The Kaleidoscope (13 page)

Show appreciation, even when you’re not interested in developing friendships beyond the office.
“I’ll think about it. Thanks.”

“Mr. Harold, I heard you were on the short list of interviewees.” Rhashan gave him a thumbs up. “Good luck.”

“It’s not luck, Rhashan, it’s…how did you know?”

“Mr. Gordon, he tell me.”

Gordon. Harold’s nemesis. They’d been hired at the same time, and Gordon had eclipsed Harold ever since. But just barely. And if Harold was going to win this time, then Gordon’s self-inflated hot-air balloon of pomposity would need to be grounded. “What exactly did he say?”

Rhashan studied the wall over Harold’s shoulder. “He say the reorganization board would only have two names, his and yours.” The silver-ringed finger pointed at Harold’s tie. “And after the interviews, there wouldn’t be any question who would make a better choice.”

“Is that right?”

“Ya, mon. I hear him talking in the break room.” Rhashan rolled his eyes, and rubbed a hand over his stomach. “He brought in a box of pastries. Heaven in a cheese roll, I think someone say. There may be some left if you want one. I go check for you?”

“No. Thanks, Rhashan.” Gordon was at it again. He’d been out to Porto’s and bought bribes.
Inexpensive treats can help create camaraderie.
Harold’s only options within walking distance included the doomed church, the pharmacy where he had his allergy medicine refilled, the dry cleaners, a convenience market and a veterinarian. He calculated adding another errand to his Saturday in order to purchase a break room offering to rival Gordon’s.

“And Mr. Gordon invite everyone on his fine boat for fishing this weekend.” He pronounced fine as if it made his teeth vibrate.

“That’s nice of him.”

“No, mon. You should go. You like to fish, Mr. Harold?” He frowned. “It’s not good to be alone so much.” Before he continued with more advice, Rhashan straightened and smiled, gaze focused across the room. “There he is now.”

Tan, tow-headed and towering over Harold, Gordon beamed at Rhashan, then into the cubicle. “Good day, Harold.” Gleaming Italian loafers snaked past. “I see you’re still on last month’s spreads.” He shot one last barb over his shoulder. “You should be closed out by now. Tell that lovely wife of yours hello for me, Rhashan.”

If there was anything Harold resented, it was someone reading his screen uninvited. And worse, commenting on his progress. His jaw worked in vain while he searched for a suitable retort.

The wheels on Rhashan’s cart squeaked to action. “See you later.”

“Wait.”

Rhashan had to step back so he could see Harold. “Yes?”

“How…” He hadn’t the time to prepare his question, hoping Rhashan didn’t guess what he was really asking. “If you were to choose between us.” He realized of course Rhashan was the wrong person to ask about who should be promoted. “Never mind.”

“You feeling overshadowed by Mr. Gordon?” Rhashan’s adoring gaze lifted over Harold’s head. “I don’t know about how he do his job, Mr. Harold, but Mr. Gordon, he knows something about making people happy when he see them. Always telling jokes, bringing pastries. I t’ink you are good worker, though, and dat speaks for itself, too.”

****

On his way home after work that evening, Harold had stopped to open his mailbox when Pepper ambled up, cellphone to ear.

“That’s right, I know it is very last minute, but if you have anything available…”

He waited for her to hang up, pretending to study the PennySaver.

“Hey, you.” She swung open her own mailbox. “Come in for a minute?”

Glenda ran up, but Harold thrust his knees together in anticipation before she could make intimate contact. “Sit, girl.” Instead, she pressed her bony head against him so he would scratch her neck. “I was wondering…I heard you on the phone.” He plunged ahead before he chickened out. “If you’re still going. To Yosemite. I’m in.”

Pepper squealed and clapped, and Glenda yipped until Harold worried the neighbors would complain. “What changed your mind?” The conversation with Rhashan and Gordon’s plans to take everyone fishing spurred Harold to make a daring decision. After Rhashan left him, a rant Georgia had a few weeks before she left came back to haunt him. “The older you get, the more I think your grandma was right about the DNA doesn’t fall far from the tree. You’re going to become a weird recluse alone, desiccated like an old mummy with your hands on the keyboard when they find you dead someday.” Georgia’s remark replayed in his mind, but her intended cruelty was losing its sting.

