Chapter 3
MYSTERY
Bradley awoke suddenly from his dreams with the answer to the problems that had been bothering him. He had finally come up with an idea, on how to express his feelings towards Amy. He spent the next few hours rehearsing exactly what he was going to be typing to her when at midday they next made contact. It was like an eternity but the hour did eventually come around. The moment that Brad heard the door knocking of Amy coming on line, he hit send on his already typed out message. Within seconds they were chatting, firstly about the weather and then on what sort of day they had both experienced. Brad was shaking just waiting for that right moment he was hopping would soon come.
Finally he just typed in, "I was wanting to ask you for a little help". "If I can" she replied. "Well I have this aunt, she is the only person who reads the books that I write". "She loves to read love stories, and has always wanted me to write one for her". To which Amy replied "Well why don’t you". Brad could not get the message off quick enough, "I want to, but love is not my best subject, I just don’t know where to start or what to write about". "What I was thinking, was maybe I can use our chat history as a basis of the plot". "That sounds very interesting," said Amy. "Yes but I would want you to agree that I could use part of our relationship as part of the story". "That way because its true it would sound real to people reading it". He continued "I think it would make a nice story about two people meeting on the net". "Okay it's been done before but this one would almost be true, usually love stories are about young people. I want this one to be about a middle aged couple". "Ha Ha mature people you mean," Amy teased him. "Yeah something like that" he replied.
In this way he would be able to write his feelings for her and know that she would be able to read his words in full detail. He would then hope that she would realise what he was saying and indeed that he had fallen in love with her over the net. He could have just wrote the book and not said anything until it was all finished. However, this way she would be involved and would be reading each chapter as he wrote it. Plus he would be able to ask her for ideas and try and gauge her response. He went on to tell Amy that he would put something together and send it to her by the weekend. "That will be nice" she answered and continued, "I will look forward to reading it".
Suddenly his screen went blank as he had dropped off line. Before he knew it he was panicking trying to get back on line. Amy had not answered his request, so he was dialling in and hitting every button on the keyboard. All to no avail he just could not re-establish a contact with her. Finally a message appeared on the screen it was with disbelieve that he read 'Sorry the ICQ (Internet Chat Query) lines are busy please try again later'. Something he did many times over. Then in desperation he sent her an e-mail explaining what had happened. Then spending almost an hour awaiting an answer that was never to come. Unbeknown to him, Amy had also experienced the same problems and had just given up and gone to bed. After all the question that Brad had asked of her it was not as important to her as it was to him. He was devastated, that day would rank as one of the worse for him in a long time. The rest of the day was a nightmare and he spent it thinking that he had scared her off, and believing she had gone off line not wanting to talk to him anymore because of his silly idea about writing that damn silly book about them. What a damn silly idea he had dreamed of, now where would he go from here.
To make matters worse the next day he was called away on a machine breakdown out of town. So he was un-able to get near the computer and make contact with her. He desperately wanted to explain himself, and to make it up in some way and even lie if need be. To compound his worse fears the following day, although he managed to get on the computer he could not make contact. By this time he had almost written off the whole relationship between them and was trying to come to terms with the situation that he now found himself in. He had lost something from his life and was not sure how he would be able to fill that vacuum.
Brad had indeed been toying around with the idea of writing a book. In the pasted ten years he had in fact written a dozen or so short stories. However, up to date he’d had nothing published. The bit about his aunt wanting him to write a romance story was in fact true. He’d had a rough idea floating around in his head for several months and at one time had even jotted down a few notes. However, he was finding it extremely hard as he was not really into that sort of story. Brad was more military and fact orientated in his thinking. So now was the time to go through all of those ideas seriously and to make a definite start. That chat with Amy was the inspiration that he needed, now he had to go ahead with the idea, if not he would be made to look silly. Amy would think that he was all mouth and not a man of action like he had tried to portray to her.
