| |
Back at work less than an hour before lunch, I noted someone had rudely left a stack of papers in my chair where I couldn’t possibly pretend to miss them. I recognized Henry’s cacography in the attached note instructing me to staple the packets together for a meeting this afternoon. I knocked the pile to the floor and took my seat, peering into the hallway to make sure Henry wasn’t nearby. Although I’d cleared the time to see Brian in the hospital, I still half expected my boss to pop out from behind one of the plastic ferns and scold me as was standard procedure.
Content for a moment that Henry had more urgent business to attend to than micromanaging me, I opened an Internet browser. From the history menu, I located the chat room in which I’d witnessed all the PFEM hype last week and logged on as the virginal Hans.
Seeing as how I only had half an hour before lunch, I’d originally intended to get in, find out what I could about PFEM, and get out. Except now that I was in, I couldn’t help but watch the conversations flitting across the screen. The same excitement I’d witnessed last week dominated the room now, and it drew me in once again.
After several minutes, I forced myself to focus on the task at hand. My marriage depended on this. I poised my fingers over the keyboard and tapped out, ‘Mike54, I would like to discuss PFEM with you.’
‘What’s your interest in PFEM?’ he replied.
It may save my marriage. ‘I’d like to know more about the company.’
‘PFEM’s involved with bioengineering and manufactures crop-protection chemicals like pesticides. They’re based in western Washington State, near my current hometown of Seattle. Large cap. Volume of a couple million shares daily.’
Fearing his words would disappear off the window before I could locate something to write on—my newest assignment being out of reach—I hiked up the skirt I’d borrowed from Beth that morning, grabbed a pen, and made notes on my calf.
‘They’re ranked in the top five of their industry sector. Major competitors include OklaGene, Monsanto . . .’
In order to capture all of Mike54’s information, I had to expand the note-taking to my thigh, which for the first time in my adult life didn’t seem big enough.
“Vanessa Collins!”
I twisted around, etching a long black streak of ink across my leg. Henry stood in my cubicle entrance, his face a disturbing shade of red and his hands clamped on his hips. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to stage my computer windows so it appeared that I’d been hard at work.
I plastered a grin on my face, aware it looked contrived but unable to stop myself. “Yes, Henry?”
He pointed at my computer monitor, his finger quivering. “I pay you to work here, not chat on the Internet!”
“I am working,” I tried.
Henry squinted at my monitor in his patented beady manner. “This does not look like work to me.”
Mike54 was still tapping away, oblivious to my predicament at this end of the Internet. ‘Marketed a new genetically modified soybean this year,’ relayed my Internet buddy.
Henry frowned, his own chat-room experiences obviously leaving him puzzled as to why Mike54 was not asking me what item of clothing I had just removed.
Inspired, my eyes widened with newfound job security. “I’m interviewing a caterer for the holiday party. He’s explaining the products he has available.”
Henry straightened, looking from my monitor to me as if seriously considering this explanation. Then his gaze drifted to my thigh. “What’s that on your leg?”
“Um, notes.” I rearranged myself, pushing the skirt over my legs. “Notes from Mike—I mean the caterer.”
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t take notes on paper?”
“The celebration committee is on an extremely tight budget.”
His jaw tensed. I bit the inside of my cheek, determined not to let my discomfort with this hostile silence propel me into any damaging attempts at conversation.
When Henry finally took a step backward and made a move to exit, I exhaled so forcibly I nearly provided enough of a tailwind to double the speed of his departure. But as I began rotating around to type an apology to the neglected Mike54, Henry stopped, and I halted mid-swivel.
He eyed me down the bridge of his nose. “I expect you’ll have those proposal packets stapled before you leave for lunch today.”
“Yes, of course,” I responded, not having the faintest clue what he was referring to.
“And Vanessa?” This time his voice was much softer, almost endearing.
I braced myself. “Yes?”
“I like those little weenies.”
“Excuse me?” Wasn’t this disturbing revelation more appropriate for his caliber of chat-room counterpart?
Henry held up his left hand, the hairy index finger and stubby thumb two inches apart. “Those little weenies, whatever they call them. Pigs in a blanket maybe. You ought to locate a caterer offering such delicacies for the holiday party.”
