ONE NORMAL LIFE / TWO EXTRAORDINARY LIVES

CHAPTER 103 – MRS. CARPELLO MAKES AN OFFER

August 7, 2008
Thursday
9:00am

Buffy came out to the living room wearing a towel after her morning shower, "William?"

"I'm on the porch," he called.

She wrapped the towel again, as she walked toward the door separating the kitchen to the back porch.

"Who is it?" she mouthed, seeing him on the phone.

"Dawn," he answered.

"Your sis is here, want to say hello?"

"In a while, tell her to go dry off first," Dawn said, laughing, "no, tell her she's all wet!"

"Dawn says you should dry off first while she talks with me, so you don't catch cold," he said diplomatically.

"Chicken!" Dawn said, laughing into the phone.

"Okay, I'll be back in a few," Buffy said, smiling.

She was glad that him and Dawn had been talking on the phone and emailing on a frequent basis, since they'd gotten home. Dawn and Spike had always seemed to have a connection in the past, and it appeared now her and William did as well. And the benefit was that it always seemed to put him in a positive, hopeful mood afterwards.

“I think that’s a great idea William!” Dawn said.

“Really?” William asked. They’d been talking about the flyers he’d picked up at the library from a local college.

“Really. I think it’s great that you want to take some classes.”

“I don’t know about classes, maybe just a class in something. Just don’t know what yet.”

“Well, just look at the schedule of classes and get some idea. You can probably also find it on their website.”

“Oh, that’s right. I keep forgetting that everything on paper is also on the Internet,” he said, shaking his head.

“What’s more, if you don’t actually need it for credit, because you already have a degree and just want to learn a new subject, or catch up with some stuff, you can audit the class.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means you can pay a whole lot less, and you can sit in, do the work and all that, it just doesn’t count for an actual grade.”

“That sounds good…except, well…I rather liked getting grades.”

“Then you’ll have to actually enroll in some sort of degree program, which you can do, also. You can always start working on a second degree or a Master’s degree.”

“Well, I haven’t even decided…”

“Have you talked to Buffy about it yet?”

“Um…no. See, that’s just it, I don’t have my license yet, and with Elizabeth going back to work…if the classes are during the day, I wouldn’t be able to get there.”

“There’s usually night courses, too. Or online courses. You could start with those, then after you get your license, take day courses that start during the winter semester.”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to just be going to college; I need to find a job somewhere, Dawn. Last thing I want is your sister supporting me. I just wanted to…oh the whole thing is stupid!”

“Why? Lot’s of people work and go to school, William.”

“It’s not that.”

“What then?”

He didn’t say anything.

“What?” she repeated.

“Most people turn in all their papers typed up, right? Do ‘em on their computers?”

“Of course, why? You have a computer.”

“I don’t know how to type. I mean, I know where the keys are, but all I do is one key at a time, using two fingers. I could never write papers in a timely manner! It takes me 10 minutes just to write an email!”

“Don’t get yourself excited, you can learn to use a keyboard. Children learn to use it properly before they’re even in middle school anymore. There are classes, software…”

“I guess so. Dawn, Elizabeth is back from drying off, so I’m going to let you talk to her now, okay?”

“Okay, just remember what I said, William. Learning how to keyboard isn’t such a big obstacle that you can’t overcome it. You’ve overcome lots of stuff. Heck, driving is harder than that, and you’re doing okay there, aren’t you?”

“I suppose you’re right. Thanks, Dawn. Talk to you soon. Here’s abetabeth.”

William handed her the phone. She took it from him, kissing him on the cheek, “Thanks.”

“Hey Dawnie, what lies have you been filling William’s head with?” she asked laughing.

“No lies, just telling him what an evil shrew you are and that he should escape as soon as he can, before you undoubtedly warp him for life.”

“Too late for that!” Buffy laughed, as did Dawn.

“Buffy? Can William hear you right now,” she asked, after they’d stopped the game.

“No, why?”

“I was wondering what you’re planning for William’s birthday next week.”

“I’ve been thinking about that myself, Dawn. I’m not sure. Sort of thought about maybe having you come up and we could go to dinner at Edna’s, but last time he was there…well, Edna and her grandson Wallace just brought up some things that gave him nightmares, so I’ve been sort of avoid-y.”

“What kind of nightmares? You didn’t tell me about that.”

