Jacqueline Druga - Protocol One

“I can’t have the items traced back to me.”

“Laundering. Odd things too.”

“Just…” I could tell by the tone of his voice he was getting frustrated with my lack of seriousness. “Keep doing this please. It will all make sense. Or hopefully, it won’t. But if the need arises it will all come together like a puzzle.”

“Okay, I’ll trust you. Does your wife do mystery shopping too?”

“No, my… ex wife, is on a different agenda and she doesn’t have my son.”

Man, you just collect them, don’t you?”

“Anna.” He laughed.

Standing in the small kitchen, I leaned on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room and looked at Jackson who sat on the couch wearing headphones. He lounged with his back propped against the arm of the sofa, his computer tablet resting against his bent knees as well as a small musical keyboard.

“All right,” I said. “Cardboard shipped. Mayner bags and foil went out…”

“We need more foil.”

“Good lord, ok, I’ll get more foil. Gil, honestly, none of this is typical. Early on it was but this stuff… I’m starting to get curious.”

“Six months later and now you’re curious?” Gil asked. “Does the debit card still have funds on it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, check please so I can reload it.”

“I’ll check. Can you tell me what all this is for?”

Gil hesitated. “It’s big and I can’t.”

A decade earlier, the words ‘it’s big and I can’t’ wouldn’t have made a difference, but seeing how big, politically Gil had become, they made me nervous. Then he said, “But you can say I am aiding in build a spaceship.”

“I thought so with all that foil.”

“Mom,” Jackson called out.

I looked up to see him peeking out the curtains.

“Paparazzi is out there. I think.”

I exhaled. “I have to go, the paparazzi is out there. Are they the reason I don’t have any of this stuff here?”

“What? No.” Gil laughed. “It’s simply because… I just don’t know where you’re going yet.”

“What?”

“Go deal with the paparazzi. And the foil.”

“Foil. And… Gil, on a serious note.” I changed the sound of my voice. “I’m really proud of you. You make us proud.” He merely responded with a humble sounding ‘thank you’, then I said my goodbye.

I hung up and mumbled. “More foil. I bet he is making a spaceship.” I ripped the sheet of paper from the tablet, folded it and placed it in my pocket as I walked around to the living room. “Daddy’s making a spaceship.”

Jackson lowered his headset. “I’m sorry, what was that mom?”

“Nothing.” I looked down at Jackson. He reminded me so much of Gil when he was that age. Before he hit that ‘I’m gonna work out to look big and strong’ phase. Both Gil and Jackson were tall, with defined rugged features and sandy brown hair. Jackson had the musician looks about him, with his waif-like build and pants that didn’t always fit. Gil on the other hand was a toned down Incredible Hulk after he stopped working out and drank a six pack a day.

However, the rigorous campaign trail did help in giving Gil back that fit and lean look.

“How’s the composition going?” I asked.

Jackson shrugged. “Not much on Animated Kid film music. So I’m not sure if it will work.”

“When you were a kid and we’d go see those movies, I loved the sound tracks to them. They don’t need to be childish, just good. I’m glad you decided to do the summer program. I know it’s a lot of work, and this is summer vacation…”

“It’s what I want to do with my life. So it’s not work.”

I smiled. Eighteen, in between his junior and senior year of high school and chasing his future. He didn’t get that from me.

I mussed his hair then leaned over and parted the drapes to look out the window. There were two cars parked across the street. Yes, that was the extent of our big reporter bombardment. “You sure that’s the paparazzi and not Mrs. Deil having another Tupperware party?”

“Paparazzi.”

“Swell.” I exhaled. “I’ll brave them. I know what to do.”

“You have to go out?”

“Yep.”

“Another list from Dad?”

“Yep.” I sought out my purse.

“Did he say what we’re bracing for now? I know two years ago it was the flu outbreak from Mexico.” Jackson said.

“Nope, he won’t say. He did say he was building a spaceship.”

“Makes sense with all that foil. Either that or it’s in prep for a HEMP.”

“Hemp?” I asked. “You mean like drugs?”

Jackson laughed. “Oh my God, you really don’t pay attention to dad at all. Go to the store.”

“I’m going.” Just before I opened the door, I stopped, snapped my fingers, blustered out an “almost forgot”, raced to the kitchen and grabbed a box of snack cakes. “Now I am armed and ready.” I said and left my home for another odd shopping trip.

Little Bonnie Snack Cakes were a family favorite when the household income didn’t allow for the luxury of the more expensive cream filled snacks. They also were awesome when trying to deal with paparazzi. Most of them that we dealt with were young journalists and photographers trying to grab a story to make ends meet. They were on a pay by story basis, so treats were few and far between.

A bottle of bourbon worked if they were insistent, but I always tried the snack cakes first.

Our street wasn’t very wide so they were easily spotted. It was a small dead end street with small modest homes and short driveways. I liked it.

Jackson and I previously lived in California at Gil’s request. I didn’t have a problem with it because I didn’t have a career, only a job. No, wait, my career was raising Jackson.

Four years earlier, not long after my brother was killed in the line of duty, my father fell ill. There was no one to look after him or help him. Not that my father was old, he wasn’t, but the illness was serious.

Jackson and I packed up and moved in with my father in Midland, Texas. Gil understood the distance thing and another selling point was the really good performing arts school there.

Even though my father passed away six months after we arrived, Jackson and I stayed.

I worked at a restaurant called The Slice, part time as a waitress until Gil won the Iowa Caucus and then I couldn’t. Suddenly the Senator from California was under scrutiny. Everyone wanted dirt on him, after all, he couldn’t be that nice of a guy…. he was a politician.

For some reason, the press seemed to think Gwen was his only wife. Of course she was the only wife they ever saw throughout his political venture. She was a picture perfect wife for any politician. Her father was the Vice President to the two term president. He opted not to run, and Gil was perfect.

It was funny when I was discovered.

Jackson was never in the spotlight. Gil never wanted his child in the spotlight. I was quickly pegged as the mother of his “love child”. His dirty hidden secret, tucked away and living in squalor and poverty in Midland, Texas.

I resented that. My single story, two bedroom home was fine, and more than that it was my father’s house. Second, we weren’t hidden. No one really paid attention to us in California. If they had, they would have known I was married to him first.

When the paparazzi showed up we knew a new scandal was forthcoming.

Gil had nothing to hide.

“Hey, guys.” Since there was no rushing to a hidden car and peeling from the driveway, I walked up to the two men with cameras. “Thought you might be hungry.”

They were new. I had never seen them before. And they looked shocked when I approached them and tossed them the box.