The Cherry Blossoms

by Denise Irwin

  “I do, the only available flight leaves Paris this evening at 4:45, and arrives in Denver at 11:30 pm, with a layover in Atlanta, Georgia. Since it will be late, I’ll rent a car in Denver and drive to the house.”

  “Don’t bother renting a car. I’ll send Garrett to the airport to pick you up.”

  “Who’s Garrett?”

  “He’s your grandfather’s foreman on the ranch.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you from Atlanta to let you know if the planes are on schedule.”

  Daniella looked at the clock; it was 8:45 in the morning, so she needed to find something to do to fill the time until she drove to the airport. When she’d spoken with Nana, she was in such a rush; she had no idea what she packed. Daniella unpacked her suitcases and laid the clothes across the bed. She put three outfits back into her closet along with their matching shoes. Assessing her selections, Daniella chose a light gray wool suit with matching gray suede heels. She set the suit to one side of the open suitcase. If her grandfather passed on, she would need a somber black suit appropriate for a funeral. When she found what she wanted to wear, she set the suit and its matching shoes where she laid the outfit on the other side of the suitcase. Two additional suits were added to the black suit along with their matching heels.

  Next she needed to think about her casual outfits. Daniella pulled out three pairs of jeans and four assorted color silk blouses. Satisfied with her selections, she packed two suitcases for clothing and one specially designed for shoes and accessories. Once that task was completed, she looked at the clock. Shit! It was now only 9:30.

  Once she tidied up her small apartment, the clock told her it was 10:30. She had four hours to find something to do before she left for her flight. A walk and lunch would do her good. After double checking what she’d packed once more, she set her passport on the top of one of the suitcases, and was now hungry for lunch.

  When she stepped into the cool air and looked up at the cloudless sky, Daniella congratulated herself on a good decision. She shrugged off her stress as she walked to one of her favorite cafés about two blocks from her apartment.

  She sat at a small outside table, and when her waiter asked what she’d like to drink, she ordered a glass of wine. It was a bit early in the day for drinking alcohol, but what the hell; she’d found her fiancée in bed with yet another woman, and then learned that her grandfather was gravely ill. In her mind that entitled her to a glass of wine at 11:00 in the morning. While she waited for her quiche and salad, she ordered a second glass of wine. Daniella, this is your last glass until you board your plane or you will end up drunk and miss the flight.

  She watched pedestrians walk in and out of the café as she felt last night’s catastrophe drift away from her mind. Daniella’s cell phone showed that it was time to walk home to catch her flight to the states.

  Her hand was on the apartment house door, when she heard his voice behind her.

  “Mon amour, j'ai échoué vous une fois de plus. Que puis-je faire que vous me pardonner ?”

  Without addressing Michal’s question, Daniella entered her apartment house. When Daniella made her flight reservations, she had requested that one of the airport limousines pick her up from her apartment at 2:30. She sat anxiously waiting for the car to arrive to take her away.

  Someone knocked on her apartment door. She stood at the locked door to look through the peephole. Relief washed over her when she saw that it was her driver. As he gathered up her luggage, Daniella tucked her passport into her carryon bag. In just a few moments, she would be one her way home.

  The driver put her bags into the trunk and just as he opened the door for her, she heard Michal speak again. “Daniella, je vous en prie de me pardonner. Veuillez ne pas laisser Paris sans parler de moi.”

  Daniella ignored his plea for forgiveness and climbed into the car. When it pulled from the curb, she never looked back to acknowledge that he was standing on the sidewalk begging for her forgiveness.

  The last available flight just happened to be in the first class cabin, so as soon as Daniella was in her seat, a flight attended offered her a drink.

  “J'adorerais un verre de Cabernet, veuillez.”

  The first class cabin was located in the front of the aircraft, so she didn’t see the other passengers come aboard the plane. She sipped her wine and flipped through the pages of a magazine.

