Chapter Eighteen
After dropping Jackie off at work and getting copies of the photos made, Eric made the half-hour drive from Kenosha to Point Place. The time spent traveling to his former home gave Eric time to think about his conversation with Jackie and the questions that been raised in his mind as a result. As he turned onto Marie Drive, Eric knew that the clarity that he sought would only come from speaking with his parents.
Pulling into the driveway, Eric wasn't at all surprised to find his father out in the garage tinkering with something. While he knew that the garage was his father's domain, Eric also knew and remembered that the main reason that the cost of repairs and replacements to the house had been minimal over the years was due to Red's time as a serviceman in World War Two and Korea. While Eric knew that that sort of life would never have suited him personally, he had a lot of respect for those who embraced it.
Eric shut the engine of and got out of the car. As he closed the door, Red didn't even bother to look up from what he was doing to know who it was. "Son, how was your trip?" he called.
"It went well," Eric answered. 'Finished collecting the last bits and pieces for my book, so I'll spend the next week or so organizing it all before I send it to my editor in L.A. Returned to Wisconsin early yesterday morning. Once I'd had some sleep, a shower and changed my clothes, the very first thing that I did was go and see my girlfriend. Jackie says hello, by the way."
"And how's she doing?"
"Great, actually. She's just finished getting the last of the paperwork signed for a convention that the company she works for is organizing in Chicago. I'll be appearing as one of the guests there, so that'll be a good opportunity to promote my book before it gets released."
Finishing what he was doing, Red laid down his tools on the bench and turned to face his son. "So, now that we have that nicety crap out of the way, what brings to my doorstep, son?"
"Well, I have some news for you and Mom, Dad," Eric answered. "Is she around?"
Red nodded. "She's inside cooking at the moment. Come on, we'll go see if she's got something we can have as well." Eric grinned as he followed his dad. If there was one thing that neither man could say no to, it was Kitty Forman's cooking.
As one of the most senior members of the Ladies of Point Place, or LOPPs as they were more commonly known, Kitty Forman was considered by many of its younger members to be its Grand Dame. As a result of this standing within the ranks, despite a desire to step back and let the younger generation take over, Kitty often found herself on call to step in when others weren't able to step up, so to speak.
While Kitty may have complained and grumbled about the situation over the years, if she was being completely honest with herself, she enjoyed the attention somewhat. With all her children grown up and gone off living their own lives and no grandchildren to dote on, Kitty had used the LOPPs as a substitute to fill that particular void in her life.
Hence the reason that her kitchen was currently and almost completely covered in baked goods. A major fundraiser long on the horizon was just around the corner and the caterer for the event had fallen through at the last moment. When the call had come from the current chair of the LOPPs, Kitty hadn't complained or moaned; she had just put on her gloves, gotten out her baking trays and other assorted equipment and gone straight to work.
So when her husband stepped in with her son coming in behind him, she was glad for the diversion. "Well, Eric, honey, this is a nice surprise," she said, pulling off her cooking mitts before hugging her son and giving him a kiss on the cheek. "How was your trip?"
"It was good, Mom. Got everything done that I wanted to do. Arrived back to Wisconsin yesterday morning," Eric answered, a smile on his face.
"That's great, Eric. And how's Jackie doing?"
Eric grinned this time, knowing full well that – despite no woman every being good enough for her baby boy – Jackie had long become the daughter to the Formans that his sister in a sense had never been. While it was clear that Kitty was still unsure as to whether or not this new relationship between her son and adopted daughter was a good thing or not, both she and Red could already see the signs that this relationship was not the same as the disastrous Forman-Pinciotti marriage. "Jackie's doing fine, Mom. She said to say hello and that once things have settled at work and I've found somewhere more permanent to live, we'll be down for a proper meal."
While not entirely happy with the answer, Kitty knew better than to press the issue. Red took it as his opportunity change the subject. "So, uh, Eric, you said that you drove all this way to talk to me and your mother and to bring some news. Why don't we all grab a seat in the lounge room and you can tell us what that is."
"Sure, Dad." Going into the lounge room, Red sat down in his usual chair while Eric sat down on the sofa seat closest to his father. Kitty went behind the bar and proceeded to get out a beer for her husband and poured a Scotch on the rocks for her son. Bringing them over, both men accepted their drinks; each having a mouthful before setting them down while Kitty joined Eric on the sofa.
