Chapter 3: Another Twisted Ankle

About a week later, I was heading towards town for a meeting with the local Chamber of Commerce, where I hoped to do a deal on mobile telephony for their members. I’d arranged it with one of my existing corporate customers, who had recently been elected Chair. There was an all day meeting and I had been allocated thirty minutes. I’d been tempted to send Pete but Cyril Jenkins was one of the few customers I still tried to handle personally. His business was good but mainly because we got on so well.

The main reason that I’d been tempted to send a deputy was because the meeting was held in Hanley, where parking is a pain, to say the least. It didn’t help that I was running late and somewhat rushed. I pulled into the multi-storey car-park and just as I passed it, I noticed a car start to pull out of the bay nearest to the pedestrian exit. Typical, two seconds too early as I continued to look for an empty bay. Eventually I found one, grabbed my things and headed towards the town centre.

I went to pull my phone out to check the time; I’d long given up wearing a watch; when I realised that I’d left it on charge, back at home. ‘Great sign that!’ I thought, ‘I’m supposed to be selling mobile technology and I go and forget mine.’ Still, I should be able to get away with it.

As I was walking the last few hundred yards to my destination, I saw a very attractive woman approaching, seemingly in some hurry. Naturally, I checked her out and liked what I saw. She appeared to be early to mid twenties. She was dressed according to the weather, which fortunately was excellent, so her attire was dark pencil skirt to just below the knee and a flowery, short-sleeved blouse. Like any man assessing an attractive woman, I took particular notice of her breasts, which hardly made an impact on the blouse, leading me to assume them to be on the small side. Her legs were wonderfully shaped, no doubt aided by the very high heels she was wearing. As she got nearer I saw that she had long brown hair, worn in a ponytail. To cap all that she had large brown eyes that a man could get lost in.

Sadly, though not too surprisingly, she was totally oblivious to me and my open admiration, as she rushed towards me. That is until she tripped as one of her stiletto heels got caught between two paving slabs. I saw this clearly as I’d been admiring her legs just at that moment, so I was ready when she fell into me. A whiff of exotic fragrance filled my nostrils as my arms wrapped around her to prevent her falling too badly.

She did cry out in pain, surprise or maybe both...

“Are you alright?” I asked after her yelp.

“Do I look all fucking right?” She demanded.

“Well! I thought so as I watched you approach,” I laughed, “though not so good now.”

“Trust me! I have to stumble into a fucking pervert.” She grumbled loudly and with plenty of venom in her voice.

“It is not perverted to look at an attractive member of the opposite sex, and if I recall correctly you attacked me.” I responded, sharper than I intended.

“Attacked, fucking attacked you. I fell, you fucking moron.”

By then, she’d managed to regain her balance, or as well as she could with one broken heel and judging by her grimace, a painful ankle.

“Well you seem fine now, so I shall be on my way.”

“What! Not going to try to get a fucking grope, or a fucking date for being Mr. Super Fucking Hero and saving me from ... whatever.” She snapped.

“Not a chance. Foul-mouthed ingratiates are not my scene at all.” I said as politely as I could manage, before walking away.

“Shit!” I heard her yell in obvious pain.

I turned around and saw her kneeling on the ground. I looked around, hoping someone else would go to her rescue, but her loud and foul language had been heard and avoided. I remembered how painful my own twist had been and Nadine’s readiness to help a total stranger.

I walked back to her and held my hand out. “If I help you to where you need to get, can I do it without a torrent of abuse?”

I watched as she bit back a retort and was very surprised to see tears in her eyes. After seemingly counting to ten, she said. “Yes, I’m sorry but I have a job interview and I was late already.”

“Where?”

She told me the name of the company, a middle sized employment agency, which was just a hundred yards away. “Do you want me to help you get there?”

I saw another retort bitten back. “Yes please!” she said, although it seemed to hurt her just as much to be polite as her ankle did.

As we entered the reception area I noticed a man and a woman talking to the receptionist, so waited behind them.

It took only a moment to realise that the two were the people due to interview my foul-mouthed associate. The man effusively took over supporting the injured woman and swiftly started to move away.

“I don’t suppose you have a phone I could use. I’m supposed to be presenting to the Chamber of Commerce around about now.” I asked the woman.

She smiled, ‘of course, we must help our Samaritan.” She pointed at a phone on the reception desk.

“What are you presenting?” She asked politely.

I felt myself going red as I explained. She burst out laughing, and I noticed the receptionist struggling to keep a straight face too.

“Err! I don’t suppose you know the number?” I asked and gratefully watched the young receptionist start to look.

Like all women I come across, I had given the one with me the once over. She was small, make that petite, with dark hair that appeared to have no styling other than its length, which it had plenty of. Her face, unadorned, apart from some mascara and lipstick, was oval and she had bright grey eyes. The most noticeable feature though was a three to four inch scar that started on her forehead and arced close to her left eye, down to her cheek.

It was only when she laughed that I suddenly wanted to know a bit more. A quick glance told me that she wore no ring.

“May I treat you to lunch?” I asked.

She looked up at me, and for her it seemed a long way. She saw me grinning and then an impish look appeared. “Sure! Why not? It will however have to be tomorrow. Can you meet me here at one?”

“I will be there. Oh yes. I’m David ... David Powell.”

“Penny Stockton.” She said holding her hand out.

I took it in mine and slowly shook it. Like everything else about her, it was tiny and was easily lost in my hand. I was looking at her when the receptionist called me to the phone.

Unusually, it took some time before she faded from my mind, and by then I’d arrived at my destination. Cyril was waiting, talking to another rather attractive woman. As I approached and saw the young woman up close I quickly reassessed the ‘rather’ to a ‘very’. She looked anything between twenty-five to thirty-five years of age, had long red hair that almost had me salivating – I have always loved redheads. Like the woman I’d helped earlier, she was wearing business attire, though her breasts made much more of an impression on her light blue blouse. She too was wearing heels, though not particularly high. Her legs were every bit as shapely as the woman with the exotic perfume.

As I stood slightly back, waiting to speak to Cyril, I heard her voice for the first time. The red hair, freckles and almost alabaster complexion hinted at it, but the soft lilt of her voice confirmed her Irish roots. A bit like hearing a song, sung in a foreign language, that is nevertheless beautiful, I didn’t take in the words she was saying, just the sound of her voice.

“David!” I heard Cyril say quite loudly, and when I looked, it was obvious it wasn’t for the first time he’d called my name.

“Sorry, I got lost in this lady’s wonderful voice.” I said honestly.

Said lady responded with a laugh that dwarfed even her voice in its beauty. Oh, how I wanted to hear that again.

“David, I’d like you to meet our new I.T. Director, Juliet Guinness, and before you ask, no, she’s not related to the brewing dynasty.”

“At least not close enough to get any benefit.” She added, followed by that delightful laugh.

“Damn!” I replied with a smile, “it had to be too good to be true – voice like an angel, looks of a goddess AND owning a brewery.”

Again her laugh tugged at my gut, but I managed to continue. “You say ‘our’. Is that Jenkins Engineering or the Chamber of Commerce?”

“Jenkins of course.” He then gave me a devilish grin. “Oh, and by the way, Juliet will be taking over responsibility for our mobile telephony.”

Juliet looked slightly puzzled at this last bit of information so Cyril said. “Sorry Juliet, this is David Powell, owner of Potteries Communications, who currently supply all our mobile telephony.”