Chapter 10

THE MINERVA MINK STORY
"A Chance Meeting"

Chapter 10

    Monday:

    Minerva’s Mustang slowly rolled over the speed bump the guarded the entrance to a large vacant building only a few miles away from Sawyer’s house.

    The cab bounced and shook as the back tires came down off the bump, causing Stephanie to scream when her hair whipped into her face.

    “Ouch!” Minerva groaned. “If I buy this place that’s going to be the first thing to go!”

    Stephanie spat out the few strands of hair the got into her mouth, then stuck out her tongue. “Yuck!”

    They passed an empty guard house, it’s blank windows seemed to watch them even though it was devoid of human occupants. One of the red and white checkered arms used to stop incoming cars was raised and Minerva drove past it, entering the large parking lot in front of the building.

    They pulled into a parking space on the right side of the building near a maintenance door, Steph unbuckled herself to stand on her seat and get a better look around.

    The building was about two stories tall with a rather large basement level and a gun ship gray color. There were faded marks on the side facing the road where the original business’s sign had hung for many years, but Setph found she couldn’t make out what it said. The parking lot was large, plenty room for at least a hundred-fifty to maybe two hundred cars, and she suddenly wished she had brought her bike.

    The windows were mostly soaped over or covered with brown newspaper, but....... there was something odd about the whole place.

    “Aunt Minerva? How long did the lady on the phone say this place has been empty?”

    Minerva was digging through her purse for her pocket mirror. “Ummm, I think she said it’s been empty since it was built, why do you ask sweetie?”

    “Look!” Steph pointed out the window. “There isn’t any weeds growing up in the parking lot, the grass by the fence looks nice, and no windows are broken. Someone’s been taking care of this place after it closed.”

    Adjusting her hair in the pocket mirror, Minerva glanced in the direction her niece had pointed and raised her eyebrows. “Your right sweetie. That’s pretty cool. Means I wont have spend my first month cleaning the place.”

    “I wonder who’s been cleanin’ up.”

    “The relator said that someone who works at another branch comes back once a month and spruces up.”

    Minerva undid her seat belt and climbed out into the parking lot. Steph followed, crawling across the driver’s seat and hopping out next to her aunt.

    Shutting the door, Minerva clicked the alarm button and the car honked, locking all it’s doors. “Are we presentable?” She said ruffling Steph’s hair and placing the keys back into her purse.

    The elder mink had decided that shopping for a studio, was probably no different than shopping for cloths, so she had opted to wear one of her favorite shopping outfits. Comfortable brown loafers for her feet, a red plaid mini-skirt, and matching red sweater, said she was in the mood to shop or at the very least, take a good look around this place.

    Steph gave her an ‘okay’ sign with her hand and adjusted her jeans. “You look great Aunt Minerva. My tail okay?” The little girl tried to look behind herself to make sure her tail wasn’t messy.

    “Hold still honey.” Pulling a brush from her black leather purse, Minerva brushed the little girl’s tail, till all the kinks were gone. “Better?”

    “Yes Ma’am. Thank you.”

    “Take my hand sweetie. Stay close to me, and try not to touch anything. Realtors are really picky about kids touching stuff.”

    Steph sighed. “Yes Ma’am.” She had a bad feeling this was going to turn into a really boring day.

    As the two minks headed for the maintenance door, Minerva noticed a big black car parked at the far end of the lot. She wasn’t completely sure, but it looked like Lincoln. “Oh, fancy. Definitely the realtor.”

    She reached out, pressed in the long bar handle and the door unlocked. Half expecting to be assaulted with a musty smell, both girls were surprised to find the air clean at the very least neutral. ‘Wow, someone has been keeping this place clean.’

    The entered a huge empty room with a concrete floor and stone walls. It seemed to stretch several hundred yards in all directions, forming one large rectangle, not unlike a parking garage. A multitude of florescent lights were strung from the ceiling, illuminating the places where the light from the blocked out windows would normally not reach.

    The girls took several steps away from the door, their feet echoing off the empty room’s walls. “Hello! Anyone here!?” Minerva frowned and crossed her arms pouting. “Humph! No one here to greet us? How rude!”

    Stephanie however didn’t pay any attention to her aunt as she thought she heard voices on the far side of the room. She took a few more steps out into the buildings interior and strained her ears to hear.

    “What is it Steph?”

    The little girl’s ears twitched and moved slightly on top of her head as she tried to pinpoint what she heard. “I think..... I think I hear voices someplace. Hmmmm.”

    She walked a little farther out and Minerva followed bemused. She hadn’t heard anything, but figured her niece probably had better hearing at her young age.

