Jeff,
finds himself in Atlanta Magic
Town
Chapter 15 of Magic Town ...
Sunday, 7:22 AM: What’s Next?
Jeff awoke
to Shonna laying next to him, wondering at this woman. She tells him that she
is FBI and complains that the lifestyle doesn’t promote finding a relationship.
They kiss for the first time; he decides that he needs to be a different
person, a new man so he can open himself to the experience he hopes to have
with Shonna. He sits in on his first team meeting but is discouraged that they
cannot seem to come to any consensus as he remembers Antonio’s words Take them out all at once! But what to
do with it?
Thanks for taking time, and enjoy!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Author contact: Chris Lamela,
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Magic Town, Chapter 15
Sunday,
7:22 AM: What’s Next?
Jeff suddenly shot straight up. It took ten seconds to remember where he was. The sun was pushing daylight around the window shade casting a faint light into the room. He looked to his right. Shonna was laying on her side facing him, sound asleep. He lay back down, put his face in front of hers like he did yesterday afternoon in his hotel room. As he lay down it was fully with the intention of kissing her like he had wished he’d done yesterday. Somehow listening to the rhythm of her soft breathing, feeling her breath on his face was all he needed.
His eyes traveled slowly down her body as she laid there, her clothes rumpled from sleeping in them. Who was this woman? What was he supposed to do with this situation? With her? He felt that all these events were making him crazy, that his judgment was not to be trusted. He thought about his wife at home back in
As he lay there he thought about Gulliver’s Travels, about poor hapless Gulliver who kept landing in strange places where he was this absolute freak. The rules of the kingdoms where he was tiny or where he was enormous were all twisted around. Those rules made perfect sense to the inhabitants of those strange places, but in Gulliver’s context those social moors were exaggerated, comical. So here he was, being Gulliver in his own way. Sure, he wasn’t tiny or huge, but just like those kingdoms in Gulliver’s visits the rules here didn’t make sense to him either, were just as exaggerated and comical in a certain sad and twisted way. Unlike Gulliver’s experiences, very little of this was funny. He laughed to himself, Ah, yes, mister Gulliver, what kingdom have you landed in here!
He watched Shonna breathing slowly, her expression so peaceful. Why had she reacted that way yesterday with his little slut? What would he have done had it been Shonna who dropped her skirt? He had not a doubt that he would have reacted the same way. Or would he?
She kept saying how special he was. He knew that Shonna was pretty special herself. Her eyes absolutely sucked him in the minute he looked into them sitting in that skanky corridor in front of the door with the big gold star, the man with the gun standing at the door on the other end. He has always been a sucker for a woman with pretty eyes. He remembered how his wife’s bright blue eyes so stunned him when he first saw her, how it made him fall in love with her almost instantly. And Shonna with those bedroom eyes, her droopy eyelids. He was a sucker for a woman with eyelids he could see as she was talking to him. He found that women, and even men, who had those big fat pones under their eyelashes that their eyelids would disappear into so you just had this eyeball looking out at you without the graceful upper framing of an eyelid just didn’t look attractive to him. He often found himself repulsed by people with ugly eyes.
He’d had a woman manager once who had evil eyes that would just stare out at him from under a big bulge of flesh as she talked, he kept getting the creeps when she would look at him, repulsed by that woman’s evil eyes. But whenever he met a woman with eyelids like Shonna’s he found that he couldn’t quit looking at her eyelids, sometimes finding himself talking to her eyelids rather than looking into her eyes. Now this woman, Shonna, or Nancy, it didn’t matter what she was called, who had these amazingly colored bedroom eyes was here sleeping in front of him. He could look at her sleeping closed eyes, those closed bedroom eyelids, sighing knowing that those amazing golden eyes with the little black flecks that make her eyes all the more amazing were just waiting to look at him once more.
