Moonliner: No Stone Unturned

by Hanzel, Donald

  “What did he say?” she asks.

  “A lot,” Beau answers; “let me get my recorder.”

  He disappears into the living room for a few seconds but quickly returns with his recorder in hand. He sits back at the table and hits the play button. Kendra sits listening to Cedric’s transmission word for word, to every bold prediction he makes. She remains expressionless. The machine turns off with a beep when the message ends.

  “He sounds so serious,” Kendra says smiling.

  “I thought so too. He’s really selling it,” Beau says; “I’d give him an A plus on his drama skills.”

  “His story’s good too,” Kendra adds; “but he’s really going out on a limb this time with all his predictions.”

  “I thought so,” Beau says. “Maybe he really believes them.”

  “That happens to people sometimes,” Kendra replies.

  “Well he’ll be way off on the Malaysian flight,” Beau says; “that will turn up any day now. Airlines that size don’t vanish from the face of the earth.”

  “It’s odd that they still haven’t found that plane,” Kendra mentions.

  “I know,” Beau says; “and now they think the pilot may have turned off all communication devices, making it really hard to locate. Still, it won’t take years to find. Days, weeks perhaps, but not years.”

  “Well I guess we’ll know soon enough with the predictions he made,” Kendra says with a smile, far less interested in this than she was in the beginning. The novelty of it all seems to be wearing thin.

  “I guess we will,” Beau replies; “when the earthquake hits. It surprises me that he would expose himself so early with these predictions. You’d think he’d want to drag it out a little longer or at least keep the mystery alive.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t give him your name or any further personal information,” Kendra tells Beau.

  “Oh, he’s probably harmless,” Beau says.

  “Still,” Kendra says; “I’m glad.”

  “You were the one who wanted me to respond to him in the first place,” Beau reminds her.

  “I know,” Kendra replies; “I’m just glad he doesn’t know who we are.”

  The two finish dinner. Beau clears the table, rinses the dishes, and puts them into the dishwasher as Kendra goes into the living room. Beau watches her out of the corner of his eye as she flips through channels on their remote looking for something to catch her interest. Exhausted, nothing seems to. Beau finishes loading the dishwasher, comes into the living room and sits beside her on the sofa.

  “Don’t forget we’re having dinner with the Volans tomorrow night,” Kendra tells him as she turns off the television. “It’s why I asked if you had an interview; I wanted to see if you were going to be downtown tomorrow.”

  “Oh no,” Beau answers; “I completely forgot.”

  “Why oh no?” Kendra asks; “you have to go.”

  “No, I know, “Beau answers; “I can make it, I just had completely forgotten about it, that’s all.”

  “Don’t you wanna go?” Kendra asks.

  “Of course I want to go,” Beau answers; “It’s just that I would prefer to go after I find a job.”

  “Why?” Kendra asks; “I doubt they’ll ask about work.”

  “Rich will,” Beau replies. “He can be such a jackass at times.”

  “You had fun with him at the New Year’s party,” Kendra points out.

  “We were drinking,” Beau mentions.

  “Well Amber set this up and we have to go,” Kendra says; “or she’ll keep asking.”

  “Is dinner with the Volans something we’re gonna have to do the rest of our lives?” Beau asks.

  “Only as long as I work with Amber,” Kendra answers. “Come on, she’s nice!”

  “That doesn’t sweeten the deal,” Beau responds. They both laugh.

  “What time and where are we meeting them?” Beau asks.

  “We’re meeting downtown at Red Robyn on the pier,” Kendra answers; “at seven.”

  “Red Robyn?” Beau asks.

  “I told Amber we want to keep it simple,” Kendra answers.

  “Oh, so they already know I’m out of work,” Beau says.

  “Stop worrying about it,” Kendra tells him; “no one’s judging you.”

  “I know,” Beau replies; “It’s just that Rich is always wound up in his career.”

