On an early morning walk, I discovered the Brooklyn Diner, a small restaurant tucked away in a street not far from Columbus Circle, perhaps a piece of history from the American past.
After all, if you’re going to take in the sights, sounds, and food of a country what better way to do it than visiting what was once a tradition.
This one was called the Brooklyn Diner. It had a combination of booths and counter sit down, though the latter was not a very big space, so we opted for a booth.
The object of going to a Diner is the fact they serve traditional American food, which when you get past the hot dogs and hamburgers and fries, takes the form of turkey and chicken pot pies among a variety of other choices.
Still looking for a perfectly cooked turkey, something I’ve never been able to do myself, I opted for the Teadition Turkey Lunch, which the menu invitingly said was cooked especially at the diner and was succulent. I couldn’t wait.
We also ordered a hamburger, yes, yet another, and a chicken pot pie, on the basis the last one I had in Toronto was absolutely delicious (and cooked the same way since the mid-1930s)
While waiting we got to look at a slice of history belonging to another great American tradition, Baseball, a painting on the wall of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets field, long since gone from their home.
The Turnkey lunch looked like this
which didn’t seem to be much, and had this odd pasta slice on the plate, but the turkey was amazing and lived up to the menu description.
The Chicken Pot Pie looked like this
And looked a lot larger in reality than the photo shows.
But, sadly while it was not bad, it was a little dry, and could possibly do with using the more succulent thigh part of the chicken.
All of this was washed down by Long Island Ice Teas and Brooklyn Lager.
AS for the Diner experience, it’s definitely a 10 out of 10 for me.
There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?
A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a set up.
But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.
And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.
Susan is exactly the sort of woman the pique his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.
Nothing like an offer that’s a double edged sword!
A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.
When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.
I woke with what one might call metaphorical clouds hanging over my head.
The day before, everything was as normal as it could be, I had plans and was intending to get on with my life, realizing that Violetta would be disappointed if she knew how moribund I’d become.
That was before Alfie had appeared out of nowhere, on a mission for a man I never wanted to see or work for again.
Never say never.
Now I had a target on my back and found myself in a very strange situation. Normally random events were exactly that, random. But it would not be when the time came for Juliet to accidentally see me, a coincidence surely.
But not.
For a long time, before I fell into a light, fitful sleep, I went through a variety of scenarios when I imagined we would run into each other, and concluded it would most likely be somewhere in St Marks square.
Then it was a matter of whether on not I would make it easy for her, and was still undecided when sleep came. Now, in the cold hard light of dawn, I decided it would be better to get it over with as quickly as possible.
I’d also decided that I was not going to give Larry any chance of success, as I had the element of surprise on my side.
I’d also forgotten about those pre-mission nerves, that mixture of fear and excitement when starting out, usually not knowing what was going to happen. Of course, I was a lot older now, and the world I once lived in had no doubt changed considerably, but not the people in it. They were the one constant, and most were predictable.
Larry certainly would be. Juliet would be less so, but knowing her end game would tip the scales in my favour. How I would deal with her would be dictated on that first meeting.
That too was the fuel for a different sort of feeling. I knew, back when I first met her, my judgement was impaired by a lot of different drugs, and I wasn’t quite thinking straight, but there had been a spark, and in different circumstances, the outcome might have been different. I was not sure what I felt right then.
But, I’d soon find out.
I took a water taxi to St Mark’s square, or just a short distance from it, where the statue of xxx greeted all those who disembarked. From there it was a short walk on the promenade, and instead of heading towards the square, I went in the opposite direction, towards the hotel Juliet was staying.
Getting there early, I was hoping to see her leave the hotel and follow discreetly, waiting for the opportunity to ‘discover’ her. It was not a surprise to discover her ‘friend’ who greeted her at the airport had the same idea.
It was evident that Larry didn’t trust her to keep him informed, or the tail was insurance. Either way, it was a complication.
I found a 0lace to sit, one of many cafes along the promenade, in sight of the hotel entrance and her minder. Judging by the blank expression, it was possible he didn’t know me by sight, which could be useful.
My phone decided to announce an incoming message, and it was from Alfie. The identity of one of the men, muscle for a local crime boss, no doubt lent as a favour to Larry, was Giuseppe, last name irrelevant. The other, one of Larry’s lieutenants here to smooth the path for Larry’s arrival.