  When the jet charged down the runway, for the first time since she’d arrived to Paris, Daniella was happy to leave it behind her. Michal’s adulterous behavior soured her stomach for the city she called home. The jet chased the sun as it flew west. When she returned to Paris, she would return as a transformed woman. He had lied to her twice and would not get a third chance.

  Daniella dozed while the plane crossed the ocean. The plane lost its race for the sun, and the sky gave way to dusk.

  The plane landed in Atlanta at 8:10 pm EDT; however, it was 2:00 am for Daniella. She crawled her way through the Immigration line. She needed coffee and she needed it bad. Daniella had a two-hour layover before the flight to Denver. After she checked the departing schedules, she dragged her tired body to the Delta Pier, where she found a restaurant.

  After placing an order for coffee and a slice of apple pie, she called Nana. “I’m in Atlanta and my flight to Denver is on time.”

  “Child, you must be plumb tuckered out. Garrett helped me figure out the time difference and it’s way past your bed time.”

  Daniella managed a giggle. “I can’t lie; it’s been a long day. By the time I get into Denver, it’ll be 4:00 in the morning in Paris.”

  “I have your bed all made, so as soon as you get here, you’re gonna go straight to bed.”

  “How’s Grandpa?”

  “He’s hanging in there. He knows you’re coming as quickly as those aero-planes can fly.”

  Daniella couldn’t help, but laugh at Nana’s reference to airplanes as aero-planes. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  While she ate her piece of pie, she listened to the messages on her cell phone. The first was from Grant. “Mademoiselle, we are with you in spirit.”

  The second call was from her ex-fiancée, “Daniella, j'implore vous retourner Mon appel.”

  Michal can implore her to return his call all he wants, but until pigs can fly, she refused to have him sucker punch her again.

  Daniella’s thoughts of getting in a quick nap dissipated, since the flight to Denver was bumpy. The plane rose and fell to the rhythm of the storm in the clouds. Rain splattered against the windows. She nearly spilled her hot coffee into her lap. The engines roared as the plane fought its way to Denver.

  The pilot told them that the air traffic controllers had requested that he circle in the airspace over the airport until the storm subsided. As instructed by the flight attendant, Daniella had turned her cell phone off as the plane backed away from the terminal, which meant there was no way for her to contact Nana. Daniella then thought if the airport was held up due to weather, it was likely that Franktown was also experiencing a storm.

  After an hour of circling the airport, the pilot announced that he’d been given clearance to land. First class would disembark the plane first, so as soon as she entered the airport terminal, Daniella swiftly made her way to the luggage pick up area. She was in such a hurry; Daniella hadn’t noticed the man holding a sign with her name on it. She tapped her foot while she waited to retrieve her luggage from the carousel.

  Garrett figured the woman impatiently tapping her foot had to be Matt McPherson’s granddaughter. Here she was in the middle of horse country, looking like a model in one of those fashion magazines. She was pretty enough, if you liked a woman made up like a clown. Betty had told him she was some big clothes designer in Paris. Well, the woman impatiently tapping her foot fit Betty’s description.

  The gentleman who she hadn’t noticed approached her. “Are you Danny McPherson?”

  Oh my God, I just landed and there’s someone already calling me Danny. Without l
ooking at the man, she answered, “Yes, I’m Daniella McPherson. Can I help you with something?”

  Judging by the way she had just spoken and the clothes she wore, Garrett figured her for a spoiled brat. “Ms. McPherson, I’m Garret Ryan, Betty sent me to collect you.”

  “Yes, Nana said she would send someone. My luggage isn’t on the carousel just yet, but when it is, I’ll show you my pieces, so that you can collect them for me.”

  Garrett thought to himself, doesn’t that just chap my hide. This little filly was gonna get herself into a heap of trouble thinking she was better than her grandfather’s ranch hands. So, to get her on the right track, he told her, “Mademoiselle, je récupère le camion et vous rencontrer en face de la zone de bagages.”

