The phone rings and I hurry to pick it up. It may be someone important and I dare not keep him waiting.
“Hello”, I try not to whisper but croak it out barely audibly.
“Is this Sidney?”
“Yes, I’m Sidney.”
“This is Dianne calling to remind you of your appointment at 10 A.M. tomorrow morning with Dr. Lordship.”
He walked through the saddened streets of London. The American had come as a stranger to his idea of paradise, or the closest thing to it. Paradise had taken a traumatic turn the evening before.
Ed had left his room at the Rose Court Hotel and found the natives of the United Kingdom in a state of mourning. All flags flew at half mast.
Tom Walker stopped chewing on his fries and strained to hear the girls who were gossiping in the booth behind his. When one of them repeated that Charlie Gunter had left town to join the Air Force, he almost choked. After he swallowed, he clenched his fist, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and mouthed a silent “yes”. Finally, he could pursue Ally McNair. Oh sure, his friends would say that she was off limits because, technically, she was still Charlie’s girl, but he couldn’t care less about details like that.
She was running down the long trail that led from the top of the overlook well down into the sparkling meadow below. The way was not too steep so that it made for an easy pace she kept. The air moved smoothly in and out of her lungs filling her with a sense of exhilaration as the smells of the trees on the upper slopes began to mingle with those of the tall grasses below. Her name was Trella and her beauty was legendary.