CHAPTER SEVEN, PART 2

   

Annie is horribly damaged by life.
She believes she cannot be loved.
Then Bud becomes her pen pal
and love finds them both...
in one way or another.

Every few days I will post a little more.
 Soon you will be able to read it all.
If you absolutely can't wait to find out
what happens between Annie and Bud,
(and I hope you can't!)
you are welcome to click a link and 

buy an e-book or a paperback copy. 

And now, today's post:

CHAPTER SEVEN
Part 2

Sunday, June 26, 2005 Continued

Once I made my decision, I climbed out of my rented car, opened the latched gate, strode up the walkway, mounted the steps to the porch, and knocked on the bright red door. Seven seconds later a pleasant looking woman in her forties opened the door.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“My name is Bud Wallace. Are you An…” and that was as far as I got before the door slammed in my face.

Her expression had been hard to read. It was a combination of fear and fury, with just a tinge of regret, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I also wasn’t sure what to do next, so I did the most obvious thing. I knocked on the door.

“Annie? Annie! Open up! Come on! Just talk to me!”

“Go away!” she yelled through the door. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

“I don’t understand,” I persisted. “Why…”

“You don’t need to understand. You just need to leave. Now!”

“Annie,” Frustrated, I pounded on the door. “Annie!”

“Hey!”

It was a deep, booming shout from behind me. Spinning around, I saw a man in work boots, jeans and a plaid shirt drop his lunchbox, throw open the gate, and charge straight up the walk toward me.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Who are you?”

For the first time I can remember, I backed up, but it wasn’t by choice. It was because the man had the front of my shirt in his large, calloused hands and was pinning me up against the pretty red door. I was taller, but he was clearly stronger.

“B-Bud. My-my name is Bud. Wallace. Annie’s pen pal. I was trying. To talk. To Annie.” I was talking in half sentences because he was slamming me repeatedly into the door as I spoke. Four more slams and he held me still against the door, squinting at me from three inches away.

“You’re Bud?” he growled.

“Yes sir. Bud Wallace, Annie’s…”

He released me and I almost fell. I hadn’t realized my feet weren’t touching the ground. The only thing that stopped my collapse was the fact that he hadn’t stepped back yet.

Still only three inches away, he snarled, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m Annie’s pen pal,” I said.

“I know who you are. That’s not what I asked.”

“I was talking to Annie. She stopped writing and I was concerned.”

His glare intensified and I swear heat was coming out of his eyes. At long last, he grunted and stepped back, giving me room to breathe.

“So. You’re Bennie’s friend, the new guy.”

“Yes sir. I-I just wanted…”

“Let’s go for a walk,” my attacker said.

Without checking if I followed, he turned around and strode to the gate, then hooked a right and started down the block. I caught up to him just as we cleared Annie’s property.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” I started to say.

“That wasn’t Annie,” he interrupted. “That was her sister, Linda.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”

“Shut up.”

It sounded like a good idea, so I did. At the corner was a small park with a playground and a few picnic tables. He walked across the grass to one and pointed at it.

“Sit down.”

I sat and he took the bench across from me.

“You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” he asked. I shook my head. “My name is Paul. Linda is my wife. Annie is her kid sister.”

“So Annie lives with you?”

“Shut up,” Paul said again. “I’ll tell you when you can talk. You’re just lucky I didn’t bash your brains in, pounding on my door and yelling at my wife like that. Jeepers, man – people get shot for less. What are you doing here, anyways? Annie said she didn’t want you to come.”

I stayed silent, not sure if it was my turn yet. My no-back-up policy was taking a beating here.

“You can talk now, for crying out loud.”

“Um, okay,” I stammered. “I was, uh, trying to talk to Annie because she wouldn’t answer my letters anymore, and I kind of like our exchanges. And I felt bad that I hurt her, and I wanted to apologize. That’s all. I probably shouldn’t have, but I just couldn’t let our relationship end without some effort from me to fix it. I’m sorry I yelled at your wife. I didn’t mean to.”

“Do you care about her?” Paul asked. “I mean really care?”

“Yes,” I replied. “We’ve only been pen pals for a year, but I feel closer to her than almost anyone else alive. I do care about her. Yes.”

For the first time since I laid startled eyes on him, his expression softened. Nodding to himself, as though concluding an internal debate, he leaned back, readjusted himself on the picnic bench, and stared straight into my eyes.

“I want to tell you something. Annie doesn’t want me to, and Linda backs her on it, but it needs to be said. Are you willing to listen? Do you have time?”

