I really like Charlotte, although I have to admit she can be a little crazy. We first got to know each on a trip to Washington—not the state, our nation’s capitol. I was looking for a roommate to share hotel expenses for the counseling psychologist convention. So a mutual friend put us in touch. We saw each other face-to-face for the first time at the airport, when we caught our flight to D.C. Since our seats were several rows apart, we didn’t get to visit until after we landed.
I’ve done a lot of travelling, and I could tell right away Charlotte and I would be compatible. She didn’t walk in the room, turn the TV to her favorite channel, and crank up the volume. When a roomie does that, I know we’re in for a bumpy ride. I noticed she didn’t fill up more than half of the vanity countertop or take more than her share of the drawer space—I hate it when someone does that, don’t you? She was considerate enough to make the bathroom neat after her shower. I’d have to say making her bed every morning was overkill. Charlotte is compulsively neat, but it’s okay because she makes fun of herself over it. And she didn’t seem to expect me to turn into a neat freak just because she happens to be one.
After we unpacked and settled in to our room, the next challenge was to find a place for dinner. The hotel restaurant didn’t serve an evening meal, now wasn’t that convenient? We headed across the street to a tiny mom-and-pop eatery with a lot of character and good food that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. It was a totally DC kind of place, DuPont Circle-ish if you know what I mean.
We were walking to the restaurant when some nasty-looking guy came up to us and asked for money. I was going to brush right by him, but she asked him why he needed money. I was thinking, Get a grip, Charlotte! He probably wants money for wine, booze, maybe even drugs.
Of course, the tramp said he was homeless and hungry, hadn’t had a meal in three days. I had a creepy feeling Charlotte was going to give him money--but she did something worse. She invited him to come and have dinner with us! I think I’m just as compassionate as the next person, but I was definitely not in the mood to share dinner with a street person.
When we started to go inside the restaurant, some little old fellow—it turned out he was the restaurant’s owner—came bouncing out of a back room yelling “He no come in here. That man no come. No come.” It took me a minute to realize the cause of the outburst was the homeless guy Charlotte picked up on our way in. When the restaurant owner wouldn’t give in, Charlotte told the wino if he would wait outside, she would buy him some food and bring it to him. By this time, I was already wishing I’d phoned for pizza delivery. But I sat in a booth while my new friend got a go-box and filled it at the buffet line. She even went outside a couple of times to talk to the homeless guy. Told me later it was to find out what he liked to eat!
After the weirdo went on his way with his big box of food, we sat down and ordered dinner. Strange thing is, Charlotte acted like nothing out of the ordinary happened. We talked about business, our kids, and normal stuff.
After the conference, we got on a flight that was absolutely packed. Every seat was taken, of course. We were in the back, across from the galley. Our seats didn’t recline, but that row in front of us sure did. Charlotte traded places with me so I could have the aisle, because I was getting claustrophobia in that middle seat. If sitting there like a sardine wasn’t bad enough, there was a huge storm system between here and Washington. That airplane bumped up and down like a stock market graph. When the flight attendants strapped themselves in their funny seats and stopped talking, I thought we were going to crash.
I had to wake Charlotte up to tell her we were going to die. Know what she said? “Let’s pray.” She held my hand and said a beautiful prayer for our safety and then she went right back to sleep. See what I mean about being a little nutty? How can you sleep if you’re about to die in a plane crash for crying out loud?
If you want to get to know Charlotte better, you can read more about her in “A Hero’s Homecoming” by Carlene Havel. Rich is in there too. I could fall in love with Rich in a New York minute. My hero? Yessiree! But that’s another story. Like a lot of other yummy romances, “A Hero’s Homecoming” is available at http://www.prismbookgroup.com/AHerosH... or through Amazon and Barnes and Noble on line. Check it out. Maybe you’ll like Charlotte as much as I do.