guests. Jack wanted to say “Nice place you’ve got here” just to be polite, but it would have been too big of a lie, and Diane would have surely called him on it. Instead he just went “Hmmm . . . interesting,” to which Diane replied “Yeah, I know . . . it’s a wreck.”
“But a very cozy one,” Jack said, putting down the cat and taking a stroll around. “Come one, I’ll give you the grand tour,” she said, pointing out the highlights and lowlights of her humble basement abode. On one wall was a black couch with badly beaten cushions, and an equally beaten up accent chair beside it. Opposite the couch was a TV on an entertainment center. Just past the couch was a table with two chairs, and past that, a kitchen with no room for a table. Opposite the table in the living room was a hallway, leading to a bedroom on one side and another bedroom and a bathroom on the other. All of the rooms were very small.
“I hope your landlord won’t mind my being here,” Jack said, “not to mention my furry friend.” He pointed at the cat, who was on top of the couch, stretching itself. “I don’t think she’ll mind,” Diane said. “The owner is very old, barely even aware of what’s going on. I think she should probably be in a nursing home by now.”
“I see,” Jack said. “That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, well . . . It is what it is.” She paused for a few moments, staring at him with those big eyes, then said, “Well, you can get settled in now if you want. I’m going to take a shower. I’ll bring you some sheets for the bed later on. And after that . . . I’m going to cook us a big dinner.”
“That sounds great,” he said, taken aback by her hospitality. With that, she turned and went off to her bedroom. He did the same. He tossed his back pack on the bed and unpacked. It was going to feel great eating real food tonight, not to mention sleeping in a real bed. The fact that he would be doing it with her . . . well, that just made it a million times better.
He settled in quickly; there wasn’t much to unpack—just a few toiletries and some cloths. And of course, his glock, which he put in a dresser under some pants.
And that was that. He had a new home.
He heard the shower running in the next room. He waited for it to stop, waited for her to finish up, and then he took his turn. After showering and getting dressed, he went back into the living room. Diane was already in the kitchen working on dinner. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked, feeling guilty about being the beneficiary of so much hospitality. “No, I’m good,” she said. “Besides, there’s only room for one person at a time in here.”
“I get it,” Jack said, plopping himself on the couch as the cat curled up in his lap. He stroked it behind the ears. It purred deeply. “So, what about a name for this cat?” he called out. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “Is it a male or a female?”
“Male.”
“I had a cat named Tabby as a kid. How about that?”
“I don’t think she looks like a Tabby,” Jack said.
“Probably not,” Diane agreed.
“What are some good cat names?”
“I don’t know. Mittens. Buttons. Fluffy.”
“Maybe we should work on it later,” Jack said.
“I can’t cook and think at the same time,” Diane explained.
“I understand. I can’t cook at all.”
“As long as you can eat, that’s enough for tonight.”
“I can,” Jack said, falling deeper in love with her with every word she spoke.
•
“Dinner’s served,” Diane announced a short time later, placing a large platter of roasted chicken on the table. Sharing the platter with the chicken was a large serving of carrots, rice, and red potatoes. “God, that looks good,” Jack observed, his mouth watering. “I hope it tastes good,” Diane replied. “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Jack said, picking up the carving knife, and slicing the chicken into thin pieces, placing some on her plate, and some on his own. He took a mouthful. “It’s delicious,” he said. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”
“When you grow up in foster homes,” she answered, “you learn to do a lot of things.”
“I see,” Jack said. He could sense the hurt in those words. A lot of hurt. The cat sidled up to him, looking up, hoping to share in the feast. He dangled a thin piece of meat over its head and let it nibble away. “Have you thought of a name for him yet?” Diane asked. “Not yet,” Jack said, furrowing his brow in thought. “How about . . . Eve?”
Diane looked down at her lap, saying nothing. It was the first time since he met her that she displayed any trace of discomfort. The two sat in awkward silence for several moments. Then she looked up, fixed her eyes on him, and said “I know about our mission.”
Jack just looked at her disbelievingly, his fork frozen midway between his plate and his mouth. “Yeah,” she repeated, “I know about the mission.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that,” Jack said.
“I can imagine,” Diane replied, “Wouldn’t be much fun saving the world alone, right?”
“Is that what we’re supposed to be doing?” Jack asked. “Saving the world?”
“Well, what else could it be?” she asked. “Leading mankind to the Garden of Eden. Isn’t that the same as saving the world?”
“I don’t know, maybe the whole thing is just a wild goose chase,” Jack said.
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” she snarled, and suddenly those two big brown orbs locked on him in a harsh, withering glare; he felt, quite literally, like a deer in the headlights. “I’m just saying,” he replied, floundering for words “that we really don’t know anything yet. I can’t speak for you, but the messages I’ve gotten are long on drama and short on detail. What about you?”
“Well,” she said, gritting her teeth “I haven’t received any specific instructions yet, but . . .”
“But what?” Jack pressed.
“But that doesn’t mean they’re not forthcoming!” she said, her voice rising about two octaves, to just a hair beneath a shout. Jack was taken aback; he did not take her for the emotional type. “Well, to be honest,” Jack said, suspecting he was on the wrong course, but plodding ahead anyway: “I’m not sure I even want any instructions!”
“What do you mean?” she asked accusingly. “I mean,” Jack said, a note of annoyance creeping into his own voice, “this mission has ruined my life. I never asked for any of this, and I don’t even want it.”
“Well, I never asked for it either, but it is what it is. I mean . . . we were divinely appointed to provide a great service to mankind. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Jack did not know how to answer. In truth, he had never actually looked at it that way. He had only considered how it affected him; he had never thought about how it might affect others. “I guess I never thought about it that way,” Jack said sheepishly. “Well, you should,” Diane said, her tone of angry indignation replaced by one of gentle admonishment. “The burden to yourself won’t seem as bad if you think about others. I mean, just look at Christ as an example.”
Oh God, no, Jack thought. Please don’t let her be a born again evangelical nut job. “You’re not . . . religious?” he asked, pronouncing the word as if it represented the worse disease one could imagine.
Sighing, Diane said “No, I’m not religious, but I have prepared myself for this mission. I have studied the bible extensively, along with Greek and Hebrew, and anything else that I thought might be of relevance to this task.”
Jack was dumbfounded. Here he had spent