Chapter 20: The Vikings Have Landed.

The rest of the week flew by. My classes were going smoothly and no one was giving me any headaches. I did have a few inquiries about the bruise on my temple. It had turned a very dark purple and with green tinges to it. I just told everyone I had walked in to an open cabinet door with the lights out. I got the same admonishment each time that I should know better than to walk around my apartment with the lights off. I wasn’t about to tell them my elderly landlady whacked me cause I didn’t listen to her command to stay seated. It would have been around campuses in hours. I didn’t need that added to the fodder speculating why I was leaving the school.

Friday at noon after my last class I rode my motorcycle home and waiting beside my car was my landlady impatiently tapping her foot. I hopped off the bike and walked around the car to the drivers door opening it. I looked over the top of car in time to catch the stink eye she was casting at me. I guess she wanted me to open the door for her. I was beginning to wonder if it was worth it to keep in her good graces. Then again she was carrying that big purse of hers and she could have that wooden spoon hidden in there.

I walked around the car and opened the door for her. I waited till she was settled, closed the door and went around the car climbed in and started the car. Looking behind to make sure the way was clear, I then put the car in reverse and back the car out on to the street. Then shifted in to first and then we were on our way to the airport to pick up her grand daughter. The trip to the airport was mostly in silence,

I parked the car in the short term lot and as we got out of the car Mrs. Jorgeson looked at me and said, “Don’t disappointment me.”

I wasn’t about to. I eyed that purse, I was sure the wooden spoon was conveniently lying on top.

We got to the airport an hour early. My stomach started growling and I was about to ask if she wanted anything from the food court they had set up near the passenger departure area.

“Don’t bother,” she said. “Their prices are atrocious here.” With that she opened her purse and handed me something wrapped in foil.

“Here nibble on this” she said. “That should tide you over to supper at home. I have a pot roast cooking in the slow cooker you can eat.”

Oh, Pot roast I could wait for that. I slowly opened the foil slowly not knowing what to expect. Inside it was a mini loaf like a quick bread. I pinched a corner off to taste it. Never had I tasted a baked quick bread that good before. It filled your mouth with the taste of blueberry quickly followed by the taste of nuts, cinnamon and nutmeg. It was an unusual combination but it was so good. I savored every bite as if it was my last.

“To hell meeting your grand daughter, I’ll marry you!” I grinned.

She just look at me and snickered. “Oh honey you wouldn’t last the night.” The look she gave me then I knew she had set the hook and all that was left was for her grand daughter to reel me in.

The flight from Chicago was delayed by an hour. There had been some severe storms over Minneapolis and that had delayed the flight on to Minot. The plane had to wait on the ground until the storm had passed.

She watched the board on arrival times and fidgeted. Fifteen minutes till the flights arrival she got up and started pacing occasionally looking the glass towards the landing strip. I guess wishing the plane to have already landed.

Soon the board changed to arrived, she was more animated moving about the waiting area constantly casting looks toward the gate.

Having no idea what she looked like I watched for another Celtic clone of Sadie, ginger hair and freckles. Not spotting one I watched trying to speculate what she looked like. My imagination got away from me. I was sure now this one would be a doppelganger of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz.

I heard a “Grandma!” and this Nordic six foot beauty was running towards my landlady. No way! This couldn’t be the grand daughter. One look at me and she would be demanding to be allowed back on the airplane. I stood silently near my landlady and watched the family reunion of grandmother and grand daughter. This one was way out of my league, my species even. She probably would be polite to me around her grandmother and then fake a phone call from her employer saying she had to get back due to an emergency and head back early in the morning.

“Honey, this is the man I want you to meet. He has all the qualities for being a great husband. He is so much like your grandfather, modest yet brilliant, sensitive yet very manly. I think he has all the qualities you have been looking for. There is nothing the two of you couldn’t accomplish together. I feel that strongly,” she stated.

For a second I thought she was marketing a wine. Modest yet brilliant, sensitive yet manly, I sounded more like a Riesling than a college professor. Where did she come up with that line?

Mrs. Jorgeson barked, “Get over here and meet my grand daughter. She has flown all the way here special to meet you.”

I jumped and almost double timed the eight or so feet that separated me from them. I put my six plus years of college education into practice and out came my brilliant greeting, “Ah, Hi.”

