The 'Cousins'

Part One : How it Began, (Second Revision)

                                                        CHAPTER ONE

      The crash of the judge’s gavel ending his second marriage resonated in Greg Mitchell’s head as he ran down the worn stone steps to get away from the courthouse and the injustice it had served him this day. His mind crazed by confusion and disbelief.

       At the bottom of the steps he stopped, turning back to look at the ancient building where, for the second time his life had been upended in a contested divorce settlement that had gone against him.  Greg glared at the iron studded oak door, regarding it now as a personal barrier.  His jaw hung slack, quivering to match the trembling through his body as anger grew inside him at the court’s one-sidedness. He was supposed to be the innocent party; his wife had cheated on him, yet she had won the case and that justified him hating not only her, but also the court and its unfair decision. With a growl of contempt, he scrunched up the court order and hurled it at the door. He stood facing it in an attitude of challenge while his thoughts struggled to make sense of the court’s finding against him.

      The successful recruitment business  built over the last five years had been taken away from him with the rap of a judicial gavel.  The business belonged to her father, a family concern in which Greg had no proprietary share, yet he had built it from nothing and relied upon the promise that one day it would be his. Until then he had depended upon it for his status in the business community and means to support his wife’s lavish social round. Without Bailey’s Recruitment he had nothing. No job. No home. No purpose and no income.  His main reason for contesting the divorce was to retain his senior position in the company with the promise of succession to the top-job that had been made soon after his marriage to the owner’s daughter; all of which he had now lost.

       His paltry share of the marital belongings, after expenses, was equally divided between himself and Victoria, his newest ex-wife.  He didn’t overly care about losing her as a spouse; they had not been very close.  The loss of his involvement in the business was what hurt him and he resented that more than anything else. Fortunately he had no alimony to pay. He had come out of the proceedings emotionally scarred, but with some money in the bank, largely due to a generous redundancy package. 

      He gazed at the forbidding façade of that grey stone and unsympathetic building with an increasing sense of dry-mouthed loathing. In that instant the building became Greg’s personal enemy, barring him from the happiness of a prosperous future.  Thoughts of what might come next released a new feeling inside him, the numbing sensation of fear for his immediate future. He was thirty-five years old. Where could he go from here?   How could he pick himself up after this loss?   What could he do now?   His life revolved around Bailey’s. The time had been right for his ideas with success quickly following their implementation.  Under his direction, the tiny company rose from nothing to a position where people mentioned its name in the same breath as they spoke of the major international recruitment companies operating within the UK.

      Two things had motivated Greg in his business lifetime; his personal well being and making money, for which he had a proven talent. The need for friends and fellowship was not one of his necessities, being content and comfortable with his own company.   Both of his ex-wives had complained he never let them get close to him, not really close, so that they could be as one together. That was true. His first love was always for the challenge of the business adventure of the moment; it captured his heart and soul leaving little of him for his wives.  He could never understand their demands to spend valuable time with them in useless and unproductive domesticity and pointless socializing; taking him and his energies away from the paramount task of growing the business.  

      Greg stood still at the foot of the hard, stone steps feeling drained, angry and forsaken, but with another and unfamiliar sensation washing over him.   For the first time in his adult life, Greg Mitchell felt lonely. There had always been somebody following behind to do his bidding at the click of his fingers. The awareness of being totally alone swept over him with surprise and dismay.

      He had no family or close friends to call upon for solace or a place to stay for a few days; everybody he knew was either a business or casual acquaintance.  He thought back to the times when he rushed about the country, oblivious to everything else except sourcing new business under the maxim, ‘When you’ve done the deal, what’s the point of relationships?’   He knew it now when he wished for somebody to be there for him to turn to for comfort in this moment of distress. The realization frightened him. Greg rubbed his hand over his forehead and its receding hairline while the chill dread of emptiness coursed through his veins.   

      He began walking away from the courthouse towards the High Street, struggling to come to terms with his situation; while his inner voice reminded him, ‘You’re on your own again. You’ll be forty in only five years time. You have no wife, no family, no friends and nowhere to go.  All you have is a little cash in the bank. Can you settle for that and find an ordinary job, working for somebody else?’

      Greg shivered, knowing it would not be enough. He believed his ill fortune was all down to this place and this day’s events.  Everything would be all right in a few days.  He’d be back to normal and would find another business venture in need of his abilities.  What he needed was a break to turn his back on this upset.

      "That’s what I’ll do!" he hollered at the next passer-by, who jumped from the pavement into the road in shocked bewilderment. "I’m free now, of everything, I’ll take a long break and start again.  There’ll be no holding back Greg Mitchell!" 

      There was nothing and no one to keep him here.  He needed to get away and find himself.  The more he thought of it, the more the idea appealed and gave him some small and instant relief from the anguish causing his hands to shake and his stomach churn.  Various ideas for his holiday flowed in quick succession.  He settled on America where, in earlier more affluent times, he had found the pace of life uplifting and the lifestyle agreeable. He decided to drive across the vastness of the USA from the East to West and back again.

      Greg noticed the café on the other side of the road when a couple stood up to leave the small seated area set out on the pavement.  He felt the need for coffee and hurried across the street to occupy the vacated table. To his delight he found the café offered free wifi Internet access. With increasing excitement he opened his laptop and brought up the USA on Google maps. There were some places he wished to visit and his problems faded as he threw himself wholeheartedly into the task of planning his route. 

      Thirty minutes later, the coffee lay cold and untouched on the tablecloth beside him when he sat back in his chair with a clap of his hands and a huge grin on his face.

      “Job Done!” he announced to nobody in particular, Greg had found his ideal route and decided to travel along the Interstate-80 from New Jersey to California and back to Florida on the Interstate-10. The more he thought about it, the greater became its appeal. He saw the route took him through places he wished to visit and others whose names he’d only heard of. ‘It would be good to put some first-hand images and experiences to those names’.

      ...Three days later, Greg listened carefully to the Hertz rental clerk at the airport in Newark, NJ as he gave him directions to the freeway system and the Interstate-80.