I nodded.

“Good. I’m going to tell you a story. It might take a few minutes, but you’ll understand when I’m done.”

Chapter Eight, Part 1 Coming Soon

CHAPTER SEVEN, PART 1

  

Annie is horribly damaged by life.
She believes she cannot be loved.
Then Bud becomes her pen pal
and love finds them both...
in one way or another.

Every few days I will post a little more.
 Soon you will be able to read it all.
If you absolutely can't wait to find out
what happens between Annie and Bud,
(and I hope you can't!)
you are welcome to click a link and 

buy an e-book or a paperback copy. 

And now, today's post:

CHAPTER SEVEN
Part 1

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Two days later I boarded a plane at Spokane International Airport and flew to Boston. Not directly, of course, because you can’t get there from here. You can only get there from somewhere else. In this case, my somewhere else was Minneapolis/Saint Paul. I was able to stay on the same plane but had to sit in the terminal for three hours before re-boarding and re-claiming my seat. It’s okay. The delay gave me extra time to think things through.

On a mental level, I was psyched out of my mind. This was my first trip to the east coast, and I mean my first ever. Growing up, we never vacationed any farther east than Yellowstone National Park, and here I was flying to New England! I could not wait to see all the historical places I had read about in school, but even more than that, I wanted to find all the places where George Washington slept. According to my dad, every building in New England that looked even remotely old sported a placard declaring ‘George Washington slept here.’ Evidently, George got around.

On an emotional level, however, I was troubled. Two months ago, June could not come fast enough. I was going to march into that trade show, hang up my hangers, overwhelm the competition, take my company into totally uncharted territory, and maybe even launch us on the international hanger scene. And once I had taken the hanger world by storm, I would get to meet the amazing Annie Parker.

But that was no longer the case. The trade show still got my blood pumping, sure, but the thought of the rift I caused between Annie and me, unintentional as it might have been, haunted me. Worse, I would be in Boston, God only knew how close to her, and she would not let me visit – not even to apologize.

Annie’s dismissal of our relationship rankled me, and by the time my plane touched down at Logan International, I was steamed. Remember when I said I don’t back up, I only step in closer? Well, by golly, it was time for this old boy to step in.

The first thing I did after checking in at my hotel was to get on line and plug in Annie’s address. Bingo! As soon as I could break free the next day, I would go straight over there and force her to let me apologize.

On Monday morning, the trade show started with a bang – literally. Fashions of that moment were leaning toward Wild West Chic and the show planners began the whole thing with a shootout at the Boston corral. With blanks, of course, but it caused a moment of panic because no one knew what was coming. The actors, wearing cheesy period garb, came into the Beacon Hill convention center and started blasting away at each other. Soon overly dramatic deaths were being played out all over the floor and a white hatted sheriff was the last man standing. The crowd erupted into roaring approval as several ladies, dressed fashionably as bordello girls, rushed out of the wings to hug their hero.

From there things only got better. I met several leaders in the industry, made contacts in areas I had never considered, and had lunch with several of my customers from across the western United States. By the time evening rolled around, I had forgotten all about Annie.

The trade show was one thrill, contact or sale after another, and it never slowed down until officially ending Friday at noon. My flight wasn’t until nine that night, so with time to kill, I rented a car and went on a tour of Boston. It was the first chance I’d had to play tourist since I arrived, and I drove around for hours. At some point, without really aiming for it, I found myself in Annie’s neighborhood, a quiet street of respectable homes in the northeast corner of the city.

Having sent her a dozen or so letters, her address was imbedded in my brain and I knew the house the moment I saw the numbers on the porch post. At the curb directly in front of it, I studied the house from the safety of my car. It was a two-story craftsman, well kept, maybe 100 years old, with a stretched out covered porch across the front. Kind of a seafoam green in color, it had two front facing gables on the second floor and a weathercock attached to a center pinnacle coming up from the top of the roof. Very New England-y.

A three-foot-high chain link fence surrounded the front yard, with a latched gate giving access to the 30-foot-long walkway that led to five porch steps. The front door, ten feet behind the steps, was painted bright red, which appeared to be a Boston or maybe East Coast kind of thing. It was a touch glaring against the seafoam green, but it worked.

After studying the house for the fourth time, I realized I was stalling. Was I doing the right thing? Shouldn’t I just drive away and leave it alone? Didn’t Annie have a right to her privacy? The moral intricacies were threatening to give me a headache. The only thing I knew for sure is that I might never have another opportunity to face her or to fight for our relationship. This was an all or nothing situation, and it was time to press forward.

