by Claire Adams
I chase her, but she locks the bathroom door before I’m even close.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m helping you make that first step,” she answers through the door.
“Whatever you’re doing, stop,” I tell her. “I don’t want to talk to some stranger about the inner workings of my psyche and all the ways in which my life isn’t what I want it to be.”
There’s silence for a minute. The door opens.
“Is that how you really feel?” she asks. “That your life isn’t what you want it to be?”
“Right now, kind of, yeah,” I tell her. “I don’t always feel like this, but you’ve got to admit things are pretty messed up right now and not just for me. Anyway, thanks for not sending him a message.”
“Oh, I sent the message,” she says. “Why do you think I opened the door?”
I glare at her.
“I thought you opened the door because you gave a shit about what I was saying. It didn’t occur to me that you only came out because you’d successfully gotten away with doing exactly what I told you not to do.”
The phone beeps and Kristin jumps excitedly.
“Ooh, he sent you a message!”
“Give me the phone,” I tell her.
“Hold on, I want to see what he said.”
“No, give me the phone,” I tell her and try to grab it from her hand.
She pulls away, but I crowd her so she can’t pull it toward her body.
“Give me the phone,” I tell her again.
“Hold on!” she says. “I just want to see this one message, and then I’ll give it back.”
“That’s it,” I tell her and proceed to do the one thing that I know will work: I start tickling her sides.
“Stop it!” she wheezes through her laughter, her body doubling up. “Stop it!”
“Give me the phone,” I tell her.
“Never!” she shouts.
“Give me the fucking phone!”
Finally, I manage to pry the cellphone from her fingers and I run back to the living room.
Stupid diversion or not, at least I’ve finally got a smile back on my face.
“Fine,” she says. “But I bet you’re going to tell me what he said anyway.”
“I’m not checking it,” I tell her. “I don’t even know this person.”
“Well, he’s already got your phone number, so that’s about the closest you’ve been to a real date in a few years. You’re welcome,” Kristin responds.
“How did you get to be so smug?” I ask her.
“It runs in the family,” she says.
“You know, you’re never going to believe what happened today,” I start and proceed to tell her about the worker who broke into my store and the resulting shouting match I got into with the contractor.
“Huh,” she says. “That guy sounds like a jerk. You should have kicked him in the balls.”
That’s her answer to everything.
“You know, there are other ways to make a point,” I inform her.
“Yeah, but there’s no better way of making a point than that,” she rejoins. “Read the text.”
“No,” I tell her. “I’m serious. I don’t have time to start—”
“Oh, will you just shut up and read the stupid text? We both know it’s going to happen sooner or later, and I don’t have all day to wait around for it.”
“Actually,” I smile, “judging by the way you’re swaying back and forth just standing there, I’d say you’re going to be here for quite a while.”
“Nah,” she says, “I’ll just have Jed pick me up when I get sick of you.”
“You want another shot?” I ask.
I’m not going to have one, but seeing as I don’t want to see, talk to or otherwise encounter Jed, I’m going to get my sister drunk enough that she’ll forget about calling her stupid boyfriend and just stay here until she’s safe to drive.
“Sure,” she says.
In our family, we all have our particular addictions, and we all have more than one. Kristin’s addictions are torrid love affairs, every one of which is with the latest “one and only;” her other addiction is alcohol. When played right, that second addiction wins out almost every time.
So, I pour my sister a shot and I pour one into the shot glass that I was using. I hold up the latter and clink glasses with her.
She immediately takes her shot, but I just set mine back down on the counter.
When she’s done with hers, she wipes her mouth and says, “You know that it’s bad luck to toast and not drink.”
“I think I’m full up on bad luck,” I tell her. “I’m not too worried about it. This one’s for you.”
I pick up the shot glass and hand it to her.
“All right,” she says, “but I know what you’re doing…”
She takes the shot.
“…and it’s not going to work.”
Judging by the increase in her topside lateral motion, I’d say it’s already working pretty well.
I manage to talk her into one more shot, after which, she tries to talk me into letting her have another, but I’m very familiar with her stages of drunkenness and she’s about to cross over into whiny sick girl and I just don’t have the patience for that right now.
A few minutes later, we’re on the couch with a movie on the television and she’s snoring loudly beside me. I hadn’t figured on her passing out so quickly, but those are the breaks.
As I sit here, I find myself feeling a little curious.
I fight the urge at first, but it’s not long before my inebriated state, however slight in comparison to my passed out sibling’s, manages to convince me that it’s all right if I just take a look at what he wrote.
Kristin’s message is, well, exactly what I would expect from her.
It reads, “Hey there! My beautiful, talented sister gave me your number and said we should talk. What’s up?”
All things considered, it could have been worse.
His reply says, “Not much. Having a bit of a day, but I’m glad to hear from you. Sorry I haven’t gotten in touch before now. Work’s crazy.”
