Uncle and Ants

by Marc Jedel

  “I’m a software engineer. It’s a driverless car service.”

  “You can order a car that drives people around without a driver?”

  Off to the side, one of the young men looked stricken by the concept.

  I didn’t want to confirm that my work might put the young man out of a job while he still pointed a gun in my direction. “Sort of.”

  The tattooed man made a small waving gesture with his hands. The guns went down but still stayed in their hands. Software engineers don’t scare normal people, let alone gangs.

  After taking a deeper breath, I could no longer hear my heart beating in my ears. If I hadn’t needed to go to the bathroom before, I definitely needed to go now. Maybe I’d live long enough to get to one.

  The tattooed man chuckled to himself. “I have an idea.”

  Any idea that didn’t involve gunfire was fine with me.

  “Can you order a driverless car sent to the boss?” he asked.

  “Who is the boss?” I asked without thinking.

  He grunted. “Fernando.”

  So, tattooed man was only in charge when Fernando isn’t around. “Yes. Sure.” I paused before adding, “But only from my office.” My own inspiration surprised me.

  The tattooed man believed me this time. Maybe everyone’s an advertising expert, but not everyone’s an expert software engineer. He didn’t stop to consider that a car service wouldn’t be much use if it could only be ordered from your office. He took out a pen and wrote on the back of my business card. “Here, you call this number and you will find out where to send the car to him tomorrow.” He hesitated. “The boss, he is staying at a friend’s house tonight.”

  The other men snickered at this but stopped when the tattooed man glared at them.

  His dark eyes glittered when he turned back to me. “You don’t tell anyone and make sure you get it to him tomorrow or we will come find you at Rover. And your sister. You won’t like that if we have to come find you. Understand?”

  I nodded as my heartbeat sped up again. I stuffed the card he handed me into my pocket.

  He set his beer down on the table and pointed a stubby, scarred finger at me. “Tomorrow, I want you to send a red Land Rover to Fernando. He will like a big, big one. With armor plating. And champagne. Yes, he likes champagne. You will do this.” He squinted at me with beady eyes, checking to make sure I understood.

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Uh …,” I stammered. “I’m really sorry, but we only have small, electric cars. Good mileage and they’re cheap.”

  “You think I am cheap?” The guns went back up. “You think Fernando wants cheap?” The tattooed man was not amused.

  I stopped breathing again. Sweat poured down my sides. “No, no. We are cheap. Not you. It is us. Rover. It is marketing that is cheap.”

  The tattooed man waited for what felt like an eternity. I held my breath while he glowered at me.

  Finally, he spoke. “The boss does not want a cheap car. You bring him a red Land Rover tomorrow for a test drive if you know what’s good for you.” He took a swig of his beer. “Now get out of here with your cheap cars and don’t come back.”

  I let out my breath. My wallet was thrust back into my hands and I was shoved out the door into the corridor before I could blink. I decided I didn’t need to go to the bathroom as much as I had thought. I scampered back down the corridor to the restaurant, away from the now-closed door of the private dining room.

  When I came back through the swinging door, the young waitress sat at the table talking to the girls. I’d been gone for longer than expected.

  “You took a long time,” complained Megan.

  I could only manage, “Let’s go.” Paying with my phone took mere seconds before we walked out into the street. I didn’t stop looking over my shoulders until we were safely in the Rover car on our way back to my apartment. The girls didn’t seem to notice my silence as they planned what they would tell their mother about yucky poo-poo and delicious, black bean volcanoes. No one had ever pointed a gun at me, let alone six. At least, not since some water guns during hot summer days growing up.

  Later that evening, Megan asked, “What should we dream about tonight?”

  “I don’t really feel up to a new idea —” I started, still shaken from the restaurant.

  Megan interrupted, “You have to. You promised. Mom always gives me ideas. I want Mom to come home.” Her eyes welled up and she started to sniffle.

  I couldn’t let this get out of hand. Laney was safe, protected by a police officer, and she’d be home any day now. Without pausing to think, I proposed the first idea that popped into my head, combining a previous, award-winning concept with tonight’s successful dinner. “How about dreaming of dogs and volcanos?”

