by Nina Post
Nathan was only half-listening. He manually calculated the depreciation tables for next year’s taxes.
DZ started walking back and forth behind the screens. “We have devised an Amass-and-Win contest with Quantal Organic Yogurt because we need this product to sell fast. We’ll be doing three phases of deployments, and I want this process perfected by phase one.” He paused by the screen and pointed at it, then smiled like a campaigning mayor.
“I need you to help me prove to Quantal –”
Nathan gave a grim smile at DZ’s skill.
DZ held up his hands like he was holding a ball. “ – that we can execute the spirit-imbuing process with near-100% reliability.”
The enchanters, all in dark hooded robes with unseen faces, murmured, nodded.
DZ rolled up his sleeves. “And achieve the client’s desired increase in sales by infecting,” he chuckled, eyes crinkling at the corners. The enchanters actually giggled.
“Oops,” DZ went on. “By enhancing susceptible hosts with biopersistent commerce spirits that make them crave that product. The spirits are absorbed, and they aren’t excreted. The nanomaterial – think of it as a Trojan horse – facilitates the translocation of the encapsulated spirit. Now all of that is fancy talk for ‘the customer eats the spirit and wants the product.’“
Nathan knew this was why DZ was the CEO of Cynosure Promotions. Well, that and his endless family money.
DZ slowly made fists with each hand like he was squeezing a stress ball. “I want all of you on my team. I can’t do this without you.” He pointed and made eye contact with each individual enchanter.
The enchanters blushed like schoolgirls. DZ wrapped up the chat and disconnected.
“Oh man,” DZ said as they left the office. He walked over to the side wall to the ping-pong table, picked up a paddle, and tapped the ball to a special handball-playing robot Nathan had tried to stop him from purchasing the previous month. “I’m going to look really good when I run these promotions and boost sales by like, 25,000%.”
Nathan leaned against a wall, already tired. “You didn’t tell me you were going ahead with the contest.”
DZ waved this off. “I’ve made the game period short so the product will move fast. I want results, like, yesterday.”
Tap tap, tap tap, TAP. “Yeah!” DZ slapped his paddle down on the table and headed over to the middle of the office and climbed into his Galaxy Force Super Deluxe arcade game, which was akin to a carnival ride.
“How short a game period are we talking about?” Nathan asked, stopping DZ from starting the game.
“A week.” DZ put his hands on the wheel.
“We shouldn’t do any contests,” Nathan said.
“Why not?”
“We don’t have the staff for it.”
“What do we need that for?”
“Oh, I don’t know … oversight?”
“It’s all good,” DZ said, pretending he was in a drift heading into a straightaway. “I’ve made the grand prize damn near irresistible. Stores won’t be able to keep Quantal Organic Yogurt in stock – even BEFORE customers ingest the spirits. AND,” he punched Nathan’s shoulder, adding a charming lopsided grin. “And,” another punch. Nathan angled away and held his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The contest is damn near unwinnable. The Amass-and-Win letters on the lids are glyphs from an ancient language that apparently only the oldest spirits know, so the enchanters tell me.”
Nathan rummaged around in a kitchen drawer for an aspirin.
“The contest rules specify that the game player has to spell ‘pudding’ with the glyphs. There’s only a miniscule fraction of a chance,” DZ pinched two fingertips together with a millimeter of space between them, “that someone would be able to spell that out with the glyphs, and even if they had that kind of dumb blind luck, the game period’s only a week long. If someone can round up enough foil lids, then accidentally spell the word – which even the world’s best linguistic anthropologist can’t decipher – and get his certified mail package into the prize handling facility in time, well, good for him or her. But that’s not gonna happen.”
Nathan pressed a glass against the fridge water dispenser and swallowed two aspirin.
DZ clapped his hands. “We’re good, then? I’m going to take two of the enchanters to the circus with me.”
“I’m not going to oversee your contest,” Nathan said, knowing full well that he would, just like he always cleaned the kitchen and ordered the office supplies. “And I’m not staying late to work on this just because you’re bored and can’t be alone.”
