Desmond Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
1958
“I'm sorry. Jimmy, but I forget – do you take sugar with your coffee?”
Jimmy squirms a bit in the guest chair of the living room, glancing up at Wendy and then quickly looking away. The three of them – Jimmy, Wendy and Desmond – are gathered together before the front window of the living room, the front window that has it's curtains thrown open fully for a change, letting in the light from the mid afternoon. Jimmy looks out the window into the empty street before him. Small tremors of anxiety flit across his face, like bits of breeze against the surface of a puddle. He turns back to Wendy with a squinting smile.
“Just black will be fine, Wendy...”
“Right.” Wendy strolls back into the kitchen, her heels clacking against the hardwood floors as she goes. While passing through the doorway, Wendy sneaks a glance back at Jimmy. And yes, he's staring at Desmond again, just as he's been doing ever since he arrived, whenever he thinks that she's not looking. For his part, Desmond does not respond in any noticeable fashion, not that this does anything to lessen Jimmy's resolve. In fact, as she makes her way to the kitchen counter and tray with the cups of coffee, she can see Jimmy in the reflection of the kitchen window, now. He is leaning forward in his chair, leaning towards Desmond, his look intent. Hey Desmond, buddy... You in there? Hello? Earth to Desmond.
“So Jimmy,” She says, picking up the tray from the counter and walking back towards the living room, “I understand that we've finalized all of the necessary documentation for Desmond's royalties...”
She reaches the coffee table and sets the tray down, lifting Jimmy's cup and handing it to him. Jimmy snaps his eyes away from Desmond and he stares at the offered cup for a moment, before smiling cheerfully and accepting the coffee. “Uh, yeah, that's right. Everything's taken care of, we're all set there.”
Jimmy takes a quick and awkward sip of the coffee and goes back to watching Desmond, no longer bothering to hide his behaviour from Wendy, now. Wendy takes a cup for herself and sits down in her own chair, watching Jimmy watching her husband. She really can't decide what she finds most vulgar about this man: the naked gaping fascination that he shows towards Desmond, or the fact that he had even bothered to try to conceal it at all, as though his reaction to the situation was somehow dirty.
But then Wendy thinks of the hospital, in the days following Desmond's accident. She doesn't recall much from that time too clearly, but she can remember one thing - that Jimmy had been there, right from the very start. And he had stayed for much longer than he'd had to. It's his one saving grace, she supposes. He is loyal, and that's definitely a rare thing to come by in this world. She knows that well enough, these days.
Wendy sips her own cup, slowly, while continuing to regard Jimmy. He has the air of someone who is waiting for something, like perhaps he thinks that maybe Desmond has something for him. Like a message...
“So you know, Jimmy,” Wendy says, holding her cup just beneath her chin, “Desmond never really did tell me just how he first met you. I mean I know that the two of you go back a long time, but...”
And now Jimmy turns his head slowly and deliberately to look directly at Wendy. It would seem unnerving to her, if she hadn't already had plenty enough to unnerve her as of late. But she could sense that they were beginning to close in on the heart of their conversation – the unspoken reason for Jimmy's visit.
“Actually, Desmond and I go all the way back to Grade School.” Jimmy regards Wendy with his flat, peculiar gaze. She looks back at him and waits. After a moment, Jimmy turns back to look at Desmond. “I guess you could say that I always knew he would be counting on me as we grew up, in some fashion. Ain't that right, buddy..?” Desmond's head swivels slowly back and forth, then holds still while looking out the window. Jimmy chuckles lightly and looks down at the cup in his hands.
Wendy says, “You're his right hand man...”
Jimmy shrugs his shoulders and continues to gaze into his cup. “All the way through high school I tried to watch out for him. Cause, I knew that he was special, you see? Knew from the day that we met.” Jimmy looks up expectantly at Desmond. Desmond is still staring across the street. Staring at the Thomas's home.
“He needed someone to watch out for him,” Jimmy continues, “He had that kind of reckless genius that could self destruct if there wasn't someone there to keep him in line.” Jimmy grins sheepishly at Wendy and sips at his coffee.
“You even went with him to Korea, didn't you?” Wendy asks. Jimmy gulps his coffee down and wags a finger at Desmond.
“See, that's just what I mean. Reckless! With his academic credentials he could've got out of it, easy, but no...” He casts a fond glance over at Desmond and shakes his head. “So, I managed to pull a few strings, and made sure that we both shipped out with the same unit.”
“You're a good friend, Jimmy.”
Jimmy waves this away. “Well, you know... So then after we got back, Desi met you and I met Laura, and so...” He trails off, and a shadow starts to grow over his face.
