Traps

by MacKenzie Bezos

  She looks at each quadrant in turn. The long rectangle of a covered swimming pool. A play structure with a tube slide beneath a tree. Hedge lines and fence lines. Street and gate. Tennis court. Greenhouse. And finally a fish-eye view of the front doorstep to the house, four small sneakers lying jumbled beside the mat.

  She begins the sequence again: swimming pool, play structure, fence line, hedge line, street, gate, tennis court, greenhouse, door.

  The sound of a jogger comes over one of the speakers: heavy steps on pavement; a cough. Only his shadow appears in the screen shot of the gate itself, but then finally he appears on screen two, in the shot of the north approach up the street.

  The door opens behind Dana then, and she stands. A bald man in a black knit shirt and tan pants like her own.

  “Little change of plan,” he says. He sits down in the chair and looks up at her. “Today’s detail switching to travel duty. Principal One is taking a road trip to Las Vegas. Length uncertain, but up to two nights likely. I can get backup to drive there and swap with you midday if you can’t extend beyond your scheduled shift. If you have another commitment.”

  Behind Larry on the screens every part of this small personal world they have been asked to monitor for dangers holds still; nothing moves.

  The moment between his question and her answer stretches out in Dana’s mind, although she does not allow it to last more than a few seconds. Already she has tried out and discarded the private pretense that the urge to say yes is born of professionalism. Dana is not a woman who fools herself. She will say yes because weddings make her uncomfortable anyway; because the news she planned to tell Ian in the chapel parking lot is bad; because she prefers to lose him over the phone, from a motel room. On the floor something inside her heavy backpack settles suddenly, tipping it to rest against her leg.

  “Certainly,” she says.

  “Fantastic.” He picks up a stack of tabbed folders from the table behind him. “She’s shooting for leaving at six thirty. She wants to drive herself, and she’ll be picking up a dog from her father’s house in Summerlin and then visiting him at Summerlin Hospital. Velasquez went ahead a few hours ago to do reconnaissance and reserve rooms at a motel that takes dogs. I’d like you to follow her on the drive up.”

  He holds out one of the folders. “Maps from here to house, house to motel, hospital to motel, motel to hospital.”

  Dana reaches out to take it.

  He says, “Velasquez sketched out an internal map of the hospital. He says they check identification and restrict movement inside, so he scheduled contingency doctor’s appointments for both of you.”

  He hands her two more folders.

  Then he picks up a clipboard and takes a pencil from beside his keyboard. “Okay. Protective Asset Inventory. You ready?”

  Dana crouches on the linoleum at his feet and unzips her backpack.

  He looks down at his checklist. “Current company-issued first-aid kit?”

  She withdraws a red zippered pouch and sets it on the linoleum floor.

  “Satellite phone?”

  She lays one of these on the linoleum as well.

  “Flare gun?”

  She pulls out a black plastic case.

  “Fire starter?”

  She takes out a ziplock bag containing a box of waterproof matches and a green disposable lighter.

  “Emergency food rations?”

  Four vacuum-sealed pouches of silver foil.

  “Pepper spray?”

  A small orange canister.

  “Camera?”

  A Nikon D3 and a telephoto-lens case.

  “Duty weapon?”

  From under the hem of her shirt she withdraws a SIG Sauer 229 9mm pistol and lays this on the floor as well.

  “Have you consumed any alcohol in the last twenty-four hours?”

  “No, sir.” She begins repacking her supplies.

  He makes a checkmark. “Have you maintained your contractual commitment to abstain from use of nicotine and recreational drugs?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you in good health?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any recent fever, unusual fatigue, vomiting, or other signs of illness?”

  She looks up at him, one hand on her open backpack. “I vomited twice yesterday, sir.”

  He looks down at her from his chair.

  She says, “I was able to complete my Stress Inoculation Training with an improved score. I don’t have any concerns about my ability to accept this detail and perform to my highest standards.”

  “But what about getting your protectee sick?”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “It’s not contagious.”

  He rocks back in his chair. “How the hell can you possibly know that?”