“I don’t know exactly,” Buffy said, not wanting to go into all of it right then, “he was freaked out for a few days, but it’s over. I just don’t want to risk that on his birthday.”

“Of course not,” Dawn agreed.

They talked a few more minutes, Buffy assuring her that she’d let her know in a couple of days what she was planning.


The second meeting at Montessori was scheduled for 1:00pm that afternoon. Mrs. Carpello had asked that Buffy and William come by around 12:30pm to talk to her first.

Buffy tried not to be nervous; she had no idea what Mrs. Carpello was going to say, only hoped that she wouldn’t yet mention to William that she didn’t actually plan on going back to work.

“Why do you think she wants to talk to me again?” William asked, on the drive over.

“I’m really not sure, guess we’ll just have to find out,” she said, as she sat there twisting and untwisting her purse strap between her fingers.


Mrs. Carpello was seated at her desk when they walked into her office.

“Hello, Elizabeth. Hello, William. Thank you for coming. Have a seat.”

William waited until Buffy had taken a seat, before taking his.

“The reason I’ve asked you to come today is because I have an offer for you. For both of you, really,” she said.

Both William and Buffy waited for her to continue.

“William,” she said addressing him, “you’ve been through quite an ordeal these past couple of months, and over the last 5 years, to say the least. Elizabeth has expressed concern over her returning to work and leaving you alone all day at this point.”

William turned to look at Buffy and shook his head, “No! Elizabeth! I told you I wouldn’t be the reason for your not…”

Buffy looked at Mrs. Carpello angrily; she had no right to break her confidence in this manner, before she’d had the opportunity to tell him herself. She’d gone along with the meetings, but this was too much. She rose to her feet, “We’re leaving!”

“William! Elizabeth! You haven’t let me finish at all. Please allow me to tell you why I asked you to come in today.”

They stopped talking and looked at her, Buffy slowly sat back down.

“Thank you,” she said, relieved, “the reason I brought that up, William, Elizabeth, was that I wanted to tell you that I understand how you feel,’ she said, directing her comments to Buffy.

“I lost someone, too. A long, long time ago, except the person I lost never came home.”

“What happened,” B ask asked, chagrined.

Mrs. Carpello shook her head; “Maybe some other time. The point I was trying to make is, had this person come back to me, after being missing, I too, would have made him my priority over everything else. I would have done what I could to help him get his bearings again…” she said, fading off.

She cleared her throat, “That’s why I think I have a solution for both of you. William first let me ask you this. You do want to work, am I correct?”

“Of course, what man doesn’t want to support himself, his…wife?” he said, looking over at Buffy.

“Good,” Mrs. Carpello said, “I assumed as much. Now, here’s my solution for both of you. William, I want to offer you a part-time job here. It would be about 4 hours a day. Now, it isn’t much, and certainly you’ll be over qualified for it, but it’s still honest work. You would be responsible for all the maintenance around here, inside and out. Mowing, raking, planting, etc. Inside, there’s cleaning, stocking supplies, general gopher work. Whatever needs to be done, you pitch in and help. I know it’s not much, neither does it pay much, but this way, until you get on your feet and find a job better suited to your education, you can still be useful. And Elizabeth will be able to come here and do her job without worrying that you’re alone all day. How does that sound?”

Buffy was flabbergasted. Never in her wildest dreams had she considered that Mrs. Carpello would be offering William a job. She didn’t have any idea what to expect, really.

William spoke first, “That’s very generous of you to make me this offer,” he said, hesitating, “the problem is I have no memory of how to use a lawn mower or if it broke down, how to repair it. Or any other machine,” he said, sadly shaking his head.

“Well, the lawn mower is really the only machine that you’d probably be operating, everything else, is manual. Shears for pruning bushes, rakes, hoes, brooms. Inside there’s a copying machine, but if that breaks down, we just call the company to come in and service it. Do you think that in three weeks time you might be able to learn from someone how to use and maintain a lawn mower?” she asked.

William nodded, “There’s someone I think that could help. And the library has books on small engines, too. It is a small engine, right?”

“Yes, it’s a small one,” Mrs. Carpello said, smiling, “and I think we have a manual from when we purchased it. If you need anything else, we can order one for you on maintaining it. Really, William, it’s quite simple! Even I use a mower at home and give it gas, fix little things on it when needed. If I can do it, I’m sure you can, too.”

