by Penny Reid
I cleared my throat and continued, “And why would Charlton Heston want to be with the ape? No one would, even though she has this huge- huge... brain.”
Viki blinked at me then looked at Quinn, “Where didja meet this one?”
Viki’s question was directed at Quinn but I couldn’t help answer, hoping to make up for my gaffe, “I met him last week and before that I saw him a few times at my building where he works as a security guard. I used to work as an accountant there before I was downsized.”
Viki’s unibrow crinkled over her nose until it came to a point, “A security guard?”
I gulped in air and gave her a tight smile as I reached for my coffee, wanting to change the subject, “I love coffee. Brazil is now the world leader in the production of green coffee but, in East Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in native religious ceremonies that competed with the Christian Church. Because of this the Ethiopian Church banned secular consumption of coffee for many years.” I brought the mug to my lips and sipped the bitter black brew, mostly to keep myself from talking. The coffee burned my tongue. I ignored it. “Mmmmm, coffee.”
Viki’s eyes moved between me and Quinn, her unibrow still suspended on her face, “Riiiight.” she finally said.
I heard Quinn clear his throat before he spoke, “She’ll have eggs over easy, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and toast with extra butter. I’ll have the usual.” As he ordered he pulled my menu away and handed it to Viki along with his and I noted his voice sounded different, distant. Viki gave us both a small, quizzical smile as she left.
I sipped more of my black coffee and glanced again at Quinn. He wasn’t looking at me; his mouth was a precise straight line and his temple ticked as he flexed his jaw. I couldn’t read his sculpted features. I felt like I must have embarrassed him or said something inappropriate. This was not a new feeling for me, regretting my words; but, this time, I felt remorse on his behalf.
I set the cup down and sighed, “I’m sorry.” I tried pulling my fingers thought my hair but again abandoned the effort when I encountered unruly knots. “I have a bad habit of saying what I’m thinking and-”
He held his hand up and shook his head, “No- no need to apologize.” He gave me a tight smile that didn’t reach anywhere near his eyes, “You were just being... honest. It’s not the first time I’ve been called a Neanderthal.”
“You’re not a Neanderthal.” I frowned at him, “For one thing, you’re far too tall. And, I was comparing myself to the Neanderthal due to their physical features. You know- the size of their heads.”
“So, you’re saying your head is larger than mine?”
“Yes. No- what I mean is, they have big awkward heads, or are believed to have had big awkward heads, large for their body. Then, there is also the hair.”
“Hair?”
“Yes, hair. It is hypothesized that red hair-” I gestured to my crazy-town curls, “comes from Neanderthal inter-breading with earliest humans.”
“So, Neanderthals and humans did breed?”
“Yes. Female humans and male Neanderthals may have bred successfully- which, if you think about it, isn’t so far-fetched as big headed men and small- er, normal headed woman still breed quite often today. But, currently, scientists believe that the male humans who mated with female Neanderthals created sterile offspring. They believe this because there is a lack of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA present in modern humans. So, as you can see and if you reflect on it, awkward headed-females mating with beautifully normal headed-males is a bad idea.”
He blinked at me once, frowned, then turned his attention to his coffee. Unbearable silence lay like a thick blanket of soot around us. I figured he was regretting his decision to invite me to breakfast. I thought about comparing myself to a donkey and him to a horse but instead bit my lip to keep from speaking.
I noted his cheeks, neck, and the bridge of his nose were tinged with a faint shade of pink, likely due to annoyance with my fumbled conversation. I searched my brain for anything which would distract him. An abrupt thought came to me and, for lack of a better strategy, I decided to resort to a parlor trick which usually either amazed or endeared me to people. It would also be an excellent demonstration of my freakishness but I didn’t really have anything to lose.
I licked my lips before speaking, “So, uh, want to see a trick?”
He shrugged his shoulders, his tone flat, “Sure.”
I turned in my seat to face him, resting my elbow and arm along the counter. “Give me any two numbers and I can give you their value in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.”
He turned toward me, met my gaze with a disbelieving one of his own, “What- in your giant brain?”
I noted that he sounded interested, which I felt was an improvement, but chose to ignore his giant brain comment. “Yes. In my brain. No paper.”
His mouth hooked to the side just barely, “Any two numbers?”
I nodded once, “Try me.”
He turned his body to me completely and I tried to ignore how his legs bumped into me, one of his knees settling between mine as we faced each other. “Hmmm...” his gaze narrowed speculatively, “Ok, 400 and 700.”
I wrinkled my nose, “Addition: 1100, subtraction: negative 300, multiplication: 210000, division: .57 yada yada yada. Ok, give me a hard one now.”
He blinked at me, his mouth slightly open, then he smiled; it was a small albeit real smile and rubbed his hands on his thighs, “Fine. A hard one then: 21 and 5124.”
I let out a breath of relief, our earlier unpleasantness seemingly forgotten. “5145, 5103, 107604, and... .004 yada yada yada. That wasn’t a hard one.”
He half laughed half sighed, “How do you do that?”
I shrugged, “I don’t know. I’ve just always been able to. It comes in handy on Thursdays.”
