by Aly Martinez
Quarry: Good to know we at least have transparency in the workplace. But, as The Man, I’m curious how you’re going to manage to pee 280 times a day.
Me: Oh, I forgot to mention I’ll also be drinking 1298 oz of water. Cha-ching! You sure you don’t want to just give me the money and save us all the trouble?
Quarry: Nah. This sounds like more fun. See you tonight.
Me: Later, Q
Quarry: Later, Rocky.
Shaking my head, I hurried toward the after-school room, continuously praying that this guy had actually read the help wanted ad all the other people I’d interviewed had seemed to struggle with.
“Sorry I’m late!” I said as I entered the room.
A tall, older man with salt-and-pepper hair and blue eyes greeted me with a warm smile. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, pushing to his feet and extending his hand in my direction. “I’m Don Blake. I’m here about the assistant position.”
After returning his shake, I lifted my hands and signed, Nice to meet you too. I’m Liv James.
His smile grew as his hands fluidly replied, Nice to meet you too. I believe we spoke on the phone earlier.
“Oh thank God!” I rushed a relieved breath. “You actually know how to sign.”
He tipped his head in amusement. “I figured that would be a requirement to assist the director of the ASL program.”
“You would be amazed! I had a guy come in earlier and the only sign language he knew was a song he learned at church when he was eight.”
He narrowed his eyes in question as he settled back into the chair, signing, Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so?
“Yes! That one!”
He let out a deep laugh then signed as he spoke. “Wow. I didn’t know my competition would be so steep. Should I just leave now?”
And he was fluent! Maybe that first guy hadn’t been wrong. Jesus really did love me.
“You’re hired!” I yelled. “And, when I say hired, I mean, I’ll be working you to the bone for free. I do, however, bring Starbucks every day. Oh, and baked goods on the days my roommate doesn’t demolish them. So there will be perks.”
“Now there’s no way I could turn down an offer like that,” he teased with a grin.
“You have no idea how excited I am right now. I’ve spent weeks trying to find an assistant who could help out on the nights I can’t be here. I adore teaching, but with my other job, I just can’t keep up with all the tutoring and grading. Plus, I travel a lot, so I need someone who could cover some group exercises on the nights I’m away.”
“I should be able to handle that without a problem. What do you do for your other job?”
I swayed my head from side to side in consideration. “I’m an assistant.”
He chuckled. “So you need an assistant so you can be an assistant to someone else?”
“Pretty much.” I shrugged. “My best friend is a hearing-impaired professional boxer. What started out as translating for him during post-fight interviews as a favor quickly turned into a full-time job. Now, I’m his translator, personal assistant, chef, maid, stylist, and, most recently, acting referee when he gets into arguments with his brothers. That alone could be a full-time job.”
“Wow. You sound busy.”
“You could definitely say that, but I love it. I’ve been doing most of those things for the last four years anyway. At least, now, he pays me. It’s fun too. Quarry and I have been friends forever, so it’s more like just hanging out than really working.”
He leaned in close. “Wait. Quarry Page?”
“That would be him. Are you a boxing fan?”
“Absolutely! I’ve lived in Indy all my life. I remember seeing his older brother fight back in the day.”
“Oh cool. Yeah, Till’s retired now. He still trains Quarry and some of the other kids at the gym now.”
“This is incredible. I can’t wait to tell the friends I’m the volunteer assistant to Quarry Page’s paid assistant.” He smiled teasingly, but I could see the genuine excitement sparkling in his eyes.
It always made me laugh when people thought of Quarry as famous. I mean, I knew he technically was, but to me, he’d always be that boy I’d met in a back alley all those years earlier. Sure, he was loaded now, but our lives hadn’t changed all that much since his career had taken off.
Thanks to fights and a few big endorsement deals, Quarry was worth millions, but it’s not like he was out blowing money all over town. Yes, he had a mild obsession with expensive sports cars, but that was about the extent of his frivolousness. We still lived in the same apartment we had since I’d first moved in.
There was a brief period about two years earlier when he started house shopping. We must have looked at over a hundred.
Big houses.
Small houses.
Expensive houses.
Starter homes.
Mansions.
Condos.
And everything in between.
Quarry was too picky though. I had fallen in love with one, but no matter how nice the place, he’d managed to find something wrong with it. Till had even set him up with the architect who’d designed his and Eliza’s house, but Quarry had hated everything she had come up with.
Eventually, he had given up and decided to buy a huge TV and new furniture for our apartment.
I hadn’t complained because…well, I hadn’t wanted him to move out. I loved living together. He’d also let me pick the furniture out. Win-win.
Leaning across the table that divided us, Don prodded, “So tell me about Davenport. That fight finally gonna happen or what?
I gasped and plugged my ears with my fingers. “No! Don’t say that name! It’s like Beetlejuice or that guy from Harry Potter. We never say that name!”
Garrett Davenport, while he sounded like a pretentious dick, was actually a badass boxer. Not as badass as Quarry, but then again, I couldn’t guarantee that since they hadn’t actually fought yet. Davenport was the four-time reigning world heavyweight champion, and he loathed Quarry Page something fierce.
