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Chapter Nine:

Abbie: Pleasant Suprise

October 10, 2008

I was absently doodling on a pink notepad. It was a Tuesday afternoon and business at Chloe’s was running slow. Lizzie had been out of it all week and had gotten picked up early today after a freak accident that involved a pencil and daydreaming. She was okay…Or will be…after a little Tylenol and some light medical attention.

In any case, it left me at the salon with Dallin who was somewhere, probably at Lizzie’s desk on the computer. I hadn’t brought up the car thing yet, and he didn’t seem to be complaining about having to spend a couple hours in the salon every now and then. The ring of that annoying bell above the door caused me to look up. The first thing I noticed was pure blue eyes. Then the deep bunette slightly disarrayed hair. Then the tall physique.

It was Jason.

Jason Call.

“Hey” he said casually, I had to say I was surprised. I hadn’t known many men to actually come inside Chloe’s. It must be the subtitle, “Salon and Spa” underneath that scared them away. Or maybe the flashing pink sign?

I shook myself back to the present, “Hey,” I paused before continuing “May I help you?”

“Yeah, I’m just here to get Dallin, he texted me that he needed to come home sooner than planned.” Then he turned his head sideways, “ I didn’t know you worked here”

“I didn’t know you lived around here” I retorted.

He smiled “Touché, I actually just moved down here last weekend”

“Oh. I haven’t seen you at school”

“Not yet. I start tomorrow” Then he really smiled at me. Our eyes met, his lips turned up and mine opened to spread wider…and then after a moment I broke the trance he had me in.

“I’ll go get Dallin.”

“Wait- I did have something I wanted to verify”

“Okay…” I said glad that I could talk to him for a minuet more.

“Dallin says that Lizzie is so Klutzy that she’s broken every other bone in her body, bruised every inch of skin at one point in her life, and couldn’t run even if flying monkey’s on fire were chasing her with pitch forks…I’m not so sure I believe, I’ve heard so many things about her, is she really as klutzy as she sounds?”

I shot him a critical look, “Yes, she is quite the walking band aid, although I don’t think she’s broken that many bones.” We shared a few laughs about that before A crash echoed from inside Chloe’s. We both looked towards the noise.

“Right I’ll go get Dallin, I’ll be right back.” I ran into Chloe’s and went straight to Lizzie’s office (force of habit I guess) and threw open the door.

“Dallin! What are you doing?”

He looked up at me like a guilty child, from the ground where he laid flat, next to Lizzie’s blue chair which was spinning wildly out of control.

He laughed, “Lizzie left her special talents here, I swear!”

“Uh-huh.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Jason’s here for you” I shut the door slowly, and walked away.

“Sorry about that, He should be out here in a second.” I said as I sat down in my personal bright pink office chair, We both laughed. Dallin came out and at the sight of us slitted his eyes for just a second before smiling and giving me a hug “See ya later!” He said to me before following Jason out the door.

Later

Lizzie called later, telling me that she was fine and she would be in school tomorrow, so I still needed to pick her up. She must have been on strong meds, she didn’t even notice the happiness that I felt was radiating from my ever pore.

This had been a wonderful day. And just to think it had started with me doodling on a pink notepad!

The next day after the “Jason Encounter” Abbie was struggling to get in the car, she had a temporary cast around her ankle and crutches to accompany them. Dallin who was in the back of my little Toyota corolla, burst out laughing and asked, “What happened?”

She looked at me, “No way! You tell the story!” I wouldn’t be able to tell it right without bursting out laughing.

“Fine.” She finally sat down, exasperated, in the passenger seat, and then proceeded to jab her crutches into the back sit- right into Dallin- that got him to stop laughing.

“So…”Lizzie said while I began to back out of the driveway, “There was this pencil and a piece of paper…” Not even a sentence in and Dallin was already busting a rib, she glared and continued her story, “I was writing in my Cameron book during English class when all of a sudden my pencil broke. I got up to sharpen it, but some kid thought it would be funny to see what would happen if a piece of paper suddenly found its way under my feet. In any case, I went flying across the floor and right into Michael Plunk’s desk, twisting my ankle in the process. Well I thought I was a twist, but turns out it was a light break.”

“There’s more” I added before Lizzie could continue,

“Yes, anyways after I hit Michael’s desk I saw my pencil spiraling towards Mandy Millard’s perfectly white tennis shoes. So before the worst could happen, I crawled under three desks to grab it- it was too late, she yelled at me but at this point the whole class including the teacher were laughing so hard it didn’t matter, I grabbed it- trying to redeem myself and slipped on the same piece of paper again and this time slid into the pencil sharpener table. The pencil dust spilled all over me and now I was in too much pain to move. I think after I blacked out someone finally noticed that I was not okay. “She trailed off lost in thought while Dallin continued to hysterically laugh.

I couldn’t help but add in a few giggles too, I mean do you know any other person that could get into situations such as these?

We all laughed like good friends do as we pulled into the school parking lot, this time next to a usual vacant car. Lizzie looked a little sad but was too busy pouting about her laughable injury to care.

This was one of those moments that you just have to stop and think, “Wow. Isn’t life amazing?”