  Just who the fuck, did this Garrett think he was, telling her to get her luggage, and meet him on the sidewalk? Daniella mumbled when he walked out the door. “Where did a ranch hand learn French?”

  She mumbled to herself the entire time she retrieved her luggage and hefted it onto a luggage cart. Daniella grunted as she moved the luggage laden cart onto the sidewalk. It was raining cats and dogs with a little hail thrown in for good measure. The imbecile’s pickup truck was parked at the curb. She deserted the cart and attempted to climb up into the passenger seat. Her tight skirt didn’t have much climbing room. Daniella grabbed hold of the far side of the passenger seat and drug her body into the truck.

  Garrett pulled the truck away from the curb.

  Outraged that her luggage was sitting on the sidewalk in the rain, she screamed at him. “Excuse me, but my luggage is sitting behind us in the rain.”

  “Well, Ms. McPherson, this dumb ranch hand thought you put your luggage into the truck before you belly flopped into your seat.”

  Daniella spit bullets at him, “Are you just having a bad day? I’ve done nothing to you and your acting like a complete asshole. Go back and get my luggage.”

  “I’ll go back and when we get there you can load your own damn luggage into the truck.”

  Garrett drove around the airport circle. He stopped when they arrived in front of the luggage pick up area. Daniella angrily shoved the truck door open. Garrett took hold of her left arm, “Hold still while I get the luggage.”

  When he got back in the truck, he told her, “I couldn’t abide letting you get your luggage from the cart into the truck bed, and do that belly flop thing to get back into the truck.”

  Daniella howled with laughter, “Did it really look like a belly flop? I must have looked like a whale trying to swim onto a beach.”

  Garrett guffawed as well, “I don’t think you looked like a whale, you’re too small, but you certainly did a belly flop.”

  He continued to chuckle, when he asked, “Betty told me you’ve been living in France for some time now. Do you like it?”

  “I do. Where did you learn French? I’ve lived in Paris since I went to college there, and I still don’t speak the language well.”

  Garrett chortled, “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise that you won’t laugh.”

  The drive from the airport in Denver to the ranch in Franktown would take an hour at this time of night, so he was glad that she could engage in conversation.

  “I attended a cooking school in France.”

  “Is that right? When were you there?”

  “I was there from 1996 to 1999.”

  “That’s amazing. I moved there in 1997 to attend a school that specialized in clothing designs. I have to ask. If you went to France for cooking, why aren’t you working as a chef somewhere?”

  “This may sound crazy, but frankly I did not like the hours. I did an internship in a popular restaurant. While our patrons were enjoying themselves, I was in a hot kitchen sweating like a pig.”

  Daniella hooted at the vision of a cow poke sweating like a pig in a French restaurant, “So then, how did the sweaty pig end up at a horse ranch?”

  “I wandered around Europe for about year. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I ended up joining the Peace Corps, where I volunteered for about a year. After that I went to school in Boston; I wanted to work with handicapped children. I searched for jobs that were out of the box. After I read an article on the internet about your grandfather’s ranch, I called and asked for a job.”

  Daniella was amazed because no one had told her that the ranch worked with handicapped children.

  He turned his head to see her face. “By the look on your face, you didn’t know that did you?”

  “No, I didn’t. You’d think someone would have told me, but this is the first time that I’ve about it.”

  “Matt can tell you the whole story, but he started working with handicapped children centers about 1996, so I’ve been working there since ’97.”

  Daniella shook her head, “The things you just don’t know. Do you like living on the ranch?”

  “Damn straight I do.”

  When the truck pulled into the driveway, it was after 2:00 in the morning, but there was her Nana standing on the porch waiting for them. The rain had not let up, so when Daniella jumped down from the passenger seat, she slipped in the mud and fell face down into it. Standing beside her, she heard Garrett howl with laughter. He was laughing so hard that when he took her arm to help her up, he managed to slip and fall into the mud, landing beside her. It was now Daniella’s turn to laugh at the predicament they were in.