Jimmy has never mentioned his wife Laura, while in Wendy's presence. After waiting a few seconds, Wendy decides to speak up.
“Do you miss her?” These words are spoken gently, like a sculptor tapping at a sensitive area of precious stone. Jimmy glances up at her briefly, then sets his cup down on the coffee table. Desmond looks down at Jimmy's cup and blinks once, very slowly.
Jimmy clasps his hands before him and speaks in low purr. “It's been a few years, now. So it's getting easier.” He chuckles lightly. “Every year her old man comes to see me. We have some drinks and by the end of the night he's a blubbering mess...” He grins to himself, running a hand over his smooth round chin. “I worry about the old guy sometimes. But it's good, it's good to remember...”
The three of them sit together in silence. The sun begins to lower behind the houses across the street, but Wendy makes no move to turn on a lamp. Somehow the growing shade seems right for all of them, gathered before an uncovered bay window with their cooling memories.
1953
She's the Queen Bee, although she won't ever admit it to anyone... But she knows it. Knows it but tries not to let it go to her head – the unacknowledged leader of her little cadre of friends, and why not? She'd made good.
Because she's a scientist, of sorts. Or at least, the closest thing that anyone from her hometown, from her high school, has ever been. Especially a girl, for crying out loud, for a girl in her town to even get past high school at all was a first, she was sure of it. And she'd done it. She was a Computer Scientist.
Of sorts.
“So tell us more about it!” Sally gushes, eyes beaming, her chin cupped in her hands, propped up on her elbows on the table in front of her. Lisa sits leaning forward with her arms hanging at her sides, as though conserving all of her energy for the act of listening. Next to her, Mary sips at her coffee and pretends not to be all that terribly interested, but she isn't fooling anyone. And so Wendy decides to wait for a few seconds, to pause for dramatic effect... The coffee shop around them is bustling with students and young people, but their table seems to be suspended in it's own reality, it's own bubble of time and space. By the time Wendy does speak, even Mary is leaning in and giving her undivided attention.
“Oh it's no big deal, really...” Wendy flips her hand nonchalantly, “Just a bunch of people working on these rows of computers and fancy equipment that can perform thousands of deductions every, I don't know, every five seconds or so...”
The girls look at each other with widening eyes. Wendy lets her own eyes shine brightly as she leans in for more of that dramatic effect. “You wouldn't believe what these computers can do... And they're only getting more powerful every year...”
Mary cocks an eyebrow at her. “And you know how to operate these computers?”
Wendy smiles and holds out her hands. “Well, yeah – I have to. It's my job.” Of course this is a rather extreme exaggeration. The truth of her job is much more boring than that, but the fact remains that she is the only person she knows that has a job doing what she loves, a job that for all of it's boring routine does have her working on things that are important, with people that are important.
Wendy looks around the table at all of them - Sally, who got married to Jim Conners before she even graduated High School, Lisa with her waitress job and her drunk boyfriend, and Mary who was going to University, sure, but majoring in what? Classical Literature? Compared to her friends, she might as well be living the life of a secret agent.
“It all seems pretty scary, all of that power...” Lisa whispers, peering down at her right shoulder. “...Didn't they use computers to make the Bomb?”
Mary sits up a little straighter. “Hey yeah, Wendy, tell us about all of the new super weapons you're cooking up with those computers you got there!” The girls all laugh a little nervously.
“I wish I could, but they made me sign a piece of paper that means I'll get in a lot of trouble if I tell anyone the details...” This was true, and just as well, as far as Wendy was concerned. Reconfiguring census data was no where near as exciting as developing super weapons. “In fact, I've probably told you girls too much already...”
A brief pause follows, before all of the girls simultaneously break out into laughter.
“Ooh, watch out, girls!” Mary scoffs cheerfully, “I bet she's got a laser pistol right there in her purse!” Everyone laughs some more and Wendy leans back and gives her best amiable smile, while on the inside she's feeling a little stung at Mary's joke, but also relieved that the pressure was off, now that they aren't taking her so seriously any more. Oh well, her moment in the sun has passed... That's okay. Let Mary be the Queen Bee if she wants to; she is certainly more sophisticated, with her American father and her mom from Montreal.
Another short pause ensues, and then Wendy notices that the others are looking over her shoulders. She turns and looks into the eyes of a tall man, with a shock of brown hair and wide set shoulders, wearing a brown leather jacket over an argyle shirt . He smiles at her and steps in closer.
“And here I thought I was the only one living in the world of science fiction,” Desmond says, and from that moment onward everything just falls into place like atoms in a stream.
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