This was my fourth trip to Cartersville. And it was a fluke. The person that regularly traveled here was sick and I was instructed at the last minute to get packed, get to the airport and here are your tickets. I was lucky that I was familiar with our products and although I had no formal experience as a teacher, the crews learned the new system in record time. This evidently bought me a few points, now that I'm "requested" by Branford to head the seminar.
There were three motels in the area, two were located next to each other on the main highway catering to the trucking and local "rent by the hour" crowd. The Pines Motel was the third and was located about a mile outside of the other side of town. It sat all by itself on what was supposed to be the future interstate I-something that was never built.
While I was filling out the motel registration I heard a familiar voice. I turned around and was surprised to see Cathie. She worked for the other company supplying services to this company and we had met during the spring session. Although we had encountered each other often at Branford, this was the first time at The Pines Motel.
We talked for a few minutes and agreed to have dinner together. Boy, this was a pleasant surprise form my typical 'all by myself' meals. I put my bag in my room and hurried back to the restaurant.
Now, it's difficult to screw up a steak, but the motel restaurant did an amazing job of it that night. The outside looked perfect but although it couldn't be more than half an inch thick the center was raw. The wilted lettuce salad and a baked potato helped cut the hunger pangs, and a few beers from the bar gradually relaxed us. We laughed and agreed that a sixty-mile drive back to the Interstate and a decent restaurant would probably seem like an extremely short trip after this meal.
After dinner Cathie said that she was going for a swim and that she would meet me in the morning for breakfast. We decided that we would take a chance they would not be able to screw up Cornflakes too badly.
I went back to my room, and turned on he TV. Wow! It was programmed so show all of eight channels. I turned it off, lay down on the bed, got up and decided to take a walk. Splashing from the pool area caught my attention so I walked over and leaned on the fence.
Across the pool I saw Cathie walking toward the pool in a swimsuit. Now this wasn't a bikini or anything too skimpy but it was the first time I had seen her legs and it was definitely the first time I had seen her with her hair down. Now it was at these times I felt that old familiar stirring that had been dormant for such a long item.
Ever since July of last year, I had been angry, hurt, confused, upset and thinking of anything end everything except women. Burying myself in work had allowed me to keep my mind on other matters since then. Now...watching her walk over to the pool, seeing the shape of her breasts through the suit, seeing just a hint of cleavage; apparently increased the speed of blood circulation to the lower part of my body.
The red light on my phone was flashing when I returned to my room. "Nice job" the message said, "We need you to be in Atlanta by the end f the week."