I looked over at my landlady to see her mouth to me. “Don’t disappointment me!”

After my “Ah, Hi” I saw her roll her eyes and just shook her head obviously disappointed.

Her grand daughter smiled at me and said, “You are so cute. My grandma told me all about you. Is it true you are working with the FBI on a case? That sounds so exciting. You will have to tell me all about it after we eat. Oh and I am Karen by the way.”

“We better go get your luggage before they claim it as lost luggage. My car isn’t far from the terminal.” With that was walked over to the baggage carousel and waited for it to appear. We weren’t waiting long until the flight’s luggage began to be appear on the carousel. Two canary yellow suit cases later we were heading to my car. I was chuckling as we came to my car.

“If your grandmother’s plotting comes to fruition, I won’t have to buy another car. Your luggage matches my car,” I laughed. I loved it! My landlady’s ears were turning pink.

Karen just added to her grandmother’s embarrassment, “Oh and what side of the bed do you prefer to sleep on? I need to know so I can gauge how compatible we are together.”

The pink became a nice shade of crimson. Yes, I think this girl is what I have been looking for.

On the ride back into town, Karen sat up front with me and Mrs. Jorgeson sat in the back seat. I seriously doubted that Karen would have been comfortable back there.

I took Karen’s luggage in to the house for her while she and her grandmother got the table set and the food dished up for supper. I was starving plus having Karen at the table was an added bonus. She was truly a viking princess in her looks and stature. I was in awe of being in the same house as her.

After the meal we decided to take a walk. It would be a way for us to get to know each other and not have any one else privy to our conversation much to the chagrin of my landlady. We decided to walk to the ice cream store a couple of blocks away and maybe split a sundae. After a big meal like we had I doubted either of us could have eaten one by ourselves.

We had just sat down to enjoy the strawberry sundae we had ordered when I looked up and saw Evelyne Cristman bearing down on us. Evelyne was on the faculty of the college where I was teaching. She was in the English Department supposedly teaching Journalism but in my opinion it was a college course on how to be a busybody. She had her nose in everyone else’s business and was the primary gossip source for campus. You wanted to know about anything on campus go ask Evelyne she was the source for all the gossip. If she didn’t know it she would make up what made it sound good.

There was no love loss between the two of us and I knew she was the source for all the disparaging rumors going around the campus as for the real reason I was leaving in a few weeks. “Gee, Evelyne what are you doing out and about? Aren’t you concerned about a house falling on you?” I asked innocently.

“Ha, Ha very funny. Can’t you do better than that with your insults? And who might you be?” as she turned toward Karen.

This was going to be nasty I am sure. It would be a regular cat fight. I was in Karen’s corner. I was sure she would pound the stuffings out of Evelyne.

“Oh I am his fiancee. I came up from Chicago to spend my vacation with him. I miss him so much when we aren’t together. I will be so glad when he moves to be closer to me. It is so difficult to be apart from him. I can hardly wait till we get married this summer,” Karen volunteered. “Now if you excuse us, we would like to have some quality time since we so rarely see each other.”

Evelyne bobbled her head like a bobble head doll and scooted out the store’s door.

“Jeez, Karen didn’t you lay it on a little thick. After all we only met a few hours ago.” I said in shock. “Though I thought top of Evelyne’s head would come off with the scoop you gave her. You do know that she is the campus gossip information source. Tomorrow by this time the whole campus will know.”

“I know what I was doing. With my looks and blond hair I am subject of every bimbo story going on around the hospital. There isn’t a doctor on staff that I supposedly haven’t bopped. Yet its all lies I am waiting on one man and when I find him he gets all this.”

I choked on my spoonful of ice cream sundae.

She looked at me and giggled. She had me terrified.

Saturday morning Karen wanted to see where I worked so we drove over to the campus. I showed her my office and the building in which I lectured. She seemed to be thoroughly impressed. As we were leaving the building we were stopped by a colleague.

“So is this the fiancee I heard about?” he asked. “She certainly is a looker there my friend.”

He was harmless so I went a long with him and thanked him for the compliment.

“You were nice to him, you didn’t argue or call him on it. That shows the signs of a real man, non escalating a situation that doesn’t need to be and lets it roll off your back.” she said.

