The Furniture Store

It was a cold and gray November day and I was standing in a vacant lot in Chicago, the damp wind chilling me to the bone as I took in my surroundings. Small chunks of burnt wood and soot-stained dry wall combined with bits of broken glass to litter the ground while little bits of lightweight trash skipped through the lot, pushed by the incessant wind. It struck me that the scene was an appropriate metaphor for what my life had become, a burnt out empty shell of what it had been, cold and desolate, a monument to loneliness and bitterness and failure. I kicked at a hunk of concrete and continued to perseverate on what, if anything, I could do with what I had left.

---()---

I met Olivia at charity fundraiser a few weeks after my twenty-ninth birthday. At the time, I was essentially second in command of the family retail business, and my Great Uncle Seth, the main shareholder and CEO, ordered me to attend to fly the flag, try and make friends and maybe drum up some business. The event was beyond boring, loaded with overly dramatic, self important people who thought that raising a few thousand dollars to help build a local library put them on a similar plane as Mother Theresa. I was trying to be nice, nodding, smiling absentmindedly, occasionally biting my tongue until it nearly bled and desperately hoping, somehow, for a chance to make an early exit when she quietly slipped into the seat next to me, flashed a thousand watt smile and started talking like we were old friends. Olivia was lithe and graceful, a thin, brown-haired, bronze skinned beauty that oozed confidence and made conversation easy and, suddenly, I didn't mind the fundraiser at all.

I've always been a fairly hard driving, competitive guy in school, at work or playing sports, but had never been particularly comfortable in social situations. I'd been more or less married to my job since business school and that, in combination with my inherent social awkwardness, made it doubly tough to develop any kind of experience with women. My resultant shyness meant I almost never approached a woman for a date unless I'd known her for a long time, but I found Olivia irresistible and, by the end of the evening, I'd asked her out to dinner. We ended up having a great time and, contrary to my fears, we had a number of mutual interests and had plenty to talk about. I quickly became infatuated with her and the feeling appeared to be mutual and by the time I'd taken her home, it was very clear that we'd be seeing a lot of each other.

We dated off and on for a couple of months as the romance built up momentum and it wasn't long before we were seeing each other a couple of times a week and had started spending a fair amount of time on each date necking. Now, I obviously liked her and was more than a little interested in taking her to bed, but I wasn't sure at all how to take the next step forward without risking a painful rejection or even spooking her permanently. One night, though, Olivia made it clear that she thought I was dragging my feet way too much when, in lieu of a good night kiss just outside her front door, she literally took things into her own hands by unzipping my pants and pulling me into the house by the one appendage I was sure to follow.

I was no virgin, but I also didn't have a lot of experience with women, and I'd always thought that lustful passion was a male thing. Olivia disabused me of that notion with great alacrity. She gave me a ride that would make a mechanical bull look tame and by the time we were done, I was completely and utterly wrung out. It was, up to that point in time, the single most enjoyable thing I'd ever done in my life.

From that point forward, intimacy became frequent and easy as our relationship deepened. Within a few months we were living together and a little more than a year after we met, we were married. We moved into a 4 bedroom house in a nice, tree lined neighborhood, did a little landscaping and got ourselves a dog, and life was very, very good.

Nearly everything about being married agreed with me, the end of a loneliness that I'd been reluctant to recognize, the unconditional emotional support, the physical satisfaction of meaningful sex, having someone to love and to be loved. It was everything that I wanted and more.

There were, of course, some issues. I was always stretched a little thin at work, so Olivia was somewhat frustrated with my availability and I guess there were a few other habits that she found a little annoying. Naturally, there were some things that bugged me too. Maybe the biggest issue was that we had to socialize with her family a lot more than I would have liked. Now, don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike her family, they were fine, upstanding people who were generally polite and didn't seem to have any particularly objectionable personality traits, but I just didn't want to spend lots and lots of time with them. Her parents were an outgoing, welcoming couple and they seemed to like me, but they had a tendency to lecture about how we should live our lives, and were putting some pressure on us to have kids. But we were never around long enough for me to get particularly annoyed, so there wasn't too much of an issue there.