“Ohhh. Yes, of course.” I breathed a sigh of delicious comprehension. “I wouldn’t dream of hiring a caterer who didn’t stock breaded weenies.”
Henry nodded—the closest he ever came to outright approval—before heading back to his own office.
When I turned back to the monitor, Mike54 was still typing away. ‘Third-quarter profits exceeded the year prior by 250%.’
I stared at the screen for a moment, the apology I’d been about to tap out frozen at my fingertips. Good God. Were these Internet people so desperate for social contact that they didn’t even notice when their conversational partner ceased participating?
Abandoning the apology, I typed instead, ‘I’m in Seattle too. Can I meet you in person to further discuss PFEM? Over lunch, perhaps?’
A slew of lines flew across the chat window. Embedded within them, I caught the ‘Okay’ issued by Mike54. He continued, ‘But I can’t meet until after market close, around one-thirty.’
Now that he’d agreed so easily, I started questioning whether an in-person meeting was wise. After all, I didn’t even know Mike54.
I smacked my forehead and told myself not to be silly. Too many close encounters with Mitten Man had made me paranoid. But I’d make sure to meet somewhere busy just in case.
I strained to come up with a place I wouldn’t miss if I could never eat there again, in case Mike54 did turn out to be as dangerous as Mitten Man. My thoughts swung to the corner café I passed on my way to the Safe Sound building from the bus stop. This place kept dog biscuits in a jar for their patrons’ canine companions, but the treats looked suspiciously similar to the scones in the pastry case.
Yes, the café would be perfect. I tapped back the details to Mike54, including a confession that my real name was Vanessa, not Hans. He confirmed the meeting without mentioning the obvious disconnect between my online handle and my real name. Well, naturally he wouldn’t think it strange. I certainly didn’t think RoboticBoy was someone’s baptized name.
Logging out of the chat room, I vowed to get some work done before lunch. If Mike54 was insane and massacred me with an espresso maker swiped off the counter, I wanted Henry to feel bad about my death. Perfect translation of this week’s steering committee minutes could very well be my final act of rebellion against my boss.
But two words into the chicken scratch, I gave up. The third word could have been anything from ‘blackjack’ to ‘finicky.’ At any rate, there appeared to be a ‘ck’ and some sort of dangling letter embedded in the term, but any word I tried didn’t fit.
Deciding I needed a snack before conquering the minutes, I reached into my desk drawer for a candy bar. My breath caught as my hand brushed against bare wood. Wait a minute. Today was Friday. I had been so consumed with Brian’s harrowing experience that I’d forgotten it was vending-machine restock day. The machine would have been refilled over two hours ago.
I vaulted out of the chair and dashed down the hall.
“Vanessa!”
Gritting my teeth, I turned to face my boss. Did this man never nap?
“I’m on my way to my meeting,” Henry informed me, as if I cared. “I’m assuming the packets are already in the conference room.”
“Packets?” I repeated.
“The proposal packets you were to staple after your return from the hospital.” His voice dripped with disappointment.
“Um, yes.” Damn. He must be referring to those stupid papers left on my chair. I tried to recall how many of them awaited my stapling caress. Probably all of them, however many that was. “I only have a few more left to assemble. I’ll get them to you in no time.”
He blinked, as if somehow this would propel me into a productive frenzy.
“Just off to get more staples,” I mumbled.
I ducked around the corner and ran as fast as my pumps allowed. Although I had been only two yards away from my cubicle, I wound my way around the perimeter of the building from the other direction so I wouldn’t have to step past Henry.
I immediately noticed the unstapled packets when I made it back to my cubicle. I had somehow managed to scatter them all over the floor. Giant shoe prints were stamped in the center of a few pages. I decided these pages would not grace the front of any packets, even if they were numbered One.
Just as I’d scooped all the pages off the floor, Henry materialized in my cubicle. I nearly screamed with frustration. Didn’t this man just say he had a meeting to attend? What was he still doing wandering around in the hall?
Henry leaned forward at an unnaturally sharp angle, supporting himself with a palm positioned right under my nose. I didn’t recognize the pose as his usual hemorrhoid-soothing contortion. “Vanessa, I expect you will have those packets ready within the hour.”
“Of course.” I tried not to stare at his hand resting on my desk and looking utterly worthy of a staple.
