Author's Note: Thanks again for the reviews! I really, really appreciate
them.
This chapter is from Lizzie's point of view. Hope you enjoy, and please review and let me know what you think! This chapter is still mostly set- up, but the plot is soon about to thicken! ______________________________________________________________________
Snap out of it, McGuire! You're going to drive yourself insane thinking about what that fortune teller said to you!
Lizzie stood up from her bed, took hold of her head with both hands, let out a deep yawn, and then got up to walk over to the bathroom. Might as well get ready to go to bed, thought Lizzie.
Lizzie peered into the darkened bathroom, fumbled for the light switch, found it, and flipped it on. The light went on for one moment, then the light got increasingly brighter and brighter, and then, "POP!" The lightbulb blew itself out.
"Yeeoww!!" yelped a startled Lizzie. The bathroom suddenly was immersed in darkness once more. Lizzie stood motionless for awhile, staring blankly into the pitch black room, then walked back to the hotel desk, picked up the phone and called the front desk.
The phone picked up. "The Hilton Sheraton. What may I do for you, Ms. McGuire?"
"The lightbulb just went out in the bathroom. Could you have someone come up and change the light?"
"I apologize for the inconvenience, Ms. McGuire. I'll have Adam the bellhop come up right away and change the bulb for you."
Did the front desk guy say "Adam" was coming up? Lizzie went into a foggy daze.
"uh, uh, yeah, um, thanks. Have a, um, nice day."
"Thank you, Ms. McGuire. Goodbye."
Have a nice day?!? Lizzie slapped her forehead with her palm. Now *that* was a dumb thing to say in the middle of the night. Lizzie put down the phone and started walking around frantically around the hotel room as her head swirled with thoughts coming from all directions:
Is this the guy? Is this the guy? Is this the guy the fortune teller told me about?? A bellhop at a hotel? I'm going to fall in love and marry and have three kids named Susanna, David, and Miranda and live in a San Francisco suburb with a bellhop? Why couldn't Adam be a writer or a poet or an artist. . . waitaminute. . . I wonder how I look? I've got to look good for my future bellhop husband. I must be a mess from the plane trip. Yaaahhh!! Okay, okay, calm down Lizzie, take deep breaths, get a grip, get a grip. What should I do? What should I do? I know, I know, I need to go the bathroom and fix up my make up. Oh wait, damn it, I can't go in the bathroom cause of that stupid lightbulb!. Urgh. *sigh* but I can't be too mad at the lightbulb since it's going to be the reason for me meeting my future husband. It'll make a great story for our kids one day..OKAY Lizzie, snap out of it, you can daydream about the next 20 years of your life later, you've got to get ready, Adam's going to be coming up soon!
"RIIINNNNGGG!!" "Bellhop!"
Omigosh omigosh omigosh, Adam's here! Okay, Lizzie, you're just going to have to go with the way you are. This is it. Lizzie straightened out her blouse and jeans with her hands, then slowly walked to the door with deep anticipation. She slowly opened the door, holding her breath.
Lizzie said, "Hi-" and expected to see a handsome, boyish, face, only to see a man's rounded stomach and beltbuckle. "-Adam?"
"Up here, Ms. McGuire," intoned a loud, booming voice, a voice tinged with an eastern european accent.
Lizzie slowly averted her eyes upwards to see the tallest man she had ever seen in her entire life. Adam turned out to be a seven foot tall, bald, middle-aged, Ukranian bellhop. Lizzie thought, uh, mom once said great boys came in odd packages, but now this takes the cake!
"Oh. My. You sure are."
"Tall, yes. And no, I don't play basketball. I'm here to change your lightbulb, Ms. McGuire."
"Oh sure, come on it." Lizzie let Adam in, who had to duck underneath the doorway to come inside. The bellhop then went straight into the bathroom, began to undo the fixture so that he could change the light. Lizzie stood just outside, watching the very large man do his job.
Lizzie kept wondering, is this Adam? No, way, it can't be. But, but, well. I have to be sure.
"Uh, Adam? May I ask you a question?"
"Sure, Ms. McGuire."
"Ummm, do you know anything about a mouse being stuck on your hand?"
"Sorry, no, Ms. McGuire."
"Oh." Lizzie was a little disappointed, but mostly relieved. Okay, this isn't the guy. I am not going to end up being Mrs. Lizzie SevenFoottallUkranianBellhopGuy. Whew.
"Ms. McGuire, when you answered the door, it's like you were expecting to see someone you knew."
"Well, yeah-it's a long story."
