The Mission: Someone to Watch Over Me (part 10)
Truly, it was not her plan to buy a bridal magazine. She reached for a copy of Vogue and pulled up Brides instead. She dropped it instantly, astonished at her mistake. But slowly, deliberately, she picked it up again, studied the cover, and took it. Then she looked at the rest of the brides’ magazines. She bought one of each. “Oh no. I can’t believe I did this. I’ll have to hide these or Max will never shut up,” thought Sandy Madden.
*****
Max sat at his computer, and pulled up his private financial accounts. There were more than a dozen. It was a habit he’d formed as a young man, to allocate funds into separate accounts. He’d discovered early on that an all-purpose savings account was not a suitable method of saving for him. Specific, measurable accounting worked best for him.
The one he was wanted was named Cufflinks. A silly name, chosen after he and Sandy had attended the wedding of a contemporary’s son—cufflinks being a traditional gift to groomsmen. His friend confided in Maxwell, what the cost of the wedding was, nearly swooning as he said it. Max began the next pay period, and had been saving for almost twenty years.
*****
Ginny wrote to the pastor first. “… and you’ll be pleased to know that I found a lovely little geode in Palo Duro Canyon. It’s a wonderful reminder of our conversation, and I thank you again for your time.”
She tore up a dozen sheets of her monogrammed Crane stationery trying to write a letter to Eli. Finally she gave up, and pulled out the middle, putting the beginning and the end together. “I’m sorry for the way I acted. Can we start over, please, and write to each other? We’ll have to correspond the old-fashioned way because I don’t have a computer here at home, and I won’t mix my private life with my work life.”
*****
Eli bought a thick shiny card with a F-22 on the front. The inside was blank. He practiced drawing a sketch several times on scratch paper with a new black felt-tip pen. Then he opened up the new card, and began drawing his picture on the inside.
It was a pilot, standing in full flight gear, holding his helmet in one hand and a small lamb in his other arm, up close to his chest. Underneath the drawing he printed, “It’s no use; I’ve bonded to the lamb, and I’ll never want another.”
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