  He reached to help her up. “Get away from me, I don’t trust you. I’ll get up myself.” As she stood in front of her Nana covered in mud, she laughed so that hard she started to fall. She grabbed Garrett’s arm to steady herself and they both ended up back in the mud.

  Nana’s face was aghast, “Have the two of you been drinking? Garrett, you left this house at 10:30 to meet Danny at the airport, you should have been home by 12:30, and here it is 2:00 in the morning.”

  Daniella was still laughing when she choked out, “Nana, my plane had to circle the airport for an hour, so I was late. It’s not Garrett’s fault totally. We lost a bit of time when we had to run back and grab my luggage which he left sitting on the sidewalk.”

  Nana wasn’t in the laughing mood, “Daniella McPherson, you have ruined what looks to have been a perfectly good suit. I want the two of you to march yourselves around the veranda to the back door. Get out of those muddy clothes in the laundry room. I don’t want to lay eyes on either of you till you’ve had showers and be quiet about it, your grandfather is sleeping.”

  They made their way to the back door as Daniella giggled, “I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time.”

  Nana was in the laundry room holding two old robes in her hands. She sternly told them. “Turn yourselves away from each other; get out of those clothes and hand them to me. Danny your old bedroom still has a bathroom. I put fresh towels in there this morning. When the two of you no longer look like swamp rats, I want both of you to join me in the kitchen for a piece of pie. I figured you’d be hungry, so I baked an apple pie.”

  Daniella grabbed the suitcase that contained her casual clothes. When she dragged her luggage up the staircase, the memories of growing up on her grandfather’s ranch rushed past her. She had been a short chubby child, and with each step she took, she heard her classmates chanting in her ear, “Fat Fanny Danny.” When she entered her bedroom she let out a gasp. Nothing had changed. The bedroom looked exactly the way it did, the day she left for France. When she opened her closet door, she found that her high school clothes were still in it. They were clean and freshly pressed. Why Nana hadn’t given them to the Good Will or some other charity organization was beyond the realm of her thinking. It even smelled the same. She told herself that the reason it smelled the same is that Nana used the same cleaning products that she’s used since Daniella was a child.

  Matt McPherson’s home was a large rambling ranch house. Matt’s great-grandfather had built a small log cabin when he bought the property from the government after his emigration from Ireland. The ranch had been in her famil
y for five generations. Each generation had added and expanded the house to the point where the log cabin sat in the middle of the house and served as the living room. She hadn’t been in the kitchen yet, but she was certain that the old wood cook stove was still there. She knew that if it were in the kitchen, Nana still baked bread in that oven.

  When Daniella stepped into her bathroom, she saw that someone had modernized it. Instead of the commode with the water tank high above the toilet with a pull string to flush the toilet, there was a modern, standard commode. The old porcelain claw bath tub had been replaced with a shower stall. A beautiful quartz vanity had replaced the stained porcelain sink. Daniella stepped into the shower and was relieved to see that Nana had not held onto the soaps and shampoos that she’d left behind. As she stepped into the shower, she was grateful that her grandfather had insisted that the hot water heater be large enough to supply the entire ranch house. Standing under the hot spray of water, she felt the tension in her body run down the tub drain.

  After her shower, she met Garrett in the hall that led to the country kitchen. When they entered the kitchen, Daniella and Garrett looked like two school children entering the principal’s office.

  “Nana, how’s Grandpa doing?”

  “Not good child. The doctor didn’t think he’d be able to hang in there until you arrived, but I just checked on him, and he’s sleeping soundly.

  Daniella lost her appetite and pushed her pie around the plate with the fork. She couldn’t eat a bite. “Nana, I think I’m going to turn in for the night.”

  “You haven’t touched your pie.”

  “I think I’m just so tired after the flight. Save me a piece for tomorrow.”

  She told her Nana and Garrett good-night and went up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Just as Daniella laid her head on the pillow, she thought about her staff in Paris. It was just before lunch, so she dragged herself out of bed and called Grant to let him know she’d arrived safely.