The Inn of Destiny

by Gene P. Abel

  12

  Jackie Revisits Friday Night

  at the Inn

  Jackie slept straight through the night. Generally she woke up at least once, but her Friday activities helped her sleep through the night. At eight thirty she was awakened by David, who called her from Mary’s. While the kids ate breakfast at Mary’s, Jackie decided to have some Rice Krispies and coffee before Lisa and David came home. Soon after she finished, David and Lisa tumbled in the back door.

  “Hi, Mom. Guess who won the miniature golf last night,” David said.

  That was easy: David would not have asked unless he had won. Jackie said, “Let me see . . . Lisa won.”

  “Mom. Guess again,” said David.

  Jackie was in a teasing mood and said, “Billie.”

  “No! I won,” David announced.

  David and Lisa had been invited to their cousin’s birthday party that afternoon. Jackie told the kids to get their cousin’s presents so they could wrap them. After they finished, the kids went out to play, and about eleven, Jackie gave them some fruit to hold them until the party. After they finished, they got dressed in clean clothing, and Jackie drove them to her sisters.

  Jackie had to hurry home because she was expecting the grocery store to deliver her order. She decided to make a light dinner, so she took some hot dogs and potatoes from the refrigerator. She put the hot dogs on the stove to cook, and while they were boiling, she cut up some hard-boiled eggs, potatoes, celery, onions, and olives to mix into a salad.

  It was about two when she heard a knock at the back door. It was the delivery boy with her order. She opened the door and said, “You’re new. I don’t remember you delivering my order before.”

  “You’re right. My name is Chris, and I just started at the grocery store about two weeks ago.”

  “Do you live around here, Chris?” Jackie asked.

  “Yes. I’m a student at Princeton. I needed some extra money, and this job seemed to fit into my schedule,” he replied.

  Jackie looked him over and thought, What a stud. He’s better looking than the trainer at the spa. She had the feeling she had seen him before. “Are you sure we’ve never met?” Jackie asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jackie playfully said, “Call me Jackie.” She asked him to place the bags on the counter and the kitchen table. “I had a large order this week,” she remarked. “Could you give me a hand putting it away?”

  “Sure. I’ll hand it to you and you can place it on the shelves.”

  As Chris was handing the groceries to Jackie, a bag of jelly beans slipped out of his hand and split open on the floor. Chris knelt down to pick up the candy, and Jackie moved closer to him, so that he was staring directly into her lap. Jackie was feeling playful, and Chris was aware of what she was doing. Jackie wondered if he would react to her teasing him.

  Chris decided to see how far he could go and placed his hand on Jackie’s leg. He moved it up just under the edge of her shorts. Jackie was startled, and for a few seconds she didn’t react. Chris took that to be a green light and moved his hand under her shorts until he touched her most private part. At that moment Jackie remembered her dream at the inn. She jumped away from Chris and said, “What do you think you’re doing? Get out of here before I call your boss.” Chris was both startled and afraid. He quickly got up and drove off in his delivery truck without saying a word.

  Jackie was so unnerved by this she locked the doors and went up to her bedroom. She didn’t know if she was more disturbed by what Chris had done or by the fact that it was an exact replay of the dream she’d had six months earlier. When she tried to recall the name and face of the delivery boy in her dream, she knew it was Chris. In addition, the name of the grocery store manager was Dan Jones and he was a friend of Jerry’s. How could this be true? It wasn’t possible to dream what would happen in the future. This was the most bizarre event that Jackie had ever experienced.

  She thought, What if I hadn’t stopped him? Would I have gotten myself into the situation in my dream? Jackie was so disturbed she didn’t finish putting the rest of the groceries away. About four o’clock the phone rang. It was David. He wanted to know if they could have dinner at his aunt’s.

  “Put your aunt on the phone,” Jackie said. “Brenda, are you sure you want the kids for dinner?”

  “Yes. We’ll bring them home after seven. They’re having a good time, and I would like them to stay. Why don’t you come over too.”

  Jackie said, “No, thanks. I appreciate you feeding the kids. See you later.”

  Jackie was glad Brenda had asked the kids for dinner. She didn’t feel much like making dinner. She had some fruit and milk for her dinner. She wasn’t very hungry. It was seven thirty when Brenda knocked at the door with the kids.

  “Come in and stay awhile,” Jackie said.

  “No, thanks. I need to get home and clean up from the party.”

  Lisa and David were anxious to tell their mother about the games they’d played at the party. Jackie pretended to listen to them, but her mind was on the events of that afternoon. She got the kids off to bed and decided to rest on the sofa in the family room for a while. She pondered the afternoon, and about ten o’clock she decided to get into bed.

  There was nothing special on the agenda for Sunday. She took the kids to Sunday school, and they stopped for brunch before returning home. Jackie couldn’t relax or get the incident off her mind. She wanted to call the store manager, but she knew that would get the delivery boy in a great deal of trouble. Jerry would also find out what took place, and she knew he would be angry and want to go to the police. She wondered if she could have sent Chris the wrong signal. She knew boys, especially at that age, had raging hormones. She also knew that she didn’t stop Chris when he put his hand on her leg or object until his fingers touched her female parts. In fact, Jackie wasn’t sure what would have happened had it not been for her dream. Could she have ended up on the kitchen table with this young man?