    “I thought I heard.... wait! Is it? Ya! I hear voices Aunt Minerva!” The little girl hopped up with excitement and grabbed onto Minerva’s hand. “This way! I hear somebody!”

    They jogged down the empty room, Minerva being mostly pulled by Steph, heading toward the far back of the building. The floor seemed to move upward as they went, if at some point it might turn into an incline. Sure enough, as they reached the back, there was a kind of road that ran from the upper floor, through a passage and onto the base level.

    Also, the voices became louder to the point where Minerva could also hear them. They were both male, although still distant enough where she couldn’t make out the words. ‘It sounds, familiar though. Like I know that person.’

    Soon the incline area was in better view, and the minks could see that the passage to the upper floor was normally closed by a giant steel shutter. However, as they approached, the shutter was open half way, and kinked slightly to the right in it’s frame. It rattled a few times, moved up a bit then slid back down into it’s previous place, followed by the second male voice yelling something they couldn’t make out, and Minerva had a feeling they were lucky not to.

    Finally, the end of the room was near and Minerva could make out the first voice Steph had heard.

    “What’s wrong with the Democrats should be painfully obvious to everyone, even those who blindly vote for them year after year, no matter who get’s the nomination!

    Can anyone tell me what qualifies Hillary Clinton to be president? Or which of these other guys would bring anything positive to the White House should they be elected? No! You can’t, because not a one of them is out there saying anything inspiring, anything hopeful, or anything that’s going to rally the average American to vote for them.”

    Now Minerva could put a finger on that particular voice, because she had heard it plenty of times herself growing up.

    “The only thing that gets the blood of the rabid left wing Liberal kooks pumping is their united hatred for Bush, and last time I checked, he isn’t running for anything!

    “Wether or not Obama is going to be able to tap into it in the same manor as Dean, has yet to be seen, but it’s going to be a major factor come election time, mark my words.”

    At the building’s rear, next to the upper level passage was a large metal square that had probably once housed an operation control to the door, however, it had been removed and sat on the ground next to a little red radio.

    From the speaker of this radio came the strong voice of the Conservative Radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh.

    “Give ‘um hell Rush!” Said the second voice, which sounded a bit muffled.

    Sticking out of the hole where the large control panel had been was the back end of a young man, standing on the tips of his boots, his whole front half stuffed up into the wall. He shifted and squirmed inside the hole, his voice strained, obviously getting upset with his task. But the thing that had caught Minerva’s attention was the long strawberry blond tail that stuck out the back of his jeans and lay on the floor. A mink tail.

    Stephanie giggled quietly, raising her eyebrows. Minerva only shrugged, took her niece’s hand, and closed the rest of the distance to the wall.

    Again the door shuttered and started it’s slow incline to the closed position. “Yes! Ha ha! Showed you who’s boss didn’t I?!” The door closed, sat for a second, and started to open again. It lifted up into the ceiling until it was no longer visible, then became still.

    The young man began to untangle himself from the mess of wiring in the wall, some of the lines probably very alive, and slip back out into the room. Brushing the dust and cob webs from his shirt and hair, took a deep breath and turned around to get the screwdriver he had left on the floor.

    “Hi mister!” Setph shouted.

    **********************

    John was ticked. It wasn’t bad enough that he had to get up early on a Monday, drive all the way out here, and try to fix the stupid door, but the realtor had called him to ask if he would show a new client around! She had claimed that there was some dire emergency, and she wouldn’t be able to show, but that was crap. This was the fifth ‘dire emergency’ this lady had in a three year span when clients were involved.

    He pulled off his coat and tossed it in the back seat of his Lincoln before getting out. Crossing to the back of the car, he retrieved the little red radio and a box of tools from the trunk.

    He felt tired, aggravated and in really no mood to deal with the broken storm door, let alone show the place to someone, who probably would take one look around then leave. “This sucks......” He tucked the box and radio under one arm and fished out the building’s master key card from his back pocket.

    The door beeped depressingly when the card was run through the lock and opened with a familiar high pitched squeal. He reached down by the door’s bolt and flipped a little star shaped wheel down so it would open without the card.

    Trudging the length of the storage facility, he mumbled an assortment of expletives under his breath. John set the box and radio down next to the doors vintage control panel that was mostly ornamental now, and plugged the radio in. The beginning theme to the Rush Limbaugh show bleared out of the radio’s lone speaker and he felt his muscles relax a bit.

    The four screws that held the old panel begrudgingly came out of the wall, but only after the male mink was forced to throw his weight into the screwdriver and turn the handle until his knuckles went white. He sat the panel, that had always reminded him of a stupid face made of buttons, on the floor, then sighed. ‘Here we go.’

