Beautiful Disaster

by C. J.

  Halfway through the story, Maggie grabbed a bottle of vodka out of her freezer and poured herself and the boys a healthy helping of Grey Goose.

  “So you have the formula with you, then?”

  “Yes,” said Danny, “now all we have to do is figure out how to get full credit without Lexi grabbing the formula and all the rights there- in.”

  “There in? What are you, a guest star lawyer in of ‘Law and Order’? There- in. Give me a break,” Kevin ranted.

  Danny snapped his fingers. “Wait a second, can’t Maggie ‘discover’ the formula here on her own time. How does your non-disclosure agreement work at the university, Maggie?"

  “She’s Dora Fountain aren’t you love?” Kevin asked with a massive grin on his face.

  “What, who’s, oh, great, another alias I have to remember. So tell me who is Dora and how does she relate to this mess?” asked Danny.

  Maggie explained that she took steps to ensure the university wouldn’t take any discoveries she created away from her. Everyone on staff had signed a non-disclosure contract. Maggie signed her form “Wilma Flintstone” when she was first hired, and it wasn’t until a new computer system was introduced into the university’s legal department that it was discovered that there was no Professor Flintstone. Further, when it was revealed that Maggie was the one employee who hadn’t signed a non-disclosure contract, she received a nasty note from the legal department. She told them she would send off a new form right away. But she’d made a frantic phone call to Kevin who hacked into the university’s personnel files and switched her name and information with that of the head cafeteria worker, Dora Fountain. According to the university’s legal department’s files, Dora was a professor of biochemistry, organic and inorganic chemistry while a Maggie Penny was in charge of ordering ground beef at the cafeteria. Cafeteria employees were not required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Kevin kept this information on file for a week and then switched Maggie back as a full professor, and she no longer was required to place orders for condiments and baked goods. However, for an entire week, the food in the cafeteria improved 110%.

  Maggie had signed the nondisclosure form as Dora Fountain and sent it off with her apologies for a poor sense of humor. Legal acknowledged the paperwork and told there were no hard feelings and have a nice day, Ms. Fountain. Apparently, in addition to not having a sense of humor, the legal department in addition to not having a sense of humor had a poor memory for it failed to recall that it had been Maggie who had signed the paper Wilma and not Dora.

  “So if they check, Maggie has no agreement, but Dora with her priceless recipes for mystery meat, has a non-disclosure agreement. I’m pretty sure we have a winner here for our discovery of the century.”

  “But wait, won’t Lexi know their ingredients are the formula? Won’t it be obvious it all came from Lexi’s lab?” asked Maggie. “And how can I explain that I’m using their ingredients?

  “Yes, but as luck would have it, the ingredients are things that can be found in almost every grocery or health food store. It’s pretty much all-natural. Lexi can’t claim the formula is their property since none of it was made from Lexi products. It’s fucking brilliant!” crowed Kevin.

  Danny was so excited he was hopping about on one foot.

  “Hey Roger Rabbit, settle down. Just what is in this formula anyway?” asked Maggie.

  “Well, it has numerous all-natural ingredients. A plethora of ingredients you might say.”

  “You just had to give him that a word- a -day calendar, didn’t you?” sighed Kevin frowning at Maggie.

  “It was a joke. I didn’t think he would actually read the damn words every day. I figured he’d use the back as scrap paper or something.”

  “Well, you’ve created a word monster. Not to mention he’s upped his score in Words with Friends considerably.”

  “Hey, we are off topic again,” moaned Maggie.”

  “Again, what is in this formula I came up with, and how long have I been working on it?”

  “Let’s see,” mumbled Kevin. “It does have quite a few ingredients in it, and all natural as Danny, the word monster, has already said.”

