"Honey… Who’s on the phone?” Lucius called from the bedroom
“Some kid claiming to be from The Agency.”
“Well, what does he want?”
“He wanted to talk to you.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“Oh no you won’t!”
“Woman…”
“And don’t even go there.”
“What is wrong with you?”
“We’re having dinner with your momma tonight, and we’re leaving right now. There ain’t no way you gonna leave me sittin’ across from that old bag while you’re out pretending to be fightin’ for truth, justice and the American way.”
“It might be important.”
“More important than dinner with your momma? I don’t think so.” She put a fist on her hip and cocked her head to the side, “But I’mma’tell you this, if you ain’t going, I sure as hell ain’t going.”
Violet entered the coffee shop in an excited state and looked around for Chi. when she spotted the slender woman, her grin widened and she waved excitedly. “You’ll never guess what happened today!” she said breathlessly.
“You won the lottery?” Violet’s smile got even bigger, but she shook her head. Chi waited a moment, hoping the girl would just come out and say whatever had her so worked up, but it wasn’t to be. “Um, you found that you’re the long lost descendant of Anastasia Nikolaevna and you’re going to Russia to bring back the power and mistique of the Czarinas.”
This time Violet’s eyes actually glazed over for a second before she exclaimed: “What?”
“Nevermind, what happened?”
“I got a job interview!”
"Really? Where at?”
“Chimera Industries! The Largest Independent Producer of Cutting Edge…” Her voice faltered as Chi chimed in with her.
“…Cutting Edge Aeronautical Technology in the United States.” Chi finished for her.
“How do you know that?”
“Well, it’s not ‘Chimera Industries.’ It’s Chi Mera Industries.” She said, emphasizing the space between her first and last name.
“How do you know…”
She smiled and held out her hand to the young woman. “Chi Mera, at your service.” Violet’s eyes went round and her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh!” She glanced down at the proffered hand and hesitantly reached for it.
“I don’t bite, you know.” Chi said sardonically. She allowed herself a small inward smile when the girl took her hand and shook it. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Pleased to meet you too… You own Chimera, I mean Chi Mera Industries?” Chi nodded. “Holy shit! You’re so young! You must be, like, super rich, what are you doing hanging out in a coffee shop with me?”
“Rich people don’t drink coffee?”
“I guess so, but…”
“Look, Violet, I spend all day in meetings fighting for the integrity and profitablity of my company, sometimes I just like to lose the corporate costume and be one of the guys. Do you know what I mean?” The teen could only nod in amazement. “No one here knows who I am or what I do or how much money I have. They either like me or they don’t like me.” She guestured around the comfortable shop, “These people are real. What I do in the board room is… different. I don’t know how to explain it, but when I’m here, I feel… normal.”
Violet nodded, a far off look in her eye. “No one to judge you for stuff you never wanted to do anyway.” She said softly.
Chi smiled kindly, “Exactly.” She said. “Look at you…”
“What about me?” Violet asked guardedly.
“Would you and Kari have sat down and talked to me if I ws wearing a buisness suit and shouting into my Blackberry?”
Violet looked pained for a second before she conceded, “Probably not.”
Chi leaned in close to the girl and smiled conspiritorially, “I come in here to just be with people. This way I keep in mind the things that are really important, and every once in a while I find a person who would fit well in my organization that I would have otherwise missed.”
The girl suddenly got a suspicious look in her eyes. She stepped back and crossed her arms across her chest. “Did you do something?”
“It’s possible. I do a lot of things.” Chi said stiltedly, but Violet didn’t get the reference.
“I mean,” Somehow the girl added two syllables to the word ‘mean.’ “Did you arrange for me to have a job interview? You know… pull some strings or whatever?”
Chi studied the dark haired girl far a moment before answering. “I never mentioned what I do. So, I’m assuming that you found out about the company at one of our career day booths, probably at school…?”
“Yeah.”
