Authors: Tracy Cottingham
“Sorry for the
misunderstanding, ma’am. It’s just, I didn’t realize Wes and Gunnar had a
partner.”
“Yeah well, that seems to be the new constant in my life.” Cassie tried
to turn away before revealing how furious she was, but Stan, as he had finally
introduced himself, just kept right on talking.
“I would have shown you where the planes were, I mean the first time you asked
if I had known.”
“It’s okay, really.” Cassie forced the edge out of her voice. “You
see those three beauties over there?” She pointed to her planes.
“See em. I spent all day yesterday checking them through for Gunnar.”
Cassie’s eyes narrowed. “You work for Gunnar then?”
“Not normally, no. Stunt planes aren’t really my thing. I’d rather
work on these Piper Seneca’s any day. The twin commander isn’t as
impressive,” he pointed to the third plane, “but it’s a beauty
nonetheless.” He stopped for a moment, then remembered her
question. “Anyway, Gunnar pulled me off another job two days ago.
Said he had a new client set to come on board and the planes needed to be ready
to go.”
Cassie thought of all the clients the planes serviced on a regular basis, and
wondered why Nakamoto Industries should get any more or less. “Well, I
could have saved you both a lot of trouble.” She tapped her
briefcase. “I have all of the maintenance records right here.”
“Are they current?”
“As of a few months ago?”
Stanley rubbed the back of his neck. “Gunnar doesn’t usually waste my
time, so he must have had a good reason. But those would have helped
yesterday that’s for sure.”
Cassie smiled at the thought of someone besides her being in the dark as far as
Gunnar was concerned for a change. “I’m sure he was just being
thorough.” She explained, not wanting to bad mouth him in front of an
employee, no matter how fed up she was. “Of course, it does bring up an
important issue.”
Stan raised his brows.
“Since those planes have belonged to me for a number of years, it stands to
reason that I probably know more about them at this point than anyone else in
the company, including Gunnar. But if you’re going to be taking on this
job, I’d be happy to sit down with you and go over the performance and
maintenance records, as well as put you in touch with the man who’s been
previously working on my planes for the last six years.
“That would be great,” Stan reached
out, eagerly taking the card she offered him. “Then I could really be
some help to you. Instead of re-checking work that’s already been done.”
Between the fact that he wasn’t a fan of stunt flying, and was the first person
to show her any sign of normal respect, Stanley was fat becoming one of
Cassie’s favorite people. She pointed to the card. “His name’s
Jonathan Brown, and he’s a wizard with commuter planes. I tried to get
him to relocate here with me, but he likes the Pacific Northwest too much to
leave it. He’ll help you with anything you need if you tell him it
concerns Leisure Time.”
Stan pocketed the card and reached for her hand. “Thank you so much for
the opportunity. I’ll make sure you don’t ever regret it.”
Cassie didn’t know anything about him, but she knew he was telling the
truth. “Oh.” Cassie stopped him before he could drive off. “Don’t
bother calling Jonnie right away. He’ll be down here in a few days to do
some work I need on the Twin Commander, and I’ll make sure I leave him you’re
name.”
“Sounds good.” He
smiled. “I’ll make sure I’m available if he needs any help.”
Cassie nodded and watched him drive away. “I’m sure he will need help,”
she spoke out loud, and felt almost guilty about the bold new business move she
was about to make. She would have been more than willing to let her new
partners in on it ahead of time, but Gunnar had made it perfectly clear he
didn’t care what she did one way or the other, and Wes... Well she’d been in
town for almost a week, and still hadn’t even laid eyes on him. There was
no going back now, she sighed as she walked back to her car. The only thing
worse in her mind than a partner hell bent on going it alone was one who
couldn’t even be bothered to be around.