“So, what do you say then?” she asked looking at William.

He looked over at Buffy, questioningly.

“Could we have a minute to discuss this?” Buffy asked.

“Sure, just come on out to the outer office when you’re done talking and let me know your decision,” Mrs. Carpello said. She nodded to them, as she closed the door on her way out.

“What do you think?” William said, turning to Buffy. “It’s not a bad idea, is it?”

“No, no, of course not, if you don’t mind this type of work…for now. I don’t want you to take it, if you think you’ll hate it or something just because of me.”

“I don’t mind, really. I’m not too qualified for anything at the moment, and she was right, it’s honest work and I could be contributing in some small way, instead of sitting home, not contributing. You wouldn’t have to worry about me, and by the way, when were you going to tell me about you not going back to work?”

“I’m sorry, William,” Buffy said, sheepishly, “I was going to, I felt like I was in limbo not knowing what Mrs. C. was going to tell us. I just didn’t want you to worry about it.”

“And I don’t want you to worry about me all the time,” William said, taking her hands, “this way you won’t have to, I’ll be here, you’ll be here…”

“Yeah, I could always meet you in the broom closet during breaks,” she said winking.

He looked at her a second before it sunk in, “Want me to lose my job before I even have it?” he asked, grinning.


They found Mrs. Carpello at the file cabinet when they came out of her office.

“Well? What have you both decided?” she asked.

“We think it’s a very generous offer and we, I accept,” William said.

“Good then,” she said, handing him a pile of papers, “just get these back to me a week before school starts.”


“All these papers,” William said, shaking his head. Buffy stood over him, as he settled in at the library table, before she went to her meeting.

“We’ll work on them at home, okay? Don’t worry about them now, or you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “guess I’ll start looking for some books on small engine repairs or something like that. Small machine repair, perhaps.”

“Maybe they have a ‘Lawn Mower Repair for Dummies,’ book.”

He looked up ar hur hurt.

“Oh William, I didn’t mean that,” she said, kissing him, “there’s a whole series of ‘How To,’ books that all have that title, ‘Computers for Dummies,’ ‘Cooking for Dummies,’ ‘Gardening for Dummies,’ it’s just a name, not an insult.”

“Well, it is rather insulting,” he said, rather stiffly.

“Just supposed to be a catchy title to make people laugh, it’s a hook, know what I mean?”

“Hmmppphhh!” he said, rolling his eyes.

She grinned, “See you in a couple of hours.”


After the meeting, Mrs. Carpello asked Buffy to bring William back over. She found he’d checked out a half dozen of the ‘Dummy’ books. She laughed.

“They really are pretty good. Easy to understand,” he said, shrugging.

“You don’t have to know how to repair every machine in the world you know, just the stupid lawn mower, if it needs it.”

“I know,” he said, patting her hand, “I just want to catch up with the world of machines, if you know what I mean. Besides, there’s also a book on computers and cars,” he said, grinning.

She grinned back; it was just contagious when he became excited about something.

They threw the books into the back seat of the car, then went across the street. She took his hand and they walked into the conference room.

Before the meeting had started, Buffy had agreed with Mrs. Carpello that it would be best to tell her associates about William, the shortened version, in any case, before he started to work there. So, at the end of the meeting, she had made the announcement, answered some questions, and asked them to please not ask William about it, as he was sensitive regarding the subject and trying to become adjusted.

Now Mrs. Carpello made the introduction, “Everyone, I want you to meet William; Elizabeth’s husband. He’s going to be working part-time for us this coming fall, doing some of our maintenance and odd jobs.”

“Hello, very nice to make your acquaintances,” he said, nodding to the room of women who were trying not to gawk at the good looking, shy man, with the lovely English accent, standing before them.

Greetings were exchanged; then Mrs. Carpello took William on a tour of the building, including the shed, introducing him to the tools of his new, temporary trade, as it were.


Later that evening, they were going over the papers, when it came to education, Buffy stopped and went into the bedroom to get the doctored up papers Willow had sent. She’d had to change the names of a few courses, so if checked, they would agree with those taken 100+ years after the fact, and the names of professors.

“Here,” she said, handing him the manila envelope which had his Oxford diploma, and transcripts. She held her breath as he looked them over.

