"How can they do that? You're the most important scientist they have. Without you, the anti-aging hormone will never win the prize for them, much less bring in billions of dollars in new revenue for the company," Maria said.
"They were never going to win the prize. It can only be awarded to a person or in some cases, up to three people. They were just going to ride on my coattails, get the publicity for being the lab where the hormone was discovered, and then market it. It would translate into big dollars for them.
“The deal is, I signed several contracts when I went to work for them," Jeffrey said. "Every scientist they hire is required to sign a bunch of stuff. I violated their contract when I gave you the hormone. Sidney caught me off guard and I didn't lie to him when he asked me if I had given it to you. Also, they probably would have called you in and I didn't want you to be hurt any more by this than you're going to be. Sidney felt that he couldn't trust me any longer and told me that if I'd violated that part of the contract, there was a good chance that I would violate other parts."
"Maria interrupted him, "But you're the one who discovered the hormone. Doesn't it belong to you? Since you're the one who discovered it, wouldn't every laboratory around still want you to work for them?"
"I wish," Jeffrey said, "but the contract spells out that any discoveries made by scientists in the employ of Moore Labs belong to Moore Labs. I'm irrelevant now that I've been fired. My contract was 'at will' so they had the right to fire me without notice. I'm pretty sure that no other company will hire me now. I suppose the bright side is that we won't have to worry about money. They gave me four million dollars, half now and the other half in one year if I don't sell the formula to some other company. I don't know where to go or what to do. Science has been my life. They could sue me, but evidently they have decided an out-of-court settlement is better for them. At least that's a bright spot in my day. It’s kind of sad when the brightest spot in your day is that someone has decided not to sue you."
Jeffrey put his head in his hands. "I'm not sure if any of the other employees in the lab know what has happened. The only one I met with was Sidney. Oh yeah, he had his secretary there as well. He probably wanted some backup in case I did or said something crazy."
Maria looked at Jeffrey and said, "Let's leave town for a while. We need to make some plans and that's going to be hard to do here. Everyone from your fellow scientists at Moore to all your other friends are going to be calling and asking you what happened. Finish your drink. We'll go home, pack a few things, get in the car, head east, and see where it takes us."
She stood up, put on her coat, and headed for the door, looking neither right nor left. There was no trace of her usual warm smile. Her lips were grimly drawn together. She appeared pale and terribly worried. It suddenly occurred to Maria that Jeffrey might not be able to acquire the materials and chemicals he needed to make the anti-aging hormone. She began to panic just thinking about the future. All of her old fears came crashing back. It had been a few years since she had even considered the possibility of aging and it was not a pleasant thought. She walked by a table of Moore employees and looked straight ahead without acknowledging them. When they called out her name, she didn't answer, pretending she hadn't heard. Jeffrey took a few bills out of his wallet, threw them on the table, and quickly followed her out the door.
They drove to the condominium they bought shortly after they were married, parked the car, and took the elevator up to their third floor unit, closing the door behind them. For the first time in the last few hours, Jeffrey felt safe. As the enormity of what had just happened began to sink in, his shock turned into an ice-cold anger. Maria started to cry. The reality of the situation was becoming very clear to her. She told Jeffrey how scared she was that she wouldn't be able to get the injections anymore; that she'd be cut off from the hormone and would become old and ugly. Even in his pain and anger, Jeffrey couldn't stand to see Maria in tears. He promised her that no matter what happened, he would find a way to continue the injections. He told her they'd talk more about it later, but right now he wanted to get out of town before anyone came to the door or the phone started ringing.
Maria didn't know how long they'd be gone so she watered the plants, transferred a few things from the refrigerator to the freezer, and packed a small travel suitcase. She made sandwiches and put some sodas in a cooler.
Jeffrey checked to see that he had his credit cards and threw some clothes into a tote bag. He changed the message on the answering machine, asking the caller to call his or Maria's cell phone, allowing them to monitor whoever was trying to get in touch with them. Both of them were anxious to get out of Irvine.
They took a freeway route that headed towards the Inland Empire area in Riverside County. Jeffrey just wanted to be in the open spaces and let the desert clear his head. He didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone. From Riverside he took the freeway route that traveled through some of the most barren and desolate areas of California. Before entering the desert, they made a quick stop at a gas station and then Jeffrey turned the car towards Phoenix.
By now it was 9:30 p.m. and the wintry, desert air had turned cold. The car handled easily on the nearly empty highway. Between the high speeds and the cool wind, Jeffrey began to feel a little better. He knew he could never return to Irvine and that he had to find work somewhere else. The four million dollars promised to him by Sidney would not last forever. He needed some sort of long-range plan, hopefully one that would allow him to continue working on the development of his hormone discovery
Sidney wouldn't be giving him a glowing recommendation; that he knew for sure. He was also certain that Sidney wouldn't go into the details of the dismissal with any companies that might have an interest in him. Sidney would describe the incident in such a way that no company would ever hire him, no matter how brilliant he was. He was screwed and he knew it. He looked over at Maria, still enchanted at how stunningly beautiful she was, and he knew if he had to, he'd do it all over again.
