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He knocked me up in my sophomore year at college. My father, in a bid to make the best of an otherwise disreputable situation-this was in the seventies you see? In order to make good of the situation my father, who owned a bank, set him up in the jewelry business, and had to mentor him because he did not know squat back then. So you see the necessity for the utmost secrecy in all this?
Gloria had her car, a plain Toyota coupe, parked in a corner not touched by the street lights, and she sat a bit more alert in her seat, taking a few pictures with her high definition camera as Mr. Ryan Cowling came forth and waited for his chauffeur to open the door. Gloria understood where Mrs. Ludmilla Cowling was coming from: business for Crystallyne was greatly bolstered by the image of the all American family man; his family was happy, his wife was happy, he was happy and you could be happy too; crystalline sold happiness. Gloria took a happy picture of Mr. Cowling getting into his limousine. If he was guilty of funny business, and word got out, the consequences could mean a very drastic change of lifestyle for the Cowlings.
Gloria stayed a healthy distance away from the limousine, keeping two cars between her car and the limousine. Gloria was a stickler for climate change, and did not drive often; the busy homecoming traffic was a bit dense, and her brow was twisted in concentration as she tried to keep up with the constant changes around her. The limousine ahead of her, kept a steady pace, and glided smoothly along with the ebb and flow of the traffic. Had they kept a straight path, they would have eventually left the city center, joining a continuously thinning stream of traffic that would lead to the suburbs, and eventually to the more affluent parts of the city. Taking that route would mean that Gloria could tail the limousine to its rightful destination, meaning she could hit the sack early. The limousine stopped at a T-junction for red light before swerving to the left a minute later. Gloria followed, looking at the road leading to the suburbs wistfully. About a hundred meters from the T-Junction, the limousine came to a halt, and so did Gloria.
She watched her subject get out of the limousine to sprint furtively under the overhanging balcony that led to the foyer of the hotel. She barely had time to react, but she was out of her car two seconds later. Her camera was tucked into the dark overcoat she had brought against the cold, and she kept her head down when she passed the limousine as she dashed into the hotel, reducing her speed as she entered the plush subdued atmosphere of the lobby. There was a well-kept display of plants somewhere around the middle of the lobby which stretched backwards for a few meters, and created a pseudo-demarcation. Gloria was just in time to see Mr. Cowling negotiating a corner at the right end of the demarcation, on his way to the restaurant situated on the ground floor. Gloria could see him talking to a waiter at a corner table, partly hidden from view; ideal for a private meet. She checked her watched and noted the time-8:45pm, before taking an inconspicuous seat that offered a side view of the table. She spotted the waiter going back to that table with not one, but two drinks. Could there possibly be someone else seated at the table but hidden from view? She wondered.
A guest seated at a table doing nothing was as inconspicuous as a unicorn in the back garden at summer time so she signaled for the waiter and ordered a drink. Keeping a tab for her client; if she was going to spy on someone, she might as well do it in style she thought, sipping her drink, and appreciating the slow soothing effect on her disposition. Life at the office had been so slow recently that she had almost forgotten just how stressful a full work day had been. She was too far to hear anything, but she could see that Mr. Cowling was engaged in a heated discussion, closing the debate as to whether there was a second party at the table.
Gloria was a beautiful woman, and to the casual onlooker, independent, as she beckoned for another drink. She was never going to be at the table for long without attracting some interest: in short order, as she checked her watch to keep tabs on the length of the meeting she had heretofore being observing, she was aware of a forced cough, the theatrical type used to grab attention that has been clichéd by the movies.
Gloria looked up into a smiling face that looked vaguely familiar. It took her a second to realize that it was the flushed faced man who had chased her across the party, and inadvertently led her into the corridor with the modern art display. His cheeks were still red but he looked a lot less flushed and a lot better looking than she remembered. The wonders of sobriety she thought flippantly.