Before I even think about what I’m doing, I’m typing a reply.
“I know what that’s like. What do you do?”
I send the message and force myself to watch the movie in order to distract myself from overthinking this whole thing.
My phone beeps and I check the message.
“I’d rather not talk about work right now. I hope that’s not rude of me.”
On most days, I’d find his message shallow: After all, who doesn’t like talking about work? (Okay, work is one of my addictions.)
Luckily for him, he caught me on the right day.
“I totally get that. Things are pretty messed up where I work, too. Do you live in the city?”
There is an odd thrill to being able to have a kind-of conversation with someone I’ve never met and probably never will meet. Obviously the conversation is of little substance, but it’s a nice outlet. Maybe this is why people used to go into chat rooms.
My phone goes off again.
The message says, “Yeah. I’ve lived here all my life. I don’t know if that’s because I actually like it here or just that I don’t have any real basis for comparison. You?”
I respond, “Not the city itself, but I’ve always lived in the state. What are you doing right now?”
Then, realizing that my previous message could easily be misconstrued as some kind of invitation that I’m certainly not offering, I send another one.
I write, “I’m taking care of my drunk-ass sister and watching Goonies.”
If ever there were a text that would convince a guy not to want to invite me anywhere or himself over here, it’d be that one.
My phone beeps a few seconds later.
“Sounds like a blast. I’m getting ready to move.”
“Where are you moving?” I write back.
A minute or
so passes and he responds, “Just a few blocks from where I’m at now. New apartment.”
Then it starts to occur to me: This is someone that I’m never going to meet. I can ask him anything, tell him—okay, I can’t really tell him anything as my sister is apparently friends with one of his friends, but there’s a lot more I can do with this than just trudge through the usual small talk.
“If you could have the one thing you want most in life, would you give up everything else to get it?” I write.
It’s not exactly the kind of thing that I want to ask, but it should be a pretty good barometer of whether I’ll be able to get away with more interesting topics.
The phone beeps and I read, “I don’t know that there’s only one thing that I want most in life. If anything, I want too many things out of life and I seem to always be sacrificing everythin”
The phone beeps again a moment later.
The rest of his message reads, “g for things I don’t end up wanting anyway. So yeah, I guess if I found something that I wanted more than anything, I’d probably give up anything to have it.”
That’s a lot of honesty from a stranger. It’s actually kind of arousing in a weird way that I don’t begin to understand.
I answer, “I used to think I already did, but then, seemingly through no action of my own, I found more things to want.”
I write, “What makes you get out of bed in the morning?”
He writes back, “Knowing that no matter how bad yesterday was, today can always be better. At least that’s the bullshit I tell myself even though about an hour into the day, I r”
His next message comes through, finishing the thought.
“ealize just how full of crap that statement is. Yeah, today can always be better, but it can also be a lot worse. Still, it gets me out of bed.”
It’s not a bad response.
Another message comes in, reading, “What about you?”
I respond, “The thought that maybe, just maybe, something big is going to happen today, and that I don’t want to miss it lying in bed.”
“What ya doin’?” Kristin asks, effectively startling the hell out of me.
“Nothing,” I tell her, dropping the phone to my side. “I’m just watching the movie.”
“I may be drunk, but I’m not—what’s the word?” she asks.
“Stupid?”
“That’s no way to talk to your sister,” she says and lies her head back on the arm of the couch.
My phone beeps and I watch Kristin closely, hoping that there’s some way I can check my phone without her noticing that I’ve fallen right into her little trap.
For a moment, I think I’m going to be okay, but as soon as I pick up my phone, she says, “You are so fucking busted.”
“What?” I ask. “Someone just sent me a message. That’s all.”
“Yeah, but someone’s been sending you a lot of messages. That usually doesn’t happen unless you’re sending messages right back.”
For now, my unwillingness to prove her right outweighs my curiosity regarding what this guy just sent me, but drunk as she is, she can’t stay awake forever.
Chapter Six
Learning to Work Around Obstacles
Eric
It’s been a few days since the big blowup between Jessica and I, and we’ve only managed to keep the peace because we’ve completely avoided each other. Sometime today, though, I’ve vowed to myself that I’m going to get Alec his job back or I’m walking right the fuck off the job.
I won’t force the decision on my guys, though. If things go sour, I’ll simply let José—who narrowly avoided arrest due to the quick thinking and quicker words of Linda—know that he’s in charge and tell the guys to stay on the job.
They’ve gone long enough without a good payday.
Jessica comes out of her office, and I’m ready to put my cards on the table, but she’s quickly approached by a customer. As much as I’d love to put her in a position where she’d be forced by propriety to say yes, I don’t want to do anything to ruin her business either.
There are limits.
