Save Her

Natalie - Chapter 3-3

“How frequently did Drayden visit Oscar?”

They’re very interested in Oscar. They know Reginald and Drayden loved him.

“Probably a bunch, but honestly I have no clue. It was a safe spot for Drayden. He liked going there,” Natalie says. She makes no mention of Oscar’s dog, Sodapop, because she would not go there or speak about that unless directly asked.

“What else about Oscar,” the interrogator says.

“Like what?”

“Anything you know, we want to know,” the interrogator put an emphasis on ‘anything.’

Natalie shrugs her shoulders. There’s no lying involved now. She knows the basics, and that’s about it. She knows just what Drayden had told her as they walked that first time from her dorm after giving him back the little brown book.

“Drayden told me he had taken it upon himself to get back at the hospital that had blackballed his step-dad. He had hacked their parent company’s computer system and found out they were misusing funds allocated to them from the World Bank. The money was supposed to go towards a wind farm off the coast, but they were putting it towards the hospital and an HMO that the hospital owned to fluff the profit margins. He took some of those funds, paid them forward to his step-dad, and then reported the operation. I questioned his taking the money in a later conversation, but he said it rightfully belonged to his step-dad — at least some of it, anyway. That they were corrupt and had been stealing for years, so the small sum he took for Oscar was payback for their wrongs.”

“What did you think about that?”

“About him taking the money?” Natalie shrugs again. “I was okay with it after he explained it. I’m still okay with it. There’s right, and there’s wrong, and Drayden convinced me he needed the money to keep his step-dad from going bankrupt. Since the hospital caused everything from the start, then how can anyone find fault in that defense? Are you telling me the hospital and HMO deserved to do what they did? Because that’s ridiculous.”

“That’s what laws and judges and international courts are for,” the woman said.

Natalie shakes her head. “None of them would have known about it if Drayden hadn’t uncovered it. They should be thanking him. Anyway, Drayden emailed the World Bank, they debarred the parent company based in Russia, who then demanded that Drayden be tried under the rules of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime for hacking. They labeled him a terrorist.”

“Did he ever say that to you? That he was a terrorist?” Natalie’s interrogator asks.

“Ha. A terrorist? Drayden? I wouldn’t have believed him even if he had used that word. He’s hardly that. The Russians were really reaching with that one. The only thing he told me he regretted was sending the email to the World Bank. He said he could have done it anonymously and nobody would have ever known it was him. The Russian company would have been hit by the World Bank, their credit would have been wiped, and the hospital would have been shown for the rip-off that it is. I asked him why he did it, and he said pretty frankly that it was notoriety. He wanted other hackers to see what he could do.”

The interrogator’s questions had paused for what seemed like a very long time. She seemed to contemplate all of what she had learned. Natalie thought maybe they were done with the day’s session, but just as she was about to get up, the interrogator looks at Natalie and asks the most obvious thing anyone can ask a pregnant woman:

“Are you hungry?”

“Oh yes,” Natalie says, suddenly warmed by the idea of food. Her interrogator looks up at the camera hanging off the corner of the ceiling and snaps her fingers.

“Tell me more about that first day with Drayden. Where did you go? What else did you talk about?”

“He talked a lot about Oscar. He was mad at his mom. We could bond there, that was for sure. Mostly what I learned from him then was that his mother left Oscar once he lost his job with the hospital. He said he and Reginald were near livid because it was such a ridiculously predictable response. They both had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to handle the concept of not having money. Drayden said he was more upset than Reginald. He said it was obvious she was still in love with Oscar. That she was unable to get past his sudden financial insecurity was unforgivable to Drayden. I remember him saying that his mom left Oscar emotionally as soon as he told her he was having financial problems; she left him physically not long after that. His step-dad hadn’t seen it coming, Drayden told me. Not at all. His heart was sufficiently broken because he had always thought of her as the love of his life. And then one morning she just wasn’t there. He got mad at me when I asked him how his mother was after she left.

“‘Haven’t you been listening?’ He said. ‘She left him like that,’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘What kind of person does that?’

“‘But she’s your mother, so isn’t there some natural familial slack awarded for bad behavior?’

“‘Do you really believe that?’ He said.

“‘I don’t know,’ I said, honestly. He had been obviously hurt by her in the past, and I realized that there is only so much one person could take.

“‘I’m done wasting any emotions on her, no matter how insignificant,’ Drayden said. ‘Let’s change the topic. Fair?’ I nodded at him that it was fair. ‘Okay, my turn,’ he said.

“‘Shoot,’ I said.

“‘I’ve only known you long enough to get smacked by your car and then by a few of your questions, but I’m guessing your future is a journalism major?’

“‘Nope,’ I said, ‘but I guess you’re close?’

“‘Ahh, a young justice of the peace?’

“‘I’m not so young. I’m almost seventeen,’ I said straightening my back and sticking out my perky breasts. As soon as I said it, I realized how young I truly sounded. ‘If my parents have things their way, I’ll be a lawyer.’

“‘But that’s not your thing?’

“‘No,’ I sighed. I hadn’t wanted to reveal anything by it but sighs usually speak a hundred words if you let them out.

“‘You’re not in university yet, so you’re not locked into anything, right?’

“‘Kinda. My parents… they’d die. This decision is already made.’

“‘You’re not changing it? You’ll let them decide your fate for you?’

“‘It’s not so bad as that. They love me. They’re looking out for my best interest.’

“‘I didn’t mean anything. Just that, what is it that you love? Me? I love coding. I’d rather be doing that than just about anything.’

