by JB Dutton
* * * * *
The small Italian eatery was really buzzing considering it was a Monday night. Chatter filled the air, the wine was flowing and the waiter was flirting shamelessly with Mom. I’d almost forgotten the day’s weirdness. But I had to find out more about the Temple of Truth.
I took a bite of my thin-crust pizza and tried to look nonchalant. “Did you know that the ToT has an office in our building?”
“Oh yes,” she replied. “I assumed that’s how they knew about the apartment being available.”
I nodded. So that was it. No mystery there. But something inside me wasn’t satisfied. “So they’re some kind of religious organization, right?”
“Kind of. They have Temples all over the world.”
“So why do they need a software engineer?”
She took a sip of wine. “Good question. It’s kind of interesting. They don’t believe in technology.”
“Oh, like the Amish? Do they have beards and black hats too?”
“I, um, I don’t know,” she shrugged.
“What do you mean?” I wondered.
“I haven’t seen them.”
“Seen who?”
“The members of the Temple,” she explained, matter-of-factly.
I stopped chewing. “I don’t get it. The people you work with...”
“They were hired by the Temple authorities, like me.”
“Okaaaay... so at the interview?”
“Nope.”
“Has anyone in the office seen them?”
“I guess. I never thought to ask.”
I studied her as she scooped up some lasagna with her fork. It wasn’t like her to be so uncurious. The waiter appeared and refilled our glasses.
“How is everything over here?” he asked, eyes twinkling at Mom. He was working hard for his tip.
“Oh, wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” she said, blushing a little.
She deserves this new shot at life. She’s worked so hard and now it’s paying off. And she deserves a new shot at love, too.
The waiter departed and I winked at Mom. “Wonderful, absolutely wonderful, isn’t he?”
She shook her head at me, grinning, as if to say, “I can’t believe you’re teasing me about a guy.”
I let the subject of the ToT drop for a few minutes and we chatted about a bunch of random stuff. It felt great, chilling with Mom in the big city. When our desserts arrived (tiramisu and tartufo – two words that have never passed the lips of a single inhabitant of Lancaster, Wisconsin) I felt like the time was right to probe a bit more without seeming too inquisitive.
“So what kind of software are you working on? Some kind of barn-raising algorithm?”
She winced as the cold ice cream hit her teeth. “You’re funny. It’s not as exciting as that. They have a database and need to coordinate the information from the Temples in other countries.”
“What kind of database?”
“It’s a genetics thing.”
This sounded interesting. “Oh? So they’re like Mormons crossed with Amish?”
“You’re confusing genealogy with genetics, honey,” she said as she signaled the waiter to bring her the check. “All I know is that they’re paying me a huge chunk of change to head up the project, so I’m not going to ruffle any feathers by prying.”
And that was it. She really didn’t know anything juicy about her new employers. In fact, she didn’t know anything about them at all. The waiter got his tip, Mom said that we’d be back soon and I was happy to see her in such good spirits.
As soon as we got home I grabbed my laptop and Googled them. Nothing on Wikipedia. A few links on Google but nothing that sounded like the ToT Mom was working for. This was bizarre. A world-wide religious organization with zero online presence? Even for technophobes, this was hard to believe. How would they find new members? How would they spread the word? Maybe they used carrier pigeons and messages in bottles tossed into the ocean.