  “That’s his issue,” Kendra says; “his insecurity.”

  “Fine,” Beau says; “I do have an interview downtown tomorrow at five thirty. It isn’t too far from the pier. I can just go directly to Red Robyn from the interview and meet you guys there.”

  Kendra smiles. Her eyes are closed from the exhaustion of her long day and she’s on the verge of falling asleep. Her fatigue only compounds the stress of Beau’s joblessness. Kendra works so hard and isn’t left with a lot of energy at night. Her life is being spent on her work, while Beau is left with all this time on his hands to figure out his next step.

  Doing what he can to counter Kendra’s fatigue, Beau clears the remaining dishes, rinses them, and starts the dishwasher. He goes back into the living room and gently wakes Kendra from a sleep she’d slipped into while sitting upright. She’d drifted to sleep with her head leaning sideways in an awkward position. She was bound to have a neck ache had she stayed there long.

  Kendra awakens, lifts her head and takes a deep breath through her nose. Her hair has a cowlick where her head was resting against the sofa and her skin has a red divot where her temple had pressed against a button in the upholstery. Half asleep, she stands. She is completely graceless in her state of mind; she’s out of it. Like a child, she gets to the bedroom with Beau’s help. He helps her get undressed and tucks her in for the night under their goose down duvet, too exhausted to go through her nightly routines. She smiles without opening her eyes, then almost immediately sinks into a deepening sleep. Beau watches her sleep for a few minutes, admiring her beauty, before going back to his computer to continue his job search.

  Moonliner 4:03

  Beau arrives almost half an hour early for his interview. Not wanting to go in so early, he sits in his car in the parking lot enjoying the light and warmth of the sun, out now for its second day in a row. The day is partly cloudy with a sky full of small, puffy, cumulus clouds. Beau takes ten minutes to watch one move in front of the sun, then for the sun to break free from behind it again. It draws him far away for a moment from this parking lot, this interview, and even this day. A small delivery truck pulls into the lot and parks next to Beau’s Prius, snapping him out of his daydream. He pretends to look over his notes just to appear busy.

  He turns the radio on for a moment and catches a news brief.

  “The search continues for Malaysian Air flight 370 which disappeared four days ago,” a reporter announces. “Aviation experts are baffled and are now looking at a number of new scenarios.”

  Beau shuts it off and just sits in silence. After ten minutes, he goes into the building. He finds the office of Seattle Systems Engineering on the fourth floor of a five story tower. The office is nice but the commute takes him right through the downtown, a drawback that would come with the job.

  Beau is shown to a conference room with a whiteboard filled with sales projections. There’s an intercom-style phone on the center of the table, and chairs lining two walls of the room. The other two walls are glass, but hidden behind a long curtain that closes for privacy.

  Very shortly after Beau takes a seat, in walks Steve Tran, office coordinator. The two men shake hands and sit down. Beau hands Steve his resume and Steve takes a long, silent look at it.

  “What makes you want to work for a software provider?” Steve asks Beau.

  “Your network to be honest,” Beau replies. “I don’t necessarily want to work for a software provider, but you’re one of the few companies around that offer the balance of things I’m looking for in a career move,” he adds.

  “We provide highly technical softwar
e to engineers, engineering firms and schools,” Steve tells Beau. “We have over five thousand clients and growing worldwide.”

  “I saw that on your website,” Beau says; “and you customize software.”

  “We have for many clients, but that requires a lot of additional resources,” Steve answers, “so we don’t mind doing it, but at a substantially higher cost than our standard work.”

  Steve smiles and looks more closely over Beau’s resume.

  “I’ll be honest with you,” Steve says; “we recently hired a tech guy to handle our full system, but we may be doubling our servers soon, in which case we’d be hiring a second tech guy. The guy we’ve got now is buried in work.”

  “How soon are you looking for someone?” Beau asks.

