Chapter 1: Tuesday

"What's that?" Gideon said out loud to herself, looking down quickly at the little yellow piece of paper that was now cascading to floor. It had fallen out of her bag when she half hazzardly shoved into her work locker. Picking up the paper she read the scratchy male handwriting to herself;

Nate Bergsted 651-578-6161

"Ooooh" Gideon said half out loud and half in a breath. The significance of this tiny piece of paper is that this was the name and number of a man around her own age, from church that might want to buy her car. Gideon had completely forgotten getting his information during church last Thursday. Nate had found her in the crowd of people walking to watch a baptism, while moving from the little sanctuary they meet to the big one where the church building had thier baptismal pool. Nate is a shortish stalky man, standing about 5' 6" to Gideon's 5'8", pre-mature balding causing it's havok on his stylishly untidy light brown hair, and some almost trendy glasses placeed upon his face. Whatever he may have lacked in height or hair he made up with a big smile and an energetic greeting. "Of course, first impressions are hard to judge by..."Gideon thought to herself that night. "His energy and friendliness could always end up being the result of overcompensation for a lack of actual conversation skills." Gideon was always the optimist.
Quickly Gideon put the yellow piece of paper back in to her bag and ran back to work. She was needed up front due to another rush of hungry quazi corporate men and women coming in for sanwhiches. Along with being noted Best Bakery 2001-2008 for our delicious breads and cookies. Great Harvest also had a local reputation for serving up a kickbutt sandwhich. The day went by so quickly and before she even had time to sit and think about her plans for the afternoon or even think about Nate Bergstedt again; it was 1pm and time to clock out and leave Bakery Land. Gideon walked out to the parking lot, promptly got into her car and stuck the key in the ignition; she needed to roll down the windows ASAP. Today was an almost unseasonably warm day. Hitting nearly 75 degrees in the first week of April was pretty must unheard of in this part of Washington State. Lazily, she looked at the collection of trash on her passenger side floor and then up to her bag laying open on the the seat beside her; waiting patiently for the other drivers in the lot to let her out of her spot. Laying right on top of the random collection of things that had accculated in her bag was Nate's yellow note. Almost in reflex, Gideon grabed the paper, grabbed her cell phone and began to dial. There was no answer so she left a message.

"Uh, Hi! This is Gideon. I'm the girl from church that's selling her car. I know we kind of talked about how much I needed to sell the car for last week, but, uh there has been some changes in my financial options, some awesome changes! And, uh I wanted to give you first dibs on the lowered price of my car. If you're still looking to buy a car.... uh... yeah. Call me back. 253-279-1357."

Always graceful... uh, uh, uh...