W: The Planner, The Chosen

by Alexandra Swann

  That night Kris dreamed that she was in Las Vegas on vacation with Ben. In her dream her hair was long and dark, and she was wearing a periwinkle-blue fitted sheath dress that brought out the color in her eyes. Ben was playing roulette and winning—even in her dream Kris was surprised to see him having such good luck. He looked so handsome in his suit—and so happy. She was holding onto his arm—she could smell his cologne and hear his voice and his laughter. It was such a wonderful dream that when she woke up, for just a moment, she imagined that she was back in her home waking up in her king-size bed and that she could roll over and feel Ben next to her.

  But just at that moment she became more awake, and the reality of where she really was swallowed her beautiful dream with deep sadness. She had not thought about Ben in her waking hours for a long time now, but her dream was so vivid, and she remembered so much about him and about her previous life. For the rest of the day she was deeply depressed. She was still depressed when she walked down to the dining hall for dinner that evening.

  “We missed you last night,” the server commented as she stood in line to be served.

  “I took my parents to dinner in town.”

  “Really?” the woman in line behind her commented. Kris turned and recognized Eva Brinks, one of the federal lifers who had been transferred to FMPD. Within weeks of moving there, Kris had learned that while a few people in the FE community were new to federal employment, most were life-long civil servants who had applied with the new agency and been hired. She disliked this group of people intensely because they hated private enterprise and took every opportunity to tout their own belief that a life which involved working for and living under the thumb of government was the best life possible. Kris decided to ignore Eva, but Eva was not to be ignored. She had spent her whole life as a staff attorney with various federal agencies; now she was council for FMPD. Every unambitious cell in her body reeked of socialism and big government.

  “Why did you do that? Don’t your parents live at W? Why didn’t you just go over to W and eat with them?” Eva persisted.

  “It was a special occasion, Eva. Father’s Day and my mother’s birthday and their wedding anniversary are all within days of each other. I wanted to do something they would enjoy.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “We went to their favorite steakhouse. We had dinner and relaxed. It was a lot of fun.”

  “And they wouldn’t have had the same amount of fun eating in the community at the dining hall, around their friends? You had to take them out of the community for them to have fun?”

  The depression that had engulfed Kris all day was morphing into anger. “No, they wouldn’t have, and yes I did. As far as I know, they don’t have any friends. And, no, eating eco-friendly, badly-prepared slop does not compare with a great steak and baked potato and a delicious piece of cake. Anybody who thinks it does has never had a good meal.” The servers’ eyes grew wide, and Kris realized that she had offended the entire dining hall cooking staff who were within earshot of her, but she didn’t care. This was such a preposterous conversation.

  “If they don’t have any friends, they probably learned their social skills from their daughter,” Eva retorted. “But then you used to be a real estate agent, and—wasn’t your boyfriend a mortgage broker? So you never thought about the environment or the planet in your life—you only thought about how you were going to spend the money you made ripping people off by putting them in houses they couldn’t afford and loans they couldn’t pay back. I would think that after crashing the economy and causing all of this unemployment and the bailouts and finally ending up working for the government you would understand the damage that you caused. People like you want everything for themselves—you don’t want to share, you don’t want to take care of the environment. You don’t care who you hurt.”

  By now Kris had finished going through the line to receive her meal, and she turned to face Eva squarely. “People like me? People like me kept the economy moving after 9/11. People like me got up every day and went to work sixty to seventy hours a week. Nobody gave us a paycheck; we made our own money and our own opportunities. When we were through working, we enjoyed great restaurants and great vacations and nice homes and good cars because we had worked really hard to pay for those things after we paid all of our other bills. And let’s not forget that we also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes so that people like you could sit in government offices and collect a check for doing absolutely nothing but sitting around trying to think of ways to take everything that we worked for.”

  Eva looked shocked. She had made a lot of snide remarks about the real estate industry within earshot of Kris, but this was the first time that Kris had ever responded. Kris kept going, “For your information, I never ripped anybody off, and neither did Ben. All of our clients came to us based solely on recommendations of prior happy customers, so we both worked really hard to have good reputations and to make sure that everyone we worked for was satisfied. I spent months showing people houses until they found the one that was right for them. And on the day that they closed and got the keys, they were so happy. I’ve had people say to me, ‘This is the happiest day of my life, other than my wedding day, or when my children were born,’ as they moved into their new home. And they kept my number for years and sent their friends and family members.

  “I didn’t have to stop caring about people until I came to work here. Because, now, Eva, when I unlock the doors to the units and show people their new living quarters, they cry. They don’t cry from happiness—they cry because everything they have worked for is gone; every dream that they had for their lives is gone, and they have nothing to look forward to but this roasting-hot little cell for the rest of their lives. And they cry, and they say to each other that they wish they had not lived to see their lives turn out this way. This is the only job I have ever had where I leave people much worse off than I find them. But you couldn’t possibly understand that, because the only thing you have ever done is work to ruin people who were doing better than you, and that included just about everybody in the world.”

