Lucy Kelly (19 page)

Valerie was planning to leave with Addie.  She was anxious to see the planet she had been dreaming about all her life. 

After debating long and hard, Johanna had decided to stay and help recruit women for emigration.

After an hour or so, the impromptu brunch broke up and all her visitors left.  This afternoon was the opening of the Sci-Fi Convention.  Becky didn’t have any work to do there until Saturday afternoon, so she asked the guys if they wanted to do some sight-seeing.  They all agreed and piled into the Jeep to drive into the city.

Chapter Thirteen

Sarah was looking forward to having lunch with Tammy, the front desk clerk she had befriended when she arrived in Chicago.

Tammy traded shifts with another co-worker so she was working the late shift on the front desk. That way, she could have Saturday afternoon and evening off. 

Sarah was pleased she’d made a friend so quickly after coming to Chicago.  She liked the energy of the City and felt at home right away.  She’d lived in the San Francisco Bay Area her entire life and hadn’t felt as connected as she did here.  It was a strange sensation.  She was thinking about why that was when there came a knock on her hotel room door.

When she checked through the peephole, she saw Tammy standing on the other side.  Opening the door, she saw that Tammy was holding the hands of two adorable little girls.

“You did say it was okay to bring the girls, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Absolutely, here let me help,” she said, reaching for the large bag hanging over Tammy’s arm. 

“How old are they, again?” Sarah asked, going down on one knee.

“They’re six and a half.  This is Leah,” she said, moving her left arm, “and this is Laura,” answered Tammy.

“Hello, Leah.  Hello, Laura.  I’m very happy to meet you.  You’re big girls, aren’t you?” she asked.

“We’re growing big like our mommy,” said Leah. 

Laura nodded and kept a tight grip on her mother’s hand; she was quieter than her sister.

“Well, I’m ready to go.  I hired a car and driver for the day so we wouldn’t have to worry about parking and things. 

“Are you hungry?” she asked the girls.

“McDonalds,” said Leah and Laura nodded.

“You want to go someplace where you can play and eat, too.  I think I know just the place,” she said.

They moved farther into the hallway so she could step out and close the door.  As they headed for the elevators, Leah looked back at Sarah over her mother’s arm.  She let go of her hand and then reached for Sarah’s hand. 

“Mommy says to hold hands, so I’ll hold onto you so you have someone, too,” said Leah.

Sarah blinked her eyes so Leah wouldn’t see the moisture gathering in them.  She enjoyed the feel of the small warm hand in her own. 

This is what I am missing.  I want children
, she thought.

She’d snuck online and found a great place on West Webster called Little Beans Café.  There were tables and chairs where you could eat a nice meal at one end of the room.  The bulk of the room was filled with large play structures made to resemble a small town with roads.  The girls could have hours of fun in the grocery store, fire station or schoolhouse, just to name a few.  The play area even stretched outside, though the October weather was a little cold for that.  It was also completely enclosed and the children would be safe.

When the limo, which had been a big hit with both girls, pulled up in front, there had been some long faces.  Once they got inside, and saw the other children, though, there were smiles all around.  The trouble, then, was getting them to eat before playing.  They finally decided to sit at a table close to the play area and let the girls come and go as they felt hungry.

“They’re absolutely adorable.  They do appear older than they are,” said Sarah, before taking a bite of her sandwich.

“Thanks.  I’m just glad Steven had a chance to know them a little before he died.  They don’t really remember him that well and maybe that’s for the best,” said Tammy, smiling,

“As for their height, they really do get that from me.  I was a beanpole growing up.  As you can see, I just kept on growing.”

Tammy was six feet tall in her stocking feet.  She had long, straight brown hair.  Her heart-shaped face reminded Sarah of the actress, Jane Seymour.  The twins were carbon copies of their mother.

“Tell me about Steven,” Sarah said.

“I was so much taller than the other girls, that by the time I got to high school, I’d pretty much crawled into a hard shell of shyness covered by attitude.  Steven brought me to life,” Tammy said with a smile.