Her younger sister Mindy and her husband were a little more problematic for me.

Mindy was a shorter, slightly rounder version of Olivia. She dressed like Olivia and talked like Olivia and when Olivia was around, was never away from her side for more than a few minutes. They were like virtual Siamese twins, whispering conspiratorially, laughing at inside jokes and gossiping about friends and family shamelessly and since she and her husband lived within 15 minutes of us, we spent quite a lot of time together. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, I suppose, and I guess it might have been a bit of jealously, but when she was with Mindy, she wasn't really with me, and that was more than a little frustrating.

Mindy's husband didn't make things better either. He was a tall, blonde, good looking guy named Bruce who was friendly, easy going and, in my view, not particularly bright. He had taken over his family's furniture store in Joliet and that was his favorite- and sometimes only- topic of conversation. He talked about that store like it was Microsoft and he was Bill Gates, bragging on how well run it was and how nobody else in the furniture business knew what they were doing. The issue with that outlook was that the store was struggling and I was pretty sure that anyone with a hint of business knowledge knew that part of the problem was Bruce himself. But, I wanted peace and I wanted Olivia to be happy, which meant not making waves with her family, so I spent more than a few evenings nodding my head numbly as I listened to Bruce drone on.

---()---

We'd been married nearly two years when Olivia first asked me to help out Mindy and Bruce. She'd made a fancy dinner with candles and mood music and dressed in a way that promised a satisfying night in bed, so, like a typical rookie husband, I thought she was just interested in having a great roll in the hay with me. But, as the evening went on, it became clear she had an agenda. She kept talking about how lucky we were to have such a great income and how she felt like we were in a great position to help others. Then, with a look of practiced distress, she went on to confess how worried she was about Mindy and Bruce who were just getting by. It turned out that Bruce owed some money and was having trouble making the payments and, without help, he wouldn't be able to fill out his floor inventory. I could see pretty quickly were this was going, and so I cut to the chase.

"How much do they want Liv?"

She paused and raised her eyebrows in a way that told me I'd short circuited her planned presentation. She chewed her lip, thinking for a minute and then looked shyly into my eyes.

"He needs 50 or 60 thousand. That would make them free and clear."

I nearly choked. Yes we were doing well, but most of my money was tied up in a family trust and that amount would put a very, very large dent in our ready cash. Now I knew I could get money out of the trust if I really needed it, but I didn't look forward to explaining that to Bernie Blackman, our main business attorney who also handled the trust. He'd do what I'd ask, but I knew he'd be all over me for the foreseeable future to get the money back. He wasn't a hard-ass, he just took his job of protecting the money in the trust, as well as the business, very seriously.

Thinking on this, for one of the only times in our marriage, I tried to demur on a serious request by Olivia.

"I don't know, Liv, that's a lot of cash."

She frowned. "Mindy says he's got some great ideas and that they will pay it back right away. They're good for the money, if that's what you're worried about, I'm sure of that."

Well, I wasn't sure about that. In fact, I was pretty confident that I'd be flushing a sizable amount of cash down the toilet if I sent it Bruce's way, but I wanted Olivia to be happy, so I bit the bullet and wrote a check for 60 grand, firmly telling Olivia that it meant we'd have to economize some until the money came back.

Now, I'd heard some advice once that if you loan money to family, you should figure you're never going to see it again. That sets you up emotionally so that relations don't deteriorate if and when they don't pay it back. So, in my mind, this was a gift. A 60 thousand dollar gift to Olivia's sister and her relatively incompetent brother-in-law that I didn't think would actually solve their problem because I knew he wasn't a good enough businessman to turn his store around even with the cash. I wasn't happy, but I wanted to be the good guy to her and her family. I wanted them to like me and I was willing to kiss away 60 grand to make it so.

