I’m
going to keep this relatively short today, because I went a little overboard
with the writing challenge. It was a true story which I wasn’t able to tell in
ten minutes. I hope you’ll forgive me.
So,
the snow started around one yesterday afternoon and ended around seven. Fortunately
those six hours of snow only managed to leave just shy of two inches on the
ground, so everything looked pretty but the roads were passable. Well, that’s
not the case this morning. I woke up to freezing rain. EVERYTHING is covered in
a layer of ice.
Thankfully
it is nothing like the ice storm we had two years ago, but it was still enough
to have the schools delay their opening. Unfortunately the phone call
announcing the delay came fifteen minutes after I woke my daughter, but she’s a
teenager, so she had absolutely no problem going back to bed and to sleep for
an extra two hours.
Okay,
as I said, I’m going to keep this part short. I hope you have a warm and safe
day, and happy writing!
Your Last Challenge
was:
When a friend asked if I would wait with her, at a tiny
airport in town, because her cousin, whose name I no longer remember, was
flying in from Buffalo, I said sure. I picked Nicole up at her house and we
headed over. Even though I had lived in town for several years, I had never
been to Kupper Airport.
It’s basically one landing strip, a couple of hangers and
one administrative, for lack of something better to call it, building. Outside
the “administrative” building was a small – roughly twelve by twelve – fenced section
with a long wooden bench, which served as the airports waiting/boarding area.
Thankfully it was a beautiful, warm evening, so Nicole and I plopped ourselves
down on the bench to wait. From where we sat, we could see several small
planes, all interesting, but none could compete with the private jet sitting on
the runway twenty feet in front of us. It was beautiful.
After about fifteen minutes, a person exited the
administrative building, asked if we were waiting for the flight from Buffalo.
When we told him ‘yes’, he said it was going to be at least an hour before they
arrived. Apparently, they left considerable later than they had planned. Then
he told us the office was closing up for the night, and was nice enough to ask
if we needed to use the bathroom before he locked up. We told him we were good,
and he bade us a good night and left.
Nicole and I were happily chatting away when I noticed a car
headed toward us from the far corner of the airport, which I thought was very
strange because I was pretty sure the only road in was the one we had taken,
and it ended at the parking lot a few feet away from where we were sitting.
Out of time, but since this is a true story, if I stopped
here, you’d probably shoot me.
Slowly a dilapidated green station wagon came into view, and
eventually pulled up right in front of us. Two burley men, in suits and dark
glasses, got out of the car and looked around. I’m not sure who grabbed who’s
hand, but I felt Nicole squeeze my hand, hard. Obviously she was just as
unsettled by the new arrivals as I. We glanced at each other, but didn’t say a
word.
When, I guess, they determined the area was safe, and two
teenage girls were not a threat, one of the men opened the back door to the
station wagon and a woman gracefully emerged. Now it was my turn to squeeze
Nicole’s hand, hard. “Do you know who that is?” I whispered. Nicole was completely
clueless.
I watched in utter amazement as the occupant of the car (a
stunningly beautiful Filipino woman dressed in a green silk confection with
perfectly matched emeralds in her ears and on her finger) and one of what I now
knew was a bodyguard walked over to the door of the admin building and tried
the door. Not wanting to shout, I stood and walked over to the fence near the
door. The second body guard was at my side in a flash, but I ignored him. I
told the woman, the office had closed about ten minutes before. Then I heard
her whisper to her body guard that she “wouldn’t make it all the way to Rhode
Island”.
I said to the woman there was a restaurant just at the end
of the road and she could use the bathroom there.
She said, “I couldn’t possibly go into a public restaurant.”
I smiled at her and informed her that the restaurant had
only opened a few weeks before, they weren’t crowded, it was fairly dark in
there, and the ladies’ room was the first door on the right as soon as you walk
in. No one would even see her. The woman took my hand, gave it a gentle
squeeze, and thanked me for my kindness. I said it was my pleasure and returned
to me seat next to Nicole.
Unbeknownst to us, there was another occupant in the station
wagon, and apparently she elected not to go on the potty run with her travel
companion. The bodyguard assisted her out of the vehicle and went to escort her
to the jet Nicole and I had been admiring, but she stopped him and pointed in
my direction. When the two started heading my way, I rose and met them at the
fence which separated the waiting area from the landing strip.
This new woman took my hand (yeah, I know, this is the
fourth hand reference, but this is how things went down) and said, “Thank you
for being so nice to my friend, for not judging her.”
I replied it wasn’t my place to judge, and if someone was
nice to me, I was nice to them. She thanked me again, then gave a final wave
before her bodyguard assisted her onto her jet. After he had her on-board, he
came and stood next to me – uncomfortably close, but that’s a whole other
story.
Eventually, the others returned from the potty run; crisis
averted and no media frenzy ensued, so the mission was successful. The Filipino
woman gave us a final wave and a smile as she boarded the jet, and then moments
later they were airborne and I could finally explain to Nicole what had just
transpired.
So, have you figured out who the women were? Don’t worry, I
won’t leave you guessing.
Never in a million years, when I had agreed to wait with a
friend at our little Podunk airport, would I have imagined I would get a chance
to meet the infamous Doris Duke and her friend Imelda Marcos.
Your
Next Challenge is:
Pandemonium breaks out at the North Pole…
You have 10 minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong,
just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count and NO ONE is allowed to
criticize what someone else has written. Go.
No comments:
Post a Comment