Chapter 1
“Mom?”
“Yes, darling.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“How’s Frank?”
“He’s doing fine.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Shelly, you shouldn’t…,”
“I’m just kidding, Mom. I’m still praying for Frank.”
_______
The beating of her heart accelerated as Shelly unlocked the garage door. She wanted to see them again--the dark recipients of her recent midnight inclinations. She took hold of the handle and lifted the big door slowly. Metal strained against metal, squealing as if in protest. Then she saw them; all black and chrome and mysterious, compelling her to come closer, compelling her to touch and more if she dared--Greg’s motorcycles.
Shelly knew she was drawn to the motorcycles for several reasons. They represented freedom to her but they also represented moving on. She was ready to move on with her life and the image she had in her mind of riding down one of Rockhaven’s country back roads, deep in the heart of Appalachia on her own motorcycle, was part of the secret desire that attracted her to these bikes. And even though neither bike was like the sleek racer she pictured herself riding in her dreams, she still considered them to be beautiful.
This dream of learning to ride certainly wouldn’t fit into most people's conception of who she was. She knew people tended to label her as “safe” and thought of her as more of a homebody especially since her husband’s death. Her friends had remarked on it. It seemed to them (even to her at times) as though all she did was go to work and to church.
They didn't know the real Shelly though—she thought. She had always gone her own way, even swam upstream to get what she wanted. From the time she was young, she had not cared much about being popular but more about being able to accomplish things for her own satisfaction: like the time she climbed the rock wall none of the other girl scouts could. She had set a record too. Then, at church camp, (to the consternation of her camp counselors) she had swum all the way across the lake and back just because none of the other campers had done it before. When she was fifteen, to earn her own money, she had worked at a stable and learned how to feed and exercise the horses. She learned quickly and it wasn't long before she was allowed to gallop them across the adjacent fields.
Shelly was born with an adventuresome spirit and knew she had climbed mountains, literally and figuratively, that many people her own age had never attempted. No, Shelly thought, even her step-father had not known who she really was but her mother did. She knew Shelly was a dare-devil at heart and had often labeled her with that moniker—one Shelly had not been adverse to but was proud of.
Over the years, Shelly had grown into an intelligent, young woman who watched life around her with more insight than most people in their mid-twenties. Greg had often told her that her almond-shaped, green eyes seemed to have a secretive gaze—as though she knew something more than those around her but was not telling.
And Shelly did keep many things to herself. She had learned to be guarded while enduring her mother’s poor choice of men. After divorcing her straying father, Shelly’s mother married a man who wanted to rule over Shelly as if his house was his kingdom and Shelly and her mother were his loyal subjects. For five years, Shelly had fought her private battle with the egotistical man named Frank, who she would never call father and when it had came time to go to college, she had escaped, never to return as a pawn in his castle.
Her real father seldom contacted her after her mother divorced him and the contacts stopped altogether when he married a woman from Lawton, Oklahoma and moved back there with her. Since then, Shelly had drifted away from her broken family and made her own place in the world.
She had attended a community college and her mother and step-father had moved to Louisville. Shelly seldom saw her mother, who lived almost four hours driving distance from her. Her step-father made sure of that with his strict demands on her mother’s time so she stayed in touch by calling her a few times a week. She knew she would never let anyone else control her the way Frank controlled her mother and had tried to do with her in the past.
As Shelly gazed at the two motorcycles, she let the temptation they represented play in her mind. What would it be like to hop on a motorcycle and go on a jaunt at a whim? In her imagination she was wearing her favorite jeans and Greg’s black, leather jacket—the two items from her wardrobe she loved the most—and she was cruising the meandering back roads that took her through the hills of southern Kentucky—the place she had come to love the most. And in her dreams, she wasn’t riding on the back of the bike behind someone else. She was riding the motorcycle by herself.
Shelly had been out to the garage only a few times in the past three years since Greg’s death. Going into what she still thought of as "his" garage and making decisions about what to do with his things had been something easy for her to put off. She told herself she had been too busy but she knew that it was the wild temptation in her heart to straddle one of the motorcycles and ride it that had not let her be inclined to sell them.
