All it is...-4-

Her wanting to know what I did was
an open invitation-all I had to do
 was answer her, but there
was a problem, like always- the answer
could be many different things?
"Madeline that's a good question- what
do I do?  Well I do what needs doing to
try and help the community, how's that?"
She looked intently at me, she had that
look when I'd suggested that it'd be fun
to explain to her what I did over lunch?
Now she was looking at me again, intently,
and so I noticed she had a strange color
to her eyes?  How does the color of a
persons eyes go with their shape and
size and bearing- I don't know, but from
some weird place, hers matched.
"Chuck you just generally do whatever?
That doesn't sound like the man who
asked me all those entangling questions
last year?  Yes," she saw my shock," I
do remember..."
"What must have been going through my
mind at that party?"  We both smiled,
it had been a quick year.
"You kept coming back to me, and I
really wasn't in the mood..."
"I remember that..."
"So why'd you act like that?"
"Might've been, nerves?"
"Not from you - that just doesn't fit."
She was positioning me in this and
I couldn't have that be the way that
this conversation went, it had to go
to a point where I could try to discover
what she'd meant about explosions?
So the hard part, I looked intently back
into her dark brown eyes and asked
her, "You asked me, now it's my turn,
what are you up to these days?"

She actually paused - and it wasn't for
effect, I could tell, wheels were spinning,
"Chuck, it is odd that you were out there,
my appointment with Bert had been made
weeks before.  We had decided to look
over whether his plane was what we
needed."
"We?"
"The folks who are paying me..."
"Folks?"
"Chuck let's just say that I work in an
area of security that you'd find creepy
I think."
"Oh why's that?"
"Because you seem like such a normal
middle class guy?"
"True, that's exactly what I am, but that
doesn't mean I'm not interested in what
is going on around me?"
It was as if a light turned on behind her
eyes, as if the gears meshed, she smiled;
"so if I were to tell you something that
was so incredible that it hardly made
sense, what would you do?"
"Can't know that until I know what it is?"
"No I mean, do you think you could
keep your mouth shut?"
We'd gone into dark murky water faster
than I had wanted to, but this is precisely
the conversation I was wanting?  That
struck me as odd?
"I could..."
"So that if, for example, people that you
cared about, were in a situation that was
very dangerous, and they didn't know it..."
"I'd try," had to cut in, "to help them."
"Yeah - well see Chuck that's exactly
the problem, you'd try."
"What's that supposed to mean."
"Just what I said, we're not talking about
a situation where you have the luxury of
trying to succeed."
The way this conversation was going I
was feeling a lot better about Bert
bugging out, which when he'd done it,
had seemed lame, at this point, it didn't
seem lame anymore.