3
First impression
Lila didn’t putmuch stock in the threats against her parents or herself.
It was 7:30 AM, and Lila had arrived bright and early to her appointment with the Redmond Guardian Service. But as she waited for Rusty to get her paperwork, she couldn’t help but wish the perpetrators were caught already so her life could revert back to normalcy.
Growing up as the daughter of a prominent politician meant people were always jumpy about security for her family, and it always seemed to be overkill. All she wanted was to live a normal life that was free from fear. She just wanted to be Lila Morgan and nothing more.
Over the years, she had developed appreciation for her father’s accomplishments, including the legislation he passed to help people throughout his career like his most recent bill, soon to be signed by the Governor - a plan for making mass transit free for working class citizens of New York. It was an expensive plan but would save people who struggled to afford fares hundreds of dollars every year, if not more. This was money they could use to feed their families, pay off debts, move to better apartments.
Who wouldn’t like someone who put so much effort into helping others? wondered Lila.
Apparently, somebody did. The threats toward her parents, claiming her father was trying to bankrupt the state and waste taxpayer money, had proven credible enough that his security had been stepped up exponentially over the past couple of months, and her name was now connected. Lila knew there were people trying to track down the source of the threats, but whoever it was knew enough about cyber security to cloak themselves behind layers of firewalls and encrypted software. They hadn’t been successful in catching him yet, but Lila was ready to have a word or two with the creep, if – no when - they ever caught the person.
Even if Lila didn’t put much stock in the threats, she was still peeved at how this creep had frightened her parents. Her dad was a great, kind man and her role model. He was the reason why she decided to go into medicine, she also wanted a career where she could really help people as he did.
Lila pushed her glasses up her nose. She normally wore contacts, but she’d been pulling such late nights trying to stay ahead of her medical studies, her eyes were tired and dry. She checked her watch. Rusty came from his office and offered her a cup of coffee.
“No, thank you,” Lila replied politely.
She didn’t want to mention she couldn’t stand coffee from a drip machine – especially in a Styrofoam cup, as the Redmond Guardian Service seemed to prefer, if the stack of cups towering next to the pot were any indication. Lila could never bring herself to use Styrofoam; it was killing the planet. She also hated powdered creamer, though she wasn’t always doing dairy.
Lila shifted in her chair. She knew her preferences made her sound like a snob but she was determined to adhere to her principles. It was better just not to need anything from anyone else, if she could avoid it. She’d stop for a pour over to-go on her way to the free clinic.
She rubbed her eyes again, wishing she hadn’t stayed up so late the night before.
“Sawyer’s on his way,” Rusty confirmed, sitting down across from her at his desk.
“It’s all right,” Lila replied. “I know I’m early.”
Lila was always early. She’d grown up with her parents repeating “If you’re not early, you’re late,” since the day she started preschool. She was never late for any appointment. Her extreme punctuality had made her a standout throughout high school, along with her natural academic smarts. She had always been responsible and diligent, and didn’t like being followed around like a little child who couldn’t take care of herself. But she had come to get used to it.
She also knew there were no objections she could make at the moment given the current situation, and her life was precious to her parents. Her mother would become paranoid if she found out that Lila objected to having a bodyguard. Her father on the other hand, wouldn’t say a word. He had more subtle ways of handling situations.
And for her, that would be the height of it.
Lila didn’t like it when things were done for her. She objected to having a bodyguard in her third year of medical school, until her father assigned an undercover detail to her, monitoring her every movement.
Lila had initially been surprised when her mother would call and slyly ask about the details of her day, like she had been there. But it hadn’t taken too long for Lila to figure out that she had been seeing a regular face everywhere she went - but had mistaken it to be coincidence. She realized at the time a fast one had been played on her, and she was not about to let history repeat itself. She wanted to be in on the details of her bodyguards, and the best way to do so, was to agree to whatever her folks wanted her to do, given the current situation on ground.
Lila checked her pocket for a hair elastic, so she could pull it back before she got to the free clinic where she volunteered one Saturday, every month. She’d had her hair blown out yesterday before a date, and while the date hadn’t gone well, her hair still looked good and she hadn’t wanted to suffocate it back into a sanitary bun just yet. She ran her fingers through her thick, red waves. When she was little, she liked to pretend she was Ariel, even though she hated getting her hair wet.
Her phone buzzed and she checked her texts. Two messages from the guy she’d had dinner with last night. He was the son of one of her dad’s friends, a lawyer and an aspiring politician. On paper, Lila should have liked him. He was exactly the kind of man she pictured herself marrying, the kind she could live with in a white gabled house, with a big chocolate lab and two children. Hydrangea bushes out front. He’d wear an American flag pin on his lapel.
But in person, he’d beensoboring. Lila shuddered, thinking about last night. He was just always so predictable. He was the type who’d laugh at his own jokes, no matter how boring or dry. Lila couldn’t understand who would laugh at his own joke when others clearly didn’t find them funny. She considered the time spent with him as a total waste. The first date had been awkward, and Lila thought it was because of first-date jitters. But the second and third date were worse than the first. They were both full of gainsaying about his political ambitions, and basically confirmed the cliché, “never judge a book by its cover.”
On last night’s date, Lila had turned down coffee after dinner, by saying she was tired. Going home and reading medical journals far too late into the night, was honestly a better use of her time than having coffee with him.
The door to the Redmond Guardian Service’s ground floor office clicked open with a security badge. Lila turned to see her new bodyguard for the first time, and her jaw dropped open in shock.
Goodness!
She had expected a huge guy, one who had probably lost a tooth or two in the line of service. This guy could pass for a runway model, easy. As he walked closer, Lila shook her head. She now knew she needed to guard her heart diligently, and not allow herself to be taken in by this man’s good looks. In her mind, he was just another bodyguard and she was already calculating the different types of responses she would give him any time they had a conversation.
“Am I late?” Sawyer asked, wheeling a chair from a conference table up beside Lila. He slipped his dark sunglasses on top of his head and leaned back in his chair, crossing his foot over his knee.
His t-shirt was a size too small for the girth of his muscles and emblazoned with the yellow “WV” logo of West Virginia University. His pants were frayed and slashed, with pre-cut holes across the knees and thighs. He looked like the kind of man who took up three seats on a subway while everyone else had to stand. He checked his phone.
