Story2

                                ~Chocolate kisses~

        " I can’t believe this!" Jamie cried into the receiver, " I can’t believe
that your actually on the phone! And your actually asking me to come visit!
And my mom is actually saying yes! This is amazing! Ahhh! I’m so excited!"
Jamie heard a chuckle come from the other end of the telephone.
"Of course she’ll let you visit me, your mum trusts me with my favorite
cousin, and would you stop screaming into my bloody ear!"
" Wow Virg, wow! Wow, wow that is like all I can say, wow. You got that
whole English professor accent thing down pat."
" Hmmm, maybe because I live in England and I am a bloody professor!"
"Oh Virg, don’t get all huffed up, just chill. I’m just excited that’s all.
So... when do I leave?" "Next week. I’ll send you the ticket."
" Oh this is so cool! Oh and Virgil?" "Yes?" " I love you!"
" I love you too, I’ll see you in a week. Bye." "Bye!"

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Jamie sat back in her seat and rubbed the armrest. She still couldn’t
believe it. Ever since she was little Jamie had wanted to live in Ireland
and study in England. The only problem was that she lived on the other side
of the world in Seattle, Washington, and her parents weren’t rich enough to
send her to England or Ireland let alone pay for school tuition. It was her
dream to get a scholarship from a school over there so she spent most her
nights at home studying and doing homework. She wasn’t really the partying
type. She hated the taste of alcohol and despised cigarettes and smoking. She was the good girl of the family and intended to keep it that way. They had very little family in England but her favorite cousin, Virgil, taught English literature at thee Eton collage there. And now she was on a plane to the place of her dreams.
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The cab pulled up to a small white house with green trim and two apple trees
in the front yard. ‘Quaint,’ Jamie thought, ‘Very quaint."
" Here you go." Jamie said handing the driver some money, "Thank-you." ‘nice
guy’ she thought while opening the door. Being the over friendly person
that she was, she had chatted up with the guy the entire ride from the airport, he had even helped her carry her bags up the long walk. Inside, the house was very victorian. ‘just like Virgil’ she thought.

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Jamie walked back into the house after taking a short walk around the
neighborhood and was immediately smothered by two well built arms. Jamie
giggled and pulled away. She looked her cousin up and down. ‘Wow he’s hot’
she thought. Virgil was 28 and very good looking with his spiked brown hair
and blue eyes that ran in their family. He was wearing black sketchers,
semi-baggie blue jeans and a navy blue shirt that clung to his muscles
showing off his sixpack. " Mmmm," Jamie said after giving him another hug.
"Damn you are such a hunk now. Yumm!" He took her arm and twirled her around.
" And you’ve turned into a bloody model, you sexy thing."
Jamie had to admit she did have a nice physique. Her brown hair had just
been cut and layered to frame her face. She was wearing knee high leather
boots, a leopard print knee length skirt, a black shirt and a leather jacket. She didn’t know if that style was hot in England but everyone on the west coast of Washington was really into it. In fact, faux leather and animal prints were sweeping the nation.
"Come on," she said, her blue eyes twinkling a much brighter shade than his,
"we gots lots to catch up on."
"Right oh!" He agreed taking her hand and leading her into the living room.

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"So you remember Josh?" She asked. They were sitting on the couch in their
pajamas and snacking on junk food. "That neighbor of yours? What about him?" "Him and his sister lived next to us for 10 years. 10 years Virgil, and we
were the best of friends, Josh and I could talk to each other about anything. And now they’re gone. They just moved to Nevada and I miss them so much. It’s not even funny." She said sticking a spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream into her mouth.
"How long have they been down there?" "11 months."
"Does he answer your letters?"
" I haven’t written him, he’s not the letter type. But I e-mail him twice and he won’t respond." "Is he the e-mailing type?"
" Yes!" She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes.
" Oh, well why don’t you just call him?" " Long distance."
" You could call him from here." He offered.
"Your kidding right? Your not kidding, Virg, how much will that cost you?"
She asked, shocked at his solution to the problem.
" That doesn’t matter, I call you when your at home don’t I. Just don’t stay on the phone for three hours and you got yourself a deal." He gave her his hand then pulled her off the couch." C’mon, I got work tomorrow and you really should get some sleep after that long flight." With that he picked her up and carried her to the guest room. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, "Your the sweetest cuz."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER 2

