Well, when they too have the rug pulled out from under them, how much can they do?
Her best friend and fellow founding member of the charity, recently but no longer CEO, due to the new Chairman who had taken over during our main character’s incapacity, had been visiting her friend in hospital and relating the day-to-day events that had turned the running of their organisation into what she calls a circus
I’m going to give her a daughter who is a tenacious reporter and set her on the trail of a conspiracy, that of the so-called benevolent charities and the shady characters that manage to attach themselves to what she will call the charitable gravy train.
She also is the product of that echelon of people who are upper-class nobility, having resented from a young age being called Lady So and So, going to the privileged schools and being treated differently.
She is the rebel against her birthright, her parents, and everything they stand for.
And yet, as she gets older and sees the worth of those connections, those she had so willingly trashed for the sake of getting an editor to take her seriously, it’s going to be a tricky line she will have to walk if she is going to help her mother.
Perhaps her parents were not the monsters she believed they were.
The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.
My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.
Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.
So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.
So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.
I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.
And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.
There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’
Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.
But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.
One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.
It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.
I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.
Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.
The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.
Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?
But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.
Huka Falls is located in the Wairakei Tourist Park about five minutes north of Taupo on the north island of New Zealand.
The Waikato River heading towards the gorge
The water heading down the gorge, gathering pace
until it crashes over the top of the waterfall at the rate of about 220,000 liters per second. It also makes a very loud noise, so that when you are close to it, hearing anything but the falls is impossible.
This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.
His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
This book has finally reached the Final Editor’s draft, so this month it is going to get the last revision, and a reread for the beta readers.
…
It’s a story I’ve often thought about – the notion that you could be mistaken for someone else and that someone else was on the run and wanted by the police.
Of course, finding that first sentence that is going to drag the reader down the rabbit hole of the story to come takes longer than it does to write the first chapter and didn’t survive the editor’s critical eye
But, after a few hours of deliberation, I had to agree with him, and now the game’s afoot.
So, the MC is a travel agent, one who prefers to go on his own tours so that he can truthfully tell his clients what places, hotels, and travel services are really like.
I’ve noticed that when travel writers do reviews, they seem to get different rooms and experiences than us poor travellers, no more noticeable than when we stayed in San Gimignano. The hotel sounded wonderful, and the description of the room overlooking the town square was fantastic. Pity then we were shoved into a small room out the back, overlooking pigeon coops, and a shower that continually broke down.
It’s probably this disappointment that provided some inspiration for the book.
But rather than being a travelogue, I’m adding some mystery, and suspense to make it more readable.
There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.
Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.
This is sometimes how we must feel when overlooked or ignored, like a nobody.
And some people will treat you like a nobody, i.e. someone who is just not important.
That’s just one use of the word.
Another might be…
Who did that to your room?
‘Nobody’ is the plaintiff’s reply. The infamous Mr Nobody. We’ve never met him, but he’s always there. And, what’s more, he seems to be able to be in more than one place at a time.
Then there’s that time when there’s nobody in the room, nobody agreed with me, hell, that happens all the time, and when I rang your phone nobody answered.
Nobody? Was I expecting Mr Nobody to answer? Surely the response should have been, ‘and you didn’t answer’.
Of course, let’s not delve too deep here, lest we might find out something we didn’t want to know.
I went to your house last night, but nobody was home.
How is it we refer to the people whom we know live in that house as ‘nobody’. Shouldn’t we be saying, ‘none of you was at home’?
It seems nobody is one of those words we often use in vain.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
It was in darkness. I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door so I could see to unlock it.
I looked up and saw the globe was broken.
Instant alert.
I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there. I went to the backup and it wasn’t there either. Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.
Who?
There were four hiding spots and all were empty. Someone had removed the weapons. That could only mean one possibility.
I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.
But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbor and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.
Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.
There were three entrances to the villa, the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch. One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage. It was built in the late 1700s, by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief. It had a hidden underground room which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.
It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were near the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely. It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.
The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground. I move aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side. After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks. It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that. I’d left torches at either end so I could see.
I closed the door after me, and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch. I traversed the short passage which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end. I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door. It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.
I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.
I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.
Silence, an eerie silence.
I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting. There wasn’t. It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.
I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was. Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.
That raised the question of who told them where I was.
If I was the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan. The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental. But I was not that man.
Or was I?
I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness. My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void. Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly. A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.
Still nothing.
I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job. I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked where there would be no escape.
Coming in the front door. If I was not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk-in. One shot would be all that was required.