"Alright, Eric," Red told him, "so, tell us, what is this news that that you had to talk to both me and your mother about it together?"
While not a vengeful person by nature, there were moments where Eric had always wanted to see his father rendered speechless just for the sheer pleasure of the moment itself. He had a good feeling that this was going to be one of those moments.
"Well, Dad, uh, the reason that I came to see you guys and talk to you both was that, while I was away, I got a call from someone who I hired some time back to do some work for me. A private invesitagtor, as it happens. Anyway, I was ready to head back to Wisconsin when I got a call from her asking me to meet her on my way back."
Eric took a moment to collect his thoughts, mindful of his promise to Laurie not to say anything to their parents about she was. "So, after meeting with the private investigator, who handed me the information that I'd been after for some time, I made a small detour to check the information out."
"Get to the point, Eric," Red growled, his frustration starting to get the better of him. It was a well known fact that Red hated long and lengthy explanations.
Smiling as he reached into his jacket pocket and took out the Polaroid photo him and his sister and placed it on the coffee table, Eric told his parents, "Mom, Dad, I found Laurie."
It took Red a good three to five minutes to finally find his voice, something that Eric thought he would never see again after his sister had married Fez that time to help him stay in the country. While his father grappled with the fact that his eldest child and daughter was still alive and well, Kitty had picked up the photo and examined it closely, not sure whether to believe her son about her errant daughter still being alive.
"How? When?" Red asked, still in a state of shock and disbelief.
"It started when I had happened to have talks with you both about the future just after I came home to help out with things following Dad's accident," Eric answered. "You both mentioned about wanting to know what had happened to Laurie, at the very least knowing that she was still alive and well."
"When I returned to Los Angeles, I spoke with my agent, who put me in contact with a woman named Gerry, who turned out to be very at what she does. Thirteen months later, the investigator came through. I went and visited with Laurie for about two to three hours. We made plans to talk in a couple of weeks via phone so that we can arrange for Jackie and I to be introduced to her partner."
Eric reached into the other pocket inside his jacket and took out an envelope with copies of the photos that Laurie had given him. Opening it, he quickly flicked through the pictures and found one of Laurie with her partner. Handing it to Red, Eric said, "This is him," Eric told him. "His name is Rob and they've been together for the last four years."
As he looked at the photo of a smiling Laurie and the man that made her happy, Red asked, "Do you know much else about him?"
Nodding, Eric replied, "He was in the Army for fifteen years before he was medically discharged. Wasn't told why and didn't ask. Went into security work after he got out and currently works as Duty Operations Manager." Red nodded approvingly, glad that Laurie had found someone solid and dependable.
Red handed the photo over to Kitty, who was surprised but also happy at the same time to see that her daughter had found someone that obviously made her just as happy as Red made her. "How did they meet?" Kitty wanted to know.
"Through Rob's mother, Elaine." Eric found another picture with Elaine in it and gave it to his mother. "Laurie had been staying with Elaine for six months when Rob was discharged and he returned home. They started dating about six months later and became a couple shortly afterwards."
As Red listened to his son talk, he got the sense that there was something else that Eric wasn't telling them. After his son had answered a few more of Kitty's questions, Red looked at his son. "And what else, Eric? You wouldn't be here telling us that you'd found Laurie unless there was more to it."
Looking at his parents, Eric smiled as he remembered that he had promised himself and Jackie before he had dropped her off at work that he wouldn't hold anything back when telling his parents about Laurie. Reaching into the envelope once more, Eric took out the copy of the photo that Gerry had given him and laid it on the table. "Mom, Dad, meet your twin grandchildren, EJ and Stephanie."
Once again, Red was stunned. Kitty was also shocked. To not only learn that their only daughter was alive but that she had had children as well and that they were grandparents, all in one go; it was a lot to take in. Finally, Kitty picked up the photo and looked at it. "Laurie's really a mother?" she asked, still unsure if what she was hearing was the truth.
Eric nodded. "She is. My understanding is that Rob isn't the father, but he's pretty much been around the kids since they were toddlers, so they see him as their dad. The actual father, from what I've been told, is nowhere on the scene and hasn't been seen in years. Most likely never will be, either." After having brought his parents the news that Laurie was alive, that she was a mother to twin children and that his parents were now officially grandparents as well, Eric knew in his heart and soul that now was not the best time to raise the idea/theory that Stephen Hyde was potentially the actual father of their grandchildren. That was something he and Jackie could confirm with Laurie once they had set a date for them to meet Rob and the twins.
