WORLD OF MUSIC

WORLD OF MUSIC
           - Donna DiPietro

In the 1990s, Cindy and I were co-workers at a real estate office in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She was in the marketing department and was responsible for the newspaper ads, brochures and feature sheets for the many real estate agents in our office. Her office was down a small hall around the corner from mine. She was originally from New Jersey and she and her husband Lou moved to a suburb of Boston when Lou began working for a successful computer company many years before. The computer industry was big business and employed many people who could depend on long and lucrative careers with the same employer, but those jobs were coming to an end. 

Cindy and I loved to go for walks on our lunch hour and we would often cross the street to the campus of Wellesley College and follow the foot paths that threaded the area. It was a luxury to get up from our desks and get some fresh air in such a pretty place, with its peaceful pond, hundred year old trees and buildings where so many young ladies lived and studied and went off to save the world. Cindy and I were quite a pair and sometimes we would sit on a bench and look out on the pond and watch the ducks paddle back and forth. A few times we brought our lunches and sat on the grass and had a picnic. Cindy had been worried about her husband’s job as the company had been laying off people and one day he was told what he dreaded to hear. It was quite traumatic for the two of them because they had left New Jersey where their family and friends lived and moved hundreds of miles away, settling in a new place, buying a house and raising their two sons. 

On one of our lunch time walks, Cindy told me what had happened and asked what I saw for their future. I told her that in August of that year, her husband would get a good job offer in the music business and work in New York City and that they would move back to New Jersey. She thought it strange that I saw the music business since it was quite different from what Lou had been doing for many years. As the weeks went by, Cindy would think about what I predicted and wonder if this would actually happen. As more time went by, Lou got a call from his nephew who had started a small business in Florida a few years before. It involved making tapes of party music that he would sell to people for birthdays, holidays and other celebrations. The small business grew to be very successful and he realized he needed a large space to accommodate the growth. Since Lou had been a business manager at the computer company and had great experience, his nephew asked if he would work for his company. The nephew found a great space in New York City and would be moving there in August and needed Lou to start at that time. It was very short notice but Lou accepted the offer and moved to New Jersey to start his new job in New York City. Meanwhile, Cindy and Lou put their home near Boston on the market and Cindy stayed a few months longer until the home sold then joined Lou in New Jersey. 

The last I heard from Cindy, she and Lou were enjoying their new found life style of dinner parties and mingling with show biz people, and they were happy to be home in New Jersey among their family and old time friends.