Ch. 3: A Box of Pictures and Memories

Back then, we had no worries….

"Hee-hee! Wait up Benji! I can't run as fast as you can!

"That's because I'm Superman!"

"Superman, who's that?"
"Jiminy, you don't know who Superman is!"

"No, who is he?"

"Why he's the greatest superhero of all time!"

"Oh wow, well then if you're Superman, than I'm Superwoman!"

"Ha-ha, well then, let's go fight crime Superwoman!"

"Okay, but if you're Superman and I'm Superwoman does that mean that we're married?"

"Hmm, I've never thought of it before. I guess it does make us married. Well then, we'll be the best superhero couple ever!"

"Yay!"

Sunlight filtered through the thin cotton blinds of Anne's hotel room. She woke up with a deep sigh. She felt a bit homesick, the only thing was, she didn't miss England at all; it was Ben's apartment that she missed. "Oh," exclaimed Anne with a small bit of surprise, "Ben gave me a key to his apartment last night!" With a quick jump, Anne was out of bed and searching for the key. After frantically searching under the bed and the small bathroom for her treasure Anne remembered that there was a small chest of drawers in the room. She dashed over to the chest as if her life depended on it. In a way, at least to her, it did. The key was sitting on top of the chest along with her purse and a few stray coins. After a few minutes of just standing there and gripping the key as if she were going to lose it, Anne regained her composure and went to wash up and change. "Well," exclaimed Anne to herself, "I guess I'm ready!"

"Hey," shouted a voice from below Anne's feet along with a sharp tapping sound that seemed to be coming from a broomstick, "shadup will ya? Some people are tryin' to sleep down here!"

"Oh, sorry about that sir," shouted Anne down at the floor.

"SHADUP!"

"Oh, uhm…sorry," replied Anne more softly.

"Oh my, what a rude man! I guess America really is a brutish selfish place like my father said it was," thought Anne as she locked her room's door and walked downstairs. "Well, I wonder what I should do while waiting for Ben to get off work?"

"Well there's lots to do m'dear, it seems that you're not from America are ye'?

"What? Who said that," asked Anne to the entire room.

"I did m'dear," a large plump woman from behind the front desk was smiling at Anne, "M'name is Mrs. O'Malley, I'm the owner of this hotel."

"Oh, hello ma'am," replied Anne with a slight curtsey, "my name is Anne Meredith Brison."

"Well, nice to meet ye Anne," said Mrs. O'Malley with a large smile, "I heard you're question Anne and believe I have an answer!"

"My question? What question was that ma'am," asked Anne somewhat confused.

Mrs. O'Malley let out a great big laugh that made her long brown curls bounce, "The question on what to do! Not to fast are ye? Well then, New York has some wonderful clothing shops uptown and some charming little boutiques a few blocks from here."

"Oh you mean shopping?"

Mrs. O'Malley let out another deep laugh and replied, "Why of course I mean shopping dear! So, whaddya say?"

"Well, uhm… shopping sounds lovely."

"Oh, well that's perfect then! Here ya go Anne," Mrs. O'Malley reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a few crisp yet slightly wrinkled dollar bills, "would you mind picking me up a wee somethin' from one of the nearby shops?"

"Oh, of course! What would you like," asked Anne.

"A bottle of Sucré Fleurir Odeur! I love the way it smells but I hardly have the time to go and get it! If it's not to much trouble of course…"

"Oh, no trouble at all ma'am!"

"Please, call me Mrs. O'Malley"

"Yes ma-I mean, Mrs. O'Malley, I'll pick you up a bottle of Sucré Fleurir Odeur on my way back," replied Anne as she took the money.

"Ah, thank ye darlin', now then, be off and enjoy the day," replied Mrs. O'Malley as she gave a large beaming smile.

"Oh I will! And I promise not to let you down," exclaimed Anne as she ran outside into the warm sunny day.

The sunlight greeted Anne with its usual cheer and warmth. Today however the sun was accompanied by the clouds and they did not seem as happy as the sun was. Anne however, did not seem to notice this as she had begun to quickly walk up the street to some of the clothing shops that Mrs. O'Malley had told her about. "Later," thought Anne out loud, "I have to remember to go and get Mrs. O'Malley's perfume. I have to do it before Ben gets home though." With a small gasp, Anne stopped walking and just stood in the middle of the sidewalk in what seemed like shock. "W-why do I feel as though I need to finish my errand before Ben gets home? I don't even know him! Why do I feel this sense of being near him? All he did was stop me from killing that man yesterday. Besides, it's highly unlikely that he's the Ben that I'm looking for!" As if reassuring herself, "Right, there is no way that I instantly found the boy from my dreams. Yesterday was all just a coincidence." With that thought in mind, Anne continued on to the clothing shops up the street.

Anne, being the shop-happy woman that she was, practically bought the entire clothing store. By the time she went back outside, the sun had done quite a bit of traveling across the sky, as if an attempt to escape the army of grey clouds that were now nearly black and about to burst forth with an ocean of water that seemed to promise a flood. "My, that was fun. I guess I should get to Ben's now," Anne looked up at the ominous sky, "before the rain comes." Anne started to quickly walk down the street back towards the inn and Ben's apartment. "I wonder if Ben will mind if I take some food from his refrigerator. Hopefully I can make a decent meal for us from what slop he probably has in there."