“Well then, in the strictest sense of the word, I did arrange for you to have an interview. It is my company, and I did approve the idea of a career day booth at local high schools and colleges. But I wasn’t directly involved in setting up an interview for you. I didn’t see your application. I didn’t know you had submitted one.” Chi paused again, “Did Kari happen to submit an application too? She’d do great in sales.”
Violet, who had been relaxing, suddenly sat up straight and the suspicion returned to her eyes. “That’s what her letter said, Sales Department.”
Chi smiled and held up a hand, “Don’t read anything sinister into it, Vi. My recruiters are just doing their job. I happen to think your friend Kari would be a great asset to any sales team, it is reassuring that my recruiters share my tastes. That means I hired smart recruiters.” Chi noticed that Violet’s reaction to Kari’s name was charged with something. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what, but she was sure there was some source of tension between the girls.
---
“Mr. Best…?” The young man in the ill-fitting dark suit approached the table. “I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner, but-’
“Not as sorry as you’re gonna be, little man!”
“Honey…”
“Don’t you start on me, Lucius, or you gonna be sorrier than him.”
“This is the way you treat my boy? Disrespecting him in public? I told you not to marry her.”
“Momma, Please-”
“Don’t you ‘Momma, Please’ me, boy.”
“Momma Best, you stay out of my business.”
“Honey Chile, don’t you even think to take that tone with me!”
“Lucius!”
Lucius Best looked back and forth between the two most important people in his life. The woman he loved and was trying to build a future with and the woman who had raised him and provided the foundation for his past. They both stood, hands on hips, facing him with pursed lips and waiting expressions. On the one hand, He wanted to tell Honey to just drop it and be nice to his mother, she had made him the man he was today, and Honey had married him, right? That had to mean that on some level she appreciated the results of his momma’s hard work, right? On the other hand, he wanted to tell his momma to just drop it and be nice to his wife. She was the woman he chose to spend the rest of his life with and his momma’s guidance is what brought him to choose her. It was a very tough choice between two unpalatable alternatives.
Lucius did the only thing any sane man could do. He grabbed the young agent by the arm and ran like hell. “You got a car around here, kid?”
“Uh, yessir.”
“Then let’s get in it and get out of here before they catch up!”
“But, but…”
“Lucius!” The combined voices of two very angry women reached them.
“NOW, MISTER!” Skippy Johnson gulped and nodded as he pointed the way toward his car. Lucius sprinted for the vehicle and danced impatiently while he waited for the young agent to unlock the doors. “They’re gonna be here any minute, man. Let’s get a move on!”
“I’m just supposed to make sure you call Agent Dicker…”
“Great, we’ll go talk to him now.”
“But…”
“You’re not married, are you?”
“No, but…”
“Shut up and drive.”
The angry voices of Lucius’ mother and wife reached his ears as he pulled away from the curb. The young agent pondered the thought of a man who had complete mastery of the water in the very air around him and the tried to reconcile the wielder of that kind of power with the frightened man sitting next to him in the car. As far as he knew, neither Honey Best nor Lucius’ mother had any super powers, what kind of threat could they pose to someone like him? He continued to think about it as they rode in silence to The Agency.
Skippy escorted Lucius into Dicker’s office and was about to leave when the senior agent motioned for him to shut the door and serve coffee. It was a little below his station, but he didn’t resent the job, because it meant he would be present to find out what Dicker had in mind for Violet. “How do you like your coffee, Mr. Best?”
“One cream, two sugars, please. And after you saved me from my momma and my wife, you can call me ‘Lucius.” The tall black man replied with a wide smile. He turned to the senior agent, “What can I do for you, Rick?”
“The Agency is concerned, Lucius.”
“About me?” Lucius seemed generally surprised and not at all defensive.
Rick snorted, as close to a laugh as Skippy had ever heard from him. “No. We’re worried about Bob’s girl.”
Now Lucius shot a suspicious look toward the junior agent and looked a little bit wary. “What’s going on?”