He hastily put together the first six pages of his 'Love Story', basically from his earlier notes. Then he spent the next few days reading through what had been wrote changing and altering until the document was completely different and did not resemble in any way the original story that he first floated around in his head. Although he was very pleased with the way it had come together. After all, up to now every time he had read it he had changed it. He had to draw a line somewhere, so this was it, this was the introduction he would persevere with, he would make no more changes. True to his word he E-mailed it to her by the weekend and then with a sigh of relief sat back to awaited her response.
The days started to slip bye in quick succession. One day ran into another and before Brad knew it, two of the longest weeks of his life had passed, since reading that last message from Amy. Then nothing, he had sent her messages on the chat line and E-mail jokes, in fact anything funny that he could get his hands on, in an effort to keep the lines of communication between them open. However, it was all to no avail, she seemed to have just vanished into thin air.
Then one-day right out of the blue, as he opened up his computer, there on the screen right in front of him was the flashing yellow envelope beside Rascals name. He wasted no time in clicking onto that long awaited pulsating symbol and opened it up. The message instantly appeared on the screen, he then proceeded to read it very slowly digesting every word, but always expecting her to say that this was her last chat and that he must stop pestering her.
To his amazement it was a friendship greetings message, 'Wow' he thought and after all this time. Well at least she is still thinking of me. Whereas he had given up all hope of ever hearing from her again. He had never been able to work out what he had done wrong to offend her if indeed he had. Always believing the worse of himself. Once again he had been wrong. Here she was although not actually chatting to him at least she had sent him a message. He guessed that it was a start on the way back to normality.
He hastily typed out a thank you message to her, also asking what she thought of his story, which he had sent. After reading it a dozen times, just to make sure that he was not saying anything out of line that would upset her. He finally sent the message, now all he had to do was sit back and await an answer and hopefully a chat with her.
He reflected on what had gone before, his feelings were now rekindled. He was still in love with her. Even if she had left him to stew in his imagination over the last few days. When he finally took stock on what had just happened, he realised he had only just read a greetings card, he had still not actually chatted with her, but this was a start. Rome wasn’t built in a day he said to himself, but then I wasn’t on that job, he chuckled.
The next day he had an ICQ (Internet Chat Query) message that said she had problems trying to opening his story, but added that a friend had gave her some help and that she had eventually managed to open it. She went on to tell him that it was Cute! Very Cute!, but nothing more.
A couple of days later he was checking his E-mail messages, running his eyes down the list when he spied one from Amy. He suddenly felt himself getting very excited. Ignoring all the other mail, he went straight to Amy’s message. It read "Good day Brad Just a quick note, haven’t been on the net much this week. To bu
sy and it only promises to get busier. Hope your week has been good, our weather has been strange, cold one day and warm the next. Good weather for people to come down with colds. Have you been keeping busy? Maybe a job here a job there? How about your band?? Are you booked this weekend? Hopeful we can catch up with each other on ICQ this weekend Take care Amy", but still nothing more on his Love Story.
Well she still loves me he thought he accepted her explanation of why he had not been able to contact her and became very excited at the prospect that they might be chatting within the next couple of days. Brad wasted no time in typing out an E-mail letter to her. Answering all of her questions and asking a few of his own and once again about the story, adding that he was looking forward to a chat.
The chatting between them was starting to drop off a little, this was not what Brad had wanted. He was deeply in love with this very mysterious person. He wanted and expected the relationship to grow stronger as time went by. He put the time that they were not chatting to good use and started to write much more aggressively. He now had a determination to see this project through and hopefully gain an understanding with Amy. He had high expectations that the finish book would deliver Amy to him.
Brad discipline himself to write at a regular rate, that included at least four hours a day of none stop writing. This was very hard to do, with all the usual distractions around him. That included his music that he was still expected to practice and also his magic. He had to practice daily with a deck of cards, otherwise he would soon lose his sharpness. That would eventually show up in his performances and if that happened it would not be long before his magic work might start to dry up around the local clubs.
