what a day!

“There is a woman sitting on the window ledge,” I said quietly and calmly into the phone.
“I beg your pardon?” said Miss Elder, the receptionist. Her Scottish accent was more pronounced when she was agitated, like now.
“There’s a woman sitting on the window ledge, will you please just do something about it?”
Miss Elder has no sense of urgency except when she is leaving work. “Your coffee is losing its froth out there,” she said. “Perhaps if I brought it in to you----“
Jesus!
“Are you listening to me?” I said.“ She didn’t come by for a cup of coffee or an apple turn over. She’s going to throw herself into the street. Any minute.”
“There is no need to become belligerent.” Amanda Elder is quite young, but her calmness made me thinking if she had handled this million times before.
“I’ll see if I can reach the Fire Department. " she said primly.
“Yes, you do that, tell them to make it snappy or they will be hosing her off the sidewalk.”
I sat in my chair, thinking what a lucky morning I was having. If I had not chosen come to organise this meeting in this particular conference center, things would have been totally different.
The phone buzzed and I snatched it up. It was Miss Elder again. “The Fire Department have put me on hold,” she said.
“On hold?”
“I’ve got them on the other line. They asked if it was a fire, and I said no, it was not a fire.”
“Oh, great. I will throw a lighted match into the shredder basket, and then maybe they’ll discuss the possibility of dropping by sometime.”
“They are on the line now!” she said urgently and cut me off again,“They are coming—right away. In the mean time, why don’t you get up there and talk to her?”
“And if she jumps, I take the blame? YOU come in and talk to her. Maybe you’ve got an insight into the motivation of young girls at your age who jump off ledges.”
I looked out of the window; the girl was slowly and painfully getting up. First she brought one foot up onto the ledge, then she was kneeling there. Finally moving like someone terrified of heights, she stood up and leaned back against the window, with both arms pressed flat against the glass. “Did YOU ring the Fire Department?” she looked at me and asked. I nodded. “You are a shit! I know women like you, sitting inside a meeting room all day talk shit and listen to loads of shit.”
I tried to give her a smile, “what do you do, girl?”
“I am a law school student.”
“So why don’t you tell me the reason you want to jump?”
“Because I am in love with a guy and he ain’t gonna to love me any more, okay?”
“Oh, really? He must be an outstanding guy to be loved by a beautiful girl like you. So what does this prince charming do?”
“He is a bartender.”
“A bartender?”
“Yes, but he is a smart bartender, okay? And he loved me.”
“Sure, bartenders are normally just smart enough for high school girls, considering you are in uni, he must be very smart, and handsome too, I guess?”
“Yes, Tony is very good looking.”
“And he is not fat?”
“No, not at all, Tony has a great body shape.”
“Well, girl, if he is not fat now, he will be in five years time. Have you ever seen an experienced bartender who is skinny?”
“I don’t think about the future, I just enjoy today’s life.”
“You don’t think, that’s the problem, girl. Imagine in five years time, you become a lawyer, still young and beautiful and smart. Will you still want to go out with Tony? Who has a fat tummy drinking beer all the time and wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a chicken and a turkey.”
She looked at me, a bit puzzled. I went on, “And if you jump now, who is going to be upset? I am sure not Tony, he possibly is chasing another high school girl and telling her how charming he is that he made a law school student jump off a window for him.”
She said nothing, moved suddenly, swinging her feet into the room with commendable dexterity. She made for the door.
“I think the fireman will want to ask you some questions.” I called after her.
“You answer them, you goddamned so called professional educators, you’ve always have answers for everything.” She then slammed out through the door that leads to the back stairs.
The next moment the whole room was filled with burly men in rubber boots and yellow helmets. They were mad at me.
“You let her walk away! Where did she come from?”
“How should I know where she came from? Maybe she escaped from the zoo.:
“You called in and said this was an emergency.”
“Is that so? Did I interrupt a poker game or something? What am I suppose to do when I see someone wants to leap out of the window, get an entertainment license?”
…….

What a day!

所有跟帖： 

• nice mini story -yingyudidida- ♂ (379 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 12:23:12

• 回複：nice mini story -偶爾斷電- ♀ (14 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 12:47:20

• 天才啊！寫得真好！ -好學又好問- ♀ (761 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 13:36:08

• 回複：天才啊！寫得真好！ -偶爾斷電- ♀ (78 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 17:32:38

• 為啥沒有打911而是找fire dept呢？ -doyouknowme- ♀ (0 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 21:30:08

• 忘了說了，很有意思的短文！ -doyouknowme- ♀ (0 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 21:30:38

• 謝謝 -偶爾斷電- ♀ (91 bytes) () 10/25/2012 postreply 23:05:37

• What an impressive writing. -祤湫霖- ♀ (0 bytes) () 10/26/2012 postreply 06:36:37

• you have excellent comunication skills. BTW, nice writing! -tingfeng- ♀ (0 bytes) () 10/26/2012 postreply 08:41:31