  Jackie desperately wanted to discuss it with Mary. She knew there was no one else she would trust in talking about either her dream or the incident with Chris. Jackie decided to call Mary Sunday night to make sure they were getting together the next morning. “I have something very important to discuss with you,” she said.

  “Do you want me to come over now?” Mary asked.

  “No. I don’t want to alarm John. It can wait until tomorrow morning,” Jackie said.

  The next morning, Mary knocked at the door and walked into the kitchen. “Hi. What’s on your mind? You sounded so concerned last night.”

  Jackie said, “Please sit down and have some coffee. You’ll need several cups until I finish.” She proceeded to tell Mary all about her dream at the inn.

  At first, Mary didn’t understand the significance of her dream until she told her what took place with Chris Saturday afternoon. At first, Mary tried to dismiss it as a bazaar coincidence. However, as Jackie went into more and more detail, Mary realized this was more than that. Much more.

  Mary wanted to know if Jackie planned to report Chris to the police or the store manager. Jackie told her that at first she meant to, but she didn’t want Jerry to find out. She also admitted that she might have encouraged Chris a little. After talking it over with Mary, she decided to say nothing. She wouldn’t have groceries delivered and would shop at a different store in the future. So long as Chris didn’t attempt to have any further contact with her, Jackie decided to put the incident behind her.

  Even though Jackie was somewhat successful in putting the incident with Chris out of her mind, she couldn’t explain how the dream had occurred in the first place. After all, it isn’t possible to know the future. However, in reality, that was just what happened to Jackie that February night.

  13

  Revelation

  Jerry arrived home the following Friday, and Jackie ran
to greet him as he got out of the car. She hugged and kissed him as they walked to the back door. “It looks like I was missed,” Jerry said. He had no idea how glad Jackie was that he was home. “Are the kids at your parents?” he asked.

  “Yes, I dropped them off about four o’clock,” Jackie answered.

  Jackie told Jerry everything that had been going on except the most important thing‍—Chris and her dream. Jerry sensed Jackie was disturbed about something, but when he questioned her, she just shrugged it off. They decided to go out for dinner and wound up at the local pizza place. By the time they were done eating, Jackie had some other activity on her mind.

  As soon as they arrived home, Jackie took a shower and got into bed buck naked. She pulled the sheet up to her neck and called down to Jerry to come tuck her in.

  Jerry came into the bedroom and shut the door. He walked to the edge of the bed and pulled the sheet down. “It looks like you’re ready for business!”

  “Come into my bed and I’ll show you,” Jackie responded. This was the first time she could put the incident with Chris out of her mind. They made love two times that night.

  Saturday morning found Jackie at ease and happy to greet the day. She lay next to Jerry and knew their relationship was strong. She felt secure, loved, and happy to be with him. She craved the closeness that most women want, and she needed the physical side of the relationship.

  The hot summer began to give way as the school year approached. Jackie and Jerry had decided last spring that it was time for Jackie to return to teaching. She had stopped when David was born, but now Lisa and David were in school and Jackie wanted to resume her career. It wasn’t that they needed the money, but Jackie needed to be fulfilled. Jerry recognized this and suggested they hire a cleaning woman to come in on Saturdays to give a hand with the housework.

  As it turned out, Jackie was rehired as a first-grade teacher. When she had left teaching, she was an art teacher, but there were no vacancies in art. The school district had started a policy where the elementary teachers followed the pupils for three years. Thus, Jackie would have the same class for first, second, and third grades. She would then begin with a new class in year four in the first grade. This was intended to be a better way for the teachers to help the kids achieve their full potential.

  It seemed that Jackie’s return to teaching, and some added attention from Jerry, helped her to forget the problem with Chris. For the first time since the kids were born, Jackie seemed content and truly happy. Beth came every Saturday about nine o’clock to clean the house and do the wash. She got along well with the kids, and they had a game to see which one did the best job of keeping their room straight. Beth would bring little treats. The first prize was always better than the one for the runner-up, so there was competition to be the best.

  The fall and winter passed quickly. Maybe it was all the kids’ activities, or maybe it was Jackie working. Whatever the reason, it flew by. One of the things Jackie and Mary had wanted to do was to get a reservation at the inn for both of them. By the time they called, there were no vacancies on the weekends that suited them. They pledged that they would make reservations for next winter just as soon as Jackie had the calendar for the school year.

  Before long, it was spring. The snow in Princeton lingered, and it took the April rains to wash away the last reminder of winter. One morning in May, Jerry folded his paper so he could read it without disturbing the person next to him. It was a familiar sight to a commuter, and one that Jerry had repeated many times.

  As he began reading the financial section, he spotted an article about Alpha Investments. This was a company Dave, his broker, had tried to get Jerry to buy six months earlier. The article described the success of this IPO. Since November, its stock had increased sevenfold. Jerry knew he had screwed up, but he wasn’t too disappointed because he knew there would be other opportunities.