Her job at the college took some of her time and the adjustment of learning to live as a widow—a single woman again—had taken the rest. But playing in the back of her mind was always this image of herself seated on a motorcycle not as just a rider in the pillion seat but as the one in control—breezing down the road, free and easy, leaning into curves like the experienced riders—like Greg had been.
Daylight was streaming into the garage now and the cooler air from inside it wafted past her like a ghostly presence. Shelly allowed herself a moment to adjust to the feeling of emptiness that usually accompanied her whenever she entered into what had once been Greg’s world.
There they were—two of what remained of the riding loves of Greg’s life. She should have known what kind of bikes they were; he had talked about them often enough when he was alive. Shelly went over to the first one and examined it. This was the Harley. It was a monster of a bike, an older model he had been working on the year before he died. She touched the cold steel and ran her hand down the black gas tank, leaving a trail in the dust. How Greg had loved this bike, she thought.
She had sold the bike Greg rode most of the time to the man who had been his closest friend, Jesse Stokes. Greg and Jesse had been friends since grade school and Shelly had been glad for Jesse to have the bike. She knew he would care for the motorcycle the way Greg did and there was no reason to leave it sitting in the garage.
The bike she had sold to Jesse was a Suzuki Intruder 1400—a powerful motorcycle. She could remember Greg bringing the motorcycle, with one powerful jerk of his arms, up on its back wheel as he rode it—showing off —just for her.
Shelly walked over to the other motorcycle. It was a Suzuki also but a smaller one than the 1400 she had sold. She had ridden on the back of this one with Greg only a few times. Like the Harley, there was a layer of dust covering the black exterior. She reached for a small, semi-clean towel draped over a rack that held tools, shook it out and proceeded to wipe off the bike.
As the bike’s black exterior began to reflect the sunlight more, Shelly’s thoughts drifted to Jesse. He had been Greg’s friend since grade school and he and Greg used to spend a lot of time together riding and working on their motorcycles. A few months ago, she had heard through a friend at church that Jesse’s wife, Carla, had left him for another man and moved to California. Shelly hated hearing about the break up of their marriage but she had known that Jesse and Carla had a tumultuous relationship from the start and wasn’t shocked.
The two couples used to hang out together sometimes but her contact with Jesse and Carla had dwindled from a few supportive phone calls from them after Greg’s death, to chance meetings when they happened to be in town at the same time.
After she finished dusting the bike off, Shelly put her hands on the handle bars, feeling a surge of excitement as she did so and slung her right leg over the bike. She settled down into the seat and was pleased to see that her feet easily reached the ground. She would need some new boots, she thought. The seat felt good and she moved the bike’s handle bars slowly side to side as though she were steering it.
Shelly thought about calling Jesse. She was sure he would be glad to help her learn how to ride the motorcycle if she asked him. She wondered what it would be like to talk to him now that they wouldn’t be interacting under the umbrella of her being Greg's wife and him being Greg's best friend, the way it had always been before. Shelly had never known Jesse as a single man either. Maybe, if he was still single, he was already seeing someone else, she thought.
The bike seemed huge to her though and the thought of trying to control something that heavy—hundreds of pounds—was scary. She wondered how much it weighed. Greg always talked about those kinds of things but she didn't remember. She looked at the round speedometer perched in the middle of the handlebars on the bike. The numbers on it went up to one hundred and twenty and she wondered if the motorcycle would really go that fast. She saw the bike had over twelve thousand miles on it too. Not so many miles, she thought.
Shelly decided that she would call Jesse and ask him to teach her to ride if he and Carla had really divorced. Shelly sighed as she remembered how she was never able to penetrate Carla’s cool exterior. It seemed to her that Carla had decided right from the start not to encourage a friendship with her. If the two men in their lives weren’t so close, the women would not have had any connection at all.
She leaned back on the motorcycle while still holding onto the handles and tried to imagine what it would be like to be moving with the road curving up ahead of her. The reality of it was, she thought, she didn’t even know how to start it or how to change the gears once she did.
Some memories of motorcycle wrecks she had heard about over the years found their way into her deliberations and she got off of the bike and walked away from it. Was this something she really wanted to do, she asked herself again with a shake of her head. She only knew that when she was reaching up to close the garage door, her eyes went to the Suzuki and something seemed to reach out from the bike to her and that unkempt desire—that wild longing to feel what it was like to ride—was even stronger than before.
