Cydney Calagayan: Jen

    Peter began the day dining on his Nabisco Shredded Wheat garnished with cut strawberries and coffee, of which he always put in too much milk to cool it down. He also read a little of his Wall Street Journal (Glaxo sold for $81.03 a share) and the sports section of The Crestonian. He forgot to watch the Dodgers vs. Yankees game the other day—a rare interleague matchup, so he was surprised to see that game end 1-0, where the starting pitcher drove in the sole RBI.
As he drove to his office downtown and listened to some obscure Rod Stewart song on the adult contemporary station, his only scheduled meeting was with Marcia Sheldon, concerned mother and founder of The Decency in Entertainment for Creston Coalition, to discuss stricter standards in marketing CDs with parental labels in retail shops. That meeting was to take place after lunch.
    “Good morning, Ellen,” he said as he greeted his receptionist.
    “Morning, Mr. Abercrombie,” Ellen replied. “You have a visitor in your office.”
    “Hmm. This can’t be Mrs. Sheldon already, am I right?”
    “It’s not Marcia Sheldon.”
    Peter thought about it another second. “Wait a minute. I think I have a hunch.”
    He entered through the wooden door with a window and his official name in block stenciling. Peter’s office was a spacious 6,000 square feet with a window spanning two walls and a round corner, adorned with vertical blinds. Degrees and certificates hung on the other two walls, not to mention the portraits of nature with motivational words and passages (e.g. “Perseverance,” “Equality,” “Inspiration”) Mr. Abercrombie’s glass-and-metal desk occupied a third of the room facing the window, decorated with a Dell flat-screen PC, black lamp, double pen holder, and a few papers in the center of the desk. In the two-thirds of the office opposite the desk were two navy blue chairs. Jen sat in one of them.
    “Good morning, Ms. Findlay,” Mr. Abercrombie said to her as she got up to shake his hand.
    The beautiful lady who identified herself as Jen Findlay often made surprise visits to her associates whether they needed it or not. She was a lobbyist on behalf of the genetics department at the Barbara M. Nichols Laboratory in San Vicente State University. Jen had gorgeous yellow strands of hair that neatly fell to her upper back, behind her killer hourglass figure. That figure was nicely adorned in a white blazer, red top, white miniskirt and white four-inch heels. Her most notable physical feature was in her expressive, large dark blue eyes. Her posture was always erect and she made eye contact with whomever she communicated with, assuring full confidence and usually control over the affairs. “The pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Abercrombie,” she said with a cool smile.
    “So what brings you over here?” he asked her while he sat at his desk.
    “Well first of all, congratulations on having that bill passed in the Assembly on stricter campaign finance reform at the state level.”
    “Why thank you, Ms. Findlay. I must say, pleasing dozens of people under the rotunda is coming off effortlessly.” Peter spoke such words with an almost self-satisfied demeanor.
    Jen just stared down Peter and uttered, “I think we both have a penchant for pleasing others, don’t we?” And she sported a tight grin that did display some cockiness.
    Peter sensed that Jen was making the conversation too entertaining, took a deep breath and said, “What is your real business, Ms. Findlay?”
    She re-crossed her legs and spoke, “If you must know, the university is getting no respect, you know, like that Dangerfield guy. But I only speak this when it comes to setting the standards on bioengineering.”
    “Jen,” he said, knowing that she would discuss the B-word. “I’ve already done enough to meet the financial needs of SVSU.”
    “Oh I’m not asking for more of your money.”
    “I know that I only prefer not to spend too much of my time there dealing with such a thing primarily.”
    “Yeah, but this could be an election year.”
    “It is an election year, but I’m not at the end of my term.”
    She just chuckled at this verbal running around. “Oh Mr. Abercrombie!” she remarked slyly. “I only need you to do one itty-bitty thing for me.”
    “And what would that be?”
    “I need you to speak at SVSU about some progress that the university’s laboratories have made in mapping the human genome.”
    Peter found such a task a little pedestrian. “Doesn’t seem like a big deal. What would be my benefits?”
