On Balance, a Particular Kind of Friendship

There are two kinds of people, it always seems at this time of year: those who fill out their own tax forms and those who hand them over to someone who actually knows math. I was somewhere in my 20s when I went crawling to an accountant with my puny little pay stub; a jerk at work had called me “the only poor person in America who isn’t getting a refund back.”

The accountant was older. Or maybe he just seemed older. I remember being impressed by the fact that his name was Hal and his car didn’t leak oil and his office carpet was very clean. He sharpened a pencil and recorded my year’s upshot; it took about four minutes. I wanted to give him the Nobel Prize when that refund came.

So it went. Years passed. Once a year, I’d drive out to that clean office. Once a year, Hal would jam that pencil into the electric sharpener and tote up my life in governmentese. The year I had to sell my beloved old Mustang to pay the tax man, he listened to me whine on the phone for two nights running. The year the forms changed to “married, filing jointly,” he sent a beautiful card.

Homes, kids, jobs. Addresses, deductions, income. The annual quest to remember where you stuck the W-2s. The annual chipper “Hey, there!” from Hal’s beige and blue waiting room. Years pass, and finally the year arrives when you realize that they’ve somehow accumulated into a particular kind of friendship, a certain comfort. A sense that, come what may, there’ll always be someone who had your number, way back when.

*

This was that year. How it started was with a story a woman told me at a dinner party one night. The small talk had moved beyond homes and kids to the realm of jobs. The woman was affluent. I expected her to talk philanthropy. Instead, she announced that she worked as a part-time bookkeeper. “I only have a few clients,” she said.

She didn’t need the money. She needed the self-expression, the involvement. And yes, she knew, bookkeeping wasn’t what most people thought of when the word “involvement” came up. But it was what she knew, what she’d done for years before her children hit adulthood. People didn’t realize: Numbers could be entertaining. A simple check ledger, upon inspection, could tell a whole life story, reveal amazing nuances of humanity and character.

One day, an old friend asked if she’d take on a wealthy acquaintance, a childless widow who needed help managing her affairs. The job was straightforward--do the books, keep the accounts organized, work with the widow’s accountants and lawyers. There was only one catch: The job had to be done at the widow’s address.

The woman accepted the offer and called on the widow. The house was like something out of a time warp, a museum piece in ‘50s French provincial, jammed with photos of loved ones dead and gone. With wrinkled fingers, the widow laid out her ledgers. Why, she wants company, the bookkeeper slowly realized, riffling through the yellowed papers.

Not only had she no children, she had no living family: No heirs were listed.

The widow was indescribably alone.

*

They talked for hours on that first appointment. The deal was for the bookkeeper to come twice a month. Within weeks, the widow was calling at odd hours. The mail had piled up, and she couldn’t find things and could the bookkeeper perhaps come early? Perhaps stay for a bite of lunch?

Another bookkeeper might have been flummoxed, but this was a peculiar situation. As noted, this working woman was well-off in her own right. Quietly, she said yes--to the job, to the involvement, to the human connection. “The truth was,” she confided, “I liked the old gal.”

So it has gone. Years have passed. Addresses, deductions, incomes. The widow has moved, and still the bookkeeper meets her at her home. They dine. They chat. They sharpen their pencils and tote up life’s numbers. They are intimate and distant. They are, in a particular manner, friends.

In the same manner, when we met with Hal not long ago, I didn’t shake his hand--I gave him a hug this time. What this has to do with taxes, I cannot tell you exactly. Still, it seemed pertinent, today, to the bottom line.

Shawn Hubler’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is: shawn.hubler@latimes.com