  “Not that soon,” Steve answers; “that’s the problem. Not for a few months. We could always place you in a tech-support position at our callback center until the position became available, but I can’t make any promises if or when the job would open.”

  “What are my chances of getting the position when it opens?” Beau asks.

  “Good,” Steve answers; “looking at this resume. It wouldn’t be up to me on this one, but I could recommend you for the position.”

  “I’ll give the tech support job some thought,” Beau says. “Regardless, please keep my resume in the running for the additional IT management position. I’m very interested in it.”

  “I will,” Steve replies. “You’re resume looks good. I wish there were more I could offer you at this time.”

  “No, you’ve done enough,” Beau says; “this is the most encouraging interview I’ve had yet.”

  The interview was fast and to the point, just the way Beau likes them to be. They shake hands and he sees himself out of the building. A tiny round bird chirps from the highest limb of a leafless tree just outside, another sign of spring. Feeling good about the potential job, Beau decides to walk to the waterfront to meet up with Kendra and the Volans.

  He arrives twelve minutes later at the pier, but forty-five minutes before their seven o’clock dinner plans. Luckily Red Robyn has a bar. Beau takes a seat at the bar and orders a pint of locally brewed ale. Sunlight shines through the window and the beer, bringing out the ruddy hue of the roasted barley. Feeling good about the day’s leads, Beau doesn’t waste a lot of time getting to the bottom of what he feels to be a well-earned brew, downing it in nine minutes.

  “Care for another one?” the bartender asks just as soon as Beau sets his glass down.

  “I don’t see why not,” Beau answers smiling.

  Beau stares out of the restaurant’s large glass windows, watching two ferries gradually make their way across Elliott Bay; one outbound toward Bainbridge Island and the other inbound from Bremerton. Seagulls hover, treading air over a trash can full of fast food refuge from Ivar’s.[9] Another cloud moves in front of the sun, immediately darkening the bar. The room suddenly grows noticeably cooler.

  The bartender pours the pint of beer and places it on a new coaster in front of Beau, who now questions his wisdom in ordering a second pint on an empty stomach. Then, feeling a little looser from his first pint and remembering that he’s about to have dinner with the Volans, he tilts his glass back to re-wet his whistle with another cold, fresh ale.

  Moonliner 4:04

  The view hypnotizes Beau so much that he doesn’t notice Kendra standing just behind his left shoulder.

  “Have you been hear long?” she asks Beau.

  “Not too long,” he answers startled, turning around; “twenty minutes or so.”

  “Is that your first beer?” she asks him.

  “No,” Beau replies; “it’s my second.”

  “Well pace yourself,” Kendra tells him; “the Volans haven’t even arrived yet.” She sits down at the bar next to him.

  “Do you have your name in for a table?” Beau asks.

  “Yeah,” Kendra answers; “they’ll come get us when it’s ready.”

  Images of rescue choppers searching the Indian Ocean for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight show simultaneously on two separate TVs. There is no sound to accompany the newscasts.

  Kendra orders a glass of chardonnay.

  “So how did your day go?” she asks Beau.

  “Well,” he answers while staring up at the TV.

  “Do you think you got the job?” she asks.

  “I think there’s a good chance, but it won’t start for a few months,” Beau tells her. “I could go to work for their tech support team in the meantime until the IT job opens, if it opens. It would help me train for the IT opening.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Kendra says with a little look of relief herself, knowing the stress that’s been on Beau.

  “Yeah,” Beau replies. “It feels good to have an option on the table, whether it’s right for me or not.”

  Their server delivers Kendra’s wine and the two touch glasses to toast Beau’s encouraging interview.

  “So how was your day?” Beau asks.

  “It was nice actually,” Kendra answers; “our manager was out of the office today, which always makes for a more relaxed atmosphere.”

  Kendra spots the Volans in the entrance to the restaurant. She waves them into the bar right as their waitress arrives to tell them that their table is ready. Just as they walk out of the bar, the TV screens flash images of people flooding onto the street from an evacuated apartment building. The title across the TV reads, “Breaking News, San Francisco.”