  The room is really no more than a shed’s width, so small they are almost touching. “I’m pregnant, sir.”

  He puts a hand on top of his bald head like a yarmulke.

  She says, “It’s just morning sickness, and I can control it.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “I felt nauseated before I even put my bite suit on yesterday, and I put on my equipment, completed the test, left the yard, went inside to the bathroom, closed the door, and took off the helmet and suit jacket before I vomited.”

  “Jesus, Dana.” He forces his hand back to the desktop. “I mean, congratulations.”

  “Thank you. Although I should point out that it’s not news I would otherwise share since I don’t plan on completing the pregnancy.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. Let’s see.” He looks down at his clipboard again. He has lost his place. Over a speaker on the monitoring table they can hear the sound of a door opening and shutting. On the upper right-hand quadrant of screen four a dog streaks by the play structure, and then, a second later, an older dog limps past, and then another second later, a smaller dog with its hindquarters dragging behind on a wheeled platform.

  Larry says, “One more on the list: ‘Have you experienced any recent emotional challenges that would compromise your concentration on this mission?’ ”

  “No, sir.”

  “Because I could understand if, um … if that kind of decision …”

  “It doesn’t, sir.”

  “Tony is on backup call this morning. He has his bags here.”

  “I hope you’ll trust me on this.”

  He scratches his chin.

  She says, “If I might be bold here, agents have stressors all the time that they keep private if they feel they’re below a certain threshold of distraction. That’s what I would have done in this case had it not been for my honesty about the vomiting question.”

  He purses his lips, considering. Dana lowers her head and continues repacking her backpack, taking care with the things inside. Finally she zips it and stands, lifting the hem of her shirt to holster her gun.

  He reaches for a set of keys on a hook on the wall. “This one has a full tank,” he says, handing them to her.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She picks up the briefing folders, the last thing she needs for this journey, and she steps out into the purpling dawn.

  The black Suburban is beyond her own car, in the deeper dark of the shade cast by an avocado tree bearing a swing made of a tethered tire. She walks toward it, past her own car with her dress for the wedding hanging in back, past a tricycle and an empty milk crate, past the litter of fallen fruit, to stand in the narrow space between the swing and the door of the car. The swing is little used, it seems, the rope frayed, and inside the circle of black rubber hides something inanimate and invisible save for a pair of white plastic eyes that reflect back the first bit of light clouding in below the tree. Dana does not touch it, but she stares a moment, standing among the fallen avocados, her eyes adjusting, until she makes out the shape: a dark-cloaked action figure holding a sharpened pike.

  Dana turns away then, toward the pale shine of chrome keyhole and d
oor handle standing out in the heavy shade. She unlocks it and gets in, closing the door on the noise of sprinkler and crickets, setting her backpack and folders on the seat beside her, and she sits there in the quiet. The clock on the dashboard reads 6:15.

  She takes out her phone and opens a text template. She enters Ian’s name and types:

  Work detail changed to overnight travel duty. I’m sorry. I know this is really bad for you.

  She looks at it a few seconds, the cursor blinking. She looks to her left, not out her window but at it—at the way it curves and the way it meets the door frame. Most people cannot tell, but the glass on the cars their company issues is thicker than normal window glass: bulletproof. She looks back down at her BlackBerry, at her start of a message to Ian. She adds:

  Meanwhile, I have some important news to share so

  She backs up and tries again:

  Also, I’ll call you during one of my breaks because there’s something I should

  something I owe it to you to

  something I feel obliged

  She backs all the way up again and looks at what she has. Just a last-minute regret for the wedding, and an apology for the smaller disappointment she knows this will be.

  She presses Send.

  She sets her BlackBerry in the cup holder then, and with her remaining time, she makes some preparations. She eats a saltine and takes a sip of water. She lays an empty ziplock bag and a soft-pack of wet wipes on the passenger seat. She takes a small white trash bag from her backpack and sets it up, pinning the long top edge behind the glove-box door. She takes the folders she prepared the night before—“Insurance Claim Denial Appeals” and “Planned Parenthood Clinic Forms”—and moves them to a rear exterior pocket in her backpack to make room for the folders that her shift manager has given her in the front. In the cup holder her phone lights up suddenly. A reply from Ian. Above an excerpt from her own message, “I know this is really bad for you,” he has typed this:

  We’ll see.

