The Rescuer Ch. 01

Keeley eagerly took the window seat facing towards the village so she could continue to look at it thru the back window of the rain cars. Shelly surprised her by sliding in beside her. Her boyfriend took the opposite side, all by himself. Seth seemed amused, mostly at her, and all the fuss of such outdated extravagance. Only one other couple had already been seated in the car with them, and unfortunately they seemed to instantly recognize the blonde vision sharing her side of the table.

Their slightly distasteful scowls made it obvious that they weren't just looking at a beautiful woman dressed a bit too provocatively. The wife, at least, knew Shelly for the social pariah she still was in some social circles. Infamous more than famous. Still envied, as much as constantly eviscerated by the local gossip. Keeley wasn't sure if the blonde was just so used to such looks, or was just hiding her disappointment about the impolite sneers that smoothly.

Eventually, after a disapproving cough from the conductor, the couple returned their attention to their meal. But after the kindly man left, their voices barely got quieter, as they obviously continued to discuss one of Shelly's notorious scandals after another.

But Keeley was determined that if her roommate wasn't going to let them spoil this adventure, neither was she.

The menu already waiting for her on the table, was just as elegant in it's appearance as was the silverware, and contained only a few but tempting offerings. A waiter, even younger than their porter, politely took their orders. Shelly choose a light assortment of delicate sandwiches, while her boyfriend ordered the fish and chips with a dark beer.

Keeley smiled at his choice of beverage, knowing ahead of time that he wouldn't be too pleased with it. The Sheppard's Pie description looked delicious, so she picked it, but also asked for some Scottish Eggs for them to share while they waited for their main courses.

As the menus were taken away, two glasses of champagne got served in real period correct crystal goblets, instead of modern stem ware. Expecting a bit of a let down from the vintage served at the art exhibition, Shelly clearly shared her enthusiasm for this choice. The rest of the bottle was slipped into a holder built into the table base, and made specifically for that purpose well over a hundred years ago. How many bottles it had kept safe, from the rocking motion of the train and jostling passengers, Keeley couldn't help but try to imagine.

When she finally turned and lowered her head, to be the first one of their group to look out any of the side windows, she froze in place and shuddered again.

Whatever her finer tuned sense of direction had told her to expect to see, wasn't what greeted her eyes.

Night appeared to be falling early, because of the sun going down behind the creek's western hilltops. The gardens they had driven thru to get here were now fully ablaze from the gas lit lamps. Only a narrow view of the park was allowed, hemmed in as it was by both the dining car's window and the now almost invisible walls of the Gap's exterior sides. The special non-glare glass prevented almost all the reflections that would have given the illusion away.

But centered in that view was the most wonderful fountain Keeley had ever seen.

It had been hidden from them all, in the middle of the park, on Shelly's side of the cab. A circle of gas lamps completely surrounded the marble structure, and sparkled on and shined thru the dancing waters. The plumes regularly changed shape, and often danced as high as twenty feet up into the air. Looking past Shelly and thru the other side of the dining car, the rude couple's window shades were also mostly lowered, but the western view was just as intriguing.

A portion of a real English garden hedge maze was sprawled out before her eyes.

The confusing pathways and statues were lit by even more gas lights, expertly tucked within the tall hedges. The shrubbery walls were higher than the few visitors exploring the convoluted lanes, but from her vantage point it was easy to see their goal in the center of the upper garden. The large marble edged pond, with little sailboats bobbing on it's sparkling surface, made her heart ache all over again.

Suddenly Keeley felt totally out of sorts, and after looking down at her expensive china plate of Scotch Egg's that had arrived while she had been so bewildered, she desperately had to close her eyes.

The feeling that she was actually on a train... that had stopped only for a moment on the tracks between two very different and constantly competing rival estates... was almost overwhelming in it's intensity.

Eventually in her darkness, she heard comforting sounds that reinforced that illusion even further. Quiet noises from the kitchen staff. A few more guests arriving and being seated. Her boyfriend quietly making fun of her, and Shelly half heartedly defending her.

