The Man in the Middle

The Man in the Middle

By the time they arrived in Florida, Julie felt like she was in a mental quagmire. Chad was completely ignorant of the details, but seemed to answer everything like her mind was an open book. She wanted to confess, just to get it out in the open, but she could not come to terms with the awful fear that he would leave her.

Chad and Jerry took off for the hardware store, and Jerry's dad went to a meeting, while his mother prepared dinner.

As soon as she was alone with Rachelle, Julie sought her counsel. “Have you ever screwed around on your guy?” she asked, with helpless openness. Her mind was too contorted to devise new guile.

Rachelle was taken aback. As Jerry had attributed to Mrs. Malloy, screwing around was like drug dealing. Rachelle had never even been around people who didn't. She decided to test the waters before diving in. “Maybe,” she said, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, um... I'm trying to get Chad to, y'know, forgive me.” Julie then hastened to add, “...but he doesn't know yet.”

Rachelle saw an opening and took it. “Well, there's two philosophies of it, Julie. Y'know how there's people who try to marry virgins, and there's people who want an experienced teacher? Well, there's people who want to know EV-ER-Y-THING, and then there's people who want to make each other guess. The worst part of it is, that the people who want to be absolutely transparent, and the people who want to be completely inscrutable, as well as the people who want to hint around at it, well ALL of them get jealous. If you get jealous, you can lose your relationship, but if you DON'T get jealous, it's even worse. It becomes a contest, just to see who can make the other one jealous...”

“'n if you get jealous, you can lose your relationship.'” finished Julie. “What's 'inscrutable' mean?”

“I used it right,” replied Rachelle, “but it's hard to define. Where's Jerry's dictionary?”

Julie didn't laugh, but she did a double take. If Rachelle was sooo smart, why did she need a dictionary? “I don't think I'm dumb enough to need a dictionary,” Julie offered defensively. “I mean, I KNOW English!”

Rachelle diffused the tension with a little laugh. “The best dictionaries are 100% redundant,” she reciprocated.

Somewhere in her mind, Julie noticed that there was an apparent paradox there. Redundancy was usually a bad thing, but she didn't want to chase any more rabbit trails. “OK, I'll get the dictionary from Mrs. Burke.” This “inscrutable” word had better be well worth the trouble.

45 minutes later, when Chad and Jerry returned, Rachelle and Julie were discussing the semiotics of double entendre like drunken philosophers, and bonding.

After the evening meal, Chad and Jerry offered the girls a contest. If they could exchange messages, COMPLETELY without a prearranged password, the girls had to clean the fireplace.

“What happens when you lose?” the girls wanted to know. “What do we get by indulging you in your magic trick?”

Chad pondered this for a moment, but Jerry was quicker on the trigger. “You get to kiss us MEMORABLY!”

“But then you guys win either way!” Rachelle protested.

“It's better than a drinking game,” Julie disagreed. “I'll play.”

The question soon arose that there was no way to prove that Chad and Jerry had not prearranged the password. Ready for the task, the two produced new, unopened, Red and Black combination locks from their trip to the store. To make the game more sure, Jerry instructed Rachelle to be the one to read the message, and Chad to be the bearer, chaperoned by Julie, who would make sure that Chad played no trick on Rachelle.

The props included an old toolbox, with a hasp on it, and a “Radio Flyer,” wagon. Jerry retreated into the study with the red lock, to prepare his message, and Rachelle was given the black lock, and told to await the message in the guest house.

When he was ready, Jerry called Chad and Julie in. Julie could see that the storage container was completely empty as he placed a sealed envelope with a card in it, in the bottom of the toolbox. He broke open the blister pack of the red lock in front of them, and unfastened it with the enclosed documentation. He then ceremoniously locked the hasp, without showing either of them his combination.

Chad quietly pulled the wagon to Rachelle in the guest house, with a puzzled Julie in tow. Upon arrival, Chad instructed Rachelle to place her own (black) lock on the toolbox. Now two locks held it shut, and no one could open it single-handed.

Julie was even more puzzled as Chad tugged the wagon all the way back to Jerry. Jerry met Julie's eye triumphantly, before removing his lock from the toolbox's hasp. Then it was back to Rachelle, who had located the USB stereo, and was playing old records.

Julie had been concentrating the whole way, but she was still working on it when Rachelle looked at the toolbox in surprise. It was locked with only her lock, but she could not believe she had not been tricked, at first.