Giuseppe’s resume was short, mostly petty crimes, having graduated from peddling knock off’s to the tourists. Judging by his body language, he was unimpressed with being a minder. And restless, because over the next half hour he was up and down, pacing, and not happy, having exchanged words with several people who seemingly had walked in front of him.
Perhaps if I provoked him…
No time, Juliet chose that moment to emerge from the hotel. He was straight out of his seat and walked over to her. She was not pleased to see him, and I watched them engage in a heated exchange over the next five minutes, drawing attention to themselves, and odd glances from a few tourists. At what seemed the end of the argument I saw her shrug, and both headed towards the square together.
It was obvious Giuseppe’s instructions were to stay with her, which I imagine would make her job of a chance meeting all that harder.
I followed, discreetly, behind them.
She ambled, taking the time to look around, much like a tourist would, and basically, she was a tourist. I wondered if she had been to Venice before, and concluded she hadn’t, using her phone camera to take photos of the gondolas, the Canal, the colonnade, the bridge of sighs, and Doges palace; frequently stopping much to Giuseppe’s annoyance.
It took nearly an hour to cover a very short distance, ending up at a Cafe, one of those that jutted out into the square. She sat at one table, and Giuseppe sat at another, not far from her.
When his attention was elsewhere, watching a group of young female American tourists, I came up from behind and sat beside him, so engrossed in the girls he neither saw nor heard me arrive.
And the reason he almost jumped out of his seat when I said, in his language, “So, Giuseppe, what are you up to now?”
When he recovered, he glared at me. “Who are you?” It was not a polite tone.
“Trouble, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I’m minding my own business. You should too.”
There was an undertone and implied threat.
“Or what?”
I saw him glance over in Juliet’s direction. A waiter just delivered coffee and what looked like a cake.
“Who is she?” I asked.
He turned to look at me. “That’s none of your business.”
It was clear he didn’t know what I looked like and was relying on Juliet to identify me.
“It is if you’re point man of a kidnap team. Is that what this is about.”
Giuseppe laughed. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I’m going over yo that woman you’ve been watching and tell that she has an unwanted admirer, and then if I can find a policeman, I’m going to tell him you’re acting suspiciously.”
His expression told me that was the last thing he needed. I suspect his track record with the police along with a complaint involving a female tourist might just get him into enough trouble to make him think twice about hanging around.
On the other hand, it might not. I could see him hesitating, orders to stay versus trouble with the police. Trouble with the police won out.
He stood. “You have made yourself some difficulties, this isn’t over.”
I shrugged. “It will be if I see you loitering near her again.”
He had his phone in his hand as he left and was making a call before he’d taken 20 paces. The next person wasn’t going to be so easy to spot.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
This is sometimes how we must feel when overlooked or ignored, like a nobody.
And some people will treat you like a nobody, i.e someone who is just not important.
That’s just one use of the word.
Another might be…
Who did that to your room?
‘Nobody’ is the plaintiff reply. The infamous Mr. Nobody. We’ve never met him, but he’s always there. And, what’s more, he seems to be able to be in more than one place at a time.
Then there’s that time when there’s nobody in the room, nobody agreed with me, hell, that happens all the time, and when I rang your phone nobody answered.
Nobody? Was I expecting Mr. Nobody to answer? Surely the response should have been, ‘and you didn’t answer’.
Of course, let’s not delve too deep here, lest we might find out something we didn’t want to know.
I went to your house last night, but nobody was home.
How is it we refer to the people whom we know live in that house as ‘nobody’. Shouldn’t we be saying, ‘none of you was at home’?
It seems nobody is one of those words we often use in vain.
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
While waiting for Carlo and Chiara to return with the villagers, and taking some time to consider the plan that had almost formed in my mind, I went back to my room, which, I was guessing was once used for wine storage, because now that I had taken a moment to stop and consider my surroundings, I could smell the aroma of spilled wine.
With a little more light, I could see the arches within which the bottles would be stacked. I’d also noticed while I’d been outside, that there were vines everywhere, albeit in bad shape as the people who tended them had either left, or been taken away, or shot.
Red grapes if I was not mistaken, though I had no idea what the variety might be.
If the war dragged on much longer, it would do a lot of damage to the wine-growing districts, and I doubted, when the Germans were here, they had any interest in tending the vines, but just drink the wine, and then probably not with the appreciation it deserved.