Cassie was more than a little wound up as she pulled over to what she hoped was
her last destination of the evening. She leaned over to pick up the file
Andrew had given her on the so called company merger, flipping through it till
she found the paper documenting the duplex purchase Wes had made. She
double checked to make sure the address she was parked in front of was the same
one listed on the document, before getting out of her car to get a closer
look. “Well Wes, I hope the front office manager wasn’t lying when she
said you weren’t saving this apartment for someone else.” She pulled the
key from her purse, and sighed. “Of course, if you bothered to show your
face, or answer your cell I would have just asked, instead of-” She pushed the
door open and switched on the light. “This will do nicely,” she spoke
into the empty rooms as she gave herself the grand tour. It wasn’t as big
as the house she and Abby had grown used to, but this was definitely better
than some of the other places she’d had time to preview. After all, the
pacific Shores Hotel offered a great continental breakfast, and the view of the
ocean was tremendous, but it hardly constituted a place she could bring her
child, and she’d been without Abby for too long already. She clapped her
hands together and rubbed them eagerly. “All right Gunnar, finding this
place today ought to give me just enough time to get my things out of storage
and see what you’ve been up to. She pulled the door closed behind her and
headed back to her car.
********
Disneyland, the
happiest place on Earth, Cassie threw her eyes to the heavens at the thought,
and breathed a sigh of relief, as a table at the Carnation Plaza finally came
open. She literally ran over to grab it, feeling like one of those shop -
a - holics at a one day sale ripping through the panty tray for the best
possible deal before anyone else got there first. Once seated, she took a
large sip of the water she had purchased for the slim price of about five
bucks, rested her feet on the chair opposite her, and let her exhaustion take
over. She should have at least had the common sense to wait for a weekday
to check up on Gunnar. Everyone in the whole of America seemed to have
shared her idea to show a loved one this great place, and after waiting over
three hours to get on two rides, she longed for the days when she used to come
as a child.
Her parents took her every year on her birthday, but that had been in the
winter, and even then, always on a weekday. At least that way, when
stroller land eased up at around seven o’clock, you could get on a few rides
without such an excruciating wait. Not that patients was ever one of her
strong suits to begin with, she reminded herself silently. Lucky for her,
her sister Lonnie was as much of a ride junkie as her daughter, and the long
lines weren’t a bother to them, or she’d be in the hot seat by now. She
wasn’t sure when it happened, but she seemed to have become a tired, boring old
woman in the last few years, and although she didn’t want to admit it, one
whole morning with her family at Disneyland had kicked her butt, and sucked the
life right out of her.
“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in, or around, as the case may be.”
Cassie didn’t have to look, there was only one person in her life that could
possibly annoy her so thoroughly by uttering just a few choice words. “Ah, yes,
that was a good one,” She turned to at least acknowledge him.
“You know Cassandra, when I said you could come to keep an eye on me, I never
really expected you to show.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I happen to be waiting for my sister and my-”
She was going to tell him about Abby, but when she looked over at Mr.
Nakamoto’s daughter, she just didn’t feel right about letting him in on
something so personal, in front of a total stranger. That and not knowing
how he would take the news made her decide to wait for a better time.
“Got a date already?”
“No,” she answered a little too quickly even for her own taste. “Some of
us are more picky than others,” she knew she was being a shrew, but she
was too irritated to mind her manners, especially in front of a woman who
looked like she’d made a deal with the Devil to keep herself looking so beautiful.
“You two look like you’re having a good time?” She tried to change the
subject.
“How could I not enjoy myself in the company of such a lovely young woman?” he
turned to gently stroke his date’s tiny hand, which was draped like a feather
over his arm.
“She’s definitely a treasure,” Cassie knitted her brows, finding it odd to be
talking about the woman as if she wasn’t standing there. When Gunnar had
first addressed her, she had merely smiled up at him adoringly, and continued
to look around the plaza as if she could care less what she and Gunnar were
discussing. She didn’t even turn when her name was mentioned. “She
doesn’t speak any English does she?” Cassie smiled, patting herself on
the back for figuring it out on her own.
“Something like that,” He moved his
arm to wrap possessively around her and winked when she smiled up at him again.
