A Life On College Hill

by Lawrence F. Dooling

  It was unusually cold when we arrived on Christmas Eve. Meghan’s mom was making hot chocolate for us while we sat in the den. I heard the tea kettle whistle and got up for our drinks.

  I held the ring box in the palm of my hand as I carried the mugs on a tray. Going down to one knee, I placed the tray on the coffee table in front of Meghan. My hand came out from under the tray, and I held out the box for her to see.

  It was a good thing I was already on one knee. The smile that appeared on her face would have driven me there, had I been standing. She reached for the box but nervously dropped it back into my hands.

  “If you don’t want it, I can take it back,” I said.

  She smacked me on the shoulder and said, “Don’t you dare, Randy Duffy!”

  “Meghan, will you marry me?” I asked.

  She nodded her head five times before she was able to say yes. I put the ring on her finger, and she started to cry. Why do people have to cry when they’re happy? I still can’t watch someone cry without choking on my own tears.

  I sat next to her on the sofa and put my arm around her. Still crying, she held out her arm to admire the ring on her finger. Despite my best efforts, I cried along with her. A camera flashed and a champagne cork popped almost simultaneously. The moment was immortalized in an eight-by-ten framed photo that still sits on the coffee table.

  Top of the Seventh Inning

  Five years had passed since Meghan and I were married. We lived in her apartment for the first year together while we saved money and shopped for a house. I would have liked a place like her parents’ house. An acre or two outside town, with a view, would have been my ideal property, but Meghan made it perfectly clear she was done with scarecrows. We found a comfortable house, in town, with a good size yard. There’s a lot of wisdom in the old saying “Happy wife, happy life.”

  Meghan wore her white nurse’s uniform to work every day, while I still had my white cook’s uniform. Our neighbors referred to us as the couple in white. We had a son, and we named him Robert, after my dad. Meghan switched to working part time, so she could have more time with the baby.

  We had another mouth to feed and a reduced income. It was only natural to worry about our finances. My job had settled into a monotonous routine, but I didn’t regret my career choice. The money was still better than I would have been making as an auditor in Nebraska. All the same, it would have been nice if my work was a little more challenging.

  On one early summer Monday morning, several breakfast customers began talking about Goldman’s closing. There was a large sign in the window announcing a going out of business sale. It must have gone up after I had come to work at five. At the first opportunity, I ran over to talk to Mrs. Goldman.

  I approached her at the cash register. “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she said, “I’m just ready to retire.”

  “But this is Goldman’s! Central Valley needs this store,” I protested.

  “That’s nice of you to say, Randy. It won’t be long before that shopping mall is finished out by the Interstate. They’ll be plenty of stores to replace us.”

  “Are you sure you’ve thought this out, Mrs. Goldman?”

  “Fifty years in this business is enough,” she said. “I’m looking forward to moving somewhere warm. I’ve had my fill of snow.”

  The building would soon be on the market. She offered Chet the first opportunity to buy it before listing it with a realtor. She had talked to him over the weekend and was waiting for a reply. I raced back over to the Grill and phoned Chet at home.

  “I had a feeling you’d be calling me today,” he said.

  “Chet, we need to talk about this opportunity,” I insisted.

  He agreed to meet me after work and discuss the Goldman property. Ideas were swirling through my head all day long. The Goldman building was the premier property on Main Street. Besides all the square footage of floor space, there were four apartments on the second floor.

  Chet arrived as I was closing up for the day.

  “Let’s walk down to Donny’s and have a beer,” I said.

  “Why do you want to walk all the way down there?” he asked. “Will’s is only two doors down.”

  “Humor me, Chet, it’ll all make sense when we get there. If you’re too tired to walk back, I’ll call you a cab.”

  He agreed to go, and we talked about Mrs. Goldman as we walked. The town would certainly miss her and her store. It took us twenty minutes to walk to Donny’s, and Hank greeted us as we took our seats at the bar.

  “Hey, Randy, where’s that gorgeous wife of yours?”

  “Sorry, Hank, she’s home with the baby.”

  “I remember when you used to babysit her!” he replied.

  Chet gave me a puzzled look.

  “It’s a long story,” I told him.

  Hank was eager to tell the story of my first visit to Donny’s. He repeated, verbatim, every word I spoke that night. We must have made quite an impression on Hank because he remembered things I had forgotten. I drank half my beer, while Hank rambled on, trying to figure out what I was going to say to Chet. Listening to Hank talk about Meghan was my inspiration. When Hank finished and the laughter subsided, I began my pitch to convince Chet to buy the Goldman building.

  “Chet, a few years back you gave me some really solid advice on how to deal with a certain young lady. That young lady is now my wife and the mother of my son. I’m returning the favor. Don’t be a fool, Chet, go talk to her!”

  “Assuming I would buy the place, what am I going to do with it?” he asked.

  “Chet, on our walk here how many places to eat did you see on Main Street?”

  There was a pause while he tried to remember what we’d passed on the walk.

