Chapter 2
They pulled out of the university parking lot and Annalia was calling her best friend, Emily at the moment to tell her she didn’t have to worry about picking her up today. She and Emily studied in different colleges, but they’d known one another and been like sisters since the first grade. “Hello, Emily. How are you?”
“I’m doing great, Anna. How about you?”
“Remember that guy I was telling you about, the computer freak?” Donovan looked at her with a weird smile on his face when he heard the word freak and she looked back at him smiling apologetically. Almost. “Well, not only is he going to take me to my house, but he’s also fixing my computer! Can you believe it? He’s going to help me backup my files and everything. I have less than six hours, according to my hard drive, to retrieve my files, so I hope he can come through fast. As it is, I can’t even get into my Windows account to save my files. That’s why I need his help. I think my computer got hacked and locked, or something, and I’m really worried.”
“No one hacked you,” commented Donovan, still focusing on the road. “You can’t get in because your hard drive is as corrupt as a policeman who’s always breaking the law rather than enforcing it. Your files are still safe. About the six hours? No problem. I can get in and retrieve them in about twenty minutes, so you’ll be all right.”
“Oh, my God, that’s Donovan Thornhart, the computer whiz everyone’s talking about! There are many ‘computer freaks’ in that university, so I never suspected you were talking about him!”
“Donovan Thornhart, yes, that’s the one. He’s got the name of a spoiled rich boy.”
“Yes, he does. That name is somehow fancy. Ok, so I can go straight home then.”
“Yes. As always, Emily, thank you for everything.”
“That’s what friends are for, remember? I tell you every time you thank me for something.” She laughed. “You’re such a dork! You know you don’t have to thank me! I’d do anything for you.”
“Same here. I’ll see you tomorrow, God willing.”
Donovan looked at her again. He’d never heard a girl his age talking like that.
“See you tomorrow, baby doll. Call me and keep me updated on your adventures with the computer freak.”
“Adventures, ok…”
“Oh, come on, cheesecake, I know where this is going. You can bring any guy to his knees, especially white-winged doves like Donovan.”
“White what?”
Emily hung up with an evil laugh. “That’s why I love her because she’s such a dork!”
“Ah…ok….” Annalia hung up.
“What did she say? Did she offend you?”
“No, Don, she said something that threw me off the wall, but not because it was offensive toward me. She said something about you being a white-winged dove and that I could bring any guy to his knees, ‘especially white-winged doves’ like you.”
“How poetic.”
“Yes, but that stunned me. Is it true?”
Looking her in the eyes, blushing, he said, “Yes, it is. Don’t tell anyone. Everyone thinks I’m this playboy and not to be vain but all the girls are chasing me ‘hoping to be the next one’.” He laughed. “It surprises me how someone can’t see something like this.”
“It’s obvious in women but it’s not always obvious in men, Donovan. Come to think of it, I don’t think I want to be more than friends. I’m Christian…”
He cut her off without intention. “I knew that the moment you said, ‘God willing’,” and then looked back at her and back at the road.
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a virgin. I’ve made mistakes. I’m telling you that I don’t think I want to be more than friends because I noticed that you were star struck the moment you first looked me in the eyes. I don’t know if you noticed it, but you gasped and then smiled before asking me how you could help me. I fornicated with a guy for over two years. Luckily it was only one guy in my entire life, but going by what I’ve learned since the moment I got saved, what I did was wrong. Now I’m celibate. I swore off sex until my wedding night. I don’t think I can corrupt you or any man like something corrupted my hard drive. I think that if fornicating again is wrong, corrupting an innocent man or woman, in the case of men, is unforgivable.”
“I am not Christian, but I have read the Bible, and it says that the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy. I just haven’t given in because thank God no one has approached me asking me the million dollar question, whether or not I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins… yeah, because if someone asks me that I won’t say no. I do believe. It’s just that luckily it hasn’t happened. I don’t think I’m ready for that. I think that once you make that prayer, from that moment on, you can’t goof off. You have to work to renew your mind and all that, and though I believe, I am still not ready, you know what I am saying? When I embark on something, I give it my all. I can’t just make the commitment, start working on renewing my mind, start living a holy life and all of a sudden just drop everything and go back to my old ways. I don’t know if the backsliding thing and losing God’s favor, I don’t know if any of that’s true, but once I make a commitment, I start working my butt off for it and I never drop it and never look back or go back. I am a novelist, too. I haven’t been published yet. I have three completed novels and I am slowly working on my fourth one, but when I start a novel, I don’t stop working on it till the novel or story is finished and I type THE END. No matter how much I think it may suck, I don’t drop it and start working on another one.”
