When The Butterflies Come

by Rosemary Ness Bitner

  Barbara let the clip drop into David’s open palm.

  ……………………..

  David was correct to feel fear when he looked into Barbara’s eyes. She was not the simple clerical staff girl she portrayed herself to be on her employment application, nor was she merely Mrs. Rodriguez’s dutiful assistant. She was the office mystery, the silent ever-present wisp of graceful femininity that everyone depended upon. She made herself important by simply taking upon herself tasks that others were too busy or too lazy to complete. By volunteering to help everyone, Barbara came to know everyone’s job functions. She had free reign of everyone’s desk and files as a good helpmate should. She was smart and always kept her mouth shut. Now, for the first time, David felt uncomfortable. As his fear receded into reason, he sensed that Barbara likely knew more about the way the office ran than he would have liked. He made a mental note that he needed to respect and be cautious around this newly discovered adversary. Her knowledge of the firm’s workings was formidable! The realization suddenly struck him like a bolt of lightning.

  Susan even went to Barbara for assistance with the firm’s regulatory filings and changes. Susan depended on her to research regulatory changes, interpret the nuances the changes portended for the firm, and ascertain what course of action the firm should take to comply or avoid the newest rules. Her abilities in this area were uncanny. Susan recognized that she had an intelligent brilliance her other administrative assistants did not possess. There was an unspoken knowledge amongst the office staff that Susan relied on Barbara.

  There was good reason for Susan’s increased reliance. Barbara was a competent learning machine. She kept to herself and worked tirelessly; she never said anything about her personal life, and no one knew who she really was. Barbara told everyone she was Cherokee Indian, which was only half true. Her skin tone was light olive with just a trace of darkening from her minority Somalid gene. Her eyelids were not thick with ancestral millennia of squinting from snow glare. Her almond-shaped eyes had an alluring, life-lifting attraction about them. A glimpse of deep sensuality and mystery escaped through her irises and pupils.

  She had the high cheekbones and slight jaw protrusion of her father, but her beautiful, full mouth held flawless Arab teeth, not her father’s gapped shovels. They set a perfect bite and sparkled brilliantly. Her dazzling smile made men wonder about their chances, so she modestly concealed it from most men who came through the office. She made an exception for Bob. He was her intended. Her whole face brightened in his presence as if she were experiencing life for the first time. Her eyes smiled and her lips parted to reveal her pearly whites. She had a regular breastbone, not an inverted one like her father’s. Her toes were in the same proportions as Caucasian or Negro toes were, without the elongated second one many Cherokee bore. She scrupulously avoided changing clothes in the presence of other women in the office on the off chance that someone would recognize she had notable non-Native features.

  She revealed to no one in the Jewish firm that her mother was Lebanese. Her mother was born of a Christian woman who married a Muslim Arab. In Beirut, there is a mixing of cultures unlike any other place on Earth. To many outsiders, this mixing blender seems incomprehensible, but to the Lebanese, to mix is normal. Most Lebanese avoid taking sides with competing factions and simply try to live and love. Barbara’s mother was raised in the Christian traditions and faith, even though her father and grandfather were Muslim. Barbara’s paternal grandfather explained his daughter’s upbringing as a Christian in a Muslim household by saying he was a deeply loving man who would never impose his own religion upon his wife. He wanted her to know she was always adored, loved, free, and never subjugated. After all, they lived in Lebanon during times when society was open and free. Oppression of another’s free will was frowned upon. Barbara, her mother, and her grandmother all possessed a mysterious sensual attraction. They were man magnets.

  Barbara knew her feminine physical qualities but hid them. She was committed to a higher purpose than man hunting. She had as equally strong a drive for knowledge as Marty felt for the companionship of a male’s penis. Barbara lived in a small one-bedroom apartment close to Main Street so she could walk to work, as she thought commuting wasted time.

  Her daily routine was to wake early and work out for an hour in the apartment’s gym. Father told her often the importance of keeping the body lithe, swift, and strong like the spirits of their paternal ancestors who came to Earth from far away in the heavens and walked from the far north to the Great Plains and points further south.

  At work, Barbara immersed herself in learning all she could about the investment business. She read all of Susan’s books about securities laws and regulations, the Harold Blumenthal series about the Securities Acts of 1933 and the Distribution Act of 1934, and his treatise on the Investment Company Act of 1940. When she went home at night, she read some more. She read books such as The House of Morgan, The House of Rothschild, The Creature from Jekyll Island, Taleb’s Black Swan books, academic textbooks on economics, statistics, accounting, money and banking, financial institutions, finance, investments, and speculative markets and the use of derivatives. Barbara drove herself endlessly, her motivations coming from within.