---()---

Three or four months after I'd loaned Bruce the money, I was home, rummaging through the house for a thumb drive that had some important data on it. I had a bad habit of absentmindedly putting important things in unusual places, so I was pretty much looking through the whole house. After checking all the usual places, I wandered into the guest room and checked around the desk and even looked under the bed. As I stood up, I noticed that it was unusually lumpy, at least by Olivia's household standards, and was definitely in greater disarray than I might have caused with my little search. It seemed clear that someone had slept in it and had hurriedly pulled the sheets and covers up without making it properly. It didn't register as anything particularly important at the time, but later that evening I mentioned it casually to Olivia.

"Hey, was someone sleeping in the guest bed? I went in there earlier and it was pretty rumpled."

Olivia started stuttering out a reply and looked flushed and nervous.

"Uh...uh, well, I, uh, took a nap in there earlier. Sorry...I was doing some cleaning and got so exhausted I just jumped into the bed and didn't have a chance to clean it up any."

At that point in our marriage, I trusted Olivia so much that the idea her explanation was anything other than the God's honest truth never crossed my mind. In fact, I remember thinking how funny it was that she would be nervous or embarrassed about her need to take a nap in the middle of the day.

But the bedspread wasn't the only clue I missed. Over the next year or so, several other, odd little inexplicable things happened that, if I hadn't had my head so far up my ass, would have signaled that Olivia wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue. I took it as Gospel, for example, that her normally low key job as an assistant manager at a small, independent bookstore, suddenly required her to attend a five or six hour uninterruptable meeting that was held every Tuesday. A meeting that was so important that I shouldn't try to contact her at all during that time. I also accepted every single explanation for the little bruises that cropped up on her body, some in relatively intimate places, or the lingerie in the wash that I hadn't remembered her wearing.

And then there was the thing about the orange juice. Olivia had started shopping at some new upscale grocery store, which in and of itself, wasn't a big deal except that she couldn't get a lot of the stuff I liked, including my favorite brand of orange juice. I complained about it and asked her to switch back, but she insisted the new store was better and far more convenient for her since it was right on the way home after her Tuesday meetings. Now, her choice of grocery stores would hardly seem like a particularly powerful indicator that she was cheating, but, it became the piece of information that finally caused me to pause and think, ultimately leading to the epiphany that broke my heart.

---()---

Less than 18 months after the first loan, Olivia started hinting around that Bruce and Mindy might need some more money. Now, he hadn't even paid back a fraction of the original 60 thousand and I was more than a little reluctant to give away additional cash, especially in support of an enterprise that I deemed to be unsustainable. So I blew off Olivia's suggestion, hoping she'd get the hint and stop asking. But she kept it up and suggested that Mindy and Bruce might lose the business if they couldn't upgrade and get more inventory. Still trying to be Mr. Popular, I felt that I couldn't refuse outright, so I eventually agreed to look at Bruce's business plan and tour his store to see what he wanted to do. My hope was that Olivia would let it go if I at least verified that it was a bad investment.

I met Bruce in his store on a Monday morning and with typical unbridled enthusiasm, he took me around and showed me the floor plan, introducing me to the employees, smiling and slapping me on the back like we were greatest of friends anytime we stopped to talk with anyone. He talked about his business plan and with great confidence and earnestness spoke of how he was certain a little more money to improve the stock and a few upgrades would have the store turning a significant profit in no time.

Bruce and I sat down in his office for half an hour and I shared my reservations. As diplomatically as possible, I let him know that I thought the business had some pretty deep problems. I hinted around that, unless he could streamline and cut costs and prices, he was unlikely to really increase customer interest and revenue even with the changes he wanted to make. I even, very gently, suggested that he might want to consider selling the business and take up some other work, but he really bristled at that and reiterated the idea that he felt certain a face-lift would be all that it took to turn the corner.