  Realizing he didn’t know, I gave him the answer. “There’s a deli and a pizza parlor. The only other restaurant is the Valley House, and it’s so expensive I don’t know how it stays in business. There isn’t a single, family style restaurant or diner in the whole town.”

  I let that thought sink in for a minute before continuing.

  “Most days, at breakfast and lunch, we’re so crowded people have to wait in line. We’ve known for a while we need more space.”

  Chet looked confused. “What do you want me to do? Are you saying I should close the Grill and open up in the Goldman building?”

  “No, Chet, I want you to keep the Grill, convert the Goldman building into a new restaurant, and knock a hole in the wall between the two. That would give customers a choice between a quick meal at the Grill or a more formal meal in the new room.”

  Chet seemed to be mulling over the concept, but I knew I’d have to make a stronger argument to convince him.

  “Did you ever notice that the locals are always in for breakfast before the college kids?” I asked. Chet didn’t like the term townies.

  “It’s not just because they get up earlier than college kids. They don’t like to mix with them. We’d do a lot more business if the locals had their own place, apart from the students.”

  “Are we going to put up a sign that says no college kids allowed?” Chet asked.

  “It’s not that we have to segregate them, just give an option to spread out. Most college kids would opt for the quick meal at the grill. Besides, a bigger kitchen would let us fix the problems with our dinner menu.”

  Obviously perturbed, he asked, “What’s wrong with our menu?”

  “We do a great business at breakfast and lunch but could do much better at dinner. Our menu is just too limited. College kids live on burgers and steak sandwiches, but we need more variety. The locals, and parents who come to visit, want pot roast, chicken, or meat loaf.”

  Hank suddenly perked up and chimed in, “I love meatloaf! Will you serve it with mashed potatoes and gravy?”

  Chet l
ooked over at Hank to see if he was joking or serious. The drool on Hank’s chin gave him away. I could tell from Chet’s expression he didn’t like my criticism of the dinner menu. The problem, as I saw it, was that the lunch and dinner menus were the same.

  Chet was obviously hesitant to take the financial leap required to purchase the Goldman building. He quickly came up with reasons not to buy the property.

  “Randy, the Goldman building has twice as much space as you would need for a restaurant.”

  “That’s the best part of the deal! You can subdivide the building and rent out the half you don’t need. There are four apartments upstairs to boot. That’s guaranteed cash flow in a college town. The rental income alone would probably pay your mortgage.”

  “Being a landlord sounds risky. I’ve never done anything but run a restaurant.”

  “Chet, being a landlord means the difference between a week in Florida and spending the winter in your beachfront condo.”

  Now I had his attention. Years ago, Dolores had to threaten him to take her to Florida. Once he got a taste of the Gulf of Mexico in the winter, he couldn’t wait to get on the airplane.

  “Chet, I asked you to walk down here for a reason. How many empty storefronts did you see along the way?”

  “I didn’t pay that much attention.”

  “The answer is zero. I’ve been living in Central Valley for nine years. There hasn’t been a vacancy on Main Street in all that time. The few stores to close have been replaced within days. A property like Goldman’s would be at an absolute premium. It’s the biggest building on the best block of Main Street. It’s going to be snapped up quickly once it hits the market.”

  “Who do you think would want to rent the other half?” he asked.

  “The important thing is that you would decide who rents the other half. If someone else buys the property, they might open their own restaurant. Would you want that?”

  “Randy, I’ve thought about expanding. I even talked to the bank about borrowing money to do it. I’m a cook, not a businessman. They talk about balance sheets, amortization and depreciation schedules, leasing or purchasing equipment. I don’t understand any of that stuff. I can’t even balance my checkbook.”

  “Chet, I understand that stuff. That’s what I studied in college.”

  “If I do decide to buy this building, you have to put some money up. I don’t care if it’s only one percent. We need a partnership agreement, so you don’t get me into this and then run off to Omaha.”

  “Chet, I’m glad you said that because I was going to insist on it,” I replied.

  He declined my offer to get him a cab. Strolling back up Main Street, Chet took note of each and every storefront. I split off to walk home when it hit me that I really should have talked to Meghan about this first.

  Meghan was doing a load of wash when I arrived home, and Robbie was asleep in his crib.

  “So, how did your meeting with Chet go? What did you two have to talk about?” she asked.

  “Goldman’s is closing, and Mrs. Goldman offered to sell the building to Chet.”

  “What’s wrong with Mrs. Goldman?”

  “Nothing’s wrong, she’s just ready to retire. She wants to go somewhere warm to get away from the snow.”

  “I can’t blame her for that,” Meghan replied. “What does Chet want to do with the building?”

  “He doesn’t want to do anything with it. I want to turn half of it into a restaurant and rent out the other half.”

  “What does he think about that idea?”

  “He’s a little nervous. We’re going to talk about it in the morning. To tell you the truth, I’m a little nervous about it now that I’ve gotten all this started,” I admitted. “If he buys it, he wants me to put some money into the deal. He wants to make sure we don’t run off to Omaha.”

  “You’ll be partners?”