There was more than just her eyes. Shonna’s grace and style were intimidating. Her manner constantly made him question if he was worthy to even fantasize that he could have her as lover. He often wondered if other men had the same feelings around women like her. It wasn’t a feeling of inadequacy; it came more from a reverence for beautiful women, that they were somehow of a higher place than mere mortals like him, handsome as he may be. Or not. He remembered the words of a long-time female friend who said that he was a handsome man, “But just not scary handsome.” It was always odd to him that his friend pursued her scary handsome men, yet she only ever had relationships with men that were not even close to handsome, though she continually showed she had the sharp eye for a good-looking man when they would be out together, “Look at him!” she would whisper. The fact that she called Jeff handsome at all was good enough for him.
No, he decided, he would not have just jumped her bones yesterday, even if she waved her skirt over her naked body singing Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! He knows that he is a whole body man that would need to have his mind and heart in the deal along with his body. He would want it to be passionate, slow, with the intense feelings that he felt growing for her inside of him. It would have to be more than just sex.
He reached his face over giving her the tiniest peck of a kiss on her nose, she snuffled a bit, took a deep breath, continued breathing softly.
Jeff carefully moved his feet to the floor, standing up, trying not to shake the bed, going into the bathroom.
When he came out of the bathroom she was still asleep. He crept over to sit in the large corner chair, watching her, suddenly starting to feel the tug of his wife back in
He heard a yawn, turning to see Shonna opening her eyes slowly, her eyes circling to gain focus, looking to Jeff sitting there.
“Good morning, sleepy,” he said stepping over sitting back on the bed.
“What time is it?”
He glanced at the clock, “A little after seven-thirty.”
She stretched, propped herself up on her right elbow. “What time did you get up?”
“Just now,” without thinking he reached over to kiss her as she offered up her lips, he instantly wondered how he felt so comfortable to do that seeing in her eyes that she wondered the same.
“Now that’s the way to wake up!” she gave him a shy smile. “How do you feel?”
Jeff shook his head slightly, “Just a little hung over I think.” He swirled his head to loosen his neck, “No not that.” He stretched his elbows out, swirling them in three deep circles. “Sleep deficit, that’s it, but I feel better.”
He stood up, bent over touching his toes a couple times, “Look, I’m going to get into the shower,” Jeff said as he stood back up. “What’s it take to get coffee?”
“Just for me to go down to get in, I’ll get us coffee and a donut or something. We need to be at breakfast in,” she leaned over to the clock, “in an hour and few minutes, we have a meeting at nine.”
Without another word, Jeff went into the bathroom closing the door behind him. The water felt soooooo good that he stood with his head alternately down, the water pouring over his hair, facing into the shower stream.
Soon he emerged still combing his hair with a towel around him. Shonna was sitting on the bed, leaned back watching him casually. “Better?”
“Oh, much!” he smiled turning to toss the comb onto the bathroom counter. He sat down on the bed facing Shonna. “So what’s happening?”
She smiled a big wide smile. Jeff hadn’t noticed what nice teeth she has, he’d only seen her genuinely smile once before since he met her. Very nice smile. Wonderful smile. He looked at her admiring what a beautiful woman she is. Again. He frowned to himself at the thought of how the hell did he manage to be sitting here looking at this beautiful woman in this house somewhere the hell near
He leaned over picking up a cup of coffee, took a bite of a donut looking at her, “I know what you told me yesterday about your stats and Georgetown and all, but I don’t know anything about you,” he said sipping at his cup of coffee, sitting on the bed. “And I don’t mean the company bi-line. Who are you?”
She looked at Jeff wondering how to respond. “You know that I am an agent, you know I’m with the FBI.” He nodded. “Usually we are not supposed to talk about ourselves, I could get into a little trouble here.” He stared at her with a blank expression which she read as expectant. “Okay, just a little. I was a student at
He looked surprised, “I don’t get that, why not?”
“Let’s just say that the working lifestyle doesn’t promote a stable relationship.”
“But do you––“
“Of course I do, I’d like a relationship, maybe even the picket fences. But I never meet any nice men.” She smiled at him, “Like you.” He shook his head slowly. “I know it sounds like a cliché, but all the good ones are already taken.” She smiled timidly, “You, you’re already taken.”
