Silent Symmetry (The Embodied trilogy) (9 page)

“I still find it incredible.”

Mom took a couple of seconds to realize that he was talking to her.

“Oh, I know – what a city!”

“No, I mean, I still find it incredible that the twin towers aren’t there anymore,” he explained.

“Oh
...” was all Mom could say, clearly feeling uneasy to be discussing the tragic events of 9/11 with a genuine New Yorker.

“They weren’t the most beautiful buildings in
Manhattan, but they were so beautifully symmetrical.”

She nodded, seeming unsure about where the conversation with this good-looking stranger was heading. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Because he was about
Mom’s age, was very friendly, and... okay, fine – he was a total hottie.

“We just went to check out the Ground Zero memorial,” I chimed in.

Mom turned to me. “Kari, you make it sound like we dropped in at a new store in the mall!”

The man laughed. “I’m Bob. Is it your first time in
New York?”

“No, no,’ answered
Mom.

Bob tilted his head, confused.

“I mean, yes,” she went on, flustered. “It’s our first time, but we’re not tourists – we just moved here.”

“She’s Emily,” I said, giving
Mom a little kick on her boot heel. WTF, do I have to do everything?

Mom gave me a fake-stern look, then held out her hand
to the attractive stranger.

“Bob – I’m Emily.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

He took her hand and instead of shaking it, held onto it for a few seconds. I couldn’t see
Mom’s expression because she was facing away from me, but I think even I was blushing, so she must have been too. Bob broke off the handshake and turned back to look at the city.

“Welcome to the greatest city in the world, ladies.”

This guy was perfect for Mom! I was praying that they’d chat some more and exchange phone numbers, but the ferry docked and we got separated from him as we joined the river of tourists filing onto Liberty Island.

I elbowed her in the ribs. “Mom – that guy!”

“What?” she feigned ignorance.

“
He’s smoking hot! Ask him out.”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? I could never do that and you darn well know it!”

Yeah, I guess that was stretching it a bit. She’d probably never asked a guy out on a date in her whole life. I stood on tippy-toes, peering over the crowd to find Bob. I could see his head bobbing along (how appropriate with a name like that!) near the front. Good thing he was tall. If this was to have any chance of success, I’d need to take matters into my own hands.

The crowd started to spread out. This was my chance. Before
Mom knew what was happening, I’d managed to squirm past a tightly-packed gang of Japanese tourists and sidled up to Bob. He turned around before I even reached him and smiled at me.

“Hey again, Kari!”

“Listen – you have to ask my mom out,” I said, conspiratorially. “Don’t tell her I spoke to you, she’ll kill me!”

He threw his head back and laughed loudly as I pushed my way back to
Mom. I don’t think she even realized that I’d gone.

Twenty minutes later we’d made the slow climb up the inside of the statue. Bob was there waiting
at the upper level. I was impressed – good strategy! As soon as Mom saw him she was caught in the charm of his twinkly eyes.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked, and she broke into a grin. “In fact,” he continued, moving closer to her but never dropping his gaze, “I’d love to meet up with you somewhere else. Maybe dinner tomorrow night?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, totally unprepared to deal with his forwardness, “but it’s Sunday tomorrow.”

This was lame.

“Yes it is! You’ll have the whole day to relax and work up an appetite.”

She wanted to say yes, I could feel it. But she just couldn’t do it.

“That would be perfect, Mom,” I interjected. “I wanted to rent a bunch of movies this weekend. You know, the kind that have vampires in them and make you roll your eyes and sigh a lot when I watch them.”

Bob kept looking at her and I could tell
Mom was of two minds. She found him cute, but she was scared. And who could blame her? No boyfriend in ten years, and now, within a couple of months of moving to the Big Apple, she was being hit on by a blond version of George Clooney!

“Can I
call you?” he asked. “Please?”

He actually raised his clasped hands in mock pleading as he said this. I felt
Mom soften – her resistance had crumbled.

“Sure.”

She fished a business card out of her purse and handed it to him.

“Thank you – I’ll call you later. And
... I’ll get out of here now so we don’t stand around awkwardly not knowing what to say to each other.”

Mom laughed and covered her mouth with her hand out of shyness. She’s so adorable sometimes. Bob winked at me surreptitiously as he walked past us and headed for the exit.

Mom was in a great mood during the helicopter ride. I’d only ever been on a plane a handful of times and this was way more fun. It was kind of bumpy and Mom squeezed my hand a bit too tight when we took off, but man, what a buzz! We were in the front rubbing shoulders with the pilot. There were four other tourists in the back, looking envious at our incredible view out the rounded glass front of the helicopter. For twenty minutes I felt like I was a seagull, swooping around the Statue where we’d met Bob only an hour before, then gliding up the Hudson river, across Harlem and the new Yankee Stadium. Manhattan is insane – the skyscrapers packed so tight and the park in the middle of it all, with its woods, paths and ponds.

As we headed south again, back along the edge of the
park, Mom suddenly shouted to me, “Hey – I think that’s my building!”

I looked
down to where she was pointing.

“What do you mean?”

“Just north of Columbus Circle – that’s where I work! How cool is that?”

I really wasn’t sure which building she was talking about.

“Can you take me there later?”

“What do you mean?”
she frowned.

