The Volunteer

By then the cogs were really churning inside my head. To stay in the Moat House Hotel, inferred that this Jennifer bird to be bloody loaded. Better than loaded actually.

But that kind of confused me, because even if she was a complete dog... Well. You have to admit that there are plenty of dodgy gigolo type characters out there; who are more than willing to avert their eyes from the mantelpiece while they are spending the cash.

Mind you, the same can be said of some women. How often, do you see some rich old fart who looks like he's about to pop his clogs, and who has a sexy young starlet type on his arm, and, sharing his bed most likely. Yeah very likely!

But my mind was wandering while Mrs Biddle was still talking.

"You do have a dinner jacket Simon?"

"Yes; not that I wear it very often these days."

"Oh good, Jennifer's flight gets in a little before six. She should be out pretty quickly, they fast track first-class. Wear your dinner jacket and she'll easily recognise you and then you can have dinner together at the Moat House when you get there. No one gets into the Moat House restaurant without a dinner jacket."

"Friday, if you can pick her up from the hotel about half six. She's not part of the ceremony but you and Jennifer are invited to the rehearsal dinner at the Metropolitan. It'll give Jennifer a chance to get to know everyone again. She hasn't been back to the UK since... Oh my how long has it been, Graham?"

"It must be nearly eight years, possibly longer. My sister's second husband is an American, Simon, but Jennifer was mostly educated in the UK. She lived here with us for many years."

After that, what there was in the way of conversation turned to the standard safe subjects. Mostly the weather, how bad the traffic was getting in town and the shortage of car parking space. While we drank the tea, that had eventually arrived, I kinda wondered which cup Marsha had put the arsenic into.

Then Billie drove me back home in total silence.

I did want to ask Billie what the catch was; but I chickened out. No mater how bad this Jennifer bird looked... Okay I'm a softy; I figured that if she was a dog, then it ain't my place to rub it in. If I asked Billie, then he might let it slip to Jennifer, and then I would never be able to face her. Sorry, that's just how my mind's wired up.

I did enquire of some of the guys who would have remembered Jennifer though, and got everything from "no comment" to "Oh Christ! Billie didn't manage to rope you in on that one did he?"

But there were no descriptions that I could trust as to exactly what was going to come walking through that arrivals gate on that Thursday evening.

I say "that I could trust" because one guys described a sixteen-year-old barrel of lard to me. He told me that he'd only spoken to her once, and that she was a complete spoilt brat. Another guy, told me that she wasn't really all that heavy and that Jennifer had quite a pretty face when she took her bottle bottom spectacles off. And yet another said that she was fat and had a voice on her like a cat being drowned.

The three descriptions had little in common, but to suggest that Jennifer was on the overweight side. I tried to wipe them from my mind, and see for myself what walked off the plane on Thursday evening.

===================

Feeling done-up like a turkey at Christmas I got a few very strange looks from some of the other friends and families, waiting to meet their arrivals.

I noted a couple of people holding up cards with names on and cursed myself for not getting Jennifer's surname. God only knew how many people were getting off her flight, but there were what appeared to me to be hundreds of people waiting to greet them. Dinner jacket or not, I couldn't see that Jennifer was going to have an easy job spotting me.

Then the door slid open, and a great mass of humanity spilled forth through the arrivals gate. There were so many on them that I couldn't look at them individually. I just stood there like a tailors dummy and hoped that Jennifer would be able to spot the idiot in the dinner jacket.

"Mr Truman?" A voice suddenly asked off to my left.

When I looked, an unbelievably charming looking, air-stewardess -- albeit in mufti -- was standing there. Come on fella's, we all know that one of the first things those stewardesses are taught is how to present themselves. They stand out from the crowd like catwalk models.

"Yes. Can I help you?" I asked.

"Jennifer."

"Yes, I'm waiting for a young lady named Jennifer. Do you know what's keeping her?"

"Nothing, I'm here!" she giggled.

"You're Jennifer?" I gasped.

"I was when I got out of bed this morning. Why, what were you expecting?" she giggled again.

"Well er, I don't know."

"Oh my, you've gone all red... Simon, isn't it?

"Y-yes, Simon Truman at your service, milady."