“I get your drift. When I was younger and I thought a novel sucked, I would stop working on it, delete it from my hard drive and start working on another one. Then I started reading books about the art of writing, creating stories. My two latest novels, which are finished, were started after I got saved and they all contain a beautiful message. People of all ages can read them, as my other novels pre-salvation. It’s just that none of the novels that I wrote before being saved contain that beautiful message. They’re just like any other novel you can find in a secular bookstore. I plan on publishing them so that people can read what I used to write before Christ changed my life, and noticed the woman I’ve become and how my way of viewing life has changed.”
“So you’re not publishing your pre-salvation novels under pen names.”
“No. I am publishing all my work under my real name, Annalia Henley. I have a middle name but I don’t like saying it or writing it down because it’s foreign and it’s really strange.”
“Oh…”
“So I just write Annalia C. Henley on all my title pages.”
“I get you.”
“It’s pretty, really, I just don’t like saying or using it. What I like the most is the meaning of it. My first name is a combination of two names, Anna and Malia. Anna is my mom, Anna Christina Henley, and Malia is my dad’s sister, his only sister and that’s why my parents named me after her.”
“So you’ll leave me wondering what your middle name is.”
Smiling, she said, “I’ll never tell you. You’ll have to find out on your own if you really want to know.”
“I’m going to find out when we get married and I see it on our marriage certificate, but don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone and I won’t ever say it.”
“So you know for sure that one day we’ll get married.”
“Yes, believe it or not, I do. You’re the most beautiful and sweetest woman I’ve ever met and I can’t let you go. I fell in love with you at first sight, something I never believed in until today. I don’t know, perhaps you can get me on my way toward making the most important commitment in my life.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. We’ll see what happens. I like you, too. I can’t deny you’re drop-dead gorgeous.”
“Then we make a cute couple, don’t we?”
“I think we do, but like I said, we’ll see. For now, help me with my predicament.”
* * * *
Donovan and Annalia arrived at her house.
Annalia’s mother, Anna Christina went out to the driveway to know who this strange person was bringing her daughter home. She became concerned that Annalia was starting a relationship with a stranger, and although it was only friendship, she didn’t want her daughter to make a habit of it because not all people were as nice as it was more than obvious that this young man was. Five younger than Annalia. If they took things further and became a problem, that would be hard for the Henley family to digest and accept. It would take them time, and in the meantime, Annalia and Donovan would have to break up their relationship, if they ever started a romantic one, and even stay away from each other to keep those feelings from rekindling.
Annalia and Donovan got out of the car at the same time. As always, Annalia greeted her mother with a big hug. “Mom, this is Donovan Thornhart. He goes to the University of Florida, as well. He’s eighteen. Don’t get the wrong idea. I only brought him here because I heard he was one of the best computer guys in school. He’s going to help me get into my user account and back up my files.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Donovan,” said Anna Christina shaking his hand, smiling. “I hope you don’t think that my daughter brings guys home regularly because it’s not true. After she broke up with her ex boyfriend, Larry, you’re the first guy she’s ever brought here.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Henley. Your daughter is a very sweet woman and I would never think those things of her. I am sorry but we can’t talk more till after I take care of her problem because as of now, she only has,” he was looking at his watch, “five hours and forty-five minutes to back up her files or she’s going to lose them forever and they’re essential, critical to her.”
“Ok. I hope you can stay for dinner. Shawn and I would like to get to know our daughter’s new friend a little better. I have a feeling you’ll be much more than just an acquaintance.”
“Believe me, I don’t want to be just an acquaintance. To be honest with you, I am fascinated with your daughter, and from this day forward I would like to share my life, my world and my family with her. I don’t ever want us to be out of touch, lose communication.”
