Chapter 10
Memory Lane
Chris Redfield drank his Jack straight. Watered down whiskey was for pussies. He'd sooner smoke a bag of potpourri than buy vanilla flavored smokes. Men with 'murses' slung over their shoulder were wanna be transvestites too chicken shit to take a sex change plunge, and judging from the lack of male briefs in the laundry room he must have been on an underwear optional agreement with his free swingin' balls.
He'd gone the roundabout with women. Random Mary's and brunette Jane's good enough for a double bag Saturday night, but not good enough to break Sunday bread with Claire in the light of day.
He'd searched for a woman with enough sandpaper grit to smooth his raw temper, and although she didn't quite fit the Suzy bread baker mother role, apple pies lined up on the sill, what he'd stumbled across in Jill did provide him the black and white blended perspective he needed in order to take baby steps over his moral fine line and see the world in shades of gray.
They'd shopped for a ring a month before he and Jill had left. Prowled jewelry store counters searching for the one of a kind find he determined worthy to grace Jill's finger.
Claire didn't mind being a Guinea pig in Chris' quest for the perfect engagement band, but if she had to try on one more ring to see how it looked while being worn, and have the salesperson ask when they were getting married, she intended to shoot herself in the foot and let him mush on without her.
Did he fork out for the center cut half carat in the platinum setting that he'd gone back to look at every day for a week?
There'd been no announcement. Chris never said. Jill's finger never sparkled. Now, never would. She was gone, and with her Chris' chance at the normal life he'd been denied the night their parents lost their lives.
Must have been nice, Claire thought as the sun rose higher on the bedroom wall.
Chris inherited the meat and potatoes of the memories of their parents. He'd described their likes, their dislikes, their mannerisms, their affection; painted vivid word pictures of what it was like to have two people shower you with pride and devotion. Claire got the burnt off pan scrapings, photographs and the remembrance of a Halloween night gone Grim Reaper wrong.
It would be easier on her throbbing head and red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes to let the day run its course. Pull the blankets over her head, hunker down, and pretend nothing happened. Brilliant lemon drop yellow rays bled heat into her blankets. Reality kept creeping back. Her brother was on his way. The royal fuck up in England had deposited a garbage truck loaded with problems right on the Redfield doorstep.
Chris would need a lot of gasoline to clear the landfill he'd been bulldozed into, and she wondered, with Jill's disappearance, possible death, if his bruised body and grief stricken mind would be up to the challenge.
Claire threw back her comforter. A shower and a shot of caffeine left her exactly where she ended her night. There was nothing to do except wait, and in the Redfield universe busy was good for the soul.
Today's agenda in the keep herself busy barrage was the garage. Sooner or later, most definitely sooner knowing Chris' lack of love for hospital settings, he'd order the house emptied. Goodbye neighbors she'd never met, hello strangers two States away, don't bother bringing a housewarming gift, we won't be around long enough to unwrap it.
Claire flipped on the light. Space for two cars relegated to see thru bins and magic marker labeled boxes stacked as high as the ceiling. All the things they had learned to live without that make a house a home.
They'd midnight moved three times after Rockfort. Miserable, hurried affairs Chris rationalized with a payback is imminent logic.
She tried to reason with him, explained that it didn't matter where they lived. If Umbrella, or any other bio weapon organization, had deep enough pockets to construct global research facilities, and fund a third world country equivalent in highly paid researchers, they were certainly capable of finding their home location wherever they went. So, they might as well live where they pleased. Alias' included, of course.
'Not a chance,' he'd said, while she organized their belongings during move number three. He pointed to a pile of boxes. Trucks, and a group of beer buddies, showed up twenty minutes later.
This one made her mad. She'd picked this house. Started to decorate this house. Selected wallpaper. Chose a paint scheme. Planted a garden. Well, tried to plant a garden. She'd discovered it was a daunting task to grow and nurture living things when they required more attention to survive than a hurried splash of water in between flights.
