Learning to Trust: Changing Places Read Free Page B

me as the warmth and sweetness of the drink danced along my taste buds.
    "This is so good," I said. I could barely contain myself. Oh yes, I was excited for the alcohol to kick in.
    "I always loved that look of enjoyment on your face when you took the first sip," Roland said. "The virgin sip." He smiled, revealing the slight wrinkles in his face. Still no noticeable grey in his hair. Honestly, since I arrived, he looked like he had aged at least a tiny amount. I guess this sort of business did that to you. I wonder if I looked any different...
    I sipped quietly while Roland chatted aimlessly, his thoughts wandering from art, to music, to business, to old family vacations. I added what I could, but sometimes it was tough to relate to such luxury and privilege. Roland's tale about wrecking his sports car during high school was no different than if he said he'd spent his childhood on the moon—I just had no basis to compare my own life to that at all.
    Sure, I'd gotten in a car accident shortly after getting my license. It had been traumatic and something that had made me car-less for most of high school. I think most kids dealt with something like that growing up. The only difference was, I—and the majority of the planet's kids— didn't get an even better c ar after crashi ng the first one. Most folks got a verbal spanking that stuck with them for a long time—and hopefully served as a valuable lesson about responsibility. The only slap Roland got was a high-five from his father. The story told volumes to me about him.
    All of that aside, he still had smidge of childish innocence to him, one that hadn't been forcibly extracted by the pressures of the real world . Money had solved all of Roland's problems—well, and power. Stress was certainly something he dealt with on a daily basis, but his stress was also very different than what most people dealt with. He was apparently deciding where/how to ship drugs and people to different places. Who to silence, and who to promote. When I first started my career, it was questions like how do I pay my rent this month , and how am I going to eat?
    Roland suddenly being nicer and wanting to trust me with more inevitably triggered feelings of happiness and satisfaction, even though I was working to bring his empire down. I had to fight the urge to really like him, to keep things as artificial and manipulative as possible. I needed to proudly wear my false face.
    The rest of that night was pretty positive, and despite the fact that I was certain that we'd get interrupted—I was hoping for it actually, hoping someone would walk in and say "H ere's the evidence you need! Go home and enjoy yourself! " loud and clear—nothing actually happened. We had a good meal and got a little tipsy on wine I'd never be able to afford again in my life.
    After Roland had left me for the evening, I went upstairs and scribbled in my journal. I wanted to capture my feelings about his past in the pages, to try and remember all of this in the future. Yes, and I was thankful that he hadn't busted me immediately after I had come from meeting with an FBI agent. I wrote about that in the vaguest detail possible, just in case my journal was discovered.
    Ramón had told me that this whole process could take weeks, months even. I had no idea how deep I'd have to go, how far into my character's mind I'd have to dig. It was obvious to me that if Roland was going to allow me inside, I'd have to evolve with the scenario. He trusted me for some reason, at least as far as I could tell. I mean, he blatantly said that, so hopefully it wasn't just another manipulative move in his real-life chess game.
    Working became very difficult for the few days after my meeting with Ramón . My mind was working in overtime, assuming that any inconsistency was exactly what I was looking for, the missing piece of the puzzle, the key that would unlock all of the doors. Suddenly I had become sort of a bitch, the office manager that no one