  Jerry got into the office about 8:45 and had just poured a cup of coffee when the phone rang. It was Dave.

  “Did you read the article about Alpha in this morning’s paper?” he asked.

  “Yes. I know you told me it was a great buy. I made a mistake,” Jerry acknowledged.

  Dave and Jerry had been close since their days at Penn, and they kidded each other all the time.

  “All is forgiven. I have a great one for you today. The firm is called Surgical Ventures. They have developed‍—‍”

  “A glue that is used in place of stitches,” said Jerry.

  “How in the devil did you know that?” Dave asked.

  “You mean that is what they developed?” Jerry asked.

  “That’s right. Did you get another broker?” Dave asked.

  “You know I only trust you, Dave,” Jerry said. He had remembered his dream when Dave told him the name of the company and had just blurted out the part about the glue. Jerry asked Dave to fax the prospectus. “How many shares will be available?”

  Dave responded, “I think I can get you five thousand at ten dollars per share. You’ll have to make up your mind fast so I can reserve the shares.”

  After Dave hung up, Jerry began to recall his dream. My God, he thought, I also dreamt about the Alpha article. There were five thousand shares at ten dollars per share in his dream as well. What was happening? As soon as Dave’s fax arrived, Jerry asked his secretary, Tiffany, to hold his calls unless it was Dave or Jackie. Reading over the material, it was as if he were replaying his February dream. Jerry took out a pad and tried to remember how the deal had ended in his dream. He was a bit confused because he’d dreamt about three separate incidents that night, and he was having a little trouble sorting them out. He finally remembered he’d purchased the five thousand shares for ten dollars each and sold them four months later at eighty dollars per share, making a tidy $350K on the deal.

  Jerry decided to jot down his recollection of the other two dreams as well. The Optiscan was intended to identify a person by scanning the iris of the eye. As he recalled, it had two cameras: the first located the eye with one camera, and the other zoomed in to scan the iris. It only took several seconds and worked through glasses and contacts. He remembered buying twelve thousand shares at fifteen dollars per share and that he was a little uneasy about investing that much money. However, Dave pointed out how well he’d done with Surgical Ventures, which convinced Jerry to buy all twelve thousand shares. He also remembered it had been December when he bought the shares and March when he sold them for eighty-eight dollars per share. That deal made him 875 grand.

  Jerry’s thoughts then turned to his final dream, which was the market crash. This was the one from which he’d woken up in a cold sweat. It had started on Thursday, April 14. He was on the links with his boss when they both got calls on their cell phones. The Dow dropped twenty-five hundred points on the fourteenth and another three thousand on the fifteenth. The losses were twenty to one, and the crash was the result of a problem in the Middle East and a cutoff of oil shipments. He remembered how he’d lost most of his holdings and been sold out because he couldn’t meet the margin call. He also recalled that the market had closed at 2:00 p.m. on the fifteenth because of the near panic on Wall Street.

  Jerry returned to reading the material Dave had faxed to him. He decided to sleep on the purchase and put the fax in his briefcase. Throughout the day, Jerry couldn’t help but think how bizarre this whole thing was. People didn’t dream about reality before it happened. How could the events of the day have been so close to that dream? He did recall how real the dream had seemed at the time.

  Jerry didn’t generally discuss his investments with Jackie until after the results were complete. He hadn’t told her of his dream nor about the stock market crash. He didn’t want to upset her, and he decided not to say anything about the events of the day or his February dream at the inn.

  After the market closed, Dave called again. He was disturbed that Jerry knew about his recomm
endation. “Why won’t you come clean with me as to where you learned about the glue? That was closely held. I only found out last night. You were the first client I called.”

  “It just popped into my head, Dave.”

  “Well, if you keep that up, I want you to go to the track with me,” Dave said.

  Jerry told him he would let him know Monday morning about the IPO. Dave said that was fine, and they hung up.

  14

  More Revelations

  Jerry was preoccupied for the next several days. Jackie thought it was his concern about some of the acquisitions at work. She had no idea their weekend at the inn was behind Jerry’s thoughts. He couldn’t help but wonder if this was all just a strange, unexplained incident, or if it was an opportunity to pierce the veil that guarded the future. Should he act on the dream, or should he make his investment decision based on the facts Dave provided? In the final analysis, Jerry made his decision to purchase the five thousand shares of Surgical Ventures because it looked like a good investment.

  On Monday morning, Jerry called Dave about 8:45 and instructed him to purchase the stock. On Wednesday, Dave called to confirm that Jerry was the owner of five thousand shares of Surgical Ventures at the expected ten dollars per share. Jerry told Dave he would transfer the funds for payment after lunch.

  From the outset, Surgical Ventures skyrocketed, and within three months, it was selling at fifty dollars per share. Two weeks later a rumor was on the street that a large pharmaceutical company was trying to buy Surgical Ventures. When Jerry learned of this, his thoughts immediately went back to his dream. In Jerry’s dream, that was exactly what Dave said might take place. According to his dream, by the time four months had passed from Jerry’s purchase the stock would be selling at eighty dollars and he would sell it.