Contract complete.
I sidled quietly up the passage staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door. There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting. It was an ideal spot to wait.
Crunch.
I stepped on some nutshells.
Not my nutshells.
I felt it before I heard it. The bullet with my name on it.
And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea. I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.
I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.
Two assassins.
I’d not expected that.
The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part. The second was still breathing.
I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives. Armed to the teeth!
I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian. I was expecting a Russian.
I slapped his face, waking him up. Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down. The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally. He was not long for this earth.
“Who employed you?”
He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile. “Not today my friend. You have made a very bad enemy.” He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth. “There will be more …”
Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.
I would have to leave. Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess. I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.
Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally. I was trying not to connect dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.
A half-hour passed and I hadn’t moved. Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.
Until I heard a knock on my front door.
Two thoughts, it was either the police, alerted by the neighbors, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?
I stood, and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm. I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.
If it was the police, this was going to be a difficult situation. Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.
No police, just Maria. I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.
“You left your phone behind on the table. I thought you might be looking for it.” She held it out in front of her.
When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically, and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”
I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply, and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”
I looked at my arm and realized it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.
“You need to go away now.”
Should I tell her the truth? It was probably too late, and if she was any sort of law-abiding citizen she would go straight to the police.
She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity. “What happened?”
I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible. I went with the truth. “My past caught up with me.”
“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss. It doesn’t look good.”
“I can fix it. You need to leave. It is not safe to be here with me.”
The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened. She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.
I opened the door and let her in. It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences. Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge. She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.
I expected her to scream. She didn’t.
She gave me a good hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous. Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about. She would have to go to the police.
“What happened here?”
“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me. I used to work for the Government, but no longer. I suspect these men were here to repay a debt. I was lucky.”
“Not so much, looking at your arm.”
She came closer and inspected it.
“Sit down.”
She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
“Do you have medical supplies?”
I nodded. “Upstairs.” I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs. Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.
She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back. I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed though I was not sure why it might interest her.
She helped me remove my shirt, and then cleaned the wound. Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet. It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.
When she’d finished she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”
No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.
“Alisha?”
“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you. She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”
“That was wrong of her to do that.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Will you call her?”
“Yes. I can’t stay here now. You should go now. Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”
There is only one possible problem about starting a relationship in a city like New York, a melting pot of people from all over the country. It’s quite possibly the home of what could become long-distance relationships, mostly because in essence it’s a long distance between your hometowns.
But, for everyone, it’s never the first thing in your mind, that’s just trying to get through those first few weeks, then months, then the steps that get you to the point where it’s time to go visit either your or her parents and family.
It’s a thing that some stave off as long as possible, particularly if you know your family are going to be over-inquisitive or likely to make your life hell with precious little details you hope no one would ever bring into the light again.
And of course, you know that is utterly impossible.
Of course, if you haven’t been home for a while, it makes the announcement all the more poignant at home, especially if you’re bringing the new partner, the one you have been praising to the hilt.
It was never going to be a problem for me, my parents were always on a cruise to somewhere or other and never home, and my brothers, quintessential men of the world, were scattered around the globe and it had been ages since we’d all been together.
But that first Christmas together, I knew Gabby was going to ask me to go home with her. Like myself, she came from small-town America, a picturesque small city where opportunities were not as varied as those in the larger cities, where many migrated if they wanted better opportunities.
A lot often forget their origins, or more likely due to the pressures of establishing themselves in a new job, it took a while before going home. Gabby had let three or so years slip by, and after being, as she put it, implored by her mom to come home, she had relented.
And since my office has decided to close for the holidays, she knew I didn’t have an excuse not to go with her. And for better or worse, I turned up at the airport at the appointed time, and she was waiting. I didn’t know until later that she had fully expected me not to go, the result of the last trip she had organised with what had been ‘the one’.
On that occasion, she had told the now ex that there was only one thing he had to do once they arrived home. What she told me once the plane was in the air, “You will be meeting on various occasions my maternal grandmothers, Faith, Hope, and Charity. They are, how should I say, somewhat strange, but they’re harmless.”
Usually, the mother-in-law was the leader of the Inquisition, and the father-in-law was the one that’s happy to tell you what he would do to you if you hurt his ‘little girl’. Three essentially quirky old ladies were a new twist, and it was going to be interesting
I have always been a cautious fellow and very rarely dived into the unknown without a little investigation first. I mean, that’s what an investigative journalist does, isn’t it?