Shaking his head slowly Jeff took another sip of coffee, “But there are lots of me’s out there.”
She shook her head sadly, her expression darkening. “No. No there’s not. Trust me. I know. I’ve been out there. There’s nothing but a lot of jerks.”
Without thinking, Jeff leaned over brushing hair away from her eyes suddenly feeling that same wonder of how he could feel so comfortable doing that as a flush radiated from his navel up through his chest so fast he could almost hear a whoosh, then ricochet off his heart heading down between his legs where he felt a twinge.
She looked at him with a shy expression, he was sure she was being polite not asking why he suddenly got so flushed.
He smiled. “There are good men out there. We are out there, you just have to look for us.”
Silence, she suddenly brightened looking at him, “Enough of my pathetic life, what about you?”
“The factoids?”
“Don’t need those, I already know.” He gave her a dark look. “It’s my job!” She sat up, “Okay, let’s see if I remember.” She looked at Jeff with a small smile. “You are my age, married nine years, married twice before, two children ages six and ten, dropped out of engineering school, went back to get your BA in business and your MBA.”
Jeff looked startled. “How the hell did you know all this?”
“You gave your drivers license at the hotel when you checked in right? And your credit card, remember?”
“Of course, I suppose it was a piece of cake after that?” She grinned as her right shoulder jerked up just a little in acknowledgement of the accusation.
He stood up, walked to the window to lift the shade sitting back down on the bed, looked out the window at the morning sunshine. “Well, what else is there? I play guitar, like to dink on the computer, I adore my kids. My wife is very good to me.”
“Sex?”
He flushed, “What, do you know about that, too?”
She laughed turning crimson herself, “No, that was inappropriate, really, it’s not like there’s any…” Silence.
“Look, I love my wife,” he paused. “I am totally straight.” He shook his head. “No way. She wouldn’t understand.”
“Jeff,” she turned sullen and quiet, sitting for a minute as he tried to catch her eye. “You’re a really special man, you need to know that.” She laughed, almost giggling, “I mean how the hell did this happen, how did I meet the nicest guy on the planet––” She caught herself, turning to look him in the eye. “I’m so sorry. I’m bigger than this, really.” She turned away from him with the smallest pout, her lower lip sticking out just enough to betray her emotion, looked back, “I am so sorry.” She lowered her head in front of his face looking up at him, holding out her hand. “Friends?”
Without thinking he put his hands on each side of her head pulling her face toward him kissing her as her mouth opened for just a second, they touched tongues with a flicker of a swirl, he pulled her head as quickly away, his grip loosened, his fingers still around her hair.
He pulled his hands away looking down, “Now it’s my turn to be sorry.” He looked up at her bright golden eyes seeing her stunned expression. “Really, I don’t know what made me do that. Please, I’m sorry.”
She looked at him, studying his face. “Listen, don’t you ever do that again!” He felt a jolt of regret at these words.
He put up his hands apologetically, “Please, I said I was sorry. It was impulsive. It was wrong after all I’ve been saying about being married. I’m sorry.”
With a glowering expression she said sternly, “Look, I am a professional here, and you listen to me!” Jeff looked at her anxiously. “Don’t you ever do that again,” her expression opened into a big smile, “without giving me more tongue!”
Jeff’s jaw dropped, their faces both opened to grinning expressions that brimmed into a burst of laughter. She leaned across giving him another peck of a kiss. He protested, “You said with more tongue!” He started to reach across to her, she pushed him away playfully, smiled standing up, “Come on before we get ourselves in trouble here, we have a job to do! But first I need a shower.”
She went into the bathroom as he decided he would behave himself, though he was pretty certain that he needed another shower that very moment. Soon she came out again in a robe, grabbed her bag, back into the bathroom to brush her hair. In a few minutes she came out dressed, turned to grab her purse smiling, “Let’s go down to eat!”
He stood up starting for the door, stepping behind her when she stopped to face him giving him light hug, “I’m glad I met you,” with another quick peck to his lips, “really glad.” She motioned to his jacket across the chair, “But you might want to bring your stinky coat in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
Jeff turned around grabbing the stinky jacket, following her out the door. “So about those factoids, I suppose you know my blood type.”
