Blown Away

by K'Anne Meinel

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Christenson is busy at the moment, may I take a message?” This too was repeated many times in the day.

  As she wrote down the message, it struck her how much more odd it was than some of the requests they got for Ms. Christenson’s time. She diligently wrote down the details as they were relayed to her. Sorting through the mail, she quickly found a corresponding piece of paper to attach to the message. Someone was in an awful hurry; Ms. Christenson would not be pleased.

  Ellen looked at the message and the attached bit of mail. She looked again in surprise as she thought over what it meant. Reaching for her cell phone she stopped herself and pulled up the information on her laptop, using a search engine to find a phone number. Grabbing her cell phone she quickly punched in the numbers for the number she had found.

  “Ello?” she heard on the other end of the line.

  “Mr. Davidson please?” she said automatically, officially. She was used to dealing with corporate types and her social skills were lacking on a few levels.

  “Who is this?’ the gruff voice asked suspiciously.

  “Mr. Davidson? It’s E…” she stopped herself realizing he didn’t know her as Ellen. “It’s Avril Christenson,” she said pleasantly, using the unfamiliar name that no one had used in twenty years.

  He paused for a long moment as he processed why the name sounded familiar. It took a while, partly due to age, partly due to the passage of time. Then it suddenly struck him. “Avril?” he questioned to be sure.

  “Yes, Mr. Davidson. It’s Avril,” she confirmed kindly. She knew he had to be ancient.

  “Well Avril Christenson, who’d a thunk,” he said, pleased to hear from her. He knew her to be some high muckety-muck out there in Cali-forn-ny-a. He’d even heard that she’d been on some magazines or something like.

  She smiled at his way of speaking. Getting to the point of her call, she didn’t wish to be social, she began, “Mr. Davidson, the town is asking that I tear down my folks house. I was wondering if you still had your equipment and could take it down?”

  He mused over it that for a moment before nodding. He’d heard that the town was getting rid of some of the old derelicts. But the Christenson place was a way out of town; he wondered why they would even bother? “Yeah, I could do that,” he began slowly. “My grandson and I could have it down in no time flat,” he said aloud and then wondered to himself if a good strong kick would knock it over, it’d been leaning that way for a long time. He wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t just push it over.

  “That would be great,” she said agreeably. She looked at the paper before her and quickly read. “I can be there,” she glanced at the full calendar on her desk and winced at what she would have to cancel. “In a few days. Is that acceptable to you?” she asked.

  “Waaall,” he drawled out. “You don’t need to be there,” he told her.

  “That’s okay, I will,” she confirmed. “And you can take any of the fixtures, the boards, the wiring, anything you can use from it,” she offered generously, remembering that he was a fix-it man.

  “That’s right generous of you,” he said and started thinking of what might still be in that house. It probably was pretty picked over by now, after all this time. But there might be things he could piece out and profit by; she didn’t need the money from what he had heard. That house had to still have some copper fittings and…his mind wandered off greedily for a moment.

  “I’ll be there in a few days and I’ll call you so you can meet me out at the farm,” she told him, interrupting his train of thought.

  “Ay yup,” he confirmed as he wandered away in thought again.

  “Good bye Mr. Davidson, I’ll see you in a few days,” she confirmed and when he said ‘good bye’ too she hung up. She stared at the phone for a moment before calling in her secretaries.

  “I have to clear my schedule for the next week. An emergency has come up,” she explained.

  “But Ms. Christenson,” one of them had the temerity to protest.

  Ellen silenced her with a cold stare. Glancing at the other one who stood there with a frozen face she addressed her. “I can be reached by phone if anything comes up.” With that she dismissed them both knowing she had set in motion an unprecedented series of events. Ellen Christenson never took time off and other than the odd day here and there, her schedule had been pretty much seven days a week. Her energy unflagging.