“I’d like to see your office.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Duh! Because it’s, like, super exciting that you’re working in the center of the universe
!”

She laughed. “It’s just an office with a bunch of cubicles and computers.”

“I don’t care, I just want to know what to picture when I’m imagining you sitting at your desk.”

That was the best I could come up wit
h, and it wasn’t very good. My real motive was that I thought maybe I could unearth some information about the Temple of Truth while I was there. Noon was in my thoughts like you wouldn't believe, and I had to find out more about his sketchy religion.

“Would you rather take me on a workday?” I asked. “I could come after school.”

She thought about this for a second as the pilot started playing that cheesy Frank Sinatra song over our headphones.

“No, best not, honey.
Look, I’m kind of bushed now, but we’ll go tomorrow morning.”

“
Perfect! It’ll keep your mind off the date with Bob.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at me, smiling. I could tell that she was excited about this potential man in her life and it made me really happy to see her acting a bit like a teen
ager for a change, rather than a responsible bread-winner and parent. We were so caught up in the romance of it all that neither Mom nor I thought to ask ourselves this question: if Bob had lived in New York for years, what was he doing visiting the Statue of Liberty?

* * * * *

Late the next morning we took the subway up from Chelsea to the 40-story office tower where Mom worked. She flashed her keycard at the bored-looking security guard in the gleaming lobby.

“What about her?” he asked, gesturing with a half-eaten sugared doughnut
. “Does she have a pass?”

“Oh,” said
Mom, surprised. “She’s my daughter.”

“Well, I gotta see some ID and she’s gotta sign in.”

“No problem,” I answered for Mom.

The last thing I wanted was to be denied access. I showed him my student ID and he frowned at it, rubbing crumbs off his bristly mustache.

“She’s only sixteen,” implored Mom. “She just wants to see where I work.”

He sighed and grabbed the clipboard with the sign-in sheet. After noting my student ID number he handed it to me with a bored, “Sign here.”

“Thanks,” said Mom, though she didn’t seem all that grateful.

There was a bank of five elevators, all waiting with doors open on the ground floor. I guess no one was working on a sunny Sunday afternoon. We stepped inside the middle
one and were soon whisked up to the 8
th
floor.

We exited in front of a glass door engraved with the same
Temple of Truth logo I’d seen at the entrance to The Warrington. Mom swiped her keycard and the door unlocked. I was apprehensive as we entered the office. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was quickly disappointed by its blandness. There was a large open space with a reception desk and rows of cubicles. Nothing weird. Nothing suspicious.

“So. Here we are,” announced
Mom. “Most of these guys are on my team. You know – programmers and researchers.”

“Cool, cool,” I responded, looking around. Kiddie photos on desks, memos pinned to cubicle walls, yellow notes
stuck on computer monitors... it could hardly have been more typical. Snore...

“And my office is over here,” she continued, striding toward the back of the room.

I followed her, taking in every scrap of information I could and checking out every object that caught my eye, but none of it was the slightest bit unusual. She opened a door marked “Emily Marriner – Chief Software Engineer” and entered the spacious corner office. Even though we weren’t particularly high up, she had a great view of Columbus Circle and the entrance to the park.

“Pretty neat, eh?” said
Mom proudly. And you know what – she was right to be proud. She’d done super well for herself and totally deserved some props (as well as the salary that went with a job like hers).

“It’s awesome,
Mom!” I congratulated her.

Her office was actually kinda bare. No bookshelf, no filing cabinet. I guess when you work in software, there’s not much call for paperwork. But I was desperate to find some kind of clue. Anything to give me the scoop on the ToT.

“Show me what you do,” I asked her casually.

“Oh jeez, it’s pretty darn boring! Just a bunch of algorithms and stats.”

“Like what? I wanna know! Just open your computer and show me something. Anything you like.”

I sat in her high-backed chair and swiveled around,
putting on my best puppy dog eyes. They always worked when I wanted to get my way...

Her resistance crumbled
. “Oh, that face! How can I say no to you?”

She leaned over me and typed in a password. Her screen came to life. It was the ToT logo with the words “Strictly Confidential Information” underneath it. Mom clicked on the logo and then a couple more times. A map of the world appeared. She moved the mouse pointer over the map. As it crossed the different countries, colorful charts popped up then disappeared.

“What’s that? What are those lines?” I asked.

“Okay, well that’s a graphical representation of variations in human
DNA across various cultures and territories,” she explained.

I knew enough about biology to understand that she was helping them map out the differences in the genetic structure of human beings across the entire the world. But I decided to play dumb.

“So it’s, like, a genetic code?”

“Yes, honey – I’m impressed!”

“And what are they doing with all this information?”

She clos
ed the program and logged out.

“Oh, I don’t know
,” she said, then lowered her voice. “Probably trying to prove that they’re the Chosen People or something.”

“You really aren’t curious enough to ask your bosses?”

“It’s not that I’m not curious, it’s that I wouldn’t know who to ask,” she said, turning off the monitor. “Come on, let’s go grab a coffee in the park.”

“You mean you still haven’t met your boss?”

“Nope. And as long as the paychecks are deposited into my account, I’m not going to dig too deep.”

Wonderful
. This visit was a total failure.

As we waited for the elevator, I looked around. “What’s in there?” I asked, motioning toward an unmarked metal door further down the hallway.