Chapter 29

The sun cast the sky in bright pink and orange colors as the plane
flew in the late afternoon sky. Corinne took a picture of the sky,
before turning her face away from the view in the window and looked
down at the script she was holding. The past few months had been
amazing. She would be graduating in two weeks, her job at the WWF was
absolutely stable and she would be receiving a paycheck she never
dreamed she would get right out of college. And Jeff was the most
wonderful boyfriend a girl could ever ask for. She sighed as a memory
flew into her mind of Jeff visiting her on campus the week before, and
she had walked with him around campus in the middle of the night. She
had never fully appreciated the beauty of her school until that night.
As the plane began it's descent she carefully placed the script back
into her bag and pulled out another business proposal Stephanie had
asked her to look over.

Jeff adjusted his glasses and fisherman hat on his head as he waited
in the airport for Corinne's flight to come in. He had driven all
night long from North Carolina to surprise her, knowing that she was
flying in from Chicago to New York today to do a photo shoot in the
Stamford office. He smiled as he caught sight of her walking
distractedly out of the walkway connected to the plane.

"Hey there miss, may I have an autograph please?" Jeff said smiling as
her brown eyes lit up when she realized it was he.

"Oh my god! Jeff!" She said, dropping her bag and hugging him.

"Hey sweetie. I missed you too much to wait until next Tuesday to see
you."

"I missed you too. I was just about to call you."

"Good, cause the whole time I was thinking about how much I wanted to
hear your voice." Jeff said, picking up her bag for her.
"You're so sweet." She leaned up for a kiss before they began to walk
out of the airport.

As they got into Jeff's wrangler, Corinne's cell phone began to ring.

"Hello? Dad?"

"Hi Corinne."

"Hi...how are you?" Corinne said hesitantly, Jeff reached for her
other hand and gave it a gentle squeeze of support.

"I'm fine. We got the plane tickets for your graduation yesterday."

"Oh, I'm glad. Umm, if you don't want to go..."

"No, we're going. Look I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

"I am proud of you. I hope that you always knew that, even if I didn't
always support you, I've always been proud of you."

A tear ran down Corinne's cheek as she listened to her father's voice
say that one thing that she'd always dreamed he'd say.

"Thanks Dad...I love you too." Corinne hung up the phone slowly.
"Are you okay?" Jeff asked concernedly.

"He said he was proud of me." Corinne said, smiling up at him.