Thanks for checking out the next #SaturdayScenes installment for my in-work Ghost Writer, book 6 of the Our Cyber World series. You may access the story summary and other sample excerpts through the table of contents.
I’m looking forward to hearing what you think!
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Vivian and Cynthia’s first meeting/interview comes to a close, and Cynthia says, hey, it’s lunch time. Off to the kitchen they go join Andre for a…
Cynthia earns more of my respect when she puts lunch together for us. She hand-slices a loaf of sourdough bread, and this she follows with swift preparation of three ham-turkey sandwiches which she pairs with a fruity Sauvignon Blanc from her estate.
“Nice,” I say after I take the first sip from my chilled glass.
“Just nice?” Cynthia asks.
“Refreshing,” I add. “And I’m afraid that’s the end of my wine speak.” I demur on this point. I know enough about wine to impress dinner party guests. But the last thing I want to do is come up short in my appreciation before someone that makes it.
Andre steps in to rescue me with, “Sometimes that’s all that matters. Does it taste good or doesn’t it.” He raises his glass. “And does it lift your spirits. This one does that.”
Cynthia makes her way around the kitchen’s central counter with her plate. She returns to the counter to retrieve both her glass and the bottle before she joins us for good at a stocky, dark and rustic table occupying a kitchen sitting area that overlooks the vineyard through a wide and tall bank of windows.
“It’s gorgeous here,” I say, holding my glass in one hand as I peer over it at the rural landscape. In a lower voice, as if I can speak only to Andre, I add, “Maybe we found that beauty you keep talking about.”
“Beauty is where you find it,” he replies.
“That’s an interesting way to put it,” Cynthia remarks. “Care to elaborate?”
“Sure,” Andre says. “Beauty’s where you find it. Grab it when it calls. Prepare your heart to see it, in the midst of paths and falls. Though life may pull you under, sense it with your soul. Feel it, seek it always, with body, mind, your all.”
He punctuates that with a raised eyebrow and a substantial bite from his sandwich.
I look at him with my mouth partly open, not knowing whether I want to say something or restart my breathing.
Cynthia tilts her head and smiles. “Poetry?”
His mouth too full to vocalize a response, Andre nods.
“I thought I detected a rhyme,” she adds. “Who wrote it?”
His eyes now do most of the smiling. He finishes chewing and points at himself.
“Well, if I weren’t running for office, I might just have to have an affair with you,” Cynthia says.
“All the same, I think I’ll stick to photography.”
“No, Andre, she’s right,” I stumble to say.
“Oh, so you want to have an affair with me, too?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Why not? Are you running for office?” he teases.
Cynthia laughs first, and we join her.
As we quiet down, Cynthia raises her glass and says, “To a man of many talents.” She waits for us to clink glasses and take the obligatory sip, then, looking at me she adds. “You do know this man has some highly specialized talents, don’t you?”
Andre straightens up in his seat. Though he tries to uphold his smile, barely a trace of it remains. For a moment I feel awkward on his behalf. Yet I sense that for my benefit, I shouldn’t seek to sidestep what on the surface appears as an uncomfortable topic for him. Somehow I intuit that delving a little deeper here would yield information I need to have, if nothing else, for my own wellbeing. I’m betting it has something to do with that phone he gave me, and that code he discovered on my laptop. So yeah, I have plenty of skin in this game to want to learn more, regardless of Andre’s discomfort.
“Yes, yes. A very skilled man,” Cynthia adds. “But you knew that, didn’t you, Vivian?”
“I have some ideas,” I say looking Cynthia in the eye. I raise an eyebrow to add, “And I’m always willing to know more so that I can be more… appreciative.”
Cynthia raises an eyebrow as well. “As well you should.” She turns to Andre. “Do you want to tell her yourself, or would you rather wallow in your modesty while I recount the ways?”
“This is not the right forum.” His jaw muscles ripple and the color in his cheeks rises to a flush pink.
“I suppose he’s got a point,” Cynthia says to me. “As we speak, busy bees are laboring to prepare a special room, right here on site, for you and I to use during our… collaboration. But that room is not yet ready, and in any case, this kitchen isn’t that room. That’s how it works in this strange world of ours. Certain conversations can only happen inside metal cages and behind vault doors.”
Something catches in my throat. I swallow. “I’m not sure I’m entirely following.”