“How could we? You never give blood!” They both laughed feeling truly relaxed together for the very first time.
Jeff felt a little dizzy as he followed her down the stairs into the big room that now had many more people, men and women, busy at work in different clusters or spread out at different desks working on what Jeff could only guess. He noticed papers they had brought from Antonio’s in a pile with maybe five people around the table sorting through the stack, discussing them in lowered voices.
“This is all our case?” She looked at him appreciating his use of the term our case, glancing around the room.
She nodded, “Mostly, but there’s another op ramping up.” Jeff knew not to ask, though he was curious.
Shonna led Jeff through a door into another large room with a long buffet table along one wall, a dozen or so tables with chairs around them, looking a lot like the breakfast buffet back at the hotel. They each took a plate, walking along the buffet loading eggs, potatoes, Jeff bent over to smell the quiche, but he saw the biscuits and gravy. He reached over to scrape his eggs back into the egg tray, grinning childlike to Shonna, scooped an oversized piece of quiche onto his plate, two biscuits covered with gravy, grabbing a glass of orange juice already poured on the end.
They sat down without a word devouring the food in front of them, except for glancing and smiling at each other occasionally, focusing all their attention on their plates until every speck of food was gone.
He wasn’t thinking about his food.
It was the kiss, her kiss back to him. And their tongues touched! He felt almost foolish feeling like some high school kid kissing a pretty girl under the bleachers. And he knew he was feeling foolish.
This all felt so good!
He tried to imagine what came over him, why he did he do that? He had never done that before, further more had never even thought of doing that before to another woman. Not with all the women he has worked with, in all the situations he has been in while he was traveling. He remembered the time in
So there had been plenty of opportunities. But why with this woman?
Jeff wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin starting to push his chair back. Before he could stand up a sturdy black woman wearing an apron snatched up his plate, set down a coffee cup pouring it full. Shonna shoved her plate across the table to the woman as she poured another cup.
Jeff picked up the cup sipping his coffee, set it down, sat back. “Man, I didn’t know how hungry I was.” Shonna nodded smiling.
They sat in silence for a couple minutes, both enjoying the sunshine coming through the window, it felt like beach sunshine cast upon their table even though it was November. Someone signaled from the door to Shonna pointing to Jeff giving a come-here signal. Shonna got up with Jeff close behind going back into the big room. The man motioned to a door across the room, “They need you in there.”
Jeff followed Shonna into a room with a long table, chairs around it, like a conference room, with computers blinking away on a long table against the wall. This must have been the formal dining room when it was just a house, Jeff thought as they walked in. The walls were a warm tan color with decorative white crown molding along the tops of the walls, elaborate baseboards in white. Jeff glanced back into the big room seeing that he didn’t notice before that it was decorated the same.
There were three men and four women seated around one end of the long table with papers in piles and scattered around the table between them; he saw the stack of seventy pages or so that they had brought back from Antonio’s. Shonna sat down in an empty chair between two of the men, immediately every head leaned toward her as conversation started instantly. Jeff pulled up a chair on the far end by himself putting his elbows on the table with his head propped on his hands.
Jeff could hear all the words. He wasn’t really paying attention, though every so often something would be said, heads turning toward him. He pretty much assumed that given all the masquerading he did yesterday as the congressman that they were planning for him to do more today. So far it didn’t seem very dangerous. He was actually really enjoying playing cloak and dagger with these guys. This was sooooooo far away from his work in the aerospace industry that he felt almost like he was a different person.
Different person. Maybe that was the ticket for dealing with Shonna. Maybe he had to get it in his mind that when he is here that he is a different person from that guy who lives in
Yes, a different man.
Entirely.
Somehow.
