Beverly Hills and the Paper Shredder
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
The choirs, all three, and the jazz band, had been wonderful as usual. “Soon I Will Be Done” was sung again, a spectacular spiritual that Collette and OLeif and Diana, and so many of the others had sung so long ago, it seemed. And by the time the choir sang their last piece, Mrs. South was crying. She did her best as she called up the seniors. But when she called Carrie-Bri, she could only make it half-way through the name of the university in which she was enrolled, before she broke down. She recovered after a short pause, and Carrie hugged her goodbye. There were sixteen seniors on stage by the end of it. They would have tied with last year’s count, if Peter had been there as well. Then the applause shook the rafters, it would seem, when Mrs. South had the Madrigal Dinner student directors step forward. But to see them all up there for their last time, reminded Collette once again, of how fast the years were going. So many of the old faces were there, and she wondered how many more times she would see them again. But there was always the call for the alumni to return and sing the final song – “The Lord Bless You and Keep You” – a yearly tradition, every spring. Collette felt a little too young to be considered an alumni of the choir.
Earlier, before the concert had begun, Dad had leaned over and said:
“Now, I know that this is just Collette’s favorite part of the concert.”
“Right,” Collette laughed.
Collette was proud of Dad. He was such an upstanding honest man, who worked hard, skillfully and wisely. Everyone seemed to want to hire him. As she IM’d OLeif later:
“Get this… Dad was just offered a job in Beverly Hills. +$200,000.”
“So is he going to take it?”
“No – he’d have to move everyone out there. Not like Carrie would mind. 😉 See, everyone wants him. I think NASA should hire him and then he could work at home on the cool stuff. He’d like that. He’d even have time for his lounge band. ;)”
“Heh heh; that’s really cool. Tell him we’ll take it if he doesn’t want it.”
There were a good many things to talk over at home about the evening before. Apparently Carrie had dragged Joe and Rose off with her to Taco Bell with Stacie, Unn, Clover, and Bodil.
“It was so boring,” Joe yawned. “Everyone else went to Steak ‘n Shake.”
“Yeah,” Rose agreed, “all our friends.”
“Yeah right. Your mom.” Carrie whipped back. “You both were dying of laughter the whole time.”
Then they planned a big Star Wars bash with volleyball, a hot dog roast, and an evening trip to the movies. The list ended up being near to thirty, although likely not everyone would be able to make it. Then after another half hour of talking things over with Carrie-Bri in her room that afternoon, they got down to the bottom of more matters, as usual. And then Carrie scurried to get ready for work, and dropped off Collette at the apartment.
Collette called Grandma Combs to thank her for the gift. For Grandma, who was always prepared to give gifts months in advance, had already given them their first anniversary present. And as paper was for the first anniversary, nothing was more appropriate than a paper shredder. It was fun to run all of OLeif’s old checks through the machine and watch the pile of paper snow collect in the bin below – a novelty. Grandma also had news of several old books she wished to add to Rose’s and her collection – one being, A Tale of Two Cities.