"So let's eat. I'm starving!" Melanie rose from her chair and headed to the kitchen. "Where are the plates and utensils?"

"Left hand cupboard by the sink and the top drawer beneath it." Russ began taking the containers of food from the oven and placing them on the table. He filled two glasses with iced tea, and produced a pair of chopsticks. Noticing the chopsticks, Melanie exclaimed, "Am I supposed to eat with those?"

"It's the only way to eat Chinese food. Lessons are free." He proceeded to teach her how to hold them and manipulate them, and once again he was amazed to see how quickly she was able to master the task.

"You must have been an A student in school."

"Could have been, but wasn't. There are some subjects I'm just not interested in - like history. I know it's important, but it required a great deal of memory work and I just wasn't into that. Give me a good puzzle to solve, like math, and I'm happy. It wasn't until I began studying for my broker's license that I started really applying myself."

Taking her coffee to the living room, once dinner was over, Melanie glanced at the walls. There were lots of photos, but no family pictures. Every wall was covered with photographs of buildings, from ancient to modern.

"So who's the photographer?" She looked over at Russ and caught him studying her. Blushing, she looked quickly away, so she missed the grin that appeared on his face.

"I took them all. When I finished my degree, I decided to round out my study of architecture with some up-close-and-personal experience. I spent a month touring Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the British Isles, taking photos of old buildings. When I came back, I went to New York and spent a week looking at, and photographing, new ones. It was quite an experience, and one I wouldn't have missed for anything. There are some truly amazing buildings on this planet, and these photos have become my muse. I like to combine features of old and new, and hopefully come up with something appealing."

"No family photos?" Melanie realized she knew very little about his personal life.

"There's an album somewhere with some photos, lots of them taken when I was little. Because I'm an only child, my parents took many pictures of me. They had me later in life, so I guess I was quite a novelty. I didn't lack for anything but I don't believe I was spoiled either. I wasn't given an allowance, but I was paid nominal amounts from a very young age for doing age-appropriate chores, like cleaning my room, cutting grass, shoveling snow, washing windows, until I was old enough to begin working at summer and after-school jobs to earn my own spending money. That's when my Dad took me to the bank, set me up with an account, and a system where a percentage of every paycheck went automatically into a guaranteed investment certificate. That started me on the path to routinely saving money, something for which I am truly grateful. I didn't miss the money and I was really impressed when I realized it was growing for me."




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