The project was good for Brad but it was a lot harder than he had ever anticipated. Once he got passed the first couple of chapters where he was using the message records he had kept of Amy and himself, it became harder. Now it was down purely to his imagination and on the subject of love and expressing his feelings and it was getting harder by the hour. More than once he thought about giving up the whole idea, but as soon as he thought of Amy, ideas started to flood back into his head and away the typewriter would start to click.
After about two months the first four chapters were completed, but he had still not received any comments or criticism from Amy. So he was not sure if he had offended her and if she was still in agreement that he carry on with the whole project. Also to date Amy had only been sent the few four pages and these had all been changed in Brad’s efforts to make the story more readable.
One day while on line, Brad was typing away at his book, when Amy came on line. He wasted no time in replying to her, and a conversation developed. Brad told her that while they were chatting he was listening to a Fleetwood Mac album, and asked what she thought of the band. "Good very good" came the replied. She then asked if he had played with his band lately and where. The conversation drifted along chatting about music. Amy then said that her son played a violin and was very good at it. Brad went on to say that he sounded a very talented boy because the violin was one of the hardest instruments to learn to play. Amy added that he played by ear. Brad started chuckling to himself as he typed in. "That indeed he must be very talented, because most people use their hands". He hesitated whether to send the message just in case it put Amy off and she left him for the night. Finally his chuckling and devilment got the better of him and he finally hit the send button. A long delay then took place, Brad fearing the worse wondered if he had done right. When suddenly Amy’s reply appeared on the screen and he burst into laughter, her reply read "Ha Ha Ha Smarty", they passed a few more messages between each other both of them having a laugh and then she was gone for another day.
Brad sat in front of his TV watching a world travel holiday program. He enjoyed looking at all the exotic places where people could holiday in the nineties. Remembering back to the fifties and sixties, when these sorts of holidays were just in the imagination, or on the cinema screen. Nobody from what he called a normal walk of life, visited these places. However, Brad had been an exception, his military career had taken him to the far corners of the world in the defence of his county, well at least that’s how it was described to him by the military. Now he was always interested in seeing some of these counties once again and to see how they might have changed over the years. After all it was almost thirty years since he had left the Australian military.
On this particular nights television show he was watching the host touring around the USA. This was an interesting program for him, as he had never set foot on American soil. Here was this guy jetting around showing them the best places, where to stay, how to arrange travel you name it and he did it and was having a ball at the same time. When the fare to LA came up at $1600, Brad took a gulp of air, Hey that’s not bad to be able to go and see all of what that county has to offer.
Hey, let's go to America. That’s it I can go and visit Amy. His imagination started to race ahead of him. He could do this, he could do that, he could go here, or go there. Suddenly he realised that he was talking and he was the only person in the room. "Wait a minute, let's just slow down I’m getting way ahead of myself here. I could be getting out of my depth". "Let’s just sit down and think about this rationally, after all what's it going to involve".
By the next morning after he had been denied a complete night's sleep from tossing and turning and running every conceivable thought through his head. He got up with a fully worked out plan on what he intended to do. Yes he would go to the States for a holiday, although the main reason would be to go and visit Amy. However, he did not intend to pre-warn her. This would be a surprise visit he would just walk onto her, how he would do this he did not know, but he had plenty of time to plan the fine detail. The first hurdle he had to cross was to try and book a flight and as soon as possible.
By the end of that day, he had been very lucky. He had booked himself a seat on an Australian Airline to fly from Brisbane to LA, the following week. He was very lucky with a visiting visa. During the sixties when he was in the Australian military, he had obtained a visa to enter America to take part in a military exercise. Although the exercise visit was later cancelled. However, the visa had already been stamped into his passport saying 'Permanent Visa'. This meant that he would always be allowed into America. Not like today when most people only get a 6-month duration visa stamp. He was also informed that even when that passport was out of date, he would still be able to use the stamp on the out of date passport, as long as the present passport he was travelling on was up to date and valid. This meant that he did not have to rush around getting it all up to date.
