חוֹפֶשׁ

Drorit tried her best to put on a brave face as she entered the Israeli consulate on what felt like her first day of work, telling herself that she would only be here for a couple of months longer until she’d found something that would fit her interests more than being a mere secretary. She showed the key card to the grumpy security guard and was promptly led inside, thankful for the plate in the elevator that told her where her office was. Stepping out of the elevator, Drorit was surprised to find a young girl already staffing the reception - she’d have assumed that this was her job. Maybe this was her secretary colleague? But then the girl smiled and handed her an envelope. 

“Fifty-four”.

What in the world...? Drorit just nodded, letting a greeting slip out. Thankfully the Hebrew still came out natural, thanks to her father’s efforts to help Drorit maintain what she thought of as her mother tongue even after their move to the States. 

Bennett couldn’t help but let out a lout laugh at her words–specifically the whole–yay more time for work–thing. Wether she was being sarcastic or not, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been the least bit excited to go to work. “I guess it does,” he replied, offering a smile, “but that’s life, it’s inevitable.” Hearing her talk so highly of her fiancee made him smile, happy that people he knew could find happiness with each other. “I wish I could say I have,” the male admitted. “Uh, the other day…? My old friend Jax got a hold of me. It was nice but… kind of weird,” he shrugged.

Drorit was taking a gulp of her drink, hoping that at some point the alcohol would have the effect she’d always been promised, when she almost choked on it and had to cough, covering her hand with her mouth: Maybe that was it! Maybe whatever was happening was actually a chance for her, something to help save her from giving up something from her youth she otherwise would have lost! But...what? “Sorry,” she coughed, “but do you really think that’s inevitable? I mean, something must happen to people when they grow up.” She shoved aside her drink: “How is it weird? Just cause you feel like he changed surprisingly much?”

Jax watched quietly as Marc started suddenly spitting out everything he had and knew, his lips pressed together with a crease on his forehead in concentration. Part of him felt actually proud to get something out of the kid. So far he had been attending different kind of appointments pre-scheduled, group meetings, creative activities. Marc had been his first real case. He was probably just as nervous as the other boy when it came to being in that interrogation but he played it cool. He was actually not that bad, he thought to himself, moving away from the table as he called the guard to take Marc back. He slipped out of the room, holding on to his promised, and grabbing a soda from the machine down the hall. “Here you go, I’ll see you in a couple of days, alright? Have them call me if you need anything, got it?” Giving Marc’s shoulders a squeeze and a nod, he watched him leave before turning to Drorit. He wanted to sigh and breathe and maybe even high five her for pulling through but then thought that wasn’t really how it was supposed to go so he just collected his things and nodded, holding the door for the agent. “There’s a nice coffee shop not too far away… I think. I hope it’s still open. Come on, it’s on me.”

Walking to the coffee shop felt like a good idea. If his memory didn’t fail him—which shouldn’t really much more than it already was, the chain coffee shop was less than two blocks away. “That went well.” Jax commented, smiling at the woman, though what he really wanted to say was that went better than I thought! “How you’ve been, though, you know, aside from work and all things?” He was curious to know. After all, he had missed a whole ten years of his life. He didn’t know what everyone else he knew were up to either.

Drorit watched Jackson walk to the soda machine, then stole a glance at the teenager who still sat as inscrutable as he had when she’d first arrived. But somehow, somewhere, they’d gotten something out of him. Or was it she? Watching Jackson squeeze the .... kid would have sounded wrong ... Marc’s shoulder sent a short pang of jealousy through her. How she would have longed for such a place where she felt like she was in the right one, where she was doing something that she knew she was good at. But then again, for some reason, whoever had become of her had picked this job for a reason. So maybe this was a case of “fake it till you make it”, even though she could feel the desire to spill her insecurity mounting by the second. For the moment, she contended herself with trying to maintain a semblance of order by carefully stacking up her documents and placing them into a briefcase which she didn’t even feel belonged to her, and then forced a smile when Jackson came to open the door for her. “So I take it you come here a lot if you know the place well? Doesn’t that get depressing at times?”

She could feel some of the tension washing away with every step she took, and Drorit had to remind herself that she’d have to keep herself together even during this informal conversation. Even a misstep here could get her fired, though the relief also gave her a twitching mouth born from the attempt at trying to suppress a grin of relief. It didn’t help that now that they were out of the school environment, Drorit no longer felt like Jackson was one of the people who could help her maintain an aura of popularity. “Yeah, it’s much more pleasant to talk to someone who didn’t even know what they’re doing than to talk to someone who would probably want to murder you for something you were born into,” she commented, with the cynicism that she assumed someone in her position would have collected by now. “I’m just really hoping he’ll come around. Not do that again. What do you think? He’s gonna manage?”

