Chapter 130: The Beautiful Blue Danube

Jessie Harper stared at Bjorn Erikson and Bjorn Erikson stared back at Jessie Harper. Neither one said a word for at least five minutes. Eventually Bjorn broke the silence with, “I was going to tell you at the end of the Teen Beauty Pageant but we all got whisked away so suddenly when news broke of Carrie’s condition that it just became impossible to sit down and talk to you seriously about anything. I am really sorry about it all but Carrie made me promise to say nothing for as long as possible, so that’s what I did ... I said nothing. It seemed really important to her and I thought I needed to honour that request in light of everything she was going through. I really was between a rock and a hard place and Carrie might still not be happy that I have told you even now. I am sorry, Jessie, but that is just the way it was.”

Jessie stared out the window of the hotel room they were staying in and remained silent for a long time. That hotel window over looked a river but not any old river in Redsands, Georgia but perhaps one of the most famous rivers in the world ... the Danube in Germany made famous by one of Johann Strauss’s most notable waltzes ... On The Beautiful Blue Danube. Right now that river was flowing through the German city of Ulm some 150 kilometres or so east of Munich and Jessie Harper, along with her mother, stepfather and Bjorn Erikson, were staying in a lovely hotel suite overlooking the beautiful blue water of that great river.

This group of four had only just arrived in Ulm late at night the previous day. They were completely tired out and exhausted from several days of packing and travelling and had all collapsed into an exhausted sleep the moment they got through the door of their suite. Jessie was the first to wake the following morning followed soon after by Bjorn. Jessie and Bjorn had quietly ordered some breakfast for themselves while the other two slept on in the adjacent room. They were waiting for their order to arrive and were finally finding themselves with a quiet moment together to actually talk about everything that had happened since those final moments of the Redsands Teen Beauty Pageant only just five days ago now.

Most of what had transpired in those five days since the Pageant had been arranged and orchestrated by Matilda Dorridge and her boyfriend Arnold Berridge. When Matilda saw that Carrie and Troy Pearson were not coming on again to sing with Jessie Harper she knew something was seriously wrong. Her fingers immediately began flying over the face of her smart phone and within fifteen minutes and with some extra help from Arnold she knew exactly what was going on ... Carrie Pearson was dying and her family wanted Jessie Harper and Bjorn Erikson to fly to Germany as soon as they possibly could to be with her.

Matilda Dorridge had found all this out before Jessie or her parents knew anything and she went at once over to Glenda and Bryce just a few seats back to pull them aside to explain what she knew. Matilda also told Bryce and Glenda that she, and Arnold, had some very influential and rather rich contacts that were willing to help with travel expenses. Those contacts were mostly from Arnold and his work in the NTFLN office were Jessie had first met him. It emerged that the NTFLN officials were just so enamoured by all Jessie and her choir had done for the Pageant, and for Bryce Unsworth’s permission to let them do so, that they were more than willing to help them out in any way they possibly could in these tragic unfoldings. The NTFLN officials and friends of Arnold had offered to pay for not just Jessie and Bjorn to go to Germany but for Glenda and Bryce to accompany them as well. Also, when others about started hearing all that was happening money started pouring into the Carrie Pearson Trust Fund. That was money that could be accessed by those administering the fund to support Jessie, Bjorn, Glenda and Bryce while in Germany. In short, by the time this quartet was touching down in Germany there was already enough money, with more still coming in, to see them and the Pearson’s through this crisis.

Of course none of these concerns were bothering Jessie or Bjorn at the present moment. The two were just sitting quietly in their hotel suite waiting for their breakfast to arrive and that is when Bjorn decided to drop his bombshell...

... he was the father of the baby that Carrie Pearson was carrying!

Bjorn didn’t have the faintest idea about the right way to tell Jessie, even though he had rehearsed it many times in his head, so he just blurted it out in the stillness of the morning. That was why Jessie was now staring blankly out of that window that over looked Johann Strauss’s famous river. But to Jessie right now it neither looked beautiful or even blue!