The Mars Project by Julie Steimle (i can read with my eyes shut TXT) 📕

Jennifer and the rest looked at each other and shrugged. They hadn’t noticed.

“And there is just something so adult about him that I can’t believe that he is only seventeen,” Zormna concluded.

Jeff nodded, thinking especially how Zormna was not attracted to teenage boys, but grown men. And Sam definitely appealed to her. “And the spying?”

Zormna glanced at Jeff. “That Saturday nearly clinched it. Remember how he just showed up? I didn’t hear him coming. It takes someone very practiced to sneak up on me like that.”

“And me,” Jeff replied thinking harder on it.

“Yes.” Zormna nodded, agreeing. “And you. You’re so skittish, you definitely would have heard him coming.”

Jennifer looked at them. “What happened?”

Darren and Kevin listened also, waiting for the story they had clearly not been around for.

Jeff glanced at Zormna as he said, “He walked in on a private conversation in your carport. We shouldn’t have been outside talking, but the FBI car wasn’t there, and I thought we were alone.”

“We should never assume that,” Zormna murmured.

Jeff agreed with a sigh. “Yeah.”

“So what should we do now?” Jennifer’s face had begun to crease with concern.

“You don’t worry about it,” Jeff replied with a firm nod. “They aren’t after you. And I think we can handle it.”

Kevin glanced down at Jennifer and then glared at Jeff. “So you’re saying we should mind our own business?”

Zormna glanced at Jeff. They both looked at Kevin and Jennifer.

“Yes. We’re saying exactly that.”

Kevin nodded with a tired sigh. “That’s fine.”

He started to lead Jennifer away, but she didn’t want to go.

“What about Darren? You’re not actually letting him in on this? Not without me,” she asked.

Jeff glanced at Darren then looked at Zormna. She shrugged.

Darren spoke for himself, lifting his hands. “I just wanted to warn you. That’s all.”

Jeff nodded, smiling at him. Placing a hand on the tall boy’s shoulder, he patted it firmly. “Thanks, Darren. I mean it.”

Darren nodded, smiling.

They all left the house at midnight.

Darren walked next door. Jeff left Zormna with Jennifer and Kevin. He drove back to his home with Alex, who had been sitting in the back of the kitchen the entire time listening to the entire conversation. Kevin parted from Jennifer and Zormna, at Jennifer’s home. All of them had a lot to think about when they split off, though perhaps, none had more to think about than Jeff and Zormna.

The man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

—anon—

Oktoberfest opened at nine o’clock, and Zormna, definitely groggy, came dressed in her little frilly outfit with long thigh high stockings and her ribboned-up hair. They had her stand next to a strudel and root beer booth adjacent to the stage. The caterers had her hand out the drinks to passersby as they continually unloaded the barrels and platters. They were fifty cents a cup and eighty cents a strudel. Everyone passing by claimed one each, including Agents Hayworth and Simms who came to check in on her.

“How’s business?”

She scowled at them both, as the last time they had showed up it was to harass her over disappearing for three days—something she was sure they had a hand in. “Are you buying?”

They nodded, taking out the cash.

Agent Simms said while passing over two dollars and sixty cents, “We were wondering if you had a few seconds.”

“I’m busy,” she said, passing over two full cups of freshly made root beer while carefully making sure the wind did not knock them out of her hands.

“To answer questions?”

Maintaining a dirty look on them, she then went back for the strudels. They were already wrapped in neat tissue paper, well packaged to keep fingers from getting greasy. “I have answered all the questions I wish to.”

Agent Hayworth emitted a cynical chuckle. He said, “All the same, we need to know more about that boy, Jeff—or Jafarr as you like to call him.”

She huffed. “Not happening.”

The pair of them exchanged startled laughs.

“Zormna, you do realize that he had been marked as a suspect in your great aunt’s murder,” Agent Simms said.

The caterers nearby lurched back and stared, mostly at her.

Shaking her head like she thought they were just being stupid, she said, “Come on. You and I both know he wasn’t in Pennington when she was killed.”

“Are you so sure?” Agent Simms asked.

Looking him right in the eye, she said, “I know he wasn’t.”

But the two agents gazed smugly at her. With nods they took their food and drink and walked off. Zormna watched them, irritably wondering what they got out of that conversation. Confirmation that Jeff was definitely not in Missouri during that time either? Probably. But it seemed a moot point.

And for the next twenty minutes, Zormna had to deal with another kind of harassment. Her outfit really was the worst thing she had to wear. Passersby (mostly burly beer-bellied men) frequently made catcalls and pert remarks about her body and her outfit. Most called her Baby, Honey, Sweetie, and Cutie. The caterers forbade her to answer them.

“Ignore them and play dumb,” one of them suggested.”

Zormna didn’t like that. But as her grade hinged on the absurd activity, she decided to play along.