“What happens on Thursdays?”
“I tutor at the Kid’s Club on Thursday afternoons in math and science. Sometimes, if I can’t get them to focus, I distract them with my ‘freakishness’.” I used air quotes for the word ‘freakishness’ then frowned. I hated it when people used air quotes. It was like when someone says ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. As in ‘We would be so delighted… we just did the laundry… we have a yeast infection.’
“Why did they downsize you? It seems like you would make an incredible accountant.”
“I don’t know that either. My friend Kat- she still works there- she was going to try to find out but hasn’t been able to find the reason.”
He took a sip of his coffee then said, “Has anyone else been let go?”
“No. I’m the only one. But you have to admit, I’m pretty strange. Maybe they were just looking for an excuse to get rid of me. I have a tendency to make people uncomfortable with- you know- trivial facts.” I was about to air quote ‘freakishness’ again but successfully suppressed the urge.
“Hm.” His clear blue eyes narrowed as they studied me. “Are you-” he set his cup down and leaned a little closer, “Do you have a photographic memory?”
I laughed despite myself, mostly due to nervousness caused by his proximity, “No, God no. I’d forget my name if it weren’t on my driver’s license.” Then I frowned at the inaccuracy of my statement, “Actually, I don’t have a driver’s license since I moved to the City, but my name is on my credit card and my state ID.”
He continued to survey me for a long minute then asked, “Have you found a job yet?”
I shook my head and rolled my lips between my teeth. Even though it had only been a week and half and I was eligible for unemployment, I felt anxiety about my current state of being out of work.
He reached for his coffee and watched me over the rim of the cup as though he were considering something, considering me. When he put his cup down he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a business card and a pen, “I think I might be able to help you.” He wrote on the back side of the business card.
“What? Do you think I should get into the sec
urity guard business? I am pretty tall, for a girl. And I can be fierce when needs be.”
He tilted his head to the side in the same way I was becoming used to then handed me the card, “I don’t doubt it but my company always needs someone good in the business office.” He closed his pen and set it on the counter, “I’ve written down the name and number of our Director of Business Operations. You should call him, send him your resume. I can get you the interview- if you want- but you’ll have to get the job on your own.”
Viki returned with our food as I studied the card. I turned it between my fingers and read the front:
Quinn Sullivan- Cypher Systems, Inc.
Under his name was his phone number and business email address. I flipped the card to the back and stared at his handwriting rather than the name and number and information he’d written. His letters were all capitals, severe and precise; he put little dashes through his sevens but not through his zeros; his words were in a straight line rather than drifting up or down in the absence of lined paper. I liked his handwriting. I imagined reading a handwritten letter from him. I thought about him writing it, taking the time to sit and write and think of me. It made a volcano of warmth erupt in my stomach.
When I looked up he was frowning at me, his gaze guarded, “Of course you don’t have to apply if you don’t want to.”
I placed my hand on his arm without thinking, “Oh, no! I’m going to apply. Really, thank you. Thank you for thinking of me.” I withdrew my hand when his eyes moved to my fingers and I tried to tuck my hair behind my ears as I turned to the plate of greasy food left by Viki. I stared at the plate for a moment before I spoke, “I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done for me. Last night and-” I swallowed a building lump in my throat, “and this morning and now this.” I gestured to the card on the counter. I met and held his gaze as I added with a thankful smile, “You’re a really nice guy.”
His frown deepened as though I’d just insulted him. His attention moved over my face, hair, neck, then stopped; he closed his eye-lids before he sighed and looked upward in an almost stealth eye-roll.
He half said, half mumbled, “I’m not that nice.”
~*~
Despite one more extremely awkward moment where Quinn wanted to drive me home on his motorcycle and I somewhat freaked out, stubbornly refused, and insisted on taking a cab, the rest of the breakfast was actually really nice. Rather, more precisely, it was as nice as it could be considering I spent most of our time together distracted, attempting to think of a way to get him shirtless again. During one weak moment I contemplated throwing my coffee at him.
Later that night, as I lay on the couch in Elizabeth’s apartment trying to concentrate on reading my book and failing, I thought about my debate with Quinn about the motorcycle. If he’d offered to drive me home in a car I likely would have said yes.
As it was, he owned a motorcycle.
I’ve never been on a motorcycle and, since my mother died on one, I have absolutely no desire to ever ride on a motorcycle. Obviously, I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t like to think about much less talk about my mother’s death and I doubted Quinn, already thinking I was a complete nutcase, much wanted to hear about it.
“Janie? Janie, are you here?” I heard Elizabeth burst through the door just as I was getting up to brush my teeth, for the tenth time that day, and go to bed. There was an unexpected urgency in her voice so I met her at the hall.
“Yeah- I’m here, are you ok?”
When she saw me she stepped back and closed her eyes, her hand was over her chest; “Oh God. I’m going to kill Jon.”
I lifted my eyebrows in confusion. “Jon? My Jon? What happened?”
Elizabeth let the bag on her shoulder fall to the ground and she sighed, “He called me, like, eleventy thousand times today, he kept paging me. He said the two if you were supposed to meet today and you didn’t show up.”