  Dana breathes a little puff of surprise through her nose. She sits staring at it for so long that when she checks the clock again she sees that it is time to leave. She sets her BlackBerry back in the cup holder. She puts the key in the ignition and turns. She backs up in the armored Suburban, past her white car with the dress for the wedding still waiting in the backseat, and turns around, pulling forward finally, up to a closed garage door and stops just shy of it so that she is not blocking the threshold.

  Jessica stands in the center of a big walk-in closet stuffed full of the things she wears and the things she wants to hide. On the shelves jeans and T-shirts sit stacked among clear plastic bins of sunglasses and baseball caps, and in the corners, on either side of a big mirror she avoids looking in this morning, skirts of evening gowns spill out from behind baskets heaped high with dirty laundry, a big gilt-framed collage Akhil made of her film reviews, and the life-sized cardboard cutout of her in a flight suit that her daughters would not let her throw away. The skylight is dark above her, and she is already dressed in her big sweatshirt and jeans. Her running sneakers are on and tied. She is bending to place an extra baseball cap into an open duffel bag when Akhil appears in the doorway in his T-shirt and striped pajama bottoms, his hair wild with sleep, rubbing his eyes.

  “I let the dogs out to pee; they were scratching. Wait—what are you doing?”

  “I’m going.” She slides open a drawer.

  “I thought we talked about this last night. I thought you agreed with me.”

  She sifts through her socks. “Please don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  She puts a pair of socks in her duffel, and Akhil disappears and appears again quickly with a laptop and a serious, purposeful look on his face. He opens it on top of her dresser. He begins tapping.

  She tries to keep packing as he reads. He is not the type to exaggerate his delivery, but his raised eyebrows and his pattern of emphasis betray his disdain. “ ‘I’m so worried about you, Sweetheart. I care about you so deeply, and I know you well enough to know that you will never love yourself if you let yourself be lured by the spoils of fame into turning your back on your family. You are not the type to be ashamed of your humble beginnings. Perhaps one of the members of your entourage could redo the seating charts and find a little space in the back for me, behind all the stars?’ ”

  Jessica’s lip trembles. She bites it and looks at the ceiling in front of her open drawers. “It’s such poisonous crap. Such evil manipulative garbage. I don’t know why I still let it bother me.”

  “Because it’s poisonous evil manipulative garbage from your own dad,” he says.

  “I wasn’t keeping him away because I was ashamed of him! And there were no stars at our wedding! There was no entourage!”

  “Baby, it’s me.” He smiles sadly and tries to catch her eyes with his own. “I was there, remember?”

  She turns back to her drawers. “It doesn’t matter. I still want to go.” She opens another drawer.

  Akhil keeps reading: “ ‘Because I love you so very deeply and I worry over the moral anguish I know you feel in your heart about having let your fame separate you from your family, I need to share with you the tragic story of my great-aunt Peg, who might have died without bitter regrets if she had only forgiven her father their past misunderstandings and allowed him just once to meet his grandchildren.’ ”

  Jessica grabs a fistful of underwear and stuffs it in the bag at her feet. “You’re not changing my mind.”

  He says, “Or this: ‘I’m so confused by your anger, Dearheart. I tried to call and ask your permission but your handlers wouldn’t let me speak to you, and it honestly never occurred to me you would say no because it’s such common practice among the more compassionate stars. Didn’t Angelina sell family photos to People to benefit UNICEF? Didn’t you say you cared about the plight of children in India?’ ”

  She leans over and zips the bag shut.

  He says, “It’s a setup, Jessica. You’re doing exactly what he wants you to do.”

  “We can’t know that for sure. It wasn’t even him calling.”

