by T. M. Meek
After another day at school, Alex was driven by Meredith over to the home of Julio Lopez so she could work with Julio and Leena on the Triple-C. As they pulled up in front of the Lopez home, they saw a security entrance with a guard at a gate to the entrance of a long private driveway. Once the guard established that Meredith and Alex were on the list of expected visitors for the afternoon, the gate opened and the guard waved them through to drive past the gate and up the driveway.
As they drove up the long driveway, they passed a lush green yard of exotic landscaping and fountains and past the view of a backyard pool in the distance. As they arrived closer to the front of the Lopez home, the driveway curved around to a covered parking spot in the front of a fairly large and rather luxurious Spanish style home. Although Julio's father, Manuel, could easily afford a home twice its size, the more modest five thousand and five hundred square foot, five bedrooms and six and a half bathroom home was easier to keep protected than a larger mansion would be. So Manuel's choice to own this smaller home was more for security purposes than frugality as he was in the business of personal and home protection. He had been in the personal security business for many years and he took great care to follow at home what he so often practiced for his clients many of whom were famous actors, musicians and other famous people. He had built his security firm in California and had enough success to leave it in the hands of others who he personally trained so he could keep his clients in California but move to Kansas to enjoy a more quiet lifestyle and care for only a few, but especially rich and famous clients.
While Alex was in Julio's family library working on the Triple-C with Julio and Leena, Meredith was engaged in a getting-to-know-you conversation with Julio's mom, Lucita Lopez. Lucita, was a rather beautiful Latino woman who, like her husband, spoke English well but with a strong Spanish accent. She was dressed in a comfortable elegance that was only slightly casual but truly Latino in fashion. She was particularly charming and often had something delicious she was cooking and the aromas often tempted the senses and awakened the appetites of any who might be hungry for some excellent Latino cooking. Today was no different and Meredith was treated to a light meal as they talked.
“Manuel learned the business of security through his father. My husband has two main teams working for him. The first team consists of certified electricians and video specialists who install various kinds of security cameras and monitoring systems for both home and business use. The second team is a group of professionals who are specially trained in physical protection a.k.a. 'bodyguards' as well as those who are experts in threat assessment.”
“So you’ve met plenty of celebrities, huh?” Meredith smiled curiously as she sipped on her glass of juice.
“Oh, yes.” Lucita smiled back. “Most of Manuel's clients are in or have been in a profession or family that made them well known and in need of protection from dangerous fans or unintended enemies. Manuel's father had wanted his older brother to take over the family business. But since his older brother didn't want it, Manuel was happy to accept the responsibility for his dad's business. Manuel's father had recently turned over the family business to him and now it’s large enough and successful enough that Manuel doesn't have to travel as often. Oh, I hated it when he was away. He was putting himself between criminals and his clients. I didn’t sleep very well in those days. But…he has always managed to remain safe along with his clients.” Lucita then handed Meredith a plate of fresh tortillas and Meredith removed one with a gracious thank you. Lucita then helped herself to one before setting the plate down.
“So does he see himself as semi-retired? He’s so young for that.”
“Yes and no. Much of the day to day tasks have been delegated so that he can fulfill his more personal dream of being more available at home for me, for our children. You know. For family. Not just financially, but also as a faithful and caring husband and father.” Although Manuel was working in his home office down the hall, he stepped out briefly enough to introduce himself to Meredith.
“Meredith? Manuel Lopez. It’s so lovely to meet you,” he smiled warmly as he offered his hand to greet her. Meredith happily shook his hand.
“It’s nice to meet you too. Lucita has some wonderful food here,” Meredith couldn’t stop herself from sincerely complimenting her gracious hostess for the food.
“I’m sure she does. Too bad you can’t be like me. Married to her so I get to enjoy it every day!” he smiled proudly and both Lucita and Meredith chuckled. Manuel was a well dressed, attractive Latino with dark wavy hair and dark brown eyes and a near perfect warm smile. Meredith liked how especially cordial he was as he showed such a natural tendency for gentleness as they talked.
In the family library where Julio was working with Alex and Leena, some of the aromas from the kitchen came in and sparked Alex's attention. "What smells so good?" Alex asked Julio.
"That's my mom's cooking. She cooks a lot," he replied nonchalantly.
"You'll smell something good like that almost every time you visit here," Leena smiled wistfully. Not wanting to give Julio the rude impression of wanting him to offer her whatever his mother was cooking, Alex changed the subject.
"So, Julio. How many quotes and references have you found on the subject of retirement?" Alex asked.
"Not very many yet," Julio mumbled as he leaned back in a chair. Julio tried to change the subject. Leena sat comfortably on a jumbo sized black leather bean bag chair as Alex stood leaning against a nearby desk.
"Hey Alex. Where are your crutches?" he asked. He looked at her with an innocent child-like look with his usual somewhat disheveled look in his hair and clothing attire. But he always made an honest effort to dress well enough to get away with it.
"It was a mild sprain and the doctor said I don't need them anymore."
"Good for you," Julio said cheerfully.