DZ put his fingertips to his chest and fake-gasped. “What? An enchanter is marvelous company.”
“You can’t stand the enchanters,” Nathan pointed out.
DZ pulled on his blazer and adjusted his collar and cuffs. “You can stay here and work, or you can go home and detail your bathroom with Q-Tips while Masterpiece Mystery plays in the background.”
Nathan didn’t think that sounded like a terrible idea.
“But I, my petulant friend, have places to go.” DZ grabbed the keys to his car and left.
Nathan sat in the Galaxy Force seat without turning on the power and relaxed into it. He wanted to stay there forever.
Eric rode his bike past Moog’s Smoke Shop and Pet Wash (‘We Have Beer’), going full-out fast to try and blast any thought that passed across his mind into oblivion.
A tri-axle logging truck stacked high with logs hurtled down the road toward him, and another truck roared up from behind him. He veered off the road into the grass, but the wind buffeted him right into a wet ditch in front of a life-sized plastic bison, several feet off the road. He spit mud out of his mouth and tested his limbs. He was mud-free on a narrow stripe of clothing on his right side.
His cell phone rang. Eric sat up, supported himself on his left elbow, and pulled out his phone.
“Hi.” He wiped a chunk of mud and grass off his face near his hairline.
“What’s wrong?” Willa asked. No-nonsense. She would want to formulate an action plan, despite placing his heart on an anvil and aiming a sledgehammer at it.
“A minor incident,” he said, flexing his elbow.
“You crashed your bike,” Willa said with a matter-of-fact tone. “I keep telling you to get a car.”
“I like my bike.” And he couldn’t afford a car along with the Princess, which was a rolling money pit. He may as well get a horse, though that probably had higher maintenance costs than a car.
“Taffy likes her bike, but she’s twelve and doesn’t have her driver’s license.”
Eric scooted back and leaned against the bison. A thatch of plastic fur jutted uncomfortably into his back. A dark blue luxury sedan cruised by, and slowed. The lawyers –
Striped Tie, Chronograph Watch, Thin Nose, and his friend Mark, driving – heading out of Jamesville back into the city.
Striped Tie stuck his head out the window. “I hope you used a condom!” he yelled.
Chronograph joined in. “Moo!”
The suits honked the car horn and erupted in laughter. Eric wondered if these guys actually spent any time at the office, or if they just drove around all day looking for people to make fun of.
“What was that?” Willa said over the phone. “Where are you?”
He rested an arm on his bent knee and cracked his neck to the side. “Almost home.”
“Good, you can do me a favor, unless you need to go to the hospital.” Willa hated being perceived as weak or vulnerable, so sometimes she acted brusque with him or with Taffy if either one fell off their bikes or ran into a wall.
“I’m fine,” Eric said.
“If you say so.” Willa paused for a half-second, a conversational glottal stop to get into the reason she called. “Taffy has something in the fridge that she needs tonight for her science fair project. I was going to –” she covered the phone to speak to someone in her office. “Sorry. I was going to get it to her myself but something
came up at work. I tried John, but he has bronchitis, and then I tried Amy, but she was in a beading circle. Oh, and my assistant.”
His chest tightened. “I was the fourth person you asked?” He spread his legs out with a splash and hit his head against the bison’s flank. His knee was sore and bleeding and his elbow hurt.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” she said, quick and smooth. “Anyway, follow the detailed packaging instructions Taffy left on the fridge and take it over to the school by five p.m. She needs it for the judge’s review, and be sure you’re on time, or she’ll get disqualified.”
Eric stood up. His clothes were soaked through, including his shoes, which were wet to the socks. He picked up his bike and checked it for damage, then shot out for home, shoes squishing, hand bleeding on the handlebar.
