Disclaimers in part 1
They arrived at the hotel where the reunion
was being held and AJ went to the registration desk to check on the rooms he
had reserved. Mac noticed the sign-in table for the reunion. As she walked over
to it – on the other side of the lobby, she belatedly recognized Jennifer
Black, the reunion coordinator. "Why if it isn’t Sarah MacKenzie. How are
you doing? It’s been a long time, what 15 years?" Jennifer giggled at her
own insipid little joke. "What’s with the uniform? You a Girl Scout
leader?" she sneered.
"I’m in the Marines."
"Oh, did you have to join to keep out of
trouble?"
"No, I didn’t. Where’s my packet?"
Mac asked about the packets of reunion material on the table with all the names
on them. She took her packet and left knowing it was a mistake to come here.
Spotting AJ, she walked back across the lobby to join him. It seemed he was
having a problem with the desk clerk.
As she walked up she heard him say,
"Well never mind; just give me the key."
They quietly walked to the elevator. "So
did you get the rooms?"
"Slight problem with that. They canceled
one of the rooms. We’ll have to share."
"I knew there would be nothing but
problems," she mumbled.
"Don’t worry, Mac I’m sure you can still
find something to enjoy on this trip."
"Let’s see, my least favorite person
from high school just asked me if I was a Girl Scout because of the uniform.
When I told her I was a Marine, she assumed I had to join to keep out of
trouble. Then they cancel one of our rooms. What else can go wrong?"
"Don’t say that, Mac, the elevator could
stop."
She glared at him and said, "Don’t even
joke." He laughed.
"Well I can’t say much about the person
you talked to but don’t worry about the rooms. They promised me there was a
couch in the room so I’ll take that." He opened the door to the room and
they both noticed the king size bed and the little love seat that was not even
close to passing as a couch. Unable to help herself she started to laugh.
Then she walked over to the loveseat and
dropped her stuff on it. "Figures. I’ll sleep here. You take the
bed."
"I don’t think so."
"Let’s see. You are 6’3"
right?" At his nod she continued, "the love seat is about 5’ long.
Not only will your feet be dangling over the edge, so will the rest of your
legs."
"Good argument, ever think about being a
lawyer?"
"Well, let’s see what wonderful kinds of
torture they have in store for us this weekend." She opened her packet. In
the front was a ‘Hi My Name Is’ tag, with her name spelled wrong. AJ sat next
to her as she looked at the plans for the weekend. Dinner and drinks tonight,
breakfast in the morning followed by ‘getting reacquainted games’, then some
time free before the ball tomorrow night. "Good," she said noticing
the free time.
"What’s that?"
"I wanted to go out and look for a
dress. I doubt Harriet packed me one for me. Dinner should be interesting
tonight, to say the least."
"Why is that?"
"Well the person I met up with
downstairs was the most popular girl in school. She wasn’t the nicest, even
after all this time. You would think that she would have grown up some."
"I wouldn’t worry about her, Sarah. She
is obviously just being spiteful and jealous."
"Thank you, sir."
"Now what would that one think if she
heard you call me sir? She would think some unpleasant things, I’m sure, so at
least save yourself from some of those, ok?"
"Okay, AJ. Gee that feels kind of weird
calling you that."
"You were calling me AJ on the plane.
Why did you stop?"
"Because I thought I was going to
die," she smiled at him.
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