by Odeda Yaari
The thought of a woman’s love brought him back to Sophie. He told himself he wasn’t going to call her, to give her some space, but his hand reached out for the phone involuntarily. He would hear her voice just for a moment, wish her a pleasant day, and ask how she was doing. He wouldn’t ask her out on a date. He’d save that till tomorrow. He dialed her number, which he already knew by heart.
One ring. Then another. Then the call went to voicemail. Ron didn’t know what to say, so he hung up. Then he called again, and this time left a message. “Hi Dana, this is Ron. I wanted to say thanks for yesterday. It was the best time I’ve had in a long time. Hope you’re having a great day!”
Ron felt silly for being so nervous and excited. It had been so long since he’d been that chubby boy the girls used to make fun of. He was now a handsome, successful man, but still those habits of shyness and insecurity were hard to shake.
Later that evening, he made another attempt to reach Dana. He got her voicemail again and doubt began to creep up. What if she’s avoiding me? He tried to push away the thoughts. It was only yesterday, he remembered, that she had kissed him. She isn’t avoiding me. She just has a full life of her own. He was wondering what she was doing right then, where she was. There was so much he didn’t know about her and longed to find out.
14
Late that night, after Garry had left for his home, Sophie picked up the phone to call Ron. His voice sounded distant, as if he had just returned to reality from some other world where he had immersed himself.“Hi, it’s Dana. Is this a bad time?” she asked.
Ron came to at once. He removed himself from the gambling game he had been playing. It was his third game in a row, and his third win. He had cracked the method. But now it was much less interesting. He had waited for this phone call so desperately, he almost didn’t dare believe it would come. He had experienced so many disappointments with women in the past, and half expected the story to repeat itself this time around.“I’m so glad you called,” he said. “I tried to reach you a couple of times. No, I’m absolutely not doing anything important right now,” he quickly added, as if Dana could see through the phone and knew what he’d been up to.“Sorry I didn’t call sooner, but I was swamped with work. You know what it’s like.” Then after a little pause, she added, “Why don’t we meet up tomorrow? I’d love to drop by your place for a cup of coffee. Just a casual thing. I’ll wear my comfy clothes so you can see what I’m really like.”
Ron, who could already picture what a date at his place away from other people could lead to, quickly said yes.
“You’re welcome any time, Dana. Just say when.”
“Around nine? That way you won’t have to worry about making dinner or anything.”
“Great, nine it is.” Sophie could hear the smile in Ron’s voice.
“Don’t forget…” she whispered into the phone.
“Don’t forget what?”
“The wine. Also, I’d love to have something sweet. Other than you, that is.”
Ron blushed, eager to take part in the game. “And you don’t forget…” he whispered back at her.
Sophie smiled. He was opening up to her. “Don’t forget what?”
“That you don’t know where I live.”
They both laughed and he went on. “How about you give me your address and I’ll have a car pick you up? I’d like to pamper you.”
“That sounds great, but I won’t be home. I have some errands to run before I get to your place.” She wiggled her way out of having to divulge her address. “So I’ll get there on my own. You’re worth the effort!”
Ron gave Dana his address and the conversation ended. He could have talked to her for hours more, but it really was getting late and Dana had even yawned a few times during their talk.
***
The next day at the office, everyone at work thought Ron was acting a bit strange. He had been cheerful for the last few days, but now seemed happier than ever. His secretary even caught him humming some song to himself when she came in to give him some papers. Time went by slowly. Every half hour he’d step out of his office and into the secretary’s room just to look at the clock there and make sure he had the right time. A little before six, much earlier than usual, he picked up his things and left the office. On the way home, he stopped at a florist and bought a big bouquet of red roses. At another little store, he bought two bottles of expensive wine and a box of good chocolate and hurried home.
With a rush of energy the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in a long time, he started going around the apartment, cleaning and straightening up. He showered, shaved, combed his hair, and put on some aftershave, and then decided to change the sheets. Who knows? he thought, hopefully. At exactly nine p.m., he heard the intercom buzzer. Ron admired Dana’s punctuality. This means she’s taking me seriously, he thought, and he rushed to open the door.
When he saw her standing there in the doorway, Ron’s heart skipped a beat. This time, Dana was dressed casually, and in his eyes looked even prettier than ever. Her tight jeans hugged her curves and complemented her figure, and the little lacy top she had on left much of her body exposed to his gaze. She had no makeup on and the only jewelry she wore was a thin, delicate necklace. All of a sudden, he felt embarrassed for inspecting her like that, turned his gaze to the floor, and invited her in.Dana stood there for a moment, trying to take in as many details as possible. She knew every little bit was important and that even the smallest detail could turn out to be a clue.
She came up to Ron, pressed her body against his, and before he could even close the door behind her, he felt her tongue wriggling in his mouth. He clung to her, reciprocating the kiss, stroking her shoulders and her hair. He breathed in her scent, tasted her taste, and held her in his arms. At that very moment, he could think of nothing better in the whole world.
