CHAPTER SIX
I'd have to admit that the last car I rode in was a bit different, Trinity thinks as she looks out the window.
Five feet away, her parents' new dark green RV sits. Its sides bulge out over the yellow lines. Inside, she knows there is a pair of plastic dice hanging from the rearview mirror. Faux leather seats and a fuzzy steering wheel cover.
An ironic twist? Or just my mom's bad taste at work?
She has forgotten a lot about her parents, she realizes. In the past ten years, they had blurred to caricatures in her mind. Her father a stony silent man, her mother a nervous wreck. When she sees them now, there is more to them; her mother's tick of braiding her hair when she was waiting for something, Dad's glasses resting precariously on the tip of his nose.
But maybe that isn't real either. Maybe the Matrix I'm in has just… hacked the software of my brain and extrapolated on my images of them. I think that's possible---
Either way, she thinks, she had forgotten (or never experienced?) how anxious of a driver her mother really was. On the ride up to the restaurant, the van had shaken back and forth, in lanes and out of lanes, frequently slowing to a crawl to let other drivers in. Trinity, eternally composed, had been sitting in the front seat trying not to get whiplash.
Suddenly, a black streak of a car had drawn up on the right, its glossy sleekness contrasting with the RV dramatically. Instantly Trinity had turned, one hand against the glass, watching the ebony Lexus and desperately trying to penetrate the shaded windows---
But the driver was a man in a black power suit, talking on a cell phone. He had cut Mabel off and revved down the highway, not looking back. "That…that….rrgh!" her mother had said, hands still desperately clutching the steering wheel. Then she glanced at her daughter. "Why were you looking at him like that?...He wasn't cute, was he?"
Her daughter hadn't answered immediately, just sat staring after the car. In a minute she had realized she had to respond. "No, Mom. I….um….thought I recognized him." Then Adele had finally looked away from the window and settled into her seat, staring at the floor for the rest of the ride.
--
"Well, dear, your haircut looks nice, actually. Doesn't her hair look nice, James?" her mother says now, breaking another silence.
Trinity looks away from the window towards her. Now she is sitting in a booth with flowered seats. Her father has arrived five minutes after they have. He sits in the seat across from her crunching bacon, next to Mom, who saws at a broccoli omelet. Trinity has rearranged a pile of pancakes, but has no intention of eating them.
The meal has been awkward, to say the least.
"--We were going to keep it long, but we figured it'd be just too much bother. And then she can style it herself, without the nurses having to put in pigtails."
"Mm," her father mutters. He takes another bite of hashed browns.
"But I wish you wouldn't slick it back so dramatically, sweet. You look so peaked like that, all bobby-pinned back and sprayed. How about leaving it down?"
Adele can't think of anything to say. She swallows and takes another long drink of water.
Yet another silence comes across the table.
Her mother finally interrupts. "So! How was work?"
"A lot of meetings, mostly. I gotta get back in time for my two o'clock with Harry."
"Harry's his new boss, honey," says her mother. "Your father got promoted to assistant director of factory safety. We are so proud!"
"We have a couple openings for secretarial work, Adele. You're good with computers. When you get out of there, you can come work at the mill," her father declares, shoveling in more food. "How's that?"
"Uh—"God, I thought I escaped this! I thought I was done with this stupid boring mindless shit--- Trinity leans against the cushions and rubs her eyes. When she opens them, they are both staring at her.
She knows something is wrong when her father sets down his fork and folds his arms.
"All right, Adele. This is it. We give up."
"James----"
"Mabel, you know what I'm talking about. You're asking it too, don't pretend like you aren't."
"What are you talking about, Dad?" Trinity says wearily.
"Adele. I was ready to gloss over it, to let bygones be bygones. I accepted what the doctors said, that you breaking down wasn't our fault. But now that I've seen you, now that I've been trying to talk to you, I begin to doubt what they've ---"
"James! You promised me you wouldn't---"
"Mabel, let me finish a sentence!" her father says, darting to the side. Then he looks his daughter dead on, blue eyes to blue eyes. "As I've sat here trying to talk to her and she dodges questions, one thing has sprung to mind, dear, and it's what you've been thinking too. Don't deny it---"
Mabel's mouth opens, but her husband plunges on recklessly. "What I want to know, Adele, is this. Why. Why did you decide to go nuts? Was it some disease of the brain?" He leans in. "Or did you maybe want to leave?"
"I don't know what you mean," she replies, flat.
"Were we so boring? Was your life so uninteresting that a made-up world that called the rest of us the deluded ones was better?" he says, his hands now gripping the table. "What was so wrong with this world that you had to make your own?"
She stares at him, eyes narrow.