“Hey, boss,” Ian says, “we’re ready to put this window in. You wanna let Miss Davis know, or do you just want to chance it?”
“Go ahead and put it in,” I tell him. “I’ll be right back.”
Jessica’s dealt with the customer and I know she sees me coming. She doesn’t look at me, but I can see her deep breath from here.
I don’t want an argument, but I’m ready to give one if that’s what has to happen.
“Hey,” I say, approaching her. “Could we talk for a minute?”
“I’m kind of busy right now,” she answers. “Is it important?”
“Oh, I’d say so,” I answer.
“All right,” she says, “but we’ve got to make it quick. I’ve got a meeting with a supplier in a few minutes, and I’d really prefer not to have him come into a screaming match in my store.”
“I don’t see any reason why it has to go that way,” I tell her.
“Let’s go,” she says and we walk in silence back to her office.
I close the door as usual, but before I can start, she jumps right in.
“I thought about what you said, and you’re right: It’s not fair that that man lost his job for trying to stand up for one of his coworkers,” she says.
“Great,” I tell her. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What I do think is fair, though, is for you to fire whoever actually did break into my store. So I think if anyone’s being unfair here, it’s you,” she says.
“Me?”
“Yeah,” she says, “you. Once you told me he wasn’t the guy, I didn’t want to see him go any more than you did. I was angry, though, and I just let it go the way it went. That part was my fault. Knowing who broke the law and broke into my store, however, you shouldn’t have just let him quit like that. You should have held the right person responsible and that should have been the end of it, now I have to go. It looks like my supplier is here a little early.”
“No, we’re not done here,” I tell her. “Either my guys—all my guys—stay, or I go. They’ll finish out the job for you, but I’m not going to work in a situation where you’re going to try to dismantle a group of people I’ve worked with and come to trust implicitly for years.”
“Hmm,” she starts, “you’d think that having one of your own people commit a crime against one of your clients might do something to that trust. Maybe you should think about your judgment. Now, unless there’s anything else—”
“What’s it going to be?” I ask. “Lose me and Alec, setting you and your plans, whatever the hell they are this hour, back who knows how long, or realize that a mistake was made, but it’s no reason to fire anyone and you can have me and my whole team working hard for you until this job is finished.”
“Neither,” she says. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Here’s my predicament: She’s opening the door now, so anything else that I say to her has a good chance of being overheard, not only by my guys and her staff, but by this supplier of hers.
If I do something to screw with one of her business partners, chances are that me and my crew are immediately let go. If, however, I hold my tongue, Alec, a good friend of mine, either stays out of a job because he did a good thing for José, or I lose the best guy on my crew for making a mistake.
Fuck it.
“It’s going to have to be one or the other,” I say quietly and with a smile on my face.
“Now really isn’t the time,” she says, mimicking my actions, trying even harder than I am not to see the whole situation explode.
“Now is the only time,” I tell her. “Either make your choice or I walk now.”
“I don’t do business with people who hold a gun to my head,” she says. “Mr. Burbank, it’s great to see you again. This is Eric. He and his men are doing some renovations for us. Would you come into my office and we can talk ab
out our future together.”
I wait for the older man to walk past me and then I give her my best “I’d make a choice unless you want me to really embarrass you” look.
She takes a step toward me and, still smiling, she whispers, “Call your guy and get him back here. Don’t think that I’m going to forget this.”
“Thank you,” I tell her. “You made the right choice.”
Although Mr. Burbank is already in her office, we’re still too close for her to do anything but mouth her final thoughts on the matter.
“Screw you.”
I smile and walk back over to the work area.
“What’s got you so happy?” Tripp, the newest new guy asks.
“I’m going to call Alec and tell him to get his ass down here. He’s late for work.”
I glance back toward Jessica’s office as the crew claps and offers their congratulations, but I can’t see anything more than the door closing.
“Great job, boss,” Ian says.
Even José has a smile on his face.
I walk outside and make the call.
“What’s up, boss?” Alec answers.
“Good news,” I tell him, “José’s safe. The inquisition is over and you’re hired. When do you think you can get here?”
“Uh, I’m kind of busy at the moment,” he says. “Any chance I can just come in tomorrow?”
Right now, I’m glad I stepped outside for this.
“I don’t know what you’re doing, but you have no idea what I just risked to make this happen and the shitstorm that’s going to be waiting for me before the day is over because of it. So, do you want the job or not?”
“Of course I want the job,” he says, “it’s just…”
“It’s just what?”
“Well,” he says, “I’m kind of out of state.”
“How can you be kind of out of state?” I ask.
“Okay, so I’m in Delaware. There’s a pool tournament going on here and it’s fucking wicked.”
This is one of the guys I just risked my livelihood for.
“You’re in Delaware for a pool tournament,” I echo. “Are you fucking serious?”