Working Romance. Susan Kohler

sick; maybe I’d better take you to the doctor.”

      “I’m okay, Mommy. We can stay,” Sam said quickly.

      “Let’s go out on the patio, I’ve got the charcoal started.” Bob ignored Sam’s outburst as he looked down at the three small visitors.

      “Would you like some hamburgers?” Bob asked. The kids all nodded, even Sam. Turning to the adults he added, “I fixed a salad and set up the barbecue. Does that sound okay?”

      At their nods, he went on, “I have beer, sodas, milk, orange juice, and iced tea in the refrigerator, everyone serve yourself.”

      Soon they were all sitting at the patio table with iced tea. The kids ran around the yard, slowing down only long enough to take sips of orange juice. Bob started grilling hamburgers, and everyone fixed their own buns, except for the kids. They also had the salad, fries, and corn on the cob.

      By the time they started to eat, Kate found her initial self-consciousness fading and she began to enjoy herself. Surprisingly enough, the afternoon was really turning out to be fun! Kate thanked the heavens that for once her brood seemed to be willing to eat without pulling any of their customary mealtime squabbles, except for a minor food fight with some French fries. She quickly quelled the spat.

      “Kate, why did you say your kids are not the little angels they appear to be? So far they seem very well behaved,” Bob asked her curiously.

      “Well, they have been pretty good today. As a matter of fact, they really are pretty good kids.” She paused, smiling proudly at her brood, “But I always warn people because that way if the kids are fairly good it makes them seem even better, but if they’re cranky or bad, people shrug it off and figure that they were warned.”

      “In other words, either way, people figure that the kids aren’t as bad as you thought they’d be.” Bob poured her more iced tea. “Very sneaky!”

      “For ‘people’ you can read in her mother-in-law, who thinks all children should be quiet, polite, and neat practically from the moment of birth,” Laura said. “These three are plenty old to be taught some manners, in her words.”

      “She meant every word when she said that, Laura, but remember, that was when she was almost beside herself with grief and loss. She’s more like her old self lately. In fact, she’s mellowed quite a lot, now that she has more friends with their own grandchildren who really do make my three look like little angels. It’s just that after we lost Joe, she went through a period where she was bitter and felt all alone. She really wasn’t herself. Her husband had died, less than three months before she lost her son. Joe was her only child.” Kate paused, remembering how broken Ida had been. “She shielded herself by turning very cold and controlling. She decided to take over raising my children to fill the void in her life, but she’s a totally different person now.”

      “Is she really?” Laura asked. “What caused the change?”

      “I forgot, I haven’t told you yet. She has a hot new man in her life. His name is George. He takes her dancing, bowling, and out to play golf. He has definitely loosened her up and he has three small grand-kids that really make my kids all look like monks, not monkeys.” Kate smiled, “He’s so good for her. He’s even good with my kids.”

      “That’s great!” Laura said, remembering the woman she had met long ago. “Before everything happened, she always used to be such a free-spirited woman. She was so colorful and bursting with life and energy. I could never understand how she could turn out to be so formal and cold with your kids. It was like Jekyll and Hyde.”

      “It took George to help me understand.” Kate smiled sadly, “It was fear. Fear of losing someone else, fear of being hurt again, that’s what made her so aloof. It helped her keep her distance, emotionally.”

      Just then the kids started to beg Bob to go swimming in the pool. Kate tried without very much success to remind them that they should wait to be invited.

      “But what if he never invites us to swim?” Sam, ever argumentative with his little lower lip sticking out a mile added, “Then we won’t ever get to go swimming. We never get to have any fun.”

      “It’s hard to argue with that kind of thinking,” Bob told the boy, smiling, “but I suspect your mom’s right and you should wait until I ask you if you want to swim. Guess I was being awfully slow to ask, wasn’t I?” He looked over at Kate. “Can they swim?”

      “Like little fishes, but I watch them like a hawk, if that isn’t a mixed metaphor,” Kate replied. “Anyway, it’s too soon after lunch.”

      “So just go slowly putting all of them into their swimsuits,” Laura suggested, “or try to get them to take a short nap first.”

      “Nap? Nap? It’s obvious you don’t have kids. Naps are for moms, not for kids. You can go tell the mini-monsters that they have to take a nap before they can swim,” Kate challenged her. “I’ll just stay here and wait to pick up the pieces after they tear you apart.”

      “Wouldn’t it be better if we could get them to watch some videos? That would give us a chance to talk business before we swim,” Bob suggested. Noting the women’s startled expressions, he added, “I have six nieces and four nephews.”

      Kate never quite knew what happened next but a short time later the gruesome threesome was lying on the floor in Bob’s den with Jack, watching THE LITTLE MERMAID. All the doors to the outside were locked, plus the gate between the house and the pool. Even so, Jack had been admonished that one of the little dears might wake up and decide to go swimming without waiting for the adults.

      “Watch the children, not the movie, and stay awake, okay?” Laura told her husband. “We’re going to talk business.”

      “Nag, nag, nag,” Jack muttered, his eyes fixed on the television.

      Bob, Laura, and Kate picked up the remains from lunch and took things into the kitchen. Working as a team, they cleaned up the few dishes from lunch. When they had put the leftovers into the refrigerator, they sat at the small kitchen table.

      Laura opened the conversation. “Bob, I didn’t fill Kate in on all the details about the special problems that we’re having at work, so maybe we’d better do that, now.”

      “What’s up?” Kate asked. “Is it the job?”

      “In a way,” Bob replied, pouring them all some more iced tea. “You see, we’ve been having trouble with employee theft at work. Not just petty theft, but embezzlement. Every time we hire a new clerk in the accounting department, we start losing money. The evidence always seems to point to the new clerk. Someone wanted it to look like we were hiring dishonest people but we’re not that dumb. Four times now, when we’ve got a new employee, money starts disappearing. We know someone is hiding his own larceny by hiding behind the new hires. The thefts stop when the latest employee leaves, until I replace them, then they soon start occurring again. That’s why we wanted to hire someone one of us knew personally. It’s also why your past auditing experience is so important. The gist of it is: we want you to help us to catch the thief. Of course, the rest of the staff will think we just got you from the temp agency, like we usually do.”

      “So I’ll be undercover, like on TV, but who else is in on it?” Kate asked. “And is there really a permanent job after I catch the bad guy?”

      “No one knows but Bob and myself, and of course, one person at corporate headquarters,” Laura answered. “And yes, there is a real job after you find the thief. I think it’ll be in auditing and cost accounting, not the accounts payable department. Once we find out who we have to replace and decide how we need to restructure accounting, we will bring in some new people. By the way, we also helped the other employees who fell under suspicion find new jobs. Except for one girl who went on pregnancy leave, and she does some work for us online from home.”

      “She’s such a good worker we couldn’t let her go,” Bob added. “The other three employees weren’t officially fired by the