by Naomi Niles
“Oh, right.” I stared blankly out the window at the green neon lights. “I had forgotten.”
“Anyway, I can’t sleep around because I can’t risk having a baby and jeopardizing my career as a writer. But you can sleep with as many boys as you want. The world is your oyster.”
“Hey! What about my career as a writer?”
Ren laughed. “When you actually start writing, we’ll talk.”
Feeling insulted but knowing she had a point, I told her I had to go and hung up. For a long moment, I continued to stare out the window onto the green-tinted courtyard, torn between climbing into bed and sleeping for the rest of the weekend and heading downstairs to the bar.
I knew Ren was only kidding about wanting me to sleep with a near-total stranger, but still—it was a little weird that she had been so adamant about it. On the other hand, maybe I was quick to find fault because she had never taken my aspirations seriously. I wasn’t a real author, I was just pretending, like a child playing with crayons who thinks she’s Michelangelo. Sometimes her condescension was a little exasperating.
My eyes strayed to the pile of paperwork waiting for me at the foot of my bed. Randy had asked me to go over the revenue from the fight and find out how much we had brought in that night before I headed downstairs. I knew he probably wouldn’t care if I put it off for a bit, but I would care. Climbing into my cat pajamas, I grabbed my reading glasses off the night stand and reached for the stack.
I hadn’t been reading for more than a minute when my phone dinged. It was Randy.
Hey! Are you coming?
Feeling annoyed, I texted back, Yeah, I’ll be down in a bit. Just gotta do this work you asked me to do.
Oh, how’s it coming?
I’ll know in a sec.
He didn’t respond, so I chucked the phone to the end of the bed and went on reading. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to confirm my initial suspicions: we hadn’t made nearly as much money that night as we had expected to.
“Crap!” I said aloud. One way or another, I’d have to tell him, and I wasn’t looking forward to that.
With a feeling of agitation, I got up and paced the room. Outside the window the neon light was flickering as though about to go out. The pool was empty but for a twenty-something woman in a one-piece who was making out with a man roughly twice her age. The flickering light cast odd shadows on their faces and the water.
Realizing I wasn’t going to get anything else accomplished tonight, I changed into a pair of high-waisted jean shorts, a long blue cardigan and a white blouse and went downstairs to the bar.
There was a round arched mirror hanging up in the hall by the stairs. I paused and examined myself to make sure I didn’t look completely repulsive. My bangs were getting too long: I had cancelled an appointment to cut them the weekend before when I found out we would be going to Florida. My hair had a reddish tinge and fell just a few inches past my shoulders, where it became increasingly wavy. The dark color formed a striking contrast with the rest of my face, which was ghostly pale.
I found Randy seated at the bar drinking a rum and coke. He motioned for me to sit down in the empty seat next to him.
“Does it ever bother you,” I asked, “how women in books are always portrayed as being sticks?”
“I don’t read many novels,” said Randy. “I find real life so much more fascinating.”
“Really? That surprises me. I’d think you would be a big reader.”
“Oh, I read. I just don’t read a lot of fiction.”
I shook my head and scoffed in feigned exasperation. “Honestly, how are we even friends? But you’ve seen movies, no?”
“I have. I’ve seen one hundred and eighty-three movies.”
“Okay, well you’ve noticed how the heroines are always morbidly thin? You’ve never seen a heroine of a movie who was chubby, or chunky, or above average weight.”
Randy clinked the ice in his glass, thinking. “No, I don’t guess I have.”
“But there are so many more types of beauty in the world than just tall, skinny white girls. But you don’t see them on TV or in movies or on magazine covers because