"Oh my, aren't we a slimy one. Come on Simon you can't be one of them. I'd put on a lot of puppy fat when I was a teenager. A horrendous amount actually! It definitely didn't make me popular with the boys and I got a reputation for retaliating if any of them upset me. I should imagine you've heard some pretty horrific stories about me."

"No, no!"

"Simon, I'm not daft. I watched you from over there; there was an expression of apprehension on your face as you waited for me. I know what you were expecting, but this is what you've got."

She stepped back and curtsied toward me.

"Now, you're either a very nice young man, or you're a charlatan who's after some of my stepfather's cash. Somehow I don't think you're going to be the latter. Only time will tell."

"I had no idea that you're parents were rich Jennifer, when Billie asked me to be your escort."

"Yes I know, Billie told me all the boys ran a mile when he asked them. Boy, are we going to surprise some of them."

"Yes, I'm afraid that Billie was scraping the bottom of the barrel when he got down as low as me."

"I don't know, you scrub-up quiet well by the look of it; shall we get going?"

I took Jennifer's luggage from her and we walked the half a mile or so to where I'd parked my car. I had suggested we took the courtesy bus, but Jennifer said she wanted to enjoy the smell of England.

"More like burnt jet fuel!"

"Well it is English Jet fuel Simon. Now don't spoil the atmosphere."

"Bugger the atmosphere your cases are bloody heavy. Haven't you ever heard of weight limits?"

"Give here, I'll take one."

"No, I'll carry them; it would injure my manly pride."

"Simon, I think we're going to get on just fine!" Jennifer giggled again.

"I'm glad you think so. Personally I think that Billie's dropped an unexploded bomb in my lap."

"Why do you say that?"

"It doesn't make any sense to me Jennifer. You're what, twenty-five?

"Four."

"Okay Twenty-four. You are exceedingly beautiful."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. And you say that your stepfather is exceeding rich. Actually, even I could work that one out; you're booked into the bloody Moat House."

"Yeah, good idea wasn't it. Kinda rubs it in to everyone, that I'm a spoilt rich kid, doesn't it?"

I stopped walking. "Why would you want to do that?"

"If you promise not to tell, I'll explain when we get in the car. I can't hear a thing with all these planes taking off."

"That one just landed, Jennifer."

"Same difference!"

===================

"Is this it?" She asked, as I dropped her suitcases by my car's boot.

"I'm afraid so sweetie. Some of us haven't got rich daddies you know?"

"Well it looks alright. But is it safe?"

"It got me here and you can always walk behind if you wish."

"I'm only joking Simon. It looks very nice actually."

"Thanks, its ten years old and only has eighty thousand on the clock. It'll do me for many years yet. Now what say, we get the hell out of here. Are you going to sit in the front or back milady?"

"The front, but why are you...?"

"Getting short with you? Well, you're up to something I don't understand Jennifer and I get the feeling that I'm a pawn in your game."

"Oh no Simon, I can promise you that you aren't. I'll admit that when I asked Billie to find me an escort for the weekend, you weren't what I expected."

"I'm not?"

"No, I was expecting one of Marsha's goons."

"Goons?"

"Never mind, I've got you as my escort instead!"

"And that's something I can't understand. With your looks and your stepfather's money, you must have a whole raft of eligible young American guys' chasing around after you. Rich ones, as well, most likely. What I can't get my head around, is why haven't you brought one of them over with you?"

"Ah now, two reasons really. One it wouldn't serve my purpose. The second, well, if I were to have invited someone to fly halfway around the world with me, they might have got the wrong idea. I'm very particular about who I choose to go to bed with, Simon. So don't you go getting any smart ideas!"

"The thought never crossed my mind."

"Liar! Anyway that isn't important, you wanted to know what the game is?"

"Yes!"

"Well you might not understand, but it's revenge."

"On who?"

"Everyone: except My Uncle Graham and Billie! And you of course, I've got nothing to feel vengeful towards you about...yet!"

"You've lost me Jennifer, before you've even started."

"Simon, I hope you don't mind me saying, but you're not rich are you?"

"And I'm not on the breadline either!"

"Yes, that's obvious, but you weren't born to excess cash available, were you?"

"Like you, you mean?"

