"Amanda Bell is a story of change and redemption. It is extremely well written. The characters are finely drawn. And it is fun to read, entertaining, humorous and insightful. It is the best book I've read in ages, and I read voraciously. I am gifting my best friends with it, and recommending it to anyone who desires to see the possibility of light, faith and hope on a personal level in a world that seems to thrive on the darker side." --WooLou, Amazon Reviewer
Part One
Chapter One
Once upon a time….
When Amanda Bell was a girl, so small that the lilies in her mother’s garden brushed her cheeks when she walked among them, these were the words she loved best in all the world. These were the heralds whose trumpets announced mist-locked mountains, rose-draped castles, endless caverns, dragons and goblins and trolls, witches and elves, orphans lost in a darkling wood, a maiden sleeping the sleep of the dead while awaiting the kiss of a handsome prince. For Amanda, these four little words were an incantation promising a life of magic, beauty, adventure, true love.
And then she grew up.
***
It was December of 2010, the Wednesday before Christmas, and by nightfall the storm had shut down the airport. Snowflakes big as quarters whirled from the night skies of Northern Virginia, slapping the windows like frozen gunshots. Beneath the glow of streetlamps a meringue of snow lay piled in folds, and farther away, out on the darkened runways, the running lights of snowplows and salt trucks flickered like holiday decorations.
Turning from the window and the blizzard, Amanda Bell studied the other stranded travelers with whom she would spend this wintry night. Some of them were reading the Post or paperback books. A few punched away at laptops, oblivious to their neighbors, intent on their screens as osprey on a fleet of trout. Others were eating, drinking, dozing, chatting with their neighbors, conversing, a little too loudly, on their cells. With the runways of Dulles heaped with snow and the nearby motels either inaccessible or booked to capacity, Amanda resigned herself to her fate. She was stuck with this motley crew of strangers until dawn.
She checked the time on her BlackBerry—10:23—returned the phone to her shoulder bag, and again scrutinized the room, this time with open disdain. Disorder, mess, and the unforeseen were Amanda’s greatest enemies. They were wildfires threatening chaos and destruction, and she was the forester, ready at a moment’s notice to stamp out the flames. But this tempest of snow and wind had ruined her plans for returning to work the next day. Worse still, the blizzard had condemned her to spend the night with this twitching press of raw humanity. Here in this terminal--how appropriate the word seemed!--were mess and disorder to burn: disgruntled creatures walking helter-skelter, some sleeping in chairs, a baby fussing, two children chasing each other in circles. Directly in front of her an elephantine man tilted back his head and poured a pack of peanuts into his mouth. Amanda shuddered as if someone had just run fingernails across a chalkboard.
Had some official bestowed on her charge of this cavernous room, given her a referee’s whistle and the authority to use it, Amanda would have soon brought order to this ruck of humanity. She would have divided the room into sections: sleepers, readers, parents with children. She would have set aside a far corner of the lounge for those who wished to converse with one another or talk on their phones. Finally, she would have appointed guards to patrol the lounge in hourly shifts, thereby allowing their fellow passengers to sleep without fear of theft, assault, or molestation. An acrimonious few might rankle at such directives, but Amanda was confident she could persuade even the most seditious among them to embrace her arrangements. She had ways of getting people to obey her.
This was Amanda’s special pride: she got the job done.
This management of people gave Amanda Bell a certain cool pleasure. Though a youngster in the world of corporate management--she had quietly celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday not two months earlier--arduous study and attention to lessons learned in the workplace had given Amanda the tools required for the maintenance of authority. She recognized, for instance, the importance of dress and carriage. Before leaving for the office in the mornings, she ordered her appearance to elicit respect from her superiors and obeisance from those she supervised. Every workday morning she plaited her long hair into braids or a tight, blonde bun. She limited her makeup to pale lipstick, a brush of blush, a touch of mascara. Generally she arrived at work an hour early dressed in a white blouse and powder-gray business jacket with matching skirt. Though of an average height—Amanda stood exactly five feet six inches in her stocking feet—her slender build, her dress, and her erect posture made her appear taller to most people. When faced with an especially daunting situation at work, and having once read that the towering veterans of Napoleon’s Old Guard had worn bearskin hats to appear even more formidable to their enemies, Amanda would go into battle armored in a pair of black, stiletto heels and a matching black suit. Monochromatic colors, she knew, made her appear taller, thinner, and even more imposing than usual.
