23. Too Much to LoseA Chapter by Craig2591 Chrissy is given the opportunity to confront a nightmare. But will the price be worth it? Chrissy breathed a sigh of relief as the airplane touched down on the runway. She wasn't afraid of flying, but if she had to listen to Patrick's inane chatter for ten more minutes she was going to throw a conniption right there on the plane!
It was Chrissy's first business trip ever. Her boss, Derek Brosky of Brosky Software Solutions, was sending Patrick, the office manager, and Zane, one of the software engineers, to meet with a client in Montreal. He decided it would be a nice gesture to send someone along who spoke the language, so Chrissy was drafted. Her job, he explained, was to serve as interpreter, take notes and act as ambassador for the company. She raised her eyebrows when he said the word 'ambassador'.
“Chrissy!” he said sternly, “I expect you to be friendly and polite!” She continued to stare at him with her eyebrows raised. “Well... at least be polite!” he continued.
She sighed and nodded. “I'll do my best,” she replied with a touch of resignation.
“Sounds like fun,” said Ian when she told him about it over dinner later.
“Spending two and a half days with Patrick is not my idea of fun!”
“But, you'll be visiting your old home town,” he said in an attempt to cheer her up.
“There's nothing there I want to go back and see!” she replied sullenly.
~*~
The trip to Montreal wasn't nearly as bad as Chrissy thought it would be. Patrick was his usual annoyingly jovial self. But Chrissy actually enjoyed talking to Zane. Like most of her coworkers, she knew very little about him. She discovered that he was a shy young man a little on the nerdy side. She listened to him intently when he talked about programming and understood most of what he said about it.
“Maybe you should try programming,” he suggested to her, “You seem to have a knack for it.”
“I know computers and I know how they work” she answered, “I can fix any computer you can throw at me, but I don't know much about programming them.”
“You could take some night classes at the college,” he insisted, “Derek has a tuition reimbursement policy, so it wouldn't cost you anything in the long run.”
“Maybe,” she shrugged. She wasn't about to tell him she couldn't go to college without a high school diploma.
She found the owner of the client company, a man in his forties, to be refreshingly forthright and direct, but not arrogantly so. She also found him to be good looking and wondered if she was developing a 'thing' for older men.
As he gave them a tour of his factory and explained his needs for a new computer system, Chrissy was surprised to find the challenges of designing a system for a manufacturing facility interesting to her. So many different aspects had to be considered: order entry, job costing and pricing, tracking, shipping, billing. All of that information had to be available to the plant manager at the touch of a computer key, along with reports on labor costs, material costs, downtime, etc. To merge all of that information together into one system presented quite a challenge and she envied Zane a little for getting the chance to tackle it.
When evening came, he took them all out to dinner. As an interpreter, Chrissy was obliged to accompany them and join in the conversation. She preferred to avoid such social gatherings, but she ended up having a pleasant evening despite Patrick's loud and annoying laughter.
Still... she wondered when she would get time to attend to some private, unfinished business of her own while she was in Montreal.
The next day was uneventful. It consisted mostly of long meetings in which Patrick, Zane and the client discussed his particular needs for the computer system they were designing for him. The client spoke passable English, so Chrissy's translating skills were barely needed and she was bored for most of the day.
They finished up around four-thirty. As they headed back to their hotel Patrick and Zane talked about going out to dinner and visiting some of the local hotspots.
“This is Chrissy's old stomping grounds!” said Patrick with a chuckle, “She can show us all the best places.”
“I was ten years old when we moved to the U.S.,” she replied flippantly, “All I can show you are the best playgrounds!” Patrick laughed. “I'm tired,” she continued, “I'm just going to have dinner in my room tonight.”
“But... we need an interpreter!” said Patrick with disappointment.
“There's plenty of people who speak English downtown. You'll be fine!” she replied, “But stay downtown. There's areas in the city where English speaking people aren't welcome!”
When she got to her room, she booted up her laptop. She spent five minutes looking up an address, then took out a pen and paper and wrote it down. She closed her laptop, drew the blinds on the windows, turned off all the lights and sat down.
She spent the next hour brooding in the darkness.
She got up and changed into a pair of black jeans, a dark purple t-shirt and a navy hoodie. She took the elevator to the lobby, went outside and hailed a cab. The sky was October grey and a chilly breeze was blowing. Brown leaves skittered by on the sidewalk. She got into the backseat of the cab and wordlessly handed the address to the driver.
Twenty minutes later he turned the cab onto a small residential street in a working-class neighborhood. He drove about half-way down the block and stopped the car.
“Here you are,” he said.
She rolled down her window and looked at the houses. “Which one is it?” she asked.
“Celui là,” he pointed, “That one.”
She stared at the house for several seconds until recognition kicked in. That was the house alright! She remembered it now! For over ten years she had fantasized about coming back to that house. She had played out the scenario over and over again in her mind. Countless times she had imagined what she would do when she came back... what she would say. She knew every word by heart.
“The meter is running, madame,” he reminded her.
She ignored him. She had waited for this day for so long and now it was finally here! She would finally confront her nightmare and make it stop haunting her! She would finally put an end to the sleepless nights. She would simply tell the driver to take her to the nearest sporting-goods store. There, she would purchase a baseball bat. Then she would come back to the house, walk up to the front door, knock, wait for the door to open...
Ironically, she would be the one to go to jail! That didn't bother her, though. She'd been in jail before. But she would certainly lose her job! And she would probably lose Ian. She would be letting Meredith down, too.
She'd once heard it said that the scariest person in the room was the one who had nothing to lose, because that person was capable of anything. She used to be that person.
Not anymore.
“Goddammit!” she muttered through gritted teeth.
“Pardonnez-moi?” asked the driver.
Chrissy rolled the window up and sat back in her seat. “Nothing,” she sighed, “Take me back to my hotel.”
© 2016 Craig2591Author's Note
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Craig2591OHAboutI am a visual artist with no formal training in creative writing. I get stories knocking around my head and sometimes I write them down. I decided to join this site to share them with other writers .. more..Writing
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