Ch. 2
On October twenty-fifth, a Saturday, I was awakened early and told to get dressed. My father wanted to take me on a business trip with him to a conference a hundred miles away. Word in my house was he wanted to introduce something big to his boss. I wasn’t sure what that meant, my dad fixed problems with software. How could he be working on something big?
Confused and tired I went downstairs for breakfast. My mother was laying out snacks for our trip while my dad drained a bowl of cereal. I quickly ate, not sure how much time I was going to have before we left; it turned out it wasn’t much. Within ten minutes we were loading up the car. We were going to be spending one night in a hotel so we only needed one change of clothes; I brought two just in case. I stuffed mine into a backpack along with a book and a couple of extra snacks.
It was a nice day, warmer than it had been recently, clouds overhead threatened rain. It was a fun trip; we played a license plate game and listened to tapes my dad made years before. Every song was sped up, slowed down, or muffled, which somehow added to the fun of it. Almost exactly two hours later we arrived at the hotel. We dropped our clothes off and my dad changed into an obnoxiously loud yellow shirt, and then we were off. A few minutes later we pulled into the convention center parking lot and my curiosity finally took over.
“What exactly are we doing here?” I asked.
“We are here for the software convention; companies from all over the country come and show off their new software for everybody to see. And I’ve been chosen as one of the representatives this year, hence the shirt. If I see anything that looks good I have to report it to my boss and then he decides by tomorrow if we need to invest in it.”
“So why am I here?”
“I need someone to keep me company; the other two representatives have a lot farther to travel and probably won’t be here until tonight, that’s when the thing really starts anyway. They wanted me here early so I could meet some people and put in a good word about our business as everyone sets up.”
He was right about us being early, by the time we walked in only half of the stations had even started setting up. It was interesting to watch. Huge banners went up about new forms of antivirus software, computers blinked on in every direction, and the place filled with voices as every one of the different companies seemed to know each other and get along great. My dad led the way and we wandered throughout, occasionally helping to steady a ladder or set up a table. And with every stop my dad met new people and wove his business into each conversation so effortlessly it was hard to tell the line between polite chat and work. As more people came it was clear that he would not be able to communicate with even a quarter of the companies, so he gave me a sticker with the name of his work on it and I started heading around looking for people to talk to. I immediately went to the gaming corner and began saying how great my job was, I clearly was not as good with words as my dad. They all looked at me a little strange, but after a while I was playing demos of some new computer game, completely forgetting what I had originally been doing.
Before I knew it the main part of the convention was starting and everyone gathered around a stage in the back as speakers came up and introduced their product. I found my dad with the other representatives, all wearing that hideous yellow, and I quickly took off the sticker, unsure if my dad would get into trouble if any of them saw me wearing it. Right as I was coming up my dad broke away from the group; he saw me and motioned for me to follow.
“Bessie, do you think you could get into the car and – oh, never mind I’ll get it.”
“Get what?”
“I wanted to show the head of my department something, and he’s supposed to be here any minute.”
The crowd suddenly erupted in cheer as a new speaker took the stage; I had to yell over the excitement for him to hear me. “What did you bring?” I couldn’t remember him bringing anything, or telling me he brought something.
“Look, I’ll be back in a minute, keep a lookout for Mr. Lewis for me.”
I assumed that must be his boss. “I have no idea what he looks like.” I don’t think he heard me; he was already through the crowd.
I waited, occasionally listening to what the person said on stage, but so little had any meaning to me. My father’s coworkers were starting where he left off; they traveled the crowd introducing themselves, and even handed out pens. My dad came back with something hidden in a trash bag.
“Is that the thing?” I asked, trying my hardest to make out what it was.
“This is it.” He said excitedly as he weaved through the crowd looking for his boss. I followed close behind.
“Well, what is it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Wait – what?” This took me by surprise. Not only did he have no idea what he was holding, but he was going to show it to his boss, and this was a good thing? My mind suddenly flashed back to the time when he thought that everything needed for time travel could be found in Back to the Future. “Don’t you think you better find out what it is first?”
“No need, we have people for that.”
His excitement was written all over his face, but I did not share in it. “Where did you get it?”
He stopped walking and turned to me. “Do you remember that night when we were – wait, there he is.”
I turned to see a short bald man a few feet away in the crowd. My dad ran up to him and began talking in hushed tones. I moved around to get a better view. Mr. Lewis nodded impatiently at whatever my dad was telling him. But just when I thought Mr. Lewis would start telling my dad to shut up, his eyes lit up so fast I thought he was having a fit. He was now very interested. I inched my way forward but only caught the last little bit. “This may be it; this may be the piece that solves the whole thing.” My dad was saying. Mr. Lewis grabbed the bag and thanked him over and over again before running out of the crowd. My dad turned to me with a triumphant look.
“That’s that, then, isn’t it.”
“That’s what? I still have no idea what’s going on.”
“Oh, that’s all right, if things go as planned then I’ll tell you all about it later.”
The only question now was how long later would be. It was now night and my father joined up with the other representatives to look at all the new software. I was thoroughly bored by now; especially considering the line to play the game demos was too long for my liking. So instead I waited in the hall outside. There was a food stand and I got an ice cream and sat on a bench near a fountain to eat it. People were moving around, checking out the few stands that had to be set up in the hall because they were late arrivals. I saw some people who were wearing matching outfits just like my dad and his gang were. Each and every one of them had on the most annoying colors imaginable, either because they wanted to find each other, or so that people had to notice them, I wasn’t sure which. Time passed much slower in the hall, and every now and then I thought about going back in. At one point a man passed me in a very interesting suit and hat. Despite all of the ugly shirts, his outfit stood out to me the most, which I guess was what he was going for. It wasn’t that it was an overly strange outfit; it’s just that he was by far the best dressed person there. He nodded to me as he passed. He was probably only ten years older than me, at the most. I had a strange feeling when he passed, but I couldn’t place it.
Finally my dad came out, after most of the crowd had already thinned out. His arms were full of souvenirs, which I ended up carrying back to the car. I stuck them in the trunk, and then we were off to the hotel. The entire way back I begged him to tell me what was in the bag he gave to his boss, but each time he simply told me I would have to wait until he found out what it was first.
“But you obviously know something about it.” I had said.
“Not really.” He had said.
“You must have found it somewhere.”
“Didn’t I tell you? Oh, well remember
that night we – Uggh, this place is packed, we’ll never find a spot.”
We had just gotten to the hotel, though unfortunately after everyone else from the convention. “At least we already have a room.”
“If I ever have to come to one of these again, I hope they pick a city with more than three hotels.”
We eventually found a spot in the back, between a car that was over the line and a dumpster, but it was still a parking spot so we were happy. The inside of the hotel looked just like the inside of the convention center. People were milling around talking to other people about the best deals, as if the hotel was just the afterhour’s convention. My dad jumped into the fray with a bag of pens. I was too tired to even think about anything but sleep so I went on up to the room. After getting ready I stood at the window, looking out at the great view I had of the hotel across the street. As I was doing this I noticed a strange light somewhere in the distance off to the right of the neighboring hotel. It dropped, moved a little farther to the right, and then picked itself back up again, only to drop once more and start the cycle over again. It was a bright yellow light, and at first I thought it was a plane, but I had never seen a plane move quite like that. I opened the sliding door and stepped out onto the balcony, only to be met with a noise that sounded as if it were right in front of me; it was a humming, low and steady. I had heard it before.