Then all of sudden, she broke away from him, smiling, closed the door behind her, and said, “Hi, how are you?” as if she hadn’t just devoured him a moment ago.
Ron was stunned by her spontaneity. He stood there speechless for a moment.
“Cat got your tongue?” she teased him.
“Sorry, come in. Would you like something to drink?”
“You know I would. You promised me wine, didn’t you?”
“Red or white? I didn’t know which you liked best, so I bought both.”
“Let’s start with the white, thanks. We’ll see what to do with the red later,” she said in a low voice. “And I see you’ve bought something sweet, too. Well done.”
On the table were two wine glasses. Next to them stood an elegant plate full of round chocolates in gold wrappers. Dana went over to the table and picked up one of the chocolates, peeled off the wrapper, and put half of it in her mouth slowly, well aware of Ron’s hungry gaze. She also noticed the fresh flowers in a large vase. Instead of sitting down, she started walking around the room and checking it out.
This was the first time Ron had felt gratitude toward his mother, for forcing him to hire her interior decorator for his apartment. Truth was, he had no interest in what the decorator did. She had taken care of everything, from the furniture and window dressing to the dishes in the kitchen cupboards. She had even chosen the flower vase, which until this evening had stood empty, as if waiting for this very moment.
Sophie had an eye for quality. She could tell that everything she saw had been skillfully chosen, and that money had been no issue. For a moment, she paused by a photo of a beautiful young man that stood on the credenza, then continued to walk around for a bit until she felt she had stretched the rope to its limit.
“Okay if I smoke here?” She turned to Ron.
“Yes. There’s an ashtray on the credenza.”
Dana took out her ornate cigarette case. While Ron hurried to the kitchen to get the wine, she lit a long cigarette and checked the miniature recording device she was wearing. Ron came back into the living room, poured the wine, and sat at the edge of the sofa. Dana walked over t
o him, took the wine glass he handed her, touched her glass against his and sat down next to him.
“So, how’s the project at work going?” she asked.
“Okay,” said Ron. He felt like he had to keep talking, before becoming all dumbstruck again. “I believe we’re very close to the finish line. We’ve succeeded in one part of the mission, and now we’re waiting for the results on an experiment we’ve held for the second part. If that too is successful…” He stopped short for a moment and glanced at the photo on the credenza. “…then I believe we’ll actually be able to make the world a better place.”
“What could possibly do that?” Dana played innocent.
She tried to get him to keep talking. She had the ability to wriggle secrets out of people, secrets they had never shared with anyone else.“The world is full of people with conflicting agendas. There’s so much crime and cruelty, money, and political scheming. Few people pull the strings, and all the rest are like marionettes, unable to make any difference. The other day, I told you I believe you can make a difference, because you know what everything is made of, where everything begins. But the question is, do you really believe in yourself, and can this thing you’re working on right now really change all that?”
Ron smiled. Now he felt he was walking on firm ground, in his own backyard, in the field of science and experimentation. “You’re right,” he said. “We can’t change everything, but if we accomplish the task we’ve set for ourselves, we’ll be able to strike at one of those centers of ‘crime and cruelty,’ as you’ve put it. I believe it’ll bring about a chain reaction that’ll crush the things you are talking about.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said. “I hope you succeed. But aren’t you scared?” Dana tried to find Ron’s weak spots that would make him want to join a big and powerful organization like APC.
“What is there for me to be scared of?” asked Ron.
“If what you say is true, then surely you’ll be exposed to terrible threats by those people you speak of. I don’t think such powerful individuals will go about their day if you develop something that disrupts their business. Crime organizations have long arms, and the people who head them are known to be dangerous, powerful people who will try to hurt anyone who attempts to stop them.”
Ron listened, pensive. This was the first time he had considered the potential risks they could be inviting. They would have to call a board meeting and figure out together what protections they would need once development was over. Or perhaps they were already required. He thought of the young scientists and engineers who worked for them. Few people knew what treasure they were holding in their hands and all had signed confidentiality agreements and, of course, a binding legal document forbidding the use of the first formula. But what if one of them spoke, or even hinted, about what was happening in the labs? What if any intimation of what they were doing had somehow gotten to the wrong people? Ron refilled the wine glasses and was silent.
Dana knew she was drumming the right strings. Perhaps Ron wasn’t going to say anything right away, but there was no doubt that the thoughts she had planted in his head were sinking in.
So naive, she thought. On the one hand, he understands things I could never understand, but on the other he can’t see the danger he’s in. Ron’s smart enough to keep everything secret, but he’s doing it for only one reason—wanting to reach the target first. Secrecy should be there, first and foremost, for his own personal safety, which he completely and utterly forgot to even take into consideration.
Sophie felt she had come to a dead end with that topic and decided to take a stab at another angle. “Who’s that good-looking guy in the photo?” she asked.As the words left her mouth, she could see Ron shrinking before her very eyes, as if all the air had been let out of him. The look in his eyes was that of the little boy who had always been second best.
