“You too, sir,” replied Kyle.
“And here are your boarding passes,” the woman at the counter said. “Your flight is boarding now.”
“That’s fine, thank you, Barbara,” Daniel said to the checkout woman. “I’ll escort them.”
As they passed through security, Kyle tried to talk to his uncle, but Daniel raised his fingers to his lips and said, “Later.”
Quietly, the two of them went through security. Jenny smiled and whispered, “Your uncle Danny seems to be a wonderful person.” Kyle looked over to his uncle, who was waiting for them on the other side of the security gate and smiled at him, but he was still acting like Kyle was just another passenger he was helping.
As soon as they passed through the gate, Daniel joined them and said, “Follow me this way.”
They passed through a large waiting room with many business-type passengers. They were all reading a newspaper or staring at some electronic device. Daniel took their boarding passes and handed them to the person collecting them at the gate. The security agent scanned them and handed them back to Jenny, who put them in her purse.
Then they followed Daniel down a long winding hallway. As they passed the first turn, Daniel opened the door and waved Jenny and Kyle into a small room that was empty except for a couple of chairs.
As the door closed behind them, Daniel raised his arms for a hug and exclaimed, “Special K, so happy to see you!”
Kyle opened his arms and hugged his uncle. But then Daniel pulled Kyle from his embrace. “And really, is this the only way we get to see you now?”
“Thank you, Uncle Danny, thank you!” rejoiced Kyle, relieved to finally be greeting the playful uncle he had always known.
Daniel’s eyes then turned to Jenny. “Ah, is this her, Kyle? The reason we haven’t seen you in months? The incredible songbird you told me about?”
“Hi, Uncle Danny,” Jenny said. Daniel turned to his nephew with an approving smile.
“Sorry about the official business back there, but we must respect the people waiting. Don’t want to provoke an angry mob. ”
“Thank you so much. I will repay whatever the cost is,” Jenny said.
“What! After your incredibly long twenty-four-hour wait?” Uncle Danny said with a hearty laugh. “Oh, you my dear, were superb! Twenty-four hours...ha ha! And the tickets are free. Please don’t worry; I do get some perks with this job you know! Oh my gosh, look at the time. You have only ten minutes! Please, you must go!”
Daniel opened the door and Jenny and Kyle walked out into the hall. Daniel pointed the way. “It’s just around that corner and, Kyle, come and visit soon. My children need their Special K! And Jenny, of course, you are most welcome anytime.”
Just as Kyle was about to go and hug his uncle goodbye, the mother and her daughter, Claire, passed them by. So to keep up the charade, Kyle reached out his hand and shook his uncle’s hand and said, “Mr. Le, Fastjet Airline has no idea how lucky they are to have someone like you.”
“Safe travels, you two.” Daniel waved as Kyle and Jenny followed the mother and daughter to the entrance.
Jenny turned to Kyle and asked, “Special K?”
“Don’t ask,” Kyle said.
Jenny wrapped her arm around Kyle. “I like it...I think I’m going to call you that too.”
Kyle laughingly rolled his eyes as they made their way to the small line waiting to board the plane. There were about six people waiting. The last three were the man in the impeccably tailored suit, the little girl Claire, and her mother.
As Jenny and Kyle approached the line, Jenny nervously started humming “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” The line moved quickly and just as the stewardess asked for Kyle and Jenny’s boarding passes, the little girl Claire looked up at Jenny and said, “Hey, that’s my daddy’s song!”
“Really, it’s your daddy’s song?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, my daddy sings it to me every time he has to go on a plane.”
Jenny and Kyle laughed but Jenny’s smile vanished as she opened her purse to reach for the boarding passes and saw the red journal.
“But this time we are on the plane! I’m going to see Daddy. We’re going to surprise him, aren’t we, Mommy?”
The mother turned around to her daughter. ”Yes, honey. Now come on, we have to let everyone on the plane so they can sit down.”
“Bye,” Claire waved to Jenny. “We have to hurry to surprise Daddy.”