  She worked with the determination of a loving heart. As Chief’s protégé, she was determined to use her father’s wealth to help their people. All of them had great potential, but few cared about them enough to show them what they could accomplish in the world outside the reservation. Besides her father and a few elders, they received little guidance. Outsiders were reluctant, even fearful, to get involved with them. As a result of generations of societal segregation, they knew little of the outside world, and even less about the white man’s money ways. Most in her generation hesitated to even begin learning about this strange world and there were few elders who knew anything about it, thus encouragement was lacking. There were unspoken barriers that implied they shouldn’t bother trying. What white man or woman would feel comfortable having an Indian managing their money? The stereotypes would surly arise. ”He’ll take our money and get drunk with it!” was only one prejudicial thought she expected. ”Stupid Indians,” and “I’m not investing with a woman. They’re too emotional” were others. She was the first of her father’s tribe to attempt to master the investment business, determined to break down every barrier to entry.

  To shatter stereotypes Barbara needed to learn, conceal her true intent, and bide her time. Years passed and she learned the white man’s ways, lifting herself to the level of knowledge and competence needed to compete with the white man on his own playing field and earn a share of business. Barbara was so driven to help her people that she allowed herself only one small luxury and one brief indulgence from her quest.

  Every Sunday, she made herself one cup of coffee; other than that, she drank only milk or water. After she made her coffee, she allowed herself the pleasure of watching one sporting event on her television. Other than this one afternoon, Barbara never watched television except for evening financial news. Her father told her that television made the mind idle and diminished the mind’s great powers. Whenever she was tempted to relax, she was returned to her focus by her vision. She would hear her father’s words that her people were meant to be the Great Spirit’s most happy and innocent people, that the Great Spirit could never fail them, that he loved them and would always show them the way. Father often told her to keep her heart open to the messages from the Spirit, and she did.

  Barbara followed the way of the Great Spirit and cherished her father’s words of wisdom and love. She visualized little Native girls running across the prairie, innocents dancing with the winds over the grasses, and she imagined a little Indian boy sitting on a river bank watching his father putting out seine nets to catch the great king salmon fishes. Who would help these innocents succeed in the white man’s world if not her? Who could bring back the buffalo for them? Could there still be innocence for them? Could the two worlds mesh and find
harmony? She was driven to do her part, her very best for them. She would buy up lands and return the buffalo and all the other animals. I will provide monies for them to become educated so they may thrive in the white man’s world. They will break the shackles of emptiness and alcohol and handouts. I will be their voice, their helping hand, and their servant for good. I will make the whites want to understand us. She was driven by a devoted daughter’s love for her parents and her people. That love was so deep it dwarfed all her other feelings and drove her relentlessly onward, except now she had this feeling for something she needed to fulfill herself. She needed a man in her life. Not just any man, but one particular man.

  When Barbara watched her television, she always picked a sports program. She watched football, basketball, baseball, hockey, track meets, soccer matches, and she watched all of these sports, one event every Sunday, with a particular set of eyes. She watched only men’s events to see how men behaved when they were winning and when they were losing. She wasn’t into the strategy of the games as much as she was into the behaviors and emotions the men felt when they competed. She knew she didn’t have much testosterone, but she needed to know how a man with testosterone behaved when he was winning and when he was losing.

  Through sports she began to understand men. Men were, with all their pretenses and bravado stripped away, like little boys, obedient and fearful and loving of their mommies. They were like boys who needed to prove their worth to their mommies. They needed mommies’ comforts when they were getting shellacked on the playing field. They knew how to cry and hurt and they knew how to throw tantrums, and they had their ‘oh shit’ moments as well as their jubilations, much like a Native boy has when he catches his first fish. She’d done her book learning and saw how an investment firm should run; now she had a sense of how to work on the same playing field as a man. She was ready to honor her father’s dream for her, to multiply his sizeable wealth and use it to help the people. She just needed to wait for the right moment.

  ……………………………

  David was warned and cowered by Barbara, but nevertheless he felt victorious for successfully fondling the upright Native girl. He left the reception area and returned to his office.

  Bob turned from the commotion that happened between Barbara and David and went back to looking at a matrix of vacation schedules by times and personnel. But his mind was not focused upon the schedules, having been jolted from its equilibrium. He had difficulty retuning his thought to centerline, to its tasks at hand.

  Bob’s conscience had a quick talk with itself. Did I just hear what I think I just heard? David just lightheartedly admitted he was terrible at paperwork and forgetful about it. Yes, I heard that. Did he proclaim this to an audience for a reason and follow it with a deliberate distraction? Was that innocent or purposeful? Barbara didn’t think it was funny by the look she’s giving him. David had pissed her off. Bob had never seen that side of Barbara before. She had made David back down, maybe even scared him.

  Bob’s mind did a backflip. Did David just give you notice in front of an audience that there’s no written proof of your deal anywhere? Then it follows that he’s forgotten about your deal. How are you going to prove you have a deal if something happens to him? Isn’t it about time to commit the deal to writing? If he died tomorrow, you’d be standing there with your dick in your hand with no company of your own after you busted your ass to build the firm. It’s time to jog his memory and put the words on paper.

  Later that day, over drinks at David’s club, Bob offered him the opportunity to make a written record memorializing their deal.

  “We have a deal, you and I, whereby I’ve changed my career to build the fund and whereby you’d leave me the shares of the advisor and the underwriter upon your death. You remember that deal, don’t you?”

