Silent Symmetry (The Embodied trilogy) (2 page)

“You’ll need to come up with something more creative than ‘my dog ate my homework’,” announced Mr.
Jefferson, condescendingly.

“You try living in a daycare,” was the boy’s sullen response.

“What happened, Cruz?” sighed the teacher.

“A little girl got a hold of it and flushed it down the toilet,” he muttered, staring down at his desk. The other kids burst out laughing.

“Yo, it ain’t funny!” shouted Cruz, turning red with embarrassment. Noon, who up until now had been an almost-invisible presence, suddenly spoke. The laughter died down abruptly.

“I admire Cruz for helping out at home with no father around.”

“Das it. Thanks, bro,” acknowledged Cruz with a sideways glance in Noon’s direction.

During the whole exchange,
Noon had continued to stare straight ahead. There were whispers between the other students. Noon was obviously as disturbing a presence for the others as he was for me.

“Okay, okay, take out your algebra textbooks,” said Mr. Jefferson. The whispering subsided. “Cruz, can you re-do it tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Alright. And maybe keep your assignments out of the reach of toddlers in future.”

As Cruz nodded, he caught my eye. And there was something in his face that spoke of barely-suppressed anger mixed with incredible sadness. I wondered what his story was. Did he lose his father in an accident, like me? Why was he at this school? He didn’t seem to fit in any more than Noon did, but for different reasons. You could tell that most of the other kids in the classroom had parents with money. I mean, of course they did – there was no way Mom could have paid for tuition on her own salary – but Cruz appeared to be lacking the others’ air of entitlement. Okay, I’ll just say it: he looked and acted like a poor kid. Threadbare tee-shirt, jeans faded from overuse (rather than to look hip), crooked buzz cut, no-name sneakers.

But at the same time, there was something honest about Cruz, a vibe that I can’t say I felt from the other kids in the class. I guess I must have been staring at him. He was seated between me and
Noon, who, once again, slowly turned his head to face me. I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks and quickly looked down at my textbook. Weird, weird, weird...

* * * * *

The rest of the day flew by, and as I walked out the gates and back into the Manhattan hubbub, my brain was buzzing with new surroundings, new information and new faces. I texted Mom that I was heading straight home. She said she felt like going out for supper, and I smiled at the thought of exploring the local eateries.

The walk back to my new home was a swift twenty minutes, made even swifter by Facebooking my
Wisconsin friends.
I sent a few LOLs, smileys, OMGs and WTFs back in their direction, then turned the corner onto West 23rd Street. The Warrington building loomed into view. An entire city block, thirty floors high, built almost a century ago and housing, according to my estimate, about 13,500 people. Okay, so I’m a bit of a geek – I blame Mom – but the first time I saw the building (which was the day we moved in, only a week beforehand) I couldn’t help performing the calculation in my head: thirty floors, approximately a hundred and fifty apartments per floor, an average of three people per apartment, for a total of 13,500.

We apparently had one of the smaller units, but it was bigger than either of the two houses I’d ever lived in – a mini-maze with storage closets and garbage chutes around every corner. I’d fallen in love with my room instantly. It had a view of the enormous, leafy inner courtyard, a walk-in closet, and a nook where I imagined myself curling up with a good book and my cell-
phone
on rainy afternoons like this one.

Mom had visited the apartment when she came for her job interview. It turned out she was a shoe-in. The headhunter eventually admitted that the human resources people at ToT hadn’t even bothered to call any of the other candidates. They were so sure that she would accept the position that they had even rented the apartment in advance. Thinking back, knowing what I know now, perhaps we should have wondered why it was all so easy.

As I crossed the street, a tiny voice in my head said, Look to the right! I must have seen them in my peripheral vision: two women standing under the awning outside one of The Warrington’s many entrances. They were facing each other, holding hands in the exact same way Noon and the man in the black suit were doing when I’d entered the classroom that morning. I squinted in their direction. Like Noon and the man, the women weren’t talking. They weren’t even moving. Just staring straight into each other’s eyes. I reached the sidewalk and hesitated. Should I get a closer look? Should I just go home? It was probably some kind of New York body language that I wasn’t used to, like air-kissing or hailing a cab. But deep down inside I knew that there was more to it. Half a minute had gone by and they still hadn’t moved a muscle. So I headed toward them. But I was disappointed when they broke the double-handshake only a couple of seconds later.

One of the women entered the building, the other started to walk in my direction. I could hardly stop and turn back now, so I continued, trying not to make it too obvious that I was checking her out. As she approached me, I realized that she was incredibly beautiful. Her short, neat black hair and astonishingly perfect features culminated in two dark eyes that shone like polished jet above her pristine white pants suit. She strode confidently forward, eyes fixed on some imaginary distant horizon like a runway model. I was transfixed. As I drew level with her, she seemed to suddenly become aware of my presence and, without breaking stride, turned her head slowly to face me. It was the same movement I had seen from
Noon and the older man. A shudder rippled right down to my bones and I quickly lowered my eyes to the sidewalk.

I stopped under the awning and realized that I wasn’t even breathing any more. I turned around, half expecting the woman in white to still be looking at me, but she just kept walking. I exhaled and looked at the
grand double doors that the other woman had entered. This entrance to the building was located at 222, 9th Avenue and there was a discreet brass plaque attached to one of the carved stone pillars that read: Temple of Truth – Head Office #2222.

I stopped breathing again.

This was the organization also known as the ToT, Mom’s new employers. I had seen their logo on an email she printed out – an unmistakable symbol consisting of the two T’s joined at the top with the small, perfectly circular ‘o’ housed in the space under them like a temple with columns protecting something precious. Or like two arms reaching out...

