by Moore, TJ
“I don’t know…”
“Man, you’re too serious, Cameron. Just try to listen to what I’m saying. Take London for example. They have all kinds of security cameras everywhere, capturing a solid record of public events.” She gestured towards the wall of diverse photos. “It’s basically continual street photography – a steady stream of documented footage.”
“You’ve been to London? What, were you designing an escalator or something?”
“Hey now. It wasn’t an escalator. It was a Rube Goldberg mechanism that had to utilize both digital and analogue security devices. Motion sensors, timers, temperature-sensitive pads – stuff like that.”
“In London?”
“No, Cameron, I never actually went there. I just studied it to learn about their civil uses of electrical engineering. And in London, the crime rates have been drastically changed because of their infrastructure. It’s like they have a camera on every corner.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. Where’s the privacy?”
Jennifer tossed the couch pillow aside and leaned closer to Cameron. “Privacy? Oh, they still have plenty of that.”
She was testing him. If Cameron were a man of action, a man of the moment, he would take the hint and kiss her right then and there. Jen waited a split second, then turned away, blushing only a glow, but Cameron leaned in and caught her soft lips in his own. He tasted the sweetness of her mouth and tucked a strand of hair around her ear. Gently running her hands over Cameron’s strong shoulders, Jen squeezed his toned arms, letting her center of gravity move closer to his. And as his jawline glided across her gentle face, Cameron took her hand, intertwining her fingers with his own.
Sparks flew.
Pure Chemistry.
Then suddenly, Jen pulled away and stood up. “You’re smooth when you want to be.”
“What are you doing?”
“I was just making sure you were serious about me.”
“And?”
“If you want to date me, Cameron. You’re going to have to wine and dine me. It’s not as easy as making out on my couch.”
Cameron continued to adore Jen, and over the course of several more dates, she began to let her guard down as she learned it was okay to trust him.
One of her classic tricks involved challenging Cameron to draw a maze she couldn’t solve. She won this game every time and solved all of the puzzles with impressive speed. Especially when she achieved record times, she was unstoppable.
As part of Jen’s hobby of street photography, she invited Cameron to one of her favorite parks on the west side of Colorado Springs. They’d sit in the park, her head on his shoulder, watching a young boy fly a kite and a middle-aged couple talk about politics.
For fun, Cameron and Jen spoke in hushed voices as they fabricated a backstory for each passerby.
On one occasion, an elderly woman walking a Yorkshire terrier overheard their embellishments and scolded, “Well, I never! You should be ashamed of yourselves!”
As the woman walked off, shaking her head in disgust, Jen joked they had just met a future version of her strong-willed, outspoken self; maybe post menopause.
Cameron laughed at first, but then considered the joke may hold a touch of potential truth.
The affection they had for each other brought out their silly sides as no one else had seen them before. Some afternoons, they folded newspapers into hats and wore them as they sat in an imaginary rowboat, paddling away in the middle of the park.
No more than a week later, thesamewoman with thesameYorkshire terrier as before shook her head in haughty disgust.How dare they have fun.
They rowed and rowed, scooting on their bums across the grass, singing as they went along.
But they didn’t sing in English.
They sang in a new language.
It was the language of romp.
One particular night, Cameron and Jen sprawled out on the grass in the park, staring up at the constellations of the night sky, projecting their questions not only to each other, but also to the heavens.
“You ever think love is just a mind game we construct?” Cameron pulled some grass out of the earth and twisted it into a knot.
“What do you mean?” Jen asked. “Like a puzzle or something?”
“Yeah, sort of.”
“It’s hard to say.” She inhaled the cool night air and thought for a moment. She wasn’t stalling. Instead, she was weighing options. In her past relationships, Jen learned certain mazes led to painful dead ends.
“So, you’re asking if love is just a series of chemical reactions in the brain?”
“No.”
“Cameron, that’s what I’m hearing.”
“Let’s go back to the puzzle.”
“Not chemicals?”
“Not just chemicals. Like there’s a design to love.”
“Predestination?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t believe it’s random.”
“Yeah, you could have talked to any other girl at any other Denny’s.” Jen propped up her head with her folded arms, gazing to the stars.
“But I didn’t. I talked to you.”
A comfortable silence came, hung, and faded.
“Listen. Cameron. You know that thing I said about London – their foolproof camera systems and all that? Well, it’s not just something I studied for the heck of it.” Her voice became calmer.
“Look, it hasn’t been easy for me to do the whole college thing – working in the mornings and studying at night. I didn’t think I could handle it.”
Cameron felt she wasn’t telling him the whole story. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not like I can’t handle the homework. I just…I just needed to study something that would make sense. Something that has a real purpose.”
“Circuits and wires?”
“No, not just that. Cameron, it’s complicated. You see, ten years ago, I lost my brother. He…he was…someone shot him.” A trembling formed in her throat. “He didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t drugs or alcohol or anything. He just walked out of our house in L.A., and a red vehicle drove and shot two rounds…into his chest.”