Once I made my decision, I climbed out of my rented car, opened the latched gate, strode up the walkway, mounted the steps to the porch, and knocked on the bright red door. Seven seconds later a pleasant looking woman in her forties opened the door.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“My name is Bud Wallace. Are you An…” and that was as far as I got before the door slammed in my face.

Chapter Seven, Part 2 Coming Soon

CHAPTER 6, PART 2

 

Annie is horribly damaged by life.
She believes she cannot be loved.
Then Bud becomes her pen pal
and love finds them both...
in one way or another.

Every few days I will post a little more.
 Soon you will be able to read it all.
If you absolutely can't wait to find out
what happens between Annie and Bud,
(and I hope you can't!)
you are welcome to click a link and 

buy an e-book or a paperback copy. 

And now, today's post:

CHAPTER SIX
Part 2

Written Sunday, April 3, 2005

 Dear Annie,

You don’t need to worry about Jolene. She reads your letters and wants to meet you too. I’m not being unfaithful to her, though I appreciate your concern and your morals. It tells me you are a person of integrity and quality. Jolene is hoping to get a picture of you with me, so she suggested this: I take you AND your sister and brother-in-law out to dinner so you aren’t uncomfortable. Deal? I’m asking for the sale here, because that’s what good salesmen do.

Here in Spokane we have no snow at all anymore, and the winter wheat is already 9 inches high. It’s not quite up to an elephant’s eye, as the song says, but then again the song was about corn.

I made it to three more of the western states, which brings my total up to seven. Only 43 more to go. Piece of cake. While I’m in Boston I figure I’ll make a call or two in neighboring states. Maybe Connecticut and Delaware. No NYC for me this year, though. That will have to wait.

I hope you enjoyed your Easter. Make sure you tell me all about it when you write me next.

I, of course, was in my home church at sunrise on Easter Sunday and then at my mother’s table for a lovely Easter brunch with half the congregation immediately thereafter.

He is Risen Tag!

Bud

 

Received Thursday, April 21, 2005

Dear Bud,

No! Do not come to visit me! Why did you ruin it? I think we had something good until this. I am so sad. Please don’t visit me. If you care at all stay away!

Annie

Written Sunday, April 24, 2005

 Dear Annie,

I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you. If you don’t want to see me, I won’t come visit you. I’ve enjoyed our correspondences too much to risk blowing it on a rash desire. If it’s just that you are a little camera shy, I can understand that. No need to worry, I won’t bring my camera. If you really don’t want to meet, we won’t. Just don’t stop sending me your delightful, life-affirming letters.

I’m also sorry I upset you too much for you to tell me about your Easter. Please write me again and tell me how yours went.

As for mine, here’s a little more detail. The choir did a cantata by someone I’ve never heard of, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. We have a great choir and they worked hard on it. My mother’s annual Easter after-church feast was really more a potluck, as it always is, and it was a rousing success. It’s four weeks later and my freezer is still crammed with leftovers. Every little old lady there insisted I take their dish home because I have no wife to take care of me. It was pity pampering and I’m not complaining. I’m eating well because of it.

On the work side of things, I hit two more of the western 11 states and that means I have only two to go until I will be forced to cross into the Midwest region. My world conquest on behalf of Wallace hangers is rolling right along!

Steamroller Tag!

Bud

 

Written Friday, May 20, 2005

 Dear Annie,

Your May letter never arrived. It probably got lost in the mail. It happens. I’ll just have to make do until your June letter comes.

Speaking of June, my trip is scheduled for the last week of said month, so I won’t be able to write you and tell you about the trip until my July letter. The weatherman’s six-week forecast says the weather in Boston is going to be great come the end of June. How accurate do you think that is?

All eleven western states have been tamed now, and I lassoed one in the mid-west. Yeehaw! I’m heading to Texas next week and I’ll be there for five days. We have lots of customers in Texas. Who knew that Texas had clothing factories?

That’s all for now. I’ll look forward to your next letter.

Get Along Little Doggie Tag!

Bud

 

Written Friday, June 24, 2005

Annie? I didn’t get your letter again. Have I lost you as a pen pal? If I hurt you, please forgive me. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Please write back. I leave for Boston in two days. I’ll read your letter when I get home.

Worried tag,

Bud

Chapter Seven, Part 1 Coming Soon