Arriving early, she checks the clock, reaching to the passenger seat and hauling the first bag over her head, looping the shoulder sling about her. Opening the door, she snags the other bag, stepping out to hang it off of her other shoulder, and leaning in to grab the final bag. Locking the door, she steps out and closes it, advancing toward the hall.
Am I early enough?
Yanking out her keys, she opens the door and starts to set up, placing the last bag here, the second bag there, wrangling her coat off from under the first bag, and taking that bag with her to the far side of the building. So much to do… She starts with the part she’s never done before; one of her team members is out tonight, so she’s taking this part over. This has to get done first to make sure it gets done. My part isn’t as crucial and can wait.
She runs hither and thither setting things up. It isn’t until the first of her team walks in that she forgot one of the most time-consuming parts of the set-up. She blanches.
He catches her wince. Without missing a beat, he smiles. “What can I do?”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. What can I do?”
She explains the chair set-up and he runs right to it. As he embarks on his quest, another team member walks in. “Let me help with that,” he insists, nodding a greeting to her as he rushes by. Within a few minutes, others are assisting as well, fetching this or moving that. What would have taken her almost an hour was completed within fifteen minutes, and everyone is ready to start the event on time.
The event begins. Again, they hit a hitch – a technical glitch.
Three jump up immediately, one going to the tech, one notifying the temporary techmaster, and one glancing between the two to see if either party needed help. Problem solved in under a minute.
Whew.
At the end of the night, she gives up trying to corral the troops for the close-out meeting and started on various tasks. One by one, the team members see what she was doing and quietly follow suit, putting this here and that there until the entire place was in order. Peering out from her weary eyes, she finds the team gathered and ready for the final meeting of the night.
Ready. That is the grandest oddity: this was the first time the entire group was ready for any of their meetings. It had been wearing her thin that getting everyone together was like herding cats: it’s fairly easy to get one, but as soon as another enters the vicinity, they both leave, turning up their noses at having to share attention. Tonight, these two meetings of respectful congregation shocked her into a stutter; she quickly regains composure, carrying through the meeting and sending everyone off.
There is one last thing she has to do… Ugh, I don’t want to bother to ask someone to stay with me! The policy was that nobody was the last person to leave: if you were going to be the last person, someone else stays with you to make sure you’re both safe. Although she understood the policy, she simultaneously thought it was a waste of someone else’s time to bother waiting for her. Typically, the person she was covering for tonight would also be staying this late with her, so they’d walk out together, neither really waiting on the other. Nobody’s gonna jump me on the way to my car…
When she looks up from shoving a book into her bag, one of her team members smiled at her. “I’m gonna walk you to your car,” he announces happily.
She chuckles. “You don’t have to do that,” she assures him. “I’m sure you’re tired and ready to get home to your wife.”
“Mmm, my wife wouldn’t like the idea of me not walking a young woman to her car this late at night. No ma’am. We could be the safest city in the state, the country, the world, and it wouldn’t matter. No, no. It’s polite to walk a lady to her vehicle late at night.”
Smiling, she nods her acquiescence. “Thank you.”
Quickly finishing her final task, she tosses on her coat. Chipper as ever, he walks her to her car on the far side of the parking lot through the blisteringly cold wind chill. “I just want to make sure the engine turns over.”
She smiles; opening the door, she inserts the key and turns. “My car never fails me.”
“You never know!” He calls to her as he walks away. “Have a great night!”
Silently, she sits in the car, turning her lights on and watching to make sure that he, too, gets in his car. With a grin, she pops her foot on the brake and shifts into drive. Good night, she thinks. “Good night indeed.”
