Chapter 12

Sometime in the future, those still in-battle for me, their future

I just felt it was wrong, seriously wrong; but I could not help myself, nope, it was like on a safer automatic drive with the $199 a month option; a new self-drive Tesla car feature perhaps. The fact was, she didn’t help at all. Nope, her hair, the voice not to mention the look on her face. What was I supposed to do? She was beautiful, to me; Hell to any man, some women too. What I did not know, nor did I even think it was that her life and mine were intertwined; more than that, we were family so to speak.

To Everything There Is A Season!

I was not dead, yet; so maybe I was going to do the right thing by asking her?

“Excuse me Miss, but are you allright? Do you need any help?”

She had been standing near the front desk a long time and had a look on her face like her puppy had just been runover. Besides that, she was cute; very much so. Tall, well-built and if she had not been standing with her mouth open one would not think there was a problem.

“They “lost me reservation for lodging? Full-up they say and ... and me sister comes tommorow to meet me here.” Tears started to run down her cheeks. If the words themselves had not indicated she was not from here, the lilt in her voice did. Nope, this one was definetely not a New Yorker!

My initial thought was she was Irish; then again looking at her silver-blond hair and near 2 meters in height, Sweden, Denmark or Finland might be home to her. Those high-heels were starting to wear on her so I said: “look, have a seat there(pointing to a lobby chair) What name was the reservation in? I’ll check into it for you. I’m certain something else will be found!”

“But, but I can’t affo...”

Not that Christmas Week was one you could expect a huge number of available rooms but ... I did I have some expectation ‘they’ would want to keep me happy. ‘Be positive’, my takeaway from some seminar I had attended long ago(Dr.Somebody I think in 1958). At the front desk, I merely said: “I’m in 2110, please add 2112 to it, it is the room adjacent and we may need the other side room added.” I had only been here two days by now the word had spread to keep me happy. Having ‘rescued’ a beautiful damsel seemed a boost up to my Karma.

I went back to Miss What’shername and told her she now had room 2111 and if we needed, another for her sister would be added. Michelle at the front sent a bellman over for her luggage and I now had a showpiece holding the crook of my right arm; as I escorted her to the room.

“Freshen up and rest. If you are feeling up to it may I accompany you to dinner here at the Hotel this evening?”

No answer. “Be positive’, right. “Just call if you are free or knock on my door, I am next door in Suite 2110. My name is Regin.” She went in, I went to my room but alone allright. My life had gotten a bit brighter from helping her; not that it would take a lot to do that. My success percentage with women was less than the number of games the Mets here were winning.

One divorce and two or three broken engagements do not make for a glorious track record. I liked to think that this 18 or so year old beauty would find me attractive but I knew better. What she did do however was to boost my ego enough to try again, sometime, someplace and damn the consequences. That feeling lasted about three seconds after the hot water in the shower targeted a dozen aches and pains in my old body.

About 10:30 that evening I pretty much had given up having any dinner company. The phone rang though. I excitedly answered, my boss’s “Wake up you dolt. You need to be in Stockholm ASAP, Nigel(Sales rep) ... well let’s say is no longer employed with us. Chop-chop old-man, here’s Rach to send you off.” He added her on the call. She began listing off 30 days worth of work of which I knew little about. “Rach, great stuff, could you text my phone with just the next day or two of it, Robert can clean up his own messes after that. You can tell him what I said.” To myself I said as I hung up ‘Lazy bugger!’

A shelia(A Cutie) was on this night, a Michele(An Ex) look-alike. I explained about the guest in 2112 and her expected sister soon to arrive. “I am called away so tell her to use the 2110 suite instead, I will be gone a week or so, and, Michele thank you.” I packed up and was off with the next flight out mentionig, “I’ll be back!”.

Three flights to get to Amotfors(A city in Sweden), quite close to Norway; the last flight required a charter plane. Good old AMEX to the rescue, Rach, I guess, still likes me. I had more than enough time to study what Rach had sent me about Norma(Ammunition Maker) and what the client(Sort of an ‘Embargoed’ country) expected. It was a small order to anyone but expensive for what there was of it, $25 Million(USD) or just over 214 Millions Krona. What was important to the client was quality and consistent performance of the ammunition(One shot, one kill maybe not many good rounds to choose from. Usually a .223, .300 Win Mag, .308, .338 Lapua, 7.62, .416 or a .50 cal depending on range and target type. BTW, location plays a part also, for example, you don’t want to try toting a .50 cal HB(Belt fed machine gun on a tripod which is 128 lbs or more with scope and ammo plus your kit) around on a 4 mile hike through the woods).