Sublime Messages

One, B

Vanessa Tan had seen the news, just as everyone else had: in a small town not too far south of Reno—Palm Valley, it was called—some cult had taken over a high school. It'd been twenty-four hours, and the media was all over it, running the story in a constant live-action stream. From what Vanessa could tell, no one could get very close to the building. Most of the news had included interviews with law enforcement and parents, citizens of Palm Valley. They'd even called in the FBI. It was all anyone could talk or think about. The minute she'd first heard of the story, she'd known it was only a matter of time before she got a call, and she'd been right; Francesca had been in tears. You remember the times we had? You remember, right? Can't you do me this favor, now? Please, Nessie. Please? Nobody's got a clue, here. Nothing. They aren't getting anything done.

Not that Vanessa thought she could get anything done, either. She'd tried to assuage Fran, let her down easy. "I don't work for the bureau anymore. I don't know what I could do."

You know how I helped you, once, when—oh God it was a nightmare . . . Just, please! Isn't there anything at all you can do? These are my kids we're talking about!

And Vanessa still didn't know what she could do, even though she'd eventually caved and promised her old friend she'd look into it.

Why'd she make that promise? Frances had played that card, the one she'd sworn never to play. Vanessa assumed that when one's children were on the line, past friendships and promises meant little. She wouldn't know, having no children herself. Still, the whole thing made her uncomfortable. What was it about other people that led them to think their words meant so little? She always kept her word, which was why she didn't like to make promises.

Well, Vanessa still had contacts in the system. She'd done what one does and called in a favor. She was going to meet with that favor, now.

The early morning desert air was dry and cool, kind to her waves of black hair and her fair skin. Somewhere in her mid-forties, Vanessa was constantly complimented on her youthful appearance. While her contemporaries were creaming and lasering the lines at their eyes and around the junctures of their lips, fretting over the tender skin beneath their chins, she continued to look a decade or so beneath her age without even trying, though she thought of it only when someone called it to her attention. She certainly wasn't on the lookout for anyone's affirmation of her attractiveness, and indeed when she considered her appearance, she often struggled to identify with what she saw in the mirror, for the person inside felt every bit of the years she'd lived.

Something to think about when she was halfway through a bottle of wine, not right now, when she needed to get her head on straight.

Pushing through the door of the café she'd suggested, Vanessa scanned the quaint milieu before even thinking of approaching the register. Old habits, she supposed. He was there, though, her favor, seated near a window whose sill overflowed with trailing plants. She offered a brief nod before making a beeline for his table and slipping into the chair across from him.

"You're not going to order first?"

Vanessa blinked a few times as if waking up. "Oh, I'm not—I already had my coffee."

"One can never have too much coffee."

She laughed. "Tell that to my stomach." The Black man across the table was somewhere near sixty, with a broad, serious brow that contrasted with the refined hands he was using to dip a pastry into and sip from his coffee cup. His shoulders, even in their plainclothes, seemed pushed down, as if a weight had sat on them for years, and his eyes, as congenial as the rest of his face presented, had a sort of hollow look within them, as if what he'd seen, what he knew, had sucked some necessary thing out. Vanessa wondered briefly whether she'd left that job early enough to maintain some semblance of innocence, but she quickly shoved that notion aside as ridiculous.