  This earned me a full eye roll from Skye.

  “No, that’s scary. Do you want me to have a nightmare?” Megan’s tears dried up as she gave me a look filled with horror.

  “Sorry. How about dreaming of Labrador puppies eating black beans?”

  Skye snorted. “Wouldn’t that make a dog sick? My friend’s dog ate some human food and he threw up all over the house.”

  “How would I know? I’ve never had a dog before.” Maybe only movie dogs ate food from the table. It’s probably from their specialized actor training.

  Both girls turned their heads to watch me, with their dark hair spread all over their faces. How did girls with long hair avoid pulling their own hair and waking themselves up when they sleep? I thought it would bother me to have hair in my face while I slept. Of course, plenty of men with beards slept perfectly well.

  I’d rarely seen my own daughter, Amanda, sleep when she was this age. My kids had lived with their mother since our divorce soon after Eli’s birth. In any case, long hair had never interrupted my own sleep, and with each passing year, it seemed less and less likely to affect me. If I asked Amanda to explain, my text messages would either go ignored or she’d send me links to hair restoration websites. This had to remain just another great, unsolved mystery of the world.

  “Earth to Uncle Marty?” Megan brought me back to my current dilemma.

  The girls stared at me now, patience waning, curious to see what crazy idea would pop out next. The pressure grew. I’d wasted time getting sidetracked rather than brainstorming for brilliant ideas. Needing to avoid my third strike, I proposed another idea based on my previous successes.

  “Dream about a Labrador puppy playing with you and your mom in a park.” Ka-boom. Nailed it! Anticipating my congratulatory high-five, I put out my hand.

  Megan squirmed a little on her pillow. “That’s kinda boring. And you shouldn’t use the same dream every night.” She ignored my hand.

  Didn’t nail it. “Well, sleep is supposed to be boring … so you can fall asleep.”

  With only a little grumbling they accepted my excuse after I promised to do better tomorrow. I turned out the light and stood up from the side of their bed. Maybe Laney didn’t invent new ideas every night and simply used something that happened earlier in her day? However, after leaving out any mention of drones holding up floating hammocks, security guards tackling you, klaxons, worldwide drone tracking control centers, Amber Alerts, South American drug gangs and weapon carrying chefs, I didn’t have any more creativity left tonight. I wanted the girls to sleep through the night rather than causing them new nightmares.

  As I closed the bedroom door and left the girls’ room, Megan’s sleepwalking gave me an idea. From the front closet, I took some string. To double-check, I opened the office doors and confirmed the room was empty. Pulling the doors shut, I tied and knotted the string tightly around the handles of the two office doors. I pulled on the handles but couldn’t budge the doors without serious effort. No one could get inside without taking off the string. That should keep a sleep-walking Megan out of the office and in the right bed.

  Finally triumphant, I high-fived myself before crawling into bed too. Tomorrow, I had to locate a
red Land Rover.

  23

  Friday Morning

  I walked out of my bedroom in the morning dressed and ready in my normal work attire. Working in Silicon Valley had its perks. Seeing that my office doors still had the string tied around them made me smile. I’d finally stopped Megan’s sleepwalking, or her defiance.

  I opened the door to the girls’ room and discovered that only Skye lay there. “What? Where’s Megan?”

  Mumbling greeted me. Not a morning person, Skye buried her head under her pillow.

  Pulse accelerating, I hurried out to check my apartment’s entrance door. The door indicator showed that it hadn’t been opened since we got home from the restaurant. I didn’t find Megan hiding in the kitchen, closet, or living room. I walked back to check the bathroom or if I had missed her in my room.

  As I passed, the office doors started shaking. “Hey, let me out of here,” yelled Megan.

  “Megan? What are you doing in there? I’m right here. Let me get these strings off the door.” I couldn’t untie the taut string wrapped around the door knobs. I went back to the kitchen, grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut through the string.

