Cherry - S01 E48

Story 1 year ago

Cherry - S01 E48

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 48

Bill said, "Maybe; I don't know."

I was ready to kick the ass of whoever told a stranger about my Cherry, but then Bill said, "There was one more thing she told me to tell you, but it makes no sense at all to me." On the verge on anger, I asked, "What's that?" He said, "She said to tell you that she's glad she is alone on the playground. Does that mean anything to you?"

His question quickly became rhetorical when he saw my eyes become as glassy as his. I had told no one about the dream of Katie and me on the playground with the voices of the other kids that were not there. Only I knew what it meant (at least to Katie). A tear pooled and ran down my face and I irrationally tried to quickly wipe it away before he saw it. It was unlikely that he saw my own tear as his eyes were already flooding; he didn't even try to hide it.

We both seemed to realize at the same time that we were two guys blubbering in front of a fire house in broad daylight and composed ourselves accordingly. After taking a deep breath, I told Bill about my dreams of Katie-specifically about the playground and what she said it meant to her. He said that he wasn't surprised when he saw last Friday's paper headline because Katie had told him I was working on fixing the intersection. The longer we talked, the more inescapable the implications became.

I said, "Listen...Bill... I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but can we keep this conversation between us? At least for now, anyway. This is a lot for me to process and I don't want anyone

thinking I've lost my mind or calling me crazy. You know?" Bill asked, "You think I want to tell anyone about this?! I didn't even want to talk to you about it! But she asked me to so you know-l

had to."

I nodded in understanding and said, "Can I give you my number? If you need to talk or want to share anything that happens or have questions that I might be able to answer..." He said, "Yeah, of course!"

Bill gave me his number also and commented that having this dialogue gave him (in a small way) part of his daughter back. Knowing that this was evidently more than just vivid dreams and that she had been able to communicate with us was not something a father could put a dollar value on. I told Bill that I would tell him any time I had a dream about Katie, no matter howW insignificant it seemed to me. He appreciated the offer and said he

would do the same.

We shook hands again before Bill went on his way, each of us

promised to keep in touch. His number was programmed in my phone, even before I continued the maintenance on the fire hoses.

I finished my tasking and was re-stowing the gear when one of the guys asked me what Bill wanted. I told him who he was and said he only wanted to thank me for trying to help his daughter, nothing more. That explanation was apparently sufficient and the subject was never brought up again.

A few fairly uneventful days later, I got off work and found I had a package receipt in the mall. I was certainly not expecting a package, but went to pick it up all the same. In route to the post office, I called Cherry to ask her if she sent me something, but she said that she had not. The postal clerk handed me a some-what small sized box and the mystery only grew. The return address seemed a little familiar, but I didn't give it a lot of thought. Once back at my apartment, I opened the box and was so stunned I had to call Cherry and tell her what was looking at.

I said, "Babel You will never guess what just received in the mail." She asked, "In the package? What is it?"

I said, "It's a box of clothes!"

Cherry was confused and asked, "Did you order them on line and forget about then or something?"

I said, "No, they aren't new clothes-they are definitely used!" Still not putting the pieces together she asked, "Why would send you used clothes?"

someone Spelling it out for her, I said, "Probably because they belong to us."

"HUH?"

I said, "It's our clothes! As In: OUR clothes from the truck yard!"

She gasped and exclaimed, "WHAT?!" Finding a short note, I read it out loud, "Best Regards, Jim." Then I said, "Holy shit! You remember the guy I was talking to at the

football game?" "Yeah?"

I said, "He's the one! He took our clothes and the sneaky bastard sent them to me!"

She asked, "How'd he get your address? How did he even know we were there?"

I said, "He works as a guard there. But he said he wasn't working that night and the guy that was working was always sleeping on the job. But I guess he came in for some reason and spotted us.

He must have found my driver's license and copled my address from there."

Cherry said, "Oh, he's a dead man if he comes back to another game!"

I said, "No, let it go: I think I get why he did it. He was messing with me...

I reminded her about the 'sucker's bet' he made with me and how he was under the impression that night was to be our first date. If he saw us playing naked in the dark, he surely knew it was not our first date (and therefore I swindled him on the bet). Taking our clothes was just 'payback' and sending them was his way of saying 'now you know that I know.

"Well played, Jim; well played."

The next time I saw Jim at a game, I just stared at him for a few seconds as he gave me a half nod of his head while trying to keep from smiling.

Jim asked, "So, how was your 'first date?"

Without needing to rehash the events, I said while trying to hide my own smile, "Yeah. You won that round." He laughed and asked, "How'd you two get home?" I said, "How do you think? Naked; that's how."

Jim laughed again and gave a much less than sincere apology, but it was clear that he was pleased with himself. What was funny was I couldn't even be mad. I'd have done the same thing in his shoes and I knew it.

By the end of that first week back at work, I was already back into the swing of things around the station house. We went out on calls regularly and I had no problems keeping my head in the game. In fact, life in all aspects seemed to settle back into a normal routine. I would work my shifts as per usual and when I was off, I'd find a way to be with Cherry-which meant we were doing a lot of sneaking around. It didn't always include Making Love or having sex, sometimes we were just hanging out (but usually that was due to Cherry being fertile at that time). Olivia was talking about going away to college and, since we wouldn't be able to use her as a 'cover story', it became clear that Cherry was going to have to start driving to make getting together more feasible. So, I started teaching her to drive.

Once she had her license, it became easy for us to spend time together. But since she was still in school, she was still hiding the truth from her Mom. That all came to a head when Cherry was about three months away from graduating. She was tired of being denied to date and ended up in a heated discussion with her Mom because of it.

Cherry asked her mom, "Why can't I date just because I'm in school?"

Her mom gave the same answer as always, "Because, your grades would start to suffer for it and I'm not going to let you do that to yourself."