"Well, I don't have much to do this time of night, and I'm about to go on a break and I like chatting with our patrons. They always have interesting stories to tell. So, I've got time for a story. . . There! All fixed."
Lizzie thought to herself, he seems like a really nice man, and I'm dying to tell someone my fortune teller story. "Okay, if you really want to know. It all happened when my friend Miranda and I were walking in Harvard Square. . . . And Lizzie immediately proceeded to tell her story about her encounter with the fortune teller in her excited, mile-a-minute voice. The bellhop just looked on and listened on with a paternal affection for the young woman.
As she finished her story, "And so when the front desk told me Adam the bellhop was coming up to fix the lightbulb, I thought who knows maybe my Adam would be you."
"That's a fascinating story, Ms. McGuire, but sadly, I'm very happily married to my wife. 25 years next week, in fact."
"Congratulations! Yeah, I pretty much figured out you weren't Adam. My Adam, I mean. So, what do you think? Am I being crazy for believing in this crazy fortune telling stuff?"
"Perhaps. What I do know for certain is that love happens under unusual circumstances. My wife and I, I met her as a teenager in the Ukraines, when I accidently fell down an empty watering well outside of my village. Anyway, I was trapped down a 10 foot well and my arm was broken. But, fortunately, my future wife happened to be walking by, heard my shouts for help, and called for help. What I thought was one of the worst things to happen to me turned out to be the best thing in my life."
"That's sweet!"
"The crazy thing is, I had run into an odd little homeless beggar on the street the day before. I gave him some money, and in thanks, he said he was a psychic and he told me that my destiny was inside a watering well. That's why I fell down, because I listened to the beggar and actually tried to see if my destiny was inside a watering hole!"
"That's really interesting. Do you think that beggar really knew your destiny?" Lizzie was definitely intrigued by the man' story.
"Well, the way I think about it, we all have our personal destinies, but, somewhere along the road, we sometimes need a little help to get us on the path we were always meant to take."
"That's beautiful."
"Anyway, I should be going now, Ms. McGuire. It was a pleasure talking with you. Please enjoy your stay here, and if I can be of any further service, please just let the front desk know. Good night. And good luck." The bellhop gave a knowing wink to Lizzie, and walked away.
Lizzie let the door close behind her and went to her bed. She wasn't sleepy anymore, as what just had transpired with her and the bellhop had her alert and excitable.
Can't sleep, what should I do now? Lizzie thought about watching some t.v., but instead, she went to the room desk and turned on her laptop computer. She plugged the modem into the dataport, and waited to get online.
Lizzie had recently come up with an idea for her first romance novel. . .a love story where two lovers meet online in a chatroom. To help herself write her story, Lizzie had been doing research by going into various chatrooms and asking chatters about relationships they had developed through the internet. She just started doing the research last week, and wanted to keep researching for a few additional weeks. She thought, I'm up now, why not do some research on my soon to be best selling romance novel?
Lizzie finally got online, and she entered one of the Yoohoo.com chatrooms. It was a chatroom that she, Miranda, Gordo and other Hillridge High students had used after they graduated from high school, as a way to keep in touch. Lizzie used the chatroom frequently during her freshman year at Boston University, but she rarely went there since she graduated from college. For some reason, though, on this night, she felt compelled to check this chatroom out once more. It had been almost a year since she last used this chatroom.
Lizzie entered the chatroom under her recently created anonymous username "Hilary Duff." When she was conducting research, she always used her Hilary Duff username, and made sure not to reveal personal information about herself to the other chatters. No one knew about her pseudonym, not even Miranda and Gordo. Her plan was to reveal her pen name only after she got her first novel published.
When she was finally logged in, Lizzie quickly scanned to see who was there. There were about 10 usernames, and she didn't recognize anyone. She typed in hello, and immediately began asking questions to the chatters: have you dated someone online? What happened? What was it like when you first met him/her in real life? How did things turn out?
The chatters weren't very open to Lizzie's questions, and most of them were typing inane things and cheesy pick up lines which just made Lizzie roll her eyes. I'm going to seriously snap the next time HotDude2000 asks "Age/Sex/Location" again, thought an exasperated Lizzie.
Lizzie was about to give up, log off, and read a book to help her fall asleep. But just as she was about to exit the chatroom, a new chatter entered the chatroom: Adam Gerbalm.
Lizzie stared at her screen, fixated on the username staring back at her. Adam? Could this be. . .? My Adam?
A heavy sinking feeling of deep recognition began to fill up her inside of her. It's him, she whispered softly to herself.
