“You were…are…much more than a fling. I didn’t want to, but I’ve fallen in love with you. I’m sorry if you feel I deceived you, and I value what’s between us, and I wish I weren’t going, and please let me see you till I leave next week?”
Rob couldn’t help himself from sounding needy. Where this woman was concerned, he was needy and he knew it. He wanted to spend every waking moment with her, making love, or talking or whatever she wanted, as long as he could spend the last few days here with her.
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea,” said Mia. “I think your high handed attitude about what was right for me, showed you are immature and arrogant and not prepared to allow me to make my own decisions about how I want to handle my life. I’d have waited. I’d have gone to wherever you were, if you had only trusted me enough to talk it over, instead of making life decisions for me without my permission. I’ll be very busy with work, so this is goodbye, and have a nice life.” she said brightly.
She refused to let him hug her or kiss her goodbye. She hustled him out the door, and let herself slide down the door to the floor, where she sobbed out her anger and frustration.
On the other side of the door, Rob heard her sobbing, because he couldn’t bear to leave her just yet, even if he was on the wrong side of the door. What a mess he had made of things! The sex had been, just as they said, like an earthquake, and he knew as he heard and saw her orgasms, that this was the woman he wanted to marry, have children with, and be with for the rest of their time on this earth. What was he going to do to make it up to her, to make her listen to his declaration of love, to make her wait for him for two years?
What was he thinking? Why would she want him at all now that she felt he had deceived her and robbed her of her right to decide her own destiny? What could he possible say to make this magnificent creature wait for him while he slogged around in sand and oil and relentless heat, only wishing he was with her?
Rob felt bile in the back of his throat. It was all he could do to keep from beating down her door, and dragging her off to a Justice of the Peace. His heart hurt and threatened to pound its way out of his chest. He was covered in sweat, despite the chilled hallway. However, his inbred honor wouldn’t allow him to break his contract to the company, which would cost him a great deal of money, or to break his promise to himself. He had wanted to travel the world as long back as he could remember, after he saw all the exotic locations the James Bond movies had filmed. As he had sat in darkened movie houses, he swore he would visit all the places the Bond heroes had visited. Could he give up his dreams and not honor his word to the company?
After Rob trudged toward the elevator, and Mia had a good cry, she angrily snatched up the phone and called Ava, even though it was seven in the morning. “Did you know Rob was moving to the Middle East for two years?”
“No, he never bothered to tell me that”, said Ava, sleepily, “and if I find out Noah knew and didn’t bother to tell me, he’ll be cut off for a month!”
Mia almost laughed. “Thanks for the show of support, but it’s not Noah’s fault Rob took me for a ride. I practically attacked the guy last night. He’s a wonderful lover, but I’m so embarrassed now that I told him I loved him. He wanted to see me again before he leaves, but I said no. I can’t take that, so he’s gone.”
Mia hastily continued, “Don’t take this as a sign you need to go out and find me another blind date, because Rob is truly the last blind date I will ever go out on.” She hung up on Ava just as a new torrent of tears took over. She ignored the insistent ringing of the phone, knowing it was either Rob, Ava or her mother, and she knew she couldn’t talk to any of them in the shape she was in.
She huddled in a little ball in her bed, until she became aware of the smell of sex and Rob on the new six hundred thread count sheets. She got up, and tore the sheets off the bed, stomping down to the communal laundry and tossing the sheets in. She knew she would never use them again, just like she knew she would never make her raspberry chocolate dessert again.
Rob called and left messages for Mia every day till his flight left. He had talked to the company Human Resources people to see if he could shorten his overseas contract, or if there was some chance of obtaining married housing—anything to try and find a solution that wouldn’t find him getting on that plane alone, leaving his heart and soul behind. He ordered delivery of purple Sterling roses to her desk and orchids to her door.
There were countless emails from him Mia just erased without reading them. She cried herself to sleep every night. Even Noah and Ava couldn’t talk to her about Rob. She just couldn’t get over the whole situation, and even though she knew Rob had been over to the Ashers, and had asked them to intervene on his behalf, she just couldn’t listen to their entreaties.
Chapter Twelve
After she knew Rob had left the country, Mia threw herself into her work, and was toiling to the point of exhaustion. She would get up early enough she could take a run on the treadmill in her condo building, and then work on her free weights and squats to tone up her skiing muscles.
Then it was off to work and without any extra help for her large case load, she was working a good many evenings too. Evenings seemed to be the time husbands beat up on wives, kids got left in cars while parents went drinking, landlords phoned to complain about domestic disputes and crying children were left alone.
Mia had often mused about her clients, thinking about how most of them walked a fine line between strength and weakness, love and hate, life and death and even sanity and insanity. She likened some of their problems to her and Rob, thinking about the fine line between love and lust, lies and omissions and love and…no, Mia couldn’t say ‘hate’ regarding her feelings for Rob, but ‘disgust’ and ‘distrust’ came to mind.
