Waves and Light: Opposites Attract Series

by Elizabeth J. Merrill

  “Veronica’s just getting up. Let’s take something up for her, so we can get out as soon as possible. Do you know where we could get more quarters? I know we can’t fatten your Dad up in one weekend at the vending machine, but we can try. I think he’s thinner than he was when I met him.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true, but he looked pretty thin. We need to find out how to get him money so he can buy more food in the commissary. I don’t think he can make it another year without more food. Ask the woman at the desk. She might know where we can get more quarters. I’ll take some food up to Veronica.”

  I got up and made a plate of bacon, eggs, yogurt and fruit for Veronica. I also snagged some O.J. Veronica was picking over my offerings, when Mom walked in with two rolls of quarters in her hand. “I guess they cater to the prison-going crowd, because she said we could buy as many rolls of quarters as we wanted.”

  “I’m sure lots of people need quarters for various things, but you might have gone over board a bit. I told you that I have two more rolls.”

  “I’m not sure that two more will be enough. We can’t leave and come back either, and I’m sure we’ll be starving by 3 pm when they kick us out.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Mom patted my hand. “You’ve done a great job planning all this B.D. It would have been a complete disaster if I had planned it.”

  *

  This time Dad walked in, in less than a minute after we did, and we stood demurely by the same couch we sat on the day before. Dad chastely hugged us and gave us a peck on the cheek, but he managed to squeeze Mom’s behind out of the guard’s sight. She squeaked, but didn’t attract attention. Veronica and I giggled. He had a chessboard complete with timer tucked under his arm. He motioned for us to follow him to a table where he began setting up the board.

  “So Daddy, I’m so glad you got here so quick today. What took you so long yesterday? Did you think we wouldn’t come?” asked Veronica.

  “I was pretty sure you would be here, although plane delays could have made you late, but I’m teaching a class, several actually, sort of, well I can’t be the teacher of record, but since I understand mathematics better and have more experience than the poor guy they actually hired to teach math, I’m teaching both high school and college math classes. And one class goes until 3:30 on Friday and it’s on the other side of the camp. And of course, a few students had some questions, so it took me a bit of time to get here.”

  “I hadn’t realized you were teaching again,” Mom added with just a tiny bit of hope in her voice.

  “It’s more fun than doing laundry which was my job before teaching,” Dad explained. The chessboard was ready to go. “B.D. you be white.” I sat down on the white side of the board, hit the timer, made my first move, and hit the timer again.

  Dad made his move and hit the timer. While considering my next move, Dad asked Veronica about how her tennis playing was going. She won district last year.

  She explained how she worked practice-time into her schedule. I made my move and hit the timer. Dad held up his finger to stop Veronica from talking, considered for a second, and made his move. Then he motioned Veronica to continue. She worked up the courage to ask what we had all been wondering, “Dad, how did you lose so much weight and get so cut? You look like a bow-flex demonstrator.”

  Dad burst out laughing—deep, loud belly laughs. “I didn’t get these muscles on a bow-flex. The food here isn’t very good, and they don’t give you much either, so I’ve lost some weight. And there’s not much to do, but read, write, and exercise. And as much as I like reading and writing, I had to break it up with something; I do push-ups and sit-ups and run around the rec yard when I get the chance. They don’t let us out everyday, but most days. I know I’m thinner because I had to move down to a smaller jumpsuit, but I hadn’t really thought about how I looked.”

  “You look hot!” Mom growled playfully and gave him a peck on the cheek. Veronica and I laughed. Then I made my next move and Dad thought about his. A stocky man in a suit walked through the prison door and right up to our table.

  “Mr. Jeffries, good to see you,” Dad said as he started to get up.

  “Sit, sit. I didn’t want disturb you. I just wanted to catch a glimpse of two geniuses playing chess,” he said with a huge grin.

