While stationed overseas in my early twenties I met and began dating a 19 year old girl from Frankfurt. That in and of itself is not significant, her being a skinny thing one would think you'd split in two if you had intercourse with her was. I'm no porn star, but am on the high side of average. Not only did she take everything I had to offer, once she was used to me she did so with gusto. We ravaged one another for nearly fifteen months before I rotated. We stayed in contact for a short season, then lost touch. Ironically, she found me through my daughters face book page. She married, had five kids and is a grandma eleven times over. If I ever return to Germany she insists we get in touch for coffee.
Brittany
When did that skinny girl down the street become a woman? I wondered to myself.
It was the third time she'd walked down the sidewalk in front of the shop in less than a half hour, she would search the window in my office hoping to see me at my computer and wave. Her name is Brittany, I've known her since I was a few months shy of twenty and she was sixteen running around with my younger sister, who had since gone into the Navy upon graduation. Brittany decided to stay home with her ailing mother and take online courses for accounting. Her dad had split after it was discovered her mother had terminal cancer which was eighteen months ago.
The divorce was quick and severe for him, when his abandonment was considered by the judge it didn't sit well, to top it off her mom's attorney brought out the fact that he was already living with a new woman much younger and pregnant. Though infidelity was not supposed to be grounds for divorce in our state just hearing about it on top of the rest made a difference in the settlement. Say what you will about justice supposedly being unbiased but when that female judge was done hearing all the facts, she dropped the hammer on Brittany's dad. A ravenous lawyer could have appealed the decision which would only add to his already insurmountable legal fees. He tucked tail and slithered away.
Her dad wisely let it drop and paid out half of everything making her mom not wealthy but comfortable. When her mom passed on Brittany would have enough in a trust to live in the house she grew up in. She had no siblings, everything would go to her, house included. I, on the other hand, was a young man of twenty-four struggling to make a business work. I'd grown up on the side street adjacent to my building which was located on the last street zoned commercial with everything beyond zoned residential for miles.
Those subdivisions had been built in the sixties and seventies, the streets were lined with large Maple trees overhanging the road as well as mature trees of all sorts in the yards. Our childhood home was about halfway down that mile-long street, I now live at the back of my business at one end of the street, the other end butts with another main drag a mile away. Since the school bus stopped at both ends the kids could decide which they wanted to take but had to take that bus the entire school season. My sister and I had always gotten the bus on the end of the street where my business now was.
Considering our parents had died when we were young, we had been raised on that street with our grandparents. I had been taking business management classes at the local community college while working part time at a cabinet making shop. By the time my sister graduated and went into the Navy our grandparents were at a stage in life where they wanted to sell and move to a warmer climate, namely southern Alabama where she was from.
When they moved I chose to live in one of those rent by the week or month places, you've seen the sign in front of apartment complexes. One-bedroom apartments starting at $399 a month, I lucked out and found one of the nicer facilities, there was no pool or any amenities like that, but it was clean and well-lit for security purposes. A retired Army major had bought it and catered to the local military base personnel, I happened to get a one bedroom. Next to me was a young Polynesian girl who attended the local university. How I was able to buy the building my business was in and ultimately start the business is mostly because of her.
There were no laundry facilities on site, the old laundry had been torn out and the new area was weeks away from being finished. Fortunately, there was a twenty-four-hour laundromat a block and a half away. I bought one of those wagons with big pneumatic tires like you see at nursery centers. I used that to cart my laundry down the street and back, it made more sense than driving my truck a block and a half. I'd met and conversed with Kalama several times in the mornings as we were leaving for school, on a Thursday evening I had loaded my wagon and was about to make my way to the laundromat when she walked out of her apartment. She commented on my wagon and said she wished she felt safe enough to do something like that.
You know what my response was, "toss your laundry bag on with mine and we can walk together". Over the following weeks and months we became well acquainted, not in a romantic way, just close friends, it was early April when I noticed a significant change in Kalama, she was moody, more tired than usual, dressing what seemed sloppily for her. I was talking about it with a new mom in my econ class when the light bulb was turned on, not by me, by my friend, Kalama was pregnant.
Thursday evenings seemed to be the slowest time at the laundry so we always went about nine, as we were waiting for the dryers I asked her.
"How far along are you?"
I thought her eyes were going to bug out of her head, with a panicked look she began to cry. When I put my arm around her shoulders she slumped to my chest and sobbed. It lasted about five minutes, she took a deep breath, sat up and faced me.
"I'm four months, is it really that noticeable? I've tried so hard to hide it."
"Oh, there's no baby bump that I see, but being around you every week I noticed the changes in your behavior. I was talking to a girl in class who happens to be a new mom and she told me it sounded like you were pregnant. Otherwise I wouldn't have known."
She sat up straight and looked about the room as though she were contemplating before she spoke. Hanging her head and quickly picking it up she looked at me.
"When school is done in late May I will not be around for people to see my big tummy, daddy is having me flown home to Bora Bora.
"What? You live on Bora Bora?"
She sniffled and blew her nose yet another time, "Yes, my parents own several deluxe above the water cabins, they're on stilts about twelve feet above the ocean. He will send men to take me home. They will be a welcome sight."
Now I was completely confused, "So... you're telling me that your parents are wealthy and will send people to move you back home after graduation?" She nodded. "Then why the hell are you living in a dinky single apartment with no laundry when you could be living in a condo or on campus?"