The next morning, Shelly went to work. It was Monday and she had a lot of first-of-the-week things to do on her mind. There were appointments to confirm with Ann, her boss, and a schedule to start for the student workers employed at their office. Ann would want to go down the list with her first thing.
As she thought about Ann, a dark memory that had floated around in her mind all weekend came back to her. Her boss had said something during a phone conversation the Friday before, which Shelly was sure she had not been meant to hear.
Shelly had been out of the office on some business and when she walked back in, she noticed Ann closing the door that separated their offices. But before the door was closed completely, she overheard Ann saying: “No. There's been no reason for Shelly to know. Nothing good would ever come of it.”
Shelly knew Ann hadn’t seen her come back in. She frowned as she settled into her swivel chair before her computer and contemplated what she heard. Several minutes passed before the light on the telephone went out signifying Ann had hung up. Shelly was tempted to walk right up to Ann’s door, knock on it and ask what she was talking about when she mentioned her name but something about their boss-employee relationship caused her to hold back.
In the past, Shelly thought of her association with Ann as a growing friendship between two people who enjoyed working together but what she once considered a budding relationship had grown cold. She thought of Ann now as a colleague she assisted. She wasn’t sure when their relationship began to change; she just knew it had. Maybe it had something to do with Ann’s growing responsibility at the college. And the fact Ann wasn’t a Christian was always there between them too.
Shelly shrugged at the memory. She wished now she had asked Ann what she was talking about instead of letting it bounce around in her mind all weekend. She decided to ask her today when it seemed like the time was right.
Monday did start at a fast pace, just as she knew it would, and the morning was soon gone. Shelly had little time to consider anything but the work on her desk. Mid-afternoon, a few hours later, Professor Anton and Professor Wheatstone, two men who looked enough alike to be brothers, came out of Ann’s office. Ann followed behind them. Shelly had been adding some addresses into the data base and looked up from what she was doing to say a quick "hello" before going back to her work.
After they exited, Ann was heading back into her office when Shelly remembered what she wanted to ask her.
“Ann, have you got a minute?”
Ann turned around. “No,” she said with a smile, “But what do you need anyway?”
Shelly grinned at Ann’s response knowing it described her attitude in a nutshell. Though Ann was the hardest working person she knew, she tried to make time for everything.
Ann’s job as the Equal Opportunity Chief of staff at the college was a demanding one. She held a law degree and also had a master’s degree in business economics. She always walked quickly when she was going anywhere on campus and accomplished more in one day than most people did in three. She was slim and Shelly had rarely seen her in anything but an assortment of straight, simple, below-the-knee, shift type dresses she wore with colorful jackets. Ann loved tailored jackets and had a wide assortment of them she mixed and matched with her outfits. She usually wore her dark hair in a chignon and looked attractive and professional at all hours of the day.
Shelly stood and said, “I’ve just got a question for you but I would prefer it if we could go in to your office.” She knew anyone could walk in and she wanted the privacy of Ann's office for what she was about to ask.
“Sure,” Ann replied and motioned for her to follow as she headed toward her office. “Come on in.”
Shelly’s heart started beating a little faster. Maybe she should have thought about this more before confronting Ann. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say but Ann was already seated behind her desk and smiling up at her when Shelly walked in the door and closed it behind her.
“Is everything okay?” Ann asked with concern when she noted the serious expression on Shelly’s face.
“Oh, yes,” Shelly answered and decided to jump right in. “But I overheard something you said when I was coming back into the office last Friday and I wanted to ask you about it.”
Was she imagining it, or did Ann’s face just harden, Shelly wondered. She had an uneasy foreboding.
“What did you hear, Shelly?” Ann asked as she gave her full attention to her.
“I heard you say that there was something I had no reason to ever know,” she answered.
“Are you sure I was talking about you?” Ann asked. Shelly felt like Ann was hedging.
“Yes, I heard you say my name…,” she answered simply. “…and I heard you say that nothing good could ever come out of me knowing.”
“Oh…yes…,” Ann answered. “I think I remember that….”
