C.J. - Beautiful Disaster

Dedication

To the two people who always cheered me on, my mom Joan and my husband Denny

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors warped imagination or are used fictitously. Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead, events or locals is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

Book jacket art by Donna Dean, ddesigns.

Copyright 2018 by Christine H. Johnson All rights reserved

CHAPTER ONE

M AN IS ALWAYS YEARNING for the unknown, always reaching for the next great accomplishment. Civilizations are born and destroyed by greatness and awful power. This is that kind of story. It started as all greatness does, in a small, unassuming place.

If you must know its Ohio.

M AGGIE PENNY, A PROFESSOR of biochemistry at the University of Missouri tugged at the hem of her turquoise cocktail dress and not so silently cursed to herself about what she was going to do to her boyfriend, Danny Kensington, who was supposed to accompany her to this year's Midwestern chemistry conference. Every year a chemistry conference was held at a promising university. The university selected to hold this year's event had to back out due to a black mold scare, so the conference heads scrambled at the last minute and chose Maggie's university due to its instant availabiltity. The university rarely had any prestiges events or public speakers and would accept anyone and any event that wandered its way.

Maggie was utterly absorbed in delivering a voice mail message to Danny, which consisted of directions to the conference and explicit directions of where Danny could go if he didnt show up at said conference. This wasnt the first time Danny, the love of Maggies life, had failed to appear at one of her university events. She didnt know who she was currently madder at, Danny or herself. After all she fell for his award-winning act every time. She would explain to Danny that she needed his presence at an event. He would look deep into her eyes, hold her hand promise to stand by her side and weather the storm of small talk and lousy food with her. They were a team, blah, blah blah. She fell for it every fucking time. Then on the night of the event, Danny would fall off the face of the earth only to reappear several days later. He would either be limping and spinning a long, involved story about a trip to the ER or his best friend, Kevin, would have had a personal crisis about which Danny could disclose nothing.

Maggie, walking and simultaneously threatening Dannys physical wellbeing, snagged a drink from a waiter and noticed that that she didnt need to weave her way around people. Suddenly, the coast was clear in what should have been a very crowded room. But as in the Serengeti, the fitter and wiser prey had already taken cover in groups out of reach of Dean Gerald Jacquess. Only the weak or in this case the young and stupid in the form of one associate professor, Martin Tranwrach, had walked right up to the Dean and initiated conversation. Tranwrach had never spoken to Jacquess until that evening. After giving himself, a sweaty fifteen-minute pep talk he approached the Dean who was easy to spot as he had the body type Legomorph. To the casual observer, he seemed to be made entirely of Legos. He had a strange gray eyes and square-shaped head and its little remaining hair was light blonde. For clothing, the Dean favored blue. He once read an article that stated blue was a power color, and immediately switched his wardrobe over to blue, all blue, all the time. Between the hair, the square-shaped head, and the equally squared off torso and legs, his appearance generated many nicknames, the favorite being, Sponge Bob Jack Ass. Little Boy Blue was the least nasty nickname the Dean acquired.

Tranwrach, who hovered near the Dean, was his physical opposite. Where the Dean was short and solidly built, Tranwrach was tall and thin. At nearly six foot five, and without a muscle in sight, he looked like a straightened out Slinky. Most people were initially startled by Tranwrachs appearance, amazed that someone had outfitted a stork. He wore his hair in what he thought was a military style, but the buzz cut only emphasized his birdlike appearance. Tranwrach tended to lose his sense of direction quickly. He would whip around and change course in what he thought was a purposeful motion, but only succeeded in looking like a flapping mother bird protecting her nest.

All his students and his peers (save Maggie) called him Trainwreck behind his back, (Maggie called him that to his face). But that nickname, wasnt just for giggles. As one of the associate professors for beginning chemistry, Tranwrach had single-handedly been responsible for the most equipment damage to a classroom in the history of the university. If Tranwrach had been doing innovative and instructive coursework people might have left him alone, but he screwed up even the most straightforward experiments. Maggie swore that in minutes he could turn something as simple as a potato battery into a dirty bomb. He once set an entire class's exams on fire while grading them without any sign of matches, lighter or any type of accelerant present. At 35 Tranwrach would more likely to be found the victim of spontaneous combustion in his classroom than to climb the ranks to tenured professorship. He would've lost his job a long time ago, but there were very few applicants in line for his or anyone's position at this particular university.

Tranwrach introduced himself to Dean Jacquess silently congratulating himself on getting the Dean alone. Tranwrach had no natural instincts and failed to notice that everyone had been avoiding the Dean like the plague.

The Dean had no idea who Tranwrach was as he had never bothered with anyone he considered beneath him in intelligence or status. He believed all the professors and employees at the university were his underlings and treated them as such. Jacquess was, however, a shameless social snob. If he even thought someone was -connected to high society or had a fat checkbook, he immediately turned into a simpering kiss ass. He took one look at Tranwrach, stepped back and muttered, "How the hell did a bird get in here and why is it wearing such an ugly suit?" The Dean's brain slowly kicked started and realized that a) birds usually don't wear clothing and b) Storks or emus or whatever this was probably didn't talk either. I must be really drunk and should cut myself off, or I seriously need a drink. The Dean was frantically trying to recall who the hell this cartoon character was in front of him, and if he was anyone worth knowing. Jacquess didnt want to offend this idiot in case he was an eccentric benefactor, so he began to talk about his favorite subject, himself. And talk and talk, on, and on and on, about his rocket-like climb to being the youngest Dean the university had ever had. He rambled on about his many awards and honors and honorary degrees, and how he was always invited to be the guest speaker at numerous events through his various political and government connections. Though as everyone knew, except for the dumbass standing in front of him, Jacquess was a shill for anyone and everything as long as he could hear himself talk or get a blurb written about him in a newspaper.