Everyone went inside. Shawn and Anna Christina continued to watch some popular court show in the living room, while Annalia and Donovan went to Shawn’s office instead of her bedroom. Even if she left the door open and what they were doing would be in plain sight, she didn’t want to leave herself open for misunderstandings, to her parents or Donovan. Donovan placed Anna Christina’s laptop on the secondary computer desk that Shawn had in his office and went right to work. Annalia’s user account was password protected, but even though Annalia gave him the correct password and attempted to get in with that password countless times, the computer still wouldn’t let anyone in. It occurred to Donovan to do the basic thing in this case, get into the computer itself and erase the password from her account. He tried to get in without the password, but the computer still wouldn’t let him in. He got into the bios again and went in through the account labeled Administrator that would always use the password ‘123’ to get in by default. This time, he got in. Annalia knew this was what she had to do but she didn’t know how. From the administrator account, in safe mode, Donovan opened the folder that stored all the files in Annalia’s account. In his backpack, he would always carry an external hard drive that to this day, even when his laptop was two years old, he hadn’t had to use. He transferred all of Annalia’s files to that hard drive.
Annalia applauded him, smiling.
“I don’t know why, but for some reason, some voice in my head kept telling me, take the external hard drive. Take it. Take it. You’re going to need it. This time, you are going to need it. I thought that something would happen to my laptop, and although it didn’t, I wound up using it for someone else’s laptop, yours. Ain’t that funny?”
Not being able to wipe that smile off her face, she said, “Yes, it is.”
“You’re going to keep the hard drive and I am going to get another external hard drive for me.” He pulled his laptop out of his carrying case. He backed up his files on that same hard drive. He’d only used sixteen gigabytes of hard drive space, luckily, and the external hard drive had 500 gigabytes. Annalia’s files had taken up over 100 gigabytes. She had videos that she’d created, gospel music she’d downloaded, and of course, her precious files that she was panicked about. Then, Donovan used his recovery CD to take the computer back to its out-of-box state.
“Why are you performing a system recovery, Don?”
While the process was starting, he said, “Because I am giving my computer to you. You don’t have money to buy another one, but I do, so I am letting you have this one and buying a new one for me.”
“You’re able to do that? You work?”
“Oh, yes. I am Attorney Kensington’s secretary. I make over six thousand dollars a month. Laptops these days, even ones with awesome features are less than one thousand dollars, and besides my monthly check, I’ve been saving money for emergencies that to this day I haven’t had to touch—a lot of money. Seven thousand dollars in savings. All my accounts are protected with Life Lock. It’s a small monthly price to pay to protect the thing most precious to me, my good name. I even have credit cards, two of them, but I don’t use them. I always use cash and debit. I let my parents use my credit cards to buy whatever they need. I know I can trust them. They give me the money to pay for the credit-card bills, and they never spend more than one thousand dollars a month. My credit cards, one of them has a $30,000 credit line and the other one $50,000.”
“It’s good to know you and I can both trust our parents. I have one credit card I let my parents use, too, but that one only has a credit limit of $5,000. They only use it to pay their bills because they lost their jobs.”
“They got fired?”
“Laid off.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.” The principal Windows account was ready to use. Donovan gave it Annalia’s name and set ‘12345’ as her password for her to change later, so she could get in easily without anyone else getting in at the push of a button. “I am going to talk to my dad and see if he has positions for them at his company. He would have credit cards of his own except his credit is ruined. Identity theft. That’s why I got me Life Lock.”
“Wow. Thanks for being willing to help out my parents.”
“No problem. You want me to transfer your files into your computer’s internal hard drive?”
“Only some of them, the manuscripts that are marked as ‘in-progress’ in the My Documents folder, and the music. I’d like to keep my completed manuscripts and videos in the external hard drive because, from the Windows Vista Home Premium logo in that computer, I can tell it’s not very new and it has a smaller hard drive than mine.” Grinding her teeth, she added, “Mine was only four months old.”
“I did an upgrade recently. It’s true that this computer’s two years old, but now it has a one-terabyte hard drive.”
“Mine was 500 gigabytes.”
“So you can store your videos here if you want to. All your files will only take up one tenth of the space.”
“Now I know that, but I’d like to keep my precious files here at home, safe from everyone else. I am scared to death of hackers.”
Donovan was transferring the files that Annalia wanted in her internal hard drive now.
