Izzie woke up early on Friday morning, usually she stayed in bed while Alex got ready for work but she didn't want to sleep late today. She pulled herself out of bed while he was still in the shower and she walked into the bathroom. It had been a long time since she had joined him there, 5am starts didn't sit well with her but today he was starting work a little later, the conference he was going to started at 9am and it wasn't too far away.
Inside the bathroom was already full of steam, the mirror was fogged over and she could hardly see Alex's figure in the shower. She pulled her t-shirt, the only thing she'd worn to bed over her head and dropped it to the floor. She took two steps towards the shower and opened the door. Alex still didn't know she was there, not until she stepped fully inside and closed the door. He turned around to face her, a surprised look across his face, which quickly turned into a coy grin.
"Good morning." He smiled at her and she smiled back.
"Morning." She stepped closer to him, and began slowly creeping her fingers up his chest. She only got halfway before he completely closed the gap between them. One arm he used to wrap around her back, with the other he pushed the hair away from her face and he kissed gently.
"I've missed this." he whispered pulling away for a moment. He turned her in his arms so her back was pressed against his chest and he began nibbling on the lobe of her ear. He felt her body react to the touch, for the briefest of moments she tensed then she relaxed completely into him.
"Alex," she moaned as his hands began making there way all over her body. It had been a long time since they had done this, and in that instant she wasn't sure why that was. She wasn't sure why she didn't pull herself out of bed more often. She loved what he was doing to her, the sensations he was making her feel. "I've missed this too."
For the longest time they stayed like that, entwined within each other. They could have stayed like that for hours but they both had something they had to do, places they had to be. Reluctantly Alex pulled away and stepped out, leaving Izzie standing alone under the water.
"Good luck with your presentation today. Don't forget to phone me." He told her before wrapping a towel around his waist and heading back into the bedroom. He quickly dressed, he only had a few minutes to get out the door and on the road.
*****
Just before 10am Izzie pulled the USB from her laptop and dropped it into her handbag. She'd been going over her presentation since Alex had left the home that morning and she was confident she had it right. She didn't think she could make it any better and she thought it was good, it was better than good, it was going to be great. She was excited about the opportunity, about the challenge. She checked her handbag to make sure her wallet and her phone were in there. She picked up her bus ticket and the directions she'd written out the night before, and finally her house keys and she walked out the door.
She walked up her street for two blocks until she reached the bus stop. She'd caught the bus there before, Alex didn't know it but sometimes she liked to catch the bus down to the ferries and then ride around on the Sound all day. She liked the smell that being out on the water brought and she liked sitting down and watching the people around her. She liked people watching and making up stories about who these people were.
Getting to the ferries and getting across the Sound was easy, she phoned Alex and left a message on his voicemail telling him she was okay and everything was fine, it was once she reached the other side that things started to get more complicated. She had never been on this side of the city, not even with Alex and now she was there by herself. She looked down at the directions she'd written out, she needed to catch the 721 bus and the bus stop was three blocks north of the wharf and two blocks east. It was supposed to take five minutes for her to walk there and then she would have to wait another ten minutes for the bus to come.
Slowly she began walking into the unfamiliar, the houses didn't look that much different to the ones she was used to, the yards were still nice and clean, and the people she saw in the street all smiled at her when she smiled at them. She made it to the bus stop and sat down on the bench. Waiting at the stop with her was a woman who looked in her sixties and a boy who looked about ten. Neither one of them said anything to her; they kind of smiled and then waited in silence.
It was hard waiting, she knew she was in the right spot but she couldn't help second guessing herself, she couldn't help worrying she'd done something wrong, that she'd walked the wrong way. It didn't help that the bus was running late as well, it arrived five minutes after it was supposed and by that time she was starting to freak out a little, only a little though, no one around her noticed anything.
She took a seat half way down the bus next to the window, she pulled her handbag onto her lap and she watched as the houses went by. According to her directions she was supposed to ride this bus for ten minutes and get off at stop 24, where she was to wait for bus 545 which would drop her off one block away from the school.