@loveleejasmin

As if it were some stupid joke, my friend That life plays on us,  How friendship fades away through pain. 

SOPHIE: Fancy secretary?

SOPHIE: Well, congratulations! We definitely have to celebrate this during our shopping trip!

SOPHIE: And I know just the right place.

SOPHIE: I'll send you the address and we'll meet let's say.. next Tuesday afternoon?

DRORIT: Yeah, got a couple new tasks, fancy enough for me :)

DRORIT: Oh yeah, maybe we can get manicures too?

SOPHIE: Don't worry about it!

SOPHIE: Office clothes? Such as a formal office clothes?

DRORIT: Well, like good clothes for a fancy secretary?

DRORIT: Bc I got a promotion :D

“It just gets nice to look at things when you get older,” he mused. At her question, the male nodded. “Yeah, it makes me feel all luxurious and important. Plus, not driving? That’s amazing. I can do whatever I want back there. I mean, most of the time I’m just on my phone, but…? There are endless possibilities,” Ben grinned her way. At the look Drorit had given him, he let out an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I… sorry. I just meant that I might know her, but I don’t want to say I do, just in case I don’t,” he let out, hoping that was more clear. At the mention of her being a model, he pursed his lips. “A model, really? Well, It’s nice to know that my former classmates have come into some success. Or you know, a lot of it.” 

Drorit rolled her eyes, but forced a grin, even though this conversation was a painful reminder that pretending to be 26 would be about more than just doing her job and knowing how to file her taxes. She was at an age now where she’d always thought she’d be living in her own house, working in her dream job and maybe raising some kids. “It’s so depressing that in high school I would have been so creative with what to do there and now my first thought is just Yay more time for work. Getting older sucks sometimes, right?” Thinking of Jordanna brought a genuine grin back to her face, even a slight trace of blush: “Well, she totally deserves it, you know. You’d just have to see her, she’s become....well...she’s my fiancée, you know?” She leant forward, crossing her arms and hoping to change the topic: “Hey, you still been in contat with some people from our school? I mean, since graduation?”

Jackson was still learning what his place in all of this was, what was expected of him, how people looked at him. It had occurred to him that this 27-year-old version of himself was respected and well-liked not only at home but at his job, too. Most people he had encountered, including his clients which were underage and already with criminal records, seemed to take a different attitude when he walked into the room. It made him feel uneasy because he didn’t understand it. It also made him like himself, too. So far he had just been, well, himself. With the teenagers he talked just as he would his friends back in school—not the ones he tormented, though. That’s what got the kid talking now, cooperating, and he tried to hide the smirk on his face as he looked back to Drorit, blue eyes gleaming under the dull lights of the interrogation room, as if to say here we go! We did it. 

Eyes scanning the computer’s screen as his client started producing the group he had been involved in, Jackson tried his best not to react or pass judgement. That alone was impressive, considering he had never really been good at controlling himself before. Maybe it was something he had learned in the 10 year span and though his mind didn’t quite grasp the concept, his body reacted instinctively to a routine he had put in place. “I haven’t.” His voice sounded distant as he replied to the agent, turning the notebook towards him and scrolling down its content. He looked from Marc to Drorit and back to the teen before sighing. “Do you know who runs it? Where it’s based? Did you have any other sort of contact past social media? Any phone number? Location? Anything?” He asked though that, he thought, wasn’t part of his job. He couldn’t help it. Maybe this is also what he was supposed to do in such situations. If the client trusted him, perhaps he could help further the investigation. He looked at Drorit as the kid spoke, not knowing anything else. Jax gave Marc’s shoulder a light squeeze, almost a fatherly gesture foreign to him. “You think that’s good for now? He’s been here for a while.”

She probably looked like an idiot, jotting the name of the group down into her files when she could’ve just screenshotted it or .... something, but whatever had happened to computers in the meantime had not exactly made them more user-friendly. Drorit tried her best to balance that air of idiocy with a serious, concentrated facial expression, though the extent to which that matched how she was feeling about her job varied greatly, moment by moment. Ever since she’d learned what she truly did for a living now, she had gone through bouts of self-importance, alternating with a sentiment of utter defeat . But just jotting down the Facebook page’s name felt like glorious victory. 

Jackson asked good questions, questions she probably should have asked, but Drorit simply had to acknowledge that if her main goal was surviving this conversation, she couldn’t ask for being a hero in it as well. As she nervously tapped her pencil on the table, the teenager shrugged. “They sent me a Facebook message. That’s all I have.” He clicked through to his messages faster than Drorit could follow, and she couldn’t come up with a better solution than taking a picture of the message with her phone. “I even had to get all the spray cans and stuff myself.” “So they picked the place?” Drorit asked with narrowed eyes. Marc just nodded. 