Mia shook off her reverie, when the receptionist buzzed and said there was a cowboy to see her. Mia’s thoughts about cowboys ran to the Westerns she had watched on TV and movie stars like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne. She was unprepared when the receptionist ushered in one of the real cowboys, with sweat stained hat and manure covered boots. He swept off his hat, and stood awkwardly, his aged and weather beaten forehead whiter than the rest of his face, and he stuttered, looking down at his worn, stained boots. “M-m-ma’am, g-g-otta p-p-roblem here.”
“How can I help you?” Mia asked him, feeling crowded in her small office, which seemed even smaller with the big man standing in it.
Behind him was a tall, raw-boned, dirty, unkempt woman, dressed totally inappropriately for the cold February weather. She had on what used to be called a housedress, which was so faded, Mia couldn’t tell what the original color might have been. She had only house slippers a couple of sizes too big on her blue-veined feet. The woman had lank, stringy gray hair, and thick, pouchy eyes, with a myriad of wrinkles all over her face and neck. She had wattles that would rival any rooster, and her mouth was sullen and down-turned, her lips so thin they simply disappeared.
The cowboy said he had found this woman in one of his cattle fields, and had feared for her safety, and had taken her home for a hot meal and to warm up.
“This here w-w-woman says her k-k-kids are lost but she don’t s-s-say where she lost ‘em.” He had searched diligently all over the area, on horseback and snowmobile, but had found no trace of children, nor any footprints in the snow except hers and his, and his horse’s.
“Figurred m-m-mebbe your office mighta’ hearda’ s-s-some lost children, or could give the woman some f-f-free publicity to help her find her kids.”
He had wanted to take her to the police, but she said she’d been there and they hadn’t helped her.
Then, his chivalrous duty done, he backed out of the office and was gone, leaving Mia to deal with the now weeping and wailing woman. Mia fed the woman coffee and she started talking about her kids, apparently a boy and a girl, aged three and five respectively.
She had large callused hands with cuts and broken dirty fingernails, but she seemed in good physical health, and she was lucid enough in her descriptions of the two kids. “They are cute little ones, you know. They both have blue eyes, and blond hair, like their daddy.”
So Mia humored the woman, who refused to give her name. Thinking about how strange this whole situation was, she suddenly had an idea. Mia excused herself to get some fresh air, because the warmth of her office was bringing out the ripe smell of the woman’s unwashed body, not to mention the leftover manure from the cowboy’s boots, and from the outer office, she phoned the local police station. She asked if they’d ever had a case of a woman who had lost her small children in this area. The young officer who answered didn’t think so, but let Mia talk to the sergeant, who had been around much longer. He remembered a case, long before his time, but still on the books. When he went into his computer to look it up, found it had happened nearly fifty years ago.
Mia thought she was in some kind of time warp, with this woman in her office, and then the sergeant said, “Holy cow! How in the world did you come up with that theory? That lady is still alive, and we have an all-points bulletin to pick her up. She’s armed and dangerous. She just escaped from the institution for the criminally insane.” No wonder she didn’t want to talk to the police.
“That old gal killed her two children, aged three and five, with her bare hands, and then shot her husband. Then she went after the hired man and her mother-in-law with an axe. Later she gunned down two police officers who tried to take her to jail,” the sergeant told Mia.
“Yeah, here it is…two nights ago, she strangled an orderly at the institution and walked away. I guess she went to look for those two little tykes she strangled.”
Mia was scared spitless as she waited with the woman, feeding her coffee and cookies, and talking quietly about the kids and how cute they must be.
Once the police finally arrived, it took the four officers at least ten minutes to subdue this big strong seventy-two year old woman, and take her away from Mia’s office. She had both a gun and a knife on her, taken from the cowboy’s house, and she certainly knew how to use them.
Mia wondered why the woman hadn’t tried to harm her or the cowboy. It turned out later, the reason she had killed her entire family way back when, was so she could run away with her hired-hand cowboy lover.
When her lover saw what she had done, he called police, so she killed him too. Our modern day cowboy, had obviously triggered some happy memory for her, and Mia became her savior because she didn’t know the story, and offered to help her get the kids back.
If the cowboy had taken her directly to a hospital, or police station, likely a few more deaths or serious injuries would have resulted. As Mia sat and enjoyed a much deserved glass of wine later that evening, she mused about how fine the line is between life and death for us all.
Just another day at the office, Mia thought wryly.
Then her thoughts turned to Rob, as they usually did, and wished she could have recounted this unbelievable tale to him. How he would have enjoyed hearing about it. She mused about love and despair, and cried till she was a sniveling, snot-nosed wreck.
Chapter Thirteen
Ava invited Mia for a drink after work, because she was worried about her. Mia was always saying she wanted to lose weight, but Ava thought she was taking the dieting a bit too far. “You’re looking awful, Mia”
“Thanks, I love you too, Darlin’.“ said Mia.
“Well, you look like death warmed over,” continued Ava. “I know you aren’t eating, and it looks like you’re not sleeping either. I’m even worried about you falling asleep at the wheel when you’re driving out to the ski hills.”
