and said, “All right, I need to get going. Love you, baby.” Matt gave Christina a goodbye kiss.
“Love you too, have a good day at work,” replied Christina.
“I will. You too.”
Matt opened the front door and he walked out and hurried down the steps of their condo home to his car. Christina hurried and grabbed her coffee from the table. Taking a couple quick drinks from the mug she poured the rest out into the sink, then washed the mug out with water from the faucet and set the mug in the sink. Christina looked up again at the traffic on the interstate and sighed. She turned the coffeemaker off and ran toward the front door.
“I’m not going to make it in time,” she said to herself.
Nevertheless, Christina hurried and grabbed her own satchel bag from the coat hanger on the front door, as well as her purse, and took off out the front door, locking the door behind her. She hurried down the steps, nearly missing the last step down to the ground. She hurried to her car and got in. Starting the car, she backed out of her driveway and onto the road, toward the I-5 freeway entrance ramp.
“No way I make it to work before 8:30 this morning. No damn way,” said Christina to herself, shaking her head. Perhaps her husband was right. Christina was getting tired of the same old monotonous routine every morning of fighting traffic to simply get four exits down on the freeway to take her turn off onto Deschutes Way, only to go from interstate traffic to city traffic. Her office was up by the Tumwater Historical Park, overlooking the Deschutes River. It was a nice two-level building owned by Don and Chad Klemme named Klemme and Klemme after the duo who owned the accounting firm over the past twenty-four years. The management offices were upstairs in the building, while the accountants stayed downstairs for the clients. The firm worked in business areas of large company accounting, small business, and individual. They even had a representative that worked along with the IRS at the facility, although Christina never had to deal with the IRS. Christina worked along with the small business department, working with local ma-and-pa stores in the area and all the way down I-5 to Chehalis, Washington. She had a heavy case load for the company. Don and Chad Klemme had a lot of faith in the work that Christina does, so Christina carried a caseload of eighteen clients, while everyone else carried at the most eight. Ever since day one though, both the Klemme men had a great deal of respect for her and the hard work she would do for the company.
In the small business department, Christina had a friend that worked with her, named Jessica. Jessica was considered the newest employee to the firm, although she has been with the company for nearly three years now. Jessica also worked a different shift than Christina. She would get to the office around seven in the morning, compared to Christina who would come in by eight in the morning, pending the heavy traffic on the interstate of course. In the past three years though, the girls became very close to one another. Christina took Jessica under her wing and showed her the ropes of the accounting business and how to work alongside the local smaller stores as they competed against the larger companies that would try and drown them out in the Olympia market. This morning Christina arrived at her office closer to eight twenty. She parked her car in a parking stall fairly close to the building and walked into the building. There Christina saw the older Klemme of the two, Don, standing near the front desk. Mr. Klemme looked up and smiled as he saw Christina walking in.
“Christina! Glad you made it this morning,” said Don.
“I know, Mr. Klemme, the traffic out there was terrible. I’m sorry for being late,” replied Christina.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it at all.” Don placed his arm around the shoulder of Christina, walking toward her desk together. “I need you to do me favor this morning though. Johnson’s Worm Ranch down by the pier on the waterfront…they called and want to establish a new account with us, so I want you to take charge of this account. I know that this would put your caseload at nineteen, and I know this is a large and reputable smaller store in the Olympia area, but I want this job done right and efficient…and I know you can do it. My son and I have all the confidence in the world in you to do it right.”
“Well, I’ll certainly try, Mr. Klemme.”
Don removed his arm from her shoulder and patted her on the back twice. “Try you will, and as usual, you will be successful. Chad and I have trusted your work for a long time now. We know you can do it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Klemme.”
Don smiled and walked away. Christina opened the glass door to her office area where the other accountants were working away at their files. Jessica saw Christina walk in and waved at her from the back where their desks were. Christina smiled and waved back, walking to her desk across the aisle from Jessica she sat down and set her bag down on her desk along with her purse.
Jessica leaned over and said, “Hey, running a little late this morning?”
“Yeah, traffic was rough on the interstate. I think there was an accident beyond my exit, because traffic was at a standstill. Oh, that, and Matt and I talked again about his house in the forest idea,” said Christina.
“Oh geez, when is he going to get off that nonsense? Who in their right mind would want to live off the grid without electricity or grocery stores?”
“It’s really not that bad of an idea, Jess. It’s just, right now in both of our lives—him in his early thirties and me in my late twenties—it’s just not the right time for it right now is all.”
“Is it ever a right time to do something so crazy like that?”
“Yeah, I could see that being like a retirement adventure or something. But we both have another thirty-five years before either one of us can retire from anything that we’re doing.”
“Lot of debt from school? Credit cards?”
“No and yes. I mean we still have our student loans, a couple credit cards, our mortgage for our condo. I don’t know, Jess. He wants to just try it out…get a vacation log cabin and go once a weekend on occasion.”
“How many times would you use that in the year? Once, twice? Pay what, eighteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars a year for a weekend rental? Why not just rent a cabin in the woods if he really wants to do that?”
“Well, Matt says that he’d rather outright own a cabin rather than just rent it. I can understand his reasoning in that. I think both you and I can see where he’s coming from there.”
“Well, what did you tell him this morning?”
“Jess. It’s just not the right time for something like this right now. I know that breaks his heart and that he’s tired of living in the city. He was born in a farm, you know?”
“Get out. Like born in the farm?”
“No, not in the farm itself. But you know, raised in the farm. He’s just not into the bigger city and the buildings and the people. He’s just really a reserved guy—knows how to keep to himself. I think he’s just naturally used to the country and homesick for the farm.”
“Well, when you guys are ready for it someday, you’ll know. I guess it kinda sounds cool. I’d rather stay in the city though. Never know what’s out there in the woods. Plus, we have McDonald’s and Safeway here.”
“Yeah, never know what’s out there in the woods. Certainly no McDonald’s or Safeway stores.”
Jessica went back to her