  “Yeah, I actually told him I wanted a partnership agreement. I’ll probably have to do all the paperwork. I want to own something when it’s done. Although being an owner could be a financial risk. If things don’t work out, we might lose everything.”

  Meghan was unfazed. “Randy, you should talk to my dad. He’s always buying and selling properties. I told you a long time ago, he loves business more than sports.”

  Robbie woke up and started crying. I hadn’t seen him all day, so I volunteered to go look after him. He often woke up when I came home from work. I liked to think he missed his dad. I held him and walked back and forth in the hallway to get him back to sleep. Meghan came up the steps with the phone in her hand.

  “My dad wants to talk to you,” she whispered.

  “I didn’t even hear the phone ring,” I said.

  “It didn’t ring. I called him.”

  I felt embarrassed to talk to her dad about the deal, not least because there wasn’t much to talk about yet. Chet didn’t even tell me how much Mrs. Goldman wanted for the building. Meghan smirked as she handed me the phone. From the look on her face, I knew she was busting to tell me something.

  “Nick, how are you?” Meghan’s dad and I had become best buds.

  “Randy, it sounds like you have an interesting business opportunity. If I can be of any assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  His enthusiasm was encouraging.

  “You’re going to need a good attorney to help you with the details. If you like, I can recommend someone. As soon as you get some numbers together, I’d be happy to go over them. In fact, if you need financial backing, I’d be happy to discuss that with you, as well.”

  We agreed to get together as soon as I had more information from Chet and Mrs. Goldman. Meghan and I talked about the pros and cons of getting involved in this big of a transaction. She said she trusted my judgment on business matters. Whatever I decided would be fine with her. Through the entire conversation she kept smirking and smiling. I knew her well enough to know she had something to tell me.

  She did, and she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I don’t know if it will sway you one way or the other, but you should know I’m pregnant.”

  Being a dad is an amazing experience. Meghan’s news was cause for celebration. It did, however, complicate the decision-making process regarding the Goldman building. I believed the new venture would ultimately succeed. However, the stress I was already feeling intensified exponentially.

  Ultimately, it intensified my resolve to go through with the project. I wanted to be able to provide for my growing family. The income that the new restaurant would generate was the incentive I needed to see it through. If I had known what it was going to take to complete the project, I’m not sure I would have ever started.

  Chet and I agreed to bring Meghan’s dad into the deal. His expertise and financial backing would go a long way toward insuring success. Neither Chet nor I was too proud to accept the help we knew we needed. After agreeing on a purchase price with Mrs. Goldman, the real work began.

  Between the three of us, we formed two partnerships. Chet, Nick, and I owned the real estate through Valley Main Street Partners. Chet and I owned the restaurant through Chet’s Enterprises. The restaurant would rent space from Valley Main Street.

  We needed a construction loan and a mortgage. My days were spent preparing a mountain of proposals and documents for the bank. There were endless meetings with architects, engineers, contractors, and lawyers. My nights were spent working my usual shift at the Grill. It was like a finals week that lasted an entire year.

  I often arrived home from work feeling worn out and miserable. Meghan had a way of keeping me on an even keel. She would tell me, “If it was easy, they wouldn’t call it work.”

  Dealing with city hall was a nightmare. It’s a little-known fact that all permits and approvals required to renovate a building come from the Department of You Can’t Do That. Nick knew what he was talking about w
hen he said we’d need a good attorney. Without Nick Mallory and his lawyer, the project might have collapsed.

  A little over a year after Chet and I first met at Donny’s, we were ready for our grand opening. Our timing was perfect; we opened a week before the start of the fall semester, just in time for families, by the hundreds, to bring their kids back to school. The mayor and the city council turned out for the ribbon cutting. I had to bite my tongue as they made speech after speech extolling the virtues of the new restaurant: The same people had thrown up so many roadblocks that at times I’d been ready to soap up the building’s windows and leave it vacant.

  Chet and I had to write personal checks to each and every one of their reelection campaigns. I wouldn’t have minded if that was the end of it. They all had a favorite charity that needed a contribution. We sponsored all their children’s sports teams and clubs. I just smiled and wrote check after check, except when they discreetly requested cash.

  A large crowd gathered for the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony. Mrs. Goldman even came back to town to take part. The local radio station did a live remote broadcast, and we had plenty of coverage from the town newspaper. Chet, Nick, and I posed for pictures with the mayor and councilmen.

  It was surreal looking out at all the people who seemed excited about our new venture. Meghan stood in the front of the crowd, smiling proudly, with Robbie and our new addition.

  Meghan’s pregnancy had added another layer of stress to my life. It was a great relief when she delivered our second son. We didn’t let on to anyone the name we had chosen. I walked Meghan’s dad to the nursery and pointed out the crib with Nicholas Duffy written on the name plate. Nick had been such a huge help during the project that I felt I owed him something special in return. Since he never had a son to take his name, I figured he might appreciate the gesture. The tough, high-powered business executive, and former linebacker broke down and cried at the sight of his namesake. Yeah, I cried along with him.