That had certainly been the case up at the castle before fate turned against me. Perhaps that was where all of the wine from this cellar had been taken for safekeeping, once the locals thought the Germans had gone forever. Maybe that was the reason why Leonardo spent so much of his time at the castle, the free wine.
Jack had returned from what I assumed was an inspection of our new quarters and was sitting on the ground next to me. I wondered what he made of everything he had seen. It was certainly not a dog’s life being caught in the middle of a war.
“It’s a fine mess we’re in,” I said to him, and he looked back with uncomprehending eyes. I would have to brush up on my German. Or maybe Italian. It only just occurred to me that he was probably someone’s dog from around here. We’d only run into each other a few miles away.
“Yes, and I’m sure if you spoke English you could tell me a thing or two. But, alas, you can’t, so a piece of advice. Try to keep out of trouble, and by that, next time I go out, you might want to stay here.”
I shrugged. Things must be bad; I’m talking to a dog.
Martina stopped outside the entrance. “I heard voices. Who are you talking to?”
“The dog. He’s the only one who’s making any sense at the moment.”
“Are you sure he’s not a German spy. Or, in fact, it’s a he?”
“You probably know as much as I do. Anything happening?”
“Carlo’s back with a dozen or so of those who want to stay alive. Chiara has a few more. The rest have other places to hide if they need to. We’ve told them to expect a raid. Leonardo and a few of his men have been out looking for you and told everyone that you are a German spy and that he’ll pay them a lot of money for information about where you are or who’s hiding you. He doesn’t understand everyone hates him, they always have.”
“Good to know if I run into him, he won’t be happy to see me.”
“This plan of yours?”
“Wallace will be getting edgy about the men he sent out, those men we ambushed at Chiara’s place. It depends on who he sends, and where they go, but I was thinking we could prepare another ambush at Chiara’s. All we have to do is wait because I’m sure they’ll get there eventually.”
“And if I know Leonardo, he’ll send them straight to my farm. He knows that both Carlo and I, and the other two you’ve met were the other four who refused to join him in going up to the castle to make peace. It seems he’s made a bad choice.”
“Wallace didn’t. He needs someone like Leonardo to find us. You’re probably right. I was thinking Carlo and I could go. No sense sending all of us, and if anything happens, there will be someone left to carry on.”
“You don’t sound too confident. You are a soldier, aren’t you?”
“In a manner of speaking. But I was not trained to be a commando, and not necessarily on the front line, or in this case behind enemy lines.”
“You’re not one of those rich kids whose father bought a commission, so you didn’t have to fight?”
Interesting the ideas foreigners had about elements of the army. I was not sure if that was done anymore, at least not in this war.
“I have poor parents, that is if they have survived the bombs falling on London. Refused to give in to Hitler’s aggression.”
I tried to convince them to go to the countryside, just to be safe, but one of the places they thought of going, had also been bombed, so as far as they were concerned, nowhere in England was safe.
“But yes, they did teach me how to shoot, and I know my way around several different types of gun.” My mind flicked to the sniper rifle and the damage that could do.
I’d be definitely taking that with me.
I saw her turn her head, and then heard the sound of new arrivals. Chiara had returned.
“Time’s up for planning.”
I told the dog to stay, but as usual, he ignored me. We went back into the main cavern where a dozen more people were settling in various places along one wall. They looked as though they’d packed for a reasonably long stay.
But what worried me was the way they looked at me. Those rumors Leonardo spread, I was hoping no one believed him. Above the sound of voices, I could hear Marina speaking to them in Italian, hopefully, to tell them I was not a threat.
I found Carlo.
“I have a small job to do. After our last exercise at Chiara’s my old commander will no doubt send someone down to the village to seek answers, and I’m hoping you’ll come with me so we can convince them of the error of their ways.”
He smiled. There was no mirth in it, and I knew I didn’t have to say anything more.
I saw movement coming from a group of people, and among them the boy I’d met earlier, Enrico. He had jumped up off the floor when he saw me and came over.
“What are we going to do now. I mean, we’re not going to sit here and do nothing.”
Boyish enthusiasm. He had not been shot at yet, and to him, it was all a bit of a game. I remembered back to the start of the war, and the number of boys who lied about their age, hardly waiting for the war to be declared. They had no idea what a real war was, and if they had known, they would not have been so recklessly enthusiastic.