"Okay, so how many?" Alex asked him as she looked him right in the eye.
"How many what?" Julio asked.
"How many quotes and referrals have you found so far?"
Julio shrugged, "Probably not as many as we need."
"So how many? Ten? Seven?"
Julio gave no response.
"Three?" Alex asked nearly pleading in hopes he did something for the team.
Julio shrugged, "Less than one."
"That's zero, Julio," Leena said somewhat embarrassed for him as she rolled her eyes.
"Julio!" Alex exclaimed in frustration loudly enough that it startled him and he accidentally leaned back too far and fell over.
"Son of a grumpy muffin!" he mumbled to himself in pain as he held his head and hid his face for a few moments before rolling over on his side. He peaked out under his arm to look at Alex.
"That's your job. You agreed to it!" Alex chided.
"Alright! Alright! I'll start today!" he said matching Alex's frustration. He then began to crawl in pain like a struggling soldier of war on his elbows and knees over to a set of lower cabinets under a shelf of books.
“And what exactly do you mean when you say ‘grumpy muffin’”? She squinted, bracing herself for an odd answer.
“Definitely bran,” he said as he used his index finger for emphasis. “Not blueberry.”
Alex threw up her hands in disbelief that he would have issues with bran muffins.
“Really? Bran? Why is bran supposedly grumpy?”
“Blueberry is too cheerful to be grumpy. But bran?... Grumpy.” He said it with his eyes closed as if he were the ultimate expert and the last word on personality types for different foods. Wanting to avoid a futile argument over bakery foods, Alex got back to business.
“You’ve got to get those quotes.”
"I'm not so sure you should hold your breath on his getting it done," Leena whispered a bit timidly to Alex as Julio opened a lower cabinet and pulled out a hidden stash of a large bag of jumbo marshmallows which he placed on his head.
Alex had her arms folded across her chest as she watched him. "Julio, I'm not willin
g to give up on you yet. How about we come to an agreement? If you can get me just ten quotes sometime in the next week, let's say by one week from today, then I'll go easy on you. But if you don't, there will be consequences," Alex said.
"Plan on whatever consequences you want. But I'm going to get you your ten quotes in a week so your consequences will never be justified," Julio rejoined proudly.
"I'll email you the terms of the agreement later today and you can read over them and if you have any questions, or if you think some of the terms or rules or consequences are too much for you to handle, then you can email me back and we'll negotiate. Agreed?" Alex suggested in a very business like manner.
"No problemo." His answer pushed through a forced smile.
"How about you, Leena? Do you have any pictures yet?" Alex asked in a more hopeful tone.
"I've found several pictures and I've created a few. I also bought a dozen for you to look at today," Leena smiled happily as she opened her laptop. "I think my work is a little too easy, so I added something to my To Do list, if you don't mind," Leena added. She handed Alex her laptop to show her a slideshow of some of the images they could use.
Alex was curious. "What did you add?"
"A website for our team," she said proudly. A basketball was on the floor so she picked it up and began spinning it on her finger.
"Whoohoo!" Alex cried out joyfully. "Let's see it."
"Well, actually, a website is a lot of work, so it's not done yet so it's not live yet. I've only finished about a quarter of it. It will look pretty nice but nothing super fancy though. "
"I didn't know you understood web design," Alex smiled. She was pleasantly impressed with Leena's techie skills.
"There are a lot of things Leena can do that you don't know about," Julio said as he held the bag of marshmallows on his head with one hand and pulled a marshmallow out of the bag with the other hand. "She can pick her nose in the bathroom and clean out both nostrils in sixty seconds or less," he jested. He ate a marshmallow as he smiled.
"Julio!" Leena exclaimed as she dropped the ball in embarrassment.
"If it takes her ninety seconds, then that means she actually washed her hands afterwards," he added teasingly.
Leena quickly yanked the bag of marshmallows off of his head and said, "At least I do so in the privacy of my bathroom which is a very appropriate place for such personal hygiene maintenance, I might add. Unlike some people who are gross enough to pick their nose in public, Julio," she teased back referring to his occasional absentminded nose-picking habits. She then helped herself to a marshmallow but quickly regretted picking a stale one as evidenced by her facial expression of disgust. “That’s not exactly the healthiest snack on earth," she said as she casually tossed the bag onto a nearby library counter top.
"So how much more time before the website is done?" Alex asked sticking to business.
"Part of it depends upon when our presentation is ready because I wanted to show a few highlights of it along with a brief summary of the overall presentation. But I can get most of it done over the next week."
"These are good pictures," Alex said as she clicked through a slideshow gallery Leena had created.
Leena suddenly remembered something important. "Oh! And I don't think it's a good idea to put any pictures of us up on the website," Leena added.
"I totally agree. Stranger Danger," Alex nodded.
"Unless, of course, it's of Julio picking his nose," Leena said playfully.
"Hey!" Julio protested.
"Yeah. That's all we need is to scare off potential clients with a picture of Julio picking a winner," Alex said in good humored disdain.
"Enough with the jokes, okay?" Julio said.
"You started it," Leena challenged.
