I Know This Route

The Ring doorbell chimes behind me.

I turn around, slide the key back into the lock on our sage green front door, then push the wrought-iron screen door closed.

Not a cloud in the sky.

I head down the concrete steps, turn left, and walk toward Virginia. At the corner is the stop sign everyone ignores. Over my right shoulder, between the houses and trees, I can see a sliver of the mountains.

I turn left.

Two Super Junker trucks are parked along Virginia. They belong to people somewhere in the neighborhood, although apparently not people who want to park them in front of their own houses.

At Jersey, I look left. Right. Left again.

My mom taught me to look both ways before crossing the street.

Across the street, one of the few rental houses in the neighborhood sits on the corner. The current tenants seem to repair BMWs.

A few houses farther down live two older women. I know they have two little dogs, both about Cooper's size.

We always wave. Sometimes they ask if I'm taking a break from work.

A few days ago, one of them was watering the sunflowers when I walked by.

“I promise I won't spray you.”

Indeed, she was true to her promise.

A few yards later, I turn left onto Kearney.

Dale and his wife live in the second house on the left. Today he's outside wearing garden gloves, pulling weeds from the rock bed beside the sidewalk.

I know Dale well enough that when we see each other, we always wave and smile. I know they walk the neighborhood, too. And I know he's the guy who will rake someone's leaves or shovel their snow when it needs to be done.

Across the street is Congregation Rodef Shalom. I usually walk on that side of Kearney. The large trees lining the sidewalk provide some of the best shade on my route.

A little farther down, past the congregation, is a house that is completely overgrown. A jungle in the middle of the neighborhood.

Then I come to the Mizel Museum at the corner of Kearney and Dakota. Beside it is one of those big blue United States Postal Service mailboxes that apparently still exist on street corners.

I've passed it more times than I could count. Today I notice I can't read the pickup hours anymore. The lettering has faded enough that whatever schedule was once posted there is no help. But I've seen letter carriers servicing the box recently.

It's still active.

I turn right onto Dakota.

There is usually less that catches my attention along this stretch. Fewer houses face the street. Mostly side yards.

For months, though, this has been one of the staging areas for the construction project that has moved through the neighborhood.

There used to be more here. More equipment. More lengths of blue plastic pipe, six or eight inches across. More of whatever else they've needed to tear up streets and put them back together again.

Today, there is less. There has been less each time I've walked past lately. I don't know their schedule, but it looks like they're getting close to wrapping up these few blocks.

At Locust, I turn right.

The first house on the corner has a pair of Adirondack chairs out front. Occasionally, the owners are sitting there with their Golden Retriever nearby. Not today.

Identical, a book by Scott Turow, is playing in my ears as I continue down the block.

A little farther along, a plant from one of the yards has grown far enough across the sidewalk that I step into the street for a few paces to get around it.

I know it's coming.

I step back onto the sidewalk.

There is lavender everywhere along this stretch. Huge plants, some of them taking up most of the space between the sidewalk and the yards.

For years, I walked past them without thinking much about them.

Then Jody and I had a retaining wall built in our backyard. There's a strip of ground above it we've talked about planting someday. That might work.

I remember having the thought. Now I mostly just remember the lavender.

Maybe next spring.

I keep walking.

At the end of Locust, I turn right onto Virginia.

And there they are.

The mountains.

The sliver I could see over my shoulder when I left the house has become the Front Range stretching out in front of me.

I look every time.

How lucky am I that I get to see this every day?

I've lived in this house since July, 2017.

I've walked this route, or some version of it, thousands of times.

I know which stop sign everyone ignores.

I know where I need to look twice before crossing the street.

I know the women with the little dogs.

I know Dale will wave.

I know where the shade will be.

I know the blue mailbox.

I know the construction equipment is disappearing.

I know where the lavender grows.

I know where the mountains will appear.

I know this route.

I've never taken this walk before.

• • •

Cooper is on the back of the couch when I get home.

It's his favorite place in the house, other than our bed. From there, he can look out the window and survey the neighborhood.

I stop to pet him on my way in. “Hi, Coop. How is your morning going?”

I can hear Jody's hairdryer. She's still home.

When it stops, I call out.

“Hi, Love. I'm back.”

“Hi. Did you have a good walk?”

I take off my shoes and head to my office.

Coffee is waiting for me on my desk.

Jody makes coffee every morning. Enough for however much she wants and one cup for me. One. More than that and I'm worthless.

I sit down and start working.