They'd been driving for two and a half hours and he was tired, physically and emotionally. He was on the verge of exhaustion when he saw a roadside sign advertising a motel at the next off ramp. "Maria, I'm tired and I don't think I can go on. Is it OK with you if we stop at this motel up ahead and spend the night? Things will look different in the morning. We don't have to be anywhere and I'm pretty sure there's not much between here and Phoenix. I just don't think I can safely drive for a couple more hours."
"I'm tired too,” she said. "Yes, let's stop here. It's late and we've only stopped once since we left Irvine. It's been one hell of a day, one I would like to see end, even if it's in the middle of nowhere."
As he turned into the broken down service road that led from the freeway off ramp, he noticed a number of high voltage wires, more than he would have expected in this out-of-the-way place. He pulled into the empty motel parking lot. A cold wind was blowing and tumbleweeds scuttled across the lot. It was an unforgiving land, yet for some reason he was drawn to it. The desert was a lonely place, but in his present situation, the loneliness appealed to him. Other than Maria, he really didn't want to ever be around people again. He just wanted his experiments, his science.
A naked light bulb hung from a frayed cord above a sign that said "Recepion." If the owner couldn't even spell "Reception," Jeffrey could just imagine how great the room was going to be. Maintenance at the motel had been badly neglected. Jeffrey thought some desert rat probably owned it. He figured that the owner either didn't have any money to put into repairs or so few people stopped at the motel the owner simply didn't feel there was any reason to spend money fixing it up. Old, decaying buildings like this were not that unusual in remote desert areas. Time had passed them by and Mother Nature was slowly taking the upper hand. Theirs was the only car in the parking lot.
Maria and Jeffrey got out of the car and walked up to the door with the word "Office" printed on it in faded blue letters. Entering the unlocked door, they rang the bell on
the reception desk, waiting for someone to acknowledge them. After a few minutes, a grizzled old man with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth shuffled into the room from the back and asked if he could help them. His shirt was stained with food and his huge belly hung over the big turquoise belt that struggled to hold up his pants.
"My wife and I need a room for tonight. Do you have anything?" Jeffrey asked.
"Sure. It ain't the best motel room in the world, but if yer tired, it'll be a good place to sleep. It's cheap, only $50.00 and it's clean," the old man said.
Maria knew how tired Jeffrey was and decided they would spend the night there no matter how bad the room was. It was that or risk an accident. She hadn't said anything to him, but she was sure he had nodded off a couple of times during the last half hour he'd been driving. Jeffrey filled out the guest registration form the old man gave them and paid for the room with his credit card. The old man handed them a key and told them to follow the walkway to room number 2.
The walkway cement had huge cracks and parts of it were just holes where once there had been cement. An old children's saying played in Maria's mind as they walked to their room, "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." She didn't know where that was coming from. Maybe it was the sense that she was a child again, not knowing what the future held.
While the room wasn't great, it was just as the old man had described, clean and cheap. Faded wallpaper peeled away from the wall under a heating vent over the bathroom door. The bathroom had no amenities other than a plunger standing guard next to the toilet. Maria hadn't had much experience with motel rooms, but even she knew that having a plunger on "standby" was not a good sign. She was glad that she had brought her own soap and shampoo. The blankets were thin and the towels were worn, but the room would do for the night. They ate the sandwiches she'd fixed earlier. Exhausted, they got in bed and immediately fell asleep.
When they awoke the next morning, the desert air was crisp and clean and the sky was a spectacular shade of blue. There was not a bit of city smog and you could easily see for twenty miles. It was as if they could reach out and touch the nearby Eagle and Coxcomo Mountains. Having no desire to stay at the motel any longer than necessary, they returned the room key to the old man. As they were walking away, he said, "By the way, if you know anyone who wants to buy this joint, I'd sell it real cheap. I'm getting too old to run it and my health has taken a turn for the worse thanks to those damn cancer sticks I'm always suckin' on," he said. They told him they'd keep it in mind, got in their car, and headed back towards the highway.
Maria and Jeffrey arrived in the Phoenix area just before noon. "Let's get some lunch. We haven't eaten anything since last night and it's too early to find a room." Maria said. "There's a restaurant in Phoenix I've read about that's supposed to have the best Mexican food in the world. I entered the name of it on my iPhone. I'll call them."
Several minutes later they were on their way to the restaurant after realizing they were just a short distance from its location. They pulled into the packed parking lot. Obviously, they weren't the only ones who had heard about it. The small building was painted in the colors of the Mexican flag, red, green, and white. A large handwritten menu was taped over a window where a man was taking orders. To his left was the kitchen where an old woman was hand forming and frying one tortilla after another on a hot griddle. The take-out style food that the small kitchen was turning out was mouthwatering. The only seating available was at small tables located under a large, white canvas awning. Maria and Jeffrey took their iced teas, found an empty wooden table, and waited for their number to be called.
