by Julia Kent
“So you're not really here for Cassie Jones?”
“No. I'm meeting someone named Ariana.”
“Oh.”
The space this crystal is supposed to give me fills instantly with sadness tinged with shame. My date ditched me. Fletch is seeing someone else.
Someone else.
Jealousy, wholly misplaced and fiercely consuming, rises up in me like a green cloud of lust with no place to go. I have no right to feel this, but I do.
I do.
It fills the space, overflowing into the rest of me, the mist spreading far beyond where it should.
Respecting no boundaries, it is opportunistic. It stops only when forced.
“Hey,” Fletch says, hiking his pants up slightly at the thigh before bending down, the gesture giving me an eyeful of those powerful legs under well-cut cloth. “I'm sorry about your date. I was just joking with you about Cassie, and it looks like it all went to hell. Want me to track that guy down?”
“No.”
“Okay.” He looks around. “Can I sit with you until my date arrives?” Grimacing at his own words, he has the decency to backpedal. “Forget I said that.”
“When is she supposed to be here?”
“Any minute.”
Bzzz
Groaning, he reaches for his phone. “So help me, if I get stood up again...”
“Again? Women stand you up?”
He gives me a funny look, one eye on his phone. “Sure. Enough to make a last-minute text like this–yep. Sick cat.”
“Who would lie about having a sick cat to get out of a blind date with you?”
“Why do you keep saying you like that?”
“Because look at you! You're a paramedic who owns a boxing studio. You have arms the size of tree trunks. You save lives for a living and you're super sweet to your nephew. You're the whole package. Why would anyone not want to date you?”
Every sound in the universe disappears.
The crystal in my hand lightens and begins to hum.
It's all I can hear.
And Fletch's eyes are all I can see as he holds my gaze with an intensity that feels like all the space in the world is taken up by us.
I stand, flustered. “I'm leaving. It's been a long day.”
“Hey, Fiona, if things were different, I'd–”
“You'd what?”
“I'd ask you out.”
But things aren't different, I say to myself, the words like a snake's hiss.
Frowning, he looks at his phone. “But Ariana says she'll be here twenty minutes late, so...”
And then I'm out of there, rushing into the dark night, running to find my car, Jolene's words haunting me: Go have your date with Fletch.
So much for opening space in my life. You know what space feels like right now?
It feels like seventh grade.
Chapter 8
“Fiona,” Rafaela says in a surprise call, the phone ringing on my nightstand, next to my glasses. For some reason, I grabbed the phone first, which makes the sound of her voice more acute. I'm half blind without my glasses, and I hate contacts.
“Hi, Rafaela. Everything okay?” She's never called me out of the blue. Fear spikes through me.
“It's great, actually. Remember that workout-wear company that offered you a high-five-figure contract? MPOWR2Q? They're ready to sign.”
“Sign?”
“Yes! And if you take the offer, they want to donate half a mil to an early childhood literacy organization. Or that Boys & Girls Club you mentioned.”
“Half a what?”
“Half a million dollars.”
As if having my eyes able to focus will help my brain comprehend, I search harder for my glasses, finding them but accidentally nudging them off the edge of my nightstand. Nimble fingers catch them in time. Opening the stems, I slide them on.
Bliss! Acuity is my friend.
“Say that again,” I beg. “They're offering me what?”
She quotes a figure that wipes out all of my student loans and leaves enough to repair my car. Or even put a down payment on a new one.
“And half a mil to charity. The sponsor knew you wouldn't do it just for your own gain.”
“Awwww.”
“Don't take that personally. It's a PR stunt.”
“Uh... thanks?”
“Here's the deal, though: Your video will be out of the news cycle shortly. Don't get me wrong–it was brave and all. But someone else is going to do something brave, and then the endorsement clowns all start chasing the new shiny.”
“Okay?”
“Which means we have to act. Now. Can you do a photo shoot in four days?”
“Four days?”
“Yes, on Sunday. They'll find a local gym. Photographers will set it all up. Lighting, set design, you name it. The client wants the initial pics and short videos for Insta to be in rotation within two weeks, to get ahead of the holiday attention-grab rush. We're already headed toward Halloween and after that, it's a mess in terms of getting eyeballs. Can you do it?”
Every word out of her mouth sounds like the marketing jargon I spent my entire college career avoiding. “I don't know. Can I? You're the one who knows this industry. Not me. I defer to you.”
“God, I love you, Fiona. You are so easy.”
“That's good?”
“It is for me. So, here's the deal: an electronic contract is coming your way. Sofia already covered the legal once-over.”
“The what?”
“She paid for a lawyer to go over it,” Rafaela says in a slower, more deliberative voice. “It's strong for you. You do this, and more endorsements may come.”
“But what if I don't want–”
“Shhh. Be easy, Fiona! You want this one. Trust me. Being debt free will feel great. Not that I would know,” she adds. “But you have to strike while the iron is hot.”
“Will people think I'm a sell-out?”