He also knew that the next question that they would ask would be the one that would break their hearts. Handing over the envelope with the rest of the photos to his mother, Eric watched and waited as his parents went through the pictures. Kitty got up and went over to Red, handing him some pictures to look at while she looked at the rest.
Eric watched as his parents looked at and saw how their daughter had changed over the years, how she had grown as she had become a mother and matured beyond anything that they had ever expected. Eventually, after trading photos back and forth, Red handed the photos back to Kitty, who went to give them to Eric. Eric shook his head. "It's all good, Mom. I have my own copies."
While Kitty went to place the photos in a new album and add to her ever-growing collection, Red leaned forward in his chair. "So, uh, Eric, did Laurie happen to say or mention at all when she might come by and visit us with her partner and our grandchildren?"
Eric smiled sadly, knowing that the answer he was about to give his father was going to break the older man's heart. "Dad, unfortunately the only answer that I can give you is that she'll return when she's ready to do so. She made it very clear that, right now, Point Place is somewhere that she has no desire to return to until she's good and ready and has discussed it at length with her partner."
"But it's her home! Where she was born and raised!" Red exclaimed, upset, angry and hurt that his daughter didn't want to come home.
"And she knows that, Dad." Eric kept calm as he made the effort to help his father understand. "But you have to remember that, for years, Laurie was regarded by many as someone who got by on her looks and was always looking for a free ride, no matter how she got it. More often than not, it either involved something sexual or illegal or both."
"In my opinion, Dad, Laurie having EJ and Stephanie was a wake-up call that no one else could've given her the way that was needed. From what I understand, when Elaine took her and the kids in, there wasn't that condemnation or judgement that would've come from all of us if she'd returned home with your grandchildren in tow. Elaine gave her an opportunity to be herself and prove herself at the same time. She also helped Laurie out by providing a safe space as well, something again that she wouldn't have gotten if she'd come back home. The old Laurie, the one that I grew up with and remember, is long gone. The one that I visited the other day, the one who I was able to actually sit down with and have a proper conversation with? That's the one I had always hoped to get to know and hopefully will get a chance to do so now as well as my niece and nephew."
It wasn't often that Red was taken by surprise. Eric's defense of his sister in this instance certainly qualified. But, as he sat back in his chair, Red thought long and hard about what his son had said. While it was true that he would always think of Laurie as his baby girl, he also knew that reality was very different. Ther had been several moments as his daughter had gotten older that he had turned a blind eye to her antics, but the illusion had been shattered forever when Laurie had married that foreign idiot. Shortly after they had gotten the marriage annulled, that was when Laurie had taken off for parts unknown, returning only for Eric and Donna's ill-fated first attempt at marriage before vanishing once again.
Now, here was an opportunity to bring his daughter back home to her family. The only thing about the whole situation was that irked Red was the fact that it completely on his daughter's terms and no one else's. That being said, Eric had mentioned that he and Jackie would be would be making arrangements soon to visit Laurie and meet her partner and possibly her children as well. Red had learned long ago to change the things that he could and accept that there were some things he couldn't. Red knew that this was one of those times that he couldn't.
Finally, Red nodded that he understood what Eric was saying to him. "Okay, Eric. As much as I'm going to hate this, we'll do this Laurie's way. I'll explain to your mother as best as I can about how it's all going to work for the time being, but there will come a point where we'll want to meet with Laurie and her family; if for no other reason to know that she's really okay and getting on with her life."
"I'll make sure that I keep you guys updated as best as I can," Eric told his father.
Red nodded again. "That's all your mother and I can ask you to do."
Once Kitty had returned, Eric spent the next hour helping his father console his mother as she tried and failed to understand why she couldn't meet the grandchildren that she'd always wanted. Eventually, it reached that time where Eric knew he had to leave or he wouldn't get any of the other things done that he'd had planned for the rest of the day.
As he made his way out to his car, Red followed him out. Getting in to his vehicle, Eric told his father, "When I know more, I'll call and let you know." As he watched his son pull out of the driveway and leave, Red could only hope that he and Kitty got to see their daughter again and reunite their family as it shoudl always have been. Once Eric was gone, Red looked back at the house and could only wonder at how he was going to explain this to Kitty.