That is, until one particularly belchy one with a handlebar mustache that ran thickly down the sides of his face and a small beard to go with it came up to her with a leering look. He wore a plaid shirt half tucked in over a stained white tee shirt. He said with a saunter towards their booth, “If I told you, you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”

Zormna winced and stepped back, handing him a plastic cup at arm’s length. “Not if I can help it.”

He laughed at his joke and stepped closer, another burp burbling out of him. His breath gave off the same noxious smell that had been soaked into her carpet the night before. She backed off.

“Zormna!” Jeff’s voice broke over the crowd.

A relieved smile spread across her face and she turned. Waving, Zormna called back. “Jeff!”

The man turned to see the midnight-haired teenager in the leather jacket walk through the crowd. He assessed the boy, including his scars, with a snort.

“Hey, honey, is he your boyfriend?” The man leaned closer.

“He’s my bodyguard,” she replied, recoiling from him the same time she almost hopped to Jeff.

Jeff strode up with a sweeping glance at the costume she wore. His eyes flickered with amusement, as this was definitely a far cry from her military uniform. A gust of wind blew her skirt up and the underfrills around in that moment, forcing her to clench it down with her hands and hold them. Of course, her biker shorts gave her plenty of coverage. Yet he laughed, brushing his blown hair out of his face.

“I heard there was food up here,” he said.

The old belching man laughed. He then took on step to Zormna’s side and wrapped his arm around Zormna’s waist in an attempt to pull her close to him.

“So, baby, he ain’t your boyfriend,” the man said. His beer breath was rank and hot on her neck.

“Let go of her.” Jeff stormed closer, realizing quickly that Zormna was trying to be nice instead of clobbering the idiots who dared make passes at her.

But the older man merely laughed, pulling Zormna closer by the waist. “Get your own girl.”

Jeff took another step closer, his face feeling hot. His intent was to gently, yet firmly push the man away from her, but the desire to smash him into the asphalt surged through him.

Quickly recognizing the expression on Jeff’s face, Zormna acted on instinct. She ducked under the man’s arm, swiftly, twisting his grip back. But instead of throwing him as she normally would, Zormna dashed up to the stage where Miss Bianchi was speaking with the performance coordinator. With their eyes, both Jeff and the man followed her progress to the teacher.

The older man blushed as soon as Zormna pointed him out to her teacher. Her teacher nodded, concern wrinkling her brows as she peered right at the man. Miss Bianchi then walked over to the school’s security guard who was also standing near the edge of the stage. Both Jeff and the belching man watched that security guard come their way.

Jeff smirked, taking his hand off the man.

“Excuse me, sir, but I am going to have to escort off the premises,” the guard said.

“What did I do?” The man protested. “I was just talking with the server.”

“She’s fourteen years old, a student here, and you were harassing her.”

The man paled.

Once the security guard had led the belching man off the premises, Zormna returned to her booth.

Jeff smiled at her, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. “Well done, Zormna.”

She lifted her eyebrows and picked up a cup of root beer. “It is sixty cents a cup, but I hear it is good.”

“You hear it’s good?” Jeff asked, nearly laughing. “You haven’t had any?”

Handing him a strudel, Zormna replied, “We are not supposed to eat them. This one is eighty cents.”

Jeff pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket and fished out two dollars. Zormna handed the change over to the girl behind the counter who gave her back sixty cents.

“Your change,” she said, holding it out.

Jeff shook his head and started to walk off. “Keep it. You could save it and pay for your carpet.”

Zormna rolled her eyes as she watched him walk away laughing.

The wind got even stronger as the day went on. Zormna had a devil of a time just keeping hold of her flying skirt, making her was glad more than ever that she wore the biker shorts. Some of the venue-goers were looking for peep shows. The caterers were forced to do the cup-to-hand-to-jug-to-hand-to-customer thing. They couldn’t set out anything on the table because their cups would spill over from the wind. The bands performing played loudly to be heard over the wind, even with the speakers. Much of the music was accordion music and big bands. Standing near the stage gave Zormna such a headache. The enormous loudspeakers were not too far from where she was stationed, and the ones in the back made the noise echo throughout the neighborhood.

By the afternoon the wind had died down to a milder breeze. Zormna was given a three-hour break to rest or roam the booths. She took ten minutes of the break to roam the booths and the rest of the time for a nap in the gym. Zormna thought she had seen beds placed in there earlier and thought perhaps she could nap there.

When she entered the gym, Zormna noticed a large white sign with a red cross on it held up with several stickers that said The American Heart Association on them. Stepping into the room she saw the beds, but she also saw hospital equipment there. There were nurses and tubes and bags of blood. Zormna nearly tripped back when a nurse approached her.

“Do you want to give blood?” the nurse asked.

“What?” Zormna looked back at the people on the beds.

The nurse was glancing at Zormna’s attire now, asking more doubtfully. “Are you here to give blood?”

Zormna shook her head. “I’m just looking for a place to lie down.”

The nurse nodded with an understanding smile and