Henry jerked his hand back as if reading my mind. He repositioned himself in the doorway. “I need those packets by one o’clock, no later. They need to be distributed before my meeting adjourns.”
“I’ll have them to you by noon,” I assured him.
Henry’s expression didn’t change. “It is currently eleven-fifty-six.”
My face grew hot. “Right. I meant twelve-thirty.”
“Of course you did,” he replied, his flat tone similar to the one Beth adopted when Roger insisted on the truth of something so obviously ridiculous. Then his voice turned stern. “I need them by one o’clock, Vanessa. Please see that I get them.”
“You’ll get them,” I said. “I’m even postponing my lunch hour to finish them up for you.” There. That took care of any excuses that might need to be made to accommodate Mike54’s schedule.
Henry didn’t seem impressed by my sacrifice. “And I presume after lunch you will be stuffing those envelopes on your desk so they’ll be ready to go out with Monday’s mail.”
“Of course,” I replied indignantly.
His head jutted forward. “But assembling these packets is more important at the moment. You understand that?”
I nodded once. To prove my dedication to the task at hand, I shoved a handful of papers under the top lip of the stapler and slammed my fist down. A wavy sliver of metal stabbed into the top two sheets, leaving the other dozen pages intact. The pathetic staple clattered onto the plastic chair mat.
Henry’s lips puckered. I tried again, this time piercing an unbent staple clear through the pages. I beamed and placed the packet off to my left, where Henry couldn’t miss the fine job executed.
Henry peeled back the top page. Perhaps the most perfectly bound packet ever, the staple didn’t so much as budge. I pretended not to notice as I busied myself with the remainder of the packets. Giving one hundred percent to her work was all part of a normal day for Vanessa Collins.
Henry’s voice broke my concentration two seconds later. “Vanessa.”
“Yes?” I inquired, bracing myself to accept some long-overdue praise.
Henry’s eyes met mine. “You’ve somehow stapled some notes about acquiring a hickey to my business proposal.”
* * *
As I sat in the café with my coffee, I eyed all the pastries pumping delicious aromas throughout the shop. The food here smelled completely different than I’d imagined. It actually smelled good, nothing like dog biscuits. But I refused to indulge until Mike54 arrived. I felt too conspicuous sitting at a table by myself, as if I were a piece of bait. Hadn’t I read somewhere that half of all unaccompanied Seattle coffeehouse patrons were meeting a potential love interest contacted over the Internet? I wanted to have sex again before I qualified for social security but not with some computer geek.
I looked around to make sure none of the other loners were leering at me. Just to be sure, I placed my left hand on the table so my wedding ring could deflect any unwanted advances.
I needn’t have worried. After five minutes, not one person had approached me. In fact, not one person had even glanced in my direction.
As I considered taking the ring off, I spotted a man entering the café. Buff and beautiful, he looked as if he had just stepped off a Chippendale’s stage, donned a smart-yet-casual outfit, and stopped by a neighborhood eatery to locate a recently separated woman almost at her sexual peak to neutralize his tiring celebrity lifestyle.
My heart skipped a few beats when his eyes came to rest with mine. I thought I might fall out of my chair when he started walking in my direction.
Oh my God. Could this be Mike54? He did look like a Mike. The 54 remained a mystery. I’d assumed it referred to a birth year, age, or even a waistline measurement, but perhaps I’d overlooked the obvious. Maybe it was a jersey number from his days as a competitive athlete. Judging from his incredible build, those days seemed far from over.
The Adonis stopped in front of me, banishing all thoughts of reconciling with Brian. I wanted to leap up and rub my hands all over this man’s bulging arms. He looked entirely capable of tearing apart a bag of chips without a single problem, even those vacuum-packed bags I often struggled with.
When he opened his delicious mouth, I leaned forward, my eyelids slipping half closed.
“Danielle?”
“Mmm.” Any moment now his lips were going to hit mine. I flexed my fingers, preparing to run them through his thick mane.
Then the shock of his words penetrated, and my eyes flew open. Danielle? What was he talking about? He couldn’t have forgotten my name already.
“Excuse me, are you Danielle?” He jabbed a thumb at his pectoral muscles, which were so developed his chest size surpassed my own. “I’m Lance, from RightLink.”
