Small World

Dear reader, please note that I'm not a fan of cliches. An honorary graduate from the prestigious institute of Havard like myself would not indulge in any whimsical ideologies like fate and destiny or all that superstitious nonsense that rule the mind of the unlearned. Yet the events from a year ago has forced me to accept that it really is a small world. 

My tale begins with a trip to my family's horse ranch in Dallas where my sister Nelly would be getting married to her one true love. I heard he was a real hunk and worked as a neuro surgeon in San Francisco so I was excited to meet him. It would not be a bad idea to have another doctor in the family since dad had retired and Nelly…. Well let's just say there were only so much smarts that my parents' genes could spare and I took a big chunk of it.

Back to my story. So here I was driving the deserted streets of "God knows where" because my flight got cancelled at the last minute and I needed to be in Dallas as early as possible. You know the drill? Maid of honor and all? For a second there I thought she would pick one of her colleagues at her modelling agency but then again a tall skinny brunette over her favorite blue eyed blonde first class graduate from the marketing department of Harvard who was voted employee of the month in her company last month? Of course she would tell everyone a sad story about how it was our late mother's wish for us to be together on such an occasion and how mum's smiling down from heaven now but I never bought that.

However, I was still maid of honour and I needed to show up and wow the entire entourage with my presence, impress my soon to be brother-in-law and perhaps his best man who I was almost certain would be a doctor too. What's better than one doctor in a family? Two! So I took the liberty to drive from The Big Apple to the great city of Texas.

This is the part of the story where tragedy strikes. Rebecca, the name I chose to give my 2020 model Mercedes, broke down in the middle of nowhere. Well not exactly nowhere, you could say somewhere in between New York and Texas where there were no signs of intelligent life for hundreds of kilometers. At that time Rebecca had only been with me for six months and the beauty never complained once, so when she suddenly broke down, I kind of grew scared. I got down from the car and opened the bute pretending to check what was wrong with her. I admit I am a genius with words, numbers and people but you see that thing called mechanics, we have not gotten along quite well. It's not my fault really, growing up I and Nelly were taught to use our words, charms and our heads. Anything that got our hands dirty, we just swam the other way even if that thing was learning the insides of a car we would drive to everywhere.

Every story had a hero and a villain and this guy was both. There in the middle of a deserted road with no phone service and dusk drawing near, I was beginning to lose hope, fearing that I would become the supper of the bees that had started singing in my ear and that was when I saw this truck. It was large with all the huge tires and a body decorated like the American flag. As it got closer I stood in its way waving my arms and yelling "Stop!" 

It stopped and a tall man jumped down from its driver's seat wearing a simple shirt and jeans. He looked quite handsome with a serious look on his face and a contrast in his blue eyes. We both had blue eyes but that was irrelevant to the matter at hand

"My car broke down" I shot, not waiting for him to finish clearing his throat. I don't like engaging in small talk with the likes of people who drove trucks. I felt I was destined for bigger things. 

He didn't seem to want to talk either, he just moved to the direction of my broken down Mercedes and did the same as me. Although I was only pretending to check out the car's condition, he really knew what he was doing. He checked here and there and nodded a few times before returning to his truck.

"Hey!" I screamed at him thinking he was planning to leave me and Rebecca unattended. 

To my surprise, he came back not up to a minute later with a plier and some tools that mechanics use. Weird that he would have that lying around, I didn't even bring a liter of fuel more than the estimated one for the trip. He got to work immediately and I watched him intently, he never smiled or uttered a word and neither did I. In less than ten minutes, he stood from where he was crouched under Rebecca. 

"Check the car" he said in a somewhat demeaning tone. I was about to quote my accolades so he would give me more respect but I decided against it.

"Woaw" I screamed in happiness, Rebecca was back to tip top shape.

I got out of the car to greet my supposed hero "Thank you" I said flashing him a bright smile.

"It's my job" he said bluntly. Bingo! That's why he had those things in his truck. I grinned awkwardly and was about to go back to my car before he cleared his throat.

"It's my job so you'll have to pay me" my head recoiled when I heard that from a man I expected was a generous citizen of our good country.

"A hundred bucks" his eyes held no sign of humor and his lips still were not smiling. Rip off!!! My head was swearing curses my lips were not permitted to speak.

Unlike me, I went into my car, pulled out a hundred dollar bill and smashed it in his arms. My blue eyes glaring like the lightning, my stare as freezing as the Canadian winter but my mouth stayed closed.

Receiving the money, he blinked a few times as if unsure of his own eyes "Thank you" he smirked and for the first time I saw the closest thing to a smile this young man had and I must say it was kind of cute.

"Listen I…" before he could say anymore I halted his speech with the raise of my hand.

"Save it, you've got your money for your service" with that I went into Rebecca and beckoned her to take me out of his sight, his very handsome, dreamy yet annoying sight.

I returned back to my journey to being the most jaw dropping Maid of honor a Texas Wedding ever hosted. Insults upon insults kept on propping in my head that I could have said to that guy but it was a good thing I did not say anything, some of these words were too sophisticated for his class to understand. I didn't have time to explain an insult, the bright lights of Texas were calling to me.