Yeah, we have to hurry to surprise Daddy, too, Jenny thought as she and Kyle entered the plane. I just hope we’re not too late!
18. PRESENT DAY – AT THE HOTEL
The Leaning Tower of Pisa was quickly filled with all the employees of Elevation, Linkup and Metronome.
Robert had manoeuvred himself behind the huge red curtain at the side of the stage, just far enough to be hidden from anyone’s view. And for the last ten minutes, he and Monique had silently sat beside each other, not taking much notice of any of the lively room’s occupants.
She closed her eyes and drifted. If only, if only we could go back in time. Just six months. Oh, remember how we both so looked forward to this day, happily anticipating how special it was going to be! We would have been busy setting the stage and Bobby would be teasing me and constantly reminding me not to worry. It would be so much fun; we would mingle, and he would joyfully tell everyone little stories and anecdotes about how hard I worked on the event. He and Lou would probably be competing on who had the funnier story about the last company Christmas party. And all the questions people would ask: “What’s it like on top of the world?” and, “How cold is it? Were you scared? Where do you go to pee up there?” Oh, and how we would move—dancing with anticipation throughout the room...everyone we pass telling Bobby, “Can’t wait to hear your talk, Mr. Sanchez!” Yes, Monique couldn’t wait for this day to come.
But there was no magical time machine that could transport them to that wonderful future she had happily anticipated. Feeling anticipation can be so cruel now. She sighed deeply. Happy and anticipation were words that no longer came together. Because she knew when she opened her eyes, they would both be in the same position they had found themselves so many times in the last six months: sitting beside one another, waiting, anticipating an unknown future that lay ahead of them. Anticipating the test results. A doctor’s words. Waking in a recovery room. And with each waiting anticipation, fewer words would be shared. One anticipation after another, enormous conversations were left unspoken. And now, the only thing they had in common was the new silence they were hatching together.
Monique let out a long sigh, wishing to exhale every depressing thought that sat inside her. I need to focus. I need to think. Okay, think of how the day will play out. Soon, Greg will come up on the stage and talk for ten minutes...then the other two presidents from Metronome and Linkup will speak for another ten minutes...There was about an hour’s worth of information on how this partnership was going to work...that’s an hour and twenty minutes...and then it will be time for the keynote speaker, Robert. Monique glanced at her watch: Ten past ten. But we’ll probably start late, by ten or fifteen minutes. So it will probably be close to twelve when Robert’s talk starts...but they wanted lunch to start at twelve thirty...so that’s pretty tight.
Calculating the timetable was helping distract Monique from her grief, but was also starting to make her quite anxious.
Monique brought her hands to her face and rubbed the sides of her head in a circular fashion. Nothing, it seemed, was going to ease the nervousness welling up inside her. Then she tried taking some slow, deep breaths. Nothing was helping. She remembered this anxious state, had felt it before. How many times have I felt this kind of nervousness before Jenny was about to sing? All those numerous singing recitals and contests where she and Robert sat anxiously, waiting for Jenny to come out on an empty stage to sing.
The two of them would always hold hands. Their hands would grip tighter together as their only child’s voice soared and then e
ven tighter, when little Jenny reached for notes that she unfortunately sometimes missed.
Yet, her memory wasn’t about Jenny’s singing or whether or not she’d been successful in the various recitals and contests they’d attended over the years. What Monique remembered most about those moments was that feeling of ‘together’. It was in those moments that the two of them, as one, would direct every ounce of their being, their attention, their love, to the little one who was usually alone on the stage, baring her soul for all to see.
Silently in the dark, they would sit watching Jenny. And even if something miraculous, or disastrous, occurred with Jenny’s performance and Monique felt as if her heart was about to beat out of her chest, Robert would always gently lift their entwined hands and put them to his lips. Not kissing them, just breathing soft and slow as if to warm them and ease her heart back into her chest. It was his way of saying, “Don’t worry, she’s not alone, you’re not alone, I’m here with you both.”