“Um.” Flustered, I waved my arms around, hoping the gesture might somehow turn me into Danielle. Would he notice if I lied? I’d have no objection getting used to the name Danielle if this Lance came with the deal.
Unfortunately, I contemplated the name change for too long. “Oops, sorry. I must be looking for someone else,” Lance said. He scanned the room, his eyes brightening as he made a beeline for a gorgeous blonde spilling out of a tight red tube top.
I gaped after him. So I could handle him not being Mike54, but did he have to look so grateful I wasn’t Danielle? Bastard!
I slunk lower in my seat. I should have ordered something after all, I thought. What was one more pound when I was already at least forty pounds over Danielle? Well, she deserved him. He probably ingested steroids faster than any lab could spit them out. With any luck, his habit had shrunk up his genitals to the size of a raisin.
And where was Mike54 anyway? I turned around to look at the wall clock. 1:32. I’d been stood up. Anger burned through me. Why, I bet Mike54 had arrived early, hidden in the shadows to see what I looked like, then fled when I walked in. Snooty bastard. Didn’t he even have the courtesy to come up with a lame excuse before backing out?
“Vanessa?”
I glanced up. A bespectacled man dressed in one of the café’s pitiful single-pocket shirts peered down at me. So Mike54 had had the decency to call and cancel. With a sigh, I hauled myself out of my seat to answer the phone. This excuse better be good.
“Excuse me, are you Vanessa?” the man asked.
“Yes, I’ll take the call.” I kicked my chair under the table and took a step toward the counter.
He unwrapped his thumb from the latte in his hand and aimed it at himself. “I’m Mike Rockefeller, as in Mike54.”
I nearly twisted my ankle as I spun back around. “You work here?” I blurted, grabbing my abandoned chair. Surely day traders earned enough money to avoid taking second jobs serving coffee. My retirement plans would be in serious jeopardy if that base assumption turned out to be wrong.
“No.” His voice wavered as if he wasn’t used to contradicting clients after having been trained that the customer was always right. Then a smile spread over his face, and he plucked the hideous yellow-and-black striped shirt off his rib cage. It billowed before resettling on his skeletal chest. “Ah, I see. I won this shirt in a raffle.”
“Oh.” Did he not have a normal two-dollar T-shirt he could wear in public? I wondered.
Mike gestured to my vacated chair, taking his own across the table. “I’m glad we get to do this. It’s not very often I meet someone who uses my chat room, seeing as how my little community is scattered all over the country.”
I sat down and studied Mike. Now that I’d had time to take a good look at him, I found his wimpy appearance mostly matched my predetermined mental image. With gigantic corrective lenses covering his entire face and a distinct lack of muscle tone that could only come from extensive hours in front of a keyboard, he certainly looked like a chat-room junkie.
I straightened, suddenly discomfited. He couldn’t have profiled me as accurately as I had him, could he? “How’d you recognize me?” I asked suspiciously.
Mike set his latte on the table. “Computers. Most things about you, including physical characteristics, can be accessed from some mainframe somewhere.”
My pulse ratcheted up. Could those things really be done? I’d only seen them happen in movies, but they were all scary movies. And he’d made the statement nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal that anyone with technical training and an Internet connection could pull up the details of my last gynecological exam.
“I can’t tell you any more than that or I risk incriminating myself.” He grinned.
I didn’t smile back. “Um, okay.”
He smacked the table with one limp appendage, making me jump. A croak emerged from the shallow depths of his chest. “Just kidding.”
“Oh,” I said, not relaxing a bit.
“But it is true,” he continued. “If I were into that sort of thing, I could access your personal information in a heartbeat. I’ve got high-speed satellite running four-hundred kilobits per second. And for my trading, it’s ECN all the way.”
He glanced at me as though expecting a response. Having no interest in Internet connection speeds, I pasted a strained smile on my face. And what was ECN? Exceptionally crazy nerd?
With any luck, my lack of enthusiasm would spur Mike to steer the conversation to more interesting matters, say, ordering some of those delicious pastries taunting me from the counter.
But my companion didn’t look the slightest bit interested in food. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this freak weighed less than me.
Mike held up a hand. “I know what you’re thinking.”
I stilled, an embarrassed flush creeping up my neck.
“You’re thinking, ‘Why doesn’t that guy move into the twenty-first century and get a Wi-Fi network?’” Mike’s lips twitched. “Am I right?”
