Time of Leaders, Part 11 of 11

The next morning Jade was in a bright but non-committal mood. She was nearly finished with Deb’s reading list and hoped that there would be enough time to talk to her about it. Although she was worried about intruding, I thought that I’d built up enough goodwill where Jade could start the day for me. Besides, Deb wanted it.

            I just took a cue from Jade and told myself not to be worried. She was going to Deb for answers. I would not interfere. I wouldn’t stare, watching her walk out of sight as she headed down the hallway to my fishbowl. This time, I wouldn’t lean toward the middle of reception to get a clearer look at her at my desk. Either she would march out having decided against it, pituitary firmly in place or would come out clicking her heels, more excited about the move than I was. But, in the time that it took for me to find the article in a magazine I’d been reading during their last meeting, Jade came back out of the room, and gave a slight nod to me as she walked back to the women’s. Then, back out to the fishbowl, lowering a palm to me for me to remain patient, betraying a nervous, puff-cheeked exhalation as she went through the door back in.

            I’m glad that I steeled myself for this, because I was really distracted; scanning the article I'd been reading when she visited last. I don’t recall the subject. It was nothing about nothing that had less to do with things ten years after it was printed. It was quiet in both fishbowls, then there was the dullish sound of many voices. The door behind me swung open. It was Matthew, and I thought he had some business with the receptionist, but he was there to tell me that Jade had passed the reading comprehension test.

           Ten days later our convoy headed out with a humvee alongside us in the oncoming lane. First we went south, through my neighborhood, and that’s where we got the first scare of the entire long trip. At a junction where we were going to turn west through the city there were four SUVs parked facing us on the shoulders of the road, two to each side. Our armored escort slowed, then stopped. Jade pushed forward and shouted to our driver.

            “It’s Bob! I think it’s Bob.”

            Our driver considered Jade’s theory with a quiet string of expletives. We all came to a full stop, and out of one of the parked vehicles came a man wearing a nylon topcoat. He had a tan, shaved pate, and was wearing sunglasses. He carried a small polka-dot gift box. Meanwhile, there were many hissed comments heard over our radio. In response to the hulky emissary, and the gift he brought, a man popped low from the top hatch of our humvee holding a horkin’ big gun. Then there was a pause in everything.

            Or, as Jade recounted later: “There was Frizz. Astronomic static and exponential frizz, prickin’ out in all directions.” Our radio farted, then we could hear, faintly: “Jade? They want to talk to someone called Jade.”

            She softly sang, “It’s Bob.” and with a fluid motion was over me with the car door open. Our driver strongly advised against her leaving the vehicle, but that only made my darling pause a bit to say that the sooner they chatted the sooner Bob and Company would leave, and if it went wrong, well… she brushed my cheek with her fingers and closed the door behind her. She went over and said a few smiled words to our man in the armored car, and he ducked back in. Closed the hatch. Our driver slipped slowly down in his seat. Jade went up to the man with the box and I realized that I’d been peering with just my right eye from behind the driver’s headrest. And that, in my estimation, if things went wrong the headrest would only be extraneous confetti in a mess, but I just stayed frozen and continued to peer. Jade now had the box and gave this gorilla a rub on the arm. The passenger window of an SUV on the oncoming shoulder of the road rolled down, and an arm waved through it. Jade grinned and waved back, then turned toward us. The gorilla went back to his car. Our driver slipped back up.

            As Jade passed alongside the Humvee our man looked as she showed him the contents of the box. She dug through it for him. It looked like clothing. From the movement of his head, shoulder, and the jerk of his free arm, I could tell that he would laugh later, but he was busy right then, as three of the soft roadblock SUVs whipped back up the road. Matthew, who was on the bench seat with me, patted the space next to him, which was a good idea, me in the middle with Jade in quickly and us getting out sooner. He had been murmuring a prayer during all the drama, and had been up all night. Told me that although he was in charge, ‘This was not his area of expertise’. Jade sat in the seat beside me and handed me a blue winter microfiber cap with tie-tassel pom-poms.

            “Put that on. Put it on.”

            The red pom-poms on her cap swung as she rolled down her window. Matthew asked her if the remaining SUV contained Bob.