"Hold up Simon. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. My father worked for an airline, but we weren't rich or anything. My mother and father struggled to pay their mortgage just like most other people. And they scraped enough together to send me to a Public School as a day student. I think they only did that, because my aunt, Billie's mother... Well she's a stuck up bitch and she inferred that they were neglecting my education.

"I'll be honest I'm damned sure mother only sent me to a public school to prove to the bitch that they could afford to. "Oh Graham is so clever, he can conjure money out of thin air!" "Are you still working for that little airline, Frank?" Christ, I can hear the bitch now, and I was only about five at the time."

"You don't think much of Billie's mother then?"

"No, I despise the cow. The sooner Billie gets out of that house the better...and that little skink Marsha!"

"Skink?"

"Yes a slimy little two faced lizard."

"Two faced aye? She must have done something to get up your nose."

"Did she!" Jennifer was sounding extremely angry.

Jennifer went on to give me the story of her life. She'd been seven when her father had died in a road accident. Unfortunately the family had been deeply in debt at the time and her mother had little idea what to do. They lost their house and even her mother's car was repossessed. And Jennifer was going to have to leave her public school at the end of term.

Then her uncle Graham, her mother's brother, stepped in. He suggested that Jennifer should go and live with them for a while, and she could go to the same public school as Marsha and Billie. Jennifer did not think he'd discussed the idea with his wife before he made the offer, but she was too young to realise that at the time, or do anything about it.

With Jennifer staying with her brother, Jenny's mother could go back as an airside stewardess. She'd been working on the ground since Jenny had been born. That brought in more money to help clear her debts. But it also meant she that was away abroad most of the time. The airline she and her husband had worked for was not a big one with regular routes. It was a smaller private charter company with executive aircraft. And by far the majority of its work was in the Far East and North America.

Jenny grew up living with her aunt and uncle, and her cousins Billie and Marsha of course. But as she got older she realised that her aunt did not like her, or her mother. Her aunt would infer that all air stewardesses were little more than prostitutes, Jenny's mother included.

Whether that was through jealously of her mother's undoubted good looks, Jenny didn't know. But by the time she was ten her aunt had made her feelings clear.

As Jenny put it, "I wasn't quite treated like a Cinderella, because Uncle Graham wouldn't have allowed it. But that was they way my aunt looked upon me."

As it turned out, Jenny's Uncle Graham was off gallivanting all over the world himself, most of the time, so Jenny had had a tough time of it. Her life was made no better by Marsha, who ganged up with her mother against Jenny. The only person who ever sided with Jenny was Billie, but only then when he was feeling brave.

Jenny told me that things were tolerable until she got to about thirteen. Marsha who is about the same age went into puberty about the same time. But Jenny quite suddenly put on an enormous amount of puppy fat.

"I was enormous and very ugly. Things were made worse when my eyes began to give me trouble a year or so later. Honestly Simon I wanted to die. All the boys at school made fun of me, egged on by Marsha of course. The little cow used to drop her knickers for the first boy who made me cry every day."

"You are joking?"

"No I am not. She wouldn't let them screw her, but they could look, and finger her if they hurt me enough.

"Eventually I realised that I had something that none of them had, size! So if a boy or girl, Marsha had quite a little crowd of bitches around her, said anything to upset me... I belted them as hard as I could."

"Did it work?"

"Not exactly, I got expelled. But Uncle Graham is quite influential and eventually I was reinstated. I'd got myself a terrible reputation with the school staff, but at least most of the other children gave me a wide berth after that.

"I was sixteen when my mother married my stepfather. He'd been a passenger on one of her flights several times and she just happened to say that she wouldn't be able to work airside much longer. Mum has kept her looks, but airlines get a bit funny about the age of their stewardesses. Anyway, my stepfather offered mother a job on his Dude Ranch, and mother went there to see what it was all about.

"It turned out that the Dude Ranch he'd told her about, wasn't a Dude Ranch it was just his home, and the job he was offering my mother was as his wife." Jenny laughed out loud "You'll never believe it, but Jack had been chartering the plane to fly him all over the place for months, just so that he could see my mother. Mum eventually said yes, but of course, before they could tie the knot I had to be out there. I never came back."

"But you are back now!"