It took me approximately five seconds to remember my meeting with Jon, that I’d promised to meet him, and realize that I completely forgot all about it. The sight of Quinn’s bare chest must have wiped my memory.
“Oh geeze, I totally forgot!”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, “You need to get a cell phone. I’m blocking his number from mine.”
“I am so sorry, Elizabeth. I’m sorry he bothered you at work.”
“Don’t worry about it, I was more worried about you.” She laughed lightly, pulling off her work clogs, “But you might want to send him an email or call him on Skype. He said something about calling in a missing persons report.” She stopped to give me a brief hug before walking to her room, “I’m glad you’re ok.”
I nodded and turned to my laptop. It was already ten. I knew he would be up but didn’t particularly want to speak with him so I opted to send him an email instead. When I opened my account I saw that he’d already emailed me five times, each message progressing in level of anxiety, the last was sent less than a half hour ago and read:
Would you please call me and let me know you are ok? I am going crazy with worry. I love you, Janie, and just want to know you are ok. I get that I hurt you and that you are mad, but please don’t punish me like this. This isn’t like you. If you’re trying to make me upset then, you’ve succeeded. If you don’t want to see me then you can just say so. I’m scared to death that you are somewhere hurt. If you get this and you are ok then we really need to talk about getting you a cell phone. Please call me. –Jon
I sighed and gritted my teeth, annoyed both by his presumption that ‘we’ would talk about cell phones as well as at the pinch of guilt that I felt, as I typed my email:
Jon- I’m ok. Honestly, I forgot about meeting you today. I’m sorry I didn’t call, there is no reason to worry. Elizabeth just came home and said that you were calling her at work. Please don’t do that again. You know that I usually check my email at least once a day and you also know how I feel about cell phones. I have no problem meeting you, I don’t want to upset you, and I’m not punishing you. I really do want us to be friends. Let me know if you want to try to meet up next week sometime. Talk to you soon, Janie
I stared at my cursor and re-read my email. I decided to delete “Talk to you soon” then I sent it. I didn’t want him to think I was promising to speak with him soon. I took a moment to read through my email and noted, with a great degree of frustration, that my inbox did not contain any responses to the hundreds of employment queries I’d sent.
My thoughts drifted back to Quinn and I remembered the card he gave me at breakfast. I reached to the coffee table in front of me and pulled out the card, letting my thumb caress his name before flipping it over to the Director of Operations’ contact information on the back. My mouth curved into a wistful smile when my eyes met with the image of Quinn’s handwriting. I really was ridiculous.
I clicked the ‘compose’ button and attached my resume, typing a quick letter of introduction in the body of the message. As an afterthought I decided to cc-Quinn on the email. I wanted him to see that I was actually very interested in the position and thankful for his recommendation.
Just as I hit send on the email my account chimed with a new message from Jon. I stared at the subject line:
“I’m sorry, I love you.”
I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest. Shaking my head I closed my laptop without opening his message. I was tired. I huffed again. I wanted to brush my teeth and go to bed. I didn’t like how uncomfortable, and guilty, Jon made me feel when I was certain- well, mostly certain- that he was the reason we were no longer together.
“You keep sighing- I can hear you in my room.” Elizabeth came around the couch and flopped down next to me, stretching her arms over her head as she did so; “What happened with Jon?”
I shrugged and unthinkingly expelled another loud breath; “I emailed him. I don’t really want to talk to him right now.”
“You need a cell phone-”
“No. If I had a cell phone then I’d have to talk to
him. Since I don’t have one I get to put that conversation off until I’m ready to have it.”
“Fair enough.” Elizabeth lifted her hands as though she surrendered, “I don’t want to talk about old soggy pants anyway.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes; Elizabeth started calling Jon soggy pants when he sat in a wet seat at a movie theater once, accidentally, and spent the whole movie with wet pants after confirming the liquid was soda.
“So...” Elizabeth wagged her eyebrows at me, “I have something for you.” She pulled a card out of seemingly thin air and squealed as she forced it into my hand, “Look! It’s Quinn’s card! He gave it to me last night before we left the club.”
I stared at it for a minute before I responded, “Oh. Are you going to call him?”
Elizabeth frowned at me then hit me on the arm, “What? No! You left the club so fast. He stopped me and asked me to give it to you.” She nudged me with her shoulder, “He wants you to call him. Ah! Janie and McHotpants, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g and f-u-c-”
“Wait-” I cut her off, “No, no- he gave you the card because he wants to help me find a job. He thinks there might be an opening with the security firms he works for.”
Elizabeth smirked, “Oh, reeeealy? That’s preposterous! What would give you that idea?”
I pulled an identical card from next to my laptop and handed it to Elizabeth; “Because he gave me one too; he wrote the name of a business manager on the back and told me to apply for a job.”
Elizabeth looked from one card to the other, briefly speechless, then demanded, “Wait- when did he give you this?”
“This morning.”
“When did you- ok, start from the beginning. What happened? When and where did you see Quinn this morning?”