Alpha Incorporated

IV - iv INJURIOUS WORLD

It is night. Isabella and Fryer are together in the front of a yellow taxi cab, although there is no cab driver. Fryer is in the driver's seat. He, somehow, arranged for a taxi to be delivered to Mariana's condo for their use tonight. The two of them have been talking and laughing, like old friends, for an hour now. Mariana is in Angelo's mansion, has been for a while. Isabella got the text message saying it was time to go into the house and Mariana, dressed in Isabella's school outfit, smiled to them as she slid out of the back seat of the cab and disappeared into the compound. By her smile, it looked as though she was about to play a prank on a friend. Isabella couldn't understand how Mariana could be so nonchalant about the whole thing. She was worried about her.

But Fryer changes that. They sit together in the cab and she talks. She chats like she was a young girl again, and it feels good. She tells him things she has never told anyone before, like about her crush on Father Luke. Maybe it's because he reminds her of the young priest. She tells him how the crush phase passed, soon enough, and her desire to be near the priest became a longing to be close to him as a man, a brother or a father. Maybe it was because she didn't feel threatened by him, maybe because she sometimes needed mature advice from someone who wasn't concerned with looking like the tough guy in front of his buddies, or trying to peek down her blouse or maybe it was because he was so gentle. She loved the man, she knows that now.

"Do you still practice, I mean, do you still go to Church?" Fryer asks this her in a way that begs truthfulness.

"No. I sort of let that go. I will still attend mass when I am home at Christmas, but no, not really. To be honest, I am bothered by the Catholic Church's attitude towards women. I find it hard to respect a body that has institutionalized discrimination against women."

"Is it any worse than in the corporate world?"

"Well, it certainly has a longer history of abuse. I actually think that the Catholic Church has set the bar for discrimination, that it has essentially, over time, given permission to the rest of society's institutions to behave that way. Corporations, family, government—they all still represent male domination and repression of women, and that stems from the Church. They are all unjust."

Isabella loves talking to Fryer. It has been so long since she had a mature, intellectual discussion. And to feel open enough to share her values with another, let alone a man, excites her. She wouldn't say these things to anyone else.

"Sorry if I sound like a feminist." She wonders why she feels the need to apologize.

"You sound, to me, like a humanist."

Isabella turns and looks into the darkness beyond the cab window. She sees, in the reflection of the dashboard lights, herself smiling.

But Fryer doesn't reveal much. Isabella still doesn't know much about the man. She knows how she is starting to feel about him. When he speaks, the tone of his voice is like a blanket offered to her; his touch, a hand placed on a shoulder now and then, sends shivers through her; his laugh, fills her with joy. She knows he is older than she is by about ten years, but tells herself that there is nothing wrong with that. He is from the Bay area originally, he did tell her that much, but little more. Mainly, though, he guides the conversation with his questions, and listens. Isabella loves that he listens.

She doesn't realize how long Mariana has been gone when there is the sounds of footsteps running toward their cab. The back door opens and Mariana slides in. Her hair is disheveled, her blouse hastily buttoned. Her eyes swollen. She is crying. In her hand is a plush, beige stuffed animal.

"Are you hurt?" Isabella turns to face her in the back seat.

"Just drive. Just go."

Fryer starts the car and steers into the road. The lights from Angelo's mansion disappear behind the shadows of palms. Isabella tries to determine the extent of Mariana's injuries in the darkness of the taxi cab.