“She’s growing apart from her parents. Bob and Helen are worried that she’s falling in with the wrong crowd.” The agent paused to take off his glasses and wipe his face, trying to project an aura of fatherly concern. “She won’t listen to them, and she’s never listened to us,” He smiled, “We, The Agency, were wondering if you would, kind of, take her under your wing.”
Violet sat upright in her bed, legs crossed in front of her, blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her big bear cuddled in her arms. The house was mostly quiet. The murmur of the T.V. penetrated the walls of her room, punctuated occasionally by her dad’s gruff laughter or the twanging tone of a comment from her mother. None of the words were audible but the background noise was soothing. It was normal.
Today, when they found out they had both been picked to interview for intern jobs at Chimera, she had shared a hug with Kari. At first it had just been an enthusiastic happy hug, but after a few seconds, she had started feeling awkward. She became aware of Kari’s breasts pressed against her’s and the thought brought her back to The Kiss. In those short seconds before they disengaged, she traveled a gamut of emotions; fear, excitement, longing and shame, shame for The Kiss, shame for the fact that Kari had no memory of it, shame for the longing. As they parted, Violet saw something in Kari’s eyes, something akin to her own longing and she almost said something right then, but the moment passed and the longing faded. And her life returned to normal. Ha! She thought. There’s nothing normal about me! Having Agent Rick Dicker as an “Uncle,” isn’t normal. Talking to your head-shrinker about controlling your psi powers isn’t normal. Erasing your best friend’s memory after every time she sits your baby brother isn’t normal. Kissing your best friend and really liking it isn’t normal.
Chi’s voice replayed in her mind; I don’t know how to explain it, but when I’m here, I feel… normal… I just like to lose the corporate costume and be one of the guys. Do you know what I mean? Chi was someone who really understood her.
I just like to lose the corporate costume and be one of the guys…
I don’t know how to explain it, but when I’m here, I feel… normal…
I just like to lose the corporate costume…
when I’m here, I feel… normal…
I just like to lose the costume…
I feel… normal…
lose the costume…
feel… normal…
Do you know what I mean?
“Yes.” Violet whispered to herself.
Benjamin Franklin said: “For want of a nail, a shoe was lost...” He went on to chronicle a disaster stemming from that simple omission. He was talking about the need to pay attention to details. Because the details, no matter how small they may seem, are the things that will jump up and bite you on the ass at the most inopportune time.
See the weaver at his loom, guiding the individual threads into a cohesive pattern designed to placate the powerful and enrich the spirit of the weak. See how he deftly maneuvers the clashing colors into a seemingly harmonious and soothing design. He is very talented and his skills have kept the peace between the feared and the fearful for many years. He is the voice of reason, heeded by gods and mortals alike and he speaks to both, insulating them from each other. But sometimes, fate intervenes and something gets out of place. Today, one detail, one thread, has slipped through his fingers and ended up in the wrong place. It’s a small thing, smaller even than a nail.
It’s a single strand of hair, white-blonde and no more than ten inches long. Right now, it’s connected to the head of a slender, green-eyed woman wearing a Metroville University sweatshirt and a pair of designer jeans. She’s talking to a young dark haired woman in a coffee shop. When they say their goodbyes for the evening, they embrace briefly and the single strand of hair is snagged in the watchband of the young woman. They laugh at some private joke and make their way out the door. The young woman feels the tickling of the hair on her wrist and pulls it off of her watchband without consciously thinking about it. The hair floats free for a moment but a stray breeze deposits it on the young woman’s back. She goes home, eats dinner with her family, does some homework, talks to her friends on the phone and eventually says good night to her parents. Perhaps it is static electricity, perhaps it’s just the nature of the fabrics involved, but when the young woman says good night and hugs her father before going to her room for the night, the single strand of white blonde hair attaches itself to his shirtsleeve.
A clever man can stand between the gods and the mortals and smooth over their differences, but no man can stand between two angry gods and live.
“Bob, what’s that on your arm?”
---