Of Children and Angels 2

At the crossing, they turned right and promptly dismounted their bikes. They climbed up on the tiny train platform. In due time, a small train arrived headed south to Heerlen.
They arrived at the station just a couple hundred meters from their apartment. The train stopped next to the large open parking plaza on the south end of the station. Angie was walking her bike in the direction of their apartment.
“Wait,” Preston caught her.
She stopped and looked back. He motioned her to follow.
“We aren’t going home yet. I wanna have lunch at a particular place.” She raised her eyebrows in a half smile and humored him. They rode about a half-kilometer back up the tracks on the south side to a busy traffic circle, following it around to cross under the autobahn. As they rode down the bike path, she saw up on a small hill to their right a large building with a toucan sign perched high up on a pole. She looked at it, then back at Preston. He was grinning broadly as the slowed to enter the drive on the right.
The Van Der Valk Hotel had plenty of bicycle parking and was quite busy. As they climbed the stairs to the buffet lounge, Preston told her how often he and his coworkers had eaten there. Aside from redecorating and refurbishing, little had changed. It was still an opulent spread and not a bad price. They eventually found open seats at a table in one of the side dining areas opened to accommodate the crowd.
After a few stories, he was silent a moment as he watched her.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“You’ve been pretty quiet today,” he observed.
“This was your day to reminisce. It’s all fascinating, but so completely foreign to me. It’s part of what makes you so exotic and interesting.” She beamed at him.
“Tell me about exotic, my chocolate redheaded lover, with the sexy little athletic body.”
She blushed and that girlish giggle slipped past her lips, forcing her to cover her mouth in the middle of chewing.
He went on, “I’m very glad you don’t flaunt it. Leave it to their imagination; it’s all mine.”
She continued laughing, fanning herself with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. It took a moment for her to finally say, “No one has ever talked to me that way. I love it, but it’s hard to know what to say back.”
“Just enjoy it, Babe; get used to it. I’m going back for some dessert. Need anything?”
“No, I’ve already had too much. This place is wonderful.”
Preston wandered off toward the buffet as her eyes followed him. She half wondered if she should have tried to follow him, remembering the words of Mr. Venkman. Were they still at risk?
Suddenly her eyes focused on a woman’s face. She and Preston had been sitting back near the far corner of the little overflow dining area and the woman walked past the opening in the main area. Angie raised her hand to her face. She wasn’t sure why, but something about that face made her very nervous.
As soon as the woman disappeared from her line of sight, Angie tried to act her most casual self as she rose and began looking for Preston. She spotted him among the desserts, apparently unable to make up his mind. As he reached out to pick up a piece of mixed fruit vlaai, one of the flat Dutch pies, she walked up very close to him and spoke quietly.
“Put it in a doggie bag. I think we have company.” She then placed a hand on his shoulder as she turned to scan the room again. She didn’t see the woman in the crowd.
Preston kept his cool, noticed where she was looking and placed his slice of pie in a plastic container from the stack placed there for the purpose. Then he turned, took her hand with his free one, and walked out the front door. Outside he remained calm as they descended the stairs, then turned and walked around the building the opposite end of where Angie had been searching. He pulled from his pocket a thin plastic shopping bag and dropped the desert into it so he could sling it across the handlebars. They found their bikes and casually rolled back out the side entrance and disappeared rather quickly down an alternate route for bicycles only.
When they were more or less alone, he asked, “So, tell me what you saw.”
“I can’t be sure. I was just sitting there thinking about Mr. Venkman’s advice to stay together when she walked across my line of sight. The face was vaguely familiar, but not someone I actually recognized. I can’t place her, but it made me very nervous.”
“I had almost forgotten about that.”
The path turned into the woods. They rode a few more meters, then he put up his hand. With is finger on his lips, he dismounted and stood to one side of the trail. She copied his action. They stood silently for a few minutes, looking through the trees back down the path across the open field. After a few minutes of not seeing anything unusual, he began examining their bikes closely. Eventually he was satisfied nothing had been added to them, he motioned her to remount and did the same. They rode off, crossing a small brook, winding through the trees to another main road. Crossing back under the autobahn, they headed home.
They took an unusual route and stopped a couple of times. Preston was waiting to see if she saw any more familiar faces.