Pepper grabbed his hands, jerking him back to the present, and she spun him around to face her. “I’m so glad! We’re leaving first thing Saturday. Pack warm because it might even snow!” She grabbed Glenda’s leash from a hook by the door. “Let’s go over to the park and tell Morrie.”

****

While they walked across the street, Pepper chattered about how she knew they would get a campsite, and how much fun it would be to get out of the city. When they got closer to the cart, she talked even faster pulling Harold along until he trotted beside her.

“Guess what? I spoke to someone who might be able to help us find your cousin.” Morrie almost spilled the latte he was pouring as she spoke to him in her excitement.

“James, his cousin, may be going by the name of Joseph now,” Pepper told Harold. “They want to see some kind of ID from you, and they’d see if there is a way to contact him for you.”

“Thank you.” Morrie sounded more astonished than pleased as he handed the cup over to the customer. “That’ll be two seventy-five.”

****

Saturday morning, they loaded overnight cases, three sleeping bags, snacks, and sodas into Pepper’s small car. They pulled into the flow, already heavy with Angelenos headed out of the city for the three-day weekend. When they cleared the city, the small car sailed up the middle of the state, passing fields of crops rising from the turned earth of America’s “salad bowl,” where table grapes, almonds, strawberries, and asparagus grew by the acre.

By dusk, they found the campground, and Pepper was right, they were assigned a small site until Sunday afternoon. It was still light outside, and Morrie left them almost as soon as they’d pulled in, saying he wanted to take his laptop and find a Wi-Fi spot. He promised to help them unpack when he was finished with whatever urgent business he couldn’t wait to accomplish.

It only took a few minutes to set up the small tent where Pepper would sleep, and then Harold let her guide him toward a boardwalk that spanned a field of tall grasses. Half Dome rose above them. Despite his doubts about whether the trip would be of any use to Morrie, he had to admit he was glad they’d come. He was finally in Yosemite.

“Come here, sit.” Pepper found a bench, and they sat shoulder to shoulder, admiring the beauty of the mountains rising around them. “Tomorrow we can take one of the tours. Would you like that, Harry?” Pepper swung her feet, Glenda’s leash swaying, looped over her brown ankle. The dog didn’t seem to mind, but Harold had to avert his eyes. “I expect there are climbers up there right now.”

He tried to make out any evidence of life on the magnificent, rounded granite stone presiding over the treed valley. At the bottom, thirty-foot tall blue oak trees appeared tiny, their pale, blue-green leaves fluttering against the white bark.

“Kind of makes you feel small. I wish we had some binoculars.”

Her hand warmed his. “Do you believe in God, Harry?”

“Not really.”

“How can you
not really
? It’s pretty much one way or another.”

“I just don’t see the connection. If he’s there, why not make himself more obvious?”

Pepper breathed deeply of the cool mountain air, filling her lungs. The rattle had returned, and she coughed into the bend of her elbow. “I have to believe there’s some kind of higher brain than us. I think we’re not all there is, Harry. I have to believe.” She guided Glenda to a grassy spot where clumps of manzanita lined the trail.

Harold followed them, stepping around a mud puddle to keep his new hiking boots clean.

“Tell me why you change the subject when I ask about what you saw in the ’scope.”

“I’d like to enjoy the day if you don’t mind.”

“Come on, Glenda!” They sprinted away from him, and Harold tried to admire the vista, but he couldn’t get her question out of his head. He wished he hadn’t been so curt. She was leaning over, inspecting a bush. He strolled over and could see it was covered with tiny, almost microscopic, purple blooms.

“What about the ’scope?” Pepper moved off as soon as he was alongside her. They flushed a raucous flight of magpies.

“What do you mean?” She stopped several feet away, and he tried to keep from making eye contact as she turned to face him.

“How
do
you explain complexity? If there isn’t something out there in the Universe bringing everything together?”

He lifted his shoulders, dropped them. “I don’t know how it works. There are theories.”

“Then explain the ’scope. Forget the mysteries of the universe. Explain what lies in your pocket.”