“And I suppose you shall have to follow at a bit of a distance.” Cynthia leans back in her chair, wine glass in hand. “In the meantime, though, I can tell you in generic terms that Mr. Esperanza has a stellar and storied past. Technical genius, devising amazing innovations to bolster our national security. Man of action, as well, though I must be extremely glossy veneer with my accolades. Which pretty much means I must stop here, except for that well televised incident at LAX, of course, which I know I need to tell you little about given its round-about renown. All this capped by his photographic artistry, to which now we must add poetry.”
She’s rattled all that off with efficient verbal flare, joined with a unique and striking style I told myself to note and capture—in her voice. At this moment I also realize that though she speaks with a clear American accent, her diction seems almost… British?
Cynthia takes a sip and raises her glass toward Andre. “Maybe you should run for office. Given your exploits in Brussels, even the E.U. might coronate you.”
Andre glares at her. It’s more than a glare, almost a promise, a guarantee of violence to come if she doesn’t desist.
“Easy, Andre,” Cynthia says in a softer voice. “All my friends and regular acquaintances know I’m given to verbal flourishes wherein I demonstrate my clever wit at the expense, I’m afraid, of the frail pride of those at the point of my wagging tongue. But I do all this for fun. Mostly my fun, of course, but fun others could enjoy if they only grew an additional layer of skin.”
She turns to me and adds. “Perhaps we need to change the subject.”
“That room you were talking about—” I start to say.
“Will be ready tomorrow, though when you involve the government, and especially in matters of high security requiring mounds of accreditation paperwork, things can bog down occasionally. And here by occasionally I mean pretty much always.”
I turn to Andre whose facial color has almost returned to normal. “Did you know about this?”
He shrugs and looks away, through the window and out to the vineyard, seeking refuge in beauty, no doubt.
I turn back to Cynthia. “Why do we need a room?”
“A secured room, you mean. Short answer, to make sure we don’t spill.”
“I’m not here to write about any national security secrets,” I say. “So I’m not getting why we need a secured room.”
Cynthia sighs like a mom whose teenage daughter’s naiveté is not allowing her to grab onto a simple and obvious fact of life. Her eyes cloud over with what can’t be anything but sadness.
“I’ve led a complex life,” she explains. “Discussing this life will inevitably touch on topics we must not fully expose. To prevent accidental slips, the powers that be have deemed it necessary that all in depth discussions about my past must happen inside protected environs.” She makes a sweeping motion with a down-turned hand. “If something touchy gets out, it’s self-contained. We say, oops, never mind that, and we move on.”
“Nice of them to give you a room in your own house,” Andre says, now having replaced his anger with a cynical tone. “That’s the kind of thing they grant only to the Vice President and a few key cabinet members.”
Cynthia grins. “They’re being forward-thinking, I suppose.”
Andre shakes his head and returns to his sandwich.
“At any rate,” Cynthia says to me. “The situation and the parameters for our discussion will become far clearer after our joint in-brief this afternoon.”
“In-brief?” I ask.
Cynthia checks her watch. “Hmm. Better finish your sandwich, Vivian. We have to go in a few.”
“OK. And where are we going?”
Cynthia grins at Andre. He shakes his head again.
Outside, two black SUVs are waiting to take us to our next location. Andre declines, saying he will drive himself, and before anyone can object, he starts stashing his photo equipment in the back of his sedan.
Cynthia follows his lead and also says she’ll drive herself, thank you, darling. Oh, and she’ll take me along, too. After all, time is short, and the drive will provide her and me with a chance to get better acquainted.
I half expect resistance from the four men in black. Their lead in particular, a tall, lean and muscular crew-cut who introduced himself as Agent Ochoa while deftly leaving out the name of his agency, seems unlikely to allow any deviation from their baseline plan.
Cynthia whispers something in his ear, and his hard face breaks into a brief smile.
“Alright, we’ll escort, then,” I hear him say.
As if on cue, all of them, Ochoa and his three black suits, Cynthia and Andre turn to me. They look up at me from the tan gravel on which they stand, and I realize I’m still standing on the porch, resting my hand against a wood column, holding my purse and laptop case with the other. I stand there as the last holdout to whatever fun the rest of them have in mind for me.
“Time to go,” Cynthia says.
I step down and follow her to her car. Once inside I ask, “Where exactly are we going?”
Cynthia sighs. Hints of regret ring in her voice when she says, “A place with a lot of history. And memories.” With a sideways glance, she adds, “It will be good to be in that place, to feel it. You won’t be able to write much about it, but you’ll get the ethos of it. Maybe it will infuse your prose, give it the right voice, and all that.”
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