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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781452025926 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 07/06/2010 |
| Pages: | 228 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.69(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Snow on the Golden Horn
By Walt Breede
AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Walt BreedeAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-2591-9
Chapter One
Chestertown, VirginiaAugust
I started the business because I needed the money. It's that simple. My post-Navy vocation as a mathematics teacher at Augustine Washington High School in Virginia is a richly satisfying calling, but I wasn't getting rich. Au contraire. If it were only me, myself, and I, everything would have been fine. But I am blessed with a wonderful wife, who also happens to be the mother of our ten-year-old girl. Maria, the wife and mother, is a full-time, stay-at-home mom-an old-fashioned idea that we both embrace. It seems to be working well. Elizabeth, our daughter, is thriving and delightfully well-adjusted. Trouble is, she just got braces. On top of that, she will be off to college-God help us!-in eight short years. All that, plus the mortgage on our charming but hardly lavish home in Chestertown, Virginia, made my fifty-five thousand per year teacher salary fall on the inadequate side of the fence, even with another eight-K in coaching stipends thrown in. Chestertown is a tiny city on a Virginia river. It is loaded with pre-Colonial, Colonial, and Civil War history and the architecture to prove it. The river is pollution-free, more or less, and "the city" is a great place to live.
The total of sixty-three thousand bucks that I dutifully reported to the IRS was for ten-month teaching and cross country and track coaching contracts. Not too shabby. But it simply wasn't getting the job done. After all, as a math teacher, it was easy for me to crunch the numbers. We could have food on the table, pay the mortgage, and be okay from month to month, but Elizabeth's college fund wasn't growing quickly enough; nor was her mom and dad's retirement fund.
Like many teachers strapped for cash, I'd tried a few summer jobs. Worked at a running camp. Taught summer school. Long hours, low pay.
So, I started my own business this past summer. I ordered business cards on the Internet. Alan Llewellyn-Mathematics Consultant, they said, along with my address, phone number, and email. I was venturing into waters that were, for me, uncharted. For sixteen years after high school, the Navy alternately educated me or employed me. Starting with four years at Annapolis, then shipboard and foreign assignments, I'd had an exciting career. Learned a couple of foreign languages, got a master's degree in applied mathematics. But the crappy politics of a tour at the Pentagon soured me so much that I decided to hang up my blues and try my hand as a teacher and a coach-a secret goal of long standing but a whole new world for me. I also figured I could be a better husband and father if I stayed home. That was five years ago. When I had the business cards printed up last year, I was thinking about summer tutoring. Algebra and geometry remediation. SAT preparation. That sort of stuff. I did some of that, and it certainly was a helluva lot easier than working eighty hours a week at the running camp. After a single hour of tutoring, I collected fifty bucks, and the kid went home. But I learned quickly that there wasn't a heck of a lot of business during the summer-a couple of overachievers wanting to get a jump on the SAT, a struggling summer schooler, and that was it. Once school started, business would no doubt explode. But my free time, on the other hand, would plummet to near zero. When a full-time teacher coaches a school sport, there is no free time. So one day this summer, I took a peek at the Federal Business Opportunities web site.
There was an "opportunity" listed for conducting and writing up a probability analysis of climate and weather conditions for a number of possible U.S. military deployment areas around the world. The fee was fifty thousand bucks. Fifty thousand! I reached for the phone, dialed the number, and left a message.
The next day, a guy named Sam Whelan from a defense contractor, whose name you'd recognize, called back and asked if I would be interested in providing a half man-year effort as a subcontractor for the weather study. Trouble was, I was heading back to school and coaching in a few weeks. I explained my situation to the guy and asked him to keep me in his Rolodex for next summer when I'd have more time.
A couple of weeks later, Sam called back. He said that the company and the customer had scaled back the scope of the weather study to a quarter of a man-year effort.
"Is there any way you could handle this-like working some here and there?" He sounded desperate. Desperate is good when it's the other guy. "Maybe we could get together to kick it around a little and see if it's doable?" he asked.
I ended up by visiting his office in a cubicle warren in Stafford, just south of the Marine Corps Base at Quantico. Sam had a real office-not a cubicle-but it was still pretty austere. No windows and only one potted plant.
Sam was on the tall side, six feet or maybe six-one, and had broad shoulders and a trim waist. He sported facial hair-a neatly-trimmed moustache. But he had very little in the way of head hair. There was some-brown and sprinkled with gray-over the ears and on the back of the neck. But Sam's pate was hairless and so shiny it appeared to be waxed. His slightly beady brown eyes and a longish nose gave him an owlish look. He had a friendly grin and a firm handshake, and I liked him immediately.