After leaving Point Place and returning to Kenosha, Eric spent the rest of the day doing what he had always intended on doing. After returning to the apartment, Eric spent the rest of the morning on the phone with his agent while making sure that he had the manuscript for his latest book ready to be sent from Wisconsin to California via courier.
Amongst the many things that they discussed, the one item that Eric found the most interesting was that several of his books, including his most recent and first number one bestseller, had been optioned by a major television network with the intention of some, if not all, of those books being the basis for television shows. Intrigued by the offer, Eric quickly agreed to fly out to Los Angeles at the first available opportunity to discuss the offer. Once he'd hung up, his first thought was to ask Jackie to go with him the moment that he had a chance to do so.
After spending another couple of hours making sure that the manuscript was complete and that he had everything in order before he sent it off, Eric finally decided that enough was enough and that it was time to get some food. Leaving the apartment, Eric drove to a nearby bistro where
he ordered himself a steak sandwich, a whisky on the rocks and a newspaper.
Once his drink and the newspaper were brought to him, Eric sat back and opened the paper up. Immediately finding the real estate section, Eric began scanning the various advertisements. In his mind, he knew exactly what is was that he was looking for: something that combined the feeling of home that he'd had for all those years growing up combined with an openness that you couldn't in the city or the suburbs.
Pausing his search when his meal arrived, Eric quickly devoured the food before resuming the hunt. It eventually took him another hour and three more drinks to realise that what he was looking for wasn't going to be found in the local newspaper. Paying the check and leaving a hefty tip for the waitress, Eric went back to his car, got in and drove into the heart of Kenosha; keeping an eye for real estate. Eric knew that he would know what he was looking for when he saw it, but until then, it was game on.
By the time that five o'clock rolled around, Jackie was exhausted. The euphoria of the previous day had given way to the hard grind that came afterwards. Eric was pulled up next to the kerb, waiting for her when she walked out the door of the office building. A huge grin broke out across her face when she saw her boyfriend. Walking over, Jackie opened the car door and got in.
Leaning over and kissing her man, Jackie eventually released Eric from the lip lock. "This is the best moment of my day," she said, the stress of the day starting to drain out of her.
"Well, if I'd known you were that easy, I'd've started coming by ages ago," Eric teased lightly with a smile on his face. Jackie faked a look of outrage on her face as she whacked Eric across the shoulder.
"You goof!" Eric laughed as Jackie playfully attacked him. "I'd like to see you try and do my job for just one day!"
"No, but thanks," Eric told her, continuing to laugh, "I'll just stick to what I know. But, how was your day?"
Settling down into the passenger seat, Jackie groaned as she slipped her shoes off. "Tiring. It was one meeting after another all day. Barely even had time to fit in some lunch before getting caught up in yet another meeting."
"This to do with the convention?"
Jackie nodded. "Since we signed the paperwork yesterday, everything's moving ahead a mile a minute. I think that is that moment that will either make or break us, so I'm determined to make the best of it." As Eric pulled away from the kerb and into traffic, Jackie suddenly remembered that he was supposed to have visited his parents and let them know about their daughter. "Hey, did you end up going down to Point Place to see Red and Kitty?"
As he seamlessly wove his through the madhouse that was the afternoon rush, Eric nodded. "I did," he said.
Jackie waited for him to answer. "And?" she finally asked with some exasperation in her voice.
Grinning, Eric told her, "It went about as well as I expected. The only thing I didn't bring up was the possibility of Hyde being the father of Laurie's kids. I know that, from some of the things that Mom's told me, Dad feels like he failed when Hyde went off the rails and W.B. had to have him committed. It apparently weighs on him heavily, so I'm not sure how this would affect him. I want us to talk to Laurie before we say or do anything stupid that gets us into the sort of trouble that we can't get out of, okay?"
Nodding her agreement, Jackie then asked, "And what about the rest of the day?"
"After coming back from my parents' place, I spent a couple of hours sorting out my manuscript and getting it ready to be sent to L.A. That being said, I may just fly it out personally to my agent over there and you could come with me if you wanted. That, of course, would be entirely up to you."
Stunned by the thought of going to the centre of entertainment in the United States on a holiday with Eric, Jackie could only listen as he told her about the rest of how his day had gone. It was when Eric reached the part of his story about hunting for somewhere to live that Jackie was able to break free of whatever spell that she was under and ask, "Are you telling me that you went looking for our new home without me?"