  David frowned. His eyebrows lifted and his head moved backward upon its neck post in a trace of indignation as he answered. “Why yes, of course. I’m a man of my word. I keep my promises.”

  “It’s more than just a promise. It’s a deal we made with each other, don’t you recall?”

  “Yes, of course I do. We have a deal between us.”

  “That’s good. Then you wouldn’t mind putting our deal in writing. I’d like to see you put the deal in writing.” Bob leveled a focused gaze upon David.

  David’s head went back farther, his eyebrows raised to accommodate his wide-opened eyes as his mouth gaped open and his jaw dropped. It was a marvelous performance of incredulity.

  “You don’t trust me!” he blurted out childishly, as if mortally wounded by this audacious attack upon his integrity. His expression turned to profound hurt and dismay. The deal dance had resumed.

  “No, David! It’s quite the contrary. As before, when we split money based upon our handshake, I have for the past year been out selling and raising money, based again upon our handshake. So obviously, I trust you. I don’t need to prove to you that I trust you. It’s just that if something were to happen to you, if you were to die, I’d like to know that it’s something you’ve already taken care of. And I’d feel a lot better if you’d prove to me that you’ve taken care of it.”

  Both men knew this request was perfectly reasonable. Bob leveled a penetrating gaze upon David that did not waver. David mustered his best nonchalant look, complementing it with a smile and an exhaled laugh as he replied. “Of course, I’ll get back to you.”

  And David did. About two weeks later, he popped into Bob’s office with a grin that could swallow a Cheshire cat. In dramatic fashion, he held his index finger first to his lips, then wiggled the finger to motion to Bob that he wanted the younger man to come with him. He whispered, “Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”

  The two partners left the building together, crossed Main, and entered the Tower Bank building. Inside, they descended a flight of marble stairs into the basement vault lobby. David signed them in and instructed a custodian to retrieve two giant-sized safe deposit boxes. They were ushered into a private room and the safe boxes were wheeled inside on a gurney. It was an impressive setting, none better if one intended to perpetrate a fraud. There at the head of a long oak table, David had Bob seated in one of the orange leather chairs.

  After the custodian left, David looked around the room as if to be sure they were alone and no one was watching. Bob glanced about the room also, but more quickly. His eyes were watching David’s. Where had he seen that wary look before? There was a cautious, apprehensive fear about that look, but from where was he remembering it?

  Of course! David’s look was the same apprehensive fear he’d seen in the eyes of the deer in the forest he’d followed as a child. They looked about in that very same way when they drank the sweet water from the moss-banked spring pool upon Milltown’s Cedar Mountain. The deer needed to be sure they were safe. Apparently, David also needed to be sure he was safe, but from what? There were no predators in this bank vault, and David obviously was not a deer. Why the caution?

  As David opened one of the boxes, Bob’s curiosity about the other man’s penchant for secrecy subsided. David was just eccentric, secretive by nature, so there was no point in raising an issue about his melodramatic behavior. After all, the man’s life history was likely in those boxes, so who could expect him to be anything but cautious?

  David fumbled around in one of the boxes for a time. “I’m trying to find something to show you. I’ve got all kinds of stuff in here, and I have a hard time keeping track of where I put things. I’ve got stock certificates, property deeds, gold coins, silver bars, two quart jars full of diamonds from some stuff Dad got involved in during the war, the big war.”

  The impression David gave that he possessed a largess so huge he couldn’t keep track of it had the desired effect upon Bob. Of course David couldn’t remember to do his paperwork or keep things straight! He was so wealthy he didn’t seem able to recall all he had, or so Bob thought.

  “Let’s see,” David continued. “Oh yes.
Here it is!”

  The cautious eyes had given way to bright confident gleams of triumph as David pulled an envelope from the pile of papers in the first box. He opened it and retrieved a watermarked sheet of paper, which he handed to Bob.

  The paper contained a codicil to David’s last will and testament. It provided that, as long as Bob continued to serve as an officer or director of either the advisory company or the underwriting company, upon David’s death he would inherit all the common shares of both companies free of any estate or inheritance taxes. David had signed and dated the codicil and had his signature witnessed by four lawyers from UGGA’s law firm, along with Susan.

  The fact that David had previously pledged on Marvin’s death bed that, as a condition of David inheriting Marvin’s controlling shares of the advisory company, David would leave both companies upon his death to the State of Israel was never mentioned to Bob. The codicil did not address the prior bequest to Israel, and David concealed it from Bob by his silence.

  Bob reflected upon all that passed between him and David. David did all that he asked. Bob felt at the same time overwhelmed and sheepish for pushing the older man to prove to him that their agreement was committed in writing.

  “Thank you, David, for taking care of this. I appreciate it,” was all Bob could say.

  After showing Bob the codicil, David returned it to its envelope, put the envelope back in the bucket-sized safe deposit box from whence it came, and summoned the custodian to return the two boxes to their places in the vault wall. As they left the bank, David told Bob to return to the office alone as David had some business to take care of with an old friend who had an office a few blocks further up Main Street. “You run along and I’ll be back later,” he said as he gave Bob a few fatherly pats on the back.