  Megan burst out of the room into the hall as both doors swung open and banged into the opposite wall. “Uncle Marty, that’s mean. I’m going to tell Mommy that you locked me inside.” She stormed off to the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Skye stood staring at me from her doorway and shook her head. “Geez, Uncle Marty. That’s dangerous. What if there was a fire?” She too slammed the door, leaving me alone in the hallway, rubbing my head, bewildered. But … how’d that happen?

  Today hadn’t gotten off to a good start. I had to find a way to dig myself out of this hole. Somehow, I didn’t think frozen waffles or peanut butter sandwiches would save the day for Uncle Marty. Uncles were supposed to be heroes, not villains. Besides, I didn’t want to get in trouble with Laney. Not on a day when I had to find a red Land Rover and watch Mace arrest Rollag.

  I shouted down the hallway. “Hey girls! Get ready for school quickly and we can go out for a fast breakfast before I drop you off.”

  Cheering broke out, which saved my hero self-image, for today.

  In record time, we made it into a Rover car. Yesterday morning, I’d noticed that Starbucks served veggie smoothies and some healthy breakfast options, as well as coffee. Who knew? The girls could get some healthy vegetables and, hopefully, would forget this morning’s little incident.

  As I got out of the car, I told it to “Stay.” I’d started to appreciate the value of this idea from the marketing team. Although, I’d avoid telling them so we didn’t have more crazy ideas thrown at the engineers under ridiculously short timelines.

  My shoelace flopped on the ground. As I knelt to tie my shoes, I got a good whiff of fish sauce and my hands felt sticky from the laces that I hadn’t cleaned.

  “My hands got dirty,” I told the girls. “Go order one of the smoothies and something small, like a yogurt, if you want. I’ll run to the restroom first to wash my hands.”

  When I came out, Skye gestured for me to hurry up. The cashier stood waiting impatiently while a short line had formed behind the girls. I walked up and ordered. “Strawberry yogurt, please. And Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

  The cashier didn’t find my Trekkie humor amusing. “How else would tea be served?”

  “Is Brody here?” I asked while I paid for our order.

  The cashier tilted her head and glanced skeptically at me, not believing me cool enough to associate with Brody. “No, he works later today.”

  I might not look like Brody’s friends, but the girls would have gotten a kick out of meeting him. We moved to the side to wait for our order.

  Skye gave me a full report about her order. “I ordered a small, Sweet Greens smoothie. It has green juice from celery, cucumber, and spinach. Then they add Greek yogurt, banana, and a little mango juice. And you can even add fresh kale to it. So, I did that too. And I got a spinach, egg wrap. I hope that’s ok, Uncle Marty?”

  No complaints from me. She’d ordered four green vegetables. “Sure.” I didn’t even know that cucumber and spinach could be made into juice. Grinding up spinach made pesto, not juice, or was that basil? I wouldn’t know as my pesto came pre-made in a jar. The English habit of eating cucumber sandwiches had always sounded odd to me. An occasional cucumber might not ruin a salad, but you needed to add more substantial fillings to create a complete sandwich.

  “Yeah, I wanted to eat healthy like Mom does.”

  Her words reminded me how much the girls missed their mother. I needed to help Mace figure out what was going on before Laney came home from the hospital and she lost her police protection. “I’ll check with your mom’s doctor again. She’ll come home soon. Maybe we’ll call her again after school.” Mace had to wrap up this case soon.

  Both girls grinned. Skye might have done a little happy dance, even if she would never admit it.

  I turned to ask Megan about her order, but the exciting news had turned her helpful.

  “I’ll go get some napkins.” Megan darted off and grabbed enough napkins for an army. This reminded me again of Laney. She always grabbed an excessive number of napkins, whether she was eating ice cream or crackers.

  The barista called our order and we went to pick it up at the counter. Skye grabbed a green drink and a wrap that looked like it had spinach, tomatoes, and eggs inside. Next to it, along with my yogurt and tea was a tall chocolate-colored drink with a big topping of whipped cream with sprinkles and a croissant.