Even now, he thought to himself, after all these years, after all my professional success, with him dead and me alive, he can still win the competition between us without even trying. Gill remains that good-looking guy, and as hard as I try I will never be like him.Then he said, “That’s my older brother, Gill. He died in a car accident when he was seventeen and a half.” He made sure to divulge nothing but the cold facts.
Dana was quiet for a minute, allowing the difficult moment to pass. But she didn’t have the privilege of letting the matter go, even though she felt his pain. She came closer and put her hand on his shoulder. “How old were you?” she asked.
“Ten.”
Silence filled the room. Dana felt she couldn’t push through the barrier that Ron had put up. Ron saw that Dana was slipping away from him. And then, in an inexplicable rush, he started talking.
“You asked how our development could change the world. Well, my brother’s story is the best example. Gill grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. There was never anything he lacked. He knew everything was available for him, and he also knew he could get away with anything. There was no one there to stop him. When he was seventeen, he started doing drugs. I don’t know all the details, since I was so young and my parents never spoke about it. But I remember him shutting himself in his room for hours on end. Thinking back, I managed to put the pieces together and figured out that he had started with weed and soft drugs. Apparently, he moved on fairly quickly to more serious stuff like opium and heroin. I only found out about that about two years ago.
“Dana, no one in the house even noticed! No one paid any attention! Our parents were too busy with their own lives, and I was too young to understand what was happening. If someone were to stop the production of drugs around the world, or at least manage to neutralize their effect, Gill wouldn’t have died in that car crash. He was completely high when he got behind the wheel!” Ron got up from the sofa, distraught.“Do you understand?” he went on. “And no one ever spoke about it at home. I didn’t even know any of this until two years ago. When I finished university and was going to start my company, which was at the time going to do something else completely, I was looking for some documents and stumbled upon Gill’s original death certificate. Up until then, I had thought the reason he’d died was just another stupid accident, but I found out he had been an addict and that made me change my entire plans. This isn’t something I can tell just anyone, but I’ll tell you. That’s what our research is about—we’re trying to find a way to take the plants with active substances that are used in the production of drugs and deactivate their addictive qualities.”
Ron sighed. A heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. But there was still much more he wanted to share. “All their money couldn’t help my parents hold on to the son they really loved, and they were left stuck with me, the one who never looked quite right or fit the family image they were trying to portray. So now they give a lot of money to help drug addicts. My father is very strict in his sentences for drug dealers and my mother is the head of an organization that helps addicts, but none of that will solve the problem. Can’t they see? This has to be handled at the root. And I hold the key. It took me a while before I could talk about it with my parents and get them to invest their resources into our invention.”
This time Dana got up to refill Ron’s glass. He was clearly upset. She put her hand on his arm and pulled him back down to sit next to her on the sofa so that she could help him calm down. She looked in his eyes and gave him a warm hug. That was exactly what he needed. He never expected this to happen, for him to open up like this to a woman he’d only seen three times. Ron hugged her back. The night was not going as he had expected, and other than the kiss they’d shared when she first came in, he hadn’t had a chance to get close to her. But that didn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. He felt the emotional experience meant a great deal to him.
Dana listened quietly. The secret was out. His brother had lost his life to drugs. Her sense of empathy conflicted with her thoughts about how she could best use this information. She did something that was quite u
nlike her, something she hadn’t done on previous jobs, and decided to tell him a bit more about herself. Something about Ron, his candor and sensitivity, his honesty, had won her over.“Did I tell you I have nine siblings?”
“No. You just said you had a big family.” Ron was glad for Dana to speak about herself and let him take a load off.
“Yeah, there’s ten of us, and I’m in the starting five.” She laughed. “Our parents gave us everything they possibly could. True, there was absolutely no privacy in the house, but it was worth it. It brought us all closer together and made up for the things we couldn’t have.”
“I envy you, Dana. I wish I had more siblings. Gill died a long time ago, but even before that he never paid me any attention.”
“You know, I guess no matter what family you grow up in, everyone has their share of pain. You had money, we had closeness, but drugs seem to get everywhere.”
Ron looked at her, puzzled.
“One of my brothers also got mixed up with drugs.”
Ron was silent. Dana came closer and he took her hand. “A few years ago, my younger brother was sure he had found an easy way to make money, and started dealing.” She grew silent and didn’t know how to go on. She had never told anyone this, not while pretending to be someone she wasn’t.
“And how did it end?” asked Ron.
“I may not always do what my family expects me to, but I have my limits. He, however, had none. I knew what drugs could do to people, and I wasn’t going to expose my family to that kind of danger, so I decided to put an end to it.” She fell silent again, contemplating what she should and shouldn’t share. “I have some contacts. You know, when you’re working with large companies you get to know people. So, I contacted the police and organized a raid on my little brother.”