“You caught me,” I stammered.
“Ha! I knew it. Well, I’ll tell you why.” He bent forward, causing me to recoil. “Wi-Fi is like using a cell phone. The transmission lines can be tapped into by anyone on the same frequency. Do you want the government monitoring your market and chat-room activities? Think of the potential insider-trading charges.”
As Mike prattled on about SEC spies, my heart sank. He was turning out to be more of a geek than I’d first guessed—not an easy task given my preconceived opinion of him.
And what was with that hideous shirt? He looked like an anorexic bumblebee in that thing. I had an almost overwhelming urge to rip it from his body. I probably would have if I didn’t fear he’d misinterpret the gesture as sexual arousal. So what if he’d won it. If he were normal, he would have humbly accepted his prize and used it as a floor rag.
I noted that Lance and Danielle were now engrossed in conversation across the room. I scowled. They were probably discussing their workout regimens as if they were better than all the other layabouts in this joint. Well, I’d show them. Tomorrow I’d begin my professional rowing program. My arms could be the size of tree trunks too.
“So tell me, Vanessa,” Mike was saying, the sound of my name snapping me back to attention. “What got you into day trading?”
“Oh, I’m getting a—” I froze mid-sentence, the word ‘divorce’ dying unspoken. I could see no point in mentioning how I’d stumbled across Brian’s brokerage statement due to the impending divorce I was here to reverse. Mike might jump to the conclusion that with my marriage on the rocks, I’d be willing to sleep with him. “I’m getting . . . a cat and needed the extra money.”
Mike frowned. “A cat?”
“Yes,” I breathed in a rush, setting my ring hand on the table. “My happily married husband and I are thrilled. We’ve been trying for so long to adopt. Ever since we got happily married, five happy years ago.”
Mike leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “It’s taken you five years to adopt a cat?” I caught him eyeing the front of the room, evidently using his twenty-gigahertz brain to calculate the distance between the table and the exit.
I flapped my hand in the air, mentally begging him not to run away yet. I suspected Mike54 running would not be a pretty sight. “Oh, you know how it is. The pound has become a political hotbed with all the government interference.”
Just that quickly, Mike switched back to his old chatty self. “As I’ve always said, the government ruins the best intentions. Why, I remember when my sister got stonewalled while bidding on a laptop at a surplus auction. It was a state-of-the-art model VAIO PCG-V505 series with a ton of connectivity options. USB port, memory stick media slot, you name it. But the government tried to convince my sister she had to bid on each accessory separately. Well, I wasn’t having any of it, you see . . .”
I stifled a yawn as Mike chattered on. In order to appear interested, I studied the way a thread of dribble stuck to both his upper and lower lips. As his mouth opened and shut, the liquid string stretched and constricted to accommodate the size of the gap.
But even elastic spittle loses its interest after a while. Finally desperate enough to change the subject, I interrupted when Mike segued to the topic of operating systems. “So tell me about PFEM.”
Mike switched disk sectors. “Right, PFEM. GMOs were first introdu—”
“I’m not interested in the history of car manufacturing,” I said, hoping to thwart another monologue. “I just want to know about PFEM.”
“Okay,” Mike said, drawing out the word. “Well, they’re a very new company, formed in 1990.”
I wondered how long a company had to be around to be considered old. Probably twenty-nine years and eight months, I concluded.
“PFEM was founded with the intent of researching and developing pesticides. Later they expanded into the bioengineering realm. They’ve come out with a handful of new GMOs—that’s genetically modified organisms—since they were established. You may have heard of some of these products and have undoubtedly eaten them.” Mike tilted his head. “Year-round Bing cherries? Calcium-rich turnips? Their new one is this frost-defying soybean.”
Instead of confessing that I didn’t eat anything grown outside, I said, “Tell me about StaRipe.”
Mike obliged. “In late 1992, PFEM was working on developing a plant-growth regulator designed to inhibit the maturity of a common and destructive weed. It had just passed through the initial stages of EPA—Environmental Protection Agency—approval. It was PFEM’s first promising lead. They’d already spent about five million on failed products and were anxious to—”
My eyes bugged out. “Excuse me, did you say five million? As in yen?”
Mike eyed me. “We’re talking dollars. American dollars.”