She reached for a cardboard stack buried behind the bins. The cardboard was wedged tight. Claire jerked on its folded flap. Her elbow smacked a box. The leaning tower of cardboard Pisa collapsed. A random object hodgepodge clattered onto cold cement. Claire rubbed her funny bone and kicked a half inflated football into a heap of old clothes. "Fandamtastic," she muttered.
She knelt down, tilted the closest box upright, and started stuffing. A thirty-minute clean up and restack quickly sidetracked by item induced trips down good ole memory lane.
Here was Chris' moose ears beer hat, a Thanksgiving favorite. She fiddled with the creased antler crushed sideways over the front bill of the cap. Too many years stored under the weight of every other useless item in the box had left it permanently limp. She let the antler fall back into its new orientation, but instead of tossing it aside in a garbage pile she knew she would eventually make, Claire placed the cap on her head and tucked her stray hairs under the brim.
Here was his cassette tape stash, a musically varied collection that ran the gamut from R and B to Rock and Roll. She used to look forward to Friday nights. Her nightly homework ritual and his work worries slid away in thumping bass beats pumped through Chris' old, walnut cased made in woodshop speakers.
Mixed in with the cracked cassette cases were a few of Chris' former favorite VHS tapes. Action movies and Kung Fu kick fests featuring protagonists and antagonists in unrealistic situations that caused Chris to go into 'movie commentator' mode when they watched them.
Prime example: China Wars Three. For starters, as Chris was more than happy to point out, China looked an awful lot like suburban California. Second, and Chris made this point quite clear, nobody, and he emphasized the word 'nobody', jumped from a car doing a hundred twenty miles per hour onto the roof of another vehicle, kicked out the window, got a sucker punch in on the driver, and climbed into the driver's seat while navigating a twisted, mountain slope.
She was never sure what made him laugh more, the poor lip sync, or the way the movie bad guys held their weapons. 'Look at him,' he'd shout at the screen. 'Dude's never fired a gun before in his life. And that guy, that guy over there, I'll bet you a million dollars right now he's never lit up before. Look how he's holdin' his smoke. What a dumb ass.'
Good times, very good times. The Chris he used to be before Arklay. Before Umbrella. Jill. Before there really were such things as monsters lurking under a bed.
She placed China Wars Three on top of Bloodfist Six 'the bloodiest Bloodfist of them all' according to the back of its case.
Then Claire saw 'it'. She lifted an oversize garment from the bottom of one of the clothing piles. "How on earth…" she mumbled as she held the cardigan outstretched in both hands. "Yep, as God awful as you were the first day I saw you. What're you doing here?"
##
She was thirteen. The room in the STARS office that served as their official headquarters as stuffy as her stopped up nose.
She was grateful for the temporary olfactory crash. Sniffles and a runny nose a minor inconvenience, a price she gladly paid, to be spared from smells she had come to know as, "guy smells;" Hot 'n spicy burrito burps, bean dip farts, and cologne splashed over body odor trapped in a space no larger than the Redfield living room.
She'd finished her homework early and now played what she called, 'the waiting game.' Simple as non-destructive and, with Captain Wesker in his office, as quiet as possible, activities designed to whittle away time while she waited for Chris to go off duty.
First up, Chris' desk. A paper cyclone had rolled over its coffee cup ring stained surface. Weeks worth of unfinished reports were scattered from one end to the other. Sir Neat and Orderly he was not. Claire waved a pencil over the mess as though it were a magic wand. I dub thee Sir Pigs A Lot. Lord of the realm of Sty.
She organized the clustered heap with the same gusto she used to clean their home. Wondered if Chris realized it was thanks to her they had not yet succumbed to botulism, and not due to some random cleaning fairy that appeared out of thin air in the middle of the night and made mess disappear.
Second up, a new Jill rendering, for Jill. Art had been a grueling chore this semester. Third hour the only class she dreaded during the day that didn't come quick enough so it could be done and over with just as quick.
Redfield's weren't artists. Stick figure drawings plastered on the fridge at home made it clear their kind of art belonged stuffed in a drawer and not on display in a museum.