  I shook my head and mumbled, “I don’t know about that,” and Dad added, “that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”

  “I think you’re too modest. I checked up on you, young lady,” Mr. Jeffries said as he pointed at me. “They’re quite proud of you at UT. They expect great things from you. And, of course, your father’s already done some great things. We just have to get him back on track.”

  Dad bowed his head and blushed, “I think you’re exaggerating a bit just because I managed to get through to your daughter. Mr. Jeffries is the warden here. I helped his daughter get over her math fear then it was easy for her to get it. Mr. Jeffries this is my wife, Dorothy.” Mom stuck out her hand and shook Mr. Jeffries’ hand. “And my other daughter, Veronica.” She nodded in Mr. Jeffries direction.

  “Another genius in the making?” asked Mr. Jeffries.

  “Veronica is more of a tennis court genius, although she doesn’t have any math fear.”

  “Good, good,” Mr. Jeffries repeated rubbing his hands together. “What do we have here?” He asked pointing to the chess board.

  “It’s my turn, but I’m making my move now,” Dad made a move and slapped the timer. Naturally it wasn’t at all what I expected. I thought about what he might be doing and made my move. As soon as Dad made his move, I saw what I missed. I made the best move I could, but it was the beginning of the end. A few moves later I conceded defeat.

  “That went fast,” Mr. Jeffries noted.

  “You came at the end,” Dad explained, “and I think you distracted B.D. a bit. She had me on the run, but made a terrible mistake right after you came in.”

  “That wasn’t it,” I protested. “You’re just too good at disguising your plan. I always fall for the trap.”

  “You don’t always fall for the trap. You beat me sometimes. The big thing I have over you is experience. In a few years, I probably won’t be able to beat you at all.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s nice meeting ya’ll. I’m sure Mr. Chase appreciates the visit. Let me know if you need something else,” Mr. Jeffries added just before disappearing out the door. It was odd. He sounded more like a waiter than a warden.

  Dad started setting up for another game, but then his stomach growled. He chuckled. “It does a lot of that lately. “

  “Well let’s get some food. We came prepared this time,” Mom said as she held up a zip lock bag with $80 in rolls of quarters. “Is there anything you want?”

  “Other than a coke, I’m sure whatever B.D. and Veronica pick out will be fine,” he answered.

  Veronica and I went crazy at the vending machines. We got tuna, jerky, and chicken; fruit cups, gummies, and granola; chips, nuts, and popcorn; and, of course, coke. We laid our smorgasbord of snack foods out on the table. I waved my hands at the spread like Vanna White. “We’ll revisit the cornucopia of junk for dessert--later,” I pronounced.

  “It looks yummy. I believe I’ll start with the chicken and a fruit cup,” Dad said as he popped the top on the chicken and spread some on the accompanying crackers. He took a bite and moaned a little. “Mmmmm.” He opened the fruit cup and spooned out a bite. He closed his eyes and savored it. “Fruit is another of those things I miss. They rarely serve fruit, because you can ferment it into alcohol. We only get fruit three or four times a year. This fruit tastes great.”

  Veronica’s mouth dropped open. “No fruit?”

  “Some fruit,” Dad answered. “The menu isn’t intended to keep you healthy, just alive and it does that.”

  “Let me get another fruit cup,” Veronica hopped up.

  “Let me finish this first, Slugger, then we’ll talk more fruit cups.”
<
br />   “Okay,” she answered a little deflated.

  Dad continued eating, and we watched. Clearly Mom was a bit upset about the quality of food Dad got, but watching him eat made her feel better.

  “Ya’ll are going to have to help me finish this, besides I suspect you’ll get hungry before 3pm, so you should eat too.”

  Mom opened the gummies. “I guess it won’t kill us to eat some junk.”

