“Spies!”
Not that kind of agent. He’s a character in the transition to the next life. There are a few characters in this place, it is a place in time.
You might say space-time.
There’s a duality now. Living in two worlds at once.
“Maybe more.”
Maybe it is the transition place-time.
‘Not for you!’
Not for you means it exists but you can’t have it. The shortest double meaning phrase.
“Beginning of the end?”
That’s longer. Not for you has more utility with less words.
“More with less?”
Not for you!
We keep each other healthy. We are on a daily here. We run or walk twice a day All the good things about this home are still here. I’ve even put in new floors and repaired the rooms that had been previously occupied.
Every year we have new flowers on the trees and bushes in the yard. It has fully transformed from the gravel and dirt it started as.
There are some other changes. I have a new job but I brought Binny with me so a part of life is still there. That’s not her real name. That’s a nickname. I gave her that name right away. She is consistently with me at work. I help her and she helps me. In that way we are partners and I chose her. I hired her at the first company I had a staff. That was my first job as manager and the first to pursue an actual career, not just a job.
“She also taught us what a Twinkie is. At least to an Asian. It’s an Asian who is white inside.”
Sounds racist.
“Binny is Hawaiian. That’s not a race so technically she’s some mix of Asians. She gets to say whatever she wants to.”
There are some distinctions beyond what I can see so I make no assumptions. I take her word for it. It is a personal manifestation of the idea you can’t have expectations of people based on what they look like.
“They don’t look yellow to me.”
Binny and I have been to the same places and seen the same things. ‘On paper’ we have. IRL we are from different place times but we friends, in the current place time.
I’ve had a dozen staffers but she is special to me. I promised to help her. She’s from a small town near my small town. I know it well. She lived the trailer park life with her dad. Binny knows what a sociopath is. She has a few experiences and her reflective analysis of them stay with me. A few words here and there and a perspective that is just enough different than mine that I have to think on it. She’s a part of me that way and lives on even though she’s a ghost now. If I say ‘plenty’, that’s her word. I didn’t used to use that word but now it stands in place of a particular idea.
Binny is going to come with me to Jerry’s. We both sacrifice stability for opportunity. It’s personal. It’s personalization. That’s what we do. She will be the first of many I’m sharing life with now. I used to be quite insulated from other people. My second life was lived on an island in a way. There were just the two of us. Most regular people problems didn’t reach us.
“Not for a lifetime.”
“It’s much cooler at night. And I’m glad you aren’t doing that joke again.”
What joke?
This new job, at an ad agency of all places, starts with the job “Interview” which happens at Jerry’s home drinking Tequila. Do those words sound right? No HR. No resume. The only reference is the GM that came over to the agency a month earlier. She doesn’t know the tech but she’s seen me run it for years. She has every confidence in my abilities. That’s all Jerry needs and talking to me for a few hours over Tequila. That’s how he judges people, on instinct mostly, he’s that kind of mind. He appreciated tech but can’t do it himself.
At times I’ll get the impression some people went the traditional route with resumes and interviews. Some did.
At this space and time I’m one of the new experts with data driven marketing tech. He likes tech. He loves the advances in videography and he’s so into that. That’s his history. He’s got some things on his office wall, a making of Michael Jackson Thriller movie, a documentary. There are a couple of others. He makes video marketing now, that’s the product here.
He went to Hawaii for school. He has surfing stories and I presume everything that goes with that lifestyle.
“We know Hawaii. Very well. The stories sound like they came from home.”
I’m not imagining innocence. He’s a lawyer but not practicing. It’s possible he hasn’t passed the bar or has never tried. There are other things in this world more satisfying for Jerry. He’s got my admiration for that. He’s extraordinary. Whether that turns out good or bad is unknown in any given situation such as what we are about to do with this new part of his business.
I don’t meet the other partner but he knows who I am. There’s another woman that seems to be a partner with them but she isn’t a letter in the name. She knows me by name and is familiar and friendly. Do I know her from somewhere? Is that just her personality. I notice she is stylish and probably has a giant wardrobe. It’s perfectly matched and I can see isn’t just throwing together random clothes and jewelry. I really like her.
“A lot easier to like if you aren’t the one paying for it.”
Some guys are intimidated by women like this but I like them a lot. Better than me isn’t something to be afraid of. There are lots of women here and they are all different. Some are NPC. Some are in different social place times. Some aren’t very nice. Jerry says some are mean. They still work here so being mean doesn’t disqualify you for a job in marketing.
‘All women are crazy, some are mean.’ That’s the exact quote.
Nobody gets called by name. I have to guess. There will be several opportunities to guess which ones are crazy.
“He said all.”
I think of Jerry as a friend. Maybe he sees it that way a little. I’ll listen for any words of wisdom he might have. I only listen to people that have what I want. If they don’t have it then what good is their advice? Some of what he says is nonsense. A couple bits make it through.
‘No soup for you!’ That’s what I hear in my mind. Same voice, same attitude. The soup nazi makes the rules. So does Jerry. He’s just like the soup nazi when he says ‘Not for you!’
“Not for you.” He’s referring to some unpaid vacation time he doesn’t want to pay because of the way I left. I didn’t give notice so he’s keeping the money. Not all words are of wisdom. Some just ring in my head. These words let me know he’s mad at me.
He was also very jealous that I could chase after my dreams in Japan and China. Other people would tell me he said this or that. ‘How can he just take off like that’ but he knew before I left, while I was there I sent him pics and messages, and when I came back. He knew everything about it and he was jealous.
Only friends would feel that way. He’s real, to me anyway, the other people think he’s really upset at me but they are getting it wrong. He’s upset, but not the way you are hearing it.
“He’s like a woman that way isn’t he? Complain about everything but the thing …
Oh for sure. This whole enterprise is iffy.