  “Yes it’s got quite a few natural type things in it since the basis for the formula per Lexi management was all natural. They want to come out with an all-natural face cream in response to the bad press nano-technology has been getting and whether or not it should be regulated. Blah blah blah. So we had a variety of oils, coconut, sunflower, and rosemary essential. These are natural antioxidants for the skin. As a side project, if time allowed, we were to create a concealer, again using natural oils such as vitamin E, castor oil (ugh) and grapefruit seed oil. We also had the ever popular healer, aloe, in gel and liquid form. For the prevention of wrinkles and dry skin, we had the usual, natural fruit extracts from custard-apple or bear’s heart, mango, and strawberries. For under the eye treatments, we had almond oil and honey, mint leaves with lime juice and rose water,” intoned Kevin.

  “Hey, rose water, I think I dated her in college, kinda a shrinking violet. Ha. Hey, is that what we had all over the counter? I wondered why it smelled so good in our section. I thought they had a new air freshener around,” laughed Danny.

  “I had to make it look like we were doing something so I kept rotating ingredients around and ordering supplies. I thought at least one of us should pretend to be doing something.”

  “Yes, and you picked the right person for the job. If you want something done and have it look like a work in progress without actual results, call on Kevin Montgomery,” sang Danny.

  “Well, dumb-dumb, it kept Conner off our backs for nearly a year.”

  “Yes, and I am eternally grateful. Oh, and there was that other ingredient. Who knows, maybe that was the secret ingredient for the whole thing.”

  “What ingredient was that?” asked Maggie.

  “Why yours, the vial of stuff you gave me to try on my hair. So actually, Maggie, you are a big part of this project after all,” Danny said looking at her thoughtfully.

  “What vial? What do you mean for your hair? Oh, God. You never listen to me, do you? You aren’t listening to me now, are you?” Maggie said in an apparent calm voice. This should have been a warning to the boys. However, Kevin was too busy trying to wet nap himself clean, and Danny was staring off into space with a more than usual blank look on his face.

  “How about DKM Inc. or KMP Ltd. or something. They both sound cool and ominous. Or something catchy like, Reverse?” Danny said excitedly to Maggie. “Get it, like reverse aging. Or we could just use our initials.

  “You idiot. Sorry, I mean you, idiots!” With that Maggie grabbed one of a half dozen fire extinguishers from the wall and clanged it against a worktable.

  “Sorry, I must have missed something. Maggie, why are you upset? You look upset Mags. What’s wrong? These titles were just off the top of my head. We can use whatever you want. Honey, honey bunch, sweetums. Uh-oh, she’s not melting, Kevin I suggest we slowly and carefully make for the nearest exit.”

  Kevin, who’d seen the approaching storm, was already inching toward the garage’s service door.

  “Freeze both of you, or I will blast you. I have enough in here for both of you,” said Maggie aiming the fire extinguisher in the general direction of Danny and Kevin.

  “Of course, dear. Let’s sit down and talk about it.” Danny purred in his silkiest most apologetic voice.”

  “Idiots, idiots, idiots. Both of you are complete clueless baboons.”

  “Now that’s a little harsh, isn’t it Maggie?” Kevin said as he continued to inch toward the door.

  “I told you not to move,” Maggie said as she banged down the extinguisher on a worktable, causing either part of the extinguisher or the table to splinter off and fly across the room.

  “Yes ma’am,” Danny and Kevin said in unison as they followed the projectile with their eyes.

  “Now that I have your attention, once again, I’ll ask you, what vial? De
scribe it to me.”

  “Um, you know, that vial you gave me yesterday or the day before to use on my hair like the others. It was one of those large vials with a black and orange cap. And it also had a black and orange sticker on it. I just threw what was into the mix with all the other things we were tossing in. I may have some left, I don’t know if I used all of it or not,” said Danny but remembering something slightly different.

  When he had opened the vial’s cap and took a whiff, it reeked so badly that he couldn’t bring himself to save any for his hair. Thinking if he used it on himself, he would smell of that toxic skunk smell forever, he had dumped all of it into the mix. He’d then tossed the vial into the HAZMAT bin, not realizing it and the container had the same colors.

  “Do the colors orange and black usually mean anything to you?” Maggie asked Danny.

  “Weren’t those your university’s colors for a while before they got changed to something even uglier?”