  *

  By Sunday we were expert prison visitors. We knew exactly where to go, what to do, and how to act. We cued up to sign in with IDs in hand when we walked in. We sat on the sofa facing away from the prison door, when we got into the visitation room. When Dad came out of the prison, we dutifully hugged him. Mom offered up her cheek for the peck. Dad set up the chess board, and we played chess while Veronica went on about fashion and music and a little tennis. Mom filled Dad in on all the neighborhood gossip. I answered a few questions about my lab work and tutoring and David. Dad told corny jokes and seemed interested in everything anyone said even though I knew he thought a lot of it was mindlessly boring. And we ate a lot of junk. I think I consumed more soda and candy and chips that weekend than I had the prior two years combined.

  I was starting to feel normal in way I hadn’t realized I was missing until the prison guard announced thirty minutes until the end of visitation, and that’s when I remembered that things were still horribly wrong. I couldn’t help it—tears started running down my cheeks.

  “It’s okay, Pumpkin,” Dad said as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “The time’s almost done. Before you know it, I’ll be back home in Houston.”

  “I know. It’s fine. It was so nice seeing you. Maybe I can get out to see you again this summer,” I offered. I knew though in my heart it wouldn’t be fine. It would never be the same. Even when Dad finished his time in a little over a year and moved back, I wouldn’t be there. I’d be in Austin or at some other internship or something. I’d never live with my Dad again—not for any significant time. That’s what we’d lost that mattered. The big house, the fancy restaurants, even tuition to an ivy league school, sure I’d lost those things, but the thing that really mattered was those last few months being my father’s daughter, having dinner with him every night, knowing he’d be there with advice if I needed it. That’s the thing that this whole travesty had stolen from us—time together.

  At 3 pm we hugged Dad goodbye. Mom got her peck on the cheek, and we went back to the car. We all immediately got our cell phone. David had texted to say he was boarding the plane to San Francisco. We had talked last night, and he explained that the Hurricane people wanted him to work with them to integrate his part into the whole game. Oddly, the group he had been working with was based in San Francisco even though the company was head quartered in Austin. Consequently they were flying him out to San Francisco for a week. David wasn’t sure he wanted to go, but I insisted. Even though I missed him horribly, he really shouldn’t pass up this chance to go to San Francisco and get paid doing it, so he was on his way to San Francisco. And I remembered to ask Mom. “Is Helen picking up up at the airport?”

  “Yes, she said she’d be happy to do it. And she got your keys from David. I need to remember to text her when we leave, so she’ll know if we’re basically on time.”

  “You did send her a link to the airline so she can check our flight?” I asked.

  “I did, I did, but you know Helen. She barely texts. I’m not sure she could navigate a website,” Mom shrugged.

  “I’m sure you’re right. We’ll just have to remember to text.”

  “I’ll remember,” volunteered Mom.

  And she did remember so that when we wandered out of the concourse into the bright Houston sun on Monday, Helen was there in her gray, Chevy impala. We loaded our bags into the trunk and climbed in.

  Helen asked perfunctorily. “How was the trip?”

  And Mom responded automatically, “Good, good. Richard’s lost a lot of weight.”

  Helen nodded.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  David

  I drove back to B.D.’s house to discover that the back door and several windows were unlocked. Someone had left a curling iron on in the bathroom. I put everything to rights and locked up. I snagged a couple of breakfast tacos on the way home and gave the Hurricane project one, last once over before sending it off. It wasn’t due for a week, but I was done—done, and I knew if I kept it around I would obsess over it. I might try to find a pool to swim myself into oblivion so I could get some sleep, but for now I decided to get in some pointless gaming time. Even though I hadn’t played in months, it was easy to dig out my Halo Avatar and drop into the game. I hooked up with an old gaming friend, and we slashed and burned for a few hours, but I wasn’t into it and bowed out. I made a grocery store run to get supplies for dinner and made a sandwich. As I munched on the sandwich, I got an email from my Hurricane contact. Apparently, they liked what I’d sent, but they wanted to work with me face-to-face to integrate my module into the new game and maybe discuss the next project. They wanted to know if I was free to spend a week in San Francisco.

  SAN FRANCISCO!