“You've been IN it!” she accused. Julie looked at her in hurt surprise. “I've been with them the WHOLE TIME! Nobody's opened it,” she replied, but with a placating tone.

A doubtful Rachelle used the documentation which came with the lock to which she had agreed, to open the box. In the process, she became convinced that Julie was truthful. How could ANYONE have opened it? She had opened the blister pack herself, and it was a brand new lock!

The card sat forlornly in the bottom of the box. She slowly opened it, wondering what Jerry might have written. Julie looked on, as it began to sink in that they were not going to be kissed. They were actually going to have to clean the fireplace!

Meanwhile, Rachelle's heart was beating out a syncopated rhythm of “he loves me, he loves me not.” What if Jerry had been certain there would be no interception? What if he had been planning something all along? Did Chad know?

Chad was pleased with himself. Jerry's problem had been intriguing, and he was struggling to maintain a poker face as he joined Julie, watching Rachelle. He could only imagine what Jerry must feel like, waiting alone in the study.

Rachelle broke the seal, and tore open the envelope with an opener she picked up at the desk. It was a blank card, and inside Jerry had drawn a valentine. Outlined inside it, was a raffle ticket, but instead of the commonplace “Admit One” legend, were the words “Be Mine?”

Her eyes welled up in tears. Not hot tears of defiance, but rather the warmish tears of joy and relief. They spilled over onto her cheeks, as she sat smiling silently.

Julie didn't wait for long. “What'd he Say?” she demanded. “What'd he SAY?”

Rachelle sniffed, and brushed the evidence of her vulnerability away. “It's personal,” she replied. “It's pretty much what you think, anyway.”

Chad came to Rachelle's aid, by transfixing Julie with his gaze. “What do you think it says, Julie?”

Julie knew what she thought it said, but she didn't feel like she could reason from it syllogistically until she had verbal verification. Anticipating the last bit of resistance, he re-iterated “She doesn't HAVE to say, Julie.”

“OK,” Julie agreed, deferring to him.

To the surprise of BOTH girls, Chad then capitalized on the opportunity he and Jerry now enjoyed. “Now, Julie, if you can pass a message to RACHELLE, the same way Jerry did, without us guys even knowing what it says, then you and Rachelle don't have to clean the fireplace. It's double or nuthin'.”

Julie needed a few moments before she could change the subject back to secret messages in her mind. She took a moment to water a plastic plant. “OK, so let me get this straight. Rachelle keeps HER lock, but I use a lock for which Jerry already has a combination? I'm not buying it!”

Chad happily produced a second, new red lock. “See, it's still in the blister pack, and Jerry will KEEP his, OK?”

Julie felt the need to push back. “If we win, you guys should clean the fireplace!” she persisted.

Rachelle decided to buck with Julie. “Yeah... you guys SHOULD have to do something,” she said.

Chad decided to take advantage of them. “If WE win, and we get in, after you guys were so demanding and all, y'all have to put out!”

Rachelle anticipated Julie's agreement, and spoke for them both. “Done & DONE!” she said. There was no WAY the guys could do it, after what she had just seen. “But it HAS to be in Julie's handwriting!”

Rachelle's part was only to keep her black lock and wait, while Chad and Julie were to return to the study, and acquaint Jerry with the new terms.

Chad and Jerry retired from the study, and made small talk with Jerry's parents, as Julie composed, and the nightly news approached.

At Julie's verbal beckoning, they returned, and watched her open the blister pack to the new red lock, as Jerry pocketed his. None of them wanted to confuse the issue with a mistake.

Chad and Jerry left her there, and two minutes later they were in the kitchen, cracking open a fourth lock... a black one. Chad pocketed the combination paper in his pants pocket, and they locked the toolbox with the black lock. It appeared for all the world as if they had already been to Rachelle and back.

When they re-entered the study, Julie took the passage of time to be different merely because she had been an active participant during the first test. Julie removed her red lock, leaving only the black one.

Back to the kitchen they charged, soon removing the black lock, using Chad's combination.

The note inside was a BOMB!

Jerry read it first, and turned to Chad looking shell shocked. He had known, but he could not think of any easy way to break it to Chad, and these were Julie's own words.

“I've been a slut, and I fucked Dr. Busch till he got me pregnant,” it read.

