In the Unlikely Event... (23 page)

“Assignment?”

“Yes, now go get the van in the back parking lot. You can’t miss it. It’s pink with a white bow painted on the side. I’ll get the supplies together and meet you on the back dock. We can do this. With your skills and my organizational abilities there is no disaster we cannot overcome.”

Chase had no idea what they were doing or what they could or couldn’t do, but this talk of disaster relief gave her heart palpitations. She went for the van but stopped and turned. “Am I going to be able to do this thing we are doing?”

“Yes. You may be a novice right now, but by this afternoon, you will be expert.”

“Where are we going?”

“Rio Rancho.”

“And our assignment?” Chase couldn’t believe she said “our.” An hour and a half in the workforce and she’d become part of the proletariat.

“To save a wedding.”

Chase went for the van and then helped Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks load packing supplies and gift-wrapping paraphernalia, lots of it. There was every conceivable size of box, tube, padding, rolls of wrapping paper, strange cutting implements, ribbons, markers, glue and plastic caddies full of God-knows-what. Chase was petrified.

“What happened? Did the wedding planner forget to have the presents wrapped?” Chase asked as she buckled up. She hoped Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks was a good driver. Driving with strangers made Chase nervous.

“They were wrapped and everything was ready and then the gardener turned the sprinklers on. He didn’t know the presents had been set up on a table on the lawn. All the wrapping paper is ruined and a lot of the boxes will have to be replaced.”

“Wow, this is big,” Chase said, watching as Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks merged onto the freeway from Carlyle using her signal and checking her mirrors. Chase glanced at the control panel to insure the passenger airbag was turned on.

“It is big. I know this is a huge step for one so young to the calling, but I have the utmost faith in you,” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks said, trying to reassure her.

Chase felt like Luke becoming a Jedi. She was going into battle. She checked the tool belt Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks had given her. It looked like it had everything she needed. The soggy boxes would be ousted and the new regime installed. She felt confident until one her many fears popped up, like a mole in the Whack-A-Mole game. Performance anxiety kept poking its little head out of its hole, but before she could hit it with the balloon hammer the head disappeared. “Will people be watching us?”

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks didn’t take her eyes off the road, which pleased Chase—it was a true sign of a professional driver. “Why?”

“Well, it just kind of, like, makes me, like, nervous and it could, like, affect my performance.” She sounded like a Valley girl—like, like, like.

“I see.”

She was going to get fired. Part of her felt good because she was achieving her goal. But the other part wanted to help. She liked Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks, and she wanted to help save the wedding. The good Samaritan part of her nature clawed its way out of dross and declared her worthy. “I could try to overcome it.”

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks put her indicator on and merged onto I-25 heading toward Rio Rancho. “I want to tell you a story.” There was a pause.

“Okay,” Chase said, uncertain about the nature of the pause. Pauses made Chase nervous because she had enough time to conjure up a hundred bad stories about to be revealed. A pause was like an abyss and the next sentence was the push.

“You see, I was once very neurotic, incapable of making the tiniest, most mundane choices,” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks continued.

Chase sat, mouth agape, but quickly recovered herself. “Really?” She thought Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks was one of the elite people who knew what they were doing and why. There weren’t many people in that club and here she was confessing to being neurotic. If the Universe was a stage it had put Chase in the right place at the right time with the right person.

“Yes, and I overcame my burgeoning fears by approaching them head-on. It’s the only way.”

“What happened to make you change?” Chase hoped it wasn’t something like her husband dropped dead in the kitchen, or he cheated on her and left. It seemed husbands played integral parts when it came to these life changes.

“My family.”

Oh, here it comes with the husband, Chase thought. “Was it your husband?”

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks chuckled. “Henry? Oh no, he’s one of those men that loves unconditionally. That’s not to say he isn’t glad that I can lead a fuller life, but it wasn’t him that changed me. It was my teenage daughters. I overheard them talking one day after school about what a coward I was and how they both were afraid it might be genetic and they’d end up just like me, nervous, scared and unable to experience new things.”

“Genetic?” Chase was confused. Could being afraid of experiencing new things be genetic?

“Oh, you know how kids learn that stuff about genes and gene therapy and how all human behavior is linked to your genes. Personally, I think a lot of it is just hogwaddle. But there you have it. I overheard them and I vowed to change. I got a job and every time I was scared about something, I made myself do it.”

“Have you always been a gift wrapper?”

“No, I started much smaller and worked my way into this. I volunteered at the hospital because if I got fired for incompetence I thought it would be less traumatic if I wasn’t a paid employee. If I messed up as a Pink Lady they’d just ask me not to come back—a little pat-pat on the arm and a ‘Maybe this isn’t for you, dear.’”

Chase nodded. Wow, just like her.

“I got through that and then started part-time at the library and that went well, but it didn’t pay much and my girls were going to college. I wanted to contribute financially to show them I was a viable member of the family, and my library job wasn’t much of a challenge, so I got into the gift-wrapping business because there’s no getting around a badly wrapped package. Your work is right out there for everyone to see.”

“What you’re saying is that I am going to have to do it in front of people.”

