Codename: TABASCO
(The Awesome Background And Secret Chronicles Of Michael Guerin)
Episode 104
Trust But Verify (Missing)
Sometimes our hearts take us to places that put us in danger. But it was done, and what's done is done. Once you follow your heart you go into the unknown and you can never go back. So now we had to deal with it. That was where I was now… in the dealing with it mode. Max had done it… I had done it… and Isabel --well, she used her powers "recreationally," so even she had done it. For genies in a bottle, we were not very good at staying in the bottle. But none of us would admit that he… or she… was the one putting us in danger. It was always the other one. In the end, we were more alike than we wanted to admit. And as surprising as it was, Topolsky --agent Topolsky-- actually pegged Isabel. Topolsky, who claimed to be a teacher but wasn't. Topolsky, who claimed to be a guidance counselor but wasn't. Topolsky, the FBI agent, actually saw through Isabel's tough outer façade… and saw a glimmer of the real inner Isabel…
How well do you think you know yourself, Isabel?
Very well.
Then you might be a little surprised by your computer profile. Now, you said in our first meeting that you wanted to be a supermodel.
You work with what you're given.
That's quite a jet set career for someone who puts family first, craves stability and security, and leans towards care giving fields.
Well, I never trusted computers.
Think about who you are, Isabel, and what's important in your life; and don't forget, there's nothing wrong with just wanting to be normal.
For someone who wasn't a real guidance counselor, Topolsky sort of had Max's number, too, when she asked the class which person they thought they were most like in a picture she had. Max said he was the guy behind the tree, and Topolsky jumped on it…
That's interesting. That's a hard place to be. I've been behind the tree myself. In college, I barely left my dorm for three years. Then I realized that I had gotten myself into this situation where I wasn't really living. I was just going through the motions, and it was really, really risky to change… to get out there in the world.
But it was worth it.
Yes, it was.
Coming out from behind the tree, huh?
Exactly. You start small. You say, "Today I'm going to do one thing to get out there." Nothing big. Just one thing.
Well, I can't say that Max had not already done something big. He healed Liz. That was monumental where we were concerned. But Topolsky was basically telling him to come out of the genie's bottle altogether and live his life… not to be afraid to have a life. If she had known everything she thought she knew about us, I wonder if she would have felt the same way. But the fact is, Max took her advice. He started to get closer to Liz and stopped talking about us needing to keep our distance so much. And that led to a potentially disastrous situation for the three of us… and maybe for Liz, too…
Liz, what's wrong?
My journal's missing.
And?
Maria, I wrote everything in that journal.
Everything?
Things about Max.
Personal things about Max?
Everything.
What… like, where he's from, what he is… I mean, what he isn't?
I mean… everything.
Liz had written all about Max in her diary. I trusted her motives, but I had to make her see that there could be dire consequences… for us. That's why I pocketed her diary. I only wanted to make her see that what she was doing was unwise, but it started to get out of hand. They suspected everybody… Alex… Liz even suspected her own mom for a while. Max was sure it was Kyle who had taken it. All of them had had the opportunity. Then Topolsky found out that Liz's diary was missing, and before we knew it the FBI was looking for it, too… not for our benefit, I assure you. The agents even searched Kyle's bedroom while he was out. I intended to give it back sooner, but well, have you ever heard the expression, "When it rains it pours?"
The door of the CrashDown opened, and Liz and Maria, alone together in the café since some customers had just left, both turned to look. The figure standing in the door seemed to block out all the light. It was imposing. The man lingered there for a moment… looking… seeming to choose his victim, kind of like the scene in "High Noon," and time seemed to stop. Liz and Maria held their breath.
"Ladies."
"Sheriff. H-Have a seat. I'll… I'll be over in a minute."
"I'm not eating, thank you."
"Oh?" Liz replied hoarsely, trying to moisten her rapidly drying throat. "What… uh, what can we do for you then?"