Once on American soil he intended catching a Greyhound bus and somehow make his way to Kansas. Hell at this stage he wasn’t even sure if the Greyhound buses went that far out into the country. This was going to be a big learning curve for him, but in his favour was his desire to meet Amy. Being an ex serviceman he was used to working alone and had no problem in finding his way around. Being a loner, always worked well for him, that way he relied on nobody, so nobody was there to let him down.
The following week really dragged by for him, as he found himself counting the minutes, when he was not trying to finalise his trip. By now he had mapped out a rough idea of how he would tackle the immense task ahead of him. He still kept up his chatting with Amy, but trying not to let on to her what he was planning, was very hard. A couple of times it almost got the better of him and he had to mentally tell himself not to let it out. Somehow he stuck to his plan of not telling her, but it was to be a very long week. At the same time he had to try and get as much information from her as possible. After all he knew very little about her and even less on the area where she lived, coupled with the prospect of having to make his way halfway across American the task was going to be enormous.
Brad would occasionally drop into their chat, questions about her town and work. Just to give him a few ideas of what to expect once he arrived in Hays Kansas. He seemed to have forgotten that the h
ardest part of the journey was going to be the getting there. Amy showed no signs of knowing what he was planning. Daily she would send him the regular supply of jokes by E-mail and the odd funny greetings cards. However, by the end of the week he was still no wiser on what to expect once he set foot in Kansas. His big worry was that she might not be there. It was possible that she could take a vacation at the very same time. Brad could not extract any further details from her. He found himself wondering who was going to get the biggest surprise. Amy or would it be Brad, when he found out that maybe she had just left for that long, saved up for holiday in the Bahamas. Brad had been swept along by his desire to meet up with Amy, nothing else seemed to get in to the way. He thought it was going to be so simple, to just jump on a plane and turn up, fall in love and everybody would then live happy ever after. However, life is not that simple, to date Amy had never mentioned anything about a relationship during their chatting. While Brad had been too scared to say anything on the subject to her. Although deep inside he knew that he had fallen in love with her, hoping it would all work out for the better, wasn’t that how it always ended on the big screen.
He intended taking his new laptop computer and his mobile phone with him so that while he was travelling he would still be able to chat with her, hoping not to arouse her suspicions of his intending arrival. He was hoping that he would be able to connect his mobile to the computer. With this in mind he set about down loading all of Amy’s information and details from his main computer to the laptop. If this well laid plan where not to work, then he would hope that whenever he was staying in a motel, maybe he would be able to connect into the room phone system. So he included into his packed holdall a couple of different phone adaptors and wires.
He made a visit to the local library to take a look at an atlas, just to get rough idea on where he was going and what he was up against. This visit startled him, he had not realised that Kansas was so far away from LA. Looking at the map Brad could not see any way of covering that sort of distance in under a week. However, time would be no problem to him; he had purchased an open ticket, not worrying about when he would be returning. He found a stand-in guitarist for the band. It had been agreed that whenever Brad returned, that was as long as the fill in guy would be playing. He’d also managed to cancel a couple of magic shows that he had lined up, with a promise to the agent that he would do a couple of freebee’s upon his return.
With all the excitement of his trip to the US, the love story started to take a back seat, his typing gradually dropped off. He occasionally hit the keyboard, but not with the enthusiasms he’d had a few weeks earlier. He decided to take with him what he had accomplished so far. The story so far was down loaded into his laptop, maybe he would be able to undertake some sort of progress while travelling.
Came the big day for Brad, the excitement with in him, had built to almost fever point, as he flew out of Brisbane Airport without a lot of fuss. He had just told Steve that he was taking a short holiday and that he would keep in touch with him on the net by E-mail. He settled back in his seat for what he hoped would be a smooth uneventful flight. However, this was not to be, as his imagination was still running riot inside his head. For now at least he had settled on the basic of a plan, which was better than nothing at all, or so he thought.
He did manage to get a little sleep during the flight, but awoke suddenly thinking of Amy’s earlier mysterious words. "But remember I’m a Rascal". What had she meant? Anyway it was too late now, He was on his way to meet her.