  “Who cares? For all we know that woman on the phone was one of the paparazzi friends he splits commissions with. He’s a pretty creative guy, remember?” He flips the laptop around: a scanned screen shot from TMZ with a headline that reads, “Father’s Day in Beverly Hills: No Dads Allowed” next to a picture of a sparkly-eyed older man smiling for the camera outside the gate in front of their house with a sign that says, JESSICA PLEASE FORGIVE ME!

  Akhil says, “They actually have that one posted as a sample on one of the celebrity photo brokering websites with dollar signs stamped across it.”

  She picks up the duffel by the strap and slings it over her shoulder.

  “You were right last night, Akhil.”

  “About what?”

  “I have to stop hiding in here. Growing up with a mother who’s afraid to go outside or answer the phone is way worse than growing up knowing your grandfather is an asshole.”

  Akhil’s hands shoot up in the air. His eyes are wide with surprise and excitement. “Good! Great! Hallelujah! That’s my girl!” Then he lowers them and grabs her gently by the shoulders. “But that means go back to work. That means go outside. That doesn’t mean run headlong into one of your dad’s ambushes.”

  “I have to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” She puts her hands on her hips. “Because I want my dog.”

  He shakes his head briskly, as if someone slapped him. “Wait, what?”

  “I want the dog, Akhil.” She folds her arms across her chest. “That’s my dog. Grace Kelly. That’s one of the dogs he bought for me.”

  He narrows his brows skeptically. “When you tracked him down at seventeen … After he abandoned you as a baby …”

  “See! I knew you would say that. That’s why I didn’t tell you last night.” She reaches into a basket of sunglasses on top of her dresser and grabs a pair.

 
He says, “One of the litter of eight puppies he got on impulse for his tenement studio—”

  “Yes.”

  “For you to rush home and feed between your high school classes while he was out sprinkling bits of broken glass into his food at Denny’s or slamming on his brakes in front of teenage drivers.”

  “Yes.”

  “There is probably no dog at all, Jessica; she should have died years ago; she’d have to be ancient by now—”

  “I thought of that! It’s possible! I looked it up, even!”

  “Or there might be a different dog he paid that woman to call Grace Kelly to lure you out there for a photo ambush. ‘Jessica Finally Forgives!’ ‘Dog and Threat of Deathbed Trump Five-Year Star Grudge!’ ”

  She puts on her cap and glasses. “Maybe.” Then she muscles past him into the dark hall with her bag, past the two closed doors and down the narrow stairs into the kitchen. She fills the coffee carafe with water and pours it into the coffeemaker. She scoops coffee into a filter, making a sloppy job of it, while Akhil stands behind her blinking, watching her. Finally she opens the refrigerator and takes out a little ziplock snack bag of leftover bacon.

  “Let me make you an egg,” he says.

  “It’s not for me, it’s for Grace,” she says, and she bends over her duffel bag to stuff it inside. When she stands again, he is closer, and he takes her head gently in his hands. He kisses her on her hair. “All the more reason to make you an egg, then.”

  Jessica sits down on a stool at the counter, and watches him take a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. He pours a little oil in a pan and turns on the flame beneath it. In the wake of her struggle against them, his bald truths make her feel cared for, every bit as much as the egg. Her father’s false comforts had been flawless. Perfect fits. Measured with some bloodless micrometer against the opening of her sorrow and then jiffy-milled—quick-crafted behind his shining eyes, as if turned on a lathe. The egg sputters and pops on the stove, and Akhil watches it while beside him the carafe clouds with steam and finally releases a trickling stream of dark coffee, and then he slides the egg onto a plate, the same kind of flowered dish she had used for the girls the night before. The whole time they were dating, he never once flattered her or sent her too many flowers or told her anything she loved hearing that later turned out to be untrue. Instead he sent an envelope of vitamins to her trailer. He told her he liked the smell of her breath after she ate grapes. Now he takes a fork from the drawer and hands it to her and watches as she cuts into the egg with the side of her fork and takes an enormous bite. A little ghost of red glitter spangles the floor beneath her. The skin around her eyes is puffed and splotched pink from crying.