Then she decides which choice she should stand up for. "It…was…real, Dad. It was real," she hisses, and leaps from her seat to sprint.
She hears, vaguely, her mother's cry behind her and her father's footsteps. Also, registering somewhere on the outer limits of her vision, is startled Perkins customer after startled Perkins customer. But all she sees, all she really sees, is the white plastic telephone sitting on the bakery counter.
For now that she's made up her mind, she has a plan. And in her head, one refrain plays, both triumphant and desperate:
I didn't make it up, I didn't make it up, I didn't---
She is reaching the phone, she is shoving people aside. She mutters something about an urgent phone call to the girl behind the glass pie case, then grabs the receiver and lifts it to her ear. She dials, fingers slipping on the buttons, a number so familiar in memories that might or might not be false. ("Morpheus, the line was traced, I don't know how---" "…a phone at Wells and Lake, you can make it---" ) As she punches in the final digit of the seven, she listens for a ring, (anything but 'The number you have called was never in service')---
Just as she does, the line goes dead. She whips around. Her father is standing there, thumb pressed on the hang-up.
"Adele, don't do this," he whispers.
For a minute, he almost believes she might not run. But she does.
So he takes her down, football style. He pins her to the rough patterned carpet as she struggles, too shocked to injure him. He calls for the pair of policemen having coffee to come help. They oblige. Sadly for her.
--
"I took down an entire force once, you know," she says as she speeds away in the squad car. "Heart of the City Hotel…."
They don't answer a madwoman's ravings. But she is rewarded—she thinks---by the sudden sideways look the cop in the passenger seat gives her.
---
(smacks head) Duh, Trinity. Duh. That's all I can say. Sorry for the long wait, all, I'll be better next time. I had a different plan at the beginning of this, but it developed differently, so Neo's landlady will regrettably not be called. I lied, sorry.
And so the plot thickens! Do you like the thickening?
LiMiYa: I know…it's my job to be confusing, luv. Sorry. Here is how I see it--- Trinity is either trapped or freed in a world which may or may not be the Matrix. I won't tell anyone for sure yet, so you can form an opinion one way or the other…Yes! Figure it out! Exactadiddly, reviewerino. Yeah, the part where she was talking about suburban middle-aged life was something that happens all the time to me... Great, now all we have to do is e-mail you the watermelon. I'll get back to you when I've figured out how.
Bagpipes5k: Nooo! I tried really hard to figure out how to put that in there, but unfortunately, no dice. I was going to have the waiter resemble him, since that happened to me yesterday, but for some reason felt like not being cruel…Hyper muses are good.
sleeping awake: Well, she's not gonna be DEAD, if that's what you mean. Or…wait…hmm, I have two possible endings competing for attention, and one of them has a possibility of Carrie-Anne injuries. A glancing possibility! Glancing! Be assured, though, that she'll live on, she just won't be quite sure about some things. And no, there is no simple way for her to get out of this, so don't worry. Glad you're impatient! I live off impatience!!! Even though I just totally confused myself!!!
Diamond King: Thanks loads, hope you like this chapter. Not many people will, I predict.
Cinn: Okay. Then our definitions are relatively similar, I guess…Insanity and creativity. It's remarkable how often those two traits coincide! (Johnny, how is it possible to have so many good quotes AND be incredibly sexy?) Anyways. Thanks!
Kailekehe: Sweet Jesus! I have finally spelled your name right on the first try…And….aack…I was always horrible at "Guess That Song". So you're just gonna have to tell me. Although I will tell you NUZZING unteel Chawpter, ah, Tehn or so. Merci beaucoup!
(Woo, went Merovingian for a minute there. Next thing you know my midday snack will be olives. Hate olives.)
Destiny Chaser: What a lovely long review! I know--- I think Trinity sounds too much like me sometimes. Which is not good. As we are totally different people and she is the type that would beat me up… I love dark humor. And I know Dr. Warner comes off a bit patronizing…more than a bit…okay, a lot. But she is kind of a yin to Trinity's yang, and I deliberately overdrew all the other characters to make her think that maybe this isn't real.
I don't know if Warny will show up in the next chapters, since Trinity will be moved somewhere…different…heh. Where she takes even more refuge in the past. (Nice phrase, by the way.) I hope this chapter developed quicker than other ones…next one will have a lot of memories and old short fiction references involving voluptuous females and carnivorous beasts found in India. (If anyone finds out what the heck I am referring too, they get to share LiMiYa's watermelon.)
Ivory4: That's me plan, luv! I like sucking people in. I think I was a black hole in previous lives, as was illustrated by large chunk of antimatter found in earlobe.
….
I really need to get off the marijuana... ah, just kidding.
You all are awesome. My self esteem is greatly increased!