Cameron took Jen’s hand. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I can’t be sorry anymore. I have to do something about it. My brother, Luke, he was only twenty years old. He didn’t even finish his college degree.” Tears formed in her eyes, and she let them stream down her face. “Luke wasn’t just my brother. I looked up to him. He was kind. Noble. I loved him – loved him more than anyone else. We had this trust. I could go to him and tell him anything,” Jen brushed the tears away with the back of her hand. “And he would actually listen. He had this strength, you know. Just an amazing…resilience. And it was all taken away from him. It was all snatched away like some kind of sick prank.”
“Jen…”
“And I know I’ll never be able to fix it or bring him back or anything, but I’ve just realized that I have to save all of the other Lukes out there. If I could just save all of the other…victims of these god-awful crimes, I would. I would do it for him. Luke had this…charisma about him. Whenever he came home, everybody wanted to talk to him – hear about his day – just be with him. See him. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like he had some kind of extra dose of hope. And on that day, when the car came by, the basketball just rolled from his hand into the street. And the worst thing was...I wasn’t even there. I never saw him take his last breath. I never got to say goodbye.”
“Jen, I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s what the police told me. And everyone from church and school. Look, I’m not as sad anymore as much as I’m angry. The police never found the car or the shooter or really anything. It was reported as a drive-by, and that’s where they left it. But those bullets didn’t kill Luke’s courage. No, he just passed it onto me. God, if there had just been a camera…any camera outside our house on that day it would have seen the shooter. No doubt, th
e crime would be encoded as a digital landmark...impossible to erase. If only there were more cameras in L.A., the police may have been able to find the vehicle and get justice for my brother. If only I would have been there to stop it. I swear, Cameron, I would have taken a bullet for Luke.”
It started to sprinkle. Then rain. Then downpour. But they didn’t care. Cameron and Jen continued to lie in the grass.
They let the rain cool their faces, and they raised their hands into the air catching the droplets in their mouths.
Jen secretly wished the water had the power to wash away some of the past.
It was the morning after Jen’s college graduation when Cameron popped the question.
She was solving a Sudoku puzzle on her favorite park bench, listening to the chirps of the May birds around her.
A fresh layer of dew had covered the bench in the morning, but once the sun reached its peak at midday, the collection of droplets had long-evaporated. Jen’s motivation to challenge herself with Sudoku was such that she tore the cheat sheets out of the back, using them as paper scraps for peeling vegetables. These were the moments, on the bench, where she could focus. With the ever-changing life of the park and those that inhabited it on walks and picnics, Jen found sanctuary in her solitude. And she was just about to finish the final set of numbers in the Sudoku puzzle when a broad shadow blocked the sun from her face.
“Hey, watch it…I’m…Oh, Cameron. I thought you were just a nosy jogger.”
“You’re kidding, right? Hey, catch.”
He threw her a ripe orange. Jen’s favorite. She reacted instinctively, gripping it with her fingers and digging her nails into the soft rind.
“Thanks, Cam. I’ll eat it later.”
“You’re not hungry?”
She rolled the orange from hand to hand. “Not right now.” Then she felt it. There was a little slit on the opposite side of the orange’s navel. “Did you drop this or something?”
“No, just be careful with it.”
“Cameron, you’re doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That look. Yeah, it’s that look where you seem like you’re on the brink of giddy. It’s not a very masculine trait.”
“Jen, honey, just open the orange.”
She squeezed the orange with her right hand and held it up to the sunlight, examining the miniature slit. “Open it? What, is there a worm or something in here?”
“No, just…”
“Alright, fine.”
Cameron nervously bounced his foot against the cement.
Jennifer pressed her thumb into the orange, peeling back the glossy rind. Nestled between slices, a diamond ring dazzled in front of her.
Mr. and Mrs. Frost spent their first two years living in Colorado, but then moved into a house in San Francisco to make room for their ten-month-old daughter, Sarah.
Cameron was not ready to be a father.
He couldn’t figure out how to process all of the responsibility. None of the books or videos seemed to help him transition into fatherhood.
The crying. The burping. The spitting up, the farting, the non-stop waking up in the middle of the night.
At six months, Sarah was already learning valuable persuasive skills from her parents, and her behavior was advanced for her age.
During breakfast, while Sarah ate in her high chair, Jen would play Mozart for her. At first, Sarah wasn’t so sure about the foreign sounds emitting from the CD player.
She would narrow her eyes in efforts of deciphering the strange language of music.
Even though her understanding of the music was fairly basic, her practical response proved far more sophisticated.
And it started in her toes.
Sitting in her high chair, she held her torso in a steady position while her toes started wiggling. Then her knees started swinging and her hips started swaying. Before long, Mozart had Sarah in a whimsical jig, waving her arms and bobbing her head.
“Look, honey,” Jen said. “Sarah’s a natural dancer!”
Wiggling. Swinging. Swaying. Waving. Bobbing.
“Our girl has some moves,” Cameron said.