And then she kissed me on the cheek and held on to my hand as we walked across campus. We were there for a good two hours. I think Karen thoroughly enjoyed herself. I know I did being seen with her.

When we got back to the house Karen decided she wanted to eat out and give her grandmother a break. So I knew the right place to go. The whole time we were at the restaurant my landlady did her usual moaning and groaning about the food and at the same time wolfing down her selection. It was great entertainment. Karen was tired from spending her day with me and the flight the night before so we called it an early evening.

The next morning there was a knock at my door that work me up and keep at it till I got up to see what they wanted. Ir was Karen and she was dressed up.

“Why aren’t you ready for church?” she asked. “We need to leave here in 30 minutes according to Grandma. And she said to remind you about her wooden spoon.”

“OK, I am up” I said. “I’ll take a quick shower and get dressed. We will be on time.”

Before she went back down the steps she gave me a kiss right on the lips.

“Yuck, morning breath, make sure you brush your teeth.”

After a quick shower and dressing I made it with five minutes to spare.

So it was off to church we went. I suffered through the two hour long service. Both the grandmother and granddaughter didn’t seem to have a problem with the length of the service. This was definitely something I would have to consider if I were to get serious with Karen. With just knowing her for just over forty eight hours I was very comfortable being around her. More so that any other female in recent history. I hoped that this would work out and we could become a couple.

After lunch which was Mrs. Jorgeson’s usual outstanding meal. I went up to my apartment to change and lay down for a quick nap. I set my alarm for 30 minutes. I was zonked out as soon as my head hit the pillow. It just seemed like I had closed my eyes when the alarm chirping woke me up. I was trying to think what would be fun to share with Karen. Then I thought about riding double on the motorcycle. Being an ER nurse I thought she would object to it since she saw way too many times what the end results of a motorcycle were.

I grabbed my helmet and my spare helmet and headed down to get the motorcycle out. I wasn’t going to ask her if she wanted to ride. I wanted Karen to make the first move. If she asked that meant she accepted my riding and didn’t feel forced. This was a deal breaker to me. This was part of me and if she didn’t accept it or tried to change me then we had no future.

I had just pushed the motorcycle out of the garage when I heard someone approaching me from behind. It was Karen and I waited for her admonishment about the evils of motorcycle riding. Instead I got just the opposite.

“You got a helmet for me to wear?” she asked. “I won’t ride with out one and no riding in heavy traffic. I refuse to be an organ donor, we have too much too live for.”

We? What was she telling me? I wasn’t going to ask I was sure she would tell me what she meant when she was ready.

I handed her the helmet and as she put it on, I started the motorcycle to let it warm up. I climbed on the Honda and held out my hand to assist her to climb on behind me. She got settled and tapped me on the shoulder to let me know she was ready for us to go. So I put it in first gear and let out the clutch and we were off. For the first half hour we rode I wanted us both to get used to riding as a pair. Riding double is a lot different than riding alone. You have to know when to shift to keep the balance just right turning otherwise you would take a tumble. I think Karen was enjoying the ride as much as I was.

I decided we had ridden around town enough so I headed us out of town on less traveled roads that I was familiar with. We spent the next two hours riding in the country admiring the ranches and farms we passed. While we were out a big B52 from the near by air base was making its final approach to land. It was still high above us yet we could feel it when it passed over head. Those big planes never ceased to amaze me. They were old in military life cycles and yet they were still in use probably by the sons of the crews that originally served in them. Some of those planes were in service back in the 1950s.

We rode for another hour before we headed back. It just felt right having her there on the motorcycle with me. For just knowing each other a couple of days things were going along nicely. Supper was ready for us when we returned. After supper Karen and I volunteered to clean up giving her grandmother a break.

Monday was a work day for me and I left early to be ready for my eight AM class lecture. Instead of the students come dragging in to class it was the instructor who did. I just went through the motions and didn’t give my normal enthusiastic lecture that I normally did. After class I walked back to my office and closed my door I was hoping to hide there and catch a nap on the couch that was in the office when it was assigned to me last fall. I think I had just dozed off when there was a persistent knock at my office door. I was going to kill who ever it was. I needed that nap to get through the rest of the day. I had a departmental meeting to attend that afternoon and it was a long boring two hour affair too. It was a meeting to come up with a departmental budget and everyone had their hand out for their share.