Authors: Nathan Goodman
14
Cade was pretty pleased with himself for getting out of town so early that Friday morning. He woke up much earlier than his alarm, probably due to the anticipation, and spent no time stuck in traffic. He didn’t really mind the driving. The truth was, he was really excited to be seeing Kyle. He and “Cool Mac” had become even better friends after undergrad. In the past year though, they didn’t get much time together, and Cade hoped this would be one last weekend of fun before Kyle headed out to his duty station. Kyle had been assigned to the San Diego field office—a prime assignment, to say the least. Lots of new agents instead find themselves assigned to Detroit or Jersey City or some place that looked like a desert wasteland near the border with Mexico.
No, Kyle had really lucked out.
Come to think of it,
thought Cade,
I doubt he lucked out. I bet he won that placement like he’s won out so many other things in his life.
Kyle was the kind of guy that always had a plan. Even back in school, Kyle mapped out his future. He knew where he wanted to go from the time he was a teenager. Cade, on the other hand, more or less bumbled his way into wherever he ended up. Not that he was complaining. It was a good thing he’d never wanted to be a doctor or an FBI agent or anything like that, because that takes years of planning and Kyle was just that type of planner.
Cade crossed into Virginia, glanced down at the GPS to see how far away his exit would be. Kyle was busy today, his last day of training before graduation, so Cade easily had time to check into his hotel in the Aquia Harbor area, not far from the Marine base at Quantico.
The phone’s generic ringtone went off, and he glanced down at the incoming number; it was not a number he recognized. “A 678 exchange? But that’s the same exchange as the office. Crap, what the hell do they want? I’m on vacation.”
“Hello, this is Cade.”
“Williams? Rupert Johnston.”
The car swerved. “Ah, yes, sir, Mr. Johnston.” Cade had no idea what this was about. His mind scrambled back to the screaming sirens and popping strobe lights. Yes, he was sure he had booked today on his calendar as being out of office.
“Williams, look, know you’re out today but wanted to let you know of a change that hits you on Mundee mornin’.” Johnston’s accent came through clearer than ever. Perhaps it surfaced when his guard was down, or perhaps in talking to Cade, he had no one to impress. “See, you’ll be workin’ up here on seventeen from now on. Just didn’ wan’ you comin’ to the wrong floor come Mundee.”
Cade was shocked. “Ah, well, okay . . . ah, sir? Um, what, I mean, ah, how did this come up? I didn’t know I’d be transferred anywhere.”
“Well, don’t worry about it, son. We need someone up here with skills like you got, and since you already been up here and know the lay o’ the land and all. Well, we figured you would be the best. Congratulations, this is a step up,” finished Johnston.
Cade was trying to wrap his head around this. “Oh, ah, thank you, sir. Um, sir? Are you sure I’m the right guy—I mean man—for the job? I mean, um, I was a little uncomfortable up there, what with all the sirens and flashing lights and stuff.”
“Oh them? Oh don’ worry yourself too much about them. We hardly ever have nothin’ like that happen. And don’ worry about those assholes none neither. They’s a bunch a blowhards. You just git on up here come Mundee, and we’ll be just fine.”
Johnston hung up. Cade lowered the phone to his side and stared straight ahead, his face vacant. It was a moment before he realized he hadn’t even hung up the call. He shook his head. “Great, I move from the Disney World of server farms over to a nuclear submarine at DEFCON 4. Wonderful.”
He drew in some deep breaths to try to relax. He wasn’t supposed to have to do deep breathing exercises or yoga or anything on vacation. Vacations were supposed to induce the relaxation without all the effort. A short time later, he pulled off the little back road of Highway 1 and followed the signs for Quantico Marine Corps Base. He was a little hungry and checked his phone, looking for a restaurant that had customer reviews that were slightly above death sentences. He followed the map up to a little house-looking place called Bella Café. There were several cars in the parking lot, which stood right next to a tacky place that sold outdoor pools. Inside though, the restaurant was lively. A guy playing guitar sat in the far corner and faded photos of customers littered the wood plank walls. Cade needed to wake up after all that driving. Mixed into the middle of the chalkboard menu full of gyro sandwiches, burgers, and chicken wraps, Cade’s eye stopped. Lobster Bisque.
