Chapter Three

The third chapter =]

        The next morning, I was relieved when I wasn’t woken up to the loud sound of the TV. I was relieved that my mother said she would take care of the Ben situation. I was relieved that it wasn’t down pouring as the weather channel had said it would be today. I was relieved that my mother didn’t freak out about my spending yesterday, and actually encouraged me to use the card whenever I saw something I liked. Basically, I was relieved in general.  

            I climbed out of bed, showered, dressed and got ready for the day. Demi kept talking about how crazy she must have been the morning before, and Noelle kept talking about her recently favorite subject—Jake.

            Yet again, we all met in the lobby of the hotel, and walked next door to Melanie’s for breakfast. As I was eating my chocolate croissant, my cell phone rang. I read it’s called ID, it was my mother. I quickly excused myself from the table, and went outside the restaurant onto the New York City sidewalk to take the call.

            “Is everything okay, mom?” I asked as I answered the phone.

            “Things should be okay, I still want you to be really careful, though,” she replied.

            “I will, mom, don’t worry. We’re not allowed to go anywhere by ourselves, and I’ve never been in the room alone. When I saw him, I had to be at least twenty-five feet away from him. I’m not even sure he saw me, or recognized me.”

            “Harlow, he did see you, and I know that for a fact. I talked to him, and he told me he did before I even mentioned that you were in New York.”

            “Why’d you call him?” I asked her.

            “Well, I called the head of United States diplomats to see what we should do. I told him that Ben was out of prison. She didn’t believe me when I said that he was out of jail, she thought his sentence was supposed to be longer. The head called Ben’s old cell phone number, and he answered and said that he had seen you in New York,”

“That makes sense. So what did you guys do about this?” I asked.

“The head had a restraining order placed so he can’t come near any of us, or any other diplomat, current and former. Also, the NYPD was notified just in case Ben tries anything again. I talked to Angela last night too; I explained what had happened and what we did. She said she would tell the other teachers, just so they’re aware. Everything should be fine though. Ben sounded like he was at the airport, so he very well may not be in the city,” My mom recited.

            “Okay, I’m not worried, mom. I’m in a city with tons of police, I’m sure I’ll be fine. You shouldn’t worry either,” I replied.

            “I’m not worried—too much anyways. But I really should let you go, honey. You’re probably doing something important.”

            “No, we’re just eating breakfast. It was a good time to call, but I probably should be getting back. Bye mom.”

            “Bye Harlow.”

            I ended the call and went back inside the restaurant. I sat back down in my seat and began to eat my croissant again. I guess I didn’t notice it at first, but everyone at my table was staring at me.

            “Yeah?” I asked them, curiously.

            “Are you okay Harlow, because after you got off the phone with your mother last night you seemed slightly freaked, and she just called again and you looked concerned when you left,” Demi said to me.

            I sighed. It’s not like I had to hide anything from them; I wasn’t a big fan of telling my Ben story. I had to tell them what was going on. Lying and saying that everything was great would be so blatantly obvious. Anyway, it was probably best they know, just in case Ben did try to do something again. They would know to call the police or get help. Not that I wanted them to have to do something like that.

            “Okay, so something happened, kind of a long time ago, when I lived in San Francisco, the summer before 6^th grade. I was kidnapped by a guy named Ben, whom at the time was my mother’s co-worker and a good friend of my dad’s,” I began. I saw all of their facial expressions turn to pure shock. “The police found me after about two days, and I wasn’t hurt or anything. The only motive the police could get from him is that he wanted a child really badly, which doesn’t make sense, because he was married, and could have had one of his own or adopted. Apparently he figured I would be an easy target; I knew him well and my parents trusted him taking me places. But yeah, he told my parents he was taking me out to dinner one night, which he did, and then he brought me back to his house and locked me in a back room of his basement. His wife had been out with friends, so she didn’t see me. I guess he had planned to do something obnoxious to get his wife to leave him and the house, so she would be gone sooner than if he just filed for divorce. He got his wife to leave for a day and a half, and then she came back to get some of her things, and she went into the room that I was in down in the basement, found me and called the police. That’s why my mother was relocated to Beijing before school started. ”

            The story was really complex to explain. I was unsure of a lot that went on with the police, my parent’s and Ben. I know that he was arrested (obviously), and that he was in jail in California, but I didn’t know the length of his sentence. Not knowing all of the effects of the happening makes things harder to tell.

