Seventeen: When Bitches Tour (duty calls)
"Blessed among men, huh?", the reporter on the other end of the phone teases her. "Never mind that! Perfect clique for a Southern barbecue!", she echoes by slipping off her shoes and sitting on the bed in her room at the Sheraton Hotel in Atlanta. "Tomorrow we'll beat the southern suburbs and then move on to Tennessee. There are some wonderful forests around here, you know?", she tells her smiling. "What about you? How are you doing at the paper?", she asks curiously.
"Well... Everyone at the newspaper is already buzzing about the trial, even though it's still almost two months away, and they're giving me a hard time", she informs her without particular emphasis. "Your voice is tired, too... How long has it been since you took a vacation, Miss Berg?", she asks with a veil of concern.
"It's true, I'm feeling a bit under the weather, it must be the change of season, they always say that, don't they?", the young woman jokes as she absent-mindedly runs a hand through her long hair. "Go somewhere, it will do you good", Barrish suggests softening her tone. "Yeah well… I'll think of something", she confirms, "I promise", she assures her moved by a sense of tenderness when she hears her friend's doubtful sigh. "I'll talk to you in the next few days, then", Elaine proposes after a pause", "Sure!", she replies.
—
After more than a week of hesitation, Susan is sure of her destination. All she has to do is plan her trip's stages, book her car and outbound flight. Her new boss has asked for two weeks' notice, so she has plenty of time to optimize the route she has set for herself.
Something tells her that her recent 'apathy' has something to do with her friend's departure. It's so easy to get used to a new, pleasant presence in your life that when, for some reason, it's gone, it's not as easy to get used to the lack of it. She is sure that disconnecting and taking time for herself will help her regain her balance.
She looks at the clock and figures that the Secretary is still flying from Memphis to Nashville, decides to send her a cryptic message hoping she'll understand and make her smile, since she' been pestering her for days to convince her to leave.
Guarda l'orologio e calcola che il Segretario sia in ancora in volo da Memphis a Nashville, decide di mandarle un messaggio criptico sperando che capisca e la faccia sorridere, visto che le dà il tormento da giorni per convincerla a partire.
«Navajo Nation and surroundings! Kisses!»
Elaine hears the trill alerting her to the arrival of a new message and smiles instinctively, she already knows who's sending it to her, and was just thinking of her. The smile widens even more as she reads those few words.
«Do we have anything more beautiful in our Country? Ah, how I'd love to join you! But instead I'm stuck here, there, who knows where! When are you leaving? Ps. We'll be landing soon! Kisses!»
The plane dives into the soft white of the clouds and she is forced to swallow several times due to the change in descent pressure. She turns to the window distractedly clutching her phone, waiting for an answer.
«You will come with me! You'll see! I still have two weeks to get things organized! But you will come with me, one way or another! See you soon!»
The Secretary smiles shaking her head, clutches the cell phone in her hand and absentmindedly brings it up to hold her chin, "Miss Berg, you're going to drive me crazy! ", she whispers to herself amused, and for a fraction of a second, an infinitesimal fraction, a little voice inside her suggests that it could really happen, but before she grasps the meaning of that hint, it's already faded, and what's left is only her own facial expression, now serious, as she listens to her heart slowing down to a normal pace and wonders why it sped up in the first place. As she wonders why it's so hard to breathe, for a moment.
—
"So, you're going to abandon us for three Sundays, dear?", the matriarch asks as she hands the young woman a huge rectangle of freshly blanched egg pasta. "Mrs. Barrish, that makes me feel guilty, though!", she admonishes her, with a strange awe that she thought was long gone. She neatly arranges the sheet of pasta in the baking dish and pours a generous helping of ragu. The old woman smiles quietly.
"And you want to make me feel old! I already told you, call me Margaret!", she retorts in a joking tone, as she takes care of arranging the béchamel sauce, lifts another layer of pasta, while waiting for Susan to have sprinkled the cheese on the working lasagna.
"Did you know that your girlfriend was lost for over an hour when we took her to the Grand Canyon?", she begins to tell her as she sees a smile widen on the reporter's face. "She was eight, I think, we were on the South Rim near Williams, we had taken the shuttle and got off at Hopi Point, we would get distracted for half a minute and she was gone! I can't tell you how scared we were, we were on the edge of the canyon, below us a cliff of hundreds of meters! A ranger found her by accident, eight hundred yards to the west! She was looking for a way down to the river, the little shit! Eight hundred yards, can you believe it?", she finishes, shaking her head.
"We've done such a good job, my dear one!", she judges contentedly, looking proudly at the pan filled to the brim and ready for the oven. "Yes, I totally agree, Margaret!", the younger one confirms more relaxed.
"There! Now we're talking!", she exclaims, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "Now we need a nice picture to send to my daughter, so she can see how much fun we have without her!", she suggests playfully, noticing a quick grimace on her interlocutor's face, she holds her a little tighter, "I know dear, we all miss her", she whispers comfortingly.