Maybe he needs to find some way to kind of liberate himself to find new experiences. To be free so he could find out how he was supposed to be with this amazing woman, Shonna or Nancy, what his experience is supposed to be in this situation. How it’s supposed to be with her. He just wasn’t sure what it would be like to somehow zoom out of his body to become this different person, somehow to return back to the husband and family man that his whole context is about, his whole sense of who he is in the world. He tried but couldn’t imagine life different than with his wife and kids. This would definitely take some thinking, he made a point to tell himself to continue to give this some thought. There had to be a solution that would make everyone happy!
“Jeff, pull up here a little closer,” Shonna motioned to him. “Better yet, bring your chair over here,” she motioned for people to move their chairs to make room. He picked up his chair, it was pretty heavy for its size, nice furniture he thought to himself, carrying it, setting it down to fit into the space made for him, stepping around the chair to sit down.
Shonna looked around at the others, “You’re a pretty smart man. We want you to be part of this.” She turned to the others, they nodded affirmation. “Is that okay?” She paused. “I mean, you know a lot. Can you help here?”
Jeff’s expression brightened, “You mean you guys, the pros who know my kids’ names, my blood type,” he glanced at Shonna, “okay, maybe not my blood type, are stuck?”
“No,” she gave an indignant frown, “we just figure that you know things and can help.”
Jeff paused looking at the faces all turned toward him in obvious anticipation. “Well, okay. I’m not sure how I can help. Maybe, I guess, I can be your helpful amateur,” smiling sitting up looking around the table. “So do I get a Meerschaum pipe and rag?” He looked around at the blank faces pretty sure his Sherlock Holmes reference fell flat. Grinning sheepishly, “Sherlock Holmes.”
A woman at the table spoke up, “
“It’s Shonna!” She looked surprised at the woman, “Linda, I’m surprised at you! You know the protocol, you know that will put me in danger.” She looked around everyone at the table, “Come on guys, it’s Shonna! Work with me here, huh?”
The whole table bubbled with a murmur of, “Shonna.”
All eyes were now focused on Shonna. “Okay now, let’s start with what we know, can I get some paper and pencil?” They came sliding across the table to her. She leaned over writing carefully WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT, underlined, below it on separate lines, CROOKED CONGRESSMAN - WANTS MORE … CROOKED MAYOR … CITY COUNCIL … POLICE CHIEF … POLICE … ANTONIO …
They all took turns adding more items, ending with fourteen names and items by Jeff’s count.
“Now the relationships.” She began to draw lines with arrows around the page linking names as various fingers reached down to point, erasures, flicking the eraser crumbs onto the floor, more lines, more arrows, a couple more what-we-knows. After fifteen minutes Shonna sat back as all necks craned to look at their product.
Shonna frowned, “This isn’t helping is it?”
Arnie smiled, “But you know what, this tells me we know a lot more than I thought we did. Do some stars next to the really big players.” A few seconds later that was done.
Jeff shook his head, “I don’t see it. We need a plan from this, right?”
A dowdy looking woman, a brunette with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, a gold hair pin on top leaned forward. Jeff smiled to himself at this woman’s closed-in face with those spooky dark eyes, thick eyebrows that looked like someone wiped a paintbrush of dark grease across her forehead with dark fur connecting in a perfect line over her eyes. This drab face said softly, “Hmmmm, maybe if we figured out the order that we want to take them out, but what are the implications of what will happen. I mean, what’s the goal here?”
The table arose with chatter between everyone with very little order to what was being said, hands reached across the table, eyes looked at pages, voices overran voices. Nothing seemed to be getting accomplished.
Jeff thought about the conversation with Antonio the night before. Almost as if talking to himself repeating Antonio’s words, “We’ve got to take them out all at once.”
Shonna looked at Jeff, around the circle of faces as the chatter continued, sitting back looking at the ceiling, “All at once, that’s right,” glancing at Jeff. “All at once. All at once!” She put her right hand to her chin. “But how?”
The discussion went on, it was clear to Jeff that they weren’t making progress.
It was hopeless.
NOW READ THE NEXT CHAPTER IN
MAGIC TOWN !
http://chrislamela.blogspot.com/2012/06/magic-town-chapter-16.html