After we sat down with coffee, Sam asked me if I thought I could complete the study by the end of December by working part-time when I got the chance plus some full time-from home- over the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. If I could, they would be prepared to pay me twenty-five-K. 'Nuff said. I signed a short contract and went to work.
Chapter Two
White Plains, New York
September
"That's not what I usually think of when I think of the Bronx," the man in the art gallery said.
He was forty-ish, looked athletic, and was expensively clad in a dark gray suit, dazzling white shirt, and a red paisley tie.
He was standing in front of a painting entitled, Bronx River. It was a snowy landscape with black, naked hardwoods standing at attention along both sides of a sinuous, dark stream.
"Oh, it's not the Bronx," said the artist. "It's Westchester County. Not far from right here. Valhalla or White Plains. The river flows to the Bronx, but this place is probably fifteen or twenty miles north of the Bronx."
The artist was Andrea Whelan, a fact attested to by the tiny block letters in the lower right-hand corner of the painting. She was tall and slender like many people in their twenties. Her caramel-colored hair was cut very short which set off her dangling turquoise earrings. She was dressed for a hot September night in New York in a sleeveless, yellow-and-blue summer dress and white, wedge-heeled sandals. She wore stylish rimless eyeglasses. Looking at her snowy painting made her feel cooler. I hope it has the same effect on this guy, she thought. That way, maybe he'll buy it. I can certainly use the money.
"Well, I want to buy it," the man said. His voice had lots of timbre and a hint of an accent, which the artist couldn't identify.
"I'm glad," Andrea said. "Let me get a salesperson. Please don't run away."
"Don't worry," said the man, taking a billfold from the inside chest pocket of his suit jacket.
A half-hour later, the artist left the air-conditioned coolness of the gallery. The sun was low, but it was still hot outside. The cicadas were buzzing at maximum pitch and volume. Soon it would be dark and they would become silent until morning. The heat was oppressive, but she felt good about selling the painting. Her apartment was a six-block walk from the gallery. She walked slowly because of the heat. Okay, Andrea thought. Even though it's September, it's still summer for a few more days. I'm ready for fall. About half way home, she stepped into a neighborhood pizzeria named Sicilia and waited for a waitress to show her to a table.
The restaurant wasn't crowded. A couple of guys were sitting at the bar against the back wall, two medium-aged women sat at a table in the middle of the room, and a couple with two young kids occupied a booth. Behind the bar were a mirror and a neon Peroni beer sign. The side wall was a mural of the Sicilian countryside with a smoking Mount Etna looming in the background. The light was comfortably low. Bouquets of yeast, garlic, and olive oil hung in the air. Mandolins plinked out Italian songs over speakers. To say that Andrea was a neighborhood regular would be an understatement. Joanne, the waitress backed out of the kitchen carrying a tray of steaming plates of pasta. She winked and smiled at Andrea.
"Be right with you, Andrea," she said and served the pasta to the family with the kids.
She parked the tray on a stack and walked up to Andrea.
"Are you two together?" she asked.
Andrea was surprised. She hadn't realized that someone was standing right behind her.
"Um, no," she said and glanced over her shoulder. A strikingly beautiful woman about her age was closing a cell phone and shaking her head "no."
"Okay. Just sit anywhere. It's all me this evening. I'll be by with menus and take your drink orders in a jiff."
Andrea sat down in a booth.
"I'll just have a glass of Pinot Grigio and a slice of pepperoni pizza, Joanne," she said. "When you have time."
"Okay, kiddo," the waitress said. "The usual. Be right back."
Andrea was grateful for the chill of the air conditioning. Joanne returned in a few minutes with her glass of wine. Andrea took a sip, savoring the coolness of the wine and looked up as a shadow fell on her table.
"Hi," said the man who had just bought her painting of the Bronx River for eighteen hundred dollars. "May I join you?"
Andrea dabbed at her lips with her napkin.
"Of ... of course," she said, a little flustered.
The man slipped into the other side of the booth and sat down. He had steel-gray, slightly wavy hair, black eyebrows, and very dark eyes. He was nice-looking in a craggy sort of way and had a wide, friendly smile.
"Did you follow me here?" she asked.
"Well, yes and no," the man said, flashing the smile.
Andrea still couldn't identify the ever-so-slight accent.
"I was parked across from the gallery and was putting your wrapped painting into the back of my car when you walked by on the other side of the street. By the time I'd gotten into the car and started it up, you were halfway down the block. I had to stop for the light at the corner, and by the time I caught up with you, you were turning in to this place. So I just parked and here I am."
"Well, um, I don't want to seem ungracious, but your point is ...?" She let the question hang. "I mean, I'm delighted that you bought my painting, but ..."
The man held up his hands in mock surrender.
"No, no," he said quickly. "I don't suppose for a minute that buying your painting bought me any privileges regarding your company. It was just an impulse. Silly of me. I'm sorry," he added and started to get up.
