somebody closed the airtight door. This was probably a lame test anyway. I picked up the video camera, waved goodbye to Ben, and left the band hall.

I left the school and frowned into the video recorder. The video was a bust, and I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping to have some time in the band hall without Ben's prying eyes, but that didn't happen. I then went next door to the stadium, and poked around with the video recorder. I wanted to figure out where to place the recorder so that I could video Ben and Tonya in the stands. I was going to sit near them too, so I wanted a location that would capture all three of us in the stands. I wanted to see if they were also watching me. I found a place, and figured out how I was going to set it up the camera.

With that done, I had only one more thing on my "to do" list for the day. It was a long shot, but I called Mary's lawyer from my cell phone. Mary Brook's lawyer was Carol Bernstein. I told Carol who I was, and that she had represented Mary in a divorce. Carol told me that Mary had already called her, and that she was expecting my call. She also told me that she was famished, and that she would consider taking my case right now, if I would take her out to dinner.

This was turning out to be one of the most pivotal days in my life. I'm not sure how much karma I had banked, but it seemed that every step of today had laid out for me. I didn't want to argue with fate, "So Carol, what would you like to eat?"

We arrived at the Italian restaurant at 8 PM, and had a one hour dinner. Carol took the case on a hundred dollar retainer, and I told her that I would bring by financial information in the morning. I think I made a favorable impression on Carol. She was not too interested in the scorch and burn option that I had, but she understood my feelings.

I went home, showered, and dressed in comfortable cotton clothes, and went into my studio/garage. While I showered I thought about the events of the day. In less than twelve hours I: Found out that my wife was cheating (Bad!) Had gotten the biggest check I had ever seen (Good!) Was offered a three-way with Sherri and Mary (Indescribable!) Found out that I had an STD (Bad!) Quit my job (was not sure, but I think good) Gotten into a fight and won (again, I'm not sure) Spent kilo bucks on Glass (Good!) Had a positive confrontation with my wife (Good!) Hired a lawyer to sort this mess out for me (Good!)

I mulled over the points that were good and bad, and there were a lot more good points than bad ones. The one thing that I felt best about was that I was now being proactive, instead of reactive. I was still a bit pissed off at Mary and Sherri about being set up. I was also extremely pissed off at Mary for not telling Ben that he had a STD, but it was now the proof of Tonya's infidelity. Tonya had risked her fertility on an affair was the final nail in the coffin of our marriage. I was in the process of being cured, and my sperm sample showed that I was still fertile, so I was ready to walk away without seeking revenge.

I would have several hours of work ahead of me in the garage. Each sheet of glass had to be cleaned, marked on both sides, photographed (on both sides again), and an inch and a half sample strip had to be cut from it. I would then take each strip and make three inch and a half squares. One of the squares was marked and filed away, and the other two were stacked on top of each other and placed on the kiln shelf for test firing. The rest of the strip was marked and set aside for later. Each sample in the kiln was marked in a notebook, so that I could file it with the unfired piece. Many pieces of glass will "Strike", which means that they have a chemical reaction and change colors when fused. So the first thing you do is make sure you figure out what you just purchased before you try to use it.

I decided to use french vanilla as my base solid color, so I cut two ten inch by ten inch pieces of that color and placed it in the kiln. I then took half inch pieces from each test strip and placed them carefully on the two separate squares of glass. Each of these pieces would melt and fuse into my base color, and I could see if any of these pieces of glass "Reacted" with my base color. Why glass artists call these things different names is beyond me, but one color change is called "Striking" and the other is called "Reacting". Both actions could be good or bad, but you needed to know in advance what to expect. I had loaded up my big kiln, and set the schedule for a two layer full fuse, and turned it on.

I still had the two smaller kilns to set up. I decided to do a pattern bar in the medium size kiln and a pot melt in the little one. From the remaining strips of test glass, I selected colors that I felt went together the best and started building a mold out of extra kiln bricks to contain the glass. I then started stacking the strips of glass into the mold. I made a detailed map in my notebook of each piece of glass, and what it's sample number was, before cleaning the glass, and removing all marks on it. I also photographed each layer that I put down. Some of the strips I split into two ¾ inch strips. I continued to load until the mold was a least nine layers thick. I put this on a very long schedule, with a long de-bubble and slump stage, and an extra long annealing stage.

The smaller kiln I grabbed a flower pot and did a pot melt. The flower pot is filled with different colors and suspended over a flat kiln shelf. The glass will melt together and eventually drip out of the hole in the bottom of the flower pot, and the blended glass will form a sheet glass in the flat kiln shelf. This can make "interesting" results. I decided to "block up" the kiln shelf too, so that I would get an extra thick piece of glass. I put a schedule into the final kiln similar to the medium kiln, except that the fusing stage was extended, instead of the slump stage.

It was after 2 AM when I finished loading the kilns, and came back inside. There was a not on the kitchen table:

Tonya's Five Year Goals

(1) Drill Team 1st place AAAA Division. (2) Start a family. (3) Continue to teach.

P.S. Leftover pizza in the fridge, and I got you some beer. Enjoy! From the layout of the note, I figured that either she had gone into the band hall, or, that Ben had found the note, and brought it to her. I didn't know which, but I guessed that Ben and Tonya had spoken to each other after I left. Each of us had stated a personal goal, and a "family" goal, but the final goals were in complete conflict with each other.

Ooooh.....Beer and Pizza!.....I opened the door of the refrigerator......Score!

I knew I didn't have to get up and go to my job in the morning; in fact I was ready to celebrate the birth of Beckson Glassworks. I pulled out two beers and the first box, and took them back out to the workshop. I pulled out an old Jackie Chan movie and slumped down on our old couch, the one Tonya hated and I didn't want to get rid of, and started watching.

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I was bundled up on the couch when my cell phone rang. I had slept in my clothes on the old couch that night, and I had to look around for a while to get my bearings. I finally answered the telephone.

"Hello?"

"Paul, this is Richard Davidson. Get your butt down here, so that I can fire your ass!"

"What! Richard, don't you remember? I quit yesterday."

"Yeah, but wouldn't you rather be fired?"

"Why would I want to be fired?"

"For your severance package, of course, which includes and additional four weeks of pay, and the ability to draw workman's compensation."