The Cessna Affair - Introduction

The Cessna Affair

Peering through my bedroom window portrayed a fine morning mist falling from the gray-streaked clouds, glazing the birch leaves and golf-green grass that encompassed the manicured landscape. The immaculate Cyprus flagstone steps were also damp as they disappeared into the lush backyard maze where I played in my adolescent years. My parent’s two-story colonial home stood as a statuette on two acres of the lush New Jersey hills. It would be a slice of heaven for most, I thought, that’s what Jenny always told me. Thoughts diminished while slowly stroking my long brown hair 125 times to bring out the shine. Danielle Covington, you’re looking great, the full-length mirror shouted, the name was sketched in Eloquent English type. Reflections kept bouncing back about my parent’s trust fund for attendance at the affluent Princeton University. It was their dreams that I followed my father’s wishes and business skills necessary to take control of Granddad’s creation, Covington Textiles. Mother had given me the freedom to choose. It wasn’t my father's dreams I was to follow; it’s my destiny!
“Maybe in a million years,” I bragged to my best friend Jenny. She could always keep a secret, I snapped as my slick Ferrari peeled out after dropping Jenny off at the library.

The factory orders at Covington Textiles were multiplying a hundredfold but I just couldn't see myself walking down those sweaty dreary aisles, checking skirts, shirts and a host of other products the factory produced. My mind drifted again visualizing me as a little girl, and daddy, making our way down the many corridors of clothes checking materials, seams and receiving more attention than a girl could ever want. Legal affairs and watching the lawyers in daddy’s offices had caught my attention at an early age. That was the security of what I wanted.
At the last minute I privately filled in the paperwork for the local Mercer County Community College. Daddy was furious but, as always, I got my way while mother softly spoke to daddy with her keen sense of persuasion. And besides daddy, I argued, I have a great offer at your friend’s law firm, Hutchinson & Hutchinson. The internship left no argument with daddy; William Hutchinson was an old family friend. I had achieved my conquest of liberty; I had won again, against daddy’s better judgment.

The four years of college breezed by. I had learned all my cues quite well while attending the private Saint Mary's prep school. I knew the right things to say and what to say and to whom. If it weren’t for Jenny going to Mercer and the frequent extravaganzas to New York City, life would have been a real bore in small boroughs of Hightstown. Twelve thousand plus two, that’s including my two nephews born a week ago just an hour a part from each other. Hutchinson & Hutchinson firm had plenty of business from the surrounding boroughs along with the nearby metroplex of Alexandria. Besides my part-time salary was plenty in making the extravaganzas to New York City deliciously enticing for Jenny and me.

Full time employment was speeding along as graduation day finally come to a close. I hugged mother and daddy, a few more friends and off Jenny and I flew in a red blaze to celebrate. Monday would be 9 - to - 5 for me but that was two days away.