            “Oh my god, I think I actually remember seeing that on the news,” Shauna, who lived in San Francisco all of her life, recalled.

            “Yeah, you probably did,” I replied. “My mom said that there was a lot of news coverage on it because he was one of the top diplomats

            “So you really saw that creep yesterday?” Ari said.

            “Yeah, he was sort of far away, though.”

            “Where were we?” Noelle asked.

            “It was when we were in Rockefeller Center, right after we came out of Anthropologie.”

            “Why didn’t you say anything?” Shauna asked.

            “In case he saw me, which he did. I didn’t want to make it obvious, because that could have caused a confrontation, and no offence or anything, but six girls looking at him would have been pretty obvious that we saw him.”

            “What did your parents do about him last night?” Kendra asked.

            I told them about everything that was arranged, and about how the head thought he was at the airport. They seemed a little bit relieved for me, when I told them all of that.

            After breakfast, the group split up for the morning. I lucked out with my group—Nathan, Jake, Grant, Cade, Demi, Noelle and I, led by Angela and Martine. We walked to Columbus Circle station, took the subway all the way to 110^th Street, walked down another street, and ended at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

            We entered the cathedral and listened to Angela talk about the history and architecture of the building. When our little tour was complete, the group began walking down Amsterdam Ave. making our way to the American Museum of Natural History. As we boarded the subway at 110^th street, Grant plowed his way over to me.

            “Well, don’t you look nice,” he complimented.

            Like yesterday, I looked down at my outfit—a dark purple tank top with a satin woven top from Daytrip, dark wash J Brand denim shorts, silver sequined converse, my silver Tiffany & Co. heart ring with the diamonds and I was carrying my black Miu Miu diamond quilted bag. My hair was parted down the center, side-bangs clipped back, and braided in two long, loose braids, which hung over my shoulders. I had on light pink eye shadow, and brown eyeliner and mascara, with rosy blush and clear lip gloss.

            “Thanks, again!” I replied, and smiled.

            “How was your night?” he asked.

            “It was pretty good, I talked to my mom, and then Kendra, Shauna and Ari came to our suite. We read and wrote the vocab for the four food chapters and then read a hundred pages of The Circuit, so we only have thirty-four left and ate junk food. Oh, and we packed for Patagonia,” I told him. “How was yours?”

            “That’s good. You guys are pretty far ahead on your syllabus for this week. We haven’t started The Circuit yet. Cade looked up our literature book on the internet, and it’s for sixth graders, so we figured that we could just read that right before the test and be fine. Then last night, we saw the hard copies of the book, and despite the fact that it has fewer than 150 pages, it kind of freaked us out, since its length was unexpected,” he began. “My night was good though. Except the Orioles lost to Minnesota lost 4-7, and the Devil Rays won against Oakland 12-2 so Cade was rubbing that in my face.”

            “Aww, well I’m sure the Orioles will win soon. If they don’t, then I’m sure that Tampa Bay will lose soon,” I told him. “And I’m sure that we’re only doing sixth grade literature because we’ve come from all over the place, so we’re not all at the same level.”

            “We’ll sixth grade lit is a bit of a stretch to get us all on the same level,” he replied.

            “Just a little bit,” I said sarcastically.

            Grant and I talked for the rest of the subway ride, and the entire duration of the walk after the subway ride until we got the American Museum of Natural History. Martine took us around the North American Mammals and North American Birds exhibits, telling us all about everything. When she had nothing left to say, we headed down the street to Solare, a modern restaurant, to meet up with the other group and to eat lunch.

            When lunch was concluded, the seventeen of us split up again for the afternoon; this time, it was our decision of where we went—either the spa, or a bunch of museums. All of the girls chose the spa except for Peyton and Sidney.

