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."
"That is so nice to hear," said Tad. "Hannah will begin your orientation at once."
The orientation, apparently, would begin at Recruit House. Ellie panted up the hill behind Hannah. They had left Tad behind at the saloon-turned-town-hall on the high street, leaving Hannah in charge for the time being.
"As I mentioned at dinner the other day," said Hannah, once again showing none of Ellie's uphill-hike fatigue, "you're under my supervision for the first 30 days. It's my job to get you acclimated and accustomed, and to make sure you're here for the right reasons."
"Nice," breathed Ellie. The weight of her duffle bag was cramping her shoulder. "Two days with me wasn't enough to convince you that I'm not some kind of opportunistic pervert."
"Rules are rules," Hannah responded undeterred. "I trust you personally, but I didn't earn my spot as our top recruiter by taking risks. After you."
Arriving at Recruit House, Hannah held one of the erotically-carved front doors open for Ellie. She led Ellie into the right-hand wing of the building and up to the second-floor bedroom. In the middle of the work day, the place was once again mostly abandoned. The two of them navigated through the grid of queen-sized, mosquito-netted beds until Hannah halted at a plain bed with simple beige sheets and storage cubbies underneath. These were empty except for two things: A small stack of plain gray tees like the ones Hannah had brought with her to Phoenix, and what looked like a tangle of cable wires -- perhaps a phone charger.
This station lacked the personal touches -- the custom quilts, the colorful knitted pillow covers -- of the beds around her. "This is you," Hannah said.
Balking at her new, spartan accommodations, Ellie processed for the first time the microscopic footprint of the space she could now call 'home'. A bed and a few shelves underneath. An oppressive claustrophobia collapsed in on her. "...So this is really it, huh?" Ellie asked shakily.
Hannah plopped down on Ellie's new bed and smirked. "Yep... it's a job. But it won't take you long to realize how little you need." Then Hannah's face shifted to concern. Ellie's lower lip had begun to tremble. "Hey."
Ellie blinked away a couple of tears and looked at Hannah.
"You want to get back on that plane right now and go home?" Hannah's expression was serious.
Ellie swiped the tears away with the heel of her hand and released, finally, the weight of her Vera Bradley bag off of her shoulder. It thudded to the floor. "No... No, I'm good. This is good."
"Because you can. You can go home right now," said Hannah. "Say the word and that plane is taking you straight back to Phoenix. You will never lose that option."
"I mean... I... I'm gonna give this a few days at least," said Ellie. She sniffed and lowered herself onto the edge of the bed next to Hannah.
The corners of Hannah's lips curled up. "I'm glad. You ready for your uniform?" And she bent double over the edge of the bed and produced one of the gray T-shirts.
"I have to wear a uniform? Nobody else is."
Hannah smirked. "Well... yeah, you wear this until you learn how to make your own clothes."
"My own..?"