I sat in stunned silence. Five million dollars spent on failed products? It sounded like the corporate version of the dieting consumer.
“Five million is not a lot of money to these types of companies,” Mike informed me. “Crop-protection products fail health and safety testing all the time. Only a fraction of a percent—maybe one in twenty-five thousand—of the substances discovered ever pass the rigorous testing required before they’re approved for use. It’s not unusual for fifty million dollars to be spent on the entire cycle of getting one of these chemicals to market.”
As Mike reached for his latte, I noticed something truly alarming. Had he lined his raffle prize with a pocket protector?
“PFEM finally had a promising product in the make in 1992, after several years of unsuccessful attempts. Well, after additional research they realized the chemical didn’t stunt weed growth as well as they’d hoped, but they did make an unexpected discovery. As the chemical was being applied to test crops, researchers noticed that using it on ethylene-producing fruit allowed the fruit to ripen to maturity but it wouldn’t rot.” Mike raised his eyebrows.
I suspected he wanted me to enthuse over the brilliance of this company in the red paying researchers to observe fruits in unnatural environments. So as not to alienate him, I smiled.
His face drooped when I didn’t act the adoring consumer groupie, but he wasn’t disappointed enough to shun the company. After all, as a geek accustomed to spending his weekends stuck to a keyboard, this was probably the most he’d gotten to socialize in months.
“Naturally this was a very significant discovery.” Mike paused again, but this time he didn’t wait as long before continuing. “So PFEM turned their attention to testing this chemical for the purposes of maintaining fruit longevity. The chemical passed all efficacy and toxicology testing. PFEM dubbed it StaRipe, and in 2002 began selling it for use on apples.” Mike took a sip of his latte. “Since they’ve introduced StaRipe, PFEM’s made a killing. Revenues almost tripled third quarter from the year prior.”
I flushed, recalling Monday’s conversation with Julie when I’d announced my own earnings projections that had unwittingly ended up at a zillion times true earnings.
“So this increase is all because of StaRipe?” I asked.
Mike nodded, his head bobbing treacherously on his flaccid neck. “Pretty much. They introduced a rodenticide in the spring, but that’s no big deal. StaRipe is a breakthrough. No other company has yet to figure out how to prevent the rot process as successfully as PFEM. StaRipe apples can retain their crispness for at least a year, probably longer. They haven’t been around long enough to know for sure.”
I fingered the rim of my coffee cup as I examined Mike. He was perhaps the palest creature I’d ever seen—that wasn’t dead anyway. And he didn’t sound fazed at all by an apple with a shelf life longer than a chocolate bar. “Would you eat an apple that was a year old?” I queried.
“If it was a StaRipe apple, yes,” Mike said. “They’re perfectly safe. They passed through years of testing. The EPA and FDA—the Food and Drug Administration—wouldn’t allow anything dangerous into the food chain.”
“So you don’t think eating a year-old apple is freakish?” I persisted. Was I the only person averse to ingesting ancient produce—or produce at all, for that matter?
“Not at all. I’ve eaten them myself actually,” he said, not dispelling the freakish element at all. “I’m a big fan of StaRipe-treated Red Delicious, and look, nothing bad’s happened to me yet.”
I stared at him skeptically.
He waved a skeletal arm toward the pastry counter. “In fact, take a look around you. Most everything in here has been touched somehow by modern agricultural science. I’ll bet you my new joystick controller that every one of the items sold in this coffeehouse contains an ingredient treated with pesticides or subjected to bioengineering in some way.” He pointed to an unsuspecting girl sitting two tables away. She looked up when his gesture caught her attention. “Take that scone she’s eating. The wheat is most likely genetically engineered. The crop is almost positively modified to be resistant to herbicides. Too many crops would be lost if farmers relied on”—Mike curled two malnourished fingers from each hand in the air—“‘natural’ selection to cull out the weaker plants. And I bet the blueberries are smothered in pesticides. The milk contains all sorts of bovine growth hormones, not to mention whatever other treated substances the cows themselves ingested.”
The girl glanced between me and my lunch partner, no doubt wondering what interest we had in her consumption choices. I shrugged and offered her an apologetic smile.
Mike leaned forward, eyes wide with passion behind the plate glass of his spectacles. “My point is, nothing you eat is natural. Why would you expect StaRipe to be any less acceptable?” When I didn’t respond, he sat back and grinned. “You get my drift?”