            I was so glad our teachers had scheduled a spa day today. After all of the Ben stress within the past twenty-four hours, I needed to relax and not think any unpleasant thoughts.

            Upon arrival at the New York Assuage Spa, we were greeted by nine masseuses, who handed us spa menus and told us that we each could pick up to three hours worth of treatments. Shauna, Noelle and I all chose a half hour of a Swedish massage, another half hour of a Reflexology massage, another of a deep tissue massage, and a forth of a lava rock massage, as well as a spa manicure and pedicure.

            Since the three of us “ordered” the same thing, we were all in a room together. Two hours of massage passed, and not once did I think of any of the drama with my kidnapper, thank god. When it came to my spa mani pedi, I had my nails painted in OPI’s That’s Berry Darling, a darker hot pink shade.

            At four o’clock, we left the spa, and headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. I didn’t really feel like changing much, so I threw on exactly what I was wearing last night, except I kept the purple top on that I was already wearing. I unbraided my hair, letting my long blonde waves tumble over my shoulders and back.

            Once Demi and Noelle had changed for dinner, the three of us went out onto the balcony to finish reading The Circuit, which we did. Upon finishing, the three of us threw our books on the ground of the balcony and looked out over Central Park.

            I watched a group of people walk by on the path that was right in front of our room, followed by a horse drawn carriage. I looked out even further, and I saw a little pond surrounded by lush green trees. It truly was a beautiful sight with the city skyline peeking over the trees in the distance, with the sun becoming lower in the sky.

            “Well, you didn’t see Ben today, that’s good,” Noelle said.

            “Tell me about it. I just hope I have that luck for the rest of my life,” I replied.

            “Don’t worry about it, you have the restraining order and it’s not like he can stalk you around the world for the next four years. That would be the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard of, plus it’s nearly impossible to get the schedule of our trip anywhere, unless you’re directly related to one of us,” Demi began. “We don’t even have our schedule more than a week into the future.”

            “I’m not all that worried,” I started. “I was, but I think things will be fine now that everything’s in place.”

            “That’s good,” both Demi and Noelle said at the same time, and then smiled.

            “So,” Noelle dragged the word out. “You’ve done a lot of conversing with both Grant and Nathan in these past few days.”

            “I haven’t seen either of them since lunch,” I told them, but they obviously already knew that. “Besides, they’re only friends; they both seem like really cool people.”

            “Besides, they’re only friends,” Demi mimicked. “How many times have girls said that and then ended up with the guy? Or in this case, one of the guys.”

            “She’s right, Har,” Noelle agreed. “I’ve seen it happen more times than I can possibly even remember…or count.”

            “Well, what about you and Jake, Noelle? And Demi, I’ve seen you and Cade together numerous times.”

            “We never said we were only interested in being friends with them,” Noelle responded.

            “Well Demi, you said that you weren’t going to seriously think about a guy for a while,” I started. The two of them just stared at me, smiling. “I’m not going to win am I?”

            The two of them looked at each other, laughed and then looked back at me, with that same goofy smirk. What on earth had I gotten myself into?

            “No, you’re not going to win,” Demi told me.

            “But Grant’s been asking everyone like everything about you, Harlow. He obviously has a thing for you,” Noelle admitted.

            “He’s only known me for like, less than three days!”

            “Ever hear of something called love at first sight?” Demi asked me.

            “Of course, but—” I was cut off.

            “Well, there we go,” Noelle finished.

            I didn’t believe in love at first sight. I wanted to, with my love of cheesy movies and all but it just didn’t seem plausible. How can you look at a person, and know that that particular person is the person for you? I couldn’t tell them that I wasn’t a believer, because that would be another war I wouldn’t win.

            Demi pulled out her cell phone and looked at the time—we had one minute to get down to the lobby, so we ran out the door, of the hotel room, and rode the elevator down to the lobby, where we immediately left for the New York Grille.

 

            Back at the hotel after dinner, my two roommates and I went back to our room, planning on getting ready for yet another homework session with Shauna, Kendra and Ari, except this time, Grant, Cade, Andrew, Jake, Nathan and Talon were coming to join us. I seriously wasn’t sure as to how productive this night was going to be.