Of course, that could be construed as uncool when it came to your hired friend, but I wasn’t very good at relationships, and this one with Gabby was a surprise. She was different, but I knew that initial expectations were quickly dashed and over time completely shattered, or it could go the other way.
I had not expected she’d think our relationship was at the point where we would be meeting the parents, but to refuse would not be a good idea.
So, being the person I was, I wanted to know everything about her town, simply because it had a web page, the council, the sheriff, and upcoming Christmas activities.
It also had a sidebar about a certain Prom King and Queen, the town’s two most popular teenagers, and their plans, which were not the least of which was a long happy life together. Gabby Saunders and John Prince.
It wasn’t hard to see why they were the golden couple. John was the star of the football team; Gabby was the captain of the cheerleaders, and both families were prominent in the town.
Her father was the mayor and rancher, and John’s father was a farmer and agricultural industrialist. She had said little about her father other than he ran a ranch, and her brothers and sister were ranch hands
I asked why she thought she needed to chase a career in the city when there was a perfectly good job at home, all it got was a pout and and a mumbled reply about being something more than a cowgirl.
I did a quick scan of the local paper’s digital back copies with her name and found two very interesting items. The first, a month after the prom, was an incident involving Gabby and John that was remarkably short in detail, and it told me just how much pull each of their fathers had in that town.
The second, the prodigal daughter was leaving to go to New York to seek a career in fashion design, being a notable up-and-coming designer who designed and made clothes for her Aunt Faith to sell in her dress shop. That raised a question: Why was she now simply a personal assistant to a crabby old lady?
John, in the meantime, had stayed home and was actively working in the management of his father’s business, with no inclination to join his bride-to-be. He was happy enough, he was quoted, to bide his time whilst she shook off the desire to see what life was like on the other side. The other side of what, I wondered.
Was this the reason why she had stayed away from home so long?
I thought about that whole scenario, and it was going to be a fascinating dynamic when I turned up with what he believed was his girl. I came from a town like hers, and I knew how those ‘most likely’ scenarios worked. He still carried a torch, as the saying goes. She, apparently, was not.
I searched for a bed and breakfast to stay at if or when things started going south, and they would, no matter what she thought I felt about her. When I rang up, I got a charming young lady by the name of Pricilla, and when I mentioned Gabby, there was a sharp intake of breath. That was followed by a warning. The last chap Gabby brought home to meet the parents was virtually hounded out of town. He lasted two days.
I smiled to myself. This might just be fun. I asked her to be at the airport, just in case, and she said she wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Gabby was strangely subdued for most of the flight, unusual because she normally had what I called an effervescent personality.
I put it down to nerves, returning after so long away; and perhaps what lay ahead. I had not told her that I knew a little about her former life and planned to keep it that way.
She had said that her mother was coming to get us, but I fully expected to see John in his dilapidated pick-up where only two could sit in the front. Yes, Hollywood romance movies had a lot to answer for.
It was one of those airports where the steps went down the front of the plane, and you walked across the tarmac to a small building that served as the airport terminal. Alongside, a fence where people could line up to see who got off the plane.
I saw her scanning that fence line for her mother and not seeing her.
We went into the terminal, a modernised and extended interior, because of increased passenger numbers, or perhaps because a congressman lived nearby. That always helped.
I saw John before he saw her. I also saw Priscilla, who, catching sight of me, hung back.
We passed through the arrival gate into the main floor where about 30 people were waiting to greet arriving passengers, and the look on her face went from an impending smile to a scowl, and a mutter under her breath, “What the fuck?”
She never, ever swore.
“I hope that’s not directed at your mother,” I said.
She glared at me. “This is not what I hoped would be your first look at my hometown.”
Just as that was said, John loomed all six foot six two hundred and forty pounds of a devilishly handsome cowboy. It was not hard to see what she had seen in him. But appearances were deceptive.
He tipped his hat. “Hello, Gabby. Welcome home!”
She switched the glare from me to him. “Where’s my mother?” It was not the politest of tones.
“She was unavoidably detained. I offered to come in her place, and here I am.”
He had noticed but chose to ignore me.
In her annoyance, Gabby had forgotten to introduce me, so I just leaned against the handle of my suitcase and waited to see how this was going to play out. Since I was not supposed to know anything about her and him, I couldn’t say or do anything. Yet.
She had her phone out, calling her mother I guessed. I heard an answer on the other end, then, “Where the hell are you?”