They weren't musicians either. Off key shower renditions likely to have the neighbors call the police to report a noise disturbance.
But, what Claire Redfield lacked in Da Vinci and Beethoven skills she more than made up for in Joan of Arc passion and determination. Try, try, try, like the Little Engine that Could.
Unfortunately middle school didn't offer diligence as a course class. And last time she checked her teachers didn't give A's for a practice till you puke mentality.
She set the poorly proportioned Jill sketch on Jill's desk. Tomorrow it would find its way up onto Jill's corkboard, push pinned over the other less than perfect caricatures Claire created over the last two months.
Good deeds done for the day, and thirty-five minutes left to spare, Claire plopped down on a chair with wobbly roller wheels and gave it a hearty, and what she considered a not too terribly squeaky spin.
Vickers' head popped up like a spring sprung Jack-In-The-Box over a partition that separated his desk from Chris' for what must have been the twentieth time that day.
Claire rotated around. There was a blown up topographical chart of the city and the surrounding mountains tacked on the wall above the communications equipment. If Vickers wanted to take a look at it then why didn't he get up and do it?
Captain Wesker's door shot open. Cheap, crooked one-inch aluminum mini blinds rattled in the window frame.
Claire grabbed the edge of Chris' desk and stopped mid-turn. Her back snapped arrow straight. Vickers' hand froze above a stack of papers.
"Miss Redfield. I would like to have a word with you."
A big, fat booger droplet inched its way out her nose. She reached into her pocket. Dang, no hanky. Great. Just friggin' great. Suck it? Swipe it? She eyed her sweater sleeve. Back of my hand? Ooh, no. Gross. She took a deep breath and slurped the offensive germ laden moisture all the way past her stopped up nose and down the back of her throat.
Wesker crossed his arms over his chest. "Anytime today, preferably now, will suffice."
Claire slowly lowered her feet onto the floor.
Vickers cracked a sly grin beneath his downcast eyes. "Dum de dum dum dummmm," he whispered under his breath as she shuffled by his desk.
Wesker waved her into his office. He pointed at a chair.
Turned out it was the most uncomfortable chair her butt had ever graced. The rigid spindle back burrowed through her sweater and into her spine. Her eyes narrowed. Nothing like Wesker's chair; a wide framed, double padded head and armrest behemoth that made the one she sat on look like it had been constructed out of leftover timber found beneath an underpass and assembled by a two year old wielding a plastic hammer.
Caught in the moment, and her youth, she was unable to process the deeper meaning of her less than comfy perch in relation to Wesker's chair. Claire chalked the splintered contraption up to rudeness. The Redfield's didn't own the nicest of furniture, or the latest and greatest household items, but they still had the common courtesy to offer a guest in their home the part of the sofa that wasn't covered by a blanket to hide the holes in the cushion. Maybe Mr. Wesker didn't know how hard the chair was on the butt? Maybe he didn't understand the pain it sent rolling through her back?
It would take three years before her brain connected all the dots. Looking through Wesker's window to see a STARS member, usually her brother, fidget and squirm on top of said chair. On one such occasion it finally dawned on her the whole idea was to make the person unfortunate enough to plop down on its rigid frame feel somehow less than human. Less worthy. An early insight into Albert Wesker's mind gone unnoticed by everyone around him.
Her gaze darted around the room. Paper stacks arranged in orderly piles on his desk. Pens, cap side down, in a holder next to the tray labeled as his in box. A mug with steam rising in thin wisps over the rim set on a wooden coaster.
Claire tilted her head. A cartoon bear in slippers with droopy eyelids graced the front of his mug. The caption read: I hate mornings.
According to her brother Captain Wesker hated everything. Why single out mornings? The phrase should have read: I hate (blank) like the little fill in word story books Chris left in her Christmas stocking as a stuffer.
Wesker slammed the door. The mini blinds vibrated.
