Saving Gwen

I don’t remember coming home. I’m quite sure I must have done so at some point because I’m presently (and pleasantly) perched on the couch, staring dreamily out the window.

Sally, Mort and Scary Gary, are out there, playing some sort of game in which tennis balls, golf clubs, several plastic cups and a large rock feature prominently.

Yeah, I’m not getting it, either.

But I do know that with balls AND clubs in the mix, this can’t end well . . .

I could hear Mom in her room at the top of the stairs. (This house has really good acoustics for listening in on others’ conversations. Just FYI.)

“No, I’m not what you’d call ‘computer literate’. Mom was saying. “I sincerely need training!” Then, “Seriously? No, we each had our vaccination a couple of months ago, when they first rolled them out. The CDC sent a nurse right to our house. Something about Sally being enough of a global threat without adding the whole COVID 19 disaster to the mix.”

She paused. Then laughed. “Right. All of us. I guess they felt as long as they were vaccinating her, they may as well do the same for the poor schmucks who live with her.” Another pause and she laughed again. “Okay, you're right. Those weren’t their real words, but I’m pretty sure I know what they were thinking!” She sighed. “Never a boring moment.”

You have to know Mom usually doesn’t criticize her girls like this. I think she was still steamed about the window. And the TV. And . . .

Never mind . . .

And I don’t know about you, but I was tending to agree with her assessment.

My phone rang and I looked at it hopefully.

Peter (or my Lincoln Park Saviour, as I now call him), said when he took my deets, that he would call.

But, you know, in ‘boy’ time, that could be . . . any time between birth and death.

I had just gotten in.

And my phone was ringing.

Could it be . . .?

I grabbed it. Oh, Lordy Gordy, it was!

Every ounce of calm, cool, and collected that I had ever possessed instantly fled.

I punched wildly at the button, finally managing to connect on the third try.

“H-Hello?” I said a trifle breathlessly.

Okay, in writing that, I’m wondering what ‘a trifle breathlessly’ even means. Certainly, it sounds great in a romance novel. In reality, it’s the condition wherein your breath has bypassed your vocal cords completely and all that left is the tired wheeze of escaping air—like a broken pump organ.

I desperately cleared my throat, told myself sternly to breathe and tried again. “Hello?”

Better.

“Gwen?”

I dropped the phone.

Onto the floor. Where Sally’s cat, Mr. Peebles, who had heretofore been sitting innocently at my feet, promptly batted it under the couch.

Gahhhh!

I fell to my knees and frantically scrabbled for it.

I finally had it! “H-Hello.” I squeaked, desperately hoping to sound nonchalant. Casual. Relaxed. Even blasé.

But with my now-racing heart, I’m quite sure what emerged was panic. Fright. Terror. Fear. Dread. Alarm. And the faint featherings of ‘OhmywordI’mgoingtokeelover!

Not my finest moment.

“Peter here.” He was going on as though I had said something intelligible.

My first impression had been right. And my first impulse even righter.

Hang onto this guy!

Ahem. “Yes? Hi, Peter!”

 “From the park.”

He wasn’t taking any chances on my mixing him up with anyone else. Like I would . . .

“I’ve dropped my nieces off at home and wondered if you and I—the two of us—could maybe get together for a walk? And if things go well, a slushie at 7-11?”

If things go well. I snorted silently.

How could they not?

Just then the front door burst open and Sally stepped in. “Okay, I’m in the clear,” she shouted. Go ahead!”

Immediately, a tennis ball bounced off the door behind her, landing somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen sink and the already-boarded-over kitchen window. For just a moment, I envied that window. It had already given its ‘all’. Its job was well and truly done.

As for the rest of us . . .

“Bulls eye!” Sally shouted, running to retrieve it. She hurried back toward the door. “You got it, Mort! Well . . .” she spotted me, and her trajectory, which would have taken her safely past my orbit, changed.

Oh, dear.

“Whoya talking to, Gwennie?”

“Erm . . . Peter. From the park?”

“Oooh, him!” Sally grabbed the phone. “Peter! If you want her, you’d better hurry! There’s a line-up!”

She winked at me and dropped the phone back into my hands.

Then hurried out the front door.

“Peter?” I whispered into the phone. “Please save me!”

“I’m on my way!”

Each month, a group of us play something called ‘Use Your Words’. A game where our illustrious captain, Karen of Baking in a Tornado challenges us to send her words (and/or phrases) which she then shuffles and re-distributes. The result is unpredictable. And totally fun!

This month, my words were: training ~ CDC  ~ vaccination ~ boring ~ computer illiterate

And came, via Karen, from my good friend, Sarah at https://crazymamallama.blogspot.com/

Thank you, Sarah!

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