“Yes,” I replied. But despite Mike’s assurances, I decided to keep avoiding fruits altogether. It just seemed healthier that way. “So how does this bioengineering stuff work?”
Mike clapped his hands, as if I’d asked him to describe the intricacies of the modern-day motherboard. “Bioengineering is amazing. Basically, DNA from one organism is placed into the genetic makeup of another. Of course the purpose is to merge the beneficial qualities of both organisms.”
“Of course,” I echoed.
“There are several ways to do this. Biolistic gene transfer, you know, particle bombardment, is one way. That’s where DNA from one organism is shot into another.” He demonstrated by gyrating his underdeveloped arms. I leaned back so I wouldn’t be accidentally smacked in the head. “Then there’s the use of agrobacterium. That’s where bacteria burrow into cell nuclei and fuse foreign genes with that of the organism being modified.” Mike provided a pictorial reference by jabbing one gaunt index finger into the fist of his other hand.
My eyes widened in horror. I hoped the other diners hadn’t noticed this easily misinterpreted illustration.
“Electroporation is common. That’s where an electric pulse disrupts cell membranes to allow for the insertion of foreign DNA.” Mike’s entire body quivered for clarification. When his seizure ended, he settled back into his seat. “At any rate, no matter what method is used, DNA from two organisms are now present in one.”
Despite the disturbed manner in which he’d explained the processes, the speech as a whole sounded strangely like the sex lecture I’d received from my mother years ago. ‘Technical’ and ‘mechanical’ were her watchwords when it came to sex education.
“To give you an example,” Mike said, “since strawberries don’t do well in the cold, adding an arctic-fish gene to make them resistant to frost allows them to grow year-round.”
Hmm, combining fish and strawberries didn’t sound very appetizing. No wonder my mother had encouraged me never to have sex.
“What did PFEM call that product?” I mused. “The red-herring strawberry?”
“PFEM didn’t create that particular product,” Mike replied, missing the joke.
I had suddenly had enough talk about agriculture and reproduction. Besides, I figured I now had enough information to take intelligent notes at Monday’s shareholders’ meeting.
I turned around to peek at the clock. Unfortunately, in my haste to escape my elbow bumped my cup. I yelped and leapt up, but not in time to prevent the coffee from raining down on my crotch.
Across the room, Lance and Danielle tore their eyes away from each other to see what the commotion was about. Sensing an opportunity, I considered wandering over and asking for his drying assistance.
“Oh, here, let me help you,” Mike volunteered, springing to his feet as if a government agent on a laptop-busting mission had just come in.
I started and refocused on the situation at hand. “Nope, I’ve got it.” I yanked a fistful of napkins out of the dispenser and dabbed at the front of my skirt before Mike could follow through with his offer.
Noting nothing of interest, Lance turned his attention back to Danielle. Pectoral prick, I thought, my fingers tightening around the napkins.
I completed the drying effort as best I could using napkins that disintegrated upon contact with moisture. Tossing the decomposing wad onto the table, I smiled at Mike. “Thanks for your time. I should be heading back to work.”
Mike stuck out his hand. “Nice meeting you IRL.”
“IRL?” I repeated.
“In real life.” He laughed. “That’s my chat background seeping through.”
“Um, right.” Just how nerdy could one person be? But I shook his hand before bidding him farewell and making my way toward the café exit.
As I distanced myself from my lunch associate, I found myself growing fonder of him. With the threat of an unskilled seduction attempt out of the way, I could more easily accept that Mike really was a friendly and intelligent guy. So the man didn’t have an ounce of fashion sense and barely had the muscle tone required to lift a remote control. Not every woman shared my tastes. I just hoped Mike could locate a nice geekette IRL.
I had to pass Lance on my way to the door. His eyes widened when our gazes locked. Then he twisted back to Danielle, as if he hadn’t spotted me at all. I prayed he would drop a barbell on his shriveled genitals during his post-lunch workout session.
As I left the café, Lance maneuvered his arm around Danielle. Somehow, I didn’t think it was an accident when he knocked over her health shake, splattering the beverage across the tube top squeezing the living daylights out of her.
He didn’t hesitate to clean up the mess.
