FISCAL FIASCO

3. THE MISSING NUMBERS

Dia didn’t sleep well that night. In fact, she didn’t even sleep at her apartment – she couldn’t. Jeff had offered to help clean up, but Dia was too stressed to even attempt that chore. He also offered her his guest bedroom, but Dia just wanted to be alone to try to make sense out of what was happening. After Jeff left, she called the police. In thirty minutes an officer arrived, looked around, took her statement, and said someone would be back later to more thoroughly investigate and check on missing items. But he wasn’t optimistic about the burglar being found. Afterward Dia drove to the Marriott at the research park between Durham and Raleigh and checked in for the evening. With its remote location and hotel staff on duty all night, she felt relatively safe – at least as safe as she could considering the circumstances. Surprisingly, she was hungry. Dia had always had a good appetite, so it was good she exercised. She ordered an egg-white omelet, country sausage, and decaf coffee from room service. Breakfast food was good any time of day! Satiated and exhausted, Dia fell asleep watching a Perry Mason episode. Maybe her subconscious would absorb some crime-solving skills.

The next morning was a beautiful Carolina spring day, with a cloudless bright blue sky – exactly the kind James Taylor sang about in Carolina on My Mind. Dia showered, dressed, hit the hotel’s free buffet for breakfast – mainly oatmeal this time – and then decided a workout in the hotel gym would get her mind and body right for what was ahead. Fortunately she had thought last night to throw in some sneakers, shorts, and a work-out shirt to her bag, so after slipping in to them she headed to the hotel gym right off the lobby. As far as hotel gyms went, it was fine. There were five treadmills, two ellipse machines, assorted dumbbells, and a ‘universal’ machine that had several weight stations for both upper and lower body workouts. Large TVs were mounted on the walls, and an abundant stack of towels and even a water cooler had been thoughtfully provided.

Dia did 40 minutes of weights and 30 minutes on a treadmill. Dia had begun weight-lifting at Cornell and enjoyed it. She even joined the University’s Barbell Club. For a 5’4”, 125 pound female she actually achieved some impressive lifts – notably a 200 pound squat and 225 pound deadlift. She had backed off those kinds of totals after finishing school, but she could still impress people in the gym – especially males – by the poundage she could move. Her goal was not to be ‘bulky-muscular’, just muscle-toned.

Dia had the gym entirely to herself, which – on one hand – she liked because there was no waiting for weight stations, but – on the other hand – she didn’t care for because other people provided both motivation and conversation during rest breaks. With her workout nearly complete, Dia’s mind started to wander toward the next steps to take in the emerging mystery over her missing phone and pillaged apartment.

“What a game last night – did you see it?” Dia suddenly heard from behind her. She did a slight jump and a quick turn to find a trim, early 30s-something male with curly, sandy hair smiling at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry I startled you,” he apologized. “Hi, I’m Scott Templar,” the stranger said extending his hand to Dia. “I travel for a living and I stay at Marriott’s all over the country. It’s always interesting to learn what the ‘hot topic’ is in a city, and there’s no doubt here it’s the Duke-Carolina game with that crazy blackout.”

Dia politely shock Scott’s hand and gave him a curt smile. She had found most people in gyms were friendly and out-going, ever ready to help ‘spot’ someone on a lift or ‘work-in’ on a particular weight station. Normally Dia was the same, pushing aside her usual professional, admittedly distant, self for what some of her friends called the ‘gym Dia’ personality. Not surprisingly, the events of last night were repressing ‘gym Dia’. Still, she tried to be cordial.

“Glad to meet you, Scott. Yes, I heard about the game. It apparently was an exciting ending.” Dia had no interest in telling a complete stranger that she had been at the game, nor what had happened to her.

“I sell medical supplies for a living, so I get to a lot of college towns where there are big medical schools and hospitals. I always enjoy coming to the Research Triangle part of North Carolina. Business is good with the teaching hospitals at Carolina and Duke, and the great college teams are fun to watch, especially in basketball. I guess they still call this area ‘tobacco road’ because of the past links to growing tobacco and manufacturing cigarettes. I don’t smoke, so my only connection with tobacco is following some of the new research using it to develop disease antibodies and treatments. Pretty ironic, huh? For many, tobacco is public enemy number one due to the health problems that can arise from smoking, but tobacco may actually help us treat some major diseases.”

Typical salesman, thought Dia, with a mouth that goes full speed from one topic to the next. Still, he seemed like a nice enough guy, and now Dia’s ‘economic juices’ were flowing from Scott’s comments about tobacco. So she decided to add her ‘two cents worth’ to the conversation.

“Yeah, North Carolina has undergone an economic transformation. I’m only in the area temporarily – I actually live in Virginia – but I know tobacco, textiles, and furniture used to dominate the North Carolina economy. Now they’ve been sidelined by sectors like technology, pharmaceuticals, and financial services. Regions like the Research Triangle – where these new industries are located – are booming, but rural areas are struggling. The economic world never stays status quo.”

“Wow, you sound like you know what you are talking about. Are you some kind of business person or executive?” Dia could see Scott’s typical salesperson style ‘zeroing in’ as an attempt to develop a personal connection. For a moment, she was sorry she had encouraged him by making some comments.

Reluctantly, Dia explained she was an economist on a sabbatical at Duke’s CiFSRO. This elicited a ‘gee, you must be pretty smart’ response from Scott. Dia stifled replying to such a sophomoric comment, so she just grinned.