Their seeming closeness bothered Cassie to no end. “Well, she’s obviously
well versed in the language of luv,” she dropped the u to exaggerate the word,
and was surprised to see Mr. Nakamoto’s daughter staring directly at her,
frowning.
Gunnar looked to his date, and then to Cassie. “She has a very good
handle on the English language, she just doesn’t speak it.” He could see
that Cassie was still confused so he clarified.
“She’s deaf.” He waited for a second, loving every
minute of the horrified look that crossed Cassie’s face. “But she does
read lips in several different languages.”
Cassie wished a door would open beneath her so she could just drop quietly out
of sight, to go anywhere else, far away from the pair of large black eyes that
were now fixated on her. “I was just joking, of course,” she laughed as
if she had known the girl a million years and they were the best of
friends. “You know, one of those ugly American kind of things, foot in
mouth deal, and all that.” She babbled on, but the woman wouldn’t stop
staring, and Cassie felt like such an ass. She picked up a napkin and
pretended to cough into it, covering her lips from view.
“I’ll get you for this you wretched
loser,” she spoke just loud enough between coughs for Gunnar to hear. “I
don’t know when or where, but you will pay.”
He just smiled down at her, giving her a look that showed how thrilled he was
to have manipulated her into embarrassing herself so easily. “It’s been a
pleasure to see you,” he dismissed her, and pulled his date along beside
him.
She could hear his voice as they walked away, “Don’t mind her,” he looked back
over his shoulder to make sure she was still listening. “This warm summer
heat makes some women in our country behave so strangely, you just never know
what ridiculous comments their going to make next.”
She stopped long enough to sign her response, and Gunnar laughed. “You’re
right, there’s no excuse for that kind of rudeness, I thoroughly agree.”
Cassie was fuming by the time she reached the hotel. She couldn’t believe that
she had just acted so horribly in front of a potential client. She
chastised herself for letting Gunnar lead her around like an uneducated school
girl, and for letting herself get so edgy every time she saw him with another
woman. After all, it wasn’t as if she was personally interested in him
herself, so why should it bother her one way or the other? He was so smug
all the time, she finally admitted, and she hated watching him primp and preen
around like he was God’s gift or something. She thought again about how
they left things so long ago. She knew it was her fault but she missed
the young man who brought her ice cream every day for a week when she wasn’t
feeling well, or the one that had held her all night long when she didn’t do well
on a paper or a boy she liked just didn’t like her back. Cassie knew she’d been
lucky enough to have a good marriage, and a loving husband, but she never
experienced the kind of attention and pure adulation Gunnar had given her when
they were younger. She had never let herself get closer to another human
being, and when she thought about how different he was now, just using women
for his own gain, and being so generally uncaring about others and their
feelings, it made her sad. He was a once in a lifetime person for her,
someone who she felt had the greatest potential for being everything that was
special all wrapped up in one man, and now he had become just another ordinary
playboy.
She was surprised to find Lonnie sitting on one of the full beds when she
finally made it to the hotel room. “Where’s Abby?” She looked
around.
“Last time I saw her she was in the bath,” Lonnie smiled at her sister and
patted the empty space beside her. “Take a load off and stop skulking
about. I checked the temperature and the water level, and I can see her
reflection in the mirror from where I’m sitting, okay.”
Cassie didn’t realize she was being so obvious. She relaxed as soon as
her sister explained, and when she joined her on the bed she could see that
there was definitely a clear view from the bed to the bath as long as the door
was open. “I’m sorry, I should know better than to insult you where
taking care of Abby is concerned. She smiled at her daughters’ reflection
and turned in time to catch Lonnie Staring at her.
“What?” Cassie was self-conscious.
“Oh nothing, I was just wondering what you’ve been doing with yourself since we
split. I mean,
you were pretty deep in thought
when you came through the door, and somehow I didn’t think that Disneyland
would be such a serious undertaking.”
Cassie sighed, knowing when she was beat. “You’ve always been way too
good at reading me.”
“I aim to please,” Lonnie opened her arms in front of her.
