I dial Beth on my way in to work. Just as soon as I’m out of the driveway, in fact.

I’m relieved when she answers on the second ring. “Howdy, friend.”

“I’m afraid we need to take action,” I caution. There’s no time for pleasantries. “It’s worse than I thought.”

“What happened?”

I step on the brake. “I don’t have time to go into it right now.”

She sighs, and I hear the exasperation in her voice before she even speaks. “Tom.”

“I’m late for work,” I huff. “Just trust me when I say, this has to escalate.”

A male voice says something in the background. She covers the speaker so that his voice becomes muffled. I realize it was probably a bad idea to call, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

I clear my throat. “Are you there?”

“Sorry,” she tells me. I flinch at the sound of her finger moving away from the microphone. It crackles in my ear. Beth sighs again. “You men, I swear. If it isn’t one thing…it’s another.” I don’t have time for another woman complaining in my life. She doesn’t seem to notice. “You have no idea how many fires I’ve put out just this morning.”

“Nor do I care. Just do your job.”

“Don’t worry so much, Tom.” Her upbeat tone grates in my ears. Typical Beth. “We’ll make things right in no time.”

“We’ll make things right in no time,” Michael assured me. I hadn’t known at the time those would be the last words he would ever speak. Approximately twelve minutes later, he wrapped his Porsche around a tree.

Michael was my roommate freshman year in college, back before I was smart enough to know that living in close proximity with others doesn’t work for me. Nevertheless, we developed a sort of symbiotic relationship. I kept him from flunking out of school, and he kept me from complete isolation.

By our senior year, I’d gone through six internships and three jobs in rapid succession, on account of my people skills. Or lack thereof. Everyone understands the need for change in the abstract, but on the day-to-day level, people are creatures of habit, my boss said. It was a pointless conversation. We both knew why I was sitting in his office. He was going to fire me, but thought he’d waste my time by fitting one last lecture in first. It was a ridiculous point he was trying to drill in, about my future, about making friends. About being a team player. Apparently, calling colleagues out for tardiness and inefficiency is the opposite of that. You have to make your poison sweet, he said. He informed me he was letting me go because I seemed to be incapable of doing that. When security was called to box up the few belongings I’d kept there and escort me from the building, I guess he proved his point. I learned another thing that day. People don’t like being called out for being pacifists.

After that, things seemed particularly hopeless. I’d learned a valuable lesson that I wasn’t sure how to apply or how to put into practice. The lesson was simple enough: employers appreciate people skills and the ability to bullshit over real knowledge. I had one but not the other. And to my detriment, it was the one that wasn’t as easily faked. It was devastating to have a problem I couldn’t solve. That’s how Michael talked me into becoming his business partner. Though back then I can’t say there was much business.

“You don’t need the man,” Michael assured me. “You can do it on your own.”

“What? Like my own firm?”

“Yeah, just think about it. You’d be the boss, and you wouldn’t have to answer to anyone.”

Admittedly, I liked the sound of that. Michael was very good at sales.

“You’re good with numbers. I’m good with people.”

“Wait. You want to be partners?”

“Why not?” He shrugged. “I don’t have anything going on.”

“How will we get clients? I can’t even keep a job.” It hit me then. The answer. “I think my problem is…I’m too honest.”

“You just let me worry about that,” Michael insisted. “Let me do the talking. Repeat after me—” He motioned between the two of us. “Tom,” he said, pointing in my direction. “Will focus on numbers.” Then he pointed at himself. “Michael does the talking.”

I didn’t respond. I was mulling it over.

“Got it?”

I knew he had a point. I had seen Michael in action. Picking up women seemed effortless—how hard could finding people who needed an accountant be? I don’t like to waste time, so I turned abruptly and asked directly, “Are you sure you’re as good at talking as I am at numbers?”

“Equally, so. Yes.” Michael had a way of speaking my language that no one had prior and no one’s had since. Until I met Melanie.

He’d sold me on the idea that we could make it work, and since I needed the money to pay back my student loans, it wasn’t easy to turn down an offer that made sense.

Business started out slow, but Michael knew a lot of people and before long, things began to pick up. Over the next half-decade we did all right for ourselves. Until a downturn in the economy and subsequently in Michael’s personal life occurred. The ripple effect caused an upturn in his liquor consumption and seemingly overnight, we were struggling to stay afloat. Literally.

Michael made the evening news when he totaled his car and the underage company he kept died as a result. Turned out they were both indisposed at the time. Before I knew it, clients were jumping ship left and right. Legal fees caused Michael to nearly lose his house. His wife left him. I leveraged the business to keep him from being both homeless and alone.