“My height didn’t matter to him.  He introduced me to his friends and made me part of the in-crowd.  I was grateful for that.  Instead of having horrible high school years, they were really great.” 

She looked over and checked on the girls.  Laura and Leah were running the fire station.  When they would drive by the firehouse in their neighborhood, they often saw the firemen washing the fire truck.  They had decided the fire station playhouse needed organizing.

“They get that from their father.  I keep a clean house, but Steve was one of those—a place for everything and everything in its place—kind of guy.  We both grew up on farms and didn’t have a lot of money for college. 

“He decided to join the Marines right out of high school.  At first, he was just going to be in for the minimum and then let them pay for college.  The military fit him like a glove.  It was like a second home.  It was hard when he deployed because we were based far away from both our families. 

“I had lost my mom in high school.  Then my dad had a sudden heart attack, right after the girls were born.  Steve’s mom has been great; she watches the kids when I am at work.

“Steven was killed in Afghanistan, during his third deployment.  He’d made Sergeant and was driving a supply truck.  It was a roadside bomb - he didn’t feel anything,” she said simply.  “It’s been hard but the girls helped me get through it.  I’m finally ready to think about meeting someone new.”

“I think the Convention is a good place to start.  This event on Saturday promises to have some prime eye-candy. 
Tall
eye-candy at that,” Sarah said with a wide grin.  “If the books are anything to go by, these guys are all supposed to be six-foot-six at a minimum, and most hover around seven feet tall.  They’ll make you seem short in comparison.  Me - they’ll think I’m a midget.”

“You’re a beautiful woman, Sarah.  Most men prefer their women in small packages.  How long will you be staying in this area?  Please tell me you’re making a long visit,” Tammy begged.

“It’s weird.  I was just thinking this morning that Chicago feels more like home to me than the San Francisco Bay Area ever did.  I’ll miss Jack, of course, but that’s what planes are for, right? 

“I’m not sure, but I think I’d like to settle around here.  Maybe not in the City, though, I think I’d like to live in the country,” said Sarah.

“Now that I’m raising my girls in the City, I see the differences.  I had wanted to turn our farm into a B & B, that’s why I studied hotel and restaurant management in school, but I wasn’t able to hold on to it.  What about your family?” Tammy asked.

“I was adopted,” said Sarah.  “My parents were great.  Then my dad died in a car accident when I was about the same age as your girls.  Unfortunately, the man my mother later married was abusive.  She put up with his emotional and physical abuse for two years.  Then she saw him twist my arm; I had bruises for weeks.  That’s when she decided to leave him.  She didn’t want to risk me.”

Sarah had told this story many times over the years when she’d become an advocate for abused women.  Still, they were difficult memories.  No matter how many times she told it, she always felt the memories and the emotions they engendered pressing down on her.

“Unfortunately, he kept finding us,” Sarah continued.  “Whenever we moved, within six months to a year, he would find us. 

“One day during my junior year of high school, he found us for the last time.  He killed my mother and then killed himself.  One of our neighbors heard the shots and called the police, so I didn’t have to find the bodies.  They came and pulled me out of school. 

“Thank God, Jack was in that class with me.  When he heard me cry out in the hallway, he came running and refused to leave my side.  I didn’t have any other family.  My adoptive parents were only children and both their parents had long since passed away.

“Fortunately for me, I skipped foster care because my best friend, Jack, convinced his parents to take me in.”

“Oh, wow - I didn’t realize.  I can’t imagine growing up like that.  You probably have bigger hang-ups about men than I do,” said Tammy.

Sarah thought about that for a minute.

“Actually, after working with abused women for so long, I realized how many good men are out there.  There are great men who show women that they shouldn’t give up on the species.  I’m looking forward to the dinner show or whatever it is they’ve got planned for us tomorrow night.”

Laura and Leah came running up to the table, towing a little boy with them.

“We’ve been playing.  This is Jamal.  He’s a fireman, like us,” said Leah.

The little boy turned to them and said, “Tell them they can’t be firemans, cuz they’re girls.  They have to be firegirls,” he said.

“Jamal, you can be anything you want to be, and so can they,” said Tammy.