When Eric arrived at the house, he made a pit stop in the bathroom near the kitchen. He stripped off his wet clothes and hung them on the shower rod. There was no time for a shower, so he used a damp hand towel to take off the mud and clean his scratches. He had a sudden, horrid thought of Willa and Taffy deciding that he was a lousy husband and father, deserting him, leaving him to end up alone in a terrible assisted living facility, getting a monthly sponge bath from a perfunctory nurse. He sprinted to the bedroom in his underwear and changed all of his clothes, then stopped by the bathroom again to stuff a few alcohol pads and adhesive bandages in his pocket.
As Willa had said, Taffy’s instructions were meticulously detailed, with a packing and transport checklist and a diagram of the item and how it was to be packed. He was not to open her science fair object. He was not to inhale it. He was not to expose his skin to it. Most important, he was not to eat it. He lined the cooler with ice packs, took the mysterious item from the fridge, then placed it carefully in the center of the cooler.
Eric secured the cooler to the bike and started out again, his knee and elbow aching.
Chapter Six
Eric wound his bike through traffic. Taffy’s school was still a few miles away, but at this rate, he wouldn’t get the cooler to her in time – and ‘Disappointing Taffy’ was at the top of his already long list of things to avoid. ‘Disappointing Taffy’ ranked even higher than ‘Getting Possessed by a Narcissistic Spirit Who Refuses to Leave,’ and that was saying a lot.
He put his hand on the roof of a Honda to stabilize himself on the bike while he waited for an opening.
“Are you a model?” The thirty-something woman in the driver’s seat to his immediate right put a hand out the window and tapped her long, coral-colored nails along the rim of the window.
“Me? No.” It was true that he was not currently a model, but he had appeared in more than thirty print ads (some full, some just underwear), had been a nude model for art classes, had small parts in some regional commercials and a jeans commercial in Italy, and posed for two male pinup calendars in college. A scholarship was nearly impossible to sustain over three years with the law school grading numbers game, so he planned on paying the rest of his way with modeling.
“Because you could totally be a model.” She dropped her hand and poked his leg gently with a fingernail.
“Thanks.” He flashed her a half-smile then took advantage of a slight opening to ride up a few car lengths to an intersection. He had the option of a few different routes, and considered which one would get him to the school faster.
“In a hurry?” Rex was sitting to Eric’s left, on the back of a black motorcycle behind a tattooed thug in a leather jacket. Rex pulled the man’s fringe on the back of the vest.
“It’s none of your business.” Eric darted his eyes, trying not to turn his head or move his mouth. After pulling his life back together, Eric realized that Rex wasn’t leaving, and it wasn’t because he couldn’t. Rex could go anywhere he wanted. Sometimes he would leave without notice for days to possess someone else, but he would always come back.
“Everything is my business, especially you.” Rex pointed at him. “I have a responsibility. I could be possessing anyone right now, but here I am.”
“I hereby absolve you,” Eric said through gritted teeth. “Again.”
“‘Preciate that. So, where you going?” Rex asked.
Eric shook his head. “Didn’t you hear me?” Then, after a few seconds, the muscles in his face tightening, he said, “I could go left and take the service road, or go straight down Main, or head right and go through the side streets.”
The thug turned his head like a gargoyle coming to life. “You talking to me?”
Eric’s heart thumped faster. He tried to act like he was just waiting in traffic and had maybe been repeating complicated directions to himself. The light changed but there was no room for the cars to pull forward, so all but one moron stayed put. Eric was nearly frozen with anxiety. Any path he chose would be the wrong one, as it had been for most decisions he had made in his life, even as simple as Look, a free sample of a drink. I’m thirsty and in a hurry. I’m going to stop and take one. And now he had this guy who wanted to pummel his face in.
Main Street seemed like the most obvious wrong choice, but it could clear up, and it was the most direct path to the school. If there were a truck on the service road, it would block the whole thing, and make passing dangerous. Taking side streets through the town would be time-consuming.
“I’ve seen that look before,” Rex said. “You want my opinion, I say service road.”
“Oh, really,” Eric said. “What makes you think I want your opinion?”