There was that one night in their favourite restaurant after one of Jenny’s recitals that Monique had declared, “When you are up there, Jenny, and your father and I are watching you—It’s so...so—It’s hard to describe, but I have to tell you that’s when I feel the most alive!”
“Whoa, what?! Wait a minute!” Robert raised his hand in mock anger. “I thought that was my special thing!”
“What, Dad, what’s your special thing?” Jenny laughed.
“‘Feeling most alive!’ is what she said about me, when I first met your mother!”
“Yeah, we know, Dad, we know. It was in a bookstore.”
“Okay, Little Miss Smarty Pants, what was the book she stole out of my hands?”
“The Alchemist, and it was the last copy in the store! And you had it in your hands and mom grabbed it!” Jenny had heard this story many times before.
“Okay, wait a second,” Monique interrupted her daughter. “First, I didn’t steal or grab anything. I asked your father, very nicely, if he wanted to be a gentleman and let me have the last copy!”
“Oh, no you didn’t,” Robert said, turning to Jenny and re-enacting the scene. “Your mother’s exact words to me were, ‘Do you know the premise of the book?’” He smiled at Monique, eyes twinkling with the memory, and continued, “I told her it was about a shepherd boy and about him finding his purpose in life, right? And then your mom says to me, like she’s the author herself, ‘It’s called Personal Legend, not purpose; and it’s about finding true love and it says, ‘when you really desire something, the universe comes together to help you achieve it’ and I really want that book, so thank you for helping me achieve that!’ And then she just took the book right out of my hands and walked away.”
Jenny turned to her mother, “Really, Mom did that? I can’t believe it! Really! Mom, you did that?”
“Well, kind of.” Monique smiled. “But your father came running after me and said, ‘Well, I want that book too, so how is the universe going to help me achieve that if there’s only one book?’ So I told him ‘Okay, then let’s read it together!’”
“Read it together? Mom, you picked Dad up? You picked up a total stranger in a bookstore? You never told me this part.”
“That’s because, Little Rock, you were too young for that part then—” Robert chimed in. “So, it’s about three weeks later, your mom and I were sitting in a subway station waiting for the next train. And sitting there on that bench, we finished the book. And the moment after I read the last line of the book, the next train came and stopped. So I got up, but she grabbed my coat and pulled me back down onto the bench and said, ‘Let’s wait for the next train,’ and she took the book, opened it up and asked me to re-read the last line, which I did. And then, well, your mother, she took the book and put it in her bag and didn’t say anything. I said, ‘So we missed that train because you wanted to hear the last line again?’ She said to me, ‘No, it wasn’t finished because after you read the last line I needed to tell you something.’ Then she turned to me and said, ‘I love you.’ And it had only been three weeks since we’d met, so I asked her how she knew she was sure. And that’s when, Jenny, your mother put her hand right here on my chest and said to me, ‘I know because when I’m with you, Roberto Sanchez, that’s when I feel most alive!’”
“Monique, Monique!”
Suddenly she was thrust from her poignant memories back into the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Excuse me, Monique. I need to talk to you for a moment.”
Monique automatically bounced up and walked to the front of the stage to meet Greg.
“Monique, sorry to interrupt you and your husband’s preparations but I can’t find Shelley. She was supposed to make sure all the employees of each company were spread out amongst one another. And there are no place cards on the tables and it looks like we got three separate parties going on out there.”
Monique looked out into the hall. Greg was right. It seemed like all the Elevation people were gathered to the right, and even though she didn’t know any of the other company’s employees, it was evident there were two other distinct groups that had formed on the left of the room and at the rear.
“When are we starting?” asked Monique as she crouched down to be at eye level with Greg, who was standing on the floor in front of the stage.
“We have to start in five minutes,” replied a nervous sounding Greg. In all her eight years of working with Greg, Monique had never seen him so fidgety and worried looking.