She is stalling, Shelly thought.
“Well, Shelly…,” Ann stumbled. “I don’t know what to say. I mean—I know we’ve worked together a long time but sometimes there are matters you are not privy to in this office even though you are on my staff.”
“I understand,” Shelly replied respectfully. “But when you said my name, I thought you were speaking about something concerning me and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was that you didn’t want me to know. So, it was business related?” Shelly asked.
“Yes,” Ann replied calmly. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t anything you should be concerned about—just something that someone wanted to make sure was confidential—something that is only shared on a need-to-know basis.”
Shelly had worked for Ann for four years and this was the first time she ever thought Ann was lying to her. Why would she lie to her though? Shelly’s internal alarm increased but she kept her tone even to match Ann’s.
“There’s nothing I need to know that could affect my job, is there?” Shelly asked. “I mean—there aren’t any funds being cut I should be aware of or anything like that?” She had heard of other offices having to cut back and people being told their job was going to come to an end. But as an assistant to the chief of staff at the college, Shelly never thought her job might be in danger. There was so much to do at this office; they could actually use another secretary instead of the one in the building’s front office who screened their calls.
“No. No,” Ann assured her. “It’s nothing like that. I think your position here is very secure.” She looked at her desk and picked up some papers and perused them while Shelly continued to stand in front of her. Shelly started to feel awkward as though Ann wanted to dismiss her but hoped she would leave on her own.
“Well, okay,” Shelly said while taking a step backwards towards the door. “I was just curious because I heard you say my name.”
“That’s understandable,” Ann reasoned with a glance toward her. “But there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Well, I’ll just get back to work then,” Shelly told her before turning around and leaving.
Later that night, as Shelly lay in bed, she thought of the look she had seen pass over Ann’s face when she asked her about what she had over-heard. Shelly knew Ann was very good at remaining expressionless when confronted. She had seen her respond that way many times in the past as she dealt with sensitive matters in a professional way. So, was Shelly only imagining it or had she seen something akin to fear flicker in her boss’s dark eyes?
(End of 1st Chapter)
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“Mom?”
“Yes, darling.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
“How’s Frank?”
“He’s doing fine.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Shelly, you shouldn’t…,”
“I’m just kidding, Mom. I’m still praying for Frank.”
_______
The beating of her heart accelerated as Shelly unlocked the garage door. She wanted to see them again--the dark recipients of her recent midnight inclinations. She took hold of the handle and lifted the big door slowly. Metal strained against metal, squealing as if in protest. Then she saw them; all black and chrome and mysterious, compelling her to come closer, compelling her to touch and more if she dared--Greg’s motorcycles.
Shelly knew she was drawn to the motorcycles for several reasons. They represented freedom to her but they also represented moving on. She was ready to move on with her life and the image she had in her mind of riding down one of Rockhaven’s country back roads, deep in the heart of Appalachia on her own motorcycle, was part of the secret desire that attracted her to these bikes. And even though neither bike was like the sleek racer she pictured herself riding in her dreams, she still considered them to be beautiful.
This dream of learning to ride certainly wouldn’t fit into most people's conception of who she was. She knew people tended to label her as “safe” and thought of her as more of a homebody especially since her husband’s death. Her friends had remarked on it. It seemed to them (even to her at times) as though all she did was go to work and to church.
They didn't know the real Shelly though—she thought. She had always gone her own way, even swam upstream to get what she wanted. From the time she was young, she had not cared much about being popular but more about being able to accomplish things for her own satisfaction: like the time she climbed the rock wall none of the other girl scouts could. She had set a record too. Then, at church camp, (to the consternation of her camp counselors) she had swum all the way across the lake and back just because none of the other campers had done it before. When she was fifteen, to earn her own money, she had worked at a stable and learned how to feed and exercise the horses. She learned quickly and it wasn't long before she was allowed to gallop them across the adjacent fields.
Shelly was born with an adventuresome spirit and knew she had climbed mountains, literally and figuratively, that many people her own age had never attempted. No, Shelly thought, even her step-father had not known who she really was but her mother did. She knew Shelly was a dare-devil at heart and had often labeled her with that moniker—one Shelly had not been adverse to but was proud of.