Chad sank into a chair. This explained a LOT. He didn't even care to win the bet anymore. Since losing the bet entailed cleaning the fireplace, Jerry's words were firm. “Get back on the horse Chad,” he sternly warned him. “Even a horse will ride roughshod over you if he senses weakness. Don't tell HER! Instead, get her back for not telling YOU!”

Agreeing to lose the bet, and deliver the message without revealing their subterfuge, the two replaced the note, and left the guest house again, pausing only to exchange the black lock (now agreed between them to be Chad's,) for Jerry's RED one.

“Y'all took for-EVER!” was Rachelle's first comment.

“Had to answer nature's call,” Jerry explained.

Chad still looked green, and Rachelle wondered if he might be sick. He had looked just fine, earlier in the evening. She affixed her black lock, and Chad and Jerry left again, presumably to let Julie remove her red one.

This time they spent a few minutes talking things over. If Chad had been a friend to Jerry earlier in the day, in planning a creative way to “pin” Rachelle, Jerry now stood stalwart in Chad's corner. “First you'll want to catch her in a falsehood, Chad. Then you have to give her a chance to 'fly right.' After that, as you close in on her, she'll have to choose how far she'll go to keep the lie hidden from you. If you close too slow, she'll always think you can't know, and you'll drive her to ruinous degradation. If you tell her too soon, so you can forgive her, she'll think she can get away with it over and over again. You're going to have to measure the response by the provocation 'hella good,' Chad. It's not going to be easy.”

He let this sink in for a few moments, before he decided to take his own advice. “I always knew it,” he added.

He had not “known,” by inference; Julie had told him explicitly, but the phrase had a helpful ambiguity if ever he was brought in dock himself.

He then continued, helping Chad cipher through his shock. “They'll still put out.” He spoke no further. Julie still thought of Chad as naive, and Chad would have to win her respect for himself; Jerry would only tamper it if he suggested further solutions.

They returned to the guest house, and watched Rachelle read the note.

Taking a cue from Julie's earlier comment, Chad broke the silence. “What's it say?” he asked.

Rachelle looked a little hunted, and her glance struggled between them before answering as before. “It's personal.”

It was getting late, and Jerry's parents had already gone to bed when the little group gathered in the kitchen together.

Julie queried Rachelle with muted urgency. “Was it in my handwriting?”

“Yes,” Rachelle replied. “You and I need to talk.”

Chad then delivered the pronouncement that the “lock thing,” is similar to a math problem called the “Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange,” except the actual math was NOTHING like the physical experiment. “...so don't ever put it that way on a test, OK?” he finished.

“OK,” the girls assented. “How did you guys ever think you were going to win, anyway?”

Jerry supplied a description of unfastening the hinges with a some bravado, and finished by qualifying the idea as lame. “I guess we were overconfident,” he finished.

“Now you guys have gotta clean the fireplace!” they chimed in, in unexpected unison.

“Jinx, you owe me a coke,” Rachelle said, beating Julie to the punch.

The guys assented in return.

As they began cleaning the fireplace, Jerry embellished. “There's another math problem called Public Key encryption, that's more like handing your friend an open combination lock to which only YOU know the combination. If he locks it on a toolbox anywhere, with a message just to you, you'll still be the only one in the world who can open it. In fact, in computers, there's actually a kind of post office where you can just request a 'Jerry' lock, or a 'Chad' lock, as many times as you need; one for every message."

Julie was ever the one to search for a flaw. “How do you know it goes to the right Chad?” she asked.

Jerry smiled. “That's the thing. You have to GET it from the right Chad.” He caught her eye momentarily. “You take my point?”

Julie felt like the answer was something about dragons and how she would taste good with ketchup, but soon realized that she could not choose silence as an answer. He had asked her a question. “I think so,” she said in a small voice.

This time it was Rachelle's eye Jerry chose to meet. “I never asked you if you got my note.”

“Meet me in the guest bedroom, and I'll tell you.” she teased. “You'll need a bath too!”

Chad finished up with the vacuum hose, and wiped away a little sweat, smudging his face in the process. I have to get back on the horse, he thought. Aloud, he said “Julie, Jerry's old room is now the sewing room. Do you mind folding out the hide-a-bed? He'll be with Rachelle in the guest bedroom.”

Julie had finally decided that her knight needed respite from his virtue. The guys had lost the bet, but they HAD cleaned the fireplace. There was no rule that said they couldn't put out as a consolation prize. “I think I'll make a pallet of bedclothes,” she responded. “...and a bath wouldn't hurt you either.”