  I squinted at the food. “Megan, what did you order?”

  “I ordered a smoothie and a croissant like you told me.” She grabbed the chocolate smoothie and licked her croissant. She must have felt a safety precaution was in order.

  Still confused, I asked, “But, what is it? It looks like a milkshake.”

  “It’s a chocolate smoothie with extra whipped cream, sprinkles, and a chocolate croissant. It’s on the menu.” Megan took a big bite of the croissant and, as chocolate spread across her face, demonstrated that Starbucks hadn’t skimped on their croissant filling.

  “Um,” I didn’t know where to start. “That’s not very healthy.”

  “Chocolate is a bean and beans are vegetables, right? And there’s a banana in my smoothie so I even have fruit too.” The whipped cream spread across Megan’s face as she took a big sip.

  I grinned. How could I complain when she used her brains to outsmart me? I’d need to remember the bit about chocolate being a bean to use some other time myself. The girls made quite the dynamic duo — each clever in her own way.

  We got back into the Rover car to take the girls to school and me to work. When we pulled up to the school, I saw that my favorite school secretary, Mrs. Quarles, directed the drop-off lane flow on Fridays with paramilitary precision. Uh-oh.

  The car pulled into the driveway and stopped. Mrs. Quarles opened the back door. “Everybody out. We have lots of students who need to get to school today.”

  The girls grabbed their backpacks and scrambled out the door.

  Mrs. Quarles stopped them. “Skye and Megan Tran. Do you have your signed Excused Absence Forms?”

  They stood mute, frozen in place. I hollered through the back door, “I forgot them this morning, Mrs. Quarles. I’ll make sure they bring them on Monday.”

  “Yes, that is quite important. We need to have all forms returned in a timely manner or the girls will have to stay late on detention.” She trailed off as she took a closer look at both girls. “What’s that on your faces? Is that whipped cream?” She turned to look at me with her mouth open and horror filling her eyes.

  Both girls also turned back to look at me, eyes wide with scared expressions on their faces. During the ride, Skye must have decided she needed to share some of Megan’s smoothie.

  “Yes, it was a special morning so I got a smoothie for the girls.”

  The girls exhaled as I threw myself under the bus. The girls made
their escape to their classrooms as Mrs. Quarles’ hawklike attention shifted fully to me. Go, girls, go!

  Her vision honed in on the cup lying discarded on the backseat. “A chocolate smoothie with whipped cream and sprinkles? Highly irregular and extremely unhealthy.”

  Idly, I wondered how Mrs. Quarles knew the Starbucks chocolate smoothies came with sprinkles as none were left by now. I decided not to probe.

  She continued her diatribe. “You are aware that’s a milkshake, are you not? It’s not a proper breakfast for students. Rule 24 reminds parents that eating a healthy breakfast is the foundation of a good education. We sent home flyers outlining healthy eating choices to get signed at the beginning of this year. Obviously, you did not read it. I’ll send another home with the girls for you to sign tonight.”

  “It had a banana …” I tried Megan’s excuse before my voice trailed off.

  “Indeed.” Mrs. Quarles stood, her head tilted at just the right angle, contemplating me through the car’s door with her hands on her hips.

  A car farther back in line beeped at us. Easy to be brave when Mrs. Quarles’ eyes weren’t boring into you.

  “Well, I don’t have time to lecture you this morning with the rush. Move along and I’ll just make a note to have a word with the girls’ mother about more healthy eating choices.” She jotted a note in her notebook and slammed the car door shut.

  Chalk up another great start to my day. Not only would Laney hear about how Uncle Marty had locked Megan into the office creating a safety hazard, but Mrs. Quarles would tell her that I had fed the girls chocolate milkshakes for breakfast. Unless I figured out how to get their Excused Absence Forms signed, the girls would have to stay late on Monday for detention. And if we couldn’t figure out who was after Laney, she could die. Uncle Marty would lose his hero status for sure.

  Sigh.

  Raj looked up when I dropped my stuff at my desk. “Oh, do you still work here?”