Valenti straddled a chair as though he intended to stay for a while. "I've been pondering this sort of enigma for some time… you know… how things can get lost in places where you wouldn't ever think… and where you wouldn't think someone had been or should've been… and what it means when you sort it all out. Trying to make sense out of a clue that someone dropped in my lap… like a sort of open book, but I had to interpret it."
Liz stopped breathing and a silent gasp caught in her throat. He's got it! Sheriff Valenti has my diary. Kyle gave it to him. He knows everything. Oh God!
"Sheriff, you… you can't jump to any conclusions… whatever it might look like on the surface. We all have fantasies and… and we let ourselves… we let our imaginations… fly off to places where, you know, we could never really go… ourselves. I mean, a girl's private thoughts can be just fantasies, not, like, real life, and… Where did you, uh, where did you find it, Sheriff?"
"Well, now, that's the most interesting thing, Liz."
Valenti pulled out the alien-motif apron and held it up, looking first at Liz then at Maria with an intenseness that seemed as though it might melt steel. Liz actually looked relieved, but it didn't take a detective to see that Maria was acting guilty, even though she had done nothing at all wrong. She took one look at the apron and staggered, fumbling for her cedar oil. Both Maria and Liz knew that the apron was Maria's… and both of them knew that there was no point denying it. They also knew who had had it last.
"You found Maria's missing apron! Where did you find it, Sheriff?"
"In the desert… six miles east of Roswell… on a half naked girl."
Maria's eyes grew wide, and her jaw dropped. I'll kill him.
Valenti smiled, but it was the smile of a cat holding onto a mouse's tail.
"You see, I was looking in all the wrong directions. I thought one of you was helping Max or Michael, and all along it was the two of you."
"Excuse me?"
It's the old Clark Kent disguise… Or what was that movie where Zorro pretended to be gay? Zorro, the Gay Blade! Yeah, that's it. The one person no one would expect. Nobody would ever expect two girls. What I haven't figured out yet is how you do it… or why."
Liz closed her eyes. "I… I… Ay! Ay! Ay!"
Valenti smiled. "How am I doing so far?"
"Like a rocket that's spinning out of control. I don't have a clue what you're talking about, Sheriff."
"Definitely a crashed spaceship… ROCKET! Crashed rocket, definitely," Maria said, agreeing with Liz.
"Mmm, well, I still haven't put all the clues together. I guess I could be wrong, but it all makes sense, except for how you did it."
"Sheriff," Liz groaned, "What does any of this have to do with Maria's missing apron?"
"You really don't know, do you?"
Valenti could come up with some pretty wild theories, but he was a certifiable master of reading faces and behaviors. Liz and Maria's behavior was telling him that they really did not know what he was talking about. But it also said -loud and clear- that they were hiding something. It frustrated Valenti. He had hoped that even if his far-out theory did prove to be wrong it would addle Liz or Maria one into saying something that would incriminate either Max or Michael, whom he still thought were really the most likely suspects. But everything in Liz and Maria's faces was saying that they were as clueless as he was.
"Okay, back to theory number one then. I know that somehow, someway, Maria was at the scene of two crimes… or something that she is associated with was at each of those scenes…"
Maria gasped. "I haven't done anything, Sheriff. I'm innocent. I need to call Mom."
"NO! I mean…
Wait… just for a minute. I promise I'll leave. I'm just trying to figure out a mystery that's been confounding me for a while now."
Valenti stood up and walked to the door. He reached for the doorknob then turned and looked at Maria… then again at Liz. "I know you know something… one of you does, maybe both of you. I'm not saying either of you has committed any crimes. I'm… I'm kind of leaning in a different direction. Talk to Max and Michael. Tell them they can trust me. Tell them… Well, just tell them that."
Valenti put his hat back on his head and quickly exited the café, leaving Liz and Maria looking at each other with shocked and puzzled expressions on their faces.