“Well, there it is. The reviews raved about the Lobster Bisque. How good could lobster bisque be in a place like this?” he laughed. “Ah, yes, ma’am, I’ll have a cup of the bisque, and a large coffee please.” She tilted her head at him for just a second, thinking it to be an odd combination of bisque and beverage.
“I’ve been on the road,” he said, “just need a little caffeine.” She smiled and disappeared into the back. Cade stood for a minute waiting to pay. The guy on the guitar wasn’t half bad. The soft sounds were familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. He shut his eyes and tried to concentrate.
The Indigo Girls. Cade sometimes caught hell from his guy friends over how much he loved their music, but he always made it to their outdoor shows when they were in Atlanta. Sometimes it was at Chastain Park and other times at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. It was always a good time though.
“Never heard a guy sing this song before,” said a soft voice as a hand touched his shoulder. He was startled out of his fog as he looked down at the cute girl in glasses whose hand was withdrawing now. Her face was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place her. She smiled and his mind raced, trying to place her before the embarrassment set in that he didn’t know her name.
She grinned. “You always talk to yourself?”
“What? Oh, that . . .”
“Don’t you work at Thoughtstorm?” she said. “You look so familiar.” Relief washed over him. She didn’t know his name either.
“Yeah. Yeah, hey, ah, I’m Cade, Cade Williams.”
“I’m Alyssa, Alyssa McTee. I work down on six.”
“Wow, how cool. What are you doing all the way up here?”
“Oh, I’m taking some time off.” Alyssa beamed. It was like she was looking at an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time.
“You have family up here? I mean, you’re on vacation. You didn’t want to head down to the beach or something? Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean this wouldn’t be a good place to vacation or anything . . .” Cade backtracked.
“Oh no, no, it’s okay. No, I’m not exactly vacationing here. I’m cruising all over the place. I’m just out seeing the country. I move from place to place each day.” Alyssa oozed a newly found confidence. “The truth is, I took a leave of absence from work.”
“Really? A leave of absence? And you’re cruising around and just seeing the sights? And you’re alone?” Cade secretly prayed that she was alone. “Hey, you want to join me?” he said as the bisque and coffee were handed through the window. “I was going to hang out for a little while with two things that go great together, bisque and coffee.” He hoped his attempt at humor would come out sounding funnier than it was. He really sucked at talking to girls.
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want to join you,” she said with a straight face.
Cade was a little taken aback. She looked at him, trying to stifle an outburst of laughter. “Why don’t you join me instead,” she said, pointing to her table, grinning ear to ear. Alyssa was rather pleased with herself next to Cade who looked like a lost pup.
“Oh,” he laughed, “yeah, good one. Sure, I’ll join you.” Cade slid into the sturdy oak chair. His sleeve stuck to the stapled vinyl tablecloth that had played host to thousands of locals over the years.
Alyssa slid her wax-paper-lined plastic basket aside. “So how about you? What are you doing up here? You’re not down at the beach or something?” she said, mocking through a toothy smile. “Is that where all the cool people go?”
“Okay, all right, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you. No, I’m not at the beach or something either. I’m just off for a long weekend. A friend of mine is graduating from the FBI Academy up here. It was something I couldn’t miss.”
“Very cool,” said Alyssa, looking genuinely impressed. “Man, I bet he’s excited. Or, well, or she’s excited. Which is it?”
“No, it’s a he. He and I went to undergrad together. He’s a great guy.” Cade glanced out the window but saw nothing. “It’s kind of funny thinking about it actually. I mean, he and I were in this fraternity together. He was kind of like a big brother to me. We had some fun times. And to think about him in the FBI . . .” There was something about Alyssa that was disarming. Cade was carrying on a perfectly normal conversation. And she was a girl. He wasn’t stuttering and hadn’t even knocked his drink over or anything. It was like she was just one of the guys. Not that she looked like a guy. No, she was pretty, and Cade knew it. But still, something about the way she carried herself. It made him feel like he’d known her for years.
