Chapter 9 The Human Bullshit
The Human Bullshit
Evan stretched out on the luxury jet’s queen-size bed, hands folded across his stomach, meditating to the soporific rumble of the engines.
A knock on the flimsy door separating the airborne bedroom from the main cabin.
He opened his eyes. “What?”
Joey stuck her head in. “How about: ‘Don’t fall in love with Plan A’?”
“Huh?”
She was supposed to be buried in her laptop.
He’d asked her to track Lesandro Candella through Epic and Cerner, the prevalent electronic medical-record systems used in California.
It was not his habit to keep track of those he helped once they were out of the crosshairs but his habits seemed to be shifting of late without his permission.
“My new Commandment!” Joey said. “The eleventh one or whatever.”
“I came up with that.”
“No. No. I’m pretty sure you got it from me.”
“Joey. I’m meditating.”
“We were sitting at the sushi-roll place in Westwood and you were all like, ‘I’m not going to your recital,’ and I was like, ‘Don’t fall in love with Plan A.’”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that happened.”
“Whatevs.”
She withdrew.
He closed his eyes. Found his breath again.
Another knock.
“What?”
“‘Need no praise,’” she said, this time in her movie-trailer voice.
“That’s from Jack.”
“So what? The other ten were from Jack.”
“Josephine. I’m trying to focus. Don’t you have some antioxidant trail mix to chew on?”
“Real clever, X. You wait. That’s two now. Two for Joey. ‘Don’t fall in love with Plan A.’ And? ‘Need no praise.’”
“Neither are—”
But she was gone.
He ground his teeth. Gazed out the window. Took in the cake-frosting layer of stratocumulus clouds floating below the jet. He focused on the softness of the mattress beneath his back, the—
“‘There are no arguments to win. Only actions to take.’”
There she was filling out the doorway. Past her he could see the can of Red Bull wedged in the cupholder of her leather seat; evidently her clean-living pledge didn’t hold past Kansas.
“That sounds like a motivational poster,” Evan said.
Joey screwed up her face, considering, her expression at odds with her suit. “Okay, mebbe. How about—”
“Joey. If you don’t get out of here I’m gonna demote you.”
“Demote me? That means I did get a promotion! Can we talk about my new job title?”
“No.”
“Like, VP: X Brand Management.”
“Joey.”
“X-Factor Director at Large.”
“Josephine!”
“What?”
“Check if there are emergency parachutes on board.”
“Why?”
He raised his head from the pillow, gave her a dead stare.
“Oh,” she said. “Okay. I get it. Haha. You want a little space then. You could’ve just asked professionally.”
When the door slid shut this time, he locked it.
Despite the Red Bull, Joey dozed off somewhere over Ohio.
When she woke up, Evan was sitting across from her, perfectly still.
She started. “What? What’s wrong?”
She sat forward. Her topknot had come loose, which was a pain since it’d taken her, like, eleventy hours on YouTube to figure it out and now she’d have to deal with it in the executive jet bathroom or whatever it was called.
“Josephine,” he said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
She braced herself. “I’m glad I’m here, too.”
“I don’t know what we’re heading into. Luke Devine is a dangerous man and he has dangerous people around him.
He is not a man you allow inside your head.
This is not a game. It is not training. All banter, all jokes, the human bullshit between us, that has to stop now. I love you and I’ll have your back.”
It was the first time he’d ever said it.
No buildup, no context, no depth of emotion in his voice.
Despite that, a giant cry-sob bloomed behind the surface of her face. She could see her reflection in the mirrored band of chrome backing the door to the cockpit. Eyes red and welling, her nose flushed alcoholically. But she did not blink and not a tear fell.
He’d just said it like it was nothing at all and now she had to pretend that it was all cool, that it was just something they both knew already, and said to each other whenever, like, normal people did.
He kept on in that dead-level Orphan voice. “He is not in control and there is a witness there who observed a possible kidnapping. Your job—your only job—is to have my back until I can figure out what is going on. That means you’re not to speak. That’s not open to interpretation.”
She regained an iota of her composure and then another. “Okay, you want me to be mute?”
“Not mute.”
She risked another glance at her reflection, proud to see that she had her face back under control already, and she thought, That’s right, bitches, I got some Orphan training in me.
She made sure that when she spoke, she sounded trés professional. “So I should be as silent as it’s possible to be without impacting the social situation.”
He hesitated and she could tell he was turning the Sixth Commandment over in his head: Question orders.
He said, “Yes.”
“So,” she said. “Some interpretation.”
“Which is now clarified.”
“Copy that.”
The engines whined, the jet pitched, and the world went weightless. They began their descent into the Hamptons. She’d grabbed for the armrests but Evan hadn’t moved at all.
He leaned forward, their knees almost touching, and now his eyes—what color were they? they always changed—had more in them than there was before, and he said, “See you on the other side, J.”
“I look forward to it, X.”