Many of the twenty-four employees under her supervision at Saxon and Henle despised her austere style of command, resented her cool demeanor, rankled at her blunt directions. Though none dared confront her face to face, Amanda had gotten wind of their gossip and ridicule. She knew well what they muttered behind her back, mocking her in their cubicles or in the break room, releasing their resentment through whispered monikers. The Iron Maiden. The Immaculate Perfection. Frau Storm Trooper. The Blonde Bitch. Occasionally their taunts and back-biting bruised Amanda’s feelings, yet she understood the origins of their rancor. Fact One: Strong women, women who can push and shove and make things happen, are always despised, as much by other women as by men. Fact Two: Adults who behave like children will sulk or throw tantrums when treated like children. Tardiness, habitual mistakes, sloppy work, laziness, and a cavalier attitude were marks of the adolescent, deserving reprimand or in some cases dismissal. Consequently, Amanda had taught herself to slough off the maledictions of her underlings, to ignore their grumblings, to focus on the bigger picture. Respect and accomplishment, not love or friendship, were what she sought from her subordinates.
She got the job done.
Given no whistle, however, and possessed of no authority on this night of wind and snow, Amanda searched for a place to close her eyes until morning. Seeing that the quieter sections of the lounge, the rows of chairs by the window and along the wall, were occupied, she settled near the center of the room between a young woman wearing a Georgetown sweatshirt and a plump, softly snoring man in a red knit cap. She placed her luggage by her feet, held her shoulder bag in her lap, and debated reading a few passages from Power Management before undertaking the arduous task of falling asleep in the midst of such appalling anarchy.
As Amanda took her seat, Georgetown, who was holding a cell phone to her ear with both hands, twisted away from her. She was chewing a cud of gum and nodding frequently, her ponytail of red hair bobbing with each jerk of her head. Once she said, “Please,” and then choked the word into the phone several more times. After another long moment, the girl took the phone from her ear and twisted round front again in her chair. Fixedly, she stared into space. Slowly, she closed her cell phone. Even more slowly, she bent forward, propped her elbows on her knees, hid her face in her hands, and wept.
Opening her bag, Amanda took out Power Management, which she’d already read twice, making notes in the margins the second time, and located as well a package of Kleenex. She tapped Georgetown’s shoulder and offered a tissue. “Help yourself. Take several, if you wish.”
While Georgetown wiped her eyes, Amanda resisted the urge to lecture the girl on the perils of weeping in public. Some men, she had observed, regarded weeping as a sign of female weakness while others viewed the act as a signal to commence sexual advances. Many women, though sympathetic on the surface, despised tears in another female, judging them an infantile shout for attention, usually from males. Outside the confines of one’s home, all such lachrymose outbursts were best restricted to a stall in the ladies’ room.
“A young man?”
The girl nodded, sniffling. “Caleb.” She dabbed her eyes with the wadded tissue. “He’s supposed to meet me in Atlanta, but now he says he loves Julia.”
“Who’s Julia?”
“My best friend.”
“Your best friend?”
“Yes.”
“Does Julia love Caleb?”
Georgetown turned her face toward Amanda, her eyes wide and perplexed. “Why, I guess she does…I don’t know…I mean, I just assumed….”
“Assumptions are self-indulgent,” Amanda said. “They can also be dangerous.”
She studied Georgetown’s face, seeking signs of strength and weakness. In the eyes and set of the mouth she could sometimes discover clues to a person’s character. Liking what she found in Georgetown‘s firm chin, Amanda decided to offer assistance. “Here is what you must do. First, make a call to Julia. Tell her how disappointed you are in her. Tell her you can’t believe she has betrayed you.”
“But I’m not sure she has betrayed me."
“It doesn’t matter—it only matters that Julia thinks that you think she has betrayed you. Whatever the circumstances, she will be shocked by your candor and will grow resentful of Caleb. Do you love him?”
“With all my heart.” A fresh tributary of tears forced Amanda to dole out another tissue. “We’ve been seeing each other for years and years. I can’t imagine life without him.”
“You must learn to resist gross exaggeration.” When Georgetown stared blankly at her, Amanda continued: “At any rate, after calling Julia, you will immediately telephone Caleb. You will tell Caleb you love him. You will tell Caleb you are going to fight for him. You will tell him—look here, are you going to remember my points or do you need to take notes?”