  She looked over her desk and sat down to finish a few things that she could, packed her briefcase with her laptop and a few papers, locked it, and left the office. Both secretaries watched her leave the offices with their mouths hanging agape in surprise. They quickly returned to work as she turned to push the button on the elevator and glanced back at them.

  On the way down to her car she pulled up the number for Nancy Keurig to cancel her appointment for the following day. She was surprised when she called it as she got in her car that Nancy answered it herself.

  “Hello? Nancy Keurig’s office. Nancy Keurig speaking.”

  “Hi Nancy, this is Ellen Christenson,” she said as she used the key fob to open the door to the Maserati.

  “Hello Ellen, is everything okay?” she asked concerned. Ellen didn’t call her offices, hadn’t missed a session, and she was pleased with the progress they had made over the past couple of years.

  “Not really, I have to go away for a few days and I need to cancel our appointment for next week,” she told her. Thinking carefully she quickly added, “I’m going home to Oklahoma to take care of some personal business.”

  “Oh my,” Nancy involuntarily answered before recovering herself. “How do you feel about that?” she asked concerned.

  “I don’t know,” Ellen answered honestly. She started the expensive car after strapping herself in one-handed and shutting the door. It purred like a kitten and her blue-tooth kicked in immediately so she could put down her phone and talk to Nancy hands-free.

  “I think it’s time though, I’ve changed a lot since I was there. Maybe it’s time,” she said almost sadly and to herself.

  Nancy nodded in agreement and then said, “Yes Ellen, maybe it’s time.”

  “May I call you if I need to?” she asked, clinging to her life-line. She hadn’t realized how much she had come to rely on these appointments to vent, to use a sounding board, to get passed the past.

  “Of course, you have my cell if you need it?” Nancy asked, she was amazed. Ellen had come far, she wasn’t the angry woman who had arrived resentful to offices a couple of years ago. She’d finally started a road that only she could traverse. Nancy could only help her realize it.

  “Yeah, but I’m so used to using the office phone I’ll probably panic before remembering I have it,” Ellen laughed as she expertly maneuvered through the mid-afternoon traffic towards her house.

  “No worries Ellen. I’m here for you,” Nancy encouraged. She wondered if Ellen realized how many women were attracted to her, for the Ellen she knew, not the cold and calculating, efficient bitch she was known as in the tech-world. Her own attraction she kept well hidden, it would be unprofessional if she ever revealed it.

  “Thanks Nancy,” she said and meant it before she said her goodbyes and hung up. As she parked the car in her garage she glanced at it and wondered if she should rent a car for the trip. She didn’t want to fly, she wanted the time behind the wheel to think, really think, before seeing the home she had once had. She was hoping the trip back would be cathartic, she was ready for it.

  As she packed her suitcase she wondered how much had changed. She had gotten a notice for her ten-year class reunion, another for the fifteen year one. The surprise was that anyone knew where she was. She never even considered going to either one. Doing the math in her agile mind she realized that their twentieth should be this year. Where had the years gone?

  As she showered, shaved, and powdered she wondered where the resentment she had long felt had gone as well? Was it the therapy? Was it just the passage of time
?

  She fixed a few sandwiches, grabbed a few boxes of juice from the fridge and packed them in her car along with her bag. Gathering a few ‘last minute’ items she set the alarm, locked up the house and got on the road.

  She stopped to fill up with super unleaded gas. It was expensive but it would clean out the system of her Maserati, and besides, Ryan Mahoney had recommended it. It was through her blind auto-pilot haze that she heard someone say “Nice car”. She nodded and smiled but didn’t invite conversation.

  As she drove along the freeway down towards Los Angeles she kept it to the speed limit, barely. It was easy to speed in this car with its powerful engine and she endeavored to keep it at sixty-nine when the speed limit read sixty-five. The irony of that number didn’t escape her and she laughed at the how silly it was and its meaning as she turned up the radio and drove the long miles. She stopped outside of Las Vegas and got a hotel room so she could rest and eat. Her drink boxes were long gone as well as the sandwiches. She didn’t mind eating alone, she frequently did at home anyway when she wasn’t working long hours at the office.