But the dreamlike state was slowly being shattered. Between the disdainful couple's rude laughs, and one sharp comment from Seth, the banality finally got thru to her and the peace she hadn't expected to find tonight left her abruptly.

It's loss... and her boyfriend's next comment... sparked more than a little bit of her famous temper.

"There she goes again! Off in her own little world! I watched Keeley wander over the entire second floor of the exhibition hall, on her second time around the room, as if the art itself wasn't even there!"

Keeley blinked at the sudden brightness of the candles on their table, and carefully quipped out a quiet retort.

"We spent all that time in that wonderful place, and neither of you noticed the most obvious thing! Or worked out how it was done! I wasn't stuck in my own little world! I was just looking at the building's exhibit hall itself! Very carefully! You two really didn't notice anything odd, about both floors of the exhibit? Nothing at all?"

Seth wasted no time firing back.

"It was just a little museum hall. Nothing special about it at all. Plain brick walls, all painted white, all down each side of each of the floors. I'll admit that the tall domed barrel glass roof on the second floor was interesting, as was the garden they wouldn't let me go outside to smoke in. Just because some snobby private reception was being set up out there? Couldn't have been a plainer or more dull looking building if they had tried! It was just Art and Space. Nothing more!"

Once Shelly saw the wry little smile form on her face, the blonde kept her mouth shut, but finally shrugged her shoulders and then nodded for her to explain.

"Nothing more? Couldn't be more dull if they'd tried? The exhibition space wasn't that small! But downstairs, other than the wall of glass windows on either end, what was the ONLY thing there that wasn't Art? What was the only thing that wasn't part of the Artist's traveling tour? Can either of you even remember that much? It was such an obvious clue!"

Seth chuckled, but didn't answer, and was obviously trying to buy himself some time. Shelly took another bite of her appetizer, so Keeley decided to finally try hers as well. All three of the sauces artfully spooned out on the plate were wonderful, and complimented the breading, sausage and egg differently. Eventually, her blonde roommate came up with the correct first part of the real answer.

"There was only that odd wide spiral wrought-iron staircase. Nothing else was in the room. Or was there?"

If it took her an extra few seconds to finish her next bite, they didn't seem to notice. Keeley debated whether to tease them a bit more, or just tell them. After her frustration filled last few weeks, teasing easily won out.

"Think about how big some of those canvases were. How large the statue was, next to the back wall of windows downstairs. How wide the main sculpture was, upstairs near the street. What didn't you two see any of, on either level, apart from where we came in and where the downstairs guard was posted next to the glass wall by the garden. And, what is always in the way, in every showroom of that size you have ever been in before?"

Somehow there was only one appetizer left on her plate. Keeley carefully cut it in two, and chose the savory sauce to have with the first half this time. She looked intently past Shelly, and tried to trace out the paths she could see in the maze. The rude woman seemed offended by her stare, until she realized she was just looking out at the garden.

Out in the maze, a few couples came into view, as well as a small family. They kept going from one edge of the train's window, only to reappear on one side or the other, a few minutes later. All were working hard to try and find their way to the center, that only she could clearly see from here.

Her roommates continued to argue and quip back and forth, while she enjoyed the sweeter sauce with the second half of her last appetizer. Then she switched her attention back to her own side of the dining car, and watched the fountain play thru it's never repeating cycle. Couples walked freely thru the garden, able to see exactly where they wanted to go, and had no trouble getting there.

After a few more second's thought, Keeley decided that the philosophical contrast between the two outdoor spaces was deliberate.

By the time her plate was as empty as her champagne goblet, her roommates were both looking at her intently again. Shelly reached for the bottle and got it from it's clever little holder and refilled their glasses. Looking at the nearly full level of beer left in the pint glass, Keeley carefully slid her refilled goblet over, and took the dark beer from her grateful boyfriend before she spoke.