Georgetown stared at Amanda. Her mouth hung open. She might have posed as a caricature of a bug-eyed candidate for a lunatic asylum.
“Close your mouth,” Amanda commanded her.
Georgetown closed her mouth.
“Well?”
“I’ll remember everything you said,” Georgetown whispered. “How do you know all this stuff? Are you a teacher?”
“Heavens, no,” Amanda said. “My degree was in English literature. I minored in classics.”
“How did you learn to talk so good?”
“So well,” Amanda reprimanded absentmindedly while considering the girl’s question. “I possess a strong natural will and a love of the English language. My father was an amateur actor who taught me the advantages of forceful speech. My mother was an inveterate reader who drilled me in the details of syntax and grammar.”
“Are you married?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just wondered.”
“I was almost engaged once. He broke off the relationship.”
“What happened?”
“He said I was too controlling.”
“Were you?”
“Probably. But if ever a man needed controlling, it was Steven.”
“When—”
“Two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was, as they say, for the best.”
“Is there anyone else in your life?”
Amanda pondered the girl’s question. Joseph Grenier—he preferred the pedestrian Joe—popped to mind. A fellow manager at Saxon and Henle, Joseph had charge of the accounting staff. Two weeks ago he had suggested spending some time together over Christmas. Joseph possessed some intriguing features. He had, for example, directed the secretaries in his division to align their waste cans to the right and rear of their desks. He was adamant in his insistence on punctuality. Amanda had long admired men who favored order, though Joseph also struck her as somehow weak-willed by making friends of his underlings. Now, however, was no time for idle self-examination.
“We’re not talking about me. We’re discussing Caleb. What’s his last name?”
“Davenport.”
“You tell Caleb Davenport to meet you at the Atlanta airport or face the consequences.”
“What are the consequences?” “We’ll invent those later, if we need them.”
“Will he meet me, do you think? If I say all those things, will he meet me?”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep him away.” Amanda offered another tissue, but for a different reason. “Spit out your gum before you call. Conversing on the phone while smacking gum is unattractive.”
Georgetown took the tissue, spat out the offending gum, and punched at her phone.
Amanda pointed to the nearest corner of the room. “Would you mind moving over there, please? I intend to read for a while.”
Georgetown stood, clutching her phone like a weapon, and set off toward the designated corner and her showdown with Caleb Davenport.
When Amanda Bell was a girl, so small that the lilies in her mother’s garden brushed her cheeks when she walked among them, these were the words she loved best in all the world. These were the heralds whose trumpets announced mist-locked mountains, rose-draped castles, endless caverns, dragons and goblins and trolls, witches and elves, orphans lost in a darkling wood, a maiden sleeping the sleep of the dead while awaiting the kiss of a handsome prince. For Amanda, these four little words were an incantation promising a life of magic, beauty, adventure, true love.
And then she grew up.
***
It was December of 2010, the Wednesday before Christmas, and by nightfall the storm had shut down the airport. Snowflakes big as quarters whirled from the night skies of Northern Virginia, slapping the windows like frozen gunshots. Beneath the glow of streetlamps a meringue of snow lay piled in folds, and farther away, out on the darkened runways, the running lights of snowplows and salt trucks flickered like holiday decorations.
Turning from the window and the blizzard, Amanda Bell studied the other stranded travelers with whom she would spend this wintry night. Some of them were reading the Post or paperback books. A few punched away at laptops, oblivious to their neighbors, intent on their screens as osprey on a fleet of trout. Others were eating, drinking, dozing, chatting with their neighbors, conversing, a little too loudly, on their cells. With the runways of Dulles heaped with snow and the nearby motels either inaccessible or booked to capacity, Amanda resigned herself to her fate. She was stuck with this motley crew of strangers until dawn.
She checked the time on her BlackBerry—10:23—returned the phone to her shoulder bag, and again scrutinized the room, this time with open disdain. Disorder, mess, and the unforeseen were Amanda’s greatest enemies. They were wildfires threatening chaos and destruction, and she was the forester, ready at a moment’s notice to stamp out the flames. But this tempest of snow and wind had ruined her plans for returning to work the next day. Worse still, the blizzard had condemned her to spend the night with this twitching press of raw humanity. Here in this terminal--how appropriate the word seemed!--were mess and disorder to burn: disgruntled creatures walking helter-skelter, some sleeping in chairs, a baby fussing, two children chasing each other in circles. Directly in front of her an elephantine man tilted back his head and poured a pack of peanuts into his mouth. Amanda shuddered as if someone had just run fingernails across a chalkboard.