“You’re going to stay here and protect your family and all the others here.”
“No. I want to be useful, fight the bastards.”
Carlo gave him one of his dark stares. “You will stay here and help others if anything goes wrong. Out there,” he pointed towards the entrance, “out there, if you’re not careful, you will die.”
Martina had seen him talking to us and came over.
“Enrico, we’ve talked about this. Go back to your family.”
A last pleading look in case we changed our minds, then he reluctantly returned to his group.
Carlo handed me the sniper rifle and a pistol, a luger, probably captured from a German earlier, when they were in occupation.
The Longjing Pearl Factory is located at: No.2 Zuoan Gate Inner Street, ChongWen District, Beijing 100061 China.
This Pearl Center specializes in both freshwater and seawater pearls, with a reputation backed by the government of China, with a big selection and of the highest quality. There were all kinds of jewelry made of pearls in different colors, shapes, and sizes.
They also had, as an interesting sideline, famous Chinese traditional cosmetics such as pearl cream and pearl powder, reputed to make your skin smoother, tenderer, and most importantly, younger.
We were advised of all of this well before we arrived at the factory, and of course, one suspected the glowing review, with emphasis on the fact it was a government operation and therefore trustworthy, suggested we should buy, meant the tour guide would receive a commission on each sale.
This is nothing new, it’s the same the world over, so it’s up to the visitor to buy or not to buy.
As soon as you get in the door you are taken to the group’s guide for the tour (and afterward, available for help on making purchases). who gives you a rundown on the different types and colors of pearls. This briefly is,
Pearls come in two main categories: freshwater cultured pearls and saltwater cultured pearls. Various types of pearls are the result of the environment in which they live, and different cultivation techniques used by the pearl farmers.
Freshwater cultured pearls are grown in lakes and rivers, whereas saltwater cultured pearls are grown in bodies of saltwater such as bays. The most commonly used pearls are Freshwater pearls.
Freshwater Pearls come in various pastel shades of white, pink, peach, lavender, plum, purple, and tangerine. South Sea cultured pearls come in shades of lustrous white, often with silver or rose overtones.
Black pearls are known as Tahitian pearls and come most often in shades of black and gray. While a Tahitian pearl has a black body color, it will vary in its overtones, which most often will be green or pink.
Then there’s a demonstration, where one of the tour group is selected to pick an oyster out of the tank, and then there’s the guessing game as to how many pearls are in the shell, with the winner getting a pearl.
Guesses ranged from 1 to 23 and the answer was 26. Nearest wins, and one for the person who picked the oyster out of the tank. After this demonstration, we move on to the ways we can tell the difference between real and fake pearls.
It seems strange that they would, but we were guaranteed by both the tour guide and the lady delivering the lecture that the pearls we were about to buy were real, so how could we suspect there was anything dodgy about them? Besides, now we could tell real from fake!
We then move onto the showroom floor where there are casements of pearl products, in the form of necklaces, earrings, and any number of variations and uses. And, just to let you know, the prices are very, very expensive, even if they say they have a special.
Perhaps the best products, and those that found favor with many of the women on the tour, was the pearl cremes and powders. These were not expensive, and, as we discovered later, actually worked as described.
John and Zoe are nowhere near Vienna, Zoe having gone to Bucharest and then Zurich on her way back to see John who was going to pick her up from the airport, then the both of them were going to Lucerne for a few days.
A reminiscing cruise on Lake Geneva had been on the cards, but there might not be time.
First, they had to do some work on charting who was trying to kill her, because she has finally come to the realization that there is more than one. Her visit to Bucharest yielded another name, quite possibly the person who was masquerading as Komarov.
Second, John was intending to introduce her to the new members of their team, the team he hasn’t quite got around to telling her about, who will be dedicated to research, investigation, and, via Isobel and the dark web, organizing the hits.
John had decided that she should not out there be distracted by finding work, just doing the work. He was going to take care of the rest.
Perhaps a good time would be over dinner?
Meanwhile, Sebastian and Rupert are on surveillance duties while Isobel is tracking down which hotel the lovebirds are staying in. As soon as she has the information, Rupert is on the job.
She then moved to track John, knowing Zoe will be with him because she has seen the passenger lists for flights from Bucharest to anywhere.