  “Wanna buy a girl a meal?” the teen asked her as she popped her gum.

  Ellen looked up in surprise that the girl would even approach her. Most of the time she intimidated full grown women and men and the teen’s obnoxious question astonished her. She examined the girl briefly as she realized the teen just might be a run-a-way. From her straggly hair to her rippy jeans, she might just be a normal kid, but then again… “Sure, sit down and order whatever you want,” Ellen offered as the teen slipped into her booth at the restaurant.

  “Really?” the teen asked in surprise, but not one to look a gift horse in the mouth she quickly obeyed.

  Ellen had just ordered and she signaled to the waitress.

  “You want me to remove her?” the waitress asked testily, glaring at the teen in anger.

  “No, I want you to take her order. Whatever she wants,” she told the woman.

  Both the teen and the waitress stared at her in astonishment.

  “I’ll have a hamburger, fries, and a chocolate shake,” the teen quickly ordered before the redhead could change her mind.

  The waitress hesitated for a moment but at Ellen’s nod she quickly wrote it down and hurried off.

  The awkward silence stretched between the two of them as Ellen looked curiously at the teen and the teen resentfully at the well-dressed redhead.

  “So, why’d you do it?” the teen asked Ellen carefully. She hoped she wouldn’t piss her off; this was the first real meal she’d had in a while.

  Ellen shrugged as she glanced away. She had a lot of time to think away the hours she had driven to get here, and looking at the teen; she realized that there but for the grace of God, went she.

  The teen looked at her closely. She was dressed nice; she could tell the clothes looked expensive. She didn’t read Vogue or Mademoiselle for nothing and the woman wore them well. She also looked like she never went out in the sun. Her skin was like porcelain. Her red hair looked real. It was up in a tight bun and she wondered what the woman looked like when she let it down. She glanced out the window too; it was dark so all she could see was her reflection. It was then that she could tell that the woman was watching her in that reflection and she flushed at the contrast in their outfits and appearance.

  The waitress bustled up with a tray full of their meal. They both ate in silence, the teen smothering her fries with ketchup, Ellen quietly putting a glop of it on the side of her plate to dip her steak into now and then as she ate her salad along with the baked potato she had ordered. As they slowed down from the amount of the meal the waitress hurried up again.

  “Everything okay?” she asked and at their nod she continued with, “Would either of you like a desert?”

  Ellen looked at the teen who looked hopeful and nodded. “Whatever she wants,” she gestured towards her dinner companion.

  “Could I have a strawberry sundae with nuts?” she asked a bit insolently through a mouthful of hamburger. She’d been gobbling it all as though it was going to be taken away from her at a moment’s notice.

  Ellen could see the annoyance on the waitresses face and nearly laughed. She’d been young once too. The opportunity to be this insolent had never been allowed. “That sounds good, I’ll have one too,” she told the woman to lessen the teens tone. The waitress hurried away but not before asking, “One or two scoops?”

  “Two,” they both said together and then grinned at each other as she left.

  “Sure you’re gonna have room?” the teen spoke to her again, this time around a few French fries she managed to jam in her mouth.

  Ellen grinned and nodded, food had never been a problem for her. She could eat as much as she wanted and still have room. When others in the dorms had been dieting to near starvation she ate more than her own share. People paid a lot of money for the type of figure she had and she had been too busy building her businesses to care. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “You ain’t from around here,” she said as she finished up the food on her plate and drank the last of her shake. The slurping sound from the straw at the bottom of the glass set Ellen’s nerves on edge.

  “No, no I’m not,” Ellen replied as she used her napkin delicately.

  The teen watched the redhead silently. She admired how…girlish the woman appeared to be and wondered how she had gotten that way. She didn’t look too old either.

