The Road to Love
By Jackee
Chapter One
It was a warm fall afternoon. The trees were turning their respective fall shades. The shades of richness, the summer having past.
Tamellyn Brinkman placed steady pressure to the gas pedal of her sky blue Pontiac. The engine kicked in and the vehicle shot out into the late afternoon traffic. Building winds gusted through her window, tossing the deep brown waves that fell below her shoulders, matching the emotional turmoil that whipped through her heart.
Ahead, a traffic signal changed to yellow. Distracted, Tamellyn nearly missed it, and was forced to hit the brakes with more force than she liked. That too added to her anger, increasing a sense of complete powerlessness in her life.
The flash of white and blue on the seat beside her caught her glance. The book. Grasping it up, she flung it out the window in an uncharacteristic display to temper. It landed on the asphalt with a dull thud. The bow was still on it. Anger melded to hurt, and tears rose, stinging her eyes. She wiped them angrily away, and instead of waiting for the light to change to green, pulled into the right hand lane and made a turn down a side road.
This road was quiet and less traveled. Broad trees and quiet homes set far off from the roadway didn't mar the beauty. Any other day and she might have admired the architecture that so complimented its surroundings. But not today. Today Tammy didn’t see the artistry, nor the dark clouds that were quickly rolling in. Her mind’s eye had taken her back to the scene at Acme Corporate Industries less than thirty minutes earlier...
She'd practically danced into the reception area of the engineering outer offices. Sarah had grinned wickedly in her direction.
"Still on the honeymoon, I see." Sarah Richards, ACI’s receptionist, had giggled as she picked up the receiver to page David Brinkman. Tamellyn had worked at ACI before she and David were married six months earlier. She'd begun doing outside programming from her home office before she and David had married. After their marriage, she’d made it a full-time endeavor.
"Tam, honey, you're positively glowing," Sarah continued, placing the phone back in its cradle. Sarah's voice dropped conspiratorially. "What's going on here? Is there something I should know about?"
Tammy smiled sweetly at her. " Why Sarah, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm no different than any other day."
"Sure," Sarah nodded as if not quite believing her. The phone rang and Sarah turned to answer it just as David Brinkman rounded the corner.
David Brinkman was a tall, well-built man. He wore his dark hair combed neatly away from his brow. Warm hazel eyes that always seemed to have a smile were focused on Tammy. But, they weren't smiling.
Tammy's own smiled faltered when her eyes fell to the dark-haired Katena Burganslova. Simply put, in Tammy’s mind, Katena was gorgeous without even trying. Tammy felt dowdy in the face of the woman’s exotic beauty. It hadn’t helped her self-esteem that the woman seemed uninterested in a friendship with her, but hang unto David's every word.
"Um, do you have a minute honey?" Tammy spoke softly to her husband. She smiled politely to acknowledge Katena's presence. Katena returned the smile distantly.
"Only a minute," David said brusquely, not appearing to notice the by-play between Tammy and Katena. "I don’t have much time."
Tammy frowned at David’s obvious impatience. What had she done wrong?
"Can we talk in private, please" she said eyeing the busy foyer. People were always coming and going through the automatic glass doors.
"Alright, come on down to my office," he gestured on down the hall. Tammy followed David, and Katena fell in step behind Tammy. Tammy thought she could feel the woman’s eyes boring into her back.
"I'll be ready in just a minute Katy," David paused at his door. Opening the door he allowed Tammy to enter before himself. His desk was full of papers; his computer screen saver had kicked in; memos were piled in his in-basket, all the evidence suggested that he was having a very busy day. But, to Tammy, none of those things were important because she had news for her husband that simply couldn’t wait until he got home.
"Uh, David, I've got great news for you," she began, barely able to hide her smile in spite of his rotten mood. She even ignored the way he was glancing at his watch. "I'll give you three guesses," she giggled.
"Tammy, I have a very important meeting in five minutes. Could you skip to the condensed version, please?" David asked. He was still standing near the door, Tammy noticed, and he hadn't even given her a welcoming hug or even said hello for that matter. She faltered.