Anne let herself in to Ben's apartment and set her bags on the floor in the living room. She then set about the kitchen. After looking around and then evaluating what she had to work with, Anne stood in the middle and said, "Well, I honestly know that…I can't cook." For a moment there she just stood in the kitchen with a confused look on her face, then slowly, as if the drain to a bathtub had only been removed a small bit, she began to leak tears. What type of woman am I? , she thought, I can't even cook! What if Ben is the boy I've been looking for? What if he does remember me? What if we fall in love and then get married! What then? Would he accept me as I am? A scared little girl who knows nearly nothing about him and can't even cook food for her husband! "I'm pathetic!"

"I wouldn't say pathetic, only snobbish, rude, self-centered, arrogant, and hostile."

Anne's head whirled around and Ben stepped back in fright thinking that she had just given herself whiplash from the quick movement. "Ben? Wh-when did you get home? I didn't here you come in!"

"Well, you left the door open so," he walked over and picked her up, his work gloves were still on and he had a rough feel, but smelled of fresh leather. Anne stood there in his arms, her eyes closed and her face filled with that delightfully wonderful scent that Anne loved. "Anne, are you okay?"

"Oh," Anne quickly snapped out of her trance, "I'm fine! Sorry, you were saying?"

"I said that you left the door open so I came in quietly to surprise you."

"Oh," Surprise me? We only just met yesterday! Don't only couples do that? Maybe we have known each other longer than that… "W-well, surprise me you did! You…well…yes…uhm…surprised me all right!"

Ben asked with a sad, almost heart-broken look in his dark, almost amber-colored eyes. "Why were you on the floor crying?"

"I-I-"Until now Anne didn't really notice Ben's appearance all that much. She wasn't sure why, for some reason though, she hadn't paid him much mind. Now however, with him looking at her with those eyes of his, she could see all that she had left out. "I was…hm…well….the…kitchen…and…"

"Oh," exclaimed Ben, his eyes immediately lighting up to a now almost gold color, and his tanned skin drawing a small pinkish haze around his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. "Were you having trouble with the stove? It's hard to light it sometimes, don't worry about it though I'll fix dinner." He said this while looking over at all the bags that Anne had brought in. "It seems that you've had a busy day, eh?" He gave a small chuckle then went to the kitchen and began to light the stove.

"Well….I….wait! Are you sure you want to coo-"Anne again, noticed more about Ben. He walked with a sort of tom-cattish gait. As if he could be suave to the one's he loved, suave enough to ask for money and receive gold mines, but with that tenseness that could be unleashed into pure rage against those who tried to endanger his mate. His hair was a dusty brown with some lighter tan colors that made him look striped with faded gold. He stood at 5'10" while Anne was only 5'3" and seemed to have that look of deep concentration when he wasn't talking or addressing anyone except himself. "Ben, if it's not to much trouble may I use your powder room?"

Ben hit his head against the stove as he looked back at Anne. "My what?" he exclaimed with a confused look on his dusty face.

"You're powder room. It's your…uhm…..well..." Anne wasn't sure how to explain a powder room to Ben.

Ben's then seemed to understand and said, "If you mean my bathroom it's down the hall and to the left once you get into my bedroom."

"Thank you…uhm….I'll….just go there….then…" Anne said with an awkward tone.

As she made her way to the bedroom she could hear Ben whistling as he tried to light the stove. Anne slowly opened p the door and peeked in, unsure of what she might find. The room was dark and the only sounds aside from the whistling Ben in the kitchen and the Anne's own breathing was the sound of the city that was quietly drifting through a half closed window across the room. Bens bedroom was surprisingly crowded in contrast with the rest of his apartment. Aside from a chipped ornate headboard the bed had faded white sheets with two flattened pillows and a few weather-worn blankets. On the far end of the room there was a wooden dresser that resembled the headboard. The dresser however had clothes sticking out of the drawers. There was a small chipped lamp on an end-table to the left of his bed. The lamp was a brushed faux gold that was peeling away to reveal the greenish silver nickel underneath along with a chipped opaque ceramic shade. The bulb inside the lamp was a stark white bulb that probably emitted a yellow light instead of a white one.

She walked into the room and quickly turned around to see the back of the door. Her father in England had once told her that American men were pigs that usually had pictures of naked girls strung about their houses to excite them. Anne however saw no nude pictures of girls on the back of Ben's door, and on closer inspection of the bed, under the mattress. She wasn't trying to snoop, she was just trying to disprove myths that her father hat told her. In a matter of minutes Anne had gone through almost every drawer in the room in search of something to confirm that this was the Ben she had been looking for. Her Ben, The Ben, the only Ben for her that her father had forbidden her to write to. However, all she found was normal bedroom things. With a heavy sigh she went to the bathroom and turned on the sink so that whoever that Ben out there in the kitchen was wouldn't hear her sobbing.

"Anne, are you okay in there," called Ben from the kitchen, "you've been in there for over fifteen minutes."

Anne opened the door to the bathroom, her face wet with a mixture of water from the sink and the water from her eyes, "I'm fine. Don't you know not to ask what a lady does in the bathroom," she called back with an annoyed tone.

Ben chuckled and responded, "Sorry, I guess the Queen doesn't need to be mothered as much as she is then."

Anne was on her way to the kitchen when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. At the base of the lamp on the nightstand there was a small outline for a drawer. She must've missed it when she was searching the room for nude picture of girls. It was a small drawer, maybe only four inches wide, but about six inches long to form the base of the lamp. Anne looked at it curiously like a cat looks at a string being dangled in front of it's face. The switch for the lamp was in the middle of the drawer so instinctively she pulled it instead of turning it. The drawer came out to about five and a half inches before being stopped by something. It was overstuffed with frayed and worn papers that almost seemed to breathe when released from their home. Anne sat on Ben's bed, which was firm yet worn and comfortable and examined the contents of the drawer.