This is easy she thought to herself as she counted the stops they were driving past. And as far as she could tell the neighborhood they were driving through was no different to her own. It wasn't until she'd been riding the second bus for ten minutes that she saw the first reason why Alex might have worried. Sitting on the side of the road was the burnt out shell of a car, and the houses no longer looked so nice and clean. There was black stuff growing up the walls on half the homes and some had their windows covered up with plastic and newspaper. She saw a stray dog wondering up the road, and there were groups of teenagers loitering around on the corners. She tightened the grip around her handbag and told herself not to worry, she told herself appearances didn't mean anything and the people she might encounter weren't out to get, they weren't there to hurt her. She stepped off the second bus and began walking the one block to the school. From somewhere behind her someone whistled, she didn't turn back to see who, she just kept walking.
She kept walking until she reached the front of the school. There she paused to leave Alex another voicemail and look at the building; it was an ugly building, four stories of dirty red brick, with tiny windows all along it. It didn't look like a nice school, it didn't look like a place she'd want to be spending half her time at. The look alone was almost enough to make her begin to understand why they wanted her to come; the mere vibe the school put out was enough to make someone depressed, enough to suck the hopes and dreams out of eager young students. She sighed to herself and walked up the steps leading into the building, she couldn't fix how the school looked but she could try to change some of their attitude, try and give them back some hope.
She pushed the front door open and stepped inside. Just like the outside everything looked old and outdated. She could see a janitor at the other end of the corridor trying to keep things clean but even without papers strewn across the floor the place still looked tired and dirty. To her right was a door marked 'Front Office – Administration' she walked over there and stepped inside.
"Hi," She said walking over to the lady sitting behind the front desk. "My name is Isobel Stevens. I'm here to make a presentation in front of the school."
"Really?" The woman gave her a confused look. "This is the first I've heard about any school presentation. What did you say your name was?"
"Isobel Stevens." Izzie told the woman, trying hard not to let her see how uncomfortable she was starting to feel.
The woman seemed to hit some things into a computer and looked up at her again. "Who at the school have you been talking to?"
"Umm…" Izzie reached into her bag and began searching for the piece of paper she'd written the woman's contact details on. It took her longer to find the paper than she thought it would but finally she wrapped her fingers around it. "Her name's Roberta Williams." She read off the piece of paper, she'd only spoken to the woman once and exchanged a few e-mails with her. As she read the name she couldn't hide the doubt in her voice over the situation. She couldn't help thinking maybe she'd come on the wrong day or she was at the wrong school.
"Oh you're one of Roberta's people." The name was enough for the woman behind the desk to work out what might be going on. "I'll call her down for you and she can tell you what's going on."
"Okay," Izzie stepped back from the desk and sat down nervously in one of the chairs. She'd been excited when she'd walked into the school but now she was starting to feel nervous and uncomfortable. The greeting she'd received when she'd walked in the door wasn't what she was expecting and she couldn't help thinking maybe she had everything all wrong.
After five minutes the woman she was meeting arrived. "Hello I'm Roberta" The woman greeted holding out her hand. Izzie stood and shook it.
"Hi I'm Isobel." She smiled and she waited for the woman to say something.
The woman smiled back at her. "It's great to finally meet you. I've been reading up about you and I think your story might really be good for these kids. Come on I'll show you back to the room so you can get set up."
"Thanks," She followed the woman out the room and along the corridors of the school. She was starting to relax again and let herself get excited, she was in the right place, on the right day, it was just the lady at the front desk who didn't know what was going on. They stopped walking at the end of the corridor and the woman turned to her.
"This is the room I have booked for you." The woman told her before opening the door. "There is a computer attached to a projector in the corner, if you need it. The kids should be down in about twenty minutes."
"Okay." Izzie nodded but she wasn't exactly listening. The room she was being showed into wasn't an auditorium, it was a tiny classroom. "How many kids are coming?" she asked realizing her presentation wasn't going to be in front of the whole school.
"Five." The woman replied. "I'll leave you to get set up. My office is across the corridor if you need anything." The woman closed the door and walked away leaving Izzie standing alone in the tiny room.
She could feel her heart beginning to race and her body fill with a fear and dread. She didn't have a presentation prepared for five she had a presentation prepared for hundreds and they weren't the same thing. She could just stand there and talk to hundreds of people; she didn't have to engage them all, it didn't matter if half of them weren't listening but with five, they all had to listen, they all had to hear and she couldn't just stand up there and talk. She sat down in one of the chairs and tried to get her head around what she had to do. She began trying to work out how on earth she was going to get through to five people, how to get five people to listen to her and hear her story.