Over the years, Shelly had grown into an intelligent, young woman who watched life around her with more insight than most people in their mid-twenties. Greg had often told her that her almond-shaped, green eyes seemed to have a secretive gaze—as though she knew something more than those around her but was not telling.
And Shelly did keep many things to herself. She had learned to be guarded while enduring her mother’s poor choice of men. After divorcing her straying father, Shelly’s mother married a man who wanted to rule over Shelly as if his house was his kingdom and Shelly and her mother were his loyal subjects. For five years, Shelly had fought her private battle with the egotistical man named Frank, who she would never call father and when it had came time to go to college, she had escaped, never to return as a pawn in his castle.
Her real father seldom contacted her after her mother divorced him and the contacts stopped altogether when he married a woman from Lawton, Oklahoma and moved back there with her. Since then, Shelly had drifted away from her broken family and made her own place in the world.
She had attended a community college and her mother and step-father had moved to Louisville. Shelly seldom saw her mother, who lived almost four hours driving distance from her. Her step-father made sure of that with his strict demands on her mother’s time so she stayed in touch by calling her a few times a week. She knew she would never let anyone else control her the way Frank controlled her mother and had tried to do with her in the past.
As Shelly gazed at the two motorcycles, she let the temptation they represented play in her mind. What would it be like to hop on a motorcycle and go on a jaunt at a whim? In her imagination she was wearing her favorite jeans and Greg’s black, leather jacket—the two items from her wardrobe she loved the most—and she was cruising the meandering back roads that took her through the hills of southern Kentucky—the place she had come to love the most. And in her dreams, she wasn’t riding on the back of the bike behind someone else. She was riding the motorcycle by herself.
Shelly had been out to the garage only a few times in the past three years since Greg’s death. Going into what she still thought of as "his" garage and making decisions about what to do with his things had been something easy for her to put off. She told herself she had been too busy but she knew that it was the wild temptation in her heart to straddle one of the motorcycles and ride it that had not let her be inclined to sell them.
Her job at the college took some of her time and the adjustment of learning to live as a widow—a single woman again—had taken the rest. But playing in the back of her mind was always this image of herself seated on a motorcycle not as just a rider in the pillion seat but as the one in control—breezing down the road, free and easy, leaning into curves like the experienced riders—like Greg had been.
Daylight was streaming into the garage now and the cooler air from inside it wafted past her like a ghostly presence. Shelly allowed herself a moment to adjust to the feeling of emptiness that usually accompanied her whenever she entered into what had once been Greg’s world.
There they were—two of what remained of the riding loves of Greg’s life. She should have known what kind of bikes they were; he had talked about them often enough when he was alive. Shelly went over to the first one and examined it. This was the Harley. It was a monster of a bike, an older model he had been working on the year before he died. She touched the cold steel and ran her hand down the black gas tank, leaving a trail in the dust. How Greg had loved this bike, she thought.
She had sold the bike Greg rode most of the time to the man who had been his closest friend, Jesse Stokes. Greg and Jesse had been friends since grade school and Shelly had been glad for Jesse to have the bike. She knew he would care for the motorcycle the way Greg did and there was no reason to leave it sitting in the garage.
The bike she had sold to Jesse was a Suzuki Intruder 1400—a powerful motorcycle. She could remember Greg bringing the motorcycle, with one powerful jerk of his arms, up on its back wheel as he rode it—showing off —just for her.
Shelly walked over to the other motorcycle. It was a Suzuki also but a smaller one than the 1400 she had sold. She had ridden on the back of this one with Greg only a few times. Like the Harley, there was a layer of dust covering the black exterior. She reached for a small, semi-clean towel draped over a rack that held tools, shook it out and proceeded to wipe off the bike.
As the bike’s black exterior began to reflect the sunlight more, Shelly’s thoughts drifted to Jesse. He had been Greg’s friend since grade school and he and Greg used to spend a lot of time together riding and working on their motorcycles. A few months ago, she had heard through a friend at church that Jesse’s wife, Carla, had left him for another man and moved to California. Shelly hated hearing about the break up of their marriage but she had known that Jesse and Carla had a tumultuous relationship from the start and wasn’t shocked.