  I’ve never been to San Francisco, but Hurricane is based in Austin. What’s with San Francisco? I immediately pinged him an affirmative, but I needed some deets.

  Apparently, despite being based in Austin, Hurricane has groups working around the globe, and the group I’ve been working with is based in San Francisco. They wanted to meet me, put a face to the work, get my help to integrate the module and discuss future projects. They wanted me to fly out Sunday, so I would be available bright and early Monday. Not only would they pay my expenses, but also $4K for my time. $4k—twice my tutoring center monthly pay for one week’s worth of work. I said yes before I could even think about my commitment to pick up B.D. and her family not to mention going another week without seeing her. Maybe the change of venue will help me get used to sleeping without her. And I’m sure B.D. will understand about the airport shuttle.

  *

  Thanks to the time change and an early flight, at 1pm I find myself in San Francisco being seated at a large, round table with two couples, in a dim sum restaurant. The place is packed with Asians. Seriously, I only spot one white couple, an African-American family, me, and a huge room full of Asian families. I watch what everyone else is doing. When a cart with steamers containing fluffy, white balls comes around, I take some. They’re delicious. Soft and slightly sweet on the outside and filled with some kind of Asian riff on pulled pork. The next steamer I try has a shrimp mixture wrapped in won-ton wrappers. I pass on the chicken feet, although both the couples sitting with me take some. Next I manage to snag some short ribs and finish with sesame balls. I’m so stuffed I’m not sure I can make it out of the door, but I manage. I wander down the main street of China town taking in the strange barrels of dried sea creatures and weird herbs in front of one store as well as an array of cooking equipment in another. I buy B.D. a jade bracelet. It will look beautiful on her wrist.

  I wander around Bright Lights book store and think about buying a copy of Howl to make some kind of poetic gesture, but decide I’m not really that pretentious, and I can’t get into an entire generation that couldn’t keep their shit together. I wander back through China town and hop a trolley to the wharf. I eat some samples at the Ghirardelli factory and buy a few bags of chocolate because I can get into chocolate, because it always has its shit together. I walk along the wharf and stare at Alcatraz. Check out the trendy shops and ogle the ridiculously high prices. I don’t buy anything for B.D. or my mother. I wander into a low-brow looking seafood restaurant and order an expensive plate of various fried seafoods. I dip my greasy seafood goodness into red sauce that I pumped up with some extra horseradish, savor the sharp bite of the horseradish and the briny taste of seafood, and wash it down with beer, while watching the sun descend into the sea. For a moment, I imagine that at any moment, B.D. will come around the corner and si
t next to me, and I feel like I deserve her.

  *

  Monday morning Matt meets me at a breakfast place down the street. I order Eggs Blackstone which is basically Eggs Benedictine with tomatoes. The restaurant is clean, bright, and shabby chic. It occurs to me that the biggest difference between food in Austin and here is decor and prices—and pretense. In Austin this meal would be Eggs Benedict with tomatoes and the restaurant would be in a strip mall. Here it’s in some hip 19th century building and costs three times as much. The actual plate of food is remarkably similar.

  Matt gives me some details about the work group. It’s five guys here in San Francisco who are developing the medieval part of this game. The premise is that a time-travel accident has linked up for the moment five time periods. Players can port to different times when they find a teleporter that phases in and out. These guys are developing the medieval element complete with elves etc. My first question, of course, is how do they have modern explosives in this world. He explains that the beauty of this game is that the teleporter allows designers and players to “borrow” elements from different times. Consequently, their medieval world can have explosives and even guns, but on a much more limited basis. Technology that requires infrastructure like anything that needs electricity or even cars because they require higher quality roads aren’t practical to bring in. And anything not originally in that world would be scarce. My programming job was originally designed for a contemporary world so it’s easy to just drop it in, but to work in their world I’ll need to make a few changes like instead of having an office building explode and throw off office furniture and computers, they need a tavern to explode and throw off barrels of ale and rough hewn tables. Cool! I think I wouldn’t mind checking out this game.