Things moved quickly indeed.
On Saturday morning, Ellie awoke to the 6:30 alarm she'd set and dressed in a tank top and jeans laid out next to the luggage she'd packed the night before -- her ancient Vera-Bradley-patterned duffle bag that had been on life support since the 8th grade. Amped on adrenaline, she forgot entirely about breakfast or coffee. She went back and forth between pacing around the apartment and perching nervously on the edge of her bed.
The morning was bizarrely quiet. A small part of her hoped that Carlos would step out for another cigarette in the next few minutes -- it would be something to do with her hands and calm her nerves.
Instead, she took out her phone and resolved to test the first stage of what Hannah had promised. She opened her work email.
"Cannot connect to server."
Then Slack.
"We have encountered an issue with your login verification. Please contact an administrator for more information."
It was true then -- Ellie had already summarily resigned from her job without notice, and they had promptly cut her access to all systems.
Well -- Ellie had not resigned, precisely. Hannah explained on the phone that a communication from the Department of Defense would be sent to her marketing agency resigning on her behalf. It would say that Ellie had taken an assignment with the Department at an undisclosed location and in an undisclosed capacity. Similar notices, she was told, had gone out to her closest associations and relations. Her family, Pete, Kathleen and Sebastian would all receive these memos.
"Do you need their contact info to send the notices?" Ellie had asked Hannah on the phone.
"Oh, it's taken care of, don't worry," Hannah had said flippantly.
Her phone had not received any calls or texts from friends or family asking her to elaborate on what was happening. Hannah had explained this, too -- carrier service to her phone would cease at midnight, and new methods of contacting her would be provided after her arrival at The Eden Project. In similar fashion, the contents of Ellie's bank accounts had been moved to a high-yield savings account without her input, and every recurring expense in her name -- utilities, apartment lease, car insurance, Netflix -- had been "taken care of."
Ellie wondered if anybody might come knocking when it became clear that her phone was disconnected. Her father or her sister could have perhaps turned up. Ellie had not provided them her new address, but Sarah was known for her resourcefulness.
And yet, no one visited in the night. It was still early, and anyone besides maybe Kathleen and Seb would have been asleep when the letters and emails arrived. Kathleen would not follow up, of course. Ellie had already done the heavy lifting to burn that bridge. A rock formed in her stomach.
At 7am sharp, the noise at her door was not Carlos exiting his apartment, but a firm knock. Ellie took her last quiet inhale of the studio apartment's musty air, then crossed to the front door and opened it.
Ronnie the driver stood there in his characteristic gray polo and khakis. He wore mirrored sunglasses in the early morning light. Two muscular young men in ratty T-shirts and cargo shorts stood flanking him. One of them held several collapsed cardboard boxes, and the other a bundle of moving blankets and tape.
"Miss Ellie, it's good to see you again," Ronnie said, his demeanor casually professional. Ellie wondered if he was ogling her the way he had ogled Hannah at the hotel behind his mirrored shades. "You ready?"
"Hey, Ronnie, yeah... I'm good to go."
"Great," said Ronnie. "Gentlemen?" He gestured the young men into Ellie's apartment.
"'Scuse me," said one of the guys as he edged through the door around Ellie, and this was the only greeting she received from either of them. Both entered her apartment with purpose. Thing One swiftly set up a cardboard box and started pulling Ellie's DVD's and board games out of her television stand while Thing Two pulled the sheets off her bed.
Ellie hustled over to Thing Two and asked for her duffle bag, which he handed to her wordlessly. All of the belongings in her home, as Hannah had outlined on the phone, were being packed by a local moving company and transported to a storage unit -- ostensibly reclaimable by Ellie should the occasion ever arise.
She stood with her duffle bag on her shoulder, watching the labor progress around her. It felt odd to not be directing the two men in some way, but they clearly didn't need her input.
"Miss Ellie," said Ronnie from the door. Ellie turned to him. "I'm ready to go when you are."
"Don't they need --?"
"Naw, we got it, ma'am," said Thing One. "We're professionals. Your stuff is safe."
Ellie left the two men to do with her belongings what they would. She set her apartment key on the television stand, as she had been instructed, and walked out the front door.
Ronnie led the way down the stairs with Ellie in pursuit, followed finally by Thing Two single-handedly hauling her queen-sized mattress. She watched as he strong-armed her mattress into an idling box truck. Ronnie tossed her duffle bag in the trunk of his town car and then held the backseat door open for her. Before getting in, Ellie took one last look at the apartment building.
Carlos now stood smoking at the third-floor breezeway railing in a white undershirt and flannel pajama pants. He met Ellie's gaze and did not shout questions about her sudden move-out, but merely smiled and waved as though catching her leaving for the grocery store.
Ellie furrowed her brow. Carlos's unquestioning acceptance of the situation was odd. But this thought was interrupted by the diesel engine roar of an arriving tow truck. It had come at the behest of her new employers to fetch her Corolla and transport it to storage.
"Miss Ellie?" Ronnie said again.
She took his cue and climbed into the car.
...
Three hours later, Riley once again settled the landing gear of the Cessna Citation on the Eden Project airport runway. Ellie watched through her window as they taxi'd and did not see the same mob of children. Only Tad and Hannah walked together across the pavement to the jet's parking spot.
"Miss Ellie," Tad said in his unctious Jamaican dialect as she descended the stairs with Riley, "I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that you decided to join us."
Hannah beamed at her and winked. "Welcome aboard."
Ellie felt twenty pounds lighter at the mere sight of her. She spared a glance around at the mountains. They were a different spectacle entirely now, in the first half of the day -- the new layout of highlights and shadows on the slopes and peaks offered a fabulous vista to which she had not yet been exposed. "...Yeah, it wasn't as hard of a decision as I expected it to be."