Over a year earlier, Quarry had been given his long-awaited, highly anticipated title fight. He’d busted his ass in the gym day and night in preparation. However, three days before the match, Davenport sprained his ankle. Quarry was disappointed, but shit happens. However, two weeks later, when Garrett was photographed skiing in Vail with his girlfriend, his injury seemed a little too convenient (read: fake). Over the three months, he was “recovering,” Davenport spewed more shit than a sewage line that had sprung a leak. But he didn’t just talk about Quarry’s boxing. He attacked him personally. It was like a political campaign and he was determined to slay Quarry in the public eye. He cast slanderous shadows on Quarry’s role in Eliza’s kidnapping and, ultimately, Flint’s injury. He even went so far as to bring up Mia’s death, making outlandish accusations that suggested Quarry hadn’t acted quickly enough to save her.
That was when Quarry lost his mind. And not just like he was pissed. I mean we all thought there was a good chance Garrett was going to be found dead with Quarry standing over his bloody carcass.
When it finally came time for their fight, Quarry was still fuming. Thus, when Davenport whispered a sweet nothing in his ear during the weigh-in, he blew up. Punches weren’t just thrown—they were weaponized. By the time the men were pulled apart, Davenport was unrecognizable and Quarry’s right hand was broken. Needless to say, the fight was canceled—again. As the champion, Davenport was assigned a new opponent a few weeks later, while Quarry sucked it up and nursed his injury.
The boxing association stiffly fined them both because of the widely televised brawl at the weigh-in, but that was one check Quarry didn’t mind writing.
It pissed me off though.
I got it. He was hurt and angry. But beating the shit out of a man was no punishment when he still walked away with the belt slung over his shoulder. Quarry deserved that title; he’d more than proved that. But Davenport knew th
at the only way he could win that fight was if it never happened. So he weaseled into Quarry’s brain, lit the fuse, and then sat back and watched the fireworks.
That’s when “Golden” Garrett Davenport became my opponent.
Fuck with Quarry physically all day long—he could handle it. But no one screwed with his head. I didn’t care if he was six feet three and over two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. I was protective.
So yeah, after the shit we’d been through, no one got to utter Garrett Davenport’s name. Not even clueless Don Blake.
“Okay. Okay.” He chuckled as I shook my head and pretended to shiver. “I’ll never utter his name again.”
“Good call. We should probably change the subject immediately before Quarry senses this conversation and feels the need to destroy my apartment.”
He chuckled again. “Okay. So, any other names or words I should know that are off-limits?”
“Nope. Just that one.” I returned his smile. “Tell me a little about yourself, Don?”
He reclined in the chair and regarded me humorously. “It’s an exciting story, so brace yourself.”
Clutching my chest, I exaggerated a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“I sell cars at a dealership downtown. Relatively flexible schedule. I’m single. My wife and I divorced over a decade ago. I have a couple of kids, but they’re all grown and married now. Figure it’s as good a time as any to get out and do something in my spare time.”
“Wow. That was riveting,” I deadpanned.
“I know. I get that a lot.”
We both laughed.
“So, where’d you learn sign?” I asked.
“I was never formally taught or anything. I was raised by my grandparents, and my grandfather lost his hearing when he was eighteen. It was a necessity to communicate with him. He passed away when I was a teenager, but some things just stick with you.”
Hmmm. He looked a long way from a teenager.
I decided to test him one last time. Only signing, I asked, How have you maintained your competency all these years? You don’t seem rusty at all.
He shrugged and his eyes momentarily flashed to the ground uncomfortably. “Honestly?”
“I’d appreciate it if you were.”
He nodded absently. “I was extremely rusty a few years ago. Then I met someone, and let’s just say, I found a reason to brush up on my skills.” His smile dimmed as he dropped his hands into his lap. “So here I am now, just hoping I can use this position to keep myself polished up in case I ever get the chance to talk to her again.” He paused and released a sad sigh. “A man can dream, right?”
I offered him a sympathetic smile. “You came to the right place. I have more than enough tasks to keep you at the top of your game.”
He clapped his hands together and painted on another grin. “So, when do I start, boss?”
* * *
Me: OMG OMG OMG I finally found an assistant!!!! He’s grading papers for me tomorrow, so I’ll have the whole day off.
Quarry: Does this mean you’re good to go with me next week?
Me: Yep. I’m celebrating by getting drunk tonight!
Quarry: Thank God…but no.
Me: No what?
Quarry: You aren’t drinking. Last time you did, I ended up almost fighting an angry circus clown after you made his girlfriend cry by complimenting her Oompa Loompa costume.
Me: That was NOT the last time I drank. That was my 21st birthday. And I won’t say it again. She looked like an Oompa Loompa and you know it!
Quarry: She wasn’t in costume!
Me: Then why was she orange?!
Quarry: Who the hell knows? The better question would be why the hell her boyfriend was dressed like a clown? And why exactly he thought picking a fight with me would end well for him?
Me: Oh my God! Do you remember when Ash started begging him to make her balloon animals because she thought Flint hired him for my birthday?
Quarry: I thought someone was going to have to bail Flint out of jail when Bozo snapped at her.
