Meeting Destiny (23 page)

Acid seethed through his voice, “So we’re just friends.”

Without warning, I grabbed his arm. “There is no
just
about it. We’re friends. I don’t understand why people always describe friendship as
just
anything. You have been so much a part of me for the last twenty-two years, give it a new name. Call me your comrade, your pal, your insignificant other, whatever you want it to be, except your girlfriend. Everyone, everywhere, has someone, whether they’ve found them yet or not. I know you hate it, but the someone I’ve found is Max.”

He half-smiled back at me. I realized my grip on his arm was excessive, when he snickered, “I like
comrade.
Maybe we can get matching license plates or something?” He must have been trying to make a joke because I couldn’t detect a note of sarcasm this time. I released his arm, confident that his moment had passed, and he wouldn’t try again.

“
Okay, comrade Seth, I’m going home. I had a great time tonight.” Without so much as a look over my shoulder, I walked straight to the door and left. When I hit the too warm air outside, I couldn’t help but release the breath I’d been holding. I told myself he just needed a little more time. He wasn’t damaged goods. He’ll be ready for her, whoever she is, in no time.

My parents were already in bed, and I was grateful that I didn’t have to relive my morning for them. I tiptoed to my room and slid silently into bed.

****

I awoke to a bright sunny day, at nearly ten a.m. and knew it was time to face my parents’ inquisition. To my great relief, both were gone; neither were anywhere in the house, and neither had left a note for me. The same news van from last night set across the street, but I still saw no one anywhere near it. In the light I could see that it had a flat tire. It must have been abandoned when they couldn’t drive it back to the news station yesterday. Hoping that my day was no longer the top story, I flipped on the television and found the local news. Sure enough, there had been a huge earthquake on the west coast and all news stations were getting reports from their affiliates. By tomorrow no one would even give me a second thought again, thank goodness!

I began to get ready for my interview with Officer Johnson. I was drying my hair when I noticed a tow truck pull up in front of the news van across the street. That seemed a little extreme for a flat tire. As the hair dryer drowned out all other sounds, I watched two women get out of the tow truck.

In large flowing letters, the tow truck advertised, “Tonya’s Towing.” The driver of the tow truck looked to be in her early thirties, wearing coveralls and sporting unruly hair under a baseball cap. She opened a large metal tool box on the back of the tow truck, pulling out a hydraulic jack and bar in one hand and a tire out of the back of the truck with her other arm. I grinned to myself when I thought of this woman surprising an unsuspecting man in a dark alley somewhere. By her appearance alone and the way she muscled the equipment around, she could hold her own in any situation.

The woman who exited the passenger side of the tow truck was a stark contrast to Tonya. She wore a brown business suit that was precisely tailored to her body. Her auburn hair fell just below her shoulders and the colors flattered her ivory skin. She held a cell phone to her ear, engrossed in a conversation that I couldn’t hear, but as she spoke she was jotting notes into a small note pad balanced on the hood of the truck.

The passenger exuded self-confidence, almost a radiance. She smiled and nodded while speaking into the phone, as if whomever she was speaking to was directly in front of her, carrying on a normal conversation. It was impossible not to watch this woman. She looked to be in her early twenties; after easily two minutes of staring at her, I caught myself and suddenly felt as though I were intruding. What a strange thought. It’s not as if I had binoculars and was looking into high rise apartments. I was simply looking out the window, but the draw to continue to survey her every movement was uncanny.

I felt my hair and realized it was now completely dry, so continuing to watch the activity across the street was simply voyeuristic on my part. I abandoned the window and went to my room to get dressed and ready.

The doorbell rang and I looked at the clock on the wall, 10:50. It was a good thing I had gotten ready early; my ride seemed to have been in a bigger hurry than I was. I ran down the steps, two at a time, thankful once again that there would be no need to explain my whereabouts to my parents. I opened the door, started to step through to the awaiting squad car, when I realized that Seth was waiting impatiently on my doorstep. A quick scan of the neighborhood told me no squad car had arrived to take me. Seth ignored my confused look, “Hey, are you busy?”

“
No… I’m sorry. I was expecting a policeman to pick me up. I heard the doorbell and just assumed….never mind, what are you doing?”

“
Lauren, I need to ask for a favor.”

“
Okay, but I’ve only got about thirty minutes. What do you need?”

“
Can we talk inside?” Seth looked nervous, and I couldn’t imagine what kind of favor he was going to ask for. I had thought after our conversation in his garage last night, there should be absolutely no question in his mind about my feelings. Without sharing any of my apprehension, I opened the door wider and took a step back to let him pass.

He began slowly as if he didn’t know how to ask me for the favor. His voice was slow and steady, “Before I ask, I’m going to start with
you owe me.
” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him, as my certainty that this was going to be something I would hate, solidified. “Just hear me out before you say no, okay?” I nodded, but luckily was only being asked to listen to his request, not acquiesce.

“
Keep in mind, I’ve never asked you for anything in the last twenty-two years in general, and specifically for the last four months, so I think you owe me. If you do this one thing for me, your debt is paid and we’re even.” He waited to see my response. Dumbfounded, I didn’t know what to say and was sure I didn’t like the direction this was going.

Without losing eye contact, he continued, “I just met this really incredible woman named Amanda who wants to meet you. I told her we were tight. I told her I’d introduce her to you.”