Some say that the eyes are the window to the soul. Well that’s how it was
with Jamie and the man looking down on her could tell how much pain she was
in by the look in her watery eyes. However her face showed no emotion and her voice never wavered.
"Please sir," Jamie said, "I need to speak to professor Cunningham. It’s very important."
"Look miss," he said as politely as possible, "like I said before, I can’t let visitors go in there in order to not disrupt the learning."
" You don’t understand..." He stopped her by putting up his hand," I’m sorry."
That was that, Jamie knew she would never get in there now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jamie waited behind the tree until she was sure that the man was gone. Then
she snuck up the lawn and into the building being careful not to be seen.

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The guys lounged at their mahogany desks, rows and rows of them, about 50
all together. Some taking notes, others daydreaming and yet others sleeping. Immediately everyone’s attention was diverted to the front of the class.

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Virgil heard the rustle of the classroom behind him. He turned around to see what had aroused the boys, they were all staring at the door... they were all staring at...JAMIE. ‘What is she doing here? Doesn’t she know what kind of trouble I could be in if some one found out she was in here?’ he thought. Then within a glimpse he saw her red eyes and tear- stained face, and knew something had to be wrong. She was too smart to come up into Eton without a really good reason, and it had to be a really good reason because he had never seen Jamie cry. "Virg," she whispered, "I need to talk to you." He gave the class an assignment and then pulled her into his office.

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Immediately the classroom erupted with a million different conversations about one thing. " What is she doing here?" Alex asked
" Did you see how good-looking she was? Man!" said a blonde boy next to him.
" Wills, do you believe she just walked right in here? The professor is going to be in so much trouble!" someone behind them said. William turned into the conversation. He was just as stunned as everyone else.

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"What is it?" Virgil asked, cuddling his cousin up into his arms.
"She’s dead!" Jamie cried, finally letting the sobs escape her throat. He pushed her away from his shoulder and, holding her at arms length and stared into her blue eyes." Who?" he asked alarmed! "Josh’s mom! She was like a second mother to me." He pulled her close again and tried to comfort her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they walked out of Virgils office Jamie was embarrassed at how the room
was deathly silent and how all eyes were on her. She left Virgil with his class and joined up with a tour group that was passing by.

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It was about an hour and a half later and she was standing in an art gallery. She had left the tour group and was by herself again. She couldn’t resist. Jamie loved the arts and she worshiped the old masters like Claude Monet, Van Gogh, and Signac. She was starring at her dad’s favorite painting. She couldn’t believe what luck she had. She had spent hours at the National Gallery of Art in
Washington DC trying to find that painting. "Amazing!" She whispered in awe.
"Yes, I quite agree."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CHAPTER3
Jamie jumped at the voice of the little old man standing next to her. She hadn’t noticed him there before, in fact she was sure he hadn’t been there before.
"I, um, um I uh um I," Jamie stuttered trying to think of an excuse for being there. She could think of none.
"The oarsman, I do believe." He said nodding to the painting.
"Callibotte." She answered, still not knowing what to do. He turned to face her," You must be Jamie, I’m the headmaster here and I just had a long talk with your cousin." Fear visibly showed on her face. "How did you know?"
"My dear girl," he chuckled quietly, "this is an all boys school, news like that travels pretty fast. "Oh please don’t fire him!"
"Relax, I was thinking nothing of the sort."

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"I have nine Monet’s, four Van Gogh’s, one Renoir and one Georgia O’Keefe in
my room." "That’s quite impressive." Jamie stared at the bald old man next to her. Her was really nice and she liked him alot. They had been talking about art for almost a half an hour already. She should be heading back soon.
"Do you think you’ll be very busy tomorrow?" She asked out of the blue.
" Well I’m not for certain why?"
"I was just wondering if you would be so kind as to give me a tour?"
"But there are plenty of tour groups around, why don’t you just..."
"Oh!" She interrupted, "I suppose I could but I think I’d be more interested if I got the tour from you. Besides, I enjoy your company alot more than I would a tour guides." She gave him one of her *you-can’t-say-no-to-a-face-like-this* smiles.
"You have a point he said. Come tomorrow to my office and I’ll see if I can fit you in."

MORE TO COME!