Both are thankful neither John nor Zoe was in Vienna, which then makes it a priority that neither Worthington of Arabella should leave, except to go back home. Although they hadn’t established it was the reason Worthington was in Vienna, it was too close to the bungled attempt on their lives for them not to draw the appropriate conclusion.
Sebastian has a plan B that no one was going to like, not even himself.
Plan A was yet to be formulated.
…
Today’s writing, with Zoe languishing in a dungeon waiting for a white knight, 1,566 words, for a total of 54,355.
Every time I went out with friends, no one ever asked my opinion about anything, and I never really ventured one, and it had been that way all my life.
It came from learning at a very young age that I should listen not prattle and speak only when spoken to.
All through school I spent most of my time studying alone, or with one or two others who wanted to help with their schoolwork, and I think that after a while I’d become a definitive nerd.
Things changed a little when I went to university and found there were quite a few just like me, and we sort of gravitated towards each other.
After that, getting a job, I still found myself more or less keeping my own company though from time to time one or other of my contemporaries would ask I’d I was going to the drinks after work on Friday night, which usually I avoided.
My contemporaries were a little too outgoing for a self-confessed boring person.
Then things changed, a promotion to a different branch in an office in the next state, with new people and a different atmosphere, fuelled a desire to break the mold I’d created for myself.
It was time to be more outgoing.
…
What kicked off the new attitude was a meeting of department heads. I found that the company had brought together a group of people, hovering in the middle management group, of which I was only one of about a dozen of similar age, experience, and qualifications.
It was an interesting meeting because it was addressed by the current CEO, a man who was rarely seen out of head office, on the other side of the country. We were, he said, the up-and-coming future of the company, and our time in this particular branch would determine our trajectory.
So much easier then to crash and burn.
I was last to leave the room, with much to ponder.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” One of the female attendees had been talking to several others, then turned her attention to me.
“Two weeks on Thursday, but yes.”
I’d see her at various times during the last week, in different parts of the building, leaving me to think she had some sort of managerial role. It was no surprise to learn she was in sales.
“Jennifer Eccles.”
‘Daniel Wells.”
We shook hands, which was a surprise.
“New to the city then?” She asked.
“I am. I’m still working on what I want to see, but there’s plenty of time for that. I have a mountain of reading to get through.”
“You know the saying, all work, and no play…”
She had a look about her that suggested she might be the life of the party, certainly if the meeting was anything to go by, the center of attention.
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
…
I had made our acquaintances in the first week, Oliver Birtwhistle, another introvert like myself, a candidate settling into research and development, right down to the white coat and pencil pack in the pocket.
He had also been at the meeting, and had Bern at the company for three months and had been giving me the drill, who to avoid, who had nuisance value, and how to get ahead if I was that way inclined.
The thing is, he had said, you were sent to this place to prove your boss’s faith in your potential. Each manager of each branch hot to pick the brightest candidate. I had been my manager’s choice, odd because there were others who would have appreciated the opportunity more than me.
He had to go past my office to get to the laboratory and dropped in, flooding into the lounge chair along the sidewall, a remnant of the last office owner who used to sleep on it overnight while going through a messy divorce.
“I see you were ambushed by the incorrigible Jennifer Eccles.”
“You say it as if it’s a bad thing.’
“That’s because it is. You would be well advised to steer clear of her. The last three people like you she selected as work partners all left broken from the experience. She sucks novices dry of all their knowledge, claims it as her own, and moves up another rung.”
“She seems quite nice “
“So does a rattlesnake until it bites you.”
“Well, forewarned is forearmed. She doesn’t have anything to fear from me, I’m not the ambitious sort.”
“That’s not how it works here. You need to be competitive just to stay here. There are no free lunches. Next meeting you’ll be required to make a pitch, and if the boss doesn’t like it, you go back home.”
“You’re still here?”
“That’s more because I have an incompetent manager. It’s easy to create cost/benefit savings when his methods ate all last century. All I’m saying is watch your back.”
…
I never gave Oliver’s advice another thought, as the days passed, and Jennifer was just a shadow on the horizon.
Until she dropped into my office, on her way to somewhere else. Another person, also wary of her, had said she burned shoe soles faster than a spendthrift spent money.
“How are you settling in?”
She sat exactly where Oliver had been a month before.
“Feels like home.”
“See anything of the place?”
“I bought a car, moved into company-assisted accommodation, just haven’t had the time to get out and about.”