  As the waitress hurried up with their deserts and quickly took away their finished plates they both tucked in to the sundae’s with relish, almost a competition to see who could finish theirs first. The teen finished first. She watched as the redhead finished a bit slower but much more delicately, not putting the whole spoon in her mouth or taking as large a mouthful.

  “Is there anything else I could get you?” the waitress asked as she came up, she’d been eying the odd pair and wondered why the woman would pay for the teen’s meal. Did she know she was being conned? They’d kicked that same teen out a few times. But maybe she was one of those…she eyed her speculatively.

  “The check would be great,” Ellen said with a gracious smile.

  “Oh, I’ll have that up at the register,” the waitress pointed at the end of the counter.

  “Then thank you,” Ellen said as she wiped her face once more and began to leave the booth.

  “Yeah, um, thank you,” the teen said as she tried to emulate the elegant woman slightly. She could start with her manners she guessed.

  The waitress was startled, but she headed up to the counter to ring the lady up, the meal wasn’t too expensive and she was startled when the redhead gave her a one-hundred dollar bill. “Keep the change, and if she comes in here,” she pointed with her thumb at the hovering teen who was making a great show of looking at the board in the entrance where local notices were posted. “Maybe give her a meal now and then?” she asked. The waitress looked startled and Ellen handed her another hundred as a tip. Smiling she closed her hand over it. “You never know where a little kindness will go,” she whispered confidentially and she turned and walked away.

  “You got someplace to stay tonight?” she asked as she tucked her pocketbook away, well away from any pick pocket or teen that might think she had a chance.

  “I thought, um, maybe I’d pay you back for that meal,” the teen said awkwardly and then glanced up at Ellen from under her stringy hair.

  Ellen was genuinely startled. “Do you do this often?” she asked concerned. The world was a dangerous place and she didn’t want to see the girl hurt.

  Shuffling her feet awkwardly she glanced up under her hair again and shrugged.

  “What happens if I take you up on your offer?”

  The teen looked slightly alarmed for a moment and then shrugged again.

  Ellen knew a bluff when she saw it. The teen would do what she had to, to survive. Hooking was an honorable profession in Nevada, but not like this. This was pathetic. “What would you do if I offe
red you a job, an honest one?” she clarified when she saw the teen glance up in alarm.

  Another shrug.

  This was going to be harder than she thought. Thinking about Iris and Blossom she wondered if they were doing okay and if Iris could have turned out like this. She didn’t know. They were taken care of by Ryan’s generosity. She’d lived up to her end of the deal, except she had never even met the teen, she would be graduating soon. She wondered if Iris was as Californian as she remembered Blossom to be or was she more like this teen, unclean and unmannered. “Well, I will be coming through here in another week. You think about it. I live in San Francisco and I can arrange a job for you if you want it. An honest job,” she again clarified. “If you want it, meet me here in a week, maybe a week and a half,” she amended to be sure. She pointed back at the restaurant they had just left.

  “What’d I have to do?” mumbled the girl.

  “What do you care?” Ellen asked. She was walking slowly towards her hotel and she didn’t want the teen to know what room she was in or what she drove. “It would be better than this or what you offered,” she pointed out.

  The teen nodded slowly. “A week?” she asked thinking. She could survive another week at this, she was sure she could.

  “I already arranged for a meal or two back there,” she pointed again with her thumb back at the restaurant. “You eat there once a day and when I get back, you be around here and we will talk.”

  The teen looked at her in disbelief. She was certain that the woman was conning her. But yet, there was hope.

  “How old are you?” Ellen asked.

  “Eighteen,” she replied resentfully. She knew the woman wasn’t a cop; she was dressed too nicely for that.

  “Are you really?”

  “I will be,” was the sullen reply.

  “Well, I will be here next week when I return from my trip. Be here, be alive, and I’ll see you then,” she told her. She thought about giving her some money but didn’t want the teen to know how much she had on her or where she kept more of it. She wasn’t sure the money wouldn’t be used for drugs. She didn’t know her, she didn’t trust her, but she wanted to help her.