“See, I told you,” said Laura, suddenly not so shy.

The children went back to playing while the women made plans for the next day.

Chapter Fourteen

Saturday morning dawned clear and bright.  There was a palpable anticipation in the air.  Addie turned over in the hotel bed and gave Rune a smile.

All of a sudden, her eyes went round.  Rune knew what that meant.  He jumped out of bed and helped Addie get to the bathroom as quickly as possible.  They made it just in time.  Rune held her hair back as she threw up.  When she was finished, he filled a paper cup with water from the tap in the sink so she could rinse out her mouth.

“I’m so glad all I have to do tonight is show up and give a little speech.  It’s great that Becky, Valerie, and Johanna, along with Miranda, are doing the heavy lifting,” said Addie

“I’ll be glad when this sickness stops.  I don’t remember my mother being sick like this when she was pregnant with Kylan,” said Rune.

Addie walked into the living room of the suite and over to the table and chairs set in front of the hotel room window.  There was a tray holding a carafe of water with several glasses.

“Are you telling me they don’t have morning sickness on HeVan?  We could use that as a selling point,” she said with a smile.

Rune moved over to the phone to call Room Service.

“What would you like for breakfast?” he asked.

“I would like sourdough toast, a cheese omelet and cantaloupe, please,” she answered, pouring herself some more water.  “Did you put the Ensure in the mini bar?” she asked.

Right after she would get sick, she always felt super hungry.  With all the babies, though, she couldn’t eat large meals, so she stretched out her food intake throughout the day.

He nodded and after he was off the phone, got her a can.  Since she couldn’t eat much, she supplemented with vitamins and Ensure.

***

Becky woke up on Saturday.  For the second day in a row, the guys brought her breakfast in bed.  She was going to have to start exercising soon if this kept up.  As much as she wanted to, she could not wallow in bed all day.  There was a lot to do at the Convention Center. 

She also wanted to see how the Nephilim men were doing, walking around pretending to be humans, pretending to be aliens.  She quickly ate the bacon and scrambled eggs with country potatoes that Ishme had made this morning.  They were delicious.

“Ishme,” she said, after taking another bite of potatoes, “you are a restaurant-quality cook.  These are the best potatoes I’ve ever eaten.  How did you learn to cook Earth food?  Or is the food on HeVan similar?” she asked.

“I’m glad you like it.  I enjoy cooking.  While the food on HeVan is similar because we also have meats, grains, fruits and vegetables, after that, they are different.  The tastes and the spices are also different.  We do have salt though - that is the same.  When I told the Queen that I enjoyed cooking, she showed me the Food Channel on your cable television,” he said.

“Really, that’s great.  Which program did you like the best?” she asked.

He gave that some thought.  “I’m not sure.  They all gave me ideas.  I think it would be easier to decide if I could taste the food,” he said.

“I tell you what - let’s get out of the house and go into the City.  We can go restaurant hopping.  I bet many of the chefs would be willing to talk with you about ingredients, too, at least in the smaller
‘mom and pop’
restaurants.  You can taste food from around the world. 

“Then we’ll swing by the bookstore and pick up a bunch of cookbooks.  Most of the chefs on the Food Channel have put out cookbooks.  We just need to be back here by three, so I can get gussied up for tonight.”

She turned to where Nyal was sitting on the end of the bed, “Would that be okay with you, Nyal?”

“I enjoy eating, so visiting restaurants sounds like a good idea.  I can stay with you while Ishme speaks with other cooks,” Nyal answered.

“Good, that’s settled then,” she said, before diving in to finish her breakfast.

***

Miranda Lockwood woke up alone.  As she lay in bed, she thought of ways to cheer herself up.  Last night’s dinner at the hotel had been great.  She was really pleased with Becky’s two guys and had put her seal of approval on the match by giving them her confirmation.  Both Ishme and Nyal said they didn’t need it; they were obviously deeply in love with Becky.

Kai and Ari were another story.  They still gave Becky long, confused looks.  When she asked them about it, they explained about their dreams.  She had gone through her mental file and assured them their
Join
had been invited.