"Yes and I want to rub their noses in it. Had Billie talked one of the boys who taunted me into being my escort, I intended teasing the sod, by letting him think he was going to get lucky. Then I'd arrange it so that he wouldn't be able to get past security at the Moat House. Well sorry Simon but we're going to have a security guard following us around on Saturday. Three million dollars worth of jewellery arrived in the UK several days ago. Half, I'm lending to Billie's bride, the rest I intend to wear myself and describe as every day trash to Marsha and her mother. I know those two; it will turn them green with envy."

"And where do I fit into this plan of yours?"

"You don't really. You're neutral; my handsome escort for the weekend and all those boys who teased me when I was fat and ugly and refused to be my escort for the wedding are going kick themselves wondering whether you are going to get shag me over the weekend. I, of course, will hint as much if any of them dare to ask me to dance."

"And if I don't want to play?"

"Oh but you do, Simon. There's just the slightest hope in your heart that I might want you to take me to bed sometime over the weekend. Tell me, when was the last time you drove a woman who looked as good as I do, to her hotel?"

"I can't recall ever being in the same room as a women as beautiful as you are Jennifer, let alone in the same car."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a smile come on Jenny's face.

"Such a shame it will be the last time we will be in each others company."

"Pardon!"

"Jennifer, I hate to go back on my word. But I will not assist you in your childish attempts to get your own back for wrongs done you as a child. Those guys are so small minded that they will have no idea what you are doing or why. Marsha, she's not worth the bother, just loaning Billie's bride some expensive jewellery will make your point to her and her mother. Shit, just staying in the Moat House has done that.

"Giving everybody the idea that you're going to bed a low life like me just cheapens you. No, girl, find some other arsehole to play your silly game." I said as I stopped at the security station at the entrance to the Moat House hotels drive.

"How long is your stay sir?" The guard asked

"Five nights," Jennifer replied.

"I'll give you a five day pass sir. Please display it in your windscreen when you arrive and depart."

"That won't be necessary, the lady's staying. I'm not!"

"Yes it will. He'll be collecting and dropping me off every day, officer."

"He's a security guard not a police officer, Jennifer. Anyway I told you, no deal!"

"I did know, what else am I supposed to call him? Please come in Simon. Let's have dinner and talk about this."

"There's nothing to discuss Jennifer. I've made my feelings clear."

"Then can't we please just have dinner together?"

I acquiesced. After all, it isn't everyday you get the chance to have dinner with possibly the most beautiful woman you've ever laid eyes on, at the most prestigious restaurant in town, and she's footing the bill.

Jennifer signed in at the desk and was told that her table was awaiting us. Some flunky took her bags from me and then disappeared. I was to discover that the staff at the Moat House made a habit of doing that. Look for one and there was no one in sight, but look back down again and a voice would say, "Can I help you sir?"

She took my arm and we headed for the restaurant together. We'd seated for but a few seconds when Jenny said she had to make some running repairs and promptly vanished towards the ladies powder room. Yeah, that's what it said on the door.

The waiter brought me a beer while I was waiting. Something I do believe he was unused to doing; but he treated my request politely.

When Jenny returned, she'd no sooner seated herself (with the flunky who shown us to our table originally assistance, yet again, yeah wood work job I never saw where the bugger appeared from) then the waiter arrived again to take our order. That's when I got a shock, the place was a-la-carte and the menu was in French.

I took Spanish in school just to be different.

Hey, the Spanish teacher was something to be admired, whereas our school's French teacher was an old bat. Spanish won my vote. But that was not going to help me at the Moat House. Suddenly I realised that Jenny was talking, with a very strong American accent.

"Bring us a couple of steaks with fries, please?"

No sooner had the first waiter left -- after enquiring how we'd like our steak cooked -- when the wine waiter appeared and asked me what wine I'd like to order?

"I'm not a wine drinker Jenny, what do you fancy?" I asked

"I'll have a cold beer like, my friend please?" That American accent again.

"Certainly Madam." The waiter said then he disappeared into the woodwork.

Mere seconds later he was back placing Jenny's beer on the table.

"You are right Simon, I was being childish. I'd been dreaming of bringing them all down for so long that I never got to think about how childish is all was."

"I'm pleased to hear that you've come to your senses."