Had some official bestowed on her charge of this cavernous room, given her a referee’s whistle and the authority to use it, Amanda would have soon brought order to this ruck of humanity. She would have divided the room into sections: sleepers, readers, parents with children. She would have set aside a far corner of the lounge for those who wished to converse with one another or talk on their phones. Finally, she would have appointed guards to patrol the lounge in hourly shifts, thereby allowing their fellow passengers to sleep without fear of theft, assault, or molestation. An acrimonious few might rankle at such directives, but Amanda was confident she could persuade even the most seditious among them to embrace her arrangements. She had ways of getting people to obey her.
This was Amanda’s special pride: she got the job done.
This management of people gave Amanda Bell a certain cool pleasure. Though a youngster in the world of corporate management--she had quietly celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday not two months earlier--arduous study and attention to lessons learned in the workplace had given Amanda the tools required for the maintenance of authority. She recognized, for instance, the importance of dress and carriage. Before leaving for the office in the mornings, she ordered her appearance to elicit respect from her superiors and obeisance from those she supervised. Every workday morning she plaited her long hair into braids or a tight, blonde bun. She limited her makeup to pale lipstick, a brush of blush, a touch of mascara. Generally she arrived at work an hour early dressed in a white blouse and powder-gray business jacket with matching skirt. Though of an average height—Amanda stood exactly five feet six inches in her stocking feet—her slender build, her dress, and her erect posture made her appear taller to most people. When faced with an especially daunting situation at work, and having once read that the towering veterans of Napoleon’s Old Guard had worn bearskin hats to appear even more formidable to their enemies, Amanda would go into battle armored in a pair of black, stiletto heels and a matching black suit. Monochromatic colors, she knew, made her appear taller, thinner, and even more imposing than usual.
Many of the twenty-four employees under her supervision at Saxon and Henle despised her austere style of command, resented her cool demeanor, rankled at her blunt directions. Though none dared confront her face to face, Amanda had gotten wind of their gossip and ridicule. She knew well what they muttered behind her back, mocking her in their cubicles or in the break room, releasing their resentment through whispered monikers. The Iron Maiden. The Immaculate Perfection. Frau Storm Trooper. The Blonde Bitch. Occasionally their taunts and back-biting bruised Amanda’s feelings, yet she understood the origins of their rancor. Fact One: Strong women, women who can push and shove and make things happen, are always despised, as much by other women as by men. Fact Two: Adults who behave like children will sulk or throw tantrums when treated like children. Tardiness, habitual mistakes, sloppy work, laziness, and a cavalier attitude were marks of the adolescent, deserving reprimand or in some cases dismissal. Consequently, Amanda had taught herself to slough off the maledictions of her underlings, to ignore their grumblings, to focus on the bigger picture. Respect and accomplishment, not love or friendship, were what she sought from her subordinates.
She got the job done.
Given no whistle, however, and possessed of no authority on this night of wind and snow, Amanda searched for a place to close her eyes until morning. Seeing that the quieter sections of the lounge, the rows of chairs by the window and along the wall, were occupied, she settled near the center of the room between a young woman wearing a Georgetown sweatshirt and a plump, softly snoring man in a red knit cap. She placed her luggage by her feet, held her shoulder bag in her lap, and debated reading a few passages from Power Management before undertaking the arduous task of falling asleep in the midst of such appalling anarchy.
As Amanda took her seat, Georgetown, who was holding a cell phone to her ear with both hands, twisted away from her. She was chewing a cud of gum and nodding frequently, her ponytail of red hair bobbing with each jerk of her head. Once she said, “Please,” and then choked the word into the phone several more times. After another long moment, the girl took the phone from her ear and twisted round front again in her chair. Fixedly, she stared into space. Slowly, she closed her cell phone. Even more slowly, she bent forward, propped her elbows on her knees, hid her face in her hands, and wept.
Opening her bag, Amanda took out Power Management, which she’d already read twice, making notes in the margins the second time, and located as well a package of Kleenex. She tapped Georgetown’s shoulder and offered a tissue. “Help yourself. Take several, if you wish.”