  “Idiot, an orange diamond with black lettering is for hazmat labels. The lettering read to analyze. I thought if you forgot what I told you about that vial, the colors would remind you to treat it with caution. I only wanted you to analyze the contents of the vial. The waiting list for the university’s mass spectrometry lab was booked solid for the week, and I thought you could sneak my vial in after-hours at your lab.”

  “You mean I could’ve put something hazardous on my hair? What are you trying to do, kill me?

  “Well, Mr. Outraged, if you had actually listened to me, you would have known not to put it on your hair but to analyze it like I asked.”

  “Well, in the future you should remind of these things, and I’m sure I had a good reason for not quite catching everything you said about the vial. What day did you give it to me?”

  “What difference does that make? It was the day before yesterday!”

  “Ah ha, it is partially your fault. I remember now. You were wearing that slinky blue dress with the revealing neckline. Your hair was up with the little wisps hanging down in that sexy way. How am I supposed to concentrate on anything when you are wearing that dress and looking that hot?” said Danny in a righteous voice.

  “Oh sure, blame me and the dress for your incompetence! Maggie paused, readying for another blast but then came to a realization. “You actually remember what I was wearing and that I had my hair up?”

  “Yes precious, you looked stunning,” said, Danny, as he crept closer to Maggie and took her hands in his.

  “Wait, wait we are off point again,” said Maggie.

  Kevin, who’d been holding his breath for the last half minute in anticipation of a two- ton Maggie explosion, let out a whoosh of air.

  “So Maggie, you’re to saying that the vial was not for human use?”

  “Well, I didn’t know. I was combining nanoemulsion with some all-natural ingredients I was tinkering with, but it kept strangely breaking apart into globs. I wasn’t sure what the problem was, and then I spilled a Coke all over my notes before I could enter them into my tablet. Since I kept using different ingredients to see how they reacted to each other, I had a hard time remembering the ones I had finally used and how much of each I put into the formula. It’s the one I’ve have been working on for the last six months. That’s why I asked you to analyze it for me because I wasn’t 100% positive what I actually used in my final formula. And now you tell me you ate part of it and rubbed it all over your bodies.”

  At the mention of nanoemulsion, Kevin started to sit but forgot there was no stool nearby and collapsed on the floor with a thump.

  “I don’t feel so well,” he said, checking his pulse.

  “We have machines running around in us at the subatomic level, and God knows what else?” Danny asked in a whispery voice. He gazed at his bare arm as if to trying to see the nanotechnology running around atop of his arm hair. “Christ, I’ve got the Fantastic Voyage running around in me or, even worse, the Andromeda Strain. I can feel my blood turning to sand right now.”

  “Get a grip, Kensington. It’s not as scary as it seems,” Maggie huffed. You guys use nanotechnology and nanoemulsion in a bunch of your products. So do all your competitors. I wouldn’t eat them, but women rub that stuff on them all time to look youthful. It’s just the latest delivery system for a product to be directed to the desired layer of skin. It’s what your mad scientists at Lexi are aiming for with their hottest wonder cream.”

  “Yes, the overpriced gunk is meant for women. God knows what it will do to us strapping young men. What if it gives us man boobs and we start to cry during those sappy jewelry commercials?” wailed Danny who was quickly losing his grip on any type of rational thought.

  “I didn’t put estrogen in it, you jackass,” snapped Maggie.

  Danny stared hard at Maggie for a few moments and then pulled her to one side.

  “I’ve been thinking about this and how it will change our lives. It looks like a good thing, but there are always unforeseen consequences that arise.” Danny sighed as he hugged Maggie tightly, and when he pulled away, he wiped a tear from one eye.

  “What is going on, Danny? You are scaring me.”

  “Maggie, honey, baby, this is so huge. I think when something this good comes along, something bad always counters it. Kevin and I discover this formula and next thing you know someone dies. If sci-fi movies teach us anything, they always say knowledge or power or any type of gain comes at a price, usually a horrible price. You know what happened when both of us got promotions at work. Bam! The rug got pulled out from under us. I can’t survive a repeat of that. I don’t want you to be some casualty to this discovery. I couldn’t live with myself. I think we have to say our goodbyes now.” He then lowered his and head walked out of the barn, pulling an open-mouthed Kevin with him.

