Don't Kill The Messenger (8 page)

Mom and Dad. Not a subject I’m likely to bring up in any hurry, since the mere mention of the pair yields instant introversion from my traveling companion. I don’t want to think the worst, but years of being me make me wonder if there are skeletons in the closet, mental demons that drove Persephone Traeger as far from her identity and her home as possible.

She rouses me from my thoughts. “Do you have a nickname?”

“A nickname?” I repeat.

“Yeah. I mean Tristan is kind of a mouthful.”

“This coming from Persephone?” I snicker.

“Which is why I went by Rebecca,” she reminds me. “But I’m asking about
you
at the moment. So … nickname?”

I think back on a life known more for solitude than socializing. “No, not really.”

“Not even a shorter version of your name? Tris, or maybe Stan?”

“Do I look like a Stan?”

“No, not really. You look like Tristan. It’s such an unusual name.”

“It’s Celtic,” I explain. “One of the knights of the Round Table. Tragic hero and all that.”

She smiles. “That fits you. Knight errant, rescuing the damsel in distress.”

“That would be you, I’m assuming?”

“Naturally. So then your parents were big literature buffs, and you were named after this noble and tragic figure?”

“Oh, I wish. The real story is even more tragic. Back in those days, there was a brand of Irish whiskey called Tristan O’Mara. Mom was a big fan. And
that’s
where my name comes from. Opinions are divided on whether her love of the beverage continued into her pregnancy, but let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Shit,” she replies in an apologetic tone.

“So, whatever you may feel about
your
parents, I’m guessing it’s a safe bet you weren’t named after booze.”

“You should meet my brothers,” she answers. “Muscatel and Thunderbird.”

“You are such a little liar,” I tell her, hiding my amusement.

“Is that any way to talk to your best friend?”

I have to laugh at that one. “No, I suppose it isn’t.”

We’re both silent for several seconds before she decides to ask me, “Are we going to be safe? What you told me about this assignment … it sounds dangerous. Will we be all right?”

“There won’t be a
we.
I want you to drop me off and be far away from there. This could go very wrong, and if it does, I don’t want you anywhere near it.”

“I can’t just leave you there by yourself …”

“You forget: Before today, I did every one of these by myself.”

“Yeah, but you told me you’ve never done one quite like this.”

She argues well, I’ll give her that.

“Rebecca … it’s very thoughtful of you to want to help me. Maybe even noble, I’m not sure. But the very real truth is, what I’m doing tonight is extremely dangerous, and I could never live with myself if anything happened to you.”

“I can take care of myself, Tristan. I’ve been doing it for years.”

I think back to Stelios’s warning—I might be the danger that Rebecca has to avoid. But then I remember his other warning:
She needs you. And you need her … You will. Soon.

Could Rebecca be the key to my surviving this assignment? Stelios seemed sure, and there is certainly no dissuading her from wanting to join me.

“You can come with me,” I tell her, and before her reaction can escalate to full childlike glee, I tack on the conditions. “But I want you at a safe distance. I don’t want you by my side for this one. Five hundred feet away at least. Maybe more.”

“Okay,” she says, “but close enough that I can come help you if you call.”

“All right. Just, please don’t do anything risky. I know this all sounds very adventurous, but you have to believe me that I would give anything for this to be my last one. Never to have to do this again.”

She absorbs the significance of that in silence. Maybe she has been romanticizing it a bit. And why not? On the surface it sounds glamorous and exciting, rushing in at the last moment to save people from a horrible fate. It’s an honor. Maybe I should feel honored, but I don’t. The first three or four times it happened, it was incredibly exhilarating. After that, it became a chore, then a duty, then a burden. It’s well on its way to curse. And tonight it may very well be the death of me. Thinking about it, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to wish for this to be my last assignment. If it goes the way I think it will, that might just be the case.