"Downstairs there isn't a single column supporting the second floor. Not one. Only the central spiral staircase blocks the view of all the displayed art down there. Upstairs, the metal steps and handrails of the staircase end even with the floor. Only that glass little circle of a wall prevented people from falling down the hole. Just two small doors, and only on the lower level, in the entire place? Think how big even the smallest of her statues was! The main canvas was over fifteen feet tall? Think how heavy the artist's featured steel sculpture had to be! How did they even get any of that artist's work inside the exhibit hall?"

The waiter whisked in and removed their plates, and seconds later, he returned with their food on a small cart. Shelly and Seth ignored him, because they were engaged in a spirited debate about there having had to have been other doors, somewhere in the museum. Keeley made sure to give the waiter a warm smile, for all three of them, and quickly tucked into the crispy top of her Sheppard's Pie.

Although the filling steamed thru opening she had made, it was perfectly done but somehow not too hot to eat right away. Several bites later, and after she got a little more daydreaming done, Keeley decided to let her friend's off the hook so they could stop arguing and eat too.

They both seemed to jump, more than a little, as if they had forgotten that she was even there.

"After I walked around the top floor a second time, I knew something was wrong with the walls. Someone did try to make that beautiful hall as absolutely plain and dull as possible. Even with all that sparkling glass, white bricks and rich polished wood, they took a lot of time and effort to make the Art the only thing to focus on. When I disappeared for a little while, not that either of you two actually noticed, I went back downstairs to ask one of the exhibit guides about the hall itself. The original museum was the oldest building, right in the middle of the historic block, but it burned down decades ago. It was used as a parking lot until the new museum director bought the land, and all the other structures on the entire city square. Every single one of them! Then they laid in a special steel frame across the vacant lot, so there wouldn't have to be any columns downstairs. The glass barrel ceiling took a while to put up, as did moving in and transplanting all those huge mature trees you could see out in the garden. Because they left all the original store fronts and businesses alone along the street, most people don't realize how big the place is behind all the shops is now."

Both of her roommates still didn't seem to get it, so she just came right out and told them.

"It was the white brick walls. Entire sections of them are actually cleverly disguised enormous doors, except for the first two walls downstairs by the street. Those don't move because they have the used record and vintage clothing stores behind them. Everywhere else, the real painted bricks between the wooden posts? They all swing back into the museum's meeting rooms on the other side! I asked the security guard about it, and he let me into the garden so I could see the back sides of the exhibit hall. The metal tracks and wheels are huge! He said you could move any of the walls with just a single hand. They used some old counterweighted fixtures, from a 1930's military aircraft hanger, for the hinges and tracks."

Now that she had begun talking, her roommates finally began to enjoy their meal, too. But clearly, they wanted her to stop eating and finish her explanation, so they could determine who had been winning their own argument.

But as Seth rudely mumbled thru his first bite of his fish and chips, and really started upsetting her, Shelly chimed right in behind him and just made things even more awful.

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Shelly looked sharply at her male roommate, to try and warn him, the moment Seth's tone announced that he had other things on his mind than the success of their night out.

"You didn't used to be like this Keeley, but it's been getting worse and worse. Even before we moved to the new place! The daydreaming, I mean. Ever since you decided to go back for your Masters degree? Or was it even before that? Why would anyone care what the hell the building was like, when the art exhibition is what we went there to see?"

The pale skin all over the redhead's body flushed, but she managed not to burst out with the first thing on her tongue. Yet once she had successfully stifled that initial reaction, her next words wouldn't come out. Lost and hurt, Keeley just looked down at her plate and began eating again.

"See! That's what I mean! All the extra time we took to get to our table here, just so you could look around? What was it all for? We still ended up in the exact same place!"

Shelly took a few more seconds to finish her current bite, and made sure she timed her response as best as she could. Too soon would have been just as bad as waiting until she would be speaking over her fuming coworker. Only when the idiot turned to look at her, did she let herself try and answer for the stunned and hurt Keeley.