“Oh puh
-lease,
that sounded just like Gunnar, and I’ve had about enough
of him for one day.”
“So that’s it.” Lonnie laughed at her sister’s misfortune. “Leave
it to you to manage to find the one person you don’t want to see in the most
crowded place I’ve ever been to.”
“For your information, smarty pants, he found me, and I might add, I proceeded
to make the
biggest fool out of myself. You would have been so
proud.” She rolled her eyes and flopped on to her back on the bed.
“We both knew this was going to be hard for both of you to be anywhere near
each other after what went down. You might have been inseparable when you
were kids, taking every opportunity to bug the living daylights out of the rest
of us with your inside jokes, but time doesn’t heal all wounds no matter how
the saying goes.”
“I know,” Cassie shook her head. “I was just hoping that eight years
would finally be enough time for us to move on but instead he still takes every
opportunity available to show the rest of the world how awful I am.”
“Bah,” she waived her hand. “That’s a load. He had a perfect chance
to bolt when he found out about buying into your company, but he didn’t.
Why?”
“Probably because it was such a good investment.”
“You’re full of it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. There are plenty of good business opportunities out there.
Nope,” she shook her head. “He wanted a connection to you, and he found
one that was perfect.”
“He didn’t come looking for me, Lonnie.”
“Maybe not. But now that he’s found you he isn’t about to let go either.”
“Whatever,” Cassie tossed the pillow at her from behind, and jumped off the bed
just in time to miss her retaliation. “Abby, did you fall in?” She
headed into the bathroom to see if her daughter had turned into a prune.
“Oh Abigail, what are you doing, honey?” Cassie’s feet slipped on the
water that was pouring over the edge of the tub.
“Sorry mama,” Abby looked up from a face covered in soap. “I needed more
water for my bubbles, and so I moved that dial like you and Auntie Lonnie do.”
“Lonnie,” Cassie leaned her head around the door. “Can you call down to
room service and get some more towels up here?”
“Sure,” her sister’s voice got closer. “What happened?” She asked
when she peeked around the corner. “I didn’t know she knew how to turn
the water on,” she made a face and whispered to Cassie, and threw her the extra
towels they had brought back with them from the pool. “Use these for
now.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Cassie threw the towels they had on to the sopping wet
floor. “It was a hidden talent until today.” She saved the last
towel for her daughter. “Come on you, out.” She groaned when she
picked her up out of the water, marveling at what a big girl she was getting to
be.
“I didn’t mean to let the water out.” Abby’s voice was muffled by the
towel drying her mom was
giving her hair. “I will try again next time.”
“Yeah right,” Cassie finished her hair, and laid out some fresh clothes.
“Not that one,” Abby whined, “I want the pink one, the one with the Mini Mouse
on it.”
“Abby, the pink one is short sleeved, if you go out again tonight it’s liable
to get windy, and I don’t need you getting sick.”
“I could wear it if I want to,” Abby was doing her best to put her foot down.
“Abigail, you’re getting on my last nerve, now put this on.”
Abby didn’t say no, but she didn’t move to put it on either.
Cassie was about to bring the outfit to Abby, when Lonnie stepped in.
“Let me handle this,” She took the shirt from Cassie and walked over to her
niece. “Abby, if you don’t put this on, I won’t take you back to the park
again to check out the Pirates of The Caribbean after we eat.”
“Okay,” Abby smiled up at her aunt and let her help her into the shirt.
“Blackmail, it works every time,” Lonnie chuckled wickedly, loving every minute
of the look Cassie was throwing her.
Cassie was about to say something but the doorbell rang, and she went to get
the towels instead.
“That’s strange,” Cassie put the extra towels down on the side table, and
fingered the edge of an invitation the bell boy found in front of her door.
“What’s that?” Lonnie asked while she bent to help Abby get her shoes on.
“I’m not sure,” Cassie eyed the paper skeptically, “It looks like an invitation
to a party tonight.”
“Maybe Gunnar’s sorry he’s been such a butt, and he wants to make it up to
you.”