Chapter 1
Kimber scanned the airport Starbucks, searching for an empty table. In her right hand she clutched a strawberry frappuccino, while her left hand pulled her rolling carry-on behind her.
"No such luck," she muttered to herself and scanned the area once more, this time for someone, preferably female, sitting alone. At a table bordering the concourse she spied a middle-aged woman alone, deeply engrossed in her book.
"Looks like a good choice," Kimber thought as she headed off in that direction, carefully weaving between the closely bunched tables. She had almost reached her destination when she glanced at a gentleman as he turned the page of his paper. Kimber stopped short, stunned by the face she knew so well.
Chapter 2
"Hello, Mr. Andrews - do you remember me?"
The voice startled Ken, not because he didn't expect anyone to speak to him, but because he instantly recognized it. As he quickly lowered his newspaper, he was expecting to see a little wisp of a girl with long sable hair and translucent blue eyes. The face that greeted him still had the clear, innocent eyes but her dark mane was now chopped stylishly just above her shoulders. Though still petite, her former wispy frame now had curves and the young woman before him was no longer a little girl.
"Of course I remember, Kimber Nelson, of McKinley High fame. I'm assuming it still is Nelson?"
"Still Nelson," she quickly responded, briefly waving a ringless left hand. "I always was picky."
"And you always knew what you wanted and where you were going. So where did you end up?"
"That is still to be determined. I've had a few sidetracks but I'm still moving forward."
Ken nodded. He remembered her as the little girl, full of fire and passion for knowledge. A year behind Dane, his son, in school, she was fiercely competitive, whether competing on the Academic Decathlon team or the tennis team - both activities that she had shared with Dane. Ken suspected that his son was the only reason she had joined the tennis team.
"Can I join you?" she asked, almost tentatively.
"Of course!" he answered, folding his paper and setting it aside. "What brings you to Phoenix - or is this your home now?"
"Nope, still in Sacramento - in fact, I have a place near the river, not far from downtown. I'm just here for a conference, and heading home now. What about you?"
"I have a few clients here that I see once a month, but still Sacramento is still home for me as well," he explained. "So what have you been doing for the last..." Ken paused to do the computation, "...ten years?"
"The usual, college, grad school, working, starting my own firm," she stated casually.
"Well, that's not 'the usual' for most people - only the most motivated ones - and you were always a motivated one."
"That's a nice way of putting it - my mom calls it 'obsessed'," Kimber responded, laughing.
"So, how about you? What have you been doing the last decade?"
"Just getting older," Ken chuckled. "It's what I do best these days."
"Well, you haven't changed a bit!"
"That's because I was old ten years ago," Ken chuckled. "You, on the other hand, have changed - all for the better."
Kimber smiled at the compliment.
Their conversation was interrupted by the announcement that Flight 1080 to Sacramento was now boarding.
"That's my flight," Ken announced, pulling his boarding pass from his coat pocket and flashing it toward Kimber in explanation.
Kimber saw the 'A' on his boarding pass, and showing him her ticket with its 'C' noted, "It's my flight too - save me a seat."
"Sure," Ken shrugged, grabbing his briefcase and leaving his newspaper folded on the table as he made his way to the front of the line.
It was not unusual for Ken to run into old acquaintances, in fact, his kids thought it strange if he didn't find someone he knew wherever he went, from Disneyland to the Capital Mall.
Standing in line, waiting for the plane to start boarding, he glanced back at Kimber. "Maybe if Dane had known she would turn out like that, he might have shown more interest," Ken thought.
Chapter 3
Ken and Dane had always been close, fishing buddies when Dane was little and tennis buddies as he approached his teenaged years. So when Dane had approached his dad first about volunteering to help the tennis coach and then, later, acting as a tutor/coach to the Academic Decathlon team, Ken had readily agreed. Kimber had been hard not to notice on either team.
Ken had been asked to prepare the students particularly for the economics test and Kimber had been his most inquisitive student, often coming up with questions well beyond the scope of the Academic Decathlon competition - and sometimes asking questions for which Ken had to look up the answers.
Kimber's attraction to Dane had been fairly obvious from the first day in 'AcaDec'. It seemed to Ken that she was always around his son - in fact, it seemed to Ken that Kimber was always close to Dane whether in 'AcaDec' or on the tennis court.
Not that she was a pest, she was entirely too sweet for that, just rather obviously infatuated. Ken had even mentioned her crush to Dane, who dismissed his dad's powers of observation as extremely flawed. "Dad you don't know what you are talking about," was Dane's response every time Ken mentioned Kimber's crush. But it was obvious to Ken, especially when the bookish and decidedly unathletic Kimber had showed up for tennis with a racquet she had never actually swung before.
Ken remembered that day - he was conducting the fall 'off-season' tennis program when she had approached him very tentatively.
"What if someone doesn't 'actually' know how to play?" she almost whispered.
"Then I will 'actually' teach her."
"Really?" The word came out almost as a squeak.
"Yes, really!" he assured her.
But an hour later he was rethinking his promise. It seems like everything related to the mechanics of tennis were completely foreign to Kimber. With every swing it seemed she was more likely to hit herself than the ball. When open courts were completed for the day, Ken was wondering if her parents could get their money back for the racquet because he never expected Kimber to ever set foot on a tennis court again. She finished out the day a totally frustrated young lady.
To his great surprise she was waiting for him the following day, and every day until the season started, and by the sheer force of her determination she eventually became good enough to secure a spot near the bottom of the junior varsity team.
By the following year, she was a mainstay on the varsity team - where she was a consistent winner over more experienced and talented players - simply due to her stubborn tenacity and the sheer fact that she refused to lose.
Chapter 4
Kimber waited for the plane to start boarding, her impatience showing in her shifting stance. She was still amazed to have run into Ken Anderson this far from home, and even more amazed that he had recognized her and remembered her name.
Kimber was not one of those people for whom high school had been the highlight of her life. The truth was that she had just 'survived' high school. There were very few high school moments that she could recall with fondness, and almost none that she would consider living through again.
The little girl with the thick mane of dark hair had not been particularly popular. In fact, Kimber had never actually had a date in high school unless you counted the times she attended school events with one of her fellow nerd guy friends as a "date". It didn't help that she looked like one of those starving kids you can feed for five dollars a month that show up on commercials in the wee hours of the morning. Kimber never considered her lack of social life to be a tragedy though, because in high school she had only been interested in one guy.
Chapter 5
Boarding went quickly, attesting to the fact that Tuesday afternoon flights had few 'amateur' passengers - just seasoned 'pros' that traveled regularly.