  Kendra and Beau carry their drinks as the four of them follower their waitress to a table nicely situated by a window, where docked just outside, harbor cruise ships sway on the water. The sun breaks back out from behind the cloud, again brightening the room. It feels good.

  The server hands them menus as they all sit down at the table. Silently, they all sit reading them for a minute.

  “What looks good?” Rich Volan asks.

  “I think I’m gonna have the Royal Red Robyn Burger,” Beau says.

  “That looks good,” Amber says.

  “He always gets that one when we eat here,” Kendra says.

  Their server soon returns to take their order. Beau and Rich both go for the Royal Red Robyn, Amber orders a club sandwich, and Kendra a shrimp Caesar salad. The restaurant is filled to capacity with a dozen or so people waiting in the entrance for tables.

  “So what’s new with you Beau?” Rich asks to break the silence.

  “Well as you may know I was laid off at work a few weeks ago,” Beau says to get the topic out of the way.

  “Amber told me,” Rich says; “sorry to hear about that.”

  “Thanks,” Beau responds; “that’s nice of you to say.

  Beau orders another beer. Rich and Amber order beers as well. With a glass still half full of wine, Kendra holds off.

  “So have they found that missing airliner yet?” Amber asks the group.

  “No,” Kendra answers; “isn’t that the weirdest thing?”

  “They’re coming up with new theories every day,” Rich says.

  “It’s a reminder how big the planet is,” Beau adds. “They’ll find it soon.”

  “Not according to the future guy,” Kendra says, smiling at Beau.

  “Who’s the future guy?’ Amber asks, conscious of the private exchange.

  “I recently picked up a few messages over my shortwave radio from a guy claiming to be from the future,” Beau answers while giving Kendra a quick little dirty look for bringing it up.

  “He came from the future?” Rich asks.

  “No, he sent the messages from the future,” Beau answers.

  “Fascinating!” Amber says smiling. “How far into the future is he from?”

  “Fifty-five years,” Beau answers with a smile. It is a fun story to tell. “He lives in 2069.”

  “Does this future guy have a name?” Rich asks.

  “He didn’t say,” Beau curtly replies, now wanting to drop the subject.

  “It may
be a scam of some kind,” Rich warns.

  “Or it may be a guy from the future,” Amber optimistically adds.

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Rich asks her.

  “Believe? No,” Amber answers; “but look how quickly we discard it.”

  “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Beau adds.

  “That’s right, but a claim remains a claim until either proven or disproven,” Amber retorts; “leaving some degree of question until the answer is known.”

  “True,” Beau says; “I can’t argue with that.”

  “But this claim sounds more outlandish than extraordinary,” Rich says; “Unfortunately we live on a planet gone mad, making the likelihood of this guy being some raving lunatic very high,” Rich adds.

  “That’s true too,” Kendra says, emerging from her silent observation.

  The server soon returns with their food and another round of beverages. The conversation carries on, jumping from topic to topic. The mood steadily softens as the laughter continues to rise throughout dinner. Beau looks around the room, then around his table and realizes that he’s actually having a good time. Who would have guessed?

  Satisfied with their meal, the conversation, and how the evening has played out, both parties finally call it an evening and part ways from the restaurant. Beau and Kendra walk back to their car, still parked in the lot of Seattle Systems where Beau had interviewed earlier for the job. The sun is long gone and a brilliant crescent moon brightly lights up the clouds. The bay is still and the night is tranquil. A ferry’s fog horn echoes over the harbor.

  Driving home along Dexter Avenue, Kendra and Beau discuss their evening and the surprisingly good time Beau had. Kendra, having only had a glass and a half of wine, drives. Beau sits on the passenger’s side staring out the window at all the houseboats on Lake Union. They roll across the drawbridge and into Fremont, virtually the only car on the road.