888888888888888
Did I say that when it rains it pours? Valenti may still have been puzzled over who was responsible for the recent mysteries, but Maria was not…
"I trusted you! I trusted you! I had a birthday party for you… Okay, well, such as it was, but it WAS a party. And you take my gift and go on a CRIME SPREE! And… and the sheriff finds it on a naked… bar room floozy! I was starting to believe in you, Michael. Now… I don't even know who you are anymore. Maybe all this is normal on your planet, whatever that is… but we don't do things like that here. God, why do I care? It probably is normal where you come from. I'll get over it. It's none of my business. It's not like I care or anything… 'Cause I don't, you know."
I tried to calm Maria down, but she was really mad. I let her get it all out before trying to explain.
"It's not what you think, Maria. That girl… three guys were trying to rape her. I took care of them and gave her my shirt to cover herself up with, because they tore her clothes. Then I helped her call Valenti. You don't think I could just stay there and tell the sheriff it was me that did it, do you?"
"Why not? If you really saved her, I mean, saving someone's not a crime."
"But humans don't lift people up and throw them a hundred feet through the air… with special powers."
"Oh."
"I'm sorry, Maria. I didn't know Sheriff Valenti was going to come after you."
"How did he find my apron, Michael? You said you gave her your shirt, not my apron…"
"I, uh, I had to put the apron somewhere, so I put it inside my shirt. With everything that was happening, I guess I forgot it was there, and it must have stuck to the inside of my shirt when I gave it to her."
Maria smiled. "You put it next to your heart?"
"It was just… the easiest place to carry it… you know."
"Of course. I knew that. That's what I meant."
"Yeah."
"Michael, just what are you up to?"
"What do you mean?"
"First, Valenti finds your T-shirt…"
"A little piece of it."
"Okay, a little piece of your T-shirt… at the scene of a crime, and it had cedar oil on it… because earlier you had bumped into me and I had spilled it on you. Then he finds the apron that I gave you… at the scene of another crime. It's a lot of coincidences. And there's that stuff people are saying about some guy the paper is calling 'the Avenger.' It's you, isn't it?"
I shrugged. The truth is, I didn't know what to say.
"Omigod, it is you."
"So sue me."
"Michael's trying to help people, Maria," Liz said, stepping in for me. "He's not looking for trouble, he just decided to do something about it when he sees trouble happening from now on instead of burying his head in the sand and pretending he doesn't see it. He's taking chances… chances that could put his life in danger… in order to do what's right. But he has to keep this all secret. No one can know."
"You knew about this, Liz?"
"Yeah… well… kind of. Yeah, I guess so."
"And you didn't tell me? Some friend you are."
Liz looked at Maria with sad eyes. "Do you forgive me?"
"No… Yeah… Oh, I don't know. Don't look at me like that! All right! All right! I forgive you already."
"Hugs?"
Girls! Who can understand 'em? Can you see me giving Max the pouty look and asking for hugs? He'd die laughing… right after he kicked my ass all the way back to our home planet. But girls, see, they do stuff like that. I remember thinking, maybe it's an Earth… girl… thing. Then I thought, Naw… it's probably just a girl thing… Someday, if I ever get back to my planet, I've got to check that out. And I was right. It's a girl thing, even here on Antar.
All things considered, I thought enough had happened already since I took Liz's diary, so the next day, I gave it back to her…
I had to know the risk… so I had to know what your journal said.
You took it?
I never meant for things to get out of control… It's nice to know we have at least one friend in this town.
Does Max know that you…
No… and you know what would be really great? If you didn't tell him.
But why didn't you just destroy this, Michael… because anyone that found this would know all about you.
No… they'd know all about you, Liz. Thank you for giving me one more reason to envy Max Evans.
Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time thinking… about our lives before Max saved Liz and all this started… how I used to wish that something would break the routine and get me out of this crazy little town and away from my nowhere life with Hank, hopefully back to our own people, only I had no idea who those people were or where to find them… or even what planet they were on. Stepping out of the bottle opened up our worlds unimaginably, but it also confirmed what I already knew… that the bigger your world gets, the bigger your problems get, too. Now I had a choice. To continue to put us in danger… without Isabel's knowing… or to climb back in the bottle and recork it… try to regain the past. I wondered if that was possible… I wondered if it was what I really wanted.
End of Episode 104
tbc…