“OK. Tell you what, I’m free this weekend, come by my place and I’ll show you around. And, Friday night, drinks in the bar off the cafeteria. You should come, meet the competition.”
“Do I want to?”
“Of course, you do. You want to at least meet the people who are most likely going to stab you in the back.”
“Is that what you do?”
“Me, no. I’m a woman. We use poison. Much more efficient “
…
So, curiosity got the better of me, and on the way out, I had a last-minute change of heart, thinking about what the harm could be.
When I arrived most of the staff cafeteria was already there, and underway, and by the look of it, for some time.
As I’d surmised, Jennifer was the Queen bee surrounded by her drones. Crossing the room, I tried to pick of the ones she had picked up and spat out. Probably all of them, hence her interest in me.
She stopped mid-sentence when she saw me, and then abandoned the group, to come over and give me a kiss on the cheek, and a hug. It did not go unnoticed.
Then we went back to the group with several new faces, and she introduced me. I was ‘the new guy in marketing’ who was ‘working on a huge new concept’. Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about, but let it ride. It was a close approximation of the truth.
This informal get-together was much like a brainstorming session, but to me, with one purpose in mind. Run, clearly, by Jennifer, for the purpose of mining their ideas.
I was encouraged to talk about my huge ideas, but in reality, they were just pie in the sky clouds, there was nothing to talk about. And that seemed to annoy her. It wasn’t for the want of gentle prodding, down to outright asking me, but I generally ignored her, and it was noticed.
Then she manicured us to be alone at the bar. Was this going to be the big push?
“Haven’t forgotten about tomorrow, have you?” She said, sliding a Millers across to me.
She was a beer drinker, a tick in a box if I was ticking boxes.
“No. Looking forward to not talking shop.”
“Oh, you never stop living a breathing work at this level. It can be all-consuming for some. Just as a matter on interest, had any of the orders spoken about me?”
There was that fraction of a second hesitation that could be construed in a dozen different ways. I tried covering it, but she knew, so I tried walking carefully through the mindfully.”
“I suspect that most of the guys I’ve spoken to consider you just a little out of their league. I should be so lucky to be spoken of so highly.”
I had always dreamed of following my father into diplomacy, but there was little on offer these days. The old days had long since been replaced by the new generation who considered diplomats anachronisms of a colonial empire.
She smiled. She was smart enough to see what I was doing. But I was still treading water.
“So, what do you think of me?”
Direct.
“That’s a question of whether you want me to tell you what you want to hear, or tell you what I think, which is something entirely different.”
“What you really think, of course.”
I could see that she didn’t, but this was rapidly leading up a one-way street to the firing squad.
“Here’s the thing. I learned a long time ago that opinions count for nothing, and more often they cause more grief than anything else. You don’t need other people’s opinions of you to validate who you are, and what you want to do with your life, especially not from me.
“I have no opinion. As for me, I am not ambitious, and truth be told I don’t belong here. If the powers that be thought I’d play the competition, there wrong. Actions speak louder than words, and I will do my job to the best of my ability, but I won’t depressive someone else of an opportunity because I think I’m better than them. I’m not.
“I like you, and I’m happy to be your friend or something else if it ever comes to that, but don’t expect me to play the game, or be something I’m not.”
There, I said it, and it was what I intended, and perhaps if she was to read the subtext, would realize I was subtlety telling he she didn’t need to screw everyone over to better herself, but the truth is, she was, and perhaps she didn’t really know it.
Judging by the look on her face, I was blindfolded up against the wall in front of the firing squad, and then we’d just received the ready, aim, and about to say fire.
“Friend, you say.”
“There’s a lot of wiggle room with a word like that. It’s all in the individual interpretation.”
“Wow. For not giving an opinion…”
“I’m sorry it was not what you were expecting.”
It was interesting if not strange in a way to watch her expression change with each new thought pr reaction. I wondered for a moment if any of the other men spoke to her in such a manner
Perhaps not, because they would not want to sully their chance of getting a date with what was a woman that had both brains and beauty. As for me, I hadn’t been thinking of her in that way, but only in terms of how we could work together.
Perhaps that would be regarded as strange also.
Then she smiled, or perhaps it was a smirk, I was not quite sure, but it seemed she had come to a conclusion.
