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Disclaimer: I don't own Pretender, although if I did, the US would have had DVDs for years now.
Author's Note: This story was archived at the-pretender.de, and I recently uploaded it to fanfiction.net. I wrote it in high school, so please don't judge it too harshly. I do have two other parts to this, and I'm going to archive them, but they are not really all that great. I changed a few errors in the text, and took out an ending line that a reader pointed out didn't really fit.
Ordinary Encounter I: Miss Parker
I was frantic. It just slipped right out of my fingers, and I was powerless to catch it as it fell to the hard concrete beneath where I was sitting. Even worse, I could not find it. I must have searched for a good five minutes, maybe more, when I heard the footsteps.
They were short, and staccato, a woman’s heels, and I thought they sounded purposeful, as if she was headed somewhere important, to meet someone perhaps. I hesitated before speaking up, but I was desperate, and I needed to find it. I said:
“Excuse me, Miss…”
The footsteps stopped, and she said, “What?”
It was such an annoyed tone of voice, I thought about saying, “never mind,” but something kept me pressing on. So instead, I said, “My ring, I dropped it, and I can’t find it. Would you help me look?”
“What are you, blind? Find it yourself.” she retorted, then, “Oh, sorry,” in a much gentler voice.
I was only a little insulted. Being blind all my life, I expect this sort of thing, and so I only said, “It’s okay, I’m used to it, but, I thought that maybe you could find my ring much more quickly than I could.”
“Sure, why not” she said, in an almost friendly tone. She muttered something under her breath about everyone always expecting her to do everything, and I got kind of mad, but didn’t say anything, as she had agreed to help me find the ring, after all. I heard her clothes rustling as she bent down, then there was silence as she looked. The silence was interrupted abruptly as her phone rang. I tell you, I hate those things. They always interrupt everything. This time, however, I almost welcomed that break in the stony silence.
“What?” she answered, in almost the same tone she used when I interrupted her. Then, “Jarod.” I wondered who this Jarod was that he could turn her demanding tone into something both harder and softer at once. “No, actually, I came across an…unexpected delay,” she continued. “I’ll keep that in mind, when I finally find your latest do-gooder job.” I was becoming more and more curious by the minute, listening to this one-sided conversation. All of the sudden, when I was leaning farther out of my chair to see if I could catch what the other person was saying, the woman said, “Miss Parker, and don’t you forget it.” Then, in a very annoyed tone of voice, “He hung up, again. How surprising.”
I heard the cell phone beep as she turned it off, then, “So, where’s this pesky ring?”
I couldn’t believe she remembered my ring through all the conversation. I smiled, thinking that she might not be so bad after all.
There were a few more moments of silence, then a triumphant, “Found it!”
She handed me the ring, and I said, “Thank you so much, my husband gave me this ring for our anniversary. It means a lot to me.”
She just said, “You’re welcome.” I heard the footsteps again, but called after her, “Miss Parker? Who was that on the phone, anyway?”
A pause, then, “I’m not exactly sure, myself.”
I kept on, “I you don’t mind me asking, are you having a fight with your friend?”
She laughed. It was an unusual sound, and I got the feeling that she didn’t laugh much. “No, we’re not even really friends, anymore.” Toward the end of her sentence, her voice became really sad, as if an unpleasant memory had surfaced.
My face was hot, and I apologized, “I am sorry, it just seemed…”
“Don’t apologize for what you can’t change,” she said quickly, and I heard her footsteps walking away.
I’ll always remember that because of her voice as she spoke the last sentence. On the surface, it seemed she was just giving me an out, but it was as if I had also heard her saying the words many times before, with great sadness in her voice.
Author's Note: This story was archived at the-pretender.de, and I recently uploaded it to fanfiction.net. I wrote it in high school, so please don't judge it too harshly. I do have two other parts to this, and I'm going to archive them, but they are not really all that great. I changed a few errors in the text, and took out an ending line that a reader pointed out didn't really fit.
Ordinary Encounter I: Miss Parker
I was frantic. It just slipped right out of my fingers, and I was powerless to catch it as it fell to the hard concrete beneath where I was sitting. Even worse, I could not find it. I must have searched for a good five minutes, maybe more, when I heard the footsteps.
They were short, and staccato, a woman’s heels, and I thought they sounded purposeful, as if she was headed somewhere important, to meet someone perhaps. I hesitated before speaking up, but I was desperate, and I needed to find it. I said:
“Excuse me, Miss…”
The footsteps stopped, and she said, “What?”
It was such an annoyed tone of voice, I thought about saying, “never mind,” but something kept me pressing on. So instead, I said, “My ring, I dropped it, and I can’t find it. Would you help me look?”
“What are you, blind? Find it yourself.” she retorted, then, “Oh, sorry,” in a much gentler voice.
I was only a little insulted. Being blind all my life, I expect this sort of thing, and so I only said, “It’s okay, I’m used to it, but, I thought that maybe you could find my ring much more quickly than I could.”
“Sure, why not” she said, in an almost friendly tone. She muttered something under her breath about everyone always expecting her to do everything, and I got kind of mad, but didn’t say anything, as she had agreed to help me find the ring, after all. I heard her clothes rustling as she bent down, then there was silence as she looked. The silence was interrupted abruptly as her phone rang. I tell you, I hate those things. They always interrupt everything. This time, however, I almost welcomed that break in the stony silence.
“What?” she answered, in almost the same tone she used when I interrupted her. Then, “Jarod.” I wondered who this Jarod was that he could turn her demanding tone into something both harder and softer at once. “No, actually, I came across an…unexpected delay,” she continued. “I’ll keep that in mind, when I finally find your latest do-gooder job.” I was becoming more and more curious by the minute, listening to this one-sided conversation. All of the sudden, when I was leaning farther out of my chair to see if I could catch what the other person was saying, the woman said, “Miss Parker, and don’t you forget it.” Then, in a very annoyed tone of voice, “He hung up, again. How surprising.”
I heard the cell phone beep as she turned it off, then, “So, where’s this pesky ring?”
I couldn’t believe she remembered my ring through all the conversation. I smiled, thinking that she might not be so bad after all.
There were a few more moments of silence, then a triumphant, “Found it!”
She handed me the ring, and I said, “Thank you so much, my husband gave me this ring for our anniversary. It means a lot to me.”
She just said, “You’re welcome.” I heard the footsteps again, but called after her, “Miss Parker? Who was that on the phone, anyway?”
A pause, then, “I’m not exactly sure, myself.”
I kept on, “I you don’t mind me asking, are you having a fight with your friend?”
She laughed. It was an unusual sound, and I got the feeling that she didn’t laugh much. “No, we’re not even really friends, anymore.” Toward the end of her sentence, her voice became really sad, as if an unpleasant memory had surfaced.
My face was hot, and I apologized, “I am sorry, it just seemed…”
“Don’t apologize for what you can’t change,” she said quickly, and I heard her footsteps walking away.
I’ll always remember that because of her voice as she spoke the last sentence. On the surface, it seemed she was just giving me an out, but it was as if I had also heard her saying the words many times before, with great sadness in her voice.