Rex smiled. “You’ve asked for it about a million times.”
The thug snarled and revved his handles.
Eric waited a few minutes so it wouldn’t look like he was just blindly following Rex’s suggestion, or like he was intimidated by the thug, then rode left to the service road, where he promptly got stuck. A commercial truck had broken down and another, smaller truck had pulled up next to it. He heard the thug’s motorcycle rumble up behind him.
Eric rode his bike over to the side streets on the opposite side of Main Street, zipping through narrow spaces, between cars and fire hydrants, wherever a motorcycle couldn’t go. There were a couple of close calls when the thug drew close and even drew a blade. With one deft move, he reached out and drew a shallow cut on Eric’s thigh, then pushed the bike frame until Eric almost fell over. Eric regained his balance and shot through a narrow alley between a pizza restaurant and a real estate office.
He didn’t get to the school until 5:40 p.m. Forty minutes late.
Eric held the cooler close to his chest and ran with it inside the school. At the last minute he remembered the bandages he stuffed in his pocket at the house. Even though his cut was shallow, it was bleeding, and he didn’t want to distract Taffy. He set the cooler down on the floor and ripped open one of the bandages. He let the wrapping flutter to the floor and affixed the bandage on the cut. He wiped some blood off with spit then picked up the cooler. He burst through the heavy double doors of the gymnasium into the science fair and looked around frantically for his daughter.
“You’re too late,” Taffy said, her arms crossed. She appraised her Dad’s appearance with blue ‘Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather Part II’ eyes. She was in her usual fluorescent orange high-tops, jeans, faded t-shirt (fungi assortment), and denim jacket as a concession to science fair formality. Her hair was tied back with plastic fluorescent orange balls.
“The judges did their review and I was disqualified,” she said.
Eric’s heart fell. He sighed then lowered himself onto a metal folding chair. “I’m sorry, Gibby,” he said, using her pet name. “I’m so, so sorry.” He rested his head against the wall, then inhaled and leaned forward, arms outstretched “I’ll fix it. I’ll talk to the principal and –”
She put up a hand. “No, Dad, I’ll take care of it. Thanks for trying. You can leave the cooler here. I’m getting a ride with Amy’s family.”
Eric stood. He wanted to hug her, but hesitated, and instead picked up the cooler
and handed it to her. She opened her mouth as though to say something, but changed her mind. She held up a hand in a still wave goodbye, then returned to the labyrinth of exhibits.
Rex materialized next to him. “Bummer.”
Eric whirled around to glare at him and spoke in a low, tense voice. “If you hadn’t told me to take the service road –”
Rex backed away a step. “I merely suggested you take the service road. You should have done whatever you thought was best. How is this my fault?”
Eric leaned in closer and tried to talk without moving his mouth. “Because you showed up and I asked for your opinion.”
“Which is normally infallible,” Rex said. “But I don’t take the roads. I mean, did you see what I just did with the wall?”
Eric checked the busy floor for Taffy, with a dim hope that maybe she would come back. He spoke to Rex while looking straight ahead at the fair. “Did you steer me the wrong way on purpose? Will you ever be done with screwing up my life?”
“I’m helping you,” Rex said.
“You’re about as helpful as whatever Taffy had in that cooler.”
“I’ll come back later when you’re less fussy, since I don’t have a cookie to give you.” Rex disappeared.
Eric wanted to go see Taffy, but he’d just embarrass her, considering he looked like he fell off his bike and into a wet ditch then knifed by a thug. And if she wasn’t actually mad at him, she was … not pleased. He wanted to see her exhibit and be there for her, but knew she wouldn’t want him around, and he hated that he let her down again. He was having such a great day, he considered topping it off by having his doctor image everything in his body so they could find something suspicious.
No, screw this, he thought. He was being an idiot. He was going to see Taffy’s exhibit. He strode up to the center of the fair and twisted around, scanning the booths for her face, for her orange hair thing, for her t-shirt.