The two talked and talked. The conversation went from Cade’s time in college with Kyle to Alyssa talking about all the places she had been on this trip, the things she’d seen, the people she’d met.
“Okay,” she said, “tell me the funniest story about you and Kyle in college.” She nearly burst a blood vessel laughing at him, knowing she was putting him on the spot.
Cade laughed at her and thought about it for a second. He closed his eyes and then started laughing himself.
“Well, okay. I had this roommate that loved to play practical jokes on me. He was pretty good at it, I have to admit. So anyway, he’d brought these old inversion boots to school.” Her head cocked to the side in confusion.
“Oh, you know, those kind of boots that lock around your ankle, and you use them to hang upside down from a bar or something,” said Cade. “People use them to do hard-core sit-ups or to help stretch out their back and stuff like that.”
Alyssa’s giggle was infectious.
“Anyway,” he smirked back at her, “so he brings these inversion boots to school so he could do sit-ups. See, the closets in the dorm just had a curtain across them, and the curtain rods were these heavy steel bars. So Jim, my roommate, hung upside down from his closet curtain rod bar thing and did all these sit-ups. So then, he convinces me to do a few sets.” Cade paused, trying not to laugh as he told the story. “Anyway, I’m hanging there like an idiot doing these sit-ups. And the whole time, Jim is yelling, ‘Come on, man, you can do it. Oh come on, is that all you got, you can do better than that!’ and I’m doing all these sit-ups and it’s starting to get impossible to do any more and I’m starting to laugh because Jim is yelling at me to keep going, and I can’t even lift my own body weight up to reach the bar anymore.”
Alyssa wiped tears from her eyes as she laughed.
“I mean, I can’t even lift myself to get my feet off of the bar at this point. So Jim starts yelling, ‘Is that it? Is that all you got? Come on, you can’t even get yourself off of there?’” Cade stopped for a second. “So I’m laughing, I can’t raise myself up, and Jim just walks out of the room.”
“He walked out and left you there? Hanging upside down,” she said, fingers to her eyes and laughing.
“Yeah, so then, a minute later, the door swings open and in walks Kyle with this straight face. He walks over to me and leans down and says, ‘Ah, what seems to be the problem?’ and I’m hanging there upside down and laughing and I can’t get myself up. So then, from behind his back, Kyle pulls out this can of shaving cream. And sure enough, he starts hosing me down with the thing. By the time it was over, Kyle had emptied the shaving cream can all over me and was walking up and down the halls getting guys to come out and take a look.”
Alyssa’s deep laughter rocked her body, but not a sound escaped. “Oh my God. Guys are so mean to each other,” she said. The two sat for a minute and let the laughter subside.
“And that was Kyle,” Cade said, shaking his head back and forth.
Alyssa felt for the first time in her life that she was her own person. The two were confiding in each other like old friends, yet they were nearly total strangers. An hour later, Cade noticed that the sun was dropping on the horizon. “Oh man, what time is it?” he said, still laughing.
“Why, you have an important date?” she jabbed.
“No. Not exactly. Not with a girl anyway. I’ve got to go over and meet Kyle. Um, I was thinking . . .” Cade’s confidence faded for a millisecond, then he got up the nerve and said, “Can I call you? I mean, I was thinking we could go do something.” He tried to avoid the word
date
; it sounded so serious, like it was a commitment on her part or something.
“You mean we’d go out somewhere and have coffee and bisque?” Alyssa said, enjoying Cade’s squirming.
“Yeah, coffee and bisque . . . when will you be back in town?”
“Yes, I’d love to. I have to be honest though, I don’t know yet when I’ll be back.” She wasn’t ready to stop torturing him yet. Her grin, however, betrayed her. She pulled out her phone, and the two exchanged numbers.
Cade left the place with a feeling that hadn’t been with him in a long, long time. He had talked to Alyssa for over an hour. Both of them worked at the same office, yet not one word was spoken about work. Neither of them knew what the other even did for a living. The lighter-than-air feeling didn’t stay with him long though as the thought of working up on seventeen soured his stomach. He shook his head. Still, as bad as that sounded, he could put up with anything if he could look forward to a date with Alyssa. Even if he didn’t call it a date.