But we had each other and that was enough. We could talk together, share our fears and frustrations together, congratulate each other, and occasionally, very occasionally that first year, make love to one another. It was always sweet.
We went home for the summer and quickly became immersed in our wedding plans. Mary proved to be a fabulous planner, taking to her task with a zeal I'd never seen or suspected. We were married on June 28th, 1985 before more than seventy guests. It was the happiest day of my life, either life, to that point. After the reception we climbed on a plane and flew to Los Angeles where we boarded a cruise ship for a seven-day trip to Mexico and back. For the first time in our relationship we had all the time in the world to enjoy each other's bodies. We missed two of the three ports of call and probably spent more time in our cabin than we did on deck.
When we returned to Spokane after the cruise we were faced with the bizarre situation of not having anyplace to stay besides either her parents house or mine. We both agreed that it was less weird to stay with mine. Less weird, but still weird. Sleeping with your new wife in your old bedroom while your parents were in the house is strange no matter how you slice it. We found ourselves making love on the floor when the urge struck us because we didn't want Mom or Dad to hear the bed squeaking.
Ironically, the best example of my business skills came our sophomore year in college, long before I picked up my degree in it. We had to rent an apartment in Seattle; there was no way we were going to stay in the dorms another year; but we needed to protect our capital from taking a serious ding from this. In order for my first major move to be successful, I needed to have as much of the twenty some-odd thousand dollars in stocks and bonds available at that time. I could not let it whittle away bit by bit paying for living expenses.
I constructed a paupers budget that had us eating Rice-a-roni, hotdogs, and bologna sandwiches a lot but that served to use up my hospital salary, the interest on the bonds, and the growth of the stocks in such a way that we were still making more than we were putting out. Our apartment was less than six hundred square feet and you practically had to do an armed reconnaissance before you dared to venture out to the car or the bus stop but we got by.
Both of us kept up our maddening pace at school, sacrificing time together in the early years because we knew it would be returned to us when we were older. We somehow managed to keep our spirits high, to keep our love strong. The best part of those years were the nights after I'd returned from work, when I would find Nina just putting her studying aside, her body clad only in a long T-shirt. We always kept a bottle of cheap white wine in the refrigerator and we would often share a glass of it before retiring to the bedroom for a lovemaking session before dropping off to sleep.
In 1986 the day I'd been waiting for since my return finally came. The business section of the Seattle newspaper announced that Microsoft Corporation would have an initial public offering of stock. The price was twenty-one dollars a share. I called my father, I called Tracy, I called Mike, I called Jack, all of whom had begun investing at my advice. I told them what they should do. I myself was probably among the first to buy when the market opened that Monday. I took everything I could spare, all my bonds, all my stocks that were simply holding money, nearly twenty-three thousand dollars worth of capital and bought Microsoft with it at twenty-one a share. That was nearly eleven hundred shares of what would eventually become the staple of the computer industry. By the end of the day that price had already risen to twenty-six a share. In less than eight hours I'd already made more than five grand. And it would do nothing but go up and up.
I continued to shove my money into Microsoft exclusively until the price rose into the forties per share. Then I began to concentrate on other IPOs that were just coming to bear.
In June of 1987, only three years after her first day of college, Nina finished her undergraduate degree. She was consistently on the honor roll and had no problem securing both admission and a student loan for the medical school. She began her classes there in September of 1987.
In January of 1988, a semester earlier than most of my classmates, I graduated with honors with a bachelors degree in International Business. Before I'd even been given my degree I was offered a job with one of the more prestigious investment firms in the Seattle area. They were impressed with my honor roll placement, my interview skills, and most of all, my portfolio. I was singled out as a rising star, going to work in a place that usually only hired those with family connections. The starting salary was forty-eight thousand a year; a considerable amount for that time period.
Nina and I stayed in our apartment, paying five hundred and twelve dollars a month in rent and stashing most of my salary into more rising stocks.
I hated every minute of it while I worked there but I learned much. I was considered somewhat of an eccentric, a square peg, but they were very impressed with the witchlike feel I had for the stock market and for picking out trends in it. It wasn't hard to do when you had knowledge of how the system worked coupled with knowledge of future events. I learned to research and invest in small, unheard of stocks that were about to benefit from some technological or sociological advance. Things like the latex glove industry in the face of the AIDS crisis.
Not surprisingly most of my brilliant insights were in the medical industry and the pharmaceutical industry. For instance, I knew from my previous life that there would be a big push to equip every major fire department engine and truck company in the country with semi-automatic defibrillators. So, using the skills I'd learned, I would research which companies made those things and direct my clients to invest their money there. Invariably I was right and my clients made money. My reputation grew and I began to develop contacts; the most important thing in that business. The fact that I couldn't stand most of my clients didn't matter. I learned to put that aside. My clients were my ticket to freedom.
By 1990, just as Nina was starting her third year of medical school I had both the contacts and the impressive reputation I needed. I resigned my position with the firm and Stevens Investment Consulting was born. My price was high, higher than anyone in the Seattle area. I did not advertise in any way shape or form. But I had more clients than I could handle. Word of mouth had spread that if you wanted to make some guaranteed money, you went and saw Bill Stevens. I rented a spacious office near downtown. I hired an attractive secretary to staff the front desk. And I dispensed killer advice that never, as far as I know, cost anybody a dime in losses. Amusingly enough, a good portion of my clients were the investment counselors that I'd worked with at the firm. After all, who knew better than they how accurate my predictions were. None of my clients ever knew that I lived in a pauper's hovel in South Seattle and drove an old Datsun to work. None of them knew that I was cramming every spare penny into the same stocks I was recommending to them.
Our net worth climbed past the million-dollar mark about the time that Nina started her fourth and final year of medical school. We celebrated by making a few purchases. I bought my wife a Volvo with all the bells and whistles. I bought myself a BMW with all the bells and whistles. I bought the both of us a three-bedroom house in one of the middle-class suburbs, putting down twenty percent and assuming a thirty-year loan at seven and a half percent. The real estate agent that sold it to us thought we were mad once she got a look at our credit report and earnings sheet.