Eyeing the girl after she said what she did, Bennett grew confused for a moment, but once the topic went back onto cars, he grinned. “Oh, you didn’t miss out on much. Ferrari’s aren’t that great–!” He paused, making a face that showed pure disgust towards himself. “Did I just say… Ferrari’s aren’t that great?! Oh my god! My father would kill me if he ever heard me say that,” he laughed, joking with her. “But… it’s kind of true. They’re kind of loud and noisy. But, I stopped driving when I hit twenty-three, I think. It’s a lot more fun to have people drive you around,” he pointed out, the same cocky grin returning to his face. At the mention of Jordanna, Bennett thought for a few seconds, staring off to space before looking back to Drorit. “Maybe, yeah? But I don’t want to go off and say a positively do. So for now, it’s just a maybe.” 

This felt almost like watching a movie had felt, where you leant back in your PJs, picturing the life you would once have, comfortable in the knowledge that it was still a couple of years until you would have to think about things like what car would suit your lifestyle best. Only this was apparently her reality now, this is what people her age were like, and until she had made it there as well mentally, Drorit figured she’d have to fake it. So she laughed along: “Yeah, you really just said that, but i’m not judging you for it. Nothing tops a practical car, right? You have a private driver now or what?” At Bennett’s comments on Jordanna, Drorit narrowed her eyes - did he have to speak in riddles now? “What’s that supposed to mean? Honestly, I think you would remember if you had run into her recently? She’s a model now, really high-profile one.” She could think of other ways to describe her now-fiancée, but they were all more fitting for the Jordana she’d known until a few days ago, and thus weren’t things she could very well be saying now. 

SOPHIE: That's alright! I got worried because it's been a while since I heard from you.

SOPHIE: Uh, yes? You asked me to tag along on your shopping spree?

SOPHIE: Although we can always arrange it at another time, if you are busy..

DRORIT: Sorry, things have been crazy at work recently!!!

DRORIT: But shopping sounds great!

Israel! Right. He knew that, of course. Jax tried not to let it show too much on his face and kept nodding idly, as if it all made perfect sense. Little by little he began factoring the good and bad aspects of his job: moments like this one, where someone required something from him, an opinion, a reaction, a statement, he felt like he was screwing everything up. There were other times, counseling sessions as they would come up on his calendar, where it felt nice, like he could do it, like he knew what he was supposed to do. He found out he had scheduled different appointments, during and after office hours, sometimes in groups and sometimes individually with his clients, involving likes and skills and interests specific to them. It felt like he was good as what he did, like most of the other teenagers liked him. What truly worried him, though, was this close interaction with the law. He really couldn’t screw that up. They’d all be in trouble. Unless he could take a leave for a while, until everything got sorted… until he found a way to fix things. “Coffee sounds fucking good, yes. Let’s get this over with, then.” Jax couldn’t help but feel relief wash over him, turning back to the room and holding the door open for the woman.

Lingering around the table, still on his feet, Jackson crossed his arms as he watched the interrogation begin. He was pacing around the room behind Drorit, shaking his head as he noticed they were really not getting anywhere. It wasn’t until the agent turned to him, letting a sigh, that he moved to the teenager’s side, leaning against the table facing him. “Alright, buddy, here’s the deal.” Jax laid out the plans, unfolding his arms and moving them in explanatory gestures. “If you don’t answer Agent Nitzani’s questions here, you give us nothing to work with. If you give us nothing to work with, her notes will be same as mine. If we have nothing, if you’re not cooperative, you’ll end up in the juvenile court and be charged on all accounts. It’ll stick on your permanent record. Good luck trying to get into a good school or get a decent job. Hell, it’s not easy for people with a cleared background so, I don’t know, I wouldn’t like to be there, right?” He tried to sound casual, looking over his shoulders as if he was involving the agent in the conversation to though he was just trying to make a point. “Now, I don’t know about you but the lighting in this room is giving me a headache so, the sooner you give us some answer, the sooner we can all get out of here. Tell you what. You be nice to her and I’ll sneak you a can of soda on our way out. Deal?” 

The perspective of getting coffee after all this helped. Every person she might have run into during whatever had happened could help, though so far their interaction had made it seem like Jackson didn’t know much about her post-high school life. First, she had to survive this though, preferably without being fired, arrested or having who knew what scary organization she hadn’t even heard of tailing her. She watched him from the corner of her eye as he talked to the teenager, impressed. He seemed to have a way with youngsters, and he did it without scary legal lingo, or even seeming to be aware of legal specifics. Problem was that she was the idiot stuck with the job where she had to know the specifics, right? For the moment, she contended herself with shooting the teenager a long glance, hoping 26-year-old her was more intimidating than 16-year-old-her felt right now, before prompting him: “So?”