"It's okay," she said. "Sit. Here comes the waitress. Have a glass of wine."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "I really don't want to impose."
"No problem," she said. "You know who I am. How about introducing yourself?"
After she had turned him over to the saleswoman in the gallery, she had busied herself with other potential customers. There had been no opportunity for small talk.
"Fair enough," he said. He pulled out a business card and handed it to her.
He turned to the waitress.
"I'd like a glass of Chianti, please," he said.
He turned back to Andrea and nodded toward the card that he'd just handed her.
"Mehmet Tüfekçiolu. At your service," he said, pronouncing the surname "Tew-FECK-chee-oh-lew." His card explained his accent and piqued her interest. It was printed in Turkish, which he translated. He was the director of an art gallery in Istanbul.
"My grandmother was Turkish," Andrea said, handing him her card. "I never knew her. She died before I was born. I never learned any Turkish."
"It's never too late," he said.
"So why did you buy my painting?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Because I liked it," he said. "In this business, I do a lot of buying and selling. But I got into it because I love a good picture. So, sometimes, I buy a painting for me. That's the case with your Bronx River."
"Thank you. I'm flattered," Andrea said, a bit embarrassed.
The waitress returned with the Turk's wine.
"Would you care to order something to eat?" she asked.
"I'm having a slice of pizza," Andrea interjected.
"That sounds good," Mehmet said. "Do you have white pizza?"
"We do. And it's wonderful. The best," Joanne said with a smile bigger than any she'd ever flashed at Andrea.
This guy charms everybody, Andrea thought.
"Okay, then. I'll have a slice of your wonderful white pizza," the man said.
They chatted about trivia-two strangers talking for the first time-a little bit on art and artists, a little bit about a couple of recent films. Andrea noticed that the man nibbled his pizza almost daintily and sipped his wine the same way. She'd had to ratchet up her self-restraint since she tended to wolf her food and wash it down quickly with drink.
"So how is the art market in Istanbul?" she asked.
"It's small, but well-established. We're looking to expand into Central and East Asia where the market for Western art is exploding."
"So is that what you're doing in New York? Buying paintings to sell in Asia?" she asked.
"Yes. A bit of that. But as I said, I bought your painting for me. I'm not planning on selling it."
Once again, Andrea felt flattered and mildly embarrassed. She saw that he was finished with his pizza. She finished her glass of wine and took out her wallet.
"Well, thanks for joining me and thanks for the conversation," she said. "Time for me to head for home."
"Can I give you a lift?" the Turk asked.
"No thanks," she said. "It's just a short walk from here and I can use the exercise."
"Fair enough," he said. "But let me pay. After all, I interrupted you."
"That's okay," she said. "You already paid-for the painting."
She slipped a twenty and a five under her glass, stood up and smiled. Normally, she would have let him pay. But what the heck. He had just bought her picture for eighteen hundred dollars.
"Thanks again," she said. "Who knows? Perhaps we'll bump into each other again some time. Oh, and check out my web site. It's on my card. Maybe you'll find another painting you like."
She shook hands with the man and turned toward the door. She noticed that the young woman who had come in behind her had already left.
Outside, Andrea turned left rather than right, heading away from her apartment. The locusts were still singing and it was still hot. The guy had followed her once already. He seemed nice enough, pleasant and well-mannered. They'd spent no more than a half hour at the Sicilia, each of them having one slice of pizza and one glass of wine. Their conversation was all lightweight stuff. But her instincts told her to lose him before she headed for home, even though she was tired, her feet hurt, and the heat and humidity were still brutal. When she turned the corner, she glanced back. She thought she saw him walking away in the opposite direction, but she couldn't be sure. The September twilight was fading quickly. There were a couple of flashes of summer lightning to the east. She circled the block and the guy was nowhere in sight. She headed for home.
She retrieved her mail from the mailbox in the apartment lobby and felt the first wave of dizziness in front of her door. She stopped, leaned over, and put her hands on her knees. In a couple of seconds, she felt steadier. She stood up, unlocked her door, and let herself in. She put the mail on the small table just inside the door and fumbled in her purse for the Turk's business card when a second, heavier wave of dizziness swept over her. Something wasn't right-only one glass of wine, she thought. She staggered toward the sofa and half sensed the rattling sound of a key in the lock of her apartment door just before the blackness hit her.
Chapter Three
ChestertownSeptember-January
Fall in Virginia is my favorite season. As Maria says every fall, "I love it when it's time to put on the rugby shirts and jeans and bring in the firewood." But this fall zoomed by in fast forward.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Snow on the Golden Horn by Walt Breede Copyright © 2010 by Walt Breede. Excerpted by permission.
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