“It is him.” Jay thought to himself. ‘Damn if it isn’t. Howard Behar. My old boss. Should I say something to him?“
Jay was in Palm Springs for work on a fluke brought on by the Pandemic. He hadn’t been able to travel for work since he became a single parent around eight years ago. His youngest was nineteen now and taking classes on zoom as a freshman in college. Work needed someone to cover routes here because the market center in Palm Springs was a mess. He’d worked for the supervisor, Jason, of the Palm Springs market center for several years in Indianapolis. Jason got several promotions and they hadn’t seen each other in years. Each time Jason had been promoted Jay felt it was the promotion he should have been given. Only snag was, he had no real time for any more work related exertion since he, at that time, was the sole provider of four young adult children. Sure, he could have made more money it he had slapped together a resume, dusted off his old management skills and gone after those jobs Jason got. But, it wouldn’t have been enough. Never is, mate.
So, Jay kept his blue collar job and stayed available to his kids. He made the mortgage, big thanks to the monthly social security he got. One by one, the young adults went out of braces and off to college. He had done it. One left in the house and he was there now, watching it now while Jay took the bonus money and a week driving around Palm Springs.
Over these last eight years, some dark ones, Jay had rediscovered his passion for writing along with the time to do it. He had also rediscovered coffee. Starbucks coffee. Not the coffee as such, the company. The four years he spent there in Chicago in the early nineties became his historical fiction novel, Tripio. Jay wrote it, got it professionally edited and published on Amazon, with the help of those young adult children. He had been shocked when on a whim Howard Behar signed off on the cover blurb so easily. And there he was in line, a couple places in front of Jay on a Tuesday afternoon at a Starbucks location in Palm Springs. “Should I say something?” Jay asked himself again”
https://wallmine.com/people/84847/howard-behar
Comment now or think it over-both would be appreciatiated.