            Despite the fact that we had already eaten dinner, we were all hungry, so we immediately broke out food from the pantry, and sat down with our Language Arts books to read the first chapter on personal writing. Though we were flipping between three baseball games (Baltimore against Minnesota for Grant, the Yankees against Detroit for Talon, Tampa Bay against Oakland for Cade, and the Red Sox for Andrew and Jake against the White Sox for Nathan), we actually read the chapter quickly, thoroughly and successfully. We all completed the worksheet that came along with the chapter, which had to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, and then we all wrote sentences with our vocab words, something I hadn’t done since maybe fourth grade.

            “Wow, I actually got something accomplished tonight,” Talon commented.

            “I know, maybe we should work with the girls more often,” said Andrew.

            “S**t, the Orioles just lost again!” Grant exclaimed, looking at me, jokingly giving me the death stare for telling him that they would win.

            “Well come on, when they’re losing by seven in the bottom of the ninth inning, they have like a one percent chance of actually winning,” Jake replied. “Unless you’re the Red Sox, then you can come back from anything--especially when you’re losing a series 3-0 in the American League Championship against the Yankees and then you go on to sweep the World Series.”

            “Well if the Red Sox were actually good they wouldn’t have to make comebacks so often. And besides, it took them eighty-six years to win a World Series, what does that show you?” Talon retorted. Coming from Boston, I was a Red Sox fan whenever I chose to watch baseball, so I was used to the whole Red Sox, Yankees rivalry.

            “Well, if the Yankees are so great, how come they haven’t won the pendant this millennium?” Andrew asked. “Besides, you’re talking about us like we’re so bad, if they’re so good, then how come they lost the last four games of the series?”

            All six of us girls were kind of staring at each other, with little clue as to what was going on. We all said that we followed baseball a little bit, but we agreed that fighting over something as trivial as a game was a bit much. Yes, I certainly remember watching all of the Red Sox playoff games back in 2004, despite the fact that I was in Beijing then, but I wouldn’t argue over those three series. Whatever happened happened, and that was that.  

            Shauna turned the conversation over from baseball to what was happening over the next few days, and the next few days led to Patagonia next week, and eventually into where we thought we were going the week after Patagonia.

            “I bet you we’re going to South Africa or something because it’s kind of, sort of close-ish to the tip of South America,” Noelle guessed.

            “I bet you Buenos Aires,” Jake contributed. “Since we’re so far south, we probably will head somewhere north in South America before leaving the continent.”

            “Maybe, but I’m kind of thinking Australia or New Zealand,” I put in. “Since we will be so far south, why not stay there before going north?”

            Other guesses were China, Santiago, Uruguay, Italy, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Spain and Portugal, for various different reasons.

            The one thing I noticed throughout everything that was said during the night was that every time Jake talked, Noelle talked after and vice versa. I gave it a few more days before those two became official, even though they’ve known each other for such a short period of time.

            The group left our suite around eleven o’clock, and the three of us quickly changed, climbed into bed and turned out the lights. It had been another long day, and I was utterly exhausted, especially since everyone stayed fifteen minutes before our official curfew for our time in New York City.

            Noelle and Demi were asleep within two minutes of turning out the lights; however, I lay awake in the dark room listening to Noelle’s light breathing right next to me and the faint sound of traffic below me. Having lived in numerous cities, the noise on the streets at night soothed me, probably because it was so familiar to me.

            I just wished I could make it through another day without seeing Ben. Sure I was in a city with millions of people so statistically it was next to impossible for that to happen, especially since he could very well not be in the city at all anymore, but you never know. I knew I shouldn’t be worrying about this anymore, and for a while, I wasn’t, but after having been kidnapped once, I didn’t want anything bad to happen again, especially something that involved a Harlow kidnapping idiot named Ben.

            After lying down for awhile, I finally fell asleep—thank god. Though I got to sleep in an extra hour, until 7:45, I needed as much sleep as I could possibly get to prepare myself for another crazy day like the first full day we spent in New York City.

Author's Note

I haven't edited this, or even reread it, so it's not as good as it could/should be. What do you think?