"I'll just tell you when you get home," she said uncertainly and headed for the door. Gathering her heavy purse with the book with the pink and blue ribbon on it inside, to her.
David stepped in front of her, irritation flashing across his face. "Come on tell me now, you came all the way down here and dragged me into my office. The least you could do is tell me." He spoke reasonably, like he was talking to someone who only had half of the normal God-given intelligence.
She looked up at him uncomfortably and suddenly felt like crying. "David," she said, "we're going to have a baby."
David simply stared at her for a full second, "What?" he asked after a minute. Tammy repeated what she'd said. "But, I thought we were careful?" he said.
"David, aren't you happy?" Tammy asked in a small voice. He came to her then, taking her into his arms.
"Of course, honey. I'm happy if you are."
Tammy pushed him away. "You don't want this baby do you? Admit it!"
"Look, Tamellyn, I don't have time for this. Katy's waiting for me. We'll talk about this when I get home. I'll be about seven again." he added, already heading for the door.
"So you have time for her but not me," Tammy said, not quite able to stop herself in time.
David spun on her, angry now, "I'm not going to discuss this with you right now, Tamellyn." he spoke softly before turning to open the door to allow her to leave.
Tammy stepped through the door with as much dignity as she could muster. To her dismay, Katena was standing there with a small smile on her lips. Tammy walked on by her and down the hall. She heard Katena ask David if anything was wrong. She barely caught David's reply "Oh, it's nothing..." Tammy stopped dead in her tracks and turned toward David and Katena's receding backs. Katena had reached out a hand and touched his arm and said something to him that Tammy couldn't hear. The hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach took her breath. Clenching her fists, she headed out the door. At least Sarah was away from the desk and therefore couldn't ask any impossible questions.
When her eyes refocused on the road it was to see large droplets of water on the windshield and falling into the car through the open window. Quickly she rolled the window up and looked for a familiar looking street she could take home. Unfortunately, nothing looked familiar. As far as she could tell she was really out in the boonies.
The rain fell from the sky in buckets, and she eventually had to pull off the road to wait it out. The steady rains gradually eased her tormented psyche, eventually causing her hurt and anger to abate to a dull throb. By the time the rain had stopped she'd sworn off men, all of them. She decided one David Brinkman was not important enough to ruin her life. She could forget him and easily as he seemed to have forgotten she was his wife.
Pulling back on to the road she saw an intersection far ahead. The light was still green from the distance. She decided to let it turn red, she was in no hurry to beat it as the roads were far too slippery for safety
A small brown sports car quickly gaining on her caused her to gasp. She peered into the rear view at the man who impatiently honked his horn in an effort to get her to hurry up. The oncoming traffic made it impossible for him to pass on the two-lane road.
As they neared the intersection, Tammy could see that on the other side of the light the road broadened into four lanes. Obviously sports car saw that too. The light was still green but Tammy slowed anyway as it could change at any second and she wanted to be able to stop if it did. She had to admit a little of her anger at all males as a gender caused her to want to teach sports car a lesson.
When the light continued green, she decided to speed up and go on through. Someone else would have the dubious task of teaching sports fiend. Sports car had other ideas. He quickly cut his wheel to the right as if to circle around her as they reached the intersection. She turned to look in his direction only to find that he was giving her a furious glare and a vulgar finger motion of out the window.
"Men!" she ground under her breath as she turned back forward. A white station wagon was halfway through a right handed turn onto the outside lane up ahead. Directly in the path of sports car.
Tammy knew with sick certainty what was going to happen next. Though she slammed on her brakes, momentum carried her further along into the intersection. Sports car had no place to go, and he was moving far to quickly to stop. What was more, Tammy didn’t even know if he was paying attention. With the first sickening crunch of metal, she closed her eyes and screamed.
All stories posted to this web site are original, written by Jackee C. They may be read and printed for personal use only! Please do not claim them as your own. I share them freely because I enjoy writing, but all stories are copyright Jackee C, 1992 through 1999. All Rights Reserved.