“You know,” Monique started tentatively, wanting to calm her worried boss, “maybe it’s better this way, Greg, maybe it’s better to have people in their comfort zone first instead of forcing them to sit with strangers and be somewhere they don’t want to.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Good idea, Monique! Okay, then let’s just...” Greg was now terribly distracted and kept nodding his head up and down as he spoke. “Well, I guess that’s why we hired your husband right? Let’s just hope Robert can...uh, well, make us feel like a...” Greg was looking for the right words. “Yes, you know...help us to feel we are all climbing the same mountain...all going in the same direction...Thanks, Monique. Sorry I’m so jumpy. Really, thank you. Okay then, five minutes...Oh, can you get the soundman to raise the volume of the music? Maybe that will help! Thanks...”
She watched Greg walk away and noticed even his walk appeared restless. Monique moved to the sound table, towards Amir, who had his headphones on. She had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.
“Hi, Amir, we’re starting in five minutes. Could you please make the music louder?” Amir smiled, nodded, put his finger on a lever and started to push it up.
“Mama Mia...Mama Mia...” got a little louder.
“Miss Monique, Abba’s a good choice. Don’t you think?”
Monique looked out into the hall. Amir was right. As the music got a little louder, people in groups started bouncing their heads and swaying, and of course it gave Lou another chance to pull out and swing the oversized underwear from side to side like a giant cheerleader’s pompom.
She stopped and listened to the exuberant lyrics. The words ‘just how much I’ve missed you,’ seemed to catch her attention. For the first time that day, Monique felt as if the Leaning Tower of Pisa was showing a little, tiny, spark of life. It was just a small flickering ember, of course, but as she remembered the story of the little shepherd boy and his Personal Legend, “When you really desire something, the universe comes together to help you achieve it,” she looked at her husband, who was still sitting there staring and clutching that mysterious brown leather bag, and she prayed the universe was still listening.
19. 8 WEEKS AGO – SEEMA’S OFFICE
“As promised, one Sanchez a la carte,” Benny joked as he entered Seema’s office with Robert in front of him.
As they entered the office, Robert immediately pulled away from Benny and wheeled himself directly to the window without even acknowledging Seema. They both watched Robert without saying a word. Seema waited for about te
n seconds and then gestured to Benny that he could go. Benny pointed to his own mouth and made some sign language hinting to Seema that Robert still wasn’t talking. He then waved and left the office.
Seema walked over and stood directly behind Robert. “You can really see that the change is just starting to happen, can’t you?” she said.
Robert didn’t reply.
“Last fall was beautiful. I think it was because of all the rain we had. The colours were just spectacular.” Robert still didn’t reply.
Seema picked up a book she had on her desk. “I have been reading this, Robert...The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Ever read it?”
Even though it was clear Robert wasn’t going to answer, she still waited for a response each time she asked a question.
“It’s a collection of short stories about Sherlock Holmes. And in the fourth story called ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery,’ I read this one line that just...well, it made me think of you, Robert. Seriously, I read it and immediately thought of you. Would you like to hear that line?”
Robert sat motionless as Seema thumbed through the book, found the page she was looking for and then read it out loud.
“Okay, all right, here it is: ‘There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.’ And would you like to know why that made me think of you, Robert?”
Still Robert held his statue-like pose.
“I thought of you and the obvious fact of your silence. I mean, everyone here does everything they can think of to get you to talk. They sometimes go way beyond the call of duty to get you to respond, to just say one word. And yet, you don’t say a thing. Nothing. You stay silent. But you see, Robert, I think the obvious fact of your silence is very deceptive.”
Robert’s head jerked to the side. He couldn’t see Seema, who was standing directly behind him, but his movement showed her that he had heard what she said.
“You see, Robert, first, I’m thinking the obvious fact surrounding your silence is pretty straightforward. See, ever since that last operation, I think you are telling us that losing your other leg has affected you very, very much, right? And you are telling us that fact with your silence. And so, every time someone tries to get you to talk, you just end up prolonging your silence and repeating the same fact, which is that you are hurting! But that’s not enough for you. You want to show everyone that they still don’t get it; they still don’t understand how much losing your legs has affected you. That seems to be the obvious fact, right? I mean, the fact is, you only stopped talking after the operation, correct? Now, the part I think is the deception is...”
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