“‘Art. I get lost on a canvas for hours and hours. Not law. Definitely not law,’ I told him. ‘You said coding. Like computer stuff?’

“‘I love creating. I love dissecting a problem and fixing it. With the right code, you can do just about anything you want.’

“‘Where do you go for that? I mean what school?’

“‘USC. California?’

“A waitress came over just then and interrupted my confusion. USC? That makes no sense. Unless he was on some foreign exchange thingy. ‘You have time? I was thinking about getting a crumpet.’

“‘I’m having fun,’ he said. ‘Order whatever you want.’

“I ordered a crumpet, and he said he wanted one too. And then he said he had never tried one before, so that on top of him going to USC — I was just like… what?!

“‘Well that’s preposterous,’ I said to him.

“‘Only my second time in England.’

“‘How in the — what are you doing here? Second time? What does that even mean?’

“‘The first was when you hit me, and this time I needed to get my book back.’

“I sipped my coffee and looked him deep in the eyes and let my eyes drop to his handsome smile. Nothing was processing towards anything logical. He flew in twice? He came to England and left? Twice within a matter of fewer than three days?’

“‘My turn,’ he said. ‘What if you didn’t study law? What if you studied art and never told them? Surprise them on graduation day or something like that.’

“‘They’d find out. Trust me. They have their fingers in a lot of whispering pies around here. Okay now back to you. Where do you live?’

“‘Duh. Los Angeles. Your parents are a couple of big-wigs, huh?’

“‘Big, long, curly, thick renaissance-type wigs. I don’t understand why you’re here? You’re like, vacationing?’

“‘Nope. Just here for the book. My mother is fascinated by the renaissance. She thinks she would have fit right in with the royalty of that age,’ he said.

“‘Well then I suppose she would probably love my parents,’ I said.

“‘Sounds like it. But I wonder what they’d think of her.’

“I wrinkled my nose and shook my head, which he understood to mean that my parents had their circle and only their circle. Outsiders were not welcome. ‘They’ve got their click. Being in their click is expensive. The older the money, the better.’

“The crumpets arrived. I waited for him to bite his before asking again what in the world he was doing in England. All I could think about was that he was going to leave and how was I ever going to see him again?”

“‘Good,’ he said, nodding his approval of the crumpet.

“‘My turn or your turn?’ I asked.

“‘Mine,’ he said quickly. ‘What kind of art?’

“‘You mean what kind do I like or what kind do I make?’

“‘Both,’ he said. ‘And I think that question counts as your turn?’

“‘No it absolutely does not.’

“He was so cocky, so cavalier, and the questions that turned back on me were prying in a way I usually guarded so well, so I lied to him. It was an immature and protectionist reaction, and one I still regret it to this day. I almost messed everything up. I told him I preferred neo-modernism, which is absolute truth. The part that’s a lie is telling him one of the fictitious artist names I invented because it wasn’t the first time somebody had asked me to expound on my influences without knowing even the slightest about Rubens, or the importance of Renoir. So I told him my fave was Robeiro because I love his use of color and the delicateness of his brush strokes, and the vividness of his lines. And then I fretted about how only the wealthiest in the world like the oil sultans could possibly purchase one because they are so prized. Robeiro, is, of course, not real.’”

The interrogator nods. Natalie likes the interaction. The small nod is a sign that her words mean something and that her interrogator is listening.

“‘Drayden listened, he smiled at how animated I got when discussing Robeiro, but really he was in on the joke and made it about me when he said: ‘I think I used to have a Robeiro. I mean one of his paintings they made into a poster.’

“‘And what was your take?’

“‘You’re right. Truly he was a master.’

“‘Yes, he was.’

“‘So that’s who you emulate? That’s who you want to paint like?’

“‘Oh absolutely,’ I said.

“‘I think your parents might have you pegged right. I mean, going the lawyer route,’ he said.

“‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I said, genuinely confused about the change in tone. He picked up his crumpet and ate a huge piece to keep from answering me. It was so frustrating. Had he not been taught proper manners? Just when he was finishing chewing, and I thought he would answer me, he stuffed the rest of the crumpet into his mouth and then tried to sip his coffee. He was finishing up! Getting ready to leave! I thought about his lawyer comment, and whatever he might have meant by it. I thought maybe he meant that because of Robeiro’s genius — or whoever he thought my made-up Robeiro was — I could never be so great so why not settle, but that would have been such a rude thing to say. ‘Please tell me what you meant?’

“‘I meant that if you want to be like Robeiro, then you don’t want to be a painter at all,’ he said.

“‘And why not?’

“‘Nevermind. I think you’ll be a great lawyer.’

“‘Rude,’ I said. ‘There’s no need for you to be rude.’

“He grinned his sly grin. ‘I’m rude? Okay, if you say so, but you realize if this turns into something then you were the first to lie,’ he said.

“‘If this turns into something?’

“‘You and I. Us, I mean. If that happens, you lied first, just for the record.’

“I blushed at the word ‘us.’ What could make him say such a thing? What an utterly conceited thing to muster!

“‘First of all, we are a very long way from ‘us,’ I said with air quotes, which I rarely do; ‘second, you don’t even live here; and last, I’m not a liar.’

“‘There you go again, Lawyer,’ he said.

“‘Stop that. It’s not nice.’

“‘You and I have a different definition of the word nice. I think it’s nice not to lie, and then to not cover it up. Robeiro? How uncultured do you think I am? Was it because I’m an American that you thought you could slide that over on me or is it just because you think I look stupid?’