I and Rebecca went on a couple of hours more and I could already see some Texan land marks before it happened again. Rebecca broke down.

"Holy…" I had to put both hands in my mouth to stop the next word from slipping out. I was not one to curse, alone or in the company of the obnoxious. All I needed to do was to find out why what I paid a hundred dollars for stopped working after a few hours. There was only one logical reason, I, a bona fide Marketing executive and an honorary graduate of Harvard, was scammed.

"Oh if I could get my hands on that tall, masculine pretty boy" I thought aloud as I reached for my cell phone hoping to get better reception.

"Hi its your Nelly here, sorry I'm not available to answer your call right now, please leave a message" The voice on the other end sounded happy and I had to wonder if Nelly recorded that message while she was seeing her soon to be husband.

The sound of a vehicle approaching jerked me from my ephemeral day dreaming as I left Rebecca to repeat my previous actions, standing in the middle of the road and signaling for help.

As the vehicle was drawing nearer and nearer, I began to notice some disturbing signs. This vehicle was big, had at least a hint of red and white. Oh no! Oh yes! Oh no!

I didn't yell "stop" this time. I just stood there hoping he would not recognize me. If he did he would probably run me over to keep my hundred dollars because I would definitely take it back since he did a lousy job on Rebecca.

He climbed down from his truck again and for the umpteenth time that day I found myself looking at a man I wanted to hate and love at the same time. 

"You again!" his facial expressions at that point were hilarious. I would have laughed hard if I didn't know better but I did, this was the face of a crook.

"Yes me. Why are you surprised? You did absolute nonsense on my car and charged a hundred dollars for it" I blurted, glaring at him the whole time. 

He didn't say a word and just went back into his truck.

"Where do you think you're going" I shouted hysterically. Oh heaven knows what came over me that day.

"Here" he came back a few seconds later with ten "hundred dollar" bills. "The rest are for any damages you might have incurred because of me"

"I'm sorry" he said then turned his back to leave. I watched him climb back to his truck not knowing what to think or to say. He started the engine of his vehicle and that was when it hit me. He could be my free ride out of here.

"Wait" I yelled in order to be louder than his truck. He turned off his truck and came down again.

"I don't need your money" I said handing the pack he gave to me.

"I don't need yours either" he said returning a single hundred dollar bill.

"Fine" I took it from him.

"Is that all?" he asked his back attempting to leave.

"My car is still broken down" I confessed.

"Oh but I do an absolute nonsense job with cars" he said with a little bitterness on his face, his feelings were hurt. 

Ouch! There goes my free ride. I thought about things for a second and realized that he didn't really do a bad job at all. In Rebecca's six months with me I had never taken her to a mechanic once because she never gave me a reason to. The long drive from New York to Texas must have worn her out completely so it was more of my carelessness that Rebecca was in such a condition now "I'm sorry"

Okay this guy was pretty funny. As soon as he heard me say those words, he turned around as if looking for where else the voice could have come from besides me.

"I am sorry" I said again and he turned to face me, shock blatantly plastered on his face "it wasn't your fault"

He said nothing and went straight to Rebecca. He checked her in and out and sighed "It is bad. It would take hours to fix"

I didn't have hours and from the look of things, neither did he.  

"What should I do now?" I asked in a low tone and for the umpteenth time that day he was surprised.

"You could wait here for another mechanic to arrive…" seeing my face turning into an angry glare once more, he immediately added "Or I could drop you in a more suitable place and you could send someone to come get your car later"

To that I nodded and he ushered me into the passenger seat of his truck after I had retrieved some sensitive documents from Rebecca and had locked her tight.

And thus we went. His truck was slow but at least it wasn't breaking down. One stare led to another and soon we started that small talk. Not my proudest moment but I was lonely and he had a way with him that made me comfortable. 

I told him of my sister's wedding and how I was maid of honor and he just smiled. Oh yes I should tell you, his smile is enchanting.

Time flew by and I forgot all about him dropping me somewhere in the city square for me to take a taxi. The only thing I remember from all of my chattering was that we suddenly stopped at a rather familiar house.

"You can get down now" he said as he turned off the engines, opened the door and helped me down.

As soon as I got down a very handsome man walked towards the truck.

"Hey Damon, you arrived just in time for dinner and I see you brought a date" the young man said looking at me with smiling eyes.

"Not a date Ted, the maid of honor" Damon replied and just then I took a good look at my surroundings and realized I was in Dallas Texas and in my family's ranch. 

Nelly and my father came out soon along with some other guests I didn't recognize and I didn't know who was more shocked to see who.

Long story short, Damon the supposed mechanic was actually the best man at Nelly and Ted's wedding. And yeah Ted was a great day and together me, Damon, Ted and Nelly pulled of the wedding of the decade. Oh how I rocked my pink dress the way only a genius could. Speaking of geniuses, the mechanic wasn't a mechanic at all. His real job was being the director of operations in a robotics company. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

Before I drop the curtains on this one, you should know I'm writing you from my bed getting ready for my own wedding coming up in two weeks with that mechanic….errr…I mean robotics expert, Damon Churchill. I wonder whose car will break down on his or her to my wedding. If or when it happens, rest assured I'll write to you

Yours intelligently

Claire Wellington