Dont Judge Me Ch 18

"Good morning," I experimented, not know exactly what might be going on.

"Good morning, dear," Miss Havisham responded in an oblique tone.

I felt like we we circling something, a kind of tension, and I didn't know what it was. The birds twittered unconcerned, and the breeze kept moving through the high branches of the trees, but down here in this conversation there was something amiss.

"Is... everything ok?" I figured I'd just go for it.

Miss Havisham studied my face. By now I was adept at maintaining a mental shield, but I had it set to a reasonably open posture at the surface. She knew I had control of it though, so I suppose she wasn't going to take me at face (or mind) value.

"Walk with me," she offered, standing and lifting the picnic basket. We began walking at a slow pace up the path.

"Should we wait for Angelo?" I asked, wondering if she had remembered she invited him.

She shot me an ambiguous look and pursed her lips. We didn't stop walking.

"Miss Havisham, what's going on?" I pressed.

"Well, my dear," she looked at me with concern. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

I was lost. What else could I say, but, "Why? What's wrong?"

She breathed a deep sigh and began, "Angelo came to see me early this morning."

You know that feeling you get? The one that creeps up your neck and into your jaw, like a sort of heat, but with a shot of adrenaline? It's really unpleasant. It's the feeling of rising dread. Well, that feeling there, that's what I felt.

I didn't say anything. I may have held my breath.

She turned to me and we stopped in the middle of the path. "Angelo resigned this morning. He left. He didn't tell me why. He just said it was something he had to do."

That "dread" feeling turned into a new feeling. The kind you get when you're sucked out of an airliner at 30,000ft and you're falling and suffocating and freezing to death, all at the same time, and you can't scream because there's no air in your lungs, and nobody would hear you anyway. Know the one? Neither did I, until that moment right there. Sidebar here: I no longer prefer the window seat when I fly. Don't judge me.

I couldn't speak. For starters, I wasn't breathing. My mouth hung open in shock and disbelief. My mind cartwheeled. The earth opened beneath my feet and I fell into a large chasm, fatally impaled on the sharp rocks below, and then the earth closed over and swallowed me up and I was never heard from again. Or at least, that's what I wanted. Anything but this.

My incoherent shock must have been convincing, because Miss Havisham no longer eyed me with ambiguity. Now she just dropped the picnic basket, reached out, and embraced me. And I wept in her arms.

I mean I wept. Oh, my goodness. I was coughing up the sobs, my face was pouring tears and snot. A dam was bursting. I don't think I had ever wept like that before.

Miss Havisham held me, consoled me, offered a lacy, delicate, woefully inadequate handkerchief, and began also to weep a little in sympathy with me.

It lasted quite a while, me bawling, and she consoling patiently, but tears always eventually run out and then you have to deal with the revealed reality.

"Why?" was all I could articulate, pleading into her eyes.

"I... I honestly don't know, dear. I thought you might be able to tell me! Perhaps you argued? Perhaps he offended you? What... what happened last night? Can I ask?" She searched my face.

"Nothing! I mean... well, not nothing, of course. We.. we... it was sweet. It was really nice. We spent the night, ok? It was beautiful. Last I saw him he was snoring next to me around sunrise, then some time later he must have left because he wasn't there when I woke up after 9," I just babbled out the story. "Why would he suddenly leave? Oh my god, what did I do wrong? Why would he do that and then just go away? Why would he never want to see me again?" And, there I went again, I was crying like a child.

Holding me again, Miss Havisham shushed and cooed, and said, "There must be some explanation. I'm sure it's not something you did. It's all ok. Don't blame yourself. I certainly don't blame you. Don't be upset."

I snuffled myself to a halt in my crying, pulled back from her and spoke evenly, "I'm not worried about you blaming me, Miss Havisham. That's not the problem at all. The problem is..." The tears started to well, but I was determined to say it, so out it fell, "I'm in love with him." And there it was, the weeping flowed freely again.

Something like scales fell from Miss Havisham's mind as she received this revelatory admission. "Ah! Oh, I see," she said, knowingly, and embraced me tightly again. "Yes, Now I see", she repeated several more times as she held me.

Presently, when I stopped blubbering for a moment, Miss Havisham suggested we take a rain check on the picnic. She said, "Let's get you home. This weekend has been exciting enough. I'll look forward to seeing you again very soon, because we have much to discuss. But for now, I'll ask Darryl to drive you home." It wasn't a suggestion. She had decided. This was how it was going to be.

"But where does he live? I have to see him. I have to know what happened. Please don't send me away. I can't do this. I just can't. I can't," I begged.

"My dear, it's impossible for me to give out information like that. Even to you. Privacy and anonymity is a bond I have with my staff that I cannot break," she was apologetic, torn, but ultimately resolute.

I crumpled to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably, exhausted from grief, aimless, emotionally destitute. I sat is though I had been pushed over. on the tiny pebbles, which were biting,my thighs and bottom where the dress had fallen outwards instead of under me.

"You know," Miss Havisham spoke in an oddly unfamiliar tone, as if quoting someone else. "Darryl also drove Angelo home this morning." She took up the picnic basket, saying, "I'll take care of this." And she headed back to the manor leaving me in the middle of the path, now sitting cross-legged, trying to process the sentence she had just spoken. It felt like there was some meaning to it that I should be understanding but I couldn't grasp it. My mind was so foggy and scrambled, my face running with tears, and my poor bottom, not at all protected by my skimpy underwear, was like a pincushion for all the tiny pebbles of the pathway.

By the time I had straightened up, brushed off, picked the tiny stones from the soft flesh of my upper thighs and bottom cheeks, and slowly shuffled back to the manor, Miss Havisham had apparently already made arrangements. One of the young men, who's name I didn't know, was at the door and assured me, "Darryl has gone to bring the car around, Miss. He won't be long."