Harold felt his face warm and turned away from her. Before his own vision, he’d attributed the reactions to a sort of self-fulfillment. But now, he had no answers. He drew it out of his pocket and examined it. The Kaleidoscope’s unexplainable images were easy to dismiss when they were someone else’s, but now he had to admit there was something going on. No way was the image he’d seen random.

Pepper stepped closer, watching him twirl it around. “What?”

“I was just thinking I should take it apart and see what’s inside.”

“What if you can’t get it back together? Are you good at repairing things?” She grabbed it from him, cradling it in her palm. “And what if you unleash something inside that’s better left alone?”

“You’re being silly now.”

“You said yourself you don’t know anything about how it works.”

“You ready to go back?” Shoving the ’scope back in his pocket, he wished he’d left it at home.

“What I don’t get is why
you
were picked to be its guardian.”

She set off, allowing Glenda to tug her back to their campsite, always keeping a few steps ahead of him. She wore a thin, cap-sleeved shirt and khaki shorts. Her low hiking boots were broken in, and her calves above them were rounded, more muscular than Harold would have imagined for an office worker. Or someone just finishing chemotherapy.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

Morrie must have returned because their food had been removed from the car and was now stowed in bear-proof lockers. But he was nowhere in sight. Pepper found the dog food and poured kibble into a bowl for Glenda.

Harold patted a spot next to him on the bench at the picnic table. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

She hesitated, then shrugged, joining him. The sun had slipped down behind the trees. She shivered, and Harold took off his jacket to lay across her shoulders. The dog chomped noisily, raising her head to watch them in between bites.

“What?”

Without preamble, he plunged ahead. “I was raised by my grandma from age four.” A large bird, probably a hawk of some sort, circled high overhead. “She hated my dad, and probably with good cause. He was a drunk. She also believed he was loony tunes.”

“Harry, that’s awful. And so sad.”

“She warned me someday I would start showing the same symptoms unless I was careful.”

“If he was really mentally ill, that’s not something you can fight off.”

“She thought it was.”

“Is that why you keep lists, why you are afraid to be spontaneous?” Pepper flashed him a look. “I’m sorry, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with being diligent. But sometimes you seem…too cautious.”

“I may overcompensate.”

“If you really think there’s a concern, I know a lot of people through my support group. Someone who can help you determine…well, you know.”

It was a step he was trying to avoid, in case the verdict was not what he wanted to hear. “I don’t think it’s too much to try and prove to Georgia I can change enough to be the man she wants me to be.”

“She knew what she was getting herself into when she married you.”

“She didn’t know everything.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Pepper pulled his jacket tighter. “We need people like you in the world. You understand things most of us only pretend to get.”

“It’s not so complicated.”

Pepper clicked her tongue. “Yes, it is. I’ve seen what you work on. Don’t be so modest.” She made the sound again, like an insect trilling for a mate. He found the trait endearing.

Her eyes explored his face, and his mind began again before he could stop his mouth from joining in. “We’re exploring better ways to process lots of information at once. It’s extremely difficult to sort through so much data, but it’s getting more and more important to protect identity, prevent virus attacks, and cyber warfare…”

Pepper stifled a yawn. “You hungry?”

He’d lost her. “I want to find Morrie before we have to send out a search party.”

Pay close attention to your companion’s body language, as most people project their honest feelings by such mannerisms as looking away. Or yawning
.

“Sorry, Harry, it’s really very interesting. I’m just so tired.” She tipped her head, gave him a look that meant she was either sincere or glad he’d stopped describing his job. Or both.

He left Pepper getting ready for bed and circled the camp perimeter. He stopped at the camper next door, but the couple hadn’t seen anyone matching Morrie’s description. What started as curiosity began to concern Harold. When he returned to the tent, Pepper had changed into an over-sized t-shirt, and was clipping toiletries onto a cord she’d strung like a clothesline.

“No one’s seen him.” He watched her hang up a toothbrush. “What should we do?”

“He’s a grown man. He’ll be all right. He’s a good friend of yours, isn’t he?” She regarded him as if he had come home from school with news of a new sandbox buddy. “That’s so nice.”

Harold resented the broil that caused in his belly. “I guess you’re right. He’ll be okay, it’s just that he’s so, well. Small.”