Chapter 21 #3
“That’s when he came after us!” Ronald said, dawning comprehension blinking on like a stuttering streetlight. “Oh my God… he said something about getting these little things finally executed.”
“He followed you!?” Carrington asked, startled. “To your lawyer’s office?”
“No!” Rebekkah shook her head hard enough to jostle the errant hair flap. “Rino is good! He’s a good guy! He came to make sure we received our Kia Rios.”
“Oh, so that is gonna happen,” Suwarna said, reflexively taking notes in the air with an invisible pen and striking that to-do off her list. “I really wasn’t sure. I wasn’t optimistic to tell you the truth.”
“But what about Emma-Lou?” Japheth asked, their boss suddenly a buoy untethered. “She didn’t come to Weinus, Weinus, and Ware. So where is she? Did she get out of the station fire?”
“Or not?” Rebekkah whispered, the edges of the late afternoon light seeming to dim with the dark thought.
“We don’t know,” Suwarna admitted, and for the first time she didn’t have a title at WWJD that was equipped to handle the emergency. “She’s missing! Just like her parents… she’s…”
“Disappeared!” Rebekkah gasped. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Maybe she’s been raptured!”
“I don’t think so,” Ronald whispered with growing concern. “She’s been Ferraried.”
“That’s not a verb,” Suwarna said.
“It is now!” Ronald replied grimly.
“Japheth, I take it back. Rino may not be a good guy. Maybe you shouldn’t go to dinner with him tonight!”
“Obviously! I’m not going to dinner with someone who makes people disappear!” Japheth agreed. “I like being here.”
“Wait a minute. He asked you to dinner?” Suwarna turned on Japheth and a smile spread across her face. “You have to go.”
“What?!” Japheth took a step back.
“You absolutely don’t have to go!” Rebekkah doubled down and then wheeled on Suwarna. “He’s not going.”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea, Suwarna,” Carrington had regained their composure and casually leaned on the bus stop post, assessing Japheth.
“I mean, you can’t wear this…” they gestured from jacket to boot and back up again.
“But I may have a thing or two in my closet you could borrow, if you really want to seal the deal. And we’re gonna need you to seal the deal. ”
“What deal?! What am I sealing?” Japheth took another step back. “I’m not so sure about a makeover, Carrington. No offense. It’s just, well…” he gestured to Rebekkah without another word.
“Well at least give us some details. Set the scene. Where are you going with Rino? That way I can guide you from a sartorial perspective,” Carrington huffed, their status as stylist to the stars at WWJD now tenuous due to a few overzealous scissor snips. People were so fickle.
“I’m not going anywhere with Rino. You just accused him of arson, of boss-napping, of…” Japheth held up his fingers as he counted off the number of ways his might’ve been boyfriend was being accused of criminal activities.
“We don’t know any of that with certainty, actually.
But your dinner is the perfect opportunity we need to get the facts.
You’ll simply continue to win him over with your wit and wheedle out the details.
Like, why did he burn down our radio station?
And where did he hide Emma-Lou? And what really happened to her parents?
” Suwarna placed an encouraging hand on his shoulder with the subtlety of a hydraulic press. “So, where are you two going?”
“It’s umm… it’s a family dinner?” Japheth searched the faces of his friends.
“Family dinner!?” Rebekkah squeaked. “Like a big gnocchi dinner with his parents? Or a gathering where someone ends up with their feet in cement?”
“Rebekkah! You were just singing his praises. You said he’s a good guy!” Japheth hissed in a deadly whisper.
“That’s huge my man! Very cool. Family dinner for Italians is like… you know, super important. You two really might get married!” Ronald grinned and gave Japheth a brotherly shoulder bump.
The WWJD employees searched each other’s faces for answers to questions that kept piling up in their minds.
Without a boss, without a radio station, what would they do?
And with their beneficent benefactor suddenly without his financial funnel and with his benevolence in question, just how would a man with the characteristics of a muskie react to the news?
If he didn’t already know. And if he was behind it, what was the end game? They took a collective gulp.
The sun kept doing its best to shine with optimism, but the sidewalk had acquired the unsettling illusion of a fun house tilt.
Far down the block, a siren wailed on its way to what might remain of WWJD.
The bakery bell jangled obliviously as a customer left with a paper bag of buns and sniffed the air and then their goods, having smelled the smoke.
Unspoken questions opened like trapdoors in front of them: if the station had burned down and Emma-Lou had truly vanished, what was in store for Trinity? Fame and five-door hatchbacks? Or front row tickets to their own imminent vanishing act?