William looked at his Diploma and smiled. At first. Then he frowned, grumbling something. Looking over the transcripts he shook his head.

“This doesn’t seem right,” he said, pointing to the name of the teacher for Classical Greek, “fellow had an amusing name like Appledown or Applegate, certainly not Psimos,” he said.

He looked at her, “I don’t understand how I can remember taking these classes, well, all but a few of these that I don’t recall at all, but the names of the professors seem all wrong. ‘Cept for this one,” he said pointing to a Maximillion Warring IV, “think I had him, but not for this mathematics class, but for science.”

He sat back and rubbed his head.

Buffy looked at him sympathetically. She felt worse than awful for messing with his known memory in this way, but there was really no other choice, she told herself. He couldn’t exactly use a transcript that had classes from back in the late 1860’s, early 1870’s now could he?

“Headache?” she asked, as she gently replaced his hand with her own on top his head, and massaged it gently.

He nodded, “I hate this,” he said through gritted teeth, “hate that I remember only bits and pieces, but altogether, it doesn’t make for much of anything. It’s bleedin’ pathetic.”

She waited for the apology for him saying bleedin’ but it didn’t come.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, knowing he was really upset.

“Why? Not your fault my memory is like Swiss cheese, is it? You have nothing to be sorry about. I, on the other hand, need you to help me fill out the simplest paperwork, I’m the one who should be sorry,” he laughed bitterly, “I’m sorry alright.”

“Stop it right now! Paperwork sucks for everyone, and it’s worse for you right now, but that’s no reason to be getting all in a snit about it, to start feeling…”

“Sorry for myself?”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” she answered, then shrugged, “well, maybe you are a bit.”

“Not very productive, is it?”

“Nah, but you deserve a good wallow in the lake of self-pity once in a while. We all do.”

He sighed, “Okay, I’m over it, let’s just get this bloody…sorry, Elizabeth… thing done, alright?”

“Alright by me,” she said, and picked up the pen and employee paperwork.


A few minutes later, she handed him the completed application to sign. He looked it over, stopping when it came to previous job experience.

“Two years at the Magic Box shop, Sunnydale, CA? That’s it? The sum of my experience? That can’t be right!” he said, agitated all over again.

“It probably isn’t, but I don’t know where else you worked, before you moved there, so it’s going to have to do,” Buffy said, trying to be patient.

“Well, that’s just great. Almost 28 years old, and I’ve got 2 years work experience selling books at a store that no longer exists. That’s just…great!”

“Mrs. C. knows that you lost your memory, so she won’t be expecting anything else, this is just…a formality is all.”

“Well, what about if I want to find another job sometime? What will I have to put down? Two years at the Magic Shop, followed by being the lawn boy at Montessori?”

Buffy stood up, “Damnit, William! I told you that you don’t have to take this job if you don’t want to!”

“No, but if I don’t, then you’re going to quit teaching, right? Great, we’ll both be sitting home then!”

She looked at him, “Would that be so horrible?”

William leaned forward and grabbed her, pulling her onto his lap, “If you’re asking if it would be horrible to be at home with you everyday, of course not. I love being here with you, you know that,” he said, earnestly. He pulled her head to his and kissed her. “I’m just frustrated is all. I want the job, honest I do. Get to learn some practical things that I probably wouldn’t otherwise. Just…can’t believe this is the sum of what we know about my job experience.” He shook his head.

“William,” Buffy said softly, “when the time comes, when you find something else you want to do, we can sort of mess around with the resume.”

“What do you mean?”

“Um…I mean, we can say you worked somewhere other than the Magic Box in Sunnydale.”

“You mean lie about it?” he asked, shaking his head. “No, that’s not right. And what if they contact someone who says they never heard of me?”

“In Sunnydale?”

He looked at her, “Oh. Well, still. Guess I don’t have many options here do I? Either go with what little we know, or lie about it. I’ll just leave it at this for now.”

She nodded, “Besides, you were in school most years before this time anyway.”

“Yeah, but what about the past 5 years? Supposed to say I was just wandering around in a daze? Sleepin’ under a bridge?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “before I started this job, I didn’t have much of anything to put on my resume either,” she said. Obviously not, since being the slayer for 7 years was something that she couldn’t claim.

“How about we cross that bridge when we get to it…somewhere down the line?”

He kissed her again, “What else can I do?

END CHAPTER 103