“You do realize no one has ever spoken to me in that manner, especially the men here. I can see now that asking me on a date, or the preliminaries before that are not on your immediate agenda, and, in fact, I suspect you did that to some of the other women here, you’d get a very cold shoulder. I’ll admit now, that you intrigue me, and I want to know more about you. You still want to go touring tomorrow?”
“Of course.”
“Then you can take me home, so you know where to pick me up. But, for now, we’d better get back to the others before we become the subject of tomorrow’s water cooler gossip.
My take: Perhaps I could refine what is and isn’t opinion before I actually did upset someone.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
The Ormiston’s from the papers
…
The Ormiston story and that of the thousand or so acres between the sea and the mountains are now known as Patterson’s reach, but once called The Grove, began in 1865 when the original Henrich Ormiston arrived from Germany.
Originally intending to go to Australia to grow grapes in South Australia, instead, his fate turned West to the Americas, and, eventually, this part of Florida. He started out with the intention of growing grapes, but when that failed to materialize, he moved on to Oranges, hence the name, The Grove.
He had married before leaving Germany and had two children, Marta and Gunter before leaving, and Friedrich after he arrived in 1866. That Friedrich died, according to the gravestone, in 1924. Neither Marta nor Gunter stayed, leaving Friedrich to carry on the business, have an only child which he named after his father, Heinrich, born in 1899 and who died in 1976. He in turn had a single son, which he named Friedrich, the infamous person with who Boggs father had a tempestuous business relationship.
Friedrich was born in 1932, during the depression, and it was about that time that the notion there might be buried treasure, somewhere along that coastal area of Florida, floated by a university professor, Emil Stravinsky, who specialized in old pirates. He had published a book that basically speculated where treasure might be found, and one of those areas was right smack bang in the middle of The Grove.
This information was plucked from the paper’s births, death, and marriages column around the specified dates, the death notices giving some light on the respective Ormiston’s life and toils on their land.
Heinrich, Friedrich’s father, fell for the story hook line and sinker, and with a promise to share the proceeds of an estimated multimillion-dollar trove, invested a fair chunk of the savings he’d amassed over the years in the first of many treasure hunts. The name Stravinsky rang a bell in my head.
A quick look forward to the most recent editions showed it was the man who had died on Rico’s boat, who was, in fact, a third-generation relative of the original professor, an archaeologist in his own right, and digging a bit further into the story, the paper had published a dozen or so extracts from the professor’s book, hinting their subject matter had been derived from a particular pirate’s log, and from notes made over the years of research by the professor. It sounded like there was a diary.
I was going to have to find a copy of the professor’s book, which, if it had been published nearly 90 years ago, would now be out of print.
When the father, Heinrich had failed to locate the treasure, the son Friedrich continued the search, only he put more time and effort into more meticulous research rather than take the professor’s word of its whereabouts.
This was about the time Boggs’s father came into the picture.
He had lived and worked in the Caribbean and discovered quite by chance when a storm had blown his boat way off course on a weekend sailing run, the ruins of an encampment and hidden inlet on an uninhabited island where he believed the pirate had operated from.
While waiting to be rescued, the storm had damaged his boat, he took the time to explore, and although he hadn’t told anyone at the time of his rescue, he had discovered a box buried near where a building had once stood containing a map, several coins, a sextant, and a flag. The news of those discoveries came some years later when it was revealed he’s struck a deal with Ormiston to renew the search for the treasure.
When the result of that expedition came to nothing, each of the partners blamed the other for the lack of success, with Ormiston all but telling anyone who would listen that Boggs had created the map himself for the purpose of extorting money under false pretenses.
Boggs then had to produce the map, where it was authenticated as a map that had been created at the time of the pirate’s reign, but no one could say whether it was just an invention of someone at the time, or it was real. The fact nothing was found suggested the latter, and it marked to start of the feud between Boggs and Ormiston.
The question in my mind was whether Boggs had that particular map, and had he shown it briefly to me? Certainly, one of the maps he had was quite old, but there were so many variations, and they all looked equally as old, it was hard to tell.
One point I was quite certain on, none of the maps I’d seen showed the treasure’s final resting place as being in a cave, and I got the impression just before when I’d run into Boggs, that it was exactly where he was going.
Had that been the clue his father had referred to? Even with the so-called original map, if it showed the treasure hidden in a cave why did Boggs need Ormiston’s help?
Had Ormiston known that might be the final resting place of the treasure?
I would soon find out. My next stop was the library.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 