Opaque

17 | Le Seafood Palace

"One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths." ― Al David

 Chapter Seventeen

Beginnings were always hard. Starting a conversation, meeting someone new, writing the first line to a dream novel, were often capable of rendering the initiator to become lost. Sometimes, one placed so much emphasis on perfecting the first sentence, word or phrase, they were going to say to someone that when time came, their mind blanked.

For me, however, that was not the case. I was not easily left puzzled, my mind rarely blanked, and my tongue never lost control. Some thought that my words were conceited, but they didn't know the truth. They didn't know about the years of trainings I went through — way before I joined the FBI team — but that was a different story altogether.

I didn't know how Agent Beta was faring - I had no doubt in my mind that with her charming smile and infectious nature, she had everyone in her palms - with the four students she was entrusted to interview, but I was doing well so far. The first person on my list had yet to arrive, but my mind wasn't racing - at least, not yet.

Entering Le Seafood Palace - a cross between a French and seafood restaurant - I sat down in a window table at exactly eleven. Right on time, but low on patience. I checked my watch like an anxiety prone, obsession compulsive person, and, tapping my fingers on the table, managed to attain curious looks from the other customers.

The mouth-watering smell of croissants fused with the stench of shrimps, fish, and other various assorts of seafood. It was not a pleasant odor by any stretch of imagination, but the other customers barely seemed to notice. I, on the other hand, felt nauseous.

The waiter approaching me, a young boy of seemingly nineteen years, handed me a menu, but I had little to no appetite. The smell was enough to make my stomach churn violently.

"Would you like order, Mademoiselle," he asked, trying to imitate a French accent but failed miserably. It was easy to tell, his rosy cheeks a tell-tale sign, that he knew his few years of foreign language classes at high school didn't pay off in the manner he had hoped, which is why, being the benevolent person I am, I didn't call him out on it.

"Non, merci," I said, my tongue pronouncing the French words with ease. I said I wouldn't call him out on it, but that didn't mean I couldn't brag.

Sporting a stunned yet impressed expression, he nodded. As the waiter walked away, probably to attend to a different, more pleasant, customer's needs, I took the time to take out the first folder in my hand-bag.

Opening the black and white folder, I checked and double checked all of the date on the boy I was waiting for even though I had everything memorized. Even though the chances of these kids being related to Blaze were slim, I had to make sure that no rock was left overturned. My career was riding on this.

Ethan Ross: a young boy of eighteen years­—though not much older than me—who preferred seafood over other delicacies, who spent half of him time in the gym and the other half obsessively studying for his four advance placement classes, two college courses, and, the most important of all, the SATs. He was by definition a nerd, but his genetics coupled with his dedication to exercising placed him much higher on the high school social pyramid.

I had never communicated with him; I never had the chance to do so before today. We were both in roughly two classes together in freshmen year, but given his intellectual skills, he soon surpassed me. To be honest, he wasn't that much smarter than me. If we took an IQ test we'd be on the same level, give or take a few points.

If I had been a normal students, with average goals and ideals, I would've taken the same course load as him, but given the fact that I had to remain inconspicuous for my time at Irwin High, I had to also downplay my skills. Due to that, we had limited opportunities to have a conversation.