  Eva stood staring without responding; in fact, as Kris looked around, she saw that the entire dining hall was staring at her—horrified. She had defended her former profession and insulted her current one in one breath, and they were appalled. Nobody else spoke to her as she finished her dinner. As word of her rant spread through the community over the next few days, virtually nobody spoke to her again.

  By the middle of the following week, Peter had returned, and Kris was resuming her normal duties. At the end of the day, she decided to email Eileen to check on Casper and see whether he had gotten through his surgery. To her surprise, her email to Eileen’s unit at W.net was immediately returned “Undeliverable.” Kris tried to send it again from the sent box, with the same result.

  Puzzled, she typed the unit number into the FMPD data base. Maybe she had the number down wrong; she was so sure that it was 1023. The search returned, “Unit 1023—vacant, awaiting resident. Prior residents: Eileen Bergman, female, date of birth August 12, 1947, 5 feet 2 inches, blue eyes; Elliot Bergman, male, date of birth October 22, 1946, 5 feet 11 inches, brown eyes, non-human resident, Canine English Sheep Dog Casper. Status: relocated.”

  “So where did you go?” Kris asked as she stared at the computer. She typed “Bergman” into the search engine; several names came up but not Eileen’s.

  Kris shut down the computer and walked out into the hall. Pat was leaving her office at the same time, and Kris stopped her.

  “Remember that woman, Eileen, with the dog? I wanted to send her an email to check on her, and it bounced. The system says that she has been relocated. Do you know how I can locate her?”

  “No idea. Why? What does it matter to you?” Pat barely looked at Kris as she responded.

  “I just thought I would keep in touch with her and find out how the dog is doing. This was so important to her; I thought it might be nice to follow up.�
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  “So you’re looking for a pen pal? Try the Arizona Department of Corrections; I’m sure they can fix you right up.” Now Pat did look at her. “Look Kris, this doesn’t concern you. In order to get surgery for the dog, Eileen had to be transferred to a community near a veterinary surgeon. I don’t know where they went, but it doesn’t matter. Peter is back now, and he is handling Division 2. Your job is to handle Division 1, and, frankly, you are behind on your work there. I suggest you take care of your own responsibilities and forget about all of this other stuff.” Pat turned and walked out the double doors and down the hall, leaving Kris alone, confused, and very disturbed.

  Chapter 11

  On the last Friday of June Kris received a message on Friendshare from Janine, “I just got off the phone with Karyn. She and Jeff and the kids are coming to spend the Fourth of July with us. Call me when you have time so that we can make plans.”

  Kris smiled as she read the message. Karyn was the baby of the family. In spite of the six-year age difference between them—or perhaps because of it—Kris had always been especially close to her. Karyn had met Jeff on the first day of high school, and she had married him a week after graduation. They had recently celebrated seventeen happy years together. He and Karyn had waited to have children until he finished school and got established in his career; Faith, their first child, came along after they had been married for six years. By then Kris was in her thirties and wishing that she had children of her own, but Ben hated children, and her life with him was not really conducive to raising a family, so she comforted herself by lavishing her love and attention on her little niece. Faith could not stay over at their home unless Ben was out of town—which actually occurred rather frequently near the end of their relationship—but she was a regular presence at Kris’ real estate office, and many weekends involved taking Faith to the park or the zoo or, as she grew older, the mall. Since Faith was an only child for many years, she was used to being around adults most of the time, and her personality and temperament made her an easy child to care for.

  When Faith was six, Karyn and Jeff decided to try for a little boy, and nine months later Seth was born. Karyn was still living in Arizona when he came into the world, and during the first year of his life, she stopped by Kris’ office often to visit. Kris would put Seth on her lap and feel his small form curl up against her as she worked and made phone calls. Those visits were the best part of her day. He was so good—the ringing telephones and chatter of the other agents did not bother him at all.

  Unfortunately, Jeff worked in construction, and as the real estate market collapsed, he could no longer find work. Just about the time that Ben and Kris were separating, Karyn announced that she and Jeff were moving to Dallas where the economy was considerably healthier than it was in Arizona. Shortly afterward, they sold their home, packed up their small family and relocated to Texas, leaving Kris and Janine to grieve being separated from their sister and daughter and especially from her children.

  Karyn had not been back for a visit since Christmas. Kris’ life had been such a mess since losing her agency that she had not gotten in touch with Karyn often. No one in the family knew about Kris’ short relationship with Nick or how completely broke she had become. After she landed her new job Kris had been so busy that she had talked to her sister only a couple of times in the last six months. Other than sending an ecard at each birthday, she had communicated with her sister’s family very little. Now that Kris was working and she had a place to live, she would have a much easier time talking to Karyn. She was glad they were coming and very glad to get the chance to see her niece and nephew again.

