3 o'clock in the Afternoon
Ellie looked at her phone and realized that her alarm was
going off. She did not know why she had
set an alarm to go off at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, but she was determined to
go and find out.
Heading out
her back door, she turned the lock and started towards her car. She realized,
however, that her keys were still sitting on her dining room table. Luckily,
her neighbor had a spare set. Maddie was a young girl, about Ellie’s age, and
while they weren’t necessarily “friends” by the normal definition, she was the
closest Ellie had come to making friends in the few short months that Ellie had
been living in Seattle.
Ellie
entered through the back gate of the small condo, hopping over the large
irrigation ditch that separated the two apartment sidewalks. It wasn’t a big deal to do it; she had seen
the neighborhood boys do it plenty of times.
There was a slight problem, she just happened to enter the wrong gate
and was completely unaware of where she was.
She heard a yelp of a large dog, who she had surprised. Ellie’s heart sank, what would the dog
do? Would it run up and bite her? Or would it maybe just growl at her
menacingly? These thoughts raced through
her head when she realized that the dog was looking at her quizzically, and not
in a threatening way. She said, “good
boy,” to not make it decide to change it’s mind. Just them she saw the dog’s owner walk up to
their sliding door.
“Hey, what
are you doing?!” yelled the owner. He looked as if he had just gotten out of
bed and was a little disgruntled at having been woken up by a girl in his back
yard.
“I was just
wondering why my alarm was going off,” came Ellie’s reply. Sometimes honesty is
the best policy and other times it makes you seem delirious. This was
definitely the latter situation.
The man
cracked a smile. “You’re trying to figure out why you alarm is going off, so
you decided to sneak into my back yard and make friends with my dog?” Ellie
felt her cheeks get red. It did sound a little ridiculous, but it was the
truth.
“Could I
just use your phone? I need to see if my friend can get my spare set of keys to
me.” The man turned abruptly and walked back into the house. Ellie took this as
an invitation to follow him. As she entered the house, she was intrigued with
the wide array of guns and workout equipment that was scattered throughout.
As the man
grabbed his phone, he said, “Don’t look so freaked out. I’m in the Army. I just
got back from training yesterday.” He stopped and smiled, “I bet you couldn’t
do five pull-ups on the bar over there.”
Ellie
laughed, “You’re probably right. I think I didn’t do much of that in high
school. I was more into basketball”
“Well here
you go, try not to get distracted about catching butterflies or something like
that princess.” He said amusingly.
“What did
you just call me?” Ellie snapped. She
dropped the phone and marched straight up to him without putting it back on the
receiver. “I’ll have you know that while
I don’t have much in upper body strength, I am an excellent runner and I can
run five times further than anything you have ever done in the Army!”
Besides, I could just have Gregory come and
compete against you. It had been a few days since her and her friend
Gregory had talked. He was living in New York now, working as a business
executive. He probably didn’t have time for his old high school pal anymore.
“Ellie, is
that you?” Suddenly, back to reality, Ellie remembered that she had dialed
Maddie’s number.
“Oh, hi
Maddie. Yes, it’s me. I was just wondering if you had my spare key?” Ellie
twirled the phone cord on her finger, twisting it every which way.
“ I do,”
replied Maddie, “I’ll bring it over to you in just a minute.”
“Thanks so
much. See you soon.” Ellie set down the receiver, strangely aware that the Army
man was sitting at the kitchen table listening intently to the conversation.
“Thank you
for letting me use your phone.” Ellie said, gathering her purse.
“Not a
problem. Next time, though, you can come through the front door like everyone
else.” The man chuckled, bringing a small wrinkle to the space around the
corner of his lips.
The man
held the back door for Ellie, “Hey,” he said nervously, “I’m new to the area
and some people from my work are going to go up the canyon and build a fire
tonight. I don’t mean to seem weird, but I noticed that you seem to be new to
the area too. Would you like to come along? They are really nice people.”
Inside,
Ellie laughed. She really was a large crowd kind of person. But, this young man
seemed kind and didn’t make her nervous like most people.
“If I can
figure out why my alarm is going off, I’d love to come.” The man smiled.
“Well, if
you’d like some help with that I’m terribly bored and really don’t want to
finish unpacking.”
“Fine with
me,” Ellie said, so they both went out the door into the sunlight. Ellie decided that the first thing to do was
to go home and wait for Maddie to get there with her keys. They got there soon enough, but the door was
locked and Maddie had the keys. Ellie was getting really frustrated; Maddie
said that she would be there in a few minutes.
“What now?”
the Army man said. “Is there a spare key somewhere that we can use? Oh yeah, your friend. Should we just go by her place?”
This was a
good idea, Maddie was one of those people who forgot what day of the week it
was. So she probably forgot to bring her
keys already. “Yeah let’s go to her
place, she’s obviously there since she picked up her phone.” It took a minute
for them to walk there, and during that time Ellie found out that the Army
man’s name was not Army man, but Jeff.
Jeff had lived out in Virginia for most of his life and had moved here
to start a new life being independent.
So they
arrived at Maddie’s house and rang the doorbell. No one answered. She rang again, and still nothing. She knocked again a third time and still
nothing. Finally she knocked on the door
and immediately realized that the door was ajar. “I think someone’s in there, you go in
first.”
Jeff pumped
his chest and flexed his muscles and dove inside without another word. The lights suddenly turned on as if a match
was struck. There was a loud
“SURPRISE!!!” and then silence, and then a loud scream.
Ellie
timidly poked her head into the house, and then quickly burst in at the sight
of her parents, siblings, co-workers, and, of course, Maddie.
Oblivious
now to the strange stares still coming from the majority of those present,
Ellie wrapped her arms around her mother who inquired as to who the “strange
young man with the gorilla-like grunt” was.
“Oh,” said
Ellie, returning to the situation-at-hand, “this is Jeff. He was helping me
figure out why my alarm was going off. It turns out I was supposed to meet
Maddie for lunch. Apparently, she had other ideas.” Turning quickly to face
Maddie, Ellie inquired, “How did you know today was my birthday? I haven’t told
a soul- well, except for my family.”
“Well, your
mother got ahold of your phone one day and looked through the people you have
called and I was at the top of the list for the past few months since you lived
here. And we got things planning from
there.” She looked up to Jeff. “I guess
we all know why you’re late now,” she snickered.
Just you
wait!” Ellie yelled. “I’ll get you back for this someday!”