It was a shit-show, to say the least, and we were left doing the very basic of services. Tax work, mainly.

The silver lining through it all was my wife. June and I grew closer. Thankfully, she wasn’t too put off by the fact that we had to take the kids out of private school, or that we were going to have to put the house on the market.

She always said things would be fine. I didn’t believe her. They looked particularly bleak that spring just after tax season ended. Michael hadn’t been coming into the office, and on the rare occasion he made an appearance, he was hammered.

“Don’t worry, Tom,” he would assure me after each cold call. “I’m going to fix this. I have to…you’re the only friend I have left.”

Meanwhile, I scanned the classifieds for jobs. We couldn’t keep bleeding money on operating expenses, not with so little coming in.

By the time I landed a job, Michael had officially hit rock bottom. I knew telling him was risky. Taking the job basically meant bailing on him at a time he had nothing left, a fact he liked to remind me of often.

When the day came to tell him I was closing the firm, much to my surprise, he actually showed for the meeting. He wasn’t alone.

“Tom!” he exclaimed as I came out into the foyer. “I want you to meet…”

I glanced at the three men standing beside him. Michael, it appeared, had drawn a blank. He was so sloshed he couldn’t pull their names from the rightful place in his limbic system.

One of the men extended his hand. “I’m Mark Jones.”

I took it hesitantly. This was just like Michael to pull a stunt when I’d resolved to do something.

“This is Adam Morford. And that there,” he continued, motioning with the opposite hand, “is Grant Dunn. Dr. Dunn.”

“Tom Anderson, CPA.”

“We’ve been playing golf with your business partner,” he informed me. “And we had to meet you. Forgive us for being impulsive, but Michael tells us you’re a savant. He says you’re good with numbers.”

I pressed my lips together.

“Show them Tom,” Michael slurred. “Show them what you can do.”

I showed them my party trick. It wasn’t hard. I only knew a few.

“Listen,” the guy named Mark said. He placed his arm around my shoulders. “The guys and I—” He paused to make sure everyone was listening. I moved away. Being accosted is my second least favorite thing. “We run a little church.”

That’s exactly what Michael needs, I thought.

“The reason we’re here…” he continued, “is our accountant up and quit on us last week.”

“Sorry to hear that. Good accountants are hard to come by.”

Mark Jones laughed. “Well, he wasn’t an honest man, so good riddance, I say.”

The other men either looked away or stared at the floor. Only briefly. But long enough that I noticed.

“What about you, Tom?”

I cocked my head. I didn’t know what to say, so I offered the tried and true. “What do accountants suffer from that ordinary people don’t?”

Mark looked at his friends. Everyone shrugged. Everyone but Michael. He knew where I was going. He taught me himself.

“Depreciation.”

Everyone laughed. Even Michael.

“This guy,” Mark said to the group. “I like this one.”

Next, he looked at me directly. “Could we talk for a moment?”

I nodded toward my office, and he followed me in. Neither of us sat.

“I won’t beat around the bush,” he said. I appreciated that. Michael looked like he was going to ruin the office carpet at any moment. Urine or vomit…with drunks one can never tell. “We have some money we need to invest, and as it turns out, we were left without anyone to handle that sort of thing. We need someone who can look out for us. Someone who has the church’s best interest in mind. Someone we can trust.”

“Well—” I was about to tell him I’d taken another job when he cut me off. I didn’t have to.

“I know things have been tough for your firm,” he said. He took a step forward, and placed his hand on my shoulder. Then he lowered his voice. “I know your family is having a bit of hardship.”

I scooted from beneath his grip. “I don’t like to be touched.”

He glanced at me sideways. “I like that you’re direct. And I get it,” he said. “What I don’t get,” he paused and shook his head. “Is why someone with your talent is in such dire straits.”

I glanced through the window at Michael. “A series of bad business decisions on my part.”

Mark Jones followed my gaze. “Ah. An honest man. A rare quality, it seems.”

I didn’t say anything. Sometimes silence is good enough.

“Are you a religious man, Mr. Anderson? Are you a praying man?”

“No,” I answered. “I’m a man of science. But I have taken to my knees a bit lately.”

“You don’t think beliefs play a part in making society work as a whole?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Do you think you could have a come-to-Jesus meeting, so to speak, with yourself?”

“I have no interest in attending church Mr. Jones.”

“Oh, but Tom,” he said. “We are so much more than that.”