* * * * *

While I waited for Mom to get home, my mind raced. There had to be a logical, normal explanation, right? Something that didn’t rely on a huge coincidence or some kind of conspiracy theory. I sat in my nook with Flash purring on my lap. He was good for calming me down. He somehow helped me think more clearly. He was also the cutest cat ever. I scratched the white patch on his black belly that inspired his name. He stretched and purred even louder.

Okay, so the ToT had another office as well as the one in the skyscraper where
Mom worked, nothing strange about that. And it was in the same building that Mom and I just moved into. Fine – it was a huge building and I had noticed the names of other non-residential tenants on the plaques at the various entrances. So I guess the people at ToT needed to find a place for me and Mom, and started looking right under their noses, in this building. Yes, it made sense. What didn’t make sense were the double-handshakes. And that’s what kept alive the nagging feeling in the back of my mind. The fact that we were living in the same building as the head office of Mom’s employer might not be a coincidence. But the fact that Noon was sitting two desks away from me and I saw him do the same double-handshake as the women outside The Warrington was just eerie. And there was something else about Noon, the older man and the woman in white. Something about their faces...

A key turned in the front door and Flash jumped down from my lap, catching a thread on my skirt in one of his claws.
“You little...!” I exclaimed, distracted from my thoughts.

“Honey, I’m home!” called out
Mom, and I had to smile.

“How did it go?” I asked, uncurling myself from the nook and follow
ing Flash into the hallway.

“Great! They’re such a nice bunch of people. Really made me feel welcome,” she continued. She hung her coat on a hook in the entrance and pulled off her boots. “The guys
on my team are super smart. Oh – hey there, Flash!”

The cat rubbed his head against her bare feet and
Mom gave a little squeal. “That tickles!” It was great to see her relaxed and happy after the stress of the move. “How about you, pum... honey?”

“Cool.”

“That’s it? Cool?”

“Yeah. It’s a good school.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was so preoccupied with the day’s non-academic events that it was hard for me to focus on what any parent would normally want to know about their child’s first day at a new school.

Mom washed her hands at the kitchen sink. “My goodness, it’s like when you were six years old! ‘What did you do at school today? Nothing! Nothing? Yeah, nothing!’” She laughed as she rushed past me. “I’m just gonna change quickly and then we’ll go eat. I’m starving. Can you feed Flash while you’re waiting?”

I opened about five cupboard doors before finding the cat food. Flash meowed as I filled his bowl with crunchy brown goodness. Mom came back into the kitchen wearing a pale yellow shirt with a sweetheart neckline and j
eans. “Nice!” I encouraged her.

“Well,” she said coquettishly, “What if I meet the man of my dreams?”

“You go, girl!” I said with an approving nod, as I grabbed my jacket.

* * * * *

The small Italian eatery was really buzzing considering it was a Monday night. Chatter filled the air, the wine was flowing and the waiter was flirting shamelessly with Mom. I’d almost forgotten the day’s weirdness. But I had to find out more about the Temple of Truth.

I took a bite of my thin-crust pizza and tried to look nonchalant. “Did you know that the ToT has an office in our building?”

“Oh yes,” she replied. “I assumed that’s how they knew about the apartment being available.”

I nodded. So that was it. No mystery there. But something inside me wasn’t satisfied. “So they’re some kind of religious organization, right?”

“Kind of. They have Temples all over the world.”

“So why do they need a software engineer?”

She took a sip of wine. “Good question. It’s kind of interesting. They don’t believe in technology.”

“Oh, like the Amish? Do they have beards and black hats too?
”

“I, um, I don’t know,” she shrugged
.

“What do you mean?” I wondered.

“I haven’t seen them.”

“Seen who?”

“The members of the Temple,” she explained, matter-of-factly.

I stopped chewing. “I don’t get it. The people you work with
...”

“They were hired by the
Temple authorities, like me.”

“Okaaaay
... so at the interview?”

“Nope.”

“Has anyone in the office seen them?”

“I guess. I never thought to ask.”

I studied her as she scooped up some lasagna with her fork. It wasn’t like her to be so uncurious. The waiter appeared and refilled our glasses.

“How is everything over here?” he asked, eyes twinkling at
Mom. He was working hard for his tip.

“Oh, wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” she said, blushing a little.

She deserves this new shot at life. She’s worked so hard and now it’s paying off. And she deserves a new shot at love, too.

The waiter departed and I winked at
Mom. “Wonderful, absolutely wonderful, isn’t he?”

She shook her head at me, grinning, as if to say, “I can’t believe you’re teasing me about a guy.”

I let the subject of the ToT drop for a few minutes and we chatted about a bunch of random stuff. It felt great, chilling with Mom in the big city. When our desserts arrived (tiramisu and tartufo – two words that have never passed the lips of a single inhabitant of Lancaster, Wisconsin) I felt like the time was right to probe a bit more without seeming too inquisitive.

“So what kind of software are you working on? Some kind of barn-raising algorithm?”

She winced as the cold ice cream hit her teeth. “You’re funny. It’s not as exciting as that. They have a database and need to coordinate the information from the Temples in other countries.”

“What kind of database?”

“It’s a genetics thing.”

This sounded interesting. “Oh? So they’re like Mormons crossed with Amish?”

“You’re confusing genealogy with genetics, honey,” she said as she signaled the waiter to bring her the check. “All I know is that they’re paying me a huge chunk of change to head up the project, so I’m not going to ruffle any feathers by prying.”