Failure to Launch - Barry Rachin (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📗

snapped his fingers repeatedly, trying to conjure up the proper term. "Failure to launch, that's it. Alison's been in a bit of a holding pattern since completing her studies."

Failure to launch – the term suggested an ineffectual nudnik who couldn’t get out of her own way. The explanation made no sense. In the parking lot, the stocky man turned off the engine and sat pensively for the longest time. "There are third world countries where parents decide a suitable match for their children."

A cardiologist Collin recognized pulled into a parking space several rows down. "You're not my father and we don't live in a third world country. Where does romance factor into the equation?"

"Yeah, that too," Fred blustered. He suddenly reached out and patted Collin on the shoulder. "I got a good feeling about this… a real good feeling."

"What did your daughter study in college?"

“Philosophy with a minor in comparative lit.”

“Four years of Schopenhauer and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and now she waits tables in a greasy spoon?”

“Not to worry!” Fred undid the seatbelt and reached for the door. "Saturday night, Alison will bring you up to speed."


Collin didn't have to wait. On Wednesday in the late morning, Alison Linden paid Collin a visit at the hospital. “My father put us both in an awkward situation at the diner the other day. You’re not obligated to go out with me if you don’t want.” Collin, who was updating the client roster, leaned back in the swivel chair. She really was quite pretty. The family was of Dutch origin, which would explain the generous, full-lipped face, fleshy nose and watery blue eyes.
“I already made dinner reservations... the Blue Grotto on Federal Hill. Seven o’clock.” He cleared his throat and looked her full in the face. “You had a change of heart?”
“No, not at all,” Alison blustered. “It’s just my father’s got this nutty notion that we’re going directly from the Blue Grotto to marriage altar with nothing in between.”
Collin turned off the computer and stepped out from behind the desk. “Come with me.” Poking his head in an adjoining office, he informed a coworker he was taking early lunch and, with Alison Linden in tow, headed for the elevator.


Three blocks down was a dog park that snaked through a wooded grove of densely packed maples, oaks and aromatic pines. Directly ahead an older woman was walking a brown and white shih-tzu. The dog, which was off the leash, scampered erratically among the dead leaves and pine needles. When they reached the gravel footpath, Collin turned to Alison. “Earlier this week I learned your father has been forging signatures so one of our aides wouldn’t lose her accreditation.”

Collin told her about the incident with the counterfeited signatures. “The Department of Health doesn’t give a rat’s ass if a paraplegic teenager wallows in her own shit; all they care about are a hodgepodge of state-mandated, training regulations. Your father did the right thing, even if it meant putting his own job in jeopardy.”

It had been a hard New England winter and everyone they passed seemed buoyed by the sun and the unseasonable warmth. “What would you have done?” Alison asked.
“I don’t follow you?”

“With the training credits.”

Collin made a disgruntled face, blowing out his cheeks in exasperation. “I would have drawn the shades, locked the door to my office and wedged the back of a sturdy chair under the doorknob as an added precaution before forging the necessary signatures." The jaunty little Shih-tzu doubled back to where they were standing. Collin squatted down on his haunches and scratched the dog with the pushed-in face behind the ear. "In the future your father won't be put in such a bind."

"How that?"

"In cases where employees can't attend in-house training, they can still gain credit by viewing medical videos and having an administrator countersign the paperwork." The shih-tzu suddenly lifted a hind leg and peed into the leaves. The dog had a pronounced overbite, the bottom teeth extending well in front of the uppers. "I already put together a packet of six videos that I'm mailing out to Gwen Santos this afternoon. I'll meet with her sometime next month to quiz her on the topics and collect signatures." Standing no more than four inches off the ground, the dog with the pushed-in face scampered off again, his massive head held perfectly erect and plumed tail arched over the barrel-shaped back. “Your father wants me to marry you in the worst way.”

“He’s not terribly subtle with affairs of the heart.” Alison cracked a wan smile.

* * * * *

Saturday night the phone rang. “Regarding the new invoicing program...” Fred Linden was on the other end of the line.

“It’s almost midnight,” Collin groused. “I’m getting ready for bed.”

“The F-1 key opens up a series of ‘help’ boxes with step-by-step instructions.”

Collin was standing barefoot on the kitchen tiles. “You called to tell me that?”

“How did your first date go?”

“Why don’t you ask your daughter?”

“Already did and she referred me back to you.” When there was no immediate reply, Fred asked, “Are you going to ask Alison out again?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“In a day or so.”

Dead silence. “There’s no help menu, in the conventional sense.” Fred’s over-stimulated brain seemed to be in reflective free fall. “You’ll need to navigate to the place in a specific submenu where confusion arises before depressing the F-1 tab.”

“Goodnight, Fred.”

“Alison’s a sweetheart, isn’t she?”

“Goodnight.”


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Publication Date: 04-04-2011

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