And he wasn't long. The car came. The door was opened for me. It was closed after me. The car smelled nice. It was comfortable. Darryl drove slowly and carefully. I stared out the window. The wind was still blowing in the high branches, apparently unaware that the world had changed forever, and there would be no more picnics, no more joy, no more color. Everything was shades of grey. I felt the rainfall of another planet. Alone.

It wasn't a long way to my place, but the roads were always busy around the park. On Sundays there were tourists and families visiting the park and the opera house and other local attractions. During the week it was commuters, deliveries, sales reps... The area was never really quiet except for the pre-dawn hours.

And I had heard the traffic start up as the dawn bloomed over the city just a few hours earlier.

And Angelo had been beside me.

And everything had been perfect.

I should have told him that I'd do anything if I could hold him for just another day. But now it was too late. He was gone and I didn't even know how to find him to ask why.

I wondered what kind of place he lived in - a house? an apartment? I'd never know.

But Darryl knew.

Wait.

Darryl knew!

That's what Miss Havisham was trying to (not) tell me! I felt a thrill of excitement, of hope! The shades of grey suddenly popped into color again. I could breathe.

"Darryl?" I opened, in a sing-song voice.

"Yes, Miss?" he answered promptly and efficiently.

"This morning, when you saw Angelo... did he say anything about me?" I just put it out there, watching his eyes in the mirror.

Darryl hesitated. That was a tell. It meant the answer was yes!

"Oh, Miss, you know I can't..." he pleaded in the mirror with me.

"I need to talk with him." I pressed. "Please".

"Miss, I... I don't know what to say. I can't..." he was visibly uncomfortable.

I said, as sweetly as ever, "Would you pull over, please?" I pointed to a loading zone where he would be able to pull aside. He did so.

I sat forward, very close to Darryl and confided in him, "Look Darryl, it's like this. I know you're supposed to maintain a sort of class boundary here, and I respect that, but I'm new to all this stuff. I'm just a regular girl, ok? Not some princess. Frankly, I'd be as comfortable driving the car and having you as the passenger, alright?"

Darryl was still visibly uncomfortable, but my speech seemed to be having the desired effect of establishing a rapport.

"I know you would never tell me where Angelo lives, Darryl," he looked visibly relieved. "So I'm not going to ask you that." I paused, and he, still unsure, was somewhat less on edge.

"You know, Darryl?", I sat back and looked out the window whimsically.

He looked in the mirror, "Yes Miss?"

"If I wanted you to take me somewhere, you wouldn't necessarily need me to know the exact address, right? Like if I wanted to visit a flower store, you would just find one for me, yes?" I was speaking in a playful, ever-so-light tone.

Darryl frowned, not knowing what to make of the conversation, "Of course, Miss."

"Hmm," I said, meeting his eyes in the mirror. "But what if I wanted to go to a particular flower store, but I couldn't remember where it was? If I described it to you with landmarks, like if I told you it was, say, next to the Town Hall or something, you would be able to take me right to it, is that right?" I quizzed further.

Still frowning in confusion, he again replied, "Yes Miss, of course."

"Hmm," I repeated, pausing for several seconds.

Darryl sat awaiting an instruction as the traffic slid past us. Our little world had stopped, and I was in control. I needed to make my move, but I needed to get it right. I would only get one shot.

"Darryl?" I called out, completely unnecessarily, as though drawing his attention from some distraction, of which there were none, or as though I was starting a conversation, despite the fact we were effectively in the middle of one already.

"Yes, Miss?" he dutifully responded.

"I'd like you to take me somewhere, but I can't remember the address. I'm such a silly girl. If I describe it to you, will you take me?" my voice was dripping with sweetness.

"Of course, Miss," Darryl remained completely confused by my behavior, but that was about to change.

"It's right next door to Angelo's place. Do you know it?" I asked, as if asking to swing past the grocery store.

Silence from the front seat. The penny finally dropped. I monitored his mind. He was torn, not between wanting to take me and not, because he really wanted to do it. He was torn because he didn't know if this was breaking any rules and he absolutely did not want to do that.

It comforted me to know that he wanted to take me. That meant whatever Angelo told him, it wasn't that he never wanted to see me again. The silence continued. I didn't dare speak, lest I break the fragile spell. I sat completely still and looked at nothing but Darryl's face in the mirror. He avoided making eye contact while he frowned his way through the conundrum.

"Miss?" he finally spoke, looking up at the mirror at last.

"Yes, Darryl?" I responded evenly.

"I know the place. I can take you there, but..." he paused. I held my breath. Whatever he asked next, I would agree to it. Anything. "... if Miss Havisham were in the car right now, would she be upset that I'm doing this?"

"Miss Havisham," I assured him. "Is the one who told me that you had dropped Angelo home earlier. Like you, she would never tell me where he lives, but also like you..." I counseled. "She wished she could", I spoke in the soft voice of a confidante.

I saw relief flood over Darryl's face. "Well, Miss, the place next door to Angelo's is really nice. I'm not surprised you want to go there. I'll have you there in about 25 minutes," he reported, as he began the process of merging out into the traffic flow.

I breathed, perhaps for the first time in several minutes. All the people in the cars around us seemed uncharacteristically happy. The lone bird in the tree also seemed singularly joyful. So to, I suppose, did the post box, for that matter, as we came gliding past, and turned sedately onto the motorway on-ramp before the massive motor began to purr, effortlessly accelerating us to a suitable merge-speed. The g-force pressed me affectionately, like a dominant lover, into the soft, fragrant leather upholstery of the generous seats. I was on my way.