This chapter is from Lizzie's point of view. Hope you enjoy, and please review and let me know what you think! This chapter is still mostly set- up, but the plot is soon about to thicken! ______________________________________________________________________
Snap out of it, McGuire! You're going to drive yourself insane thinking about what that fortune teller said to you!
Lizzie stood up from her bed, took hold of her head with both hands, let out a deep yawn, and then got up to walk over to the bathroom. Might as well get ready to go to bed, thought Lizzie.
Lizzie peered into the darkened bathroom, fumbled for the light switch, found it, and flipped it on. The light went on for one moment, then the light got increasingly brighter and brighter, and then, "POP!" The lightbulb blew itself out.
"Yeeoww!!" yelped a startled Lizzie. The bathroom suddenly was immersed in darkness once more. Lizzie stood motionless for awhile, staring blankly into the pitch black room, then walked back to the hotel desk, picked up the phone and called the front desk.
The phone picked up. "The Hilton Sheraton. What may I do for you, Ms. McGuire?"
"The lightbulb just went out in the bathroom. Could you have someone come up and change the light?"
"I apologize for the inconvenience, Ms. McGuire. I'll have Adam the bellhop come up right away and change the bulb for you."
Did the front desk guy say "Adam" was coming up? Lizzie went into a foggy daze.
"uh, uh, yeah, um, thanks. Have a, um, nice day."
"Thank you, Ms. McGuire. Goodbye."
Have a nice day?!? Lizzie slapped her forehead with her palm. Now *that* was a dumb thing to say in the middle of the night. Lizzie put down the phone and started walking around frantically around the hotel room as her head swirled with thoughts coming from all directions:
Is this the guy? Is this the guy? Is this the guy the fortune teller told me about?? A bellhop at a hotel? I'm going to fall in love and marry and have three kids named Susanna, David, and Miranda and live in a San Francisco suburb with a bellhop? Why couldn't Adam be a writer or a poet or an artist. . . waitaminute. . . I wonder how I look? I've got to look good for my future bellhop husband. I must be a mess from the plane trip. Yaaahhh!! Okay, okay, calm down Lizzie, take deep breaths, get a grip, get a grip. What should I do? What should I do? I know, I know, I need to go the bathroom and fix up my make up. Oh wait, damn it, I can't go in the bathroom cause of that stupid lightbulb!. Urgh. *sigh* but I can't be too mad at the lightbulb since it's going to be the reason for me meeting my future husband. It'll make a great story for our kids one day..OKAY Lizzie, snap out of it, you can daydream about the next 20 years of your life later, you've got to get ready, Adam's going to be coming up soon!
"RIIINNNNGGG!!" "Bellhop!"
Omigosh omigosh omigosh, Adam's here! Okay, Lizzie, you're just going to have to go with the way you are. This is it. Lizzie straightened out her blouse and jeans with her hands, then slowly walked to the door with deep anticipation. She slowly opened the door, holding her breath.
Lizzie said, "Hi-" and expected to see a handsome, boyish, face, only to see a man's rounded stomach and beltbuckle. "-Adam?"
"Up here, Ms. McGuire," intoned a loud, booming voice, a voice tinged with an eastern european accent.
Lizzie slowly averted her eyes upwards to see the tallest man she had ever seen in her entire life. Adam turned out to be a seven foot tall, bald, middle-aged, Ukranian bellhop. Lizzie thought, uh, mom once said great boys came in odd packages, but now this takes the cake!
"Oh. My. You sure are."
"Tall, yes. And no, I don't play basketball. I'm here to change your lightbulb, Ms. McGuire."
"Oh sure, come on it." Lizzie let Adam in, who had to duck underneath the doorway to come inside. The bellhop then went straight into the bathroom, began to undo the fixture so that he could change the light. Lizzie stood just outside, watching the very large man do his job.
Lizzie kept wondering, is this Adam? No, way, it can't be. But, but, well. I have to be sure.
"Uh, Adam? May I ask you a question?"
"Sure, Ms. McGuire."
"Ummm, do you know anything about a mouse being stuck on your hand?"
"Sorry, no, Ms. McGuire."
"Oh." Lizzie was a little disappointed, but mostly relieved. Okay, this isn't the guy. I am not going to end up being Mrs. Lizzie SevenFoottallUkranianBellhopGuy. Whew.
"Ms. McGuire, when you answered the door, it's like you were expecting to see someone you knew."
"Well, yeah-it's a long story."