The two couples used to hang out together sometimes but her contact with Jesse and Carla had dwindled from a few supportive phone calls from them after Greg’s death, to chance meetings when they happened to be in town at the same time.
After she finished dusting the bike off, Shelly put her hands on the handle bars, feeling a surge of excitement as she did so and slung her right leg over the bike. She settled down into the seat and was pleased to see that her feet easily reached the ground. She would need some new boots, she thought. The seat felt good and she moved the bike’s handle bars slowly side to side as though she were steering it.
Shelly thought about calling Jesse. She was sure he would be glad to help her learn how to ride the motorcycle if she asked him. She wondered what it would be like to talk to him now that they wouldn’t be interacting under the umbrella of her being Greg's wife and him being Greg's best friend, the way it had always been before. Shelly had never known Jesse as a single man either. Maybe, if he was still single, he was already seeing someone else, she thought.
The bike seemed huge to her though and the thought of trying to control something that heavy—hundreds of pounds—was scary. She wondered how much it weighed. Greg always talked about those kinds of things but she didn't remember. She looked at the round speedometer perched in the middle of the handlebars on the bike. The numbers on it went up to one hundred and twenty and she wondered if the motorcycle would really go that fast. She saw the bike had over twelve thousand miles on it too. Not so many miles, she thought.
Shelly decided that she would call Jesse and ask him to teach her to ride if he and Carla had really divorced. Shelly sighed as she remembered how she was never able to penetrate Carla’s cool exterior. It seemed to her that Carla had decided right from the start not to encourage a friendship with her. If the two men in their lives weren’t so close, the women would not have had any connection at all.
She leaned back on the motorcycle while still holding onto the handles and tried to imagine what it would be like to be moving with the road curving up ahead of her. The reality of it was, she thought, she didn’t even know how to start it or how to change the gears once she did.
Some memories of motorcycle wrecks she had heard about over the years found their way into her deliberations and she got off of the bike and walked away from it. Was this something she really wanted to do, she asked herself again with a shake of her head. She only knew that when she was reaching up to close the garage door, her eyes went to the Suzuki and something seemed to reach out from the bike to her and that unkempt desire—that wild longing to feel what it was like to ride—was even stronger than before.
The next morning, Shelly went to work. It was Monday and she had a lot of first-of-the-week things to do on her mind. There were appointments to confirm with Ann, her boss, and a schedule to start for the student workers employed at their office. Ann would want to go down the list with her first thing.
As she thought about Ann, a dark memory that had floated around in her mind all weekend came back to her. Her boss had said something during a phone conversation the Friday before, which Shelly was sure she had not been meant to hear.
Shelly had been out of the office on some business and when she walked back in, she noticed Ann closing the door that separated their offices. But before the door was closed completely, she overheard Ann saying: “No. There's been no reason for Shelly to know. Nothing good would ever come of it.”
Shelly knew Ann hadn’t seen her come back in. She frowned as she settled into her swivel chair before her computer and contemplated what she heard. Several minutes passed before the light on the telephone went out signifying Ann had hung up. Shelly was tempted to walk right up to Ann’s door, knock on it and ask what she was talking about when she mentioned her name but something about their boss-employee relationship caused her to hold back.
In the past, Shelly thought of her association with Ann as a growing friendship between two people who enjoyed working together but what she once considered a budding relationship had grown cold. She thought of Ann now as a colleague she assisted. She wasn’t sure when their relationship began to change; she just knew it had. Maybe it had something to do with Ann’s growing responsibility at the college. And the fact Ann wasn’t a Christian was always there between them too.
Shelly shrugged at the memory. She wished now she had asked Ann what she was talking about instead of letting it bounce around in her mind all weekend. She decided to ask her today when it seemed like the time was right.
Monday did start at a fast pace, just as she knew it would, and the morning was soon gone. Shelly had little time to consider anything but the work on her desk. Mid-afternoon, a few hours later, Professor Anton and Professor Wheatstone, two men who looked enough alike to be brothers, came out of Ann’s office. Ann followed behind them. Shelly had been adding some addresses into the data base and looked up from what she was doing to say a quick "hello" before going back to her work.
