Into You (7)
Created | Updated Nov 8, 2020
Into You (Part 7)
“Gerald?” The call comes from our left, from a tall blond lanky man ambling toward us. He sports black-rimmed glasses, and is wearing a pale blue lab coat with dark blue slacks beneath. “You made good time.” He reaches out and shakes Gerald’s hand, then looks at me. He’s extending his hand to shake, and talking to the side, to ‘the receptionist’ as he does so. “Jenny, you didn’t send these two down the hall to me?”
“No, sir. They’re not on the sched—”
“What am I gonna do with you? These are friends…” He’s still shaking my hand and looking at me, adjusting his glasses upward.
“But Mister Cuthbert, they’re not on—”
“Tut-tut, Jen! They’ll be fine. It was a last-minute invite. I’m sorry I didn’t inform you… to ensure your calendar stays up-to-date. I’ll do better next time… I promise.” He lets go of my hand and turns to ‘Jenny’ with a big toothy smile. Still, she huffs out a breath and rolls her eyes.
“Promise. Really, I do. This just came up.” He swirls his hand within her desk space and asks her, “Can’t you just pencil them in for the next hour? I’m between sample set-ups, and I’ve got the spare time.”
“This once, Mister Cuthbert.” Her nimble fingers flash across her keyboard and she accentuates the update with a final elaborate stab of the Enter key. “Be more diligent to let me know in advance, from here on. It’s company policy.” The last word seems to be a minor indictment.
“Sure thing, Jen. I will.” Cuthbert crosses his heart and gives her a ‘thumbs up.’ Then he turns to us. “Follow me. This place can be a bit of a rat maze.” He chuckles at the seemingly inside joke.
We make our way down the hallway and turn right. As we do, I glance back at ‘Jenny, the receptionist’ and see she’s already fielding another call, once again painting the air with her hands. I double-step to catch up to Gerald and Cuthbert.
“How’ve you been, Arlo? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you at… well… anywhere.” Gerald has both hands spread open, empty.
“Work has been crazy busy. I haven’t even had time to get back with the league. No time for bowling when the world needs me to figure out how someone got killed or because we need to sprout new stem cells.” He sighs in resignation, though he’s still smiling.
“Yeah, we’ve missed you out at Larson Lanes. Well, we miss your spiral hook shot that kept the team average up.” Gerald chucks him on the shoulder, and Cuthbert grins even wider.
“That the only reason?”
“You do tell some wicked stories, Arlo. Miss that, too…” Gerald looks back over his shoulder as I make pace to keep up with them. “Hey, let me at least introduce you to Lynne…” He pulls the mental file card. “Bishop, right?”
“Hi there, Mister Cuthbert,” I say, drawing even with them, with him between Gerald and me. I do the tiny wave thing, but he reaches out and shakes my hand again. I see Gerald straighten his gait and lean forward to look across at me.
“Call me Arlo.” We take a couple strides before he lets go of the handshake. I note the additional time in contact, and so does Gerald. His brow is furrowed. “Okay, this is me right up here. Well… my lab, anyway.”
In a practiced fluid motion, he ducks down, leaning forward, slips his left hand into his lab coat, pulls forth an ID badge on a retractable lanyard, and swipes it across a proximity reader to the right of the door. The monitor flickers a green light, there’s an audible click, and the door pops ajar. Arlo pushes through and ushers us in.
“Welcome to my humble adobe.” He turns from closing the door… and waits for it. Gerald and I do the mental gymnastics to connect the pun. He groans and I giggle.
“This is where I work.” Arlo sweeps his hand around the room and steps past us to a set of stools along one long bench. He pulls one out and motions for me to take a seat, then pulls another out for Gerald. He pulls a third out into the open space between the work counters, plops down on it, leans so his elbows are on his knees and his hands are under his chin. “Okay, so what’s this ‘thing’ you found that needs classifying?”
Gerald motions to me and, getting no immediate response, points to the shopping bag. Startled, I hop half an inch off my stool, then swing the bag around to perch on my lap. After pulling the strappy handles aside, I reach in and hoist out the mason jar, holding it up by the lid at eye level for Arlo to see.
“You brought me some homemade preserves?” He does a mock questioning attitude, then breaks out in a huge grin. I roll my eyes and Gerald grunts. “Oh. Wait a minute…” Arlo cranes farther forward, then steps down off his stool and approaches me. His face scrunches up in a squint, and he pushes his glasses back on his nose a notch, as if doing so will help magnify the thing inside the jar.
Tentatively, he reaches forward and puts his hand under the bottom of it. He glances into my eyes and asks, “May I…?” I relinquish the mason jar. He cradles it, tilting it at a forty-five-degree angle in front of him, letting the lights from above play into the container. The little ebony blob inside scoots uphill from the attitude change, working itself up the tilted bottom. It then reaches across the interior of the jar and waves and admonishing tentacle at Arlo.
“What the heck?”
“That’s what we want to know. Ever seen anything like it?” Gerald stands and comes over, as well. The three of us are close, peering into the mason jar, watching the thingy ooze first one way, then another.
“Where’d you get this thing?” Arlo looks at Gerald, then at me. “Which one of you—”
“I did,” is what I offer up. “I must’ve stepped on it in my yard and…” I take a deep breath and recount for him how it attached itself, how I’d showered and couldn’t get it off, what happened with the safety pin, and capturing it under the wine glass. He waits for me to finish, no interruptions. He hitches in a sharp breath and twitches his mouth.
