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