Ava had suggested meeting at the Social Workers’ favorite watering hole, the Westgate Hotel bar that was large, noisy, and fairly anonymous. Since spouses rarely joined this regular Friday night ritual beer fest, Noah wasn’t with them. Mia and Ava didn’t lack for drinks, and neither had to pull out a credit card to pay for a round.
Mia was off to a training course the next week, out of town, which meant Ava would be taking care of both their case loads. Mia would do the same for Ava when it was her turn to take the mandatory training.
Mia was briefing Ava on the files that would need attention while Mia was away, and mapping out strategy for handling crises. Ava wasn’t looking forward to handling twice the number of cases, and Mia wasn’t very excited about the mandatory training she had to endure. Neither was looking forward to the week to come.
Mia finally said, “Okay, girl, I can tell when something is bothering you. Out with it.”
Ava hesitated, and then said, “Noah got an email from Rob last night. He asked about you.”
“Tell him I’m fine. Not another word,”
Ava stopped again, “Rob wanted Noah to ask you if he could have your new email address. I didn’t even know you had changed it since he went away.”
“Tell him no.”
“I guess the conditions over there are pretty good, but the women are all covered up from head to toe, except for their eyes.” Ava went on, as usual, completely ignoring Mia’s curt comments.
“Noah says Rob’s first ten days off will be in a couple of weeks, and he’s flying up to Cortina, Italy to ski.”
Mia looked her friend in the eye, and said, “I don’t care where he’s skiing, or what he’s doing. We are so over, that I’ve forgotten all about him. Besides, I’m going to be taking my Ski Patrol exams on the hill in a couple of weeks, so I have to spend all my time going over my First Aid, and building up my strength so I can pull a loaded toboggan down the hill.”
“What with so much work, and all my Ski Patrol stuff, I wouldn’t have time to write to Rob anyhow,” Mia finished lamely.
“Noah says Rob wants to send you a ticket to Italy to come and ski with him,” ventured Ava.
“Listen, girlfriend, I’m going to go back to several months ago, when we first talked about this great friend you and Noah wanted to hook me up with. As I remember, my words were, ‘No, never again, not in a million years,’” stated Mia.
Ava went on, as if Mia hadn’t spoken, “He’s making lots of money over there, but he’s really lonesome, and he misses you. If someone wanted to send me a ticket to go to Italy, and ski in one of the great Olympic resorts of the world, I’d be on the next plane.”
“Ava, he had his chance with me, and he wasn’t honest about it. He knew how I felt about him, and he just took off. I’m not getting involved again, on some whim of his that he wants to impress me with a ticket to Italy, and then have him disappear again,” complained Mia.
“Ski Patrolling is lots of fun. You get a free lift ticket for a friend, and you get to ski all day, and get a lunch voucher, and then we all meet at the River Inn and have beer and fried chicken. There are always lots of unattached men around, so I won’t have any trouble meeting someone new.”
Mia had a sudden thought about “Whistling Down the Dark” and knowing she had already found the person she wanted to spend her life with. However, he had his own timetable and she wasn’t on it. At least if she was on it, she was written in invisible ink.
Chapter Fourteen
Mia had worried endlessly about her Ski Patrol toboggan test. She and several other skiers trying out for the Patrol would meet at the top of one of the more difficult runs. They would load up the toboggan with about 150 pounds of sandbags, and with the weight of the sled itself, equaling closer to 200 pounds. Granted, she didn’t have to lift it, just maneuver it down a steep incline, without
further harming the rescuee, or letting go of the whole darned contraption and having it run over her. If that happened, she’d be the laughing stock of the whole Patrol, but if it ever happened when she had a person in it, it could be disastrous.
There were about fifteen potential Patrollers trying out that day, and as luck would have it, one of the toboggans had a broken runner. That meant it took a long time to test all the candidates. It also meant they didn’t have time to get all the sandbags back up the hill, so when it came Mia’s turn, to her horror, she was going to take a live person down!
It wasn’t an injured person, but another of the professional patrollers, who had been teaching earlier in the day. He teased her, admonishing her to treat him like gold.
Mia recognized the Patroller, whose name was Colby Palmer. Colby weighed about 175 pounds, and was an even six feet tall. He kept in good shape in winter by skiing, and in summer, she had heard he was a long distance hiker, plus he followed the snow, heading down under where the seasons were reversed.
He was lean and hard bodied, and had dark, almost black hair, worn rather long. His eyes behind the ski goggles were hard to see, but Mia assumed they were brown, because of his dark hair and swarthy complexion. He gingerly climbed into the sled, and told Mia how to hook up to it.
She wrapped Colby up in the tarp provided, so he wouldn’t get snow in his face as she skied, and then strapped him into the sled so he wouldn’t fall out, if she happened to hit a bump. The Velcro straps were also meant to hold him immobile as if he really had an injury that had to be kept stabilized.
Gingerly, Mia started out with the loaded sled, and gradually picked up speed as she and the heavy load slid over moguls and around a few rocks on the slope. Colby called out encouragement to her, although his words were muffled by the tarp, and peppered with occasional profanities as Mia took him over bumps that rattled his teeth.
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