As she added variations to her dance, Sarah had a grand ‘ol time. And when the track changed on the CD to a brisk work of Mozart, she stopped.
Sarah took another taste of applesauce and clapped her hands before pounding her feet onto an invisible stage.
Then, in one combined motion she grabbed the air in front of her and repositioned her tiny hand as she pretended to grab a conductor’s baton. Regardless of Sarah’s age, the music was transforming her.
She knowingly tilted her head up and slowly blinked, looking around the kitchen to the full orchestra in her mind.
Jen was speechless.
This was a rare opportunity, like something she’d read about in one of her parenting books. Jen pushed her bowl of cereal out of the way and went to the cupboard to grab a pair of chopsticks while Sarah remained in her dignified pose. Jen separated the chopsticks and gently placed one in Sarah’s little hand before pulling back, trying not to interfere.
Ten-month Sarah stared straightforward and raised her baton, tapping it on the edge of her high chair table, readying her company of invisible musicians.
Jen watched Sarah in the mornings while Cameron worked at the photography studio he’d started for tech products:Frost Studios.
Cameron edited photos on his laptop while watching Sarah when Jen had to work in the afternoons. This arrangement usually worked very smoothly. And most days, the entire family ate two meals together.
Jen designed security systems for the Empire Bank in downtown San Francisco. She was responsible for perfecting the locking mechanisms on the bank vault as well as designing unique security systems for the bank’s other branches across the United States.
As Sarah grew, Jen’s career at the bank took off. By the time Sarah was three, Jen was appointed as the senior security systems consultant for the Empire Bank.
During her training for the promotion, Jen became more concerned about the safety of her own home. Of course, she knew there was no way she could prevent a drive-by shooting like the one that killed her brother, but she did feel she had some control over the safety of her own family.
She installed a sophisticated security system at home with magnetically triggered alarms on the doors and windows. These additions were expensive, but they brought her some peace of mind.
Whenever Cameron watched Sarah, he’d call her his “Sarah Shine.” Now, at five years old (a fact which she was very proud), Sarah would play with her plastic kitchen set, and Cameron would stomp down the hallway like the Giant fromJack and the Beanstalk – her favored bedtime story.
As Sarah pretended to bake her magic beans, Cameron would stomp closer, banging on the walls with his palms.
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum. I smell the girl who stole the golden goose.”
He planted his feet in her bedroom doorway and puffed out his chest.
“Where is it? Tell, me. Where is my golden goose?”
Sarah turned from baking and tucked her blonde hair behind her ears.
“No,” she said. “I haven’t seen this goose. Golden or otherwise.”
Jen’s nightly story times had greatly expanded Sarah’s imagination into a fervent swirl of ideas and questions.
“Where is it then?”The giant stomped his feet.“I demand to know. I can no longer make my golden scrambled eggs without it.”
“I see,” Sarah stated, “You’ll just have to start eating something else for breakfast. Your problems do not interest me, Giant. Return in two days time and ask me again.” She grabbed the wooden spoon from her cooking pot. “Maybe your goose will turn up then.”
“WHAT? I cannot wait that long. I must find the goose. Now!!”
Cameron rushed towards Sarah and she screamed in delight. He chased her around her mini kitchen, and she grabbed her plastic frying pan, holding it as a shield with arms extended.
“
No beans for you, Giant. You haven’t earned them.”
Cameron cleared the plastic kitchen toys off Sarah’s little table with the strength of his brawny character.
“I’ve already enjoyed Jack as a snack. That makes you desert!!”
He jolted towards her.
Sarah’s feet were especially ticklish.
A decade later, as father to a ten-year old Sarah, Cameron became one of the best CSI photographers in the Bay Area, aiding to solve many homicides with Detectives Amy Hart and Vince Hogan. Among these cases, the night of the Fred Stefani investigation at 1265 Maple Street stood out in Cameron’s mind.
As he drove home that humid July night, Cameron relived the horrors of Stefani’s underground secrets. The twisted shrine compiled of newspaper clippings and maps proved Stefani’s obsession with violence. Cameron remembered how he’d bashed in the drywall with the sledgehammer to discover a rainbow of colored cords leading down, down, down to a mazelike labyrinth.
During his drive across the city, towards home, the night waned on. It was now almost 3AM when Cameron’s face hit the pillow next to Jen.
Then, the bedroom landline rang.
Jen rolled over and groggily answered the call. “Hello?”
“How soon can you get down here?” The bank manager, George Stevens, was on the other line.
“Why? What happened? What’s wrong?”
“There was an attempted robbery. We need to talk damage control.”
With bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep, Jen changed clothes, washed her face, and drove to the bank.
Mr. Stevens greeted her at the main entrance then guided her towards the hallways to the vault elevators as they talked.
“Jen, I’m not going to lie to you. Tonight could have been disastrous.” His loafers squeaked as they walked. “The intruders made it downstairs to the vault hallway, which means they passed through at least four layers ofyour security system.”