“The half mil is designed to give you cover. Makes the company look good, makes you look like you did the endorsement to help kids. Win-win. And the lawyer said there's no conflict of interest with your teaching job. No morals clause in your contract.”
“Morals clause?”
“We've had clients who lost endorsements because their employers prohibited it.”
“Dang.”
“Yours doesn't.”
“Good!”
“And I made sure the contract doesn't specify nudity.”
“Nudity?” I gasp, sitting up and throwing off the covers. I open my texts on my phone and shoot Perky an emergency one.
Can I trust Rafaela? I tap out and send.
“No nudity. That's what I'm saying. I've made sure there's none.”
“Absolutely not!”
“Then we're on the same page.”
Bzzz
She's great. Seriously. Take the workout-gear endorsement, Perky replies.
“Uh!” I gasp, outraged.
“You want more money?” Rafaela asks.
“What? No. Hang on.”
You knew about this? I text Perky.
Of course. Take it.
“You're texting Persephone, aren't you?” Rafaela asks with a knowing laugh. “She told me this would happen.”
“You two talked about me?”
“She cares, Fiona. We all do. I wouldn't act as the world's biggest attention sifter if I didn't care. This is a lot of money for a one-day photo shoot. The company is leveraging your viral success. Take it. Give a charity half a mil. Move on in a better financial position.”
For once, I wish Mom and Dad were here. I've been raised to be extremely independent. Unlike most of my friends, they didn't pay for college. I've been financially independent since I graduated from high school, and I'm proud of being able to live on my own. Perky's been shoving money at me for years, but it tastes like failure to take it.
This endorsement deal tastes like something else. Bitter and–
“I got them up to a
flat mil,” Rafaela declares.
“Huh?”
“Told them you were wavering. Considering going with their competitor. That your fee didn't matter, but the donation did. A million dollars for children's programs, Fiona. Do it for the kids.”
“Now you're just guilting me.”
“Yep.”
“You're not even going to pretend you're not?”
“Nope.”
“You're hardcore.”
“That's why Sofia hired me for her daughter. And now, for you.”
Closing my eyes doesn't erase the sound of her clipped expectation. I pick up the vibe of her triumph at getting another half a million dollars donated to a worthy cause with a single text. Perky can feel electrical fields, the charged hum of transformers, the vibration of geopathic grid lines underground. That's not what I pick up.
Emotional energy is my kryptonite.
Rafaela is stoked, hungry, and eager to close this deal. Does she act as a filter for overwhelmed clients? Sure. But far beyond that is her real mission: going in for the kill.
Only instead of death, the end result of her hunt is corporate dollars.
“When you worked for Perky, how did you handle endorsements?” I ask softly.
“I didn't. Who the hell would want an endorsement from a half-nude woman with two dogs having sex on the pillow above her head?”
“I can think of plenty of web companies that would, but they all have the word 'porn' in them.”
“Exactly. We went for settlement money.” Speaking her language has turned this conversation into deep shorthand.
“Settlement?”
“Corporate bucks. Letters straight to legal threatening copyright-infringement suits. They coughed up to keep it out of the courts.”
“Money? Perky's family has plenty of money.”
“Money is never about money when it comes to corporations. This was about teaching people lessons. And Persephone donated it all to organizations that help labor conditions for women in South America.”
Of course she did.
“You're not really a PR filter, are you?”
“I am. Of course I am. But if I can also help turn injustice into a lever for cracking open the wallets of corporations to help real, living human beings, then so much the better.”
“Saving the world, one negotiation at a time.”
“A mil is nothing to this company, Fiona. It's a lot to a Boys & Girls Club that gets full funding for after-school tutoring programs for a good, long time. Think of all the lives you'll change.”
She's right.
I’m fully awake now, for sure. I get up and walk to my computer.
I open the electronic document and look at the signature section. Click
Click
Click
Finally I click Finish, and then–
“Yes!” she says. “Got it. Congratulations!”
My hands begin to shake.
“Thanks.”
“Don't sound so glum! Think about the giant wire transfer coming your way soon!”
“And the million-dollar donation.”
“And that. You did it again, Fiona.”
“Did what?”
“The right thing.”
“Did I?”
“Absolutely. You did it when you took down that attacker, and you're doing it now.”
We hang up. I'm still shaking.
The crystal that Jolene gave me sits next to my computer mouse. I pick it up.
I close my eyes.
And I try to make space again.
Four days ago, Rafaela changed the course of my financial life.
Four days ago, a company offered to donate one million dollars to a cause I believe in.
Four days ago, I said yes to a photo and video shoot of me in a gym.
Four days ago, though, I didn't realize which gym they'd chosen.
“Hey,” Fletch says with a smile as I open the door, half blinded by photographer's lights that are being turned on by an assistant. “Welcome.”
“This is your gym.” Too embarrassed to admit I didn't even look at the gym's name and address until twenty minutes ago, I blurt the words out, feeling a bit sick.
“Yes, it is. You like what you see?”
One of the assistants jerks her head up at his words, the side of her mouth curling in a knowing smile.