Amanda? This was the name Rewsna had professed Seth was supposed to meet. “Seth, this doesn’t seem like such a big deal, why are you acting so weird?” Confusion was paramount in my mind. Why was he acting like this was some gynormous favor?

“
Well, the kicker is she’s some kind of news reporter, but she just wants to meet you, and I really, really want to help her. I hate to use you like this, and I have no idea why I’m so stinking nervous right now, but I need your help.”

I knew the last several months had been hard on him, so this didn’t seem like such an unreasonable request. “Okay, well, I have to leave in thirty minutes, but I can meet her later this evening or tomorrow?”

“
No, that’s the thing, Amanda’s here, now. Just five minutes, please?” With this final pleading he was actually taking my arm and leading me back to the door. He had the urgency of a Jack Russell with a ball – crazy intense about me meeting her.

To my surprise, Amanda was the nicely dressed woman I had been leering at through my bathroom window. Amanda up close was absolutely stunning: aside from her keen fashion sense, her features were nothing short of exotic, and I could now see exactly why Seth was so dead set on pleasing her. I smiled to myself when I realized she must get this type of, “assistance” all the time. I glanced across the street and saw that Tonya and her tow truck had disappeared.

Amanda held out her hand and flashed an easy smile, “Hi, Lauren, I’m Amanda Lewis from WSC-TV and was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about yesterday?”

Meeting someone and being interviewed are two entirely different things. Not wanting to disappoint Seth, I shook her hand, “Is there any way to politely decline an interview?” I quickly glanced at Seth to see that my response to Amanda didn’t seem to dampen his outlook.

“
I don’t have a camera crew or anything; to tell you the truth I’m not even a real reporter,” she grinned then added, “at least not yet. I’m just a summer intern. When I got to work this morning, they told me to come out here, change the tire and bring the ‘dragon wagon’ back.” She pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the news van that had been parked overnight on the street.

“
I know everyone in town is trying to get an interview with you, and word on the street yesterday was that you’d left town for a few days and didn’t want to be interviewed. I get that you are a private person, but you have no idea what it would do for me if I could tell my boss that I met you and got an interview, even if it’s off camera. I know you don’t know me or anything, but I promise I’m really a fair person, and I won’t twist anything you say. You could even decide not to answer something, and I would completely strike it from the interview.”

She was very persuasive, I imagine a great attribute for a reporter. Rather than answer her immediately, I looked to Seth. He stared at me, pleading with his eyes, knowing the very last thing in the world I would want was to be interviewed. Before I could formulate an answer, a police squad car pulled up in front of my house. I was rescued.

“
Amanda, I really don’t want to be interviewed,” I could see Seth’s expression harden, “but I’ll do you one better than answering a few questions. My boyfriend has tonight off work. I need to take care of some things now, but how about the four of us,” motioning to Seth and Amanda, “go to dinner tonight about five p.m. We’ll get to know each other. Assuming at the end of dinner you still think I’m interesting enough to interview, and I don’t think you’re a ‘snake in the grass,’ we can do an interview on camera after dinner?” I knew I had just hit a home run for Seth, because no matter how infatuated he was with her, he would never have had the courage to ask her out.

“
Uh, okay, that sounds great actually. Where and when?”

I started for the police car before she had even finished her question. “I’ll let you and Seth work that out. Seth, I’ll call you in a few hours to get the details. Gotta go.” I was so excited I was almost bursting. I knew this was way more than Seth had been hoping for, and I did like that she wasn’t pushy. I turned around just before opening the car door, “Oh, by the way, tell your boss I’m only willing to roll the dice with you, no substitutes.” If there were a facial expression classified as sheer joy, she was definitely wearing it.

I opened the police cruiser’s door, “Hi, I’m Lauren.”

“
Hi, Lauren. Keith said you needed a lift down to the station. I’m Bill Lawless.” I smirked and he smiled back at me, “Yeah, I know, I should change my name.” Officer Lawless had a warm demeanor. If I had seen him out of uniform on the street, I might have guessed him as an architect or a math teacher, certainly not a police officer.

“
Thanks for picking me up. I appreciate the ride.”

“
Are you kidding me? It is not very often I get to chauffeur around an honest-to-goodness hero.”

“
I wish people would stop saying that. All I did was dial a phone. How is that heroic?”

“
The way I heard it, you were suspicious of the guy, followed him to his car, got your friend to distract him, and phoned dispatch, then waited for backup. Am I missing anything?”

“
I didn’t get my friend to distract him. I just thought he was a creep.” Wanting to make sure he knew I wasn’t buying in to all the media coverage I added, “I wouldn’t call dialing a phone heroic, and I would think a better description of me would be - magnet for trouble.”

Bill let out a hearty laugh again and followed with, “Well, let us know where you hang out at night; we may be able to bring some crime statistics down.”

“
Usually, real rough neighborhoods, like the library, Starbucks, and when I really want to live on the wild side – the movie theater.”

“
I like that your first inclination was to check for outstanding warrants on the guy. That is a great way to pick potential boyfriends. Maybe we’ll set up a web site with that type of service in the future.”

Before I had to try to come up with a clever response, he changed the subject.

“
I hear you asked Keith to get you in to talk to the murderer?”

Cautious of his forward question, “I wanted to, but Keith said that was a no go.” After five minutes in the car, I wished I had called a cab instead. It smelled of stale vomit, and I’d never seen so many people stare before. I never thought of police as celebrities; it was uncomfortable riding through neighborhoods with all eyes on you. Keith’s police academy idea was now much less appealing.