Alarm bells sounded in Eric's mind as he recognized the danger that emanated from the quiet way that Jackie spoke. Carefully rounding the corner as he turned into the parking lot of the apartment building, he saw the dangerous glint in Jackie's eyes. "I started to," Eric replied. Seeing that she was about to explode, he quickly added, "But, I stopped when I realized that the one thing that I hadn't done yet was speak to you about it and find out what ideas you might have about what we could build into our dream home."
'Dream home?' The words stopped Jackie cold from exploding at Eric. As her boyfriend parked the car in a guest space, Jackie quickly processed what Eric had just said. After he had shut off the engine, Jackie looked at Eric square in the eye. "Was what you just said completely serious?" she asked him.
Taking the keys out of the ignition and placing them in his pocket, Eric turned to face his girlfriend properly. "Jackie, I have never been more sure in my life about anything," he answered, his face with the most serious look on it that she had ever seen. "I want to build a life with you, Jacqueline Burkhart. In order for us to do that, I think that we have to begin by making a home that is all ours and not having belonged to someone else at one time or another. I know that my parents would love for me to return to Point Place and move into the family home. I may even buy it from them so that they can really retire and travel around the country like they had always planned."
"But, for me, that's a home that already comes with so many memories. Some of them, not so good, either. What I want for us and our children, if and when we have them, is make new, fresh memories that don't have the taint of the past or the past watching us as we try to move forward with our lives."
Jackie looked at Eric, realizing that he wasn't just seeing a future with just themselves in it, but a future where they had children and grew old together over the course of having lived a full life as a married couple. Staring at him for a brief moment, Jackie reached over, cupped his face with her hands, drew him close to her and gave him a kiss filled with a passion and sensual eroticism that neither had ever experienced before. Later on, they would both reflect on the kiss as a recognition of the path that their lives were taking together; a merging of two halves into a complete union.
Eventually, the couple released each other from the torrid embrace. Breathing heavily, Jackie and Eric looked at one another for a moment before Jackie said, "I think that what we should do now is go up and, while we get dinner ready, talk about what we want to go into this home we're going to build."
Eric grinned as he looked back at the tiny spitfire and replied, "Sounds like a plan."
The next three months were a flurry of activity as Jackie and Eric slowly but firmly and completely solidified their relationship. While searching for the perfect place to build their dream home, Eric moved into Jackie's apartment, the couple turning what had once been a place to rest and recover into a proper place to come home to each night.
As Jackie continued working on various events and building her reputation in the events industry, Eric started working on his next book. Deciding that it would be a sequel to 'The Last Duke of Milan', the plot line was something that Eric had been thinking about while he'd been away on his research trip. He'd let Dixon Westmore, his agent, know this when he'd flown with Jackie to Los Angeles for a two-day trip three weeks after he'd gotten back from his research trip.
To say that Dix was ecstatically over the moon about the news was putting it mildly. Ever since the release of the book five years ago, the agent had been inundated with reams of fan mail asking about a sequel to the wildly popular book. Dix had even asked Eric about the idea of a sequel himself on a number of occasions.
Eric's response had always been the same over years: unless inspiration hit him, the book was a stand-alone one-off. Having written 'Death By Starlight' as the first book in a series, he'd been surprised when some of the ideas that he'd been thinking about had coalesced into the idea that was now the basis for the main plot of the book. He'd even come up with a title for the new book: 'The Last King of America'.
At the same time that he was meeting with Dix about the new book and also to discuss the potential optioning of his books as works for film and television, Jackie and Eric began the process of transferring Eric's life from Los Angeles back to Wisconsin. He also made sure that he introduced Jackie to Dix as well, so that in the event that if anything ever happened to him, Dix would know who to talk to.
As time slowly made its way towards summer, the other event that loomed large in the minds of the young couple was the trip to St Paul to see Laurie and be introduced to her partner Rob and her children EJ and Steph. Despite the subtle hints that Kitty dropped about wanting to go with them, when Eric had spoken to his sister, the agreement that the siblings had made back in Cannon Falls was still firmly in place as far as they were both concerned.
After several phone calls back and forth, a time, date and place was set for it all to happen. They would be staying at the Hyatt for two nights, arriving Friday night and leaving Sunday afternoon at the end of the first week of summer break. Eric had paid for rooms for Laurie and Rob and the kids as well, to save them from driving back and forth between Cannon Falls and St Paul. Elaine was coming with them to watch over them while Rob was introduced to Eric and Jackie at lunch on Saturday. EJ and Steph would officially meet their uncle and future aunt at dinner later that evening.