  Later that evening she called Janine from her unit. “What are we going to do with them while they are here?” Janine asked her. “Our apartment is tiny, and there is nothing for a family to do here. I can’t even cook for them,” her mother paused with emotion in her voice. Janine was a wonderful cook, and in her previous life she had prepared large family dinners whenever she could get the family together. Now that was no longer an option.

  “I thought about this all day today; I think we need to take everybody to Enchanted Island. The kids can play at the water park and ride all the rides. Then we can all watch the fireworks display. It will be a really fun way to spend the day. When do they get here?”

  “They are coming in on Thursday the third, and they will be here all day on Friday the fourth and Saturday the fifth, and then they will drive back on Sunday. But, Kris, taking everybody to Enchanted Island will cost you a lot of money. I wish I could split the cost with you, but I can’t because we are just getting these ridiculous credits….”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ve got this. I will get the tickets for the park. After the kids are through playing we can go eat someplace and then go back for the fireworks. It’ll be fun—just like old times.”

  After Kris hung up with her mother she went to the Enchanted Island website to purchase and print seven tickets. The website boasted that the 2014 fireworks display would be the best one in the history of the park, complete with a laser show and live music. This would be fun.

  She had just finished paying for the tickets when her phone rang again. Assuming it was Janine calling back, she answered the phone without looking at the caller ID and was surprised to hear another voice on the other end of the line.

  “Kris, this is Lena St. Clair. How have you been?”

  “I’m doing great, Lena.” Kris let the surprise of hearing from an old client who had become a friend show in her voice. Kris had sold Lena two houses and had not talked to her since she had left real estate to go to work for the FMPD. Lena might be calling to ask her to list a house. “I’m not selling real estate anymore; I am now working for the Federal Municipal Planning Division in the Smart Seniors’ program. How are you doing?”

  “I’m doing very well, thanks for asking. Do you like your job?”

  “I do; I’ve been there since March. It’s a lot different from what I did for so many years. What about you—are you still in counter intelligence?”

  “No, I left the agency about six months ago. I have a new job too. I was calling to invite you to lunch so that we could talk. Would you be free tomorrow?”

  Kris was free the next day, which was Saturday, and she looked forward to getting away from FE. Since her blow up at Eva, her fellow residents had treated her as if she had an ongoing case of plague, so any excuse to get out of the community for any length of time was welcome. Besides, Lena was one of the most interesting people Kris knew, and she had always enjoyed talking with her.

  “Tomorrow sounds great. What if we meet at The Gourmet at 11:30?” Lena confirmed and Kris hung up the phone. She was glad to be going to lunch with Lena but also very curious about why she had called.

  Lena and Ed St. Clair had been among Kris’ first clients after she opened her own agency. They were also the first African-American couple she had sold a home to during her career. She always remembered the first time they had walked into her agency. Ed was a large, intimidating man; he did not mean to be intimidating, but that was just part of being a former Navy Seal who had gone to work for the Secret Service. Lena was tall and slim and beautifully groomed in a pale cream pant suit. She had a low distinctive voice that made her interesting to listen to; as Kris got to know her better she found that Lena was also interesting to talk to.

  Lena had grown up in the South where she had been raised by her grandmother after her own mother had died. She had gone back to school after raising her own children and earned a graduate degree while working full time, first for the U.S. Army and later for the federal government in counter-intelligence. As a hobby, she hosted a radio show on weekends, and Kris had been her guest on several occasions discussing the real estate market and tips for first time home buyers. Over the years, Kris and Lena had become friends. As Lena and Ed had become more financially successful Kris had helped them sell the initial house and purchase a new custom build—Ben did the mortgage loan
for them. The couples had gotten together several times for dinner, and what had started as a professional relationship grew into a friendship. Now Kris realized that it had been over a year since she had spoken to Lena; all of the turmoil in her own life had caused her to pull away from nearly everyone—her family, her friends, all of the people who had been part of her life.

  The next morning Kris was seated at a table at The Gourmet by 11:20. The old Kris Mitchell was always about ten minutes late for everything, but that was the Kris Mitchell who packed too many activities into too short a space of time and owned a car. The new Kris Mitchell lived at the mercy of public transit, so she had to think of every appointment in terms of the commuter train schedule. As a result, she was not able to pack a lot of activities into her morning, and she was now a little early for every appointment rather than a little late. Lena walked into the restaurant precisely at 11:30. The two women spent a few minutes catching up—Ed had left the Secret Service and gone to work for a private security company providing personal bodyguard services to the rich and infamous. On the whole, he could now look forward to better pay and shorter hours. Kris glossed over her breakup with Ben and the loss of her agency by saying that she had “made some life changes and was now working for the federal government.” She was not eager to talk about what her life had been for the past year—it was depressing enough to have lived it the first time without having to relive it by retelling it. Besides, Kris had been a top saleswoman for enough years to understand how to easily shift the conversation from herself to the other person. So after a few sentences she found herself saying, “But enough about me. Tell me what you’re up to.”