Chapter 9: Washington DC

The 10 minutes that it took the aircraft to break through the clouds felt like an entire century. When Mei opened her eyes she realized cold sweat had covered her from head to toe, including the hand that’s still in-lock with Jesse’s.

“I am sorry!” Mei quickly released her grip and felt heat rising up her cheeks; she didn’t want to look at Jesse in the eye, “I didn’t expect the ride to be this bumpy… and, Thank you.”

She waited for questions or words of comfort or concern, but all she heard was: “You are welcome. Let me know if you need anything.” Spending the remainder of the flight in silence, they safely landed in Washington D.C around midnight.

When Mei found Jesse in the morning at the hotel’s hot breakfast buffet, she was relieved that he seemed had forgotten all about the awkward plane ride. It was interesting how both of them chose to wear black suits with white shirts, Mei thought to herself that they must look like two FBI agents that had just came out of the “Men in Black” movie, ready to protect the nation’s capital from Alien invasions.

Jesse on the other hand was all business and serious, he didn’t waste any minute between coffee and a spinach omelet to back brief Mei about their mission on this trip.

The Annual IT Expo was one of the hundreds, if not thousands of technology conferences held in the US each year; it would have not made on D&W’s radar without the last minute change on its schedule. One of its key speakers had an emergency conflict and was replaced by Mr. Robert McNally, the Deputy Director of the Department of Education; the agency that holds over 60% of D&W’s current and potential contracts, including the CNR project. It was expected that he will be given a strategic overview on DOE’s future IT direction; something usually wouldn’t be discussed until the beginning of the next Fiscal year.   The potential benefit from this speech could be vital to the success of the CNR project.

Mr. McNally was not scheduled to speak until 11am; which gave Jesse and Mei some free time to relax in the outside seating area of a Starbucks just next to their hotel. The temperature was not too hot, consider it was the end of August; Mei was surprised to even feel cool breezes passing by indicating the first sign of autumn.

“Have you been to DC before?” with his laptop open on the table, Jesse was sitting across from Mei, his sunglasses made Mei wonder whether he was looking at her or the computer screen.

“Yes, several years ago I was here for the Cherry Blossoms. It was beautiful! What about you?” Mei pretended she knew nothing about his background.

“Cherry Blossoms are nice, though the traffic always sucked during that time of the year, too many tourists…” Mei let out a giggle, that’s the first tease she heard from him, despite of being referred to as an annoying tourist causing traffic delays; she had to admit it had just completely removed the tension between them from the plane ride.

With a light smile he continued on with a more thoughtful tone, “I lived here for about 7 years. It is a great place to be if you know where you are going.”

So what made you move to Raleigh? Somehow Mei sensed he was talking about more than things on the surface, and decided it would be better to keep that question to herself.

Instead of his usual cool, precise, and determined self, the Jesse Broderick that’s sitting in front of her appeared relaxed, peaceful, real, and even a little vulnerable. Mei found she enjoyed the company of this side of him a lot better and didn’t want to risk changing the atmosphere.

Watching people in business attire hurrying back and forth, Mei wondered what it was like to live and work in a big metropolitan area like this. Raleigh was the only place she had lived in ever since she came to the US; it was a small but fast growing city with booming IT companies appearing from left to right throughout the past decade. Being from Beijing, she purposely chose to stay away from the crowdedness of a big city, but from time to time she couldn’t help but to imagine herself living and breathing the city air as every passing body here on the busy street.

Like he read her mind, Jesse went on: “it was stressful but exciting at the same time; makes your heart jump and fills you with adrenalin; a perfect place for the ambitious minds…” His tone was calm and restful, not matching the picture his words were trying to paint.

Mei thought to herself there was more to Jesse Broderick than that meets the eye.

The National Conference Center was only two blocks from the Capitol and right across the street from their hotel. It was inside a massive grey stone building; just like any other government buildings here in DC, the squared shape and front pillars gave it a seriousness and magnificent ambience. 

Entering in through the front door, they found themselves inside a big open oval shaped foyer with an intricately painted high ceiling and spider leg like hallways extending out from all directions.  There must have been several conferences going on at the same time.  Mei saw people wearing different colored name tags randomly staggered around and chatting. Almost everyone was wearing a suit, black, blue, and grey, with important looks on their faces; strangely everything reminded Mei of little kids in first day of school, trying to fit in but actually having no clue of what’s going on.

It took them a minute to find IT Expo’s sign at the far left corner. Before they could walk in, someone quickly approached from behind and tapped Jesse on the shoulder.

“Jesse?”

As they both turned around, Mei saw a tall, slim, beautiful young lady, reaching out with both arms and hugged Jesse with pure excitement, “I thought it was you! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? When did you get here? Are you here for the whole week? I thought you said you couldn’t make it…”

Jesse looked surprised to see her, but hugged back, “Sorry this was a last minute thing, and we are heading back tonight. What are you doing here?”

“I thought I told you about the Congressional Book Fair that’s going on this week, I am just here to help out.” Just like Jesse, she looked like she could be on the cover of Style magazine. Out from a sea of dark suits, she was wearing a royal blue silk shirt, neatly tucked in, and a bright white pencil skirt paired with nude high heels. Her hair was curly and bright blonde, lightly braided to the side and resting beautifully on her right shoulder. She looked sophisticated, confident and completely spectacular.