After they exited, Ann was heading back into her office when Shelly remembered what she wanted to ask her.
“Ann, have you got a minute?”
Ann turned around. “No,” she said with a smile, “But what do you need anyway?”
Shelly grinned at Ann’s response knowing it described her attitude in a nutshell. Though Ann was the hardest working person she knew, she tried to make time for everything.
Ann’s job as the Equal Opportunity Chief of staff at the college was a demanding one. She held a law degree and also had a master’s degree in business economics. She always walked quickly when she was going anywhere on campus and accomplished more in one day than most people did in three. She was slim and Shelly had rarely seen her in anything but an assortment of straight, simple, below-the-knee, shift type dresses she wore with colorful jackets. Ann loved tailored jackets and had a wide assortment of them she mixed and matched with her outfits. She usually wore her dark hair in a chignon and looked attractive and professional at all hours of the day.
Shelly stood and said, “I’ve just got a question for you but I would prefer it if we could go in to your office.” She knew anyone could walk in and she wanted the privacy of Ann's office for what she was about to ask.
“Sure,” Ann replied and motioned for her to follow as she headed toward her office. “Come on in.”
Shelly’s heart started beating a little faster. Maybe she should have thought about this more before confronting Ann. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to say but Ann was already seated behind her desk and smiling up at her when Shelly walked in the door and closed it behind her.
“Is everything okay?” Ann asked with concern when she noted the serious expression on Shelly’s face.
“Oh, yes,” Shelly answered and decided to jump right in. “But I overheard something you said when I was coming back into the office last Friday and I wanted to ask you about it.”
Was she imagining it, or did Ann’s face just harden, Shelly wondered. She had an uneasy foreboding.
“What did you hear, Shelly?” Ann asked as she gave her full attention to her.
“I heard you say that there was something I had no reason to ever know,” she answered.
“Are you sure I was talking about you?” Ann asked. Shelly felt like Ann was hedging.
“Yes, I heard you say my name…,” she answered simply. “…and I heard you say that nothing good could ever come out of me knowing.”
“Oh…yes…,” Ann answered. “I think I remember that….”
She is stalling, Shelly thought.
“Well, Shelly…,” Ann stumbled. “I don’t know what to say. I mean—I know we’ve worked together a long time but sometimes there are matters you are not privy to in this office even though you are on my staff.”
“I understand,” Shelly replied respectfully. “But when you said my name, I thought you were speaking about something concerning me and I couldn’t help but wonder what it was that you didn’t want me to know. So, it was business related?” Shelly asked.
“Yes,” Ann replied calmly. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t anything you should be concerned about—just something that someone wanted to make sure was confidential—something that is only shared on a need-to-know basis.”
Shelly had worked for Ann for four years and this was the first time she ever thought Ann was lying to her. Why would she lie to her though? Shelly’s internal alarm increased but she kept her tone even to match Ann’s.
“There’s nothing I need to know that could affect my job, is there?” Shelly asked. “I mean—there aren’t any funds being cut I should be aware of or anything like that?” She had heard of other offices having to cut back and people being told their job was going to come to an end. But as an assistant to the chief of staff at the college, Shelly never thought her job might be in danger. There was so much to do at this office; they could actually use another secretary instead of the one in the building’s front office who screened their calls.
“No. No,” Ann assured her. “It’s nothing like that. I think your position here is very secure.” She looked at her desk and picked up some papers and perused them while Shelly continued to stand in front of her. Shelly started to feel awkward as though Ann wanted to dismiss her but hoped she would leave on her own.
“Well, okay,” Shelly said while taking a step backwards towards the door. “I was just curious because I heard you say my name.”
“That’s understandable,” Ann reasoned with a glance toward her. “But there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Well, I’ll just get back to work then,” Shelly told her before turning around and leaving.
Later that night, as Shelly lay in bed, she thought of the look she had seen pass over Ann’s face when she asked her about what she had over-heard. Shelly knew Ann was very good at remaining expressionless when confronted. She had seen her respond that way many times in the past as she dealt with sensitive matters in a professional way. So, was Shelly only imagining it or had she seen something akin to fear flicker in her boss’s dark eyes?
(End of 1st Chapter)
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