He walked to a cabinet in the corner and dialed in the combination to the lock. Much to her surprise he withdrew what appeared to be a blanket, a beige knit ball of out of date ugliness covered in bold hand-stitched poinsettias. It belonged draped over an elderly woman's couch, not hanging in a guy's locker next to his bulletproof vest.
He set the blanket on the desk and plucked a tissue package from a drawer.
"First things first." He pulled back his chair and lowered himself onto its plush seat. "May I ask what it is you hope to accomplish in sucking your post nasal drip up your nostrils every two seconds when it is much healthier and more efficient to expel the discharge?"
Adult words. Crud. It meant a broader attention span. No faking. She'd have to pay attention, or she'd accidentally say 'yes' when the correct answer was 'no.'
He pushed the package across the desk. "Blow your nose."
She hesitantly scooped up the tissues and tore off the cellophane wrapper.
He winced at the snorts of her booger blowing parade, and waited the duration of two good cough hack attacks before he spoke again.
"Second. Sit up straight. Slouching is poor posture. Show me, and your back, some sense of respect."
Easy for you to say. You don't have Mr. Splinter carving a hole in your spine.
He took a moment to order his thoughts as he stared at her over the rim of his mug. When he began Claire jumped half way off the chair.
"Can you keep a secret, Miss Redfield? Or, more appropriately, a confidence? A bit of information exchanged between us that will stay confined to you, me, and the walls of this room?"
Secret. Her ears perked to the word. She unconsciously scooted to the edge of her seat. Now, he spoke teen language.
Claire told more little white lies than a crack addict chewed gum. Not by choice, or the random thrill of seeing if she could pull one over on some unsuspecting fool. She told them out of necessity. After school 'dance' translated into after school 'orgy' (she had to look the word up in a dictionary) according to Chris, but after school 'study hall' meant excellent student and another A on her report card.
"Your brother is one of my best officers."
Claire nearly fell off the chair. She gripped the edge with her fingers to steady herself.
"His dedication and tireless devotion, not only to his coworkers, but the citizens he has sworn to serve and protect, unrivalled by anyone I have ever met."
"And his sense of family responsibility and obligation merits special praise. He was dealt a horrid hand at a young age and has managed to draw a few cards to bolster the odds in his favor at achieving some measure of life success."
"I have a deep respect for your brother. One, that I find, I do not share with his colleagues. Out of this respect I went against my better judgment and agreed to the current after school hours situation in regard to you, and your well being."
"Your brother did not feel comfortable leaving you to your own devices at such an impressionable stage of development." He glanced up from his mug, and took a good, long look at Vickers. "And in this day and age, I am inclined to agree."
"Your brother assured me that in meeting your needs there would be no interruption or distraction from the daily operations within this office."
Stupid, squeaky chair. "I'm sorry," she sniffled.
"Sorry is not the issue." His gaze shifted from his mug to her face, and then a tad lower. He sighed, looked away, and shifted in his chair. "The issue is two …"
He stopped mid-sentence and reconsidered his words. "Has your brother discussed the topic of the so called birds and the bees? What happens when little girls grow up? Certain developments that do not go unnoticed to a male eye?"
Claire fidgeted on the seat. What the heck! Yes. No. Embarrassingly so. An emergency trip to the drug store to obtain her first 'girly items' with Jill a recent fiasco best left never mentioned again. She tugged her bottom lip with her teeth. One shrug in place of a direct answer coming right up.
"I am not surprised given his protective tendencies as far as you and your upbringing are concerned. I do not blame him. Young women such as yourself have always historically been both the pillar and the bane of their male protectors. "
Claire held her breath. It was the first time someone referred to her as a woman. Not kid. Not squirt. Not sis. Woman. She felt instantly older. Bolder. Confidant. She raised the shy downcast tilt of her head.
