Chapter 13
I sat down in my seat, which was by the window, and put on my headphones. I was
ready to listen to my WL tape to help cheer me up but instead I hear
Tony’s voice saying “Hello again, luv. I made this tape while you
were sleeping last night. Don’t give up hope, dahling. We will be together
again. I don’t know when, but I know we will. I don’t know where our
relationship is going right now, but my heart’s not letting you go.
You’re still mine, I hope you know that! (Giggles). So don’t go
running off with some other bugger and leave me out here with nobody all over
again! I’ll keep in touch.”
That’s right! We would still be able to communicate somehow. But it
wouldn’t be the same. I wanted to hold him, to be held by him. Another sad
thing is that in our short time together, we never took pictures of each other
or anything! Even if I had some of him already, they weren’t recent, and
he doesn’t have any of me! UGH! And we weren’t going to be spending
Christmas together! My life after this would seriously be screwed up and
miserable for life. Maybe I’m exaggerating, but I don’t care.
It’s my turn to bitch about something for once. I took out
Tony’s tape, put in the WL one and closed my eyes.
For the next week or so I spent my time unpacking my belongings and not going
anywhere, staying in isolation. My aunt wouldn’t even let me call him or
receive any calls from him. I set up the computer immediately and already had
emails from Tony. I never told her that we could still communicate through the
computer. After reading those emails, I had to tell the other Slatterettes the
bad news. We were all in the chat room for hours talking about what happened and
how we should all band together and murder Nannette. Of course that wasn’t
the rational thing to do right now, and just talking about it made me hate her
more. Telling them about our time together made me realize how much I had missed
being with Tony.
I was online one day when I got a message from DundeeWman that said, “How
are ya holding up?” Ugh! I was thousands of miles away from her and she
still annoyed me! I couldn’t stand it any longer. I just had to talk to
Tony again, to hear that voice that seemed to make all my worries disappear. I
emailed Tony and told him to call me at my cousins’ house. I went to my
cousins’ house and awaited his call. I carried the phone everywhere I
walked and waited for it to ring. It finally did and I screamed and answered it.
“Hello?”
“’Ello
dahling! It’s me!”
“Tony! Oh how
I’ve missed you so much! You have no idea!”
“Yes it’s
very different now that you’re not here. It feels like a big part of my
life has died and gone away.”
“Aww but I’m
still here for you. I’ll never go away.”
Wow, I never thought I’d be talking like people do in those weepy dramas.
We couldn’t talk long since it was long distance and I knew we would end
up talking for hours.
It was now December 13th. How was I going to get through Christmas vacation
without Tony? Ever since I came back from Scotland I’ve been feeling so
miserable inside. Later that day my cousin Steph called and said that somebody
had left a message for me on her answering machine.
“What does it
say?” I asked.
“She said to meet
somebody at Lido’s today at 5pm.”
Lido’s was an Italian restaurant that I’ve been eating at since I
was a little girl.
“She? Was she a
British woman?”
“Nope. She just
sounded normal.”
“Okay then.”
So I went down to Lido’s and got myself a table. Who arranged for this
meeting? I hope it wasn’t Nannette because if she shows up, I’m
leaving. It would have made my condition worse, seeing her. A waiter asked me if
I was ready to order something to eat and I said no, I’d wait until this
certain person would arrive. When the waiter left, I looked up at the door and
saw a dark figure standing at the doorway. The room was kinda dark, so I
couldn’t make out who it was. I watched as he stepped up into the light to
look around and I could make out his facial features. NO. It couldn’t
be…The hair, the nose, the eyes, and that face! Was it really Tony
Slattery? Or were my eyes playing tricks on me? I stood up and he saw me across
the room. He smiled and came running up to me. It really was Tony! I stood there
with my jaw down to the floor as he came up and gave me a hug.
“Tony?! What
the—how—what—“ I stuttered. How was this possible? Tony
was afraid of flying!
“I couldn’t
stand being away from you for so long. I just had to come here to see
you!”
“But dahling! I
thought you didn’t want to fly ever?”
“Well you know what
I did? I sucked it up and figured that I would risk my life just to see
you.”
Tony mustered up enough courage to get over his fear of flying just to be with
me! Now HE surely was the man that I couldn’t ever let go! I smiled and
returned to him an even greater hug.
“Let’s sit
down and have dinner, shall we?” He came up behind me and pulled out my
chair. I thanked him and the waiter came back to the table. We stayed there for
a while eating dinner and talking.
“So how did you
plan this out?”
“I sat around
feeling terrible and I just had to find a way to see you again, and the only way
to do that was to fly over. So I knew I had to get over my fear of flying. I
called your cousin, Stephanie, and asked her to help arrange everything with
you.”
“So there never was
a woman who left a message on Steph’s answering machine?”
Tony shook his head and smiled. He then scooted his chair closer to me.
“That scared me for
a moment. When Steph called and told me that a woman left a message for
me.”
“Why did it scare
you?”
“I thought it was
Nannette that I was coming to see. Thank God it
wasn’t.”
“Well, I
don’t think you have to worry about her anymore. She’s all the way
back in Scotland, so she can’t do us any harm over here.”
I sighed. She could still do harm by sending me threatening messages, but I
wasn’t going to let those bother me anymore. We got up and paid for the
meal and went outside.
“So where are you
staying tonight?” I asked as I dug through my purse for my car keys.
“Steph said I could
stay at her place for the night.”
“That would be
safe. If my aunt found out about you being here she’d probably send me off
to the Philippines or something. Come on. I’ll take you over there
now.”
Tony followed me over to my car, a dark blue Ford Explorer. We got in and
buckled up.
“Nice car you have
here, luv.”
“Thanks. I’ve
always wanted one ever since I moved to Georgia,” I said as I started the
ignition. We got out of the parking lot and went along the roads. Along the way
I noticed how Tony kept looking out the windows and the rear view
mirrors.
“Something
wrong?” I asked as he turned around to look out the back window.
“Yes, well. I
don’t know how to tell you this, but—“
“What is it?”
“I thought I saw
Nannette in a car back there!”
“What?!” I
turned my head around to look.
“Jennifer
stop!”
I looked ahead and saw that the light was red. I quickly slammed on the brakes.
Luckily we didn’t end up in the middle of the road.
“You’re not
fucking with me, are you?!” I nearly yelled.
“Dahling! No need
to get vulgar!”
“Oh I’m
sorry! I’m so sorry, Tony! I just got carried away.”
“That’s
alright. I understand your reaction completely. But I saw this woman that looked
just like her!”
The light turned green and we continued down the road. I looked to my left and
saw Nannette in a little car beside me! I did a double take and realized that it
really was her! Tony looked out my window and saw her too.
“Oh shit! Keep
driving around!”
I did just that and went driving around the city. Nannette followed and then
every once in a while she’d speed up to try to ram her car into mine! She
finally hit me from behind.
“Bitch! What the
hell are you trying to do?” I yelled as I tried to get away from her. We
came to this secluded road where it was just our two vehicles. She was driving
right next to me and started moving closer and closer, as if she were trying to
run me off the road.
“Is she trying to
kill us? She’s bloody bonkers!” Tony said as he held onto the
doorknob. I looked ahead and saw there were two rows of cars lined up on the
side of the road and so there was room for only one car to drive through. I
looked over at Nannette, gave her an evil look and drove ahead of her.
“She’s
speeding up too! I hope you can make it through that little passage before she
does!”
I know I was going to make it. Nannette was right beside me and we raced to the
little passage. I sped up at the last moment and drove in between the cars while
Nannette ended up crashing into them.