It’s a unique feeling, thinking that you may not live to see the next day. As I make my way north to Atlanta, the thought is very much on my mind, and it is not pleasant. It might be different if you’ve been suffering from a horrible, painful disease for years, but when you’re relatively young and in good health, the possibility of not seeing tomorrow’s breakfast is laced with dread.

The mind tries to temper the feeling by going over your life so far, pointing out all the good things you’ve done and the lives you’ve touched. But the thought of impending death keeps sneaking in, to undercut those achievements and taunt you with its …

“What are you thinking?” Rebecca asks.

For the record, I hate it when people ask me what I’m thinking. If I wanted them to know what I was thinking, I would be speaking instead. But the day has had some tense moments already, and this is no time to be unpleasant, so I simply say, “Nothing important,” though it couldn’t be further from the truth.

Actually, Rebecca, I’m thinking that there’s a better than 50 percent chance that I’m going to be killed horribly tonight, and if I’m supremely unlucky, you will be too. On top of that, even if I do live to see tomorrow, I’m on a cross-country road trip with a woman who makes me feel uneasy, because I’m used to being alone. And I kind of like being alone, but now that you’re here, I realize how desperate and pathetic I feel for wanting to be alone, because you’re smart and friendly, and oh yeah, beautiful and young. But stray wildlife and homeless people and Greek fishermen are telling me I shouldn’t fall in love with you, which I could very easily do with little to no provocation. And in the part of my psyche that books all my travel arrangements to hell, I’m trying to figure out if there’s a loophole to the not-falling-in-love moratorium that would still let me fuck your brains out and just end up being pen pals.

“Now why do I think
you’re
the one who’s lying?” she asks pleasantly.

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re psychic too.”

“You think so?”

“I was being facetious, but hey, why not?”

“Maybe I
am
psychic. You know, sometimes I know who’s calling on the phone even before I pick it up.”

“So do I, Mysterio. It’s known as caller ID.”

“I mean
without
looking at the caller ID, ass-basket.”

“Such language from a delicate young lady. Okay, psychic girl, dazzle me with your powers of mind-reading ability.”

She considers what would be a good demonstration. “All right, think of a card from an ordinary deck of cards. Picture it in your mind. Have you got it?”

“Yes,” I say.

“I will tell you what your card is, simply by reading your thoughts. Let me concentrate.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see her concentrating. It borders on adorable. She scrunches up her face and closes her eyes tightly. From the intense expression on her features, she is either concentrating or defecating. I sincerely hope it is the former and not the latter.

“Is your card … the three of spades?”

A look of wonder visits my face. “Yes … yes, it is.”

She looks amazed and delighted. “It is? I got it on the first try?!”

I can’t do it to her. “No. Actually, it wasn’t really the three of spades.”

She smacks my arm, harder—I think—than the infraction deserves. “Then why did you tell me it was?”

“I wanted you to feel like you were doing well. Didn’t it feel good when you thought you got it right?”

“Come on, be serious. Tell me the truth. Is it the jack of diamonds?”

“No.”

“Six of hearts?”

“No.”

“Ace of clubs?”

“Nope.”

“Ten of diamonds?”

“Sorry.”

“You’re not using a tarot deck or something, are you? I won’t give up after thirty guesses and you’ll tell me your card was the five of tentacles, will you?”

“It’s pentacles, and no. Regular card. I know the rules.”

“Two of hearts?”

“No.”

“King of spades?”

“Nope.”

“Well, fine. Maybe I’m not psychic then. What was the card?”

“Pernell Roberts.”

“That’s
so
not funny. Really, what was it?”

“Five of diamonds.”

“Shit.”

“But, ironically enough, the diamond looks a little like a pentacle, so your tarot card guess was very close to my card.”

She looks terribly disappointed.

“What’s so wrong with not being psychic?” I ask her.

“Nothing,” she says quietly. “It would just be … interesting. Like you.”

“You can’t tell me that you think you’re uninteresting.”

“If I tell you what my biggest fear is, do you promise you won’t make fun of me?”

I’m almost offended that she has to even ask such a thing, but I’m simultaneously flattered that she’s willing to share this with me, so I answer, “Of course.”

