Gale Goes to Boston

The people in the line smiled when she reached them.
“Hello! Are you with the law conference down the street?”
“Yes, I am. Are you?”
“Yep, Why don’t you join us?”
“Would love to. I don’t know anyone here so far; feared it would be lonely the whole time.”
Gayle ordered the lobster salad and thought to herself, “thank goodness the job is paying for my transportation and expenses.”
The day of the conference arrived and the speaker for that breakfast session was a renowned DC attorney in the area of consumer law. People rushed to talk with him after the meeting. Gayle joined the group.
They all talked and a friend of Paul Baker, the speaker, joined the group. He was introduced as Jimmy Thorpe, an architect with the Army and he, like Paul, was from DC. He was pretty decent looking, Gayle thought.
After chatting for a while, the group started to break up. Gayle was about to leave when Jimmy caught up with her and said “Gee, you used to be in DC in school! I’m going to be seeing some of Boston while I’m here for awhile. Would you like to see some of the place too?” he asked.
“I have been here previously but I didn’t see everything,” Gayle said. “It’s a really interesting city. Sure as long as it doesn’t conflict with the conference.”
He got her phone number and she got his. They said goodbye and Gayle joined joined the others for lunch at the back of the ballroom.
Gayle and Jimmy were able to synchronize their schedules. He was in town to see how his cousin Paige from Oakland Hills, Calif. was getting along, now that Paige had started at Boston University.
They ate sushi, saw Faneuil Hall, the Isabella Gardner Museum, the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, the House of the Blues. Gayle got to meet Paige. She said she thought he liked BU and was getting adjusted to it. They saw Michael Jackson at Symphony Hall. When he sang “Rock with You,” Gayle glanced at him and he smiled.
After their first date, they eventually ended up with a nightcap at his hotel. He seemed romantic to Gayle. For some reason, she never seemed to remember to take her birth control pills. She’d leave his hotel and take a cab back to hers.
Gayle left Boston first and Jimmy brought her a bunch of flowers to say “goodbye.”.
She never expected to see him again. She had told him that she was in the process of moving to Sunsest Boulevard and did not know what what address or phone number she would have. She had also told him that she was on the pill and was steadily dating a police officer at the LAPD. They had sometimes joked about him. It had helped the story by referring to a real personality type.
Gayle took Jimmy’s current phone number and address in Southwest DC and that was that. It had just been a brief rendezvous and nothing more, she told herself.
Back in LA, Gayle gave her presentation about the information covered at the conference. Her life became regular again. She and Buzz enjoyed their outings exploring the neighborhood, its shops and people. Sometimes she felt more tired than usual but she thought that the traveling and speaking as well as seeing her clients had drained her.
Then one morning before work she became nauseous. She thought about her encounter with Jimmy and vowed to see a doctor if happened too often. She might just have had a nervous stomach for some reason. It happened a couple more times and the doctor confirmed that she was pregnant. She knew it was Jimmy’s. She realized then she had a lot of thinking to do. She decided she wanted to keep the baby. She planned to learn more about Jimmy Thorpe though.
She knew she never wanted her child or children to become any kind of pawn in her career. She didn’t want them used because she might make more money at one place instead of at another. She didn’t want her child or children affected by the career she did or didn’t take either, not because of public perception of her, anyway. Her private life would remain private and only her closest friends would know about any children she might have.
Gayle loved LA but she thought for financial reasons she might have to leave one day. Perhaps she might return to DC and work for the federal government, either in the city or in the suburbs, at least for awhile.
The End

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