"Three hundred years ago Christopher's barbaric behavior would have been justified. Women were commodities. Brokered. Traded. Alliances, pacts, treaties, accumulation of wealth; these were all born on the backs of your gender. Girls thrust into marriages on the cusp of young adulthood, and forced to endure a lifetime of servitude, and loyalty, to a man they might not care to have stable their horse, much less share their bed…"
What on earth does history have to do with spinning on a chair? Is he talking about sex? Oh, God. He's my brother's boss. Grossssss. Stranger danger. Her brows furrowed. Wait a second. He's making a point. What point? Ugh! Oh…crap…a lecture. I get enough of these at home. She looked at the wall-mounted clock and tapped her foot. Move. Move. Can't he find something to lecture Vickers about? He's always doing something stupid. He's probably in the other room doing stupid right now.
Wesker snapped his fingers. "Miss Redfield, did you hear anything I have said."
She was relieved to admit she hadn't. So much for paying attention. One good shrug on deck.
"Has your brother explained the differences between male and female? Procreation? What goes on behind closed doors, as it were?"
Her face bloomed scarlet red. Before Chris met Jill his double baggers had turned into double pillows mashed against her ears to block the moans flowing out the crack underneath Chris' bedroom door.
"Kinda," she said out the side of her mouth, with a dip of her head to let her hair hide her face. Chris' big adventure into puberty land had been less than a stellar job well done. She received a Christopher approved book: Are You There God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume and a five minute before bed question and answer session that skimmed over just about anything she needed to know, and ended in a stern 'ask me in twenty years.'
"Rephrase your response," Wesker commanded. " 'kinda' is not an answer. Either your brother did or he did not. What if I was to stumble upon a body and someone were to ask me if the person was dead. 'Kinda' would not be the appropriate reply. Youth does not exclude a proper, and correct, use of the English language."
Crud. Claire sighed. Chris tried. He really tried hard, but those conversations were as embarrassing for him as they were for her. She didn't blame him for his lame attempt. Somehow, though, her gut told her that the pervy jerk staring at her across the desk might not like the word try. What the heck difference does it make to him anyway? Stop staring at me. Dang it! This is worse than sitting at the table with a bowl of spinach. I can't choke this down. I'm gonna be here forever. Say something. Anything. Make it stop.
Into her head it popped, and out of her mouth it came. "He didn't sign my form."
"Which form?"
"The one I got from school so I could participate, you know, in the presentation."
"And which presentation would that be?"
Claire stuffed the tissue up to her nose. "I have the paper in my backpack."
Wesker leaned back. "Retrieve the form."
Claire slid off the chair and slunk into the outer office. She grabbed her backpack off the floor near Chris' desk and returned to Wesker's office.
She winced at the thought of sitting down. Do they make ice packs for sore tushies?
He spread the creased pink Xeroxed invitation out in front of him. "Changes. Your body and you," he read aloud.
Claire thought she heard amusement in his voice, but the complimentary smile that normally came as a result of such a tone did not follow.
"A special presentation for young ladies in grades seven and eight." He pushed the paper aside. "Sounds magical. I see they even had a guest speaker from Planned Parenthood, and refreshments courtesy of the PTA."
"He didn't sign my form, so I had to go to study hall during the assembly."
Wesker sipped from his mug. "I see. Well, if the invitation is any indication you were probably better off. Christopher has the right idea, but executes it for the wrong reason. You are being pigeonholed into weakness. Christopher wants you to use him as a crutch. It gives him purpose. He employs medieval logic in a modern era."
"A young adult must have some measure of freedom. There must be choices. These choices, and their resulting consequences, establish the difference between right and wrong. Some lessons cannot be learned by example. Some lessons must be experienced."
"Out of curiosity Miss Redfield, what did you do while you were in study hall? Were you not the least bit curious about the presentation? Would it have been nice to be able to make healthy, informed decisions based on facts, and not girlish lunch table guesswork? Did you put forth the effort to discover the information your brother thought so gallant to deny you in his efforts to shield you from the perversions of men?"
"Huh? No…." Dang, this is worse than my brother. Woah! Is he spying on us at school? How does he know Amber' big boobies' Mcgee knows everything there is to know about sex? He's creepin' me out. I wish he'd just yell at me, or something. "I did math homework."
"Why?"
"Because I had math homework."