Over the course of the three months, Eric and Laurie had started to develop a sibling relationship of a sort that both knew would never have been possible when they were growing up. While it wasn't where it could or should've been, Jackie had encouraged Eric to keep moving forward by keeping the conversations simple, short and to the point to begin with. She knew that, eventually, the Forman siblings would move past the awkwardness that they were both feeling and become the brother and sister to one another that she had always known that they could be.
Interestingly enough, Jackie herself had started to develop a phone friendship with the elder Forman sibling as well, having answered the phone on a few occasions to find Laurie on the other end. The first time had been a shock, never actually having expected to hear her old enemy's voice ever again. But, little by little, whenever the two women spoke with one another, the conversations grew from stilted one or two word sentence phrases to full blown talks that nearly lasted for an hour.
The friendship between the two women had now grown to the point as well where a weekly phone call would take place every Thursday evening. Similar to how she and Eric had reconnected, Jackie had suggested the idea to Laurie as a way to build a new relationship going forward. Laurie had immediately jumped at the idea, seeing it as way to move on from the past and to find out what else was different about her home in the decade since she had last been there.
When the week leading up to their trip arrived, both Jackie and Eric began to feel themselves on edge about everything. While Eric occupied himself by working on the manuscript for his new novel, Jackie did the same by ensuring that the last remaining details for the upcoming event were taken care of.
Despite her misgivings, Jackie had appointed Pam Macy to her inner circle again. Having learnt a valuable lesson after the last debacle that she had caused, Pam had accepted Jackie's offer after she had been forewarned by Tim that the opportunity being presented to her was also be her last. If Pam screwed up at any point, she would pulled form the promotion grid permanently and be blacklisted from advancing to a management level in any way, shape or form.
Realizing that her looks would not save her this time like they had done so in the past, Pam's attitude to a great many things changed as she slowly learnt under Jackie's tutelage. While the number of friends that she'd had dwindled, her work ethic improved dramatically. She also found that by applying what she'd learned from her former nemesis, a number of deals that she had closed in recent months were working out far better than ones that she had closed prior to the incident.
The most surprising thing of all to happen was that Pam had recently been spotted in the society that was not an uncommon thing, what had been surprising was who it was that she had been spotted with and what they were doing. More notorious for the antics that had long been a major part of her life, the writer of the column had expressed her shock and surprise when spotting Pam on what appeared to be an actual date with with someone who not only the complete opposite of who she usually dated, but it also appeared that Pam was also announcing to everyone that she was gay.
As Pam would later tell her in confidence, the pressure of late that had started to come from her mother to settle down and start having children had caused her to face certain feelings that she'd been suppressing since high school. As she later discovered through therapy, one of the main reasons for her hostility towards so many of the other women she had gone to school with was due to the fact that she had struggled to understand that what she was feeling was an attraction and desire for other women.
Out of curiosity more than anything, Jackie had asked Pam just who she was attracted to back then and still attracted her now. Pam had smiled and told her that while Jackie herself had never made the list, Donna had. Jackie had initially giggled at the thought of Donna and Pam in bed together, but as she thought about it, she could see and understand what it was about the lumberjack that attracted Pam to her. Donna exuded power and confidence, strength and determination; qualities that sat at the core of a dominant personality.
Realizing that Pam was entering a new phase in her life and displaying a new level of maturity, both professionally and personally, Jackie had congratulated her on moving forward and wished her nothing but success for the future. While the two would never be friends in the true sense of the word, there was however a newfound respect for another that hadn't been there before.
To show that Pam had earned that respect and to show that there was trust as well, Jackie had decided to leave Pam in charge as Acting Director while she was gone. While the trip was only for three days and no major events were taking place, Jackie and Pam both saw the timing as an opportunity to determine whether or not Pam was management-level material. Despite the misgivings, Jackie was still confident in Pam's abilities. Confident enough, in fact, that Jackie decided to start her leave a day early.
She and Eric decided to spend the extra time looking for the place to build their dream home, but nothing had revealed itself to them as yet. Leaving the hunt for when they returned home, the couple readied themselves for the weekend away and left just after lunch to go to the airport. After passing through check in and handing over their luggage, they boarded the aircraft; being escorted to their seats in the first class section. Though the flight from Kenosha to St Paul was a short one, Jackie enjoyed every moment of it that she possibly could; taking full advantage of all the perks that she could. After touching down, they disembarked and after collecting their luggage, they quickly got into a limousine that had been sent by the Hyatt to take them straight to the hotel.