    “Well, coming from me,” Jen spoke before moving forward to rest her elbows on his desk, “I can get you exactly what you need.”
    Peter, as a decent husband, wasn’t interested in playing that game. “I don’t think so, Jen. You’re offering the wrong thing.”
    Jen just chuckled. “I’m not talking about that, you horndog! Although, I will say this. If that was what you thought I was gonna offer…it ain’t gonna come from me.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    She sat back down and crossed her legs. “I know you, Peter. You seem to have lived a good life. You have a very perfect friend and lover in Danielle. Your daughters are adorable. You’ve garnered respect from the mountain communities with your values and ethics as an Assemblyman. And you are also true to your God, thankful and optimistic with everything. So you may think you’ve steered clear of major drama. But I know one that still leaves a void in you. I know one regret that you would like to reverse.”
    “I may have at least one regret like others do, Jen, but I’ve learned to move on, no matter how dramatic it may have been.”
    “If you have moved on, why do you keep calling me up for my services and duties?”
    “I keep telling you! It’s only for research!”
    “And how long has this been going on? For seven months and $40,000?”
    “Ms. Findlay, if you don’t mind, I need to prepare for my meeting with Marcia Sheldon. So could you please excuse yourself?”
    She arose and said before heading out the door, “Very well. I only just stopped by to ask some questions. But you will speak at the campus, right?”
    “I’ll try to see if my schedule would allow me.”
    “Of course. And before I go, I want to ask you one thing. Are you familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So you know what’s at the top, right?”
    “Self-actualization. The belief that you have fulfilled all that is necessary in life.”
    “Do you think you have fulfilled all your goals as of now, Mr. Abercrombie?”
    “Of course not. I have yet to see all my kids finish college, and I would like to run for a higher office. Maybe President.”
    “Well I don’t expect you to get all those goals right now, but do you believe that you have done all that is necessary for this particular time?”
    “I think so. I am thankful for all that I have achieved up to this point.”
    “That’s great. Because I believe that after meeting the needs of all these individuals—your wife, daughters, and voters—to make you a good person, there is still one person out there…who could use your gifts perhaps more so than those I mentioned. That person is starving for something that only you can provide. And when you meet him or her, your first instinct will be to turn and run. As a sensible person, I would recommend it, because once you do cater to this person’s needs for just a little, you will do it with one big risk.”
    “Which is?”
    “If you make this person happy, you will surrender everything that you hold dear to you.”
    Peter kept quiet for three seconds and said, “So I might give him a thousand dollars. Big deal.”
    “Don’t assume it’s a ‘he.’ And definitely do not assume you’ll give him or her just your money.” She gave him a devilish smirk. “You call me when you can arrange the time for St. Vinnie’s, all right?” Jen turned around, and Peter watched her walk out as the door remained open.
    He turned his attention to the PC and moved his mouse to undo his screen saver of family photos. He was about to click on an icon of some of the documents, but Jen’s supposedly prophetic words lingered in his mind like fallout. As she said, he’d been doing business with her for seven months and an exchange of forty thousand dollars. She was a St. Vinnie’s alum and a trustee for that lab she works for. She and Peter had been collaborating on a project that monitored and analyzed genomes. And Jen was also quite friendly with his family and had had dinners with them. Jen was also guaranteeing scholarships for Betty, Linda, and Michelle at SVSU. But behind Jen Findlay’s publicly eager façade lay a subversive demeanor. Quite often when Peter made any business transactions with Jen, he always saw a frightening expression in her face, one that denoted total poise and execution. She always got the job done, but she sometimes warned him that there would come a price.
    Jen’s impromptu meeting did make Peter worry a bit because it was true about what she said. Yes, Peter had everything from the loving family to the respectable career. And he was a faithful Christian. So what could be this looming conundrum that Jen spoke about? And just who was this needy person he would meet who would perhaps ruin him? Such issues left Peter so preoccupied that the screen saver went back on. But pretty soon…
    “Mr. Abercrombie?” Ellen said from the intercom. “Mrs. Sheldon is here.”
    “Perfect. Send her in.”
    Back to work. He would deal with what impending fate lay ahead later.