Me: Ya know, for a man whose face was painted in a big, red smile, he really was a grouchy clown.
Quarry: Come on. Give the guy a break. It was probably the first time he realized he was in a relationship with a dangerous escapee from Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
Me: Lol! That was such a fun night.
Quarry: No.
Me: No. What?
Quarry: No, we aren’t going out after this charity thing tonight.
Me: Oh, Grandpa Page, I would never dream of dragging you out. I’m well aware how much you love hiding out at home. I’ll just celebrate by drinking wine and making you watch me reenact Grease 2 again.
Quarry: Dear. God. Why?
Me: You want me to grab you some beer on my way home?
Quarry: Yes and a bottle of chloroform.
Me: Hi-larious!
Quarry: Where are you anyway? Isn’t it gonna take you four days to get dressed? We have to leave in an hour.
Me: I had my hair and makeup done. I just need to put on my dress and shoes. The most time-consuming part will be yelling at you to change until you finally relent and put on the damn suit instead of whatever jeans you have on right now.
Quarry: Promise me no Grease 2 and I’ll be in the suit when you get here.
Me: Deal. See you in ten.
Quarry: Cool.
Me: Actually, make that twenty. I’m gonna stop at a Redbox and see if they have The Sound of Music.
Quarry: Fuck!
Chapter Ten
Quarry
WHEN I WAS EIGHT YEARS old, my mom’s latest loser boyfriend found a way to steal cable from the neighbors. It was short-lived, seeing as everyone in our apartment complex had figured it out months earlier, but for that weekend, Flint and I thought we had hit the jackpot. We huddled around the TV every waking minute. The picture was shit, constantly breaking into static, but we didn’t dare give up or turn it off for fear it would disappear for good. It was only a matter of time before we were rewarded for our dedication when the screen unscrambled. And, like the dumb kids we were, we gasped with excitement, hoping those minutes of clarity would last forever.
They didn’t.
The snow once again clouded our view, leaving us longing to reclaim those stolen flashes of clarity.
Over the years, my life began to resemble those days spent staring at a half-assed TV. There were bits of entertainment breaking up the otherwise monotonous drone of static, but for the most part, my life was nothing more than a black-and-white, jumbled mess. The world around me functioned as nothing more than a noisy distraction to keep my mind occupied while I desperately waited for the bigger picture to come into focus.
The only problem was, after Mia died, I wasn’t even sure what the picture of my life looked like anymore.
My only clarity came inside the boxing ring or in the solitude of my apartment—with Liv.
It took a long time, but the wound Mia had left behind eventually scabbed over. But nothing filled the hollowness inside me. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint what was missing. I just knew that it was gone.
Every single day, I smiled.
Every single day, I lived.
Every single day, I laughed.
And, every single night, I stared at my ceiling, trying to figure out why none of those things left me feeling even an ounce of contentment.
Those feelings usually led me to pace our small apartment until I gave in, donned my hearing aids, and sat in the hall, listening to the music blaring from under the crack of Liv’s door. For a while, I thought she was on to something with the whole sleeping-with-music thing. But, after several failed attempts at sleeping while sitting up in order to keep my hearing aids in, I gave up and found myself leaning against her door again.
Nightly.
For years.
Occasionally, I’d doze off.
More often, I’d go back to my room and wait for sleep to overpower the lin
gering chaos consuming my mind.
But, sometimes, if I got really lucky, I’d think of an excuse to wake her up.
Those hours spent in her dimly lit room, discussing whatever random topic I could find to keep her talking, were enough to temporarily extinguish the static. And, if I hadn’t felt so fucking guilty each morning as she left for work with dark circles under her eyes, it would have become my nightly routine.
Liv never said a word about my late-night appearances in her room—not even to give me shit about them. That wasn’t who she was. She knew I needed it and she gave it freely.
That was Liv James.
It was who we were together.
On the flip side, I gave it to her too.
I never once said a word about the nights I’d wake up to find her in my bed. I wasn’t sure why she was there because she never woke me up to talk or cuddled into my back for comfort. She was just there. Headphones on. iPod on the nightstand. Long hair fanned out behind her. Black lashes fluttering in REM. There.
The next morning, she was always gone when I woke up.
But she’d been there. I knew because those were the nights I basked in the silence.
Every single time, I’d smile as I tugged the blanket over her.
Every single time, I felt alive while watching her lost in peaceful slumber.
Every single time, I’d laugh as her chest shuddered with what I assumed was a soft snore.
And, every single time, I’d stare at the ceiling as contentment washed over me, lulling me into the most amazing sleep of my life.
Those nights weren’t just the clarity—they were the blinding colors that made me wake up the next morning, put one foot in front of the other, and take on another day.
It didn’t happen frequently, but at least once a month, I’d find her at my side.
But guilt overwhelmed me.
Because, nightly, I’d selfishly wish that whatever demon had her sneaking into my room would find her and allow me a few hours with her at my side to escape my own.
I can honestly say without a single doubt that Liv James was the only reason I didn’t self-destruct over the years. I could have easily gone off the deep end, losing myself in anger at the fucking universe that seemed so hell-bent on ruining me.