"No, I mean why did you not seek out answers on your own."
"I don't know."
"Why not visit the public library after school to satisfy any curiosity and glean knowledge? Why did you leave your personal development and understanding of perfectly natural biological functions at the discretion of a man who, although he may have your best interest at heart, is not capable of letting you mature into the young woman you are meant to be?"
She'd tuned out after 'library.' The message delivered in the last sentence in his statement overshadowed in confusion and childish ignorance.
"Because it wouldn't do me any good. My library card's restricted."
"How so?"
"My brother knows the librarians. He dated two of them. Laura works in the afternoon. Pamela works at night. If I take one step out of the kids section my brother will know about it."
It was at this point he lowered his head and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
Claire glanced at the clock. For the love of God, why won't you move? She craned her head over her shoulder. She stared at the door that led into the outer office. Open. She squeezed her eyes shut. I'm gonna' count to ten. When I open my eyes that door is gonna' open and my brother is gonna' walk through it. One. Two. Three-
"Miss Redfield, are you always this inattentive at school?"
Geez, Louise. What is with him? She found all new respect for her brother. No wonder he slammed his car door when he came home from work and went straight to the fridge for a beer.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Claire shook her head. "No... I don't know. I don't think so." Only when I don't feel like talking about certain subjects, you nasty jerk.
"I do not know sounds very much like another version of 'kinda'." He sighed. "Your lack of attention has made it extremely difficult to broach the topic I had wanted to discuss in a kinder, gentler manner. I fear, much like in dealing with your brother, perhaps it would be best to be blunt. "
Wesker pushed the blanket across the desk. "The fashion abomination you see before you is a forgotten leftover remnant of a former secretary."
Her eyebrows scrunched together over her nose. Huh? Wait? It's not a blanket? Get out! How does someone get this big? Crud. I ate two packages of Twinkies today. If I ate two packages of Twinkies every day for ten years, how long would it take before I get this big?
"…Mrs. Marchand's lack of style equaled her lack of work ethics. Her resignation saved me considerable trouble firing her. I am positive my files jumped for joy as well. A STARS member took it upon themselves to leave this little memento as a testament to my less than fond memories of the not so dearly departed Mrs. Marchand attached to my locker. I was not angry over the matter. A little comedic levity in the workplace can be a welcome relief in stressful situations. I let them have their joke at my expense. I kept the garment. "
He unfolded the beige bundle and held it out to her.
Holy cow. "It's ginormous."
"I believe Mrs. Marchand would be considered an extra, extra large using clothing measurement guidelines. A polite way of saying water buffalo in my opinion."
Claire stifled a giggle. Ten water buffalos are more like it. She pictured it now, clothing tags emblazoned with animals as a sizing chart. Giraffe could be used for a tall. Whale for the big and the tall. Mrs. Marchand's buffalo size for the over forty female not quite large enough for the over fifty hippo.
"From now on, from this day forth, when you are in this office you shall wear this wrap."
"What? Why? It's too big. It'll drown me."
"That is the idea, Miss Redfield. I want you covered, shall we say, from stem to stern."
"I'd rather wear my own clothes. There's nothing wrong with my own jacket."
"The one with the busted zipper? The one you are not wearing?"
"I've got a sweater on, Mr. Wesker. It's hot in here."
"A sweater that does nothing to hide two very noticeable bumps on your chest."
Claire's face exploded raspberry red. She'd seen the white padded training bras with tiny pink rosettes in the center that the other girls had strapped around their breasts. Maybe went a little green-eyed monster over the itsy bitsy satin panties hugging the hips of her friends in gym class.
Chris had failed to take the hint in the department store ads she'd left open to the ladies section on the kitchen counter. Too shy to come right out and tell him she needed a bra she'd settled on, what she thought, was a perfectly acceptable solution; baggy shirts.
She slowly raised her arms and unconsciously folded them over the nubs on her chest.
"The point I have been trying to get you to absorb into your lackadaisical Redfield brain is that without knowledge and the resulting self awareness that comes at the root of knowledge you will become a victim."