They looked around. The tented room was filled with every type of desert cactus that could be grown in the Phoenix area, their spikey cactus blooms jutting out of the various shades of green in a myriad of colors. The review Maria had read in the magazine said the restaurant catered to a cross section of the Phoenix population. The review had been right. There were well-dressed men in suits sitting next to ranchers in cowboy hats. Students, medical personnel in their scrubs, and women who spared no expense in personal upkeep were all there. The food was the best Mexican food they'd ever had and Maria was pretty critical when it came to Mexican food. They shared chili rellenos, baked cheese, fresh tortillas with salsa, and an incredible pork stew. Stuffed, they walked out of the restaurant, feeling good for the first time in 24 hours.
"Well," Jeffrey said, "now what? Where do we go and what do we do? I'm absolutely lost."
"I've been thinking," Maria said. "You know how that old man back at the motel said it was for sale? Well, what if we bought it? Don't say no until you hear me out. It couldn't be too much money. I mean, how many buyers do you think he's going to have? It looked like there was a small house in the back where we could live and you've always talked about what you would like to have in a lab if you could build your own. Well, this is your chance. You could build your own lab just the way you want it and then conduct your experiments right on the premises where we live. You will have the best of both worlds. The place is remote and no one will be watching over your shoulder. You could sell any new discoveries you make to drug companies and since they'd be new discoveries, your past work with Moore Labs wouldn't be a problem. We have enough money. We could fix up the motel and make it inviting with a better welcoming sign along the highway.”
Jeffrey interrupted her. “Wait a minute. What are you talking about?”
Maria continued, "I bet we're not the only travelers who got tired on that long drive and there's nothing else for miles. We could get some better electricity and install Wi-Fi. Most importantly, we'd be together. If we buy that motel we can accomplish the two things that are most important to us, being together and continuing your research. I'd be fine being alone with you in the desert. We decided before we were married that we wouldn't have any children, so being far away from schools and city life really wouldn't be a problem for me. I love to cook and I could make things for travelers to eat, not a full service restaurant, but things they could heat up in a microwave. I could prepare casseroles at night and coffeecakes for in the morning. You wouldn't have to do anything concerning the day-to-day operation of the motel. I'll do it all. While I take care of the motel, you could continue your research full time. What do you think?"
Jeffrey was at a loss for words. He had promptly forgotten the conversation with the old man. Just idle talk, he thought. Clearly though, Maria had given it a lot of thought on the drive to Phoenix. At first, it seemed like the craziest thing he had ever heard, but as he thought more about it, he realized her idea had some merit. There were a number of new experiments he wanted to try. Some were only quasi-legal and he knew no bona fide scientific laboratory would allow him to do them. There were ideas he had that might work, but only if no one was around to monitor him while he conducted his research. If he lived at the motel, he would be totally alone with no one snooping around or asking dumb questions.
He liked the idea of complete privacy that the motel's location provided. If one of his projects didn't work out, no one would know and he could just go on to the next one. He knew where he could get the supplies and materials that he would need. Maria was probably right about the motel not being expensive. He couldn't imagine there would be a bidding war going on for a run-down motel in the middle of nowhere.
During the last year or so, another thought had come to him from time to time. Maria was taking the anti-aging hormone and clearly, she was not aging. If anything, she was more beautiful than ever. Jeffrey knew that some of the best scientific discoveries in history had been made by older scientists who were getting up in years. When he started work on his anti-aging hormone, he had decided he wouldn’t take it. That was before he met Maria. He had started to worry that as he aged, she would begin to look around for a more attractive man, one who was younger. There was a fourteen-year age difference between the two of them and while it didn't seem to matter now, later on it might.
Certainly every
person who saw her was struck by her incomparable beauty. He was still completely mesmerized by her shimmering black hair, her high cheekbones, the large welcoming smile, the incredibly white teeth, and a female figure that could serve as a poster for every plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. What people didn't know was that everything about Maria was natural with the exception of the anti-aging hormone, which kept her looking young. If they lived at the motel, he could keep her to himself. He knew she needed him for the hormone and he also knew she really loved him. The chances of her leaving him for a younger man might be dramatically reduced if he agreed to her proposal. Buying the motel might just be the answer to everything.
Jeffrey weighed the consequences of Maria's suggested course of action. He didn't want to ever see anyone from Moore Scientific Labs again. He didn't want to answer questions and he didn't want to discuss what had taken place in Sidney's office. He and Maria both loved to read and they enjoyed a quiet type of life, but could they live the rest of their lives alone in the desert with just an occasional traveler to talk to besides each other? He didn't know. But he was also pretty sure that he was looking at a menu of very limited choices.
"Jeffrey, let's go back to the motel. Let's take our time and really look at it. We need to think about what we could do to improve it. And just as importantly, we need to find out how much he wants for it. I know it sounds crazy, but it might work. We can't spend the rest of our lives running from place to place. The cost of improving it will probably be far more than what we'll pay for it. We could sell our condominium and the beauty of the motel’s location is that we'd still only be a few hours from our families. By the way, we need to think of something to tell them. If we bought the motel, we could just say you're suffering from burnout and we decided to do something totally different. It would work. I feel it."
Blue Coyote Motel Page 11