"Let's call a truce. Who's hungry?" Julio asked as he stood up and became a polite host.
"You're not about to offer us all artery-clogging, cardiac arrest inducing, type two diabetes provoking s'mores or ham and marshmallow sandwiches, now, are you?" Alex asked cautiously as she eyed his bag of marshmallows.
Julio squinted his eyes in mock resentment. "No. I'm offering you my mother's cooking. Hopefully it's only semi-cardiac arrest inducing," he jested as he resealed his bag of marshmallows and hid them back in the cabinet he originally retrieved them from. Julio then asked Alex, "Where did you learn to talk like that? I want to learn to talk like that."
"What do you mean?"
"You always sound so smart," he said.
"Alex sounds eloquent when she speaks," Leena said as she smiled bashfully at Alex who looked bewildered. "Eloquent is a word I learned last week," Leena added proudly. Alex decided to join Leena on the large beanbag chair. Leena scooted over to make room.
Alex shrugged as she continued to look at the pictures on the laptop. "There you go, Julio. Learn a new, smart, sophisticated sounding word every week and make sure you use it in a sentence two or three times a day and then do it again by learning and using another word the next week. Keep doing that and you'll eventually sound like a college grad."
"Give me an example of a smart word for me to learn," Julio requested. He was trying to be serious but his efforts to fight smiling was due to his being antsy about what Alex might suggest.
Alex handed Leena back her laptop before getting up off of the bean bag chair. She found a dictionary, grabbed it, opened it up to a random page and picked a word. "Ironically, this word isn't a smart one to choose as a way of living, but it's a smart one to learn to avoid so you have integrity."
"What word?" he asked.
"Hypocrisy."
"What's it mean?"
"It's when you say one thing and do another. It's like when you say you don't believe in smoking but you still smoke. Or when you say you believe it's important to be honest, but deep inside you think it's okay to lie whenever you want. But with the example of the smoker, if you’re in a program to help you quit smoking but you haven’t mastered it yet by staying quit, then it’s not hypocrisy. So long as it’s evident that you’re trying to improve to actually live what you believe then you’re not a hypocrite. Because when it comes right down to it, none of us is perfect. Just don’t use imperfection as an excuse to constantly mess up and you’re less likely to be justifiably considered to be a hypocrite or one who practices hypocrisy.”
"Hypocrisy," Julio repeated. “That sounds like a way you could also describe sincere people that try and have integrity most of the time but they’re just not perfect. So ‘hypocrisy’ could describe most people even though most people are good.”
"True.” She replied impressed. “Think about it and use it in some sentences over the rest of the week."
"You sound like one of my English teachers," he said.
Alex smiled graciously, "I'll take that as a compliment." Alex put back the dictionary.
“Hey, Leena. Teach Alex a new word like she’s teaching me,” Julio smiled innocently and unaware Alex was a bit offended by the idea that she would need to be taught something new. Leena could see Alex’s face showed quiet offense and figured this was a good opportunity to see if Alex had a humble side.
“You don’t know the meaning of every word in the English language, do you, Alex?” Leena asked with a clever smile. Alex could tell she was being caught with intellectual pride. So she cleared her throat before answering.
“No. That’s impossible at my age.” She still tried to maintain an air of dignity in her response.
“Do you know what an RA-BFF is?” Leena leaned in close to her and smiled softly as she asked.
“No. What is it?”
Leena clapped her hands and squealed a little under her breath with excitement.
“Surprise, surprise. Alex is clueless,” Julio glowed. He was eager to see Leena get a kick out of teaching Alex something new about friendship.
“An R. A. F. is an acronym for Refined Affectionate Friend or Refined Affectionate Friendship. An RA-BFF is a refined affectionate best friend forever. You reall
y should look it up sometime.”
“You’re trying to tell me that’s in a standard dictionary?” Alex scoffed.
“No. I didn’t say that. But I’ll text you the website for it.” Leena quickly grabbed her phone and typed away. “It’s good stuff! But maybe I should let you know it’s about love and friendship. I haven’t figured out yet if that’s anything you’re interested in since it doesn’t have much to do with money.”
“I’m interested in things other than money,” she said in her defense. “I just haven’t had much time for much else.”
“Is that a problem?” Leena asked slyly as if it were a trick question. Alex looked confused. “Well, I guess we’ll see.”
“I’ll check out the website later.”
“Promise?”
“Of course.” Alex rolled her eyes. She wasn’t sure what Leena was up to and Julio seemed to be getting bored. “In the meantime, let’s just get back to the subject of the Triple-C. I vote that we have everything ready and our first presentation done by mid-October at the latest. Are we all agreed?"
"I'm all for it," Leena said although she wasn't sure how realistic it was.
"Count me in," Julio responded as he led the way out of the library and towards the kitchen. He walked quickly as he so often did. Many times he seemed to shuffle along quickly as he walked.
"Be looking for my email, Julio. It's really important we have our first presentation done on time," Alex said rather pointedly.
"Be looking for my earth shattering results as your consequences will be useless," Julio playfully shot back.