Arriving at the hotel, Jackie could only gasp as she exited the limousine and cast her gaze upon the palatial edifice standing before her. Eric could only grin as he followed behind her, the couple entering the lobby and being ushered over to the concierge's desk where they were checked in. They were then escorted up to their room by the manager, riding the elevator nearly to the top before stopping. Stepping off, the manager beckoned for them to follow her into the room.
Once again, Jackie gasped and Eric grinned as the tiny brunette was stunned with awe by what she was seeing, While not as stylish as the suite that they'd stayed in at the Hilton, there was a sense of elegance that Jackie fell in love almost immediately. As Jackie explored the suite, Eric thanked the concierge with a generous tip and a reminder to let him know when the rest of his party had checked in.
The rest of the evening was spent settling in and relaxing. Unable to make up her mind after having gone through the menu several times over, Jackie handed the folder over to Eric, who simply picked up the phone and, after seeing a few items on the menu that he'd had before that he knew wouldn't have, placed their order with the kitchen. Turning his attention back to Jackie, Eric joined his girlfriend on the oversized lounge that sat in the middle of the suite where she sat watching the latest episode of 'Quantum Leap'.
Snuggling up together, they got half way though the episode before there was a knock on the door. While Jackie was loath to let Eric get up, he knew that if he didn't answer it, they were liable to go hungry for a good while before they brought anything around again. Disentangling himself, Eric got to his feet and grabbed his wallet off the coffee table before going and opening the door.
Jackie's grumpiness quickly evaporated when she saw the trolley that was wheeled in by the busboy. On it sat a variety of food, a selection of hot, cold, sweet and savory items for the couple to pick and choose from. Jackie quickly relieved the busboy of the trolley, wheeling it over next to the couch and placing the plates of food on the table. As Eric tipped the young man, he was quietly informed that the rest of his party had finally checked in.
While he slightly surprised to hear this, Eric was also glad that Laurie and her family had come. A small part of him had been unsure if she would actually make the journey, but Eric knew that his sister was not one to back away from a challenge. After the busboy had left, Eric rejoined Jackie on the couch, grabbing some food as he settled back in.
Once they were both comfortable, Eric said quietly, "They're here."
Jackie looked at Eric before she leaned into him, leaned her head on his chest and said nothing; smiling as he stroked her hair. As she started to fully relax in his arms, Jackie saw what was about to happen as an opportunity to not only help heal Eric and his family, but to also heal the scars of the past and to move forward into the future. Completely settled in next to the man that she love with all her heart, Jackie couldn't wait for what was to come.
The morning saw the couple enjoy a very lengthy lie-in as they both realized that it was the first time in a very long time that neither one of them had had to worry about anything else when getting up. This made the decision to stay in bed for a while longer just that bit easier to make.
Eventually, however, Eric and Jackie rose from the safety of their warm bed to begin the day, no matter how late it was. After they had showered and dressed, Eric saw that they had some time before they were to meet Laurie and Rob downstairs for lunch. "Feel like going for a walk before we do this?" he asked.
"Sure," Jackie answered. "Some fresh air might help."
Making their way down to the lobby, Eric took Jackie for a quick tour of St Paul, opting not to stray too far from the hotel. Summer break had fully taken effect, with parents and children alike traveling far and wide for the holidays. Taking Jackie to see a few of the places that he'd discovered during his travels, Eric felt bad that he couldn't show her the city the way that he wanted to. But, as he knew all too well, they were in St Paul for a purpose and the priority was to hopefully achieve something that he had never imagined even possible.
After an hour or so, Eric and Jackie returned to the hotel to get ready for lunch with Laurie and Rob. After returning to the room to make some last minute changes and adjustments, they made their way back down to the restaurant and checked in with the maitre'd, who escorted them to their table. As he watched Jackie be seated before he sat down himself, Eric immediately placed a drinks order with their waiter. Jackie giggled, noticing how nervous her man was. As they sat there waiting, Eric could only wonder if Laurie or her partner was as nervous about this meeting as he was right at that moment.
A/N: Apologies for taking so long to get this chapter finished and posted. I injured my left hand and wrist at work about three weeks ago, making typing a lot more difficult to do when your hand will only do so much at certain angles as a result of having to wear a brace. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I look forward to the comments.
