Five years and five months earlier, Heidelberg, Germany
Leslie sighed and brushed her dark, blond curls out her face as she looked at her watch and then scanned the road. It was empty; she stepped out from under the awning into the drizzling rain. Her ride was late, again, and unfortunately she couldn't go back inside to wait because her manager, Michelle, had already locked up and left for the night. “Well, I guess I shouldn't have told her to go ahead and go, but I hated for her to have to wait, and I figured Sandy would be here by now...” she muttered under her breath as she trudged down the road, pulling the hood of her jacket up over her head, trying to keep the rain off her face. She wasn't really sure where she was headed, she knew she couldn't walk all the way home. Schwetzingen was over 30 minutes away, over the Autobahn and it was dark and raining, so that was out of the question. “I don't have a cell phone and no money for a pay phone.” she thought to herself “Why can't Sandy ever show up on time? I don't even know if she left yet? This is so frustrating!” Leslie brushed a wet strand of blond hair back out of her eyes, she was sopping wet, tired, and getting angrier by the minute. She had only been working at the Burger King in the Patrick Henry Village for 2 weeks and already her ride had forgotten her three times, but at least before it had been daytime and she had been able to go back into the store to wait or call. Leslie had no idea where the nearest pay phone was and wasn't about to go searching for one in the rain, and dark, beside the fact that she didn't have any money for one even if she found it.
Suddenly, she had an idea, there was a guard post just around the corner, surely they would have a phone there. It was just around the corner so she shouldn't miss Sandy, should she already be on her way, she would call Sandy's cell phone.
Sergeant James Jamison was bored, he hated the night shift on guard duty, nothing ever happened. In fact he had seen two other people all night. Suddenly, he noticed something, someone was coming. It looked like, a girl, walking.
“Whatever is a girl doing out on the road at this hour and in this weather?” James thought. The girl approached the window.
“Hi” she said, as she fished in her purse for her passport and workers permit and slid them under the window.
“What are you doing out on a night like this?” James asked looking over her paperwork.
Leslie sighed, “Trying to get home.” she answered with a weak smile “you haven't by chance seen a green, Ford mini-van come through here, have you?” she asked hesitantly.
“Nope.” he answered “Everything looks like it's in order with your papers. Here you go.” Leslie sighed again and leaned her head on her hands.
“Are you ok?” James asked.
“Not really” Leslie responded “My ride was supposed to pick me up over 30 min ago, and they never showed. Is there any way I could use your phone?”
“Sure. Come on in!” He said as he opened the door. “It's not much, but it's dry.”
“I hope you won't get in trouble 'cause I'm in here” Leslie said, she was still learning what was and wasn't allowed on a military base and was nervous about making a mistake.
James moved to the other side of the room so Leslie could reach the phone. “No, I won't get in trouble.” he said easily “It's my job to assist anyone who needs help, especially a damsel in distress.”
Leslie smiled at his attempted joke then turned and dialed the number quickly and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for someone to answer. Finally, “Hello? Victoria? Is your mom there? Well, could you please give her the phone? I need to talk to her. Yes, it's important.” Leslie rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust at James, who just grinned. “Hi, Sandy? This is Leslie, you were supposed to pick me up 30 minutes ago. No, I'm not at Burger King anymore, I walked up to the guard station. Yeah, the one on South Lexington. Well, I guess I'll have to, won't I, since I'm not walking all the way home in the dark and rain. Sure. See ya in a bit.” Leslie hung up the phone “Thanks, Sergeant...ah...”
“Just call me Jamie, my friends do. And you can stay in here, where it's dry, until your ride gets here.”
“Thanks, I think I will. I really can't afford to get sick and miss work right now.”
“So, you work at Burger King, and I gathered from your conversation, you're not living with your family right now and you’re not military, so, how did you get over here?” James asked curiously.
“Oh, that's a long story. But the short version is that my parents are missionaries in Koblenz and I couldn't get a job there, due to being a foreigner. I was bored stiff living at home and when the Hollands offered to give me a place to stay and help me get a part time job on base, in exchange for helping home school their two youngest kids, I jumped at the chance. Now I'm wondering if it was such a good idea. Sandy, that's Mrs. Holland, is my transportation, but she's not very reliable, I've been late to work once already because she wasn't ready to go and this is the third time that she's forgotten to pick me up. But that is nothing compared to the fact that they refuse to treat me as an adult, capable of making my own decisions, I mean, they are even worse than my own parents. I think it might be more beneficial to me if I tried to get a place of my own and go full time at my job.” Leslie shrugged as she finished “but I don't know if I can get my dad to go for that.”