While Georgetown wiped her eyes, Amanda resisted the urge to lecture the girl on the perils of weeping in public. Some men, she had observed, regarded weeping as a sign of female weakness while others viewed the act as a signal to commence sexual advances. Many women, though sympathetic on the surface, despised tears in another female, judging them an infantile shout for attention, usually from males. Outside the confines of one’s home, all such lachrymose outbursts were best restricted to a stall in the ladies’ room.
“A young man?”
The girl nodded, sniffling. “Caleb.” She dabbed her eyes with the wadded tissue. “He’s supposed to meet me in Atlanta, but now he says he loves Julia.”
“Who’s Julia?”
“My best friend.”
“Your best friend?”
“Yes.”
“Does Julia love Caleb?”
Georgetown turned her face toward Amanda, her eyes wide and perplexed. “Why, I guess she does…I don’t know…I mean, I just assumed….”
“Assumptions are self-indulgent,” Amanda said. “They can also be dangerous.”
She studied Georgetown’s face, seeking signs of strength and weakness. In the eyes and set of the mouth she could sometimes discover clues to a person’s character. Liking what she found in Georgetown‘s firm chin, Amanda decided to offer assistance. “Here is what you must do. First, make a call to Julia. Tell her how disappointed you are in her. Tell her you can’t believe she has betrayed you.”
“But I’m not sure she has betrayed me."
“It doesn’t matter—it only matters that Julia thinks that you think she has betrayed you. Whatever the circumstances, she will be shocked by your candor and will grow resentful of Caleb. Do you love him?”
“With all my heart.” A fresh tributary of tears forced Amanda to dole out another tissue. “We’ve been seeing each other for years and years. I can’t imagine life without him.”
“You must learn to resist gross exaggeration.” When Georgetown stared blankly at her, Amanda continued: “At any rate, after calling Julia, you will immediately telephone Caleb. You will tell Caleb you love him. You will tell Caleb you are going to fight for him. You will tell him—look here, are you going to remember my points or do you need to take notes?”
Georgetown stared at Amanda. Her mouth hung open. She might have posed as a caricature of a bug-eyed candidate for a lunatic asylum.
“Close your mouth,” Amanda commanded her.
Georgetown closed her mouth.
“Well?”
“I’ll remember everything you said,” Georgetown whispered. “How do you know all this stuff? Are you a teacher?”
“Heavens, no,” Amanda said. “My degree was in English literature. I minored in classics.”
“How did you learn to talk so good?”
“So well,” Amanda reprimanded absentmindedly while considering the girl’s question. “I possess a strong natural will and a love of the English language. My father was an amateur actor who taught me the advantages of forceful speech. My mother was an inveterate reader who drilled me in the details of syntax and grammar.”
“Are you married?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I just wondered.”
“I was almost engaged once. He broke off the relationship.”
“What happened?”
“He said I was too controlling.”
“Were you?”
“Probably. But if ever a man needed controlling, it was Steven.”
“When—”
“Two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It was, as they say, for the best.”
“Is there anyone else in your life?”
Amanda pondered the girl’s question. Joseph Grenier—he preferred the pedestrian Joe—popped to mind. A fellow manager at Saxon and Henle, Joseph had charge of the accounting staff. Two weeks ago he had suggested spending some time together over Christmas. Joseph possessed some intriguing features. He had, for example, directed the secretaries in his division to align their waste cans to the right and rear of their desks. He was adamant in his insistence on punctuality. Amanda had long admired men who favored order, though Joseph also struck her as somehow weak-willed by making friends of his underlings. Now, however, was no time for idle self-examination.
“We’re not talking about me. We’re discussing Caleb. What’s his last name?”
“Davenport.”
“You tell Caleb Davenport to meet you at the Atlanta airport or face the consequences.”
“What are the consequences?” “We’ll invent those later, if we need them.”
“Will he meet me, do you think? If I say all those things, will he meet me?”
“Wild horses couldn’t keep him away.” Amanda offered another tissue, but for a different reason. “Spit out your gum before you call. Conversing on the phone while smacking gum is unattractive.”
Georgetown took the tissue, spat out the offending gum, and punched at her phone.
Amanda pointed to the nearest corner of the room. “Would you mind moving over there, please? I intend to read for a while.”
Georgetown stood, clutching her phone like a weapon, and set off toward the designated corner and her showdown with Caleb Davenport.
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