It takes her a few moments to find the words. They are spoken with the tone of a confession. “I’m so afraid of dying without ever making a difference.”

And there it is. The fear that so many millions have felt throughout human history, but so often feels unique to the person feeling it. A fear I myself have felt many times in my life, times when I was sure that I would never make a difference, never mean anything to anyone. Now, here is someone who shares that fear—probably never realizing that she has the potential to make a great deal of difference.

“I understand, Rebecca. Better than you may realize.”

“But look at you. This journey you’re on. Every day, you’re saving a human life. God, what does that feel like?”

“I don’t know if I could put it into words,” I tell her honestly. “But you’re right. Every time someone listens to the message I deliver, I feel like I’ve changed a very small part of history.”

“I want to feel that in my life,” she says.

“You’re forgetting one important thing.” She looks at me quizzically. “One of those people I saved was you. I don’t fully understand this mission I’m on, but I have to believe that means you’re meant for something important.”

She brightens at the prospect. “You really think so?”

“It makes sense. Otherwise, why send me all over creation to warn people?”

“Well,” she says, “there are those who believe that every human life is valuable, no matter what the individual is doing with it.”

I shoot her an incredulous look. “Oh, come on.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t say
I
believe it.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Yes, it would be lovely to think that there’s value in every human life. But look at the world. Six billion plus. I’m willing to accept that there’s
potential
in every human life, but when you choose to throw away that potential, all bets are off. Do you know why you have that worst fear of yours? That fear that so many people everywhere feel every day?” She shakes her head. “It’s because dying without making a difference is the default situation.”

“Explain?”

“We go through our lives every single day, searching for Meaning with a capital M. What is the meaning of life? We shout this to the heavens, to a God who may or may not be picking up his voicemail messages. And in the meantime, most of us scurry about, to our jobs, to our homes, to our TV sets and our karaoke bars and our Internet porn, and we miss the bigger picture. There’s meaning everywhere, and 99.999 percent of the time, we’re not even looking at it.” And then it hits me. “Holy shit.”

“What?” she asks, apparently fascinated at my diatribe.

“I think I know why I was chosen.”

“You do? Why?”

“I wasn’t psychic or anything like that before this whole thing started. I couldn’t tell you that your card was the two of clubs if you were holding it up in front of my face. But then, from out of nowhere, I get these messages, and I realize that I’ve been picked to deliver them. And I realize now, just this minute as I’m talking to you, that it started right about the same time I truly understood the things I was just telling you about. Don’t you see? I wasn’t picked because I had some special gift. I was picked because I saw through the bullshit and realized a truth that I would need in order to do the job.”

As I voice this thought, it makes infinite sense to me, and it is a colossal relief. For months, I have been repeating the
why me
mantra without any sense of an explanation. But here it is, and what it took was someone to tell it to.

“So what will you do, now that you know?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing. Knowing
why
doesn’t change what I have to do. It just gives me some much-needed understanding, and for that, I thank you.”

“Me?” she says, surprised. “What did I do?”

“You gave me someone to tell it to.”

She smiles at this. “Well, you’re welcome.” After several very peaceful seconds, she then asks, “Can we stop somewhere for dinner soon? I’m getting hungry.”

“Reach under your seat,” I tell her.

She reaches down and her hand finds plastic. With a loud crinkle, the object emerges, and she looks at the bag in distaste. “Funyuns? Eww. I wouldn’t give these to an animal.”

“Well, see now, I would, and there’s the fundamental difference between us. Although I’ve learned that deer don’t like them.”

Given the tightness of time, dinner has to be delivered via drive-thru. I have never been a huge cheeseburger fan, either in or out of paradise, but it’s what Rebecca is craving, and since time is tight, we certainly don’t have the luxury of choice. So, fun on a bun it is.

“How much longer until we’re there?” she asks me between french fries.

“About two hours, at this rate,” I tell her. “Why, you getting restless?”