Step One: Select the Victims

 

 

Walking up and down the hill to classes wasn’t working out. Maggie Freelove Wescott was not pleased. She had a perfectly decent vehicle to use for avoiding the November weather, but parking her Jeep on campus was time consuming and walking the one and a half miles was better for her fitness. Except when she added bruises. Like today, when stumbling.

“Good grief!” she snapped to herself. “This is so ridiculous! I can’t believe this is happening to me again! And again! And again!”

Exasperated with herself, she sat on the curb by the little Kiwanis Park on Eighth South in Provo and started gathering her papers and pens from the sidewalk and street.

“Thank goodness there isn’t much traffic this time of morning,” she mumbled again.

To say that Maggie was slightly klutzy was an understatement. Her fingers were graceful when performing on the piano or playing the organ in Church. That she could honestly say. It was those trips to and from the bench that got her.

And, she danced fairly well. It was the rest of the time, like right now. And, at fifty-nine, it wasn’t any better. Worse, actually, thanks to some medications she took for the ridiculous things that happen as the body ages.

Plenty of time was available before her late morning class. Maggie always left herself enough room just in case. And there was always a just-in-case.

Her knees were up under her chin anyway so she rested her face between them while neatly stacking what she could. Only two sheets of the composition she had finished last night were ruined by the dirt on the curbing and those could be reprinted in the Wilkinson Center on her way to class.

The sounds of a vehicle coming downhill from her left on Eighth South quickly caused some worry. Hopefully, it wouldn’t spray her with anything from the wet road. Many of the students coming and going from the Brigham Young University campus weren’t exactly polite. Not the majority, but many. Like most young people, they were still self-absorbed, in a hurry, and oblivious to older women. She prayed that the driver was one of the nice ones she kept literally running into. She glanced up to check.

No. This wouldn’t be a student. Even the well-off students in the apartments above hers didn’t drive Hummers. More accurately, an H2. This one a bright competition yellow H2.

She hurriedly pulled the mess into her folded lap, pulled her laptop case close and waited for it to pass.

It slid to a stop.

“Miss,” came from a pair of men’s dress boots running toward her, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, unfortunately, I am,” Maggie said pointedly and looked up.

The sight was a little unnerving to say the least. She wouldn’t have minded some help. She might even appreciate it. But this one she would pass on.

“Here, let me help,” he offered then bent over, reaching his hand down.

In the confusion between her protestations and his insistence, the items in her lap went to the street again. As she grabbed, he grabbed. To clarify, he squatted and retrieved the papers as she repeatedly threw them into the air trying to get hold of them. Her best pen hit him in the head on its way down.

And what a head it was. The shock of short salt-and-pepper hair flinched.

“Do you always attack helpful strangers?” he laughed.

Maggie’s embarrassment heightened immediately. “I am so sorry, so sorry, so sorry,” she stammered as her skin reddened.

“Here.” He pulled her up by the elbow then pushed her toward the H2’s passenger door, “I’ll get it. You sit.”

“No, really, I’m fine. I’m just a little klutzy.”

He walked back to the curb laughing and shaking his head then picked up her laptop and papers. Well, she was impressed. Thoroughly embarrassed, but impressed. Then the magnificent head of salt-and-pepper hair sat behind the steering wheel and laughed again, studying her.

“Are you in the habit of leaving your backpack on when you do your seatbelt up?”

She sighed. No wonder she felt so lumpy.

“Uh…no.” There was a good excuse, wasn’t there? “But it’s… It’s faster that way.”

“If you say so, Miss…?”

“Maggie,” she replied, trying to balance her laptop case on her lap while reaching her right hand over to shake his.

“I’m Will. Welcome to my vehicle,” he replied, giving her a firm handshake. “Where to?”

“Oh, I was headed to class, but now I’m headed to the Wilkinson Center to make new copies. Just down to Ninth then—”

“I know where it is.” He put the expensive vehicle in gear and drove toward the stop sign several blocks away.

“Boy, I’ve never been in one of these before,” she commented, “They are just as claustrophobic on the inside as they look.”

“Ummm? I hadn’t thought about it as being ‘claustrophobic’,” he chuckled then glanced her way as he turned right.

“Oh. Well, it’s the tiny windows,” she said apologetically, embarrassed again.

“Are you a professor?”

“Oh! Heavens no! I’m just older,” she laughed while hurriedly stuffing the papers and pens into her laptop case. “I’m a student. For now anyway – if I can survive it. You live around here?”

“No,” he replied, turning left onto Ninth South. “I’m in town visiting my son at his apartment right now. He’s getting his doctorate at the ‘Y’. I’m afraid he might decide to become a permanent student,” he chuckled. “After his mission he couldn’t decide what he wanted and I’m afraid he’s a little too talented in too many areas.”

“Sounds like a young man in one of my classes. Several young men I know, in fact.” With her backpack nudging against her back, Maggie shifted in her seat. “Boy, if I were a little younger it would help.”

Will laughed nervously which should have been her clue to shut up, but she didn’t. “Are you old enough to have grandchildren?”

The shock of salt-and-pepper hair turned toward her, his blue eyes a little veiled. “Yes… And no.”

With that comment, he turned left into the drop-off port for the student building and rolled to a stop.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m always asking questions,” Maggie explained, trying to apologize again. “Life is so full of things to touch and see and feel and do that I forget about…” Her speech hesitated as she looked at her door, desperately grasping for the handle, “…anyway, thank you.”

“Wait!” He grabbed at her arm, but she was already halfway out.

She nodded a thanks, said a thanks, and shut the door. And immediately ran for the glass door to the building. That was one experience she would rather not have had!

Standing there in Cougar Prints waiting to pay for her copies a few minutes later, Maggie flushed a little. Mr. Hummer was a rather handsome man, especially the deep-blue eyes and that head of hair. Not many older men had that much hair. In fact, not many men period were that handsome. And, there was a slight irritation in her over it.

“Maggie!”

Startled, Maggie turned as a hand grabbed her arm. “Oh! Greg. My goodness, you surprised me!”

“Dreaming again?” he laughed at her. “What was it this time? A pile of Fall leaves? A symphony?”

“No!” she snapped, smiling at the young man. “But I admit to a certain amount of distraction. I dropped my stuff again this morning and I’m in a hurry for class now.”

“Sorry I didn’t see you when I came down the hill,” he replied. “But I’m on the run, too. We still on for lunch?”

Maggie nodded her affirmation as her young friend Greg bounded out of the print shop and headed for his class. Yes, lunch was still on and she knew what he wanted.