"Well, I don't have much to do this time of night, and I'm about to go on a break and I like chatting with our patrons. They always have interesting stories to tell. So, I've got time for a story. . . There! All fixed."
Lizzie thought to herself, he seems like a really nice man, and I'm dying to tell someone my fortune teller story. "Okay, if you really want to know. It all happened when my friend Miranda and I were walking in Harvard Square. . . . And Lizzie immediately proceeded to tell her story about her encounter with the fortune teller in her excited, mile-a-minute voice. The bellhop just looked on and listened on with a paternal affection for the young woman.
As she finished her story, "And so when the front desk told me Adam the bellhop was coming up to fix the lightbulb, I thought who knows maybe my Adam would be you."
"That's a fascinating story, Ms. McGuire, but sadly, I'm very happily married to my wife. 25 years next week, in fact."
"Congratulations! Yeah, I pretty much figured out you weren't Adam. My Adam, I mean. So, what do you think? Am I being crazy for believing in this crazy fortune telling stuff?"
"Perhaps. What I do know for certain is that love happens under unusual circumstances. My wife and I, I met her as a teenager in the Ukraines, when I accidently fell down an empty watering well outside of my village. Anyway, I was trapped down a 10 foot well and my arm was broken. But, fortunately, my future wife happened to be walking by, heard my shouts for help, and called for help. What I thought was one of the worst things to happen to me turned out to be the best thing in my life."
"That's sweet!"
"The crazy thing is, I had run into an odd little homeless beggar on the street the day before. I gave him some money, and in thanks, he said he was a psychic and he told me that my destiny was inside a watering well. That's why I fell down, because I listened to the beggar and actually tried to see if my destiny was inside a watering hole!"
"That's really interesting. Do you think that beggar really knew your destiny?" Lizzie was definitely intrigued by the man' story.
"Well, the way I think about it, we all have our personal destinies, but, somewhere along the road, we sometimes need a little help to get us on the path we were always meant to take."
"That's beautiful."
"Anyway, I should be going now, Ms. McGuire. It was a pleasure talking with you. Please enjoy your stay here, and if I can be of any further service, please just let the front desk know. Good night. And good luck." The bellhop gave a knowing wink to Lizzie, and walked away.
Lizzie let the door close behind her and went to her bed. She wasn't sleepy anymore, as what just had transpired with her and the bellhop had her alert and excitable.
Can't sleep, what should I do now? Lizzie thought about watching some t.v., but instead, she went to the room desk and turned on her laptop computer. She plugged the modem into the dataport, and waited to get online.
Lizzie had recently come up with an idea for her first romance novel. . .a love story where two lovers meet online in a chatroom. To help herself write her story, Lizzie had been doing research by going into various chatrooms and asking chatters about relationships they had developed through the internet. She just started doing the research last week, and wanted to keep researching for a few additional weeks. She thought, I'm up now, why not do some research on my soon to be best selling romance novel?
Lizzie finally got online, and she entered one of the Yoohoo.com chatrooms. It was a chatroom that she, Miranda, Gordo and other Hillridge High students had used after they graduated from high school, as a way to keep in touch. Lizzie used the chatroom frequently during her freshman year at Boston University, but she rarely went there since she graduated from college. For some reason, though, on this night, she felt compelled to check this chatroom out once more. It had been almost a year since she last used this chatroom.
Lizzie entered the chatroom under her recently created anonymous username "Hilary Duff." When she was conducting research, she always used her Hilary Duff username, and made sure not to reveal personal information about herself to the other chatters. No one knew about her pseudonym, not even Miranda and Gordo. Her plan was to reveal her pen name only after she got her first novel published.
When she was finally logged in, Lizzie quickly scanned to see who was there. There were about 10 usernames, and she didn't recognize anyone. She typed in hello, and immediately began asking questions to the chatters: have you dated someone online? What happened? What was it like when you first met him/her in real life? How did things turn out?
The chatters weren't very open to Lizzie's questions, and most of them were typing inane things and cheesy pick up lines which just made Lizzie roll her eyes. I'm going to seriously snap the next time HotDude2000 asks "Age/Sex/Location" again, thought an exasperated Lizzie.
Lizzie was about to give up, log off, and read a book to help her fall asleep. But just as she was about to exit the chatroom, a new chatter entered the chatroom: Adam Gerbalm.
Lizzie stared at her screen, fixated on the username staring back at her. Adam? Could this be. . .? My Adam?
A heavy sinking feeling of deep recognition began to fill up her inside of her. It's him, she whispered softly to herself.