Oh, no. Please don't let him say the R word. I'm begging.
"The reason your brother's colleague," he nodded toward Vickers, "has been so generous with his head bobs has everything to do with your lack of proper ladies undergarments, and not his love for acting like a complete jackass when you enter the room. I could easily ban you from this office and remove temptation from his mind, but it is not going to solve the problem. In your current state you would still be vulnerable to every lecher who laid his eyes on you and decided you were innocent enough, unaware enough, and old enough to meet his needs. Therefore," he pointed at the cardigan, "my solution. We will call it the poinsettia resolution."
Claire shook her head. Stupid Chris. Way to go. "It's ugly. I hate it."
"You were not asked to like it."
"I promise. I'll have my brother take me shopping. Just as soon as he gets paid."
"I have counted no less than five stores within a two mile radius of this office. Your brother could have taken you at any time to any one of them. I have no reason to believe he will take you anytime soon. Sorry, Miss Redfield, the poinsettias stand."
Claire tossed the hideous cardigan on his desk. He wasn't her brother. He wasn't her father. She didn't work here. She didn't have to listen to a thing he had to say. "You can't make me wear it."
Wesker's eyes narrowed. He leaned back in his chair and gently rocked it back and forth while he contemplated her resistance.
"Are you familiar with the term 'barter', Claire?"
She shook her head.
"Another word for bargain. You give me something I want, and I will grant you something you need."
"I don't need your fugly sweater."
He ignored her comment. "So, here is the deal. Every day after school when you arrive in this office you will come straight to my locker. I will give you, and you alone, the combination to the lock. You will don Mrs. Marchand's fashion faux paus as though it were your very own."
"No wa-"
He held up his hand. "In exchange for your compliance I will grant you this." He reached into his wallet and pulled out a card. "My personal access pin number good at all of the computer terminals in this building. Think about it a moment. Let the idea soak into your under utilized sponge brain. I offer the world at your fingertips. The price is a mere few hours of your daily vanity, and your oath that the discussion we have engaged in today stays between us."
Wow. Computer access. Really? Her gaze slipped back and forth between the card and the cardigan. No, thanks! Her lips parted…Wait! Computers are expensive. Chris can't afford one. Sucks to go to the library to work on my reports. I can get the work done faster if I can look stuff up. I can do it here! Heck, by the time Chris gets off work I can have all my homework done. Amber big boobies isn't the only one who should know stuff. So it's a little too big, and butt nasty looking. Mr. Wesker probably won't take no for an answer. I don't want him to ban me. If he bans me then he'll tell Chris why. How embarrassing. I don't want Chris to get a lecture. At least this way I get something in return.
"Deal," she said.
Wesker pushed back his chair. "Excellent." He extended the card.
"Now? You want me to wear it now?"
"No time like the present."
Claire gulped. She picked up the cardigan as though it were a pair of skid marked undies. Ewww. She slid her stick thin arms into the stretched out leg-sized armholes, wrapped the front to the back, and wound the attached belt around her waist three times.
Mr. Wesker seemed pleased. He nodded his approval and escorted her to the door. "As I said, the pin number will grant access at any terminal. I would advise against using your brothers. There is no reason your search history needs to catch whatever attention your brother possesses. Do not make the mistake in assuming your forays onto the Internet will be left completely unmonitored. You may go where you please, but I will draw the line at lewd images, porno, and unauthorized downloads."
"What's porno?"
His hand paused on the door handle. "You have the means. Feel free to look it up."
She turned the card over. "What does the A stand for?"
"Albert."
She glanced sideways. "You don't look like an Albert."
"Pray tell, Miss Redfield, what name do you find more fitting?"
"I don't know…maybe a Victor. Definitely not an Albert."
"When you figure it out please, by all means, feel free to enlighten me with the revelation…"
##
"How 'bout A for asshole," Claire muttered. She tossed the cardigan aside. Her brother had done the world a favor. One less Albert Wesker was one less cow paddie to avoid.