“I always do.” Did those words really come out of me? “I mean, in gyms. Kickboxing gyms, at least.”
“This place is more boxing than kicking, but we have something for everyone.” Are these double entendres? The photographer's assistant is in full-blown grin mode now.
“I didn't realize we'd be filming here,” I confess as a man dressed all in black turns his head like an eagle hearing a mouse scratch against a pine needle.
“Is that Ms. Gaskill?” His voice is low and measured. “I am Michael DelAmbrosio.” Sleek black hair with streaks of silver at the temples frames a wide face, the slightest hint of jowls showing me his true age. Fit like a professional cyclist, he's small, tight, and uses compact movements to accomplish what needs to be done.
We shake hands. He looks at Fletch, then at me.
“You two know each other.”
“We go way back. Fiona was the first person to knock me out.”
“You didn't pass out!”
“From embarrassment, I sure did,” Fletch mutters.
“Maybe if you hadn't tried to kiss me, you could have spared yourself the embarrassment!”
“Oh, dear,” Michael says curtly. “You two do have a past.” He looks Fletch up and down. “Did she bruise you?”
“Only my pride.”
Michael's eyes narrow. “You two have chemistry.”
“If you mean being around him is like pouring battery acid all over my body in chemistry lab, then yes.”
Fletch laughs. “You're bitter. What's going on?” His eyes have questions his chuckling can't hide. Is that hurt I see?
The last time I saw him was at Beanerino, four days ago. He told me he would ask me out if it weren't for his date.
What was I supposed to do with that? Other than spend the last four days drinking obscene amounts of basil tea and clearing energy by burning herbs. Every inch of my skin smells like sage and I'm pretty sure that weird crystal Jolene gave me is some sort of voodoo.
“Not bitter,” I snap.
“Your vibrators not doing the trick?”
Michael's hand goes to his throat, thick, dark eyebrows up over his rimless glasses.
“My what?”
“You know. Those vibrators you're working on elevating.”
“Vibrations and vibrators are distinctly different.”
We're now the focus of the crew’s attention. Every person in Fletch's tiny gym is looking at us.
“One makes you feel like every part of the world is perfectly aligned so you can be happy,” Fletch says, surprising me with his wisdom and insight.
“That's right.”
“And the other one takes batteries.”
“YOU!”
“What about me?”
“I don't think this gym is the right place for this shoot,” I tell Michael.
“Oh, my dear, I think it's the perfect location,” he purrs. “Your anger is razor sharp. You look ethereal and street tough. How do you manage both?”
“I, uh...”
Fletch is pulled away from us by a crew member who has some questions about lighting. The snippets of their conversation I overhear are hard to grasp as Michael bulldozes through, saying something about the contract, my dewy skin, and...
“–have the two of you do some face-off stances, and–”
“Two of us? You hired a model to work with me? Rafaela said it would just be me.”
Michael holds up one long, pale finger. I pause.
Waving Fletch over, Michael leans in, hand on his shoulder, the two eye to eye as Michael says something, Fletch nodding, his gaze cutting over to me twice.
> “Sure,” he says with a slow headshake. “If that's what you want.”
“I can pay you a model fee. Nothing like what Fiona's getting, but–”
“Can you feature the gym in promos? Give me some free publicity? If yes, then no fee needed.”
Neither of them is trying to be quiet. They're speaking in a normal tone of voice, and as it dawns on me that Michael wants Fletch to be in the video and photo shoot, my irritation becomes a full-blown body flush.
The guy I've spent most of my teen and adult life avoiding is about to be in the spotlight with me for this endorsement deal.
“Hold on!” I call out to Fletch. “You could get way more money than free publicity.”
Michael gives me a murderous look that only serves to heighten my anxiety.
“I got it covered.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I'm fine.”
“But why would you–”
His fingertips press lightly against my lips, shushing me.
That full-body flush becomes a blazing fire.
“It's fine, Fiona. You're the one who always says that and expects other people to believe you. I'm fine. Everything is fine. Now get your ass over to one of those bags and start treating it like Rico.”
“You're not my trainer!”
“Not what you told that journalist at your door a week ago.”
“I said that to get him to leave!”
“Maybe it wasn't just a distraction. Maybe it was a prediction. Don't you believe in signals from the universe? Could your vibrators–er, vibrations–be telling you something that brought you here to me?”
Jolene's words echo inside the cavern of emptiness that is my mind: Go have your date with Fletch.
This isn't a date.
Just like the coffee at Beanerino wasn't a date.
But the universe is definitely telling me something about Fletch.
“You have the only boxing gym in a half-hour radius of Anderhill. This isn't fate. It's pragmatism.”
He hoots. “Since when did New-Agey woo-woo Feisty get pragmatic?”
“The minute your brother-in-law tried to hurt Mattie and my kids.”
All joking drains out of his body. We're in a stare-off, anger at the tips of our fingers and toes, a richer, deeper awakening taking the overexcited atoms that smash against the walls of our skin and moving them faster, harder, the heat exquisitely unbearable.