"Oh? So you think you know where we are sitting at in THIS building's complex? Keeley does. So do I. You, rather apparently, don't! Why did they pick real antique British railway dining cars for their restaurant? Why did they go to all this trouble? Not to mention how much it must have cost to build all of the period correct shops on the street, the hotel downstairs, the club bar, and the resort promenade? Maybe you actually don't know a lot of things that you are counting on being real and true! Let me prove that to you! It was about six months ago, long before I moved in with you two, that your girlfriend began to change. Even I could tell that, and not just from all of those extra shifts when I saw her at work. Care to guess the real reason why Keeley began pulling back into herself so much?"

It took some doing, to not make it obvious above the table, but Shelly just barely got her own legs out of the way before the redhead could land the sharp point of her left heel on either of them. Keeley finally recovered her voice, and it returned in the quiet ominous whisper they all knew so well.

"You need to stay out of this! You little Missy! You don't know anything either! I just got so fucking tired, and began wondering what all the misery of the last few years has been for! I gave up most of my life, just to get both of those damn degrees, and now I am working harder than ever? And I'm still broke? I made my choice to finally go back to graduate school, in a desperate try to have a real life someday! Not because I wanted to add more homework to my workload again!"

Keeley eventually looked up from her plate and over at her. Usually, Shelly knew that her own polished poker face kept anyone from reading what was on her mind. But after working so closely with each other at the club for so many years? Lately the redhead had begun to be able to get past her defenses. In the crowded VIP room, giving naked dances to both men and couples in such tight quarters, they'd had to learn how to communicate complex ideas without using words that could be overheard.

The redhead's favorite customer's influence, well meaning as it had always been, must have taken a deeper hold on her roommate than Shelly had thought possible.

Just by studying her too stiff posture, somehow Keeley used her newly acquired insight to jump right past her defenses. Her roommate easily deduced that it wasn't the obvious connection, of when she had first met her Sunday night regular, that she was trying to hide.

Shelly knew that her roommate's relationship was in trouble for so many reasons! But the worst, or next to worst, would be what her boyfriend had just admitted to Shelly right before they had left the apartment building.

His startling confession and unanswered pleas for help, had been bothering her ever since, and just wouldn't leave her mind.

The more Shelly thought about it, the harder Keeley began staring at her. Bits and pieces of odd conversations they had all had over the last week began falling in place for her coworker. The unrelated data suddenly all clicked into place for the redhead, and the results on that normally cute and peaceful face were drastic.

The exact secret, that Seth had whispered to her on their elevator ride down to meet their taxi, was horribly true.

The man on the opposite side of the table from them flinched visibly, when those angry fiery green eyes turned and burned into him.

"You've actually forgotten! You don't even know what subject my Master is going to be in? After all the months it took me to finally make a decision! Trying to search for a program that would accept me, here, so we wouldn't have to move out of town! So YOU wouldn't have to be inconvenienced in the slightest! When I've begged and wanted to do that very thing, and get away from here, for so damn long! How many years have we been together now Seth? And still you do this sort of thing to me? Do you even remember what my two majors are? Six years of my life! That's how long it took me to get both of those degrees! Do you remember? Either one of them? Do you? DO YOU?"

The lady from the rude couple saved him, as she chuckled viciously as they stood up to leave. Shelly felt her own face flush in embarrassment, for having let that cruel woman see her at the focus of yet another failing relationship. Only the skilled and timely arrival of the conductor, to shoo them off, kept some truly nasty retort from coming out of either the old crone's mouth or Keeley's.

The busboy swooped in to the old couple's table, and then a second helper placed a new tablecloth, china and silverware with amazing speed. Luckily, the redhead gave up her anger, the moment the conductor began to pass out of earshot. But actually, the distinguished looking tall older man just ducked behind a wall, and stopped just short of that range though.

It was as if he was desperately waiting to hear Keeley's next words for some reason.