Heartland

Button Samuelson was Tweeting as she waited outside the red brick church for her client.  If her father knew she was showing a client a house today, he would flip out, but he was visiting his sister for Easter--a trip that Button had begged off with vague comments about hay fever, sinus headaches, and a promise that they would have their own Easter dinner next week.  She had already had champagne brunch with Calico Johnson downtown, and her Easter was done.  She was a little surprised that three different clients wanted to look at homes today:  sometimes she forgot how many transplants lived here with no family and spent all their time networking instead of making friends.  She heard a swelling of music and knew the service was coming to a close.  She watched the beggars start lining up on the brick sidewalk waiting for Easter charity.

Damned Justice Prissy-face.  Across the Potomac, Bridezilla was in a rather uncharitable mood despite her new Easter dress and the diamond cross necklace Wince had left in her Easter basket.  She knew her mother would be horrified at the sight of a diamond cross necklace, so Bridezilla was going to have to "forget" it in the rush to hit the road downstate.  No relaxing Easter weekend surrounded by blooming dogwood and redbud trees, walking the dogs through the countryside with her dad--no, just her going to church by herself, then packing the car with cupcakes and tulip bunches when Wince was finally done with his stupid Supreme Court memo for Justice Prissy Face.  The relatives would again be asking if they had set a date, and it would be unbearable.  She was getting dangerously close to 30, and in southern Virginia she could be engaged and an old maid at the same time.  She gave Wince a saccharin smile as he slid into the driver's seat for the long drive, brief Easter dinner, and long drive back.

A couple of miles away, Easter brunch was well underway at the Arlington group home for the mentally challenged.  About a dozen relatives had come to spend the day with the residents, and no catastrophes yet.  The key was to keep Buckner out of the kitchen, because he was the one constantly inventing new rules--like all dishes needed to be dried and put away, not left out to drip (because the dripping water attracted amoebas that invade your brain), and no food could be left on the counters (because the aliens would inject it with poison), and no beverages could be consumed unless they had first been frozen and then thawed out (he could not remember the reason for that, but somebody had told him to do that, and he was certain he remembered it was important).  Buckner was gamely employed in showing his nephews his skill at catching tossed jelly beans in his mouth, Melinda and Theresa were setting up a panorama using Peeps and a children's comic book as a guide, and Larry was calmly consuming a box of chocolate bunny ears (only ears) from his mother (who still had vivid memories of him perenially biting the ears off everybody else's bunnies).  Only Cedric was sitting apart, troubled by the news that the trustee had sold off his Kansas estate, and for far less than it was worth.  To the trustee, it was a simple old farmhouse full of junky furniture on a few remnant acres of salinated land:  he had never told the trustee about the secret underground bunker.  (At least, that's what he thought, but he had told the trustee about it and the trustee had not believed it.)  He needed help to get it back.  Condoleezza owes me a favor.  His resolute but twisted grin disturbed social worker Hue Nguyen as she walked towards him with a tray of lemonade cups.  He picked one up without moving his eyes, which were staring blankly into space--due west.

A couple miles south, an airport employee posted the ETA for a non-stop flight out of Kansas to National Airport.  In a few hours, Henry Samuelson would land with a deed to Cedric's old house in Kansas; Samuelson knew all about the bunker, and would be returning there soon to add some more provisions of his own.  

Not far from the airport, the Warrior paddled a canoe lazily on the river, but his thoughts were anything but.  He watched a pleasure craft speed past him (carrying Calico Johnson and his afternoon date, Chloe Cleavage), then a few kayaks with an extended family heading for an Easter picnic on sunny (but chilly) Roosevelt Island.  It was a beautiful spring day in Washington, but the Warrior knew the calm would not last for long.  Underneath him, the pink dolphins prepared to surface.