“It’s unlikely that any of my books will be best-sellers, but I don’t want to take that chance. And my videos, ooh, I don’t want anything to happen to those, either. They’re very important to me, and I have a feeling that a hacker will want to steal them, too, although they’re not pornographic.”
He laughed. “You’re right. My computer is blazing fast despite its age, so these files will finish transferring in no time. Since this computer is not connected to the internet because my wireless card is in my laptop’s carrying case, there’s no danger of your files being stolen, so let’s let the computer do its work and go watch some TV with Mr. and Mrs. Henley. What do you say?”
“Let’s go.” They walked out of the office and she closed the door behind her. As they walked the hallway back to the living room in this one-story mansion, she said, “Mom usually makes dinner right after her last favorite court show is over. She watches a two-hour court-show block from Monday to Friday. It’s three forty five, so dinner will be prepared at five. It’ll be done in no time because Mom makes great meals, but they all take them less than forty-five minutes.”
“That’s good.”
They went back to the living room. It occurred to Donovan to call Daniel and put the phone on speaker so that Shawn and Anna Christina could listen to what Daniel was saying to him. Daniel was still at work and he would get home late.
Daniel answered the phone. “Thornhart Enterprises, this is Daniel Thornhart, president. How may I help you?” He would let callers know who he was in the company just in case they wanted to talk to the head of the company.
“Dad, it’s Donovan.”
Smiling, Daniel asked, “Hey, son, how are you doing? For some reason the call came on the caller ID as unknown.”
“Funny. I never use the star sixty-seven crap, much less to call you. Maybe my phone is in an area that’s new to me. I’m at the house of a girl I just met at the university. You know how big UCF is. She lives with her parents, so we’re all kind of hanging out here.”
“She’s a college student still living with her parents.”
“Yes. She promised them not to move away until she got married.”
“That’s original, and sweet. It’s nice to know you’re getting acquainted with classmates like that.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Henley lost their jobs.”
That smiled disappeared from Daniel’s face faster than the ray of light. “Oh.”
“I was just wondering if you had any positions opened by any chance.”
“I have one hundred positions open, but then again, you know how big Thornhart Enterprises is. I employ over 2,000 people, so a position is always open. For some reason, someone leaves, quits, or gets fired almost every month. I must be a bad boss or something because the ones that quit, maybe they’re mad at me.”
“Maybe they demand more than you can give them or maybe they’re just not doing their job.”
“Yes, yes. Fortunately, I have positions of all kinds open. What’s the forte of Mr. and Mrs. Henley, of each one of them. What are they excellent at? What did they do before getting, fired, laid off or whatever?”
“They got laid off. They worked in the public relations department of their respective companies.”
“Public relations. That’s great. My company could really use that right now because two of my public relations people got fired today.”
“Ouch,” Don said with a serious face. “I wonder what they did wrong.”
“I’ll tell you when I get home, and you call me again. It’s kind of embarrassing. I say that because I know you’ve got me on speaker and you shouldn’t get me off speaker because then they’ll think the wrong thing.”
“Ok, Dad. I will call you later. Just know that Mr. and Mrs. Henley will not let you down, and they won’t do whatever it is these people did. I’m going to stay at their house for dinner.”
“Whatever you do, don’t go into the girl’s bedroom with her. I don’t want an angry father beating my boy senseless for corrupting his daughter.”
“Don’t worry, Dad. You know something about me that very, very few people know. In fact people that know about this could be counted with the fingers of one hand, at the most. You know I’d never do that.”
“That’s good. Ok, son, I will talk to you later. Tell Mr. and Mrs. Henley to come here tomorrow morning with their ID’s, resumes, and all their important documentation.”
“They heard you.”
“We will, Mr. Thornhart,” commented Shawn. “We won’t disappoint you.”
“I know you won’t,” Daniel replied. “My boy would never knowingly recommend me someone that would disappoint me or hurt this company. He knows how prestigious it is, and when I notice an apple has spoiled, I remove it from the bag before it spoils the others.” Daniel hung up.
Everybody screamed in utter joy and hugged.
* * * *
Annalia, Donovan, Shawn and Anna Christina enjoyed lasagna for dinner that afternoon, Coca Cola to drink and apple pie for dessert. However, each one of them only had one small square of lasagna, a twelve-ounce can of Coca Cola and a small piece of pie for dessert. The secret of the Henley fami