  A not so faint “What a fucking idiot,” could be heard from the lab.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Kevin asked.

  “I’ll explain in the car. Have a seat,” Danny said as he opened the door and waited for Kevin to slide in.

  “Things are weird and dangerous now. There’s this new formula, and it’s going to take you and me places. Maggie can’t come with us on this new journey. She’s got a career at the university and you and I, well, we don’t know where we will be. We could be sleeping in a haystack one day, or running for our lives the next. I won’t have her living a life like that.”

  “Running for our lives, sleeping in haystacks? What the hell are you talking about?” asked Kevin. He then exited the car, walked around it several times, and then opened the rear door, slid in, reclined and started muttering.

  “What the hell? What the hell have you just done? Have you gone completely insane? Oh God, that’s one of the side effects of the formula, sudden insanity. Has it happened to me yet? How can one tell? If you think you are insane, then you aren’t, but if you think you are sane, there’s a good possibility you’ve gone around the bend. I feel pretty good. In fact, I feel damn normal. Phew, that’s a relief. No wait, that’s a symptom. I have gone bonkers along with you. We need help. We need to be sedated first. Go in and tell Maggie we are nuts. Well, nuttier than usual. She’ll help us. Ahhhh I can’t breathe.” Kevin moaned as he looked for a bag in the car to breathe into. After searching the back seat, he gave up, sat back and felt around on his wrist to take his pulse.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DANNY LEFT KEVIN TO his sane versus insanity dilemma in the car and decided maybe he should just walk home.

  When he hit the end of Maggie’s driveway, he collided with Maggie who had sprinted after him by cutting through the house and coming down the sidewalk toward him.

  “No Maggie, there’s nothing to be said now.”

  “Just read this. Give me that much, just read this. I think I know the real reason you want to break up with me. I hope this changes your mind.”

  “It’s not a paternity suit, is it?”

  “No, babe. It’s not. Go read it on the front porch.”

&nbs
p; “Okay, but I can’t see what some papers can show me that will change my mind.”

  Danny sat on the porch under the light and glanced at the papers. He then began to read them thoroughly. He read them and then re-read them. Danny looked up from the documents. “When did you have this done?”

  A couple of weeks ago I had every test I could possibly take. Body scans, heart scans, cardiograms, EKG’s. I even had my teeth cleaned. See, no cavities,” Maggie said and smiled.

  “You know. How do you know?”

  “That you’re obsessed with death? It didn’t take a genius to realize you were scared out of your mind. At first, I thought you were obsessed with your death. I saw you reading the obituaries every day. Then you said you were going to try to eat more balanced meals and suggested I join you. Of course, your massive nutritional lifestyle change lasted two meals. Breakfast, and one mid-morning snack, if I recall. I thought I was paranoid, but it seemed you were watching me a lot more than you usually do, and not in a lustful way either. One time I sneezed and then coughed, and you got so pale I thought you were going to pass out. So I decided to get a thorough check-up, and hopefully, put your fears to rest.”

  “What fears?”

  “Danny, I am not going to die shortly. I’ve got the paperwork to prove it. I love you, and I know you love me. So cut the crap about breaking up and let’s get started on a plan regarding this formula, you gorgeous man.” And with that, she gave Danny a toe-curling, mind-numbing kiss.

  “You promise not to die, so help you God cross your heart and hope to...not die?”

  “Yes, I promise to live forever.”

  “I am going to hold you to this promise.” Danny then returned the favor, giving Maggie a knee-buckling, lung bursting kiss. After this kiss, Danny whispered into Maggie’s ear, “I miss them so much.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  A YEAR AGO LIFE WAS going great; one of Maggie’s papers was published in a biomedical journal, Advanced Techniques in Biology and Medicine, and Danny and Kevin were promoted to the highly classified lab which included a moderate raise. Danny started to spend less and less time in the apartment he shared with Kevin and spent most of his free time with Maggie at her place or with her parents. On one occasion while running errands he found himself pausing in front of a jewelry store and gazing at a selection of rings.