A moment later, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. This is exactly why I haven’t been home in years, and if you have any more of these surprises in store, I will get back on the next plane out, and I will never come home again.”
There was a minute when her face made various contortions, and then she disconnected the call.
She looked like she was going to scream, but didn’t, just counted to ten under her breath, then looked at me. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. These things happen.”
“I’m afraid there’s another problem?”
“No room at the inn?”
Her face changed to one of surprise. “How…”
“Good hearing; your mother has a loud voice. Storms are unpredictable, and I did check last night to see what the weather conditions were going to be, and I was surprised we were allowed to fly in. That’s why I took the punt I might need somewhere to stay until your accommodation issues are sorted.”
Priscilla took that to be her cue. “Hello, Gabby.”
“Prissy.” It wasn’t a term of endearment.
“I told you I had no part in that.” Straight on the defensive. There was a mountain of issues that needed to be resolved, and I was now wondering if this trip was going to have a few unexpected surprises.
Even so, I knew despite everything I was witnessing now; Gabby was everything I could want in a partner, but she had issues. And if I could help…
Awkward silence. I broke it. “So, instead of becoming the next hot news item for the Gazette, if we stand here much longer, I suggest, John, you take Gabby home. Pricilla will take me to the B and B for a day or so, and I will get myself out to your place tomorrow.”
“This is not… “
“What you planned for. No. I fear the best-laid plans of mice and men can easily be waylaid in a small town like this. I suggest you take the time to reunite with your family, I’m sure John will be happy to drop you off and give you some space. He has the look of a boyfriend who hasn’t accepted that you’ve moved on.” I looked at him. “And I’m sure before the holiday is over you and I will have a chat about that. In the meantime, I expect you to be a gentleman.”
That look of surprise on her face deepened. “You knew?”
“I had an inkling. I come from a small town too, as you know, that had a similar situation. You are a gentleman, aren’t you John, not some creepy stalker?”
He was going to say something, but Gabby cut him off. “I bet you brought that shitty little truck?”
His expression told the story. “Best laid plans of mice and men, as you say David. There would have been no room in the cabin, and I would not expect you to sit out back with the pig shit.” She shook her head. “I truly feel sorry for you, John. I do. You and I will be having words on the way to my house.” Then a final glare in my direction, “I expect to see you tomorrow morning, David.”
In the end, I don’t think John wanted to be there. And I did see an enterprising young lady taking various photos of us. A reporter or photographer for the local newspaper? Or would our encounter go viral on the internet? I couldn’t wait to find out.
Priscilla had stood back and watched the fun. So did a dozen or so others who probably knew exactly who they were. We both waited until they had left the terminal building before moving on ourselves.
“You should just get back on the plane,” she said. “You still can. I know the airline staff.”
“It might seem a little rocky at the moment, but the test of a couple’s relationship is to be thrown from the frying pan into the fire. The whole episode feels like a hiccup moment in a romance movie. I’m guessing for a while that they were the star attraction given their school graduation and parents standing.”
“What did you read?”
“Nearly all of the back copies of the newspaper for a hundred years. Might as well be prepared.”
“Did it tell you that neither of them wanted to become a spectacle? That was Gabby’s mother, who had to take a simple childhood romance and turn it into headline news. It might have worked had John not believed the story. Yes, Gabby liked him, yes, they were cute together, but no, Gabby didn’t love him. After it was broadcast far and wide and their friendship was put under such a large microscope, it became too much. The only place for Gabby to go was as far away from here as she could get.”
“And he still doesn’t get it?”
“To be honest, John is not a man of the world. He lacks sophistication, he is a hopeless scholar but is a good football player. Good enough, but not that good. He played college football but not NFL as such and just faded into obscurity. He married twice, but his heart is not in it. He thinks the only girl for him is Gabby.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough if she is or isn’t. I’m not going to force her to choose.”
“Do you love her?”
“Would I be here if I didn’t? The girl I know from New York, that’s not her who got off the plane. It’s like we stepped through a portal into another world with another Gabby.’
“For a lot of people, it’s hell. if you come from a small town like this, you’ll know what it’s like. We keep getting told it’s going to get better.”
“It isn’t much better in the big cities, just more people and more problems. If I hadn’t met Gabby, I would have been going home myself permanently.”
“Farmer or rancher?”
“Ranch, though my older brother runs it while my parents see the world from a cruise ship, one long endless cruise, it seems. Still, it could be worse.”
“You’re right. That will be tomorrow morning when you meet the three witches.”
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 