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks smiled. “Is it going to matter? They’re going to see your work and like it or complain about it right there.” She did take her hand off the wheel for a moment and patted Chase’s hand. “But you’re going to do fine and you have to remember most people can’t wrap well so you are one up on them.”

“Okay.” Chase took a couple deep breaths and told herself she could do it. She had to. She didn’t want Bud to grow up and be embarrassed that she had a coward for a parent.

When they arrived, the household was in an uproar. It was a serious clusterfuck, Chase thought. The lawn and tents were a soaking mess and the ruined presents sat up on the cement veranda that overlooked the lawn. The house was amazing in its Eastern two-story Georgian style. It made Chase think of Isabel Dalhousie and her Edinburgh environs in Alexander McCall Smith novels. The house was definitely at odds with its environs in the Southwest desert. She half-expected a Scot to come out of the French doors and say, “Good God, man, what a right bonny mess we have here.”

Instead, a diminutive Hispanic woman came out, flapping her hands, followed by the bride, eyes swollen from crying. “Can you fix this? Please, Mary mother of God, please say you can fix this,” the mother of the bride said.

Chase assumed it was the mother because the bride looked like a younger, thinner version of her. Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks studied the pile of soggy wrapping-papered boxes. She looked a little dubious. She didn’t say anything and the bride teared up.

“Of course, we can,” Chase said, acting more out of compassion than confidence.

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks took up the call to action. “Yes, we can. Now you two carry on and let us get to work. You, young lady, need to put some cucumber slices on those eyes to get the red puffiness down.”

The bride nodded.

“Thank you, thank you,” the mother of the bride said, taking both their hands before ushering her daughter away.

“Poor thing,” Chase said, after the woman left. At least she’d never put her mother through a wedding. Then she thought if the gardener at Stella’s house had sprinkled the wedding presents, Stella would have had him beheaded on the spot. It would be best if she keep her mother away from weddings or gardeners.

“All right then, let’s get started,” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks said.

“What’s the plan?” Chase said, suddenly overwhelmed by the task ahead. It was easy enough to placate the bride and mother with kind words, but now she was going to have to back it up with action.

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks took the initiative and said, “Remove and restore. You get the supplies from the van, and I will get on with the removal part.”

Chase scurried back and forth, feeling less overwhelmed with every trip. Far from being fired, she was proving to be useful. Well, there you have it, Chase thought. The Universe had come around and instead of her being terrified, she’d taken on the fear proactively, and here she was being a valued employee and not fretting about her performance. This was better than getting fired. She set the last box down and wiped her forehead on her sleeve.

The bride bustled outside, carrying two bottles of water. She looked pleadingly at Chase.

“Thank you,” Chase said, and then she did another uncharacteristic thing—she patted the woman’s shoulder. “It will be all right, and your eyes already look better.”

The bride smiled. “I hope this isn’t a sign,” she said, looking tentative.

“A sign?” Chase said, puzzled, and then it hit her. “Oh, no. The only sign here is that you might need to get a smarter gardener.”

“Enrique is not the sharpest tool in the shed,” she said.

They both laughed.

“There we have it,” Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks said.

“You better go inside. We don’t want you seeing all the presents before the wedding,” Chase said.

“I suppose you’re right.” She looked at Chase and crossed herself.

Chase studied the mess of soggy cardboard. “How much is ruined?”

“Not as much as would be expected. Now, I want you to remove the wet cardboard and rebox the item. I’ll start wrapping.”

“We’ll do it like an assembly line,” Chase said brightly. She was catching on.

“Precisely.”

They set to work. Chase helped Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks set
up a long wrapping table and then she began removal, reboxing and
redistribution. When she’d caught up with Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks, Chase began wrapping. Chase sized up each box, cut the perfect amount of paper and with dazzling speed wrapped it. It was like her mind was a computerized measuring and matching machine. Her hands flew. She discovered method.

“I didn’t realize that if you position the box this way—up on its side—you can eliminate a step. Like the Chinese-method-of-folding-the-T-shirt thing,” Chase said.

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks looked at Chase, astonished. “I can’t believe I never thought of that. Why don’t I just hand you the stuff and you wrap? You’re even quicker than I am.”

She covertly timed Chase as she wrapped a blender.

“Will you do the bow thing? I haven’t got that part down yet,” Chase said, not looking up from her next assignment—a soup tureen.

For the next two hours, she wrapped steadily and was so focused she didn’t notice the time. She was reaching for yet another box when Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks stopped her.

“Chase, we’re done, honey.”

“We are?” Chase looked around to see Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks and the bride and her mother staring at her with admiration. The bride and her mother sandwiched Chase in a hug.

“You’re amazing!” the bride said, and she kissed Chase’s cheek.

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks rubbed her hands in delight. “You are a genius, and I have big plans for you.”

Chase hoped they weren’t too big. She knew two things for certain—she loved gift wrapping and getting fired no longer interested her.

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks discussed her plans for Chase’s future as Chase eyed the barbeque grill. “Your talents are wasted as a front-line worker. I am promoting you to our tech-demonstrator.”

The barbeque grill had a bow slapped on it. Chase said, “What about that?”

Mrs. Meadowbrook-Parks looked at her dubiously.

“I can at least try,” Chase said.