“How old are you, anyway?” Jamie asked, somewhat surprised that she would have to get her father's permission to move.
“Nine-teen, I'll be twenty in Sepyember.” Leslie smiled “And, yes, I know that I don't legally have to have my dad's permission to move, but that's the way I was raised. Besides if I do it without his permission he'd probably never speak to me again. Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing, sometimes.” Leslie smiled again and shrugged “You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I can relate to that. I joined the Army so I wouldn't have anyone telling me what to do.” Jamie laughed at his own joke. “But seriously, now that I'm an ocean away I kinda miss mom telling me what to do, and doing my laundry.”
Leslie laughed “You boys are so helpless; my brothers would probably die if they had to do their own laundry.”
“How many brothers do you have?” Jamie asked trying to change the subject.
With a smile Leslie answered “Four, and one Sister, all younger than me. So you know who did all the chores.” Leslie really didn't want to think about her home life, she realized that it probably could be a lot worse, but she hated the way her dad treated her mom and every time she went home it just seemed to get worse and worse. Her brothers had no respect for her mom and expected to be waited on hand and foot. And her little sister, Lilly, wasn't any help either, especially since she was only 4 and spoiled rotten.
Leslie was brought back to the present with a jolt as Jamie said “Looks like your ride's here.”
“Well, I guess I better go. Thanks for letting me use the phone.” Leslie said as she stepped out the door, and with a quick wave of her hand she was gone.
Jamie sighed as the van pulled away, why did all the strange stuff happen on his shift. Well at least it alleviated the boredom a bit. Two hours later he was relieved from duty by Chad Peterson. Chad was his best friend from home, they had grown up together, went to the same church, same school and after graduation they had decided to join up together. They were really excited when they had learned that they were both to be stationed in Heidelberg, Germany. They kept tabs on each other, it helped to have a Christian brother to remind him of the principals that he had grown up with.
“Anything interesting happen tonight?” Chad asked as he checked the log and set everything up for his shift.
Jamie stretched “Nothing much, some girl that works at Burger King came and used the phone, apparently her ride forgot that she was supposed to pick her up when they closed at midnight.” If there was anything in this world that Jamie couldn’t stand it was inconsiderate people. Though why he should feel this upset over the treatment of a complete stranger was beyond him. He was probably just tired and needed to go home and get some sleep.
As he walked into the apartment he and Chad shared, about 20 minutes later, he wondered what it would be like to be married, to have a wife waiting for him when he came home off of these late shifts or when he came back off of a weekend of drills. The apartment wasn't bad for a bachelor's pad, it was clean, but bare, Jamie could see where it could use a woman's touch. As a handsome Sergeant it wasn’t like he didn’t have his pick of girls and he had gone out with a few of them but he just hadn’t found the right one yet, for some reason Jamie thought of the girl that had stopped by his post last night, what did she say her name was… Leslie.
He wondered if she had a boyfriend, probably not, if her dad was really as controlling as she had indicated it wasn’t likely that he would allow her to have a boyfriend. But what did that matter to him anyway it wasn’t any of his business. Jamie tossed his keys into the dish by the door and headed over to his desk. He opened up his laptop and hit the check mail icon, as tired as he was he wanted to see if there was any news from home. After responding to e-mails from both his mother and little brother he got up from the desk and headed to his room unbuttoning his shirt as he went, once there he stripped down to his boxers and collapsed across the bed. His last thought as he went to sleep was of Leslie.
Eight hours later and insistent beeping noise roused Jamie slowly from sleep. He stretched his arm out, hit the snooze button and glared at his alarm clock that read 13:00. Jamie rolled out of bed pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, already the sleepy fog that surrounded his brain was starting to lift. He stopped in the kitchen long enough to grab a glass of water and tie on his running shoes, and then he was off. Jamie always enjoyed his “morning” run but on a day like today it was fantastic. You could hardly tell it had rained last night, the sun was shining brightly and the birds were singing sweetly. Dogs barked in the distance and you could hear the chatter of children playing on the playground Jamie smiled and waved to the children at the playground and most of them waved back. One thing about living on the American Base was it was just like home, you really couldn't tell that you were in another country unless you ventured off base, which very few did. Jamie wondered what it would be like to be raised in a foreign country to have to learn a new language and culture...like Leslie had.
Back at home, he tossed the mail on the table and hurried through his shower. He was suddenly hungry for a burger and he wanted to have plenty of time to stop by Burger King on his way to work.
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