            “It’s Bob. It’s okay. They woulda got us by now.” She swung to me, her face framed by a red version of the hat I held.

            “See the window of that limo? Smile and wave. Put on the hat!”

            I hadn’t done what I was told! All I needed to do was put on the hat, and I hadn’t done that yet! So I did. We began to roll, and the space behind our Humvee revealed Bob’s limo as we passed, and there in the window, a corpulent man in large, thick glasses with a prickly-long brush-cut. Jade smiled and waved, I grimaced and waved, Bob raised a palm to us as if he was at least senator and we were campaign donors at the ‘silver’ level. We turned west and Jade adjusted on her seat and glanced at me. Then more than a glance. Then a raised, twirled finger.

            “The label on the front.”

            “Hm?”

            She gave me the ‘Who is this man sitting next to me’ look, so I turned to Matthew for help. He burst out in a roar of a laugh and a spasm shot through him, pushing him toward his door in a momentary escape impulse. I took the hat off and put it back on with the front facing the front. Jade grabbed my bicep with a maternal squeeze and Matthew told me that I was ‘perfect’, and that he would miss me as a subordinate. In my defense, the hats were roughly conical, but the ear flaps, as I wore it backwards, were more like blinders and the pom-poms fell just off the ears like the promise of a wild Friday night. Later, Jade explained cryptically that one has to know Bob if one patrols the southern border of ‘The Funnel’.

Other things happened as we picked our way through the city. We passed through an altercation, and a few participants stood along the side of the road for a few seconds, sharing their side of the argument with us as we weaved through. Others in that group thought it best to get back in their vehicles and duck. Oncoming cars pulled over for our motorcade, mostly. One ol’ guy in an oncoming economy car stopped and took off his cap as we passed, and I don’t know whether he was kidding or not.

            The convoy came to a halt before we crossed the bridge and our car went a few blocks out of the way so Jade could say goodbye, or hello, to her folks. Meet the parents. Jade made me put my cap back on the right way this time, even though it was warming up, because she felt that she had to display her cap during the meeting but wouldn’t do it alone. She hadn’t been able to get through the city to see her parents for two years. They were very happy for her, and it was such a fifteen minute meeting. It was noted that she could visit more often now, from a few hundred miles away, since the city was no longer between them.

So now we’re a pair of network interactors for Tenger, in their western headquarters. Minneapolis is calmer than we’re used to. One reason being is that it’s becoming a one conglomerate town. The move was rougher on Jade, but that’s what we expected. She wants action. She switched careers, while I just clung onto one. She says that she misses the tomatoes from home. She misses Charlie and claims that his bright messages from out there have to be filled with lies about conditions. I miss Charlie too. He gave me a sense of hope and direction, although I didn’t see him much. We were all leaders, despite the certificates.

            When Jade told me that she misses Brenda, that she misses ‘bouncing things off her’, I tried to suppress a smirk. But I know what she means and I miss Brenda too. I informed Jade that tomatoes represent all the things she misses about Quarrytown, and she told me that she realizes that. No tomato would sate her craving for tomatoes. Not that she’s malnourished. As a matter of fact, Jade went through a late growth spurt. She’s now as tall as I am.

            We’re in contact with Deb, who is a unit in a network over in Toronto. She appreciates it when we describe events fully, and our moods and feelings in detail. Jade and I may get married, if only for Deb’s sake. Jade asked her if she wanted to see a picture of a baby, and Deb told her that she already had.

            Being interactors is tedious work. The lifestyle’s a bit boring. But Jade and I still have our moments. Recently, Tenger gave us a day off and we went to a clinic to have our vision corrected. For a split second, it was like speeding down a tunnel of rainbows. Then we walked out of our respective cubicles and looked each other up and down. We agreed that we looked goofy to each other, but in a good way. Jade blurted to a nurse that the experience was like racing into the afterlife. I was a bit embarrassed about that comment, but the nurse told us that people had said such things before, after that experience. As we left the clinic, Jade told me that we had died and gone to Minneapolis.

            Then we walked through the hospital grounds, dawdling our way to the bus stop, each claiming to be able to count the salt on the path. Sometimes we wonder where everything is going, which isn’t as disturbing as you might think. We’ve seen where it has been.