A little while later, I hear Jody.

“Okay. I'm really leaving now.”

I get up from my desk as she comes into the office.

We hug.

We kiss.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Have a great day.”

“You too.”

And then she's gone.

There are thousands of things I know about Jody.

I know what “Take your key” means.

I also know it doesn't necessarily mean she'll be gone when I get back.

I know how much coffee she'll make in the morning.

I know the sound of her hairdryer from another room.

I know what “Okay, I'm really leaving now” means.

And I know a particular gesture she makes when she's thinking.

She purses her lips and rubs a finger against them.

I've seen it enough times that my response is almost automatic.

“What are you thinking about?”

I don't ask because I know.

I ask because I don't.

Sometimes I tease her that she's already started the conversation on the inside and only asked me to join once it's well underway.

• • •

The conference room was on the third floor.

For a boutique hotel with Western artwork throughout, a grand stone fireplace in the lobby, an outdoor dining patio, and a wedding space beside the creek, the conference room was remarkably plain.

Beige walls. Beige carpet. Beige chairs on casters around a table that was slightly too large for the room.

We were there for our regularly scheduled P&L review.

Everyone had a printed copy in front of them.

I had something else. The general ledger.

I was new to The Golden Hotel. This was the first P&L review I'd attended since becoming the Director of Food & Beverage.

But I wasn't new to P&Ls. I'd been reading them for at least sixteen years.

We weren't reviewing every line. We were looking at the larger categories.

Labor. Food cost. Bar cost. Other expenses.

We were about to move on.

“Oh, wait a second. Before we move onto other expenses, I have a question.”

I looked down at the general ledger.

“I saw that CO2 was classified as part of COGS Bar, and I reclassified it to another category on the General Ledger. I see by the most current GL that it was placed back there. I'm curious why.”

The bookkeeper had an answer.

She had a little green book.

I don't remember its title, or whether it was specifically about food and beverage accounting.

I remember it was green.

And the book told her CO2 belonged in beverage cost.

“Can you explain to me why it belongs there?”

She could. Without CO2, she explained, we couldn't have draft beer.

That was true.

Then she told me the CO2 carbonated the beer.

That wasn't.

We were in Golden, Colorado. The good people at Coors were kind enough to carbonate the beer before it arrived at our property.

So I asked another question.

“How much of our gas, water, and electricity do you put into food cost?”

None. Those were utilities.

“But we can't serve food without them.”

Electricity powered the walk-in and freezer. Without it, our food would spoil. Gas powered the equipment on the line. Without it, we would be serving a great deal of raw food. Water washed the dishes, among other things. Without it, eventually we wouldn't have clean plates to put the food on.

She looked at me.

“You're an asshole.”

Then she got up from the table, opened the conference-room door, and walked out.

Nobody said anything.

I knew the answers to those questions before I asked them.

But the answer wasn't the only thing in front of me.

The expense had been classified as beverage cost. I reclassified it. Someone moved it back.

I knew where CO2 belonged. I didn't know why it kept returning to the same place.

So I asked.

The little green book gave me part of the answer.

The conversation gave me the rest.

This wasn't an expense I was trying to make disappear. The hotel had spent the money. It belonged on the P&L. Just not there.

People were evaluated against those numbers. Bonuses depended on them.

A number in the wrong place could tell the wrong story about how the operation was performing.

My experience helped me see it.

It didn't relieve me of the responsibility to look.

• • •

The letter came from our mortgage company.

We owed two months of mortgage payments, plus a late fee.

That couldn't be right.

I had a recurring appointment on my calendar to pay the mortgage. The first of every month.

I keep my calendar in its monthly view. The mortgage appointment was always there.

I could see it every day.

Maybe I had a call. Something else that needed to be done.

I'd get to it later. Except later came and went.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking about something I hadn't actually done.

I checked the bank records.

The previous month's mortgage payment wasn't there.

The current month's payment had come due, too. That was why the letter said we owed two months.

Fuck. How did this happen?

Or, more accurately, how did this not happen?

I paid what we owed.

Then I set up autopay.

I removed the recurring appointment from my calendar.

Now, each month, I check the confirmation email to make sure the payment went through.

I had been certain. Not hopeful. Not reasonably confident. Certain.

And I was wrong.

• • •

A few weeks ago, Jensen asked me a question during one of our weekly calls.

“Are you ever afraid you'll run out of material to write about?”

“No. Because now I will never stop noticing.”

Tomorrow morning, I'll go for another walk.