    Retrieving a wire cutter and a roll of electrical tape, he crawled into the now vacant hole in the wall and started to check wires. It took him almost an hour, plus several good electric shocks to find the frayed wire.

    The space inside the wall was most uncomfortable. Multi-colored wires, that took up most of the space, kept looping around John’s face and neck like some kind of feral wall monster. Dusty old spider webs cling to his hair and shoulders, and the concrete blocks had not been shaved on this side so sharp edges like razor blades threatened to take of his skin if he got too close.

    Thankfully, the breaker switch to shut the electricity off for that section of the wall had been placed just to his right, so there would be no need to find the main fuse box.

    He shut the power down, grabbed up the frayed wire and made two quick cuts on each side of the damage with his utility knife.

    For the next several hours, he fought a heated battle with the old storm door. Again and again he was forced to remove the electrical tape on the wire and make new cuts, trying to weed out the bad areas, flipping the power on and off to test it. Once he had thought he had heard voices from the front of the warehouse, but then chalked it up as feedback from the radio. ‘Nah, the buyer couldn’t be here yet. Still have a little time.’

    Finally, after many expletives and burnt fingers, the door went completely down, then completely back up into it’s frame. “Yes! Ha ha! Showed you who’s boss didn’t I?!”

    He then began the rigorous task of getting himself free of the wires and pulling out of the wall with flesh still on his face.

    Thankfully, he was able to shimmy out from the grasp of the wall monster and slip back out into the warehouse with out any serious injury. He took a deep breath of clean air, then proceeded to dust himself off, pulling cobwebs of his flannel shirt and flicking them away.

    ‘Now all that’s left is to put that stupid panel back on. Where did I put my screwdriver?’ Patting himself down, he remembered that it was sitting next to the radio.

    John Mink turned around to retrieve the tool and came face to face with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. One that would change his life forever.

    ******************

    The grown-ups were acting funny, but that really wasn’t very surprising.

    Grown-ups always acted funny, and that was why Stephanie was in no real hurry to be one. Sure she would be able to wear fancy dresses, lots of make-up, and eat all the chocolate ice cream she wanted, but being little had it’s perks too. And being free of the strange laws of grown-up-dom was one of the best.

    However, what was different now, and perking the little girl’s interest, was just how they were acting funny.

    Her papa had told her many times that little kids were able to see things that adults couldn’t and that it was a special gift God gave them. ‘This must be one of those things he meant.’

    Aunt Minerva hadn’t moved or said a word since the guy crawling around in the wall had turned around. She only stood there, squeezing Steph’s hand and smiling funny. There might have been just a little blush in her face too, but Steph wasn’t totally sure.

    The guy, who was kind of cute with his sandy, strawberry blond hair and blue eyes, returned the goofy stare and smile. He had a blue flannel shirt on and blue jeans, nothing spectacular, but still kinda handsome.

    They both looked at one another in this funny way for the better of six seconds before Aunt Minerva extend a hand toward him and tried to cover her staring at him with a attempt at a joke. “I’ll take it that you aren’t Marry Ann Brokoda?”

    The guy chuckled a bit, rubbing the back of his neck with his left hand and taking Aunt Minerva’s with his right. “No, not last time I checked. But hey, it’s California, I guess you never can tell, huh?”

    Aunt Minerva tittered in what Steph knew to be her ‘flirting voice.’ This was another funny thing grown-ups did, that for now anyway, she couldn’t really understand. Papa said that boys and girls often acted funny when they liked each other, so did that mean this was that kind of a situation?

    They shook hands for a bit then he stuck both his hands into his pockets and grinned. “Sorry, but the relator said she couldn’t make it, so I got volunteered to show you around. John Mink at your service.”

    Stephanie smiled a little to herself, and watched as her Aunt introduced her to John. “This is my niece Stephanie.”

    The male mink knelt down and stuck out a big hand to her. “Nice to meet you miss.”

    She shook his hand, her’s being almost completely engulfed in his and giggled. “H’lo.” Though his hand was big, it was also strong and warm, and there was something about this John that she liked right away. ‘Maybe it’s what has Aunt Minerva acting so funny?’

    John excused himself while he put the panel back up on the wall and gathered up his things. Meanwhile, Minerva pretended to be looking around, but was really watching him. Steph could see this plainly, along with the glances he stole of her while he worked.

    Again Stephanie smiled to herself. ‘Maybe, just maybe,’ she thought, ‘this isn’t going to be all that boring a day after all!’

End Of Chapter 9