I didn't have it in me to say 'no' outright to his request for cash, so I explained that I didn't have enough personal money to give him a sizable loan and that it would have to come out of the trust. I told him I'd go back and talk to Bernie and see if he could clear the way for a loan but I couldn't guarantee anything. My plan was to avoid conflict and at least make it seem that I was making a legitimate effort to secure the money for him before breaking the bad news and essentially blame Bernie when we turned him down. Cowardly I know, but I wanted to keep peace in the family and I wasn't in the mood to lose quite that much cash. The truth was, Bernie would pretty much do whatever I asked him to do, but I'd always given an impression to everyone I knew that he was duty bound to keep a tight rein on the trust and I couldn't supersede his decisions. That might seem unfair to make Bernie out to be the bad guy, but, honestly, I think he actually liked the role and he never complained about it to me.

At the end of the conversation Bruce nodded his head and flashed a big, confident smile, giving me the impression that he felt like he'd be getting the loan. He gave me a vigorous hand shake and another big pat on the back, making me feel even guiltier, as I left.

I pulled out of the parking lot and started for the freeway, thinking about my meeting with Bruce and trying to mentally absolve myself of the sins of cowardice and borderline dishonesty that I'd just committed in his store. I was, more or less, driving without paying much attention to my surroundings when I saw something that at first struck me as an odd coincidence but then grew into a vaguely disturbing thought.

It was a grocery store, smaller in size than most of the big chains, painted green with a large sign out front that said 'Salvadore's'. It was so unusual looking that I was sure I'd never seen one before anywhere, but somehow the name rung a bell that I couldn't quite place immediately. I mused on it for a few minutes before it finally hit me. 'Salvadore's was the name of the store that Olivia had started shopping at, the store that didn't carry my favorite orange juice and that was 'so much easier to get to'.

Only this wasn't anywhere near her work or our home or any other place she might reasonably need to be during the week, so it simply didn't make any sense that this store was convenient to whatever she was doing on Tuesdays, unless, of course, whatever she was doing was at the furniture store. Thinking about it, some worrisome possibilities began to present themselves.

I took a 'U' turn and drove past Salvadore's and then back to Bruce's furniture store and sat in his parking lot for a few minutes. I took out my cell phone and verified that this was the only Salvadore's in Chicago and then mused, for 15 or 20 minutes about all the possible reason's she'd be shopping there. I considered the possibility that Olivia's work had another office in this area, that she might be meeting Mindy for lunch, that maybe she was attending a health club or something in the area. But, my mind kept dragging me back to the conclusion I didn't want to face.

Suddenly I wanted more information and I wanted it now and I decided to take the bull by the horns and confront Bruce. I jumped out of my car and walked briskly to the front door of the furniture store, where, I noted the hours painted on the glass indicated the store was open until 8 on weekdays, except Tuesday's when they closed at noon. The cancerous suspicion that had been born minutes before continued to grow.

Slamming the door open, I marched into the store and made a beeline for the first employee that I saw, a rather shiftless middle aged man who was stirring a cup of coffee.

"Excuse me, but...."

"Sorry, I'm on break right now", he interrupted testily.

"Look, I don't want to take up your time, but I need to speak with Bruce McCoy right away. I've been discussing some important financial matters with him and I need some more information."

I looked at him expectantly, but he continued to stir his coffee and even took a sip without even really acknowledging my request. One of the reasons they couldn't move merchandise was becoming obvious and I waited a moment in flabbergasted silence before speaking again, this time with a more insistent tone.

"Uh, seriously, this is kind of important, so can you get him for me?"

He eyed me warily, but eventually a look of recognition came over his face. "You're the guy who was in here earlier with Bruce, right? Hey, yeah, come on in. Bruce is meeting with a supplier right now, but you can wait in the break room for him if you want. I don't think he'll be too long. Maybe a half hour at most."

He led me back to the room at a leisurely pace and left me with a cup of coffee and the remote for the TV. I had a hastily devised plan in place in which I would confront Bruce forcefully and make a few bluffs about having solid evidence that he and Olivia were cheating. I'd threaten that if he didn't come clean right away, the evidence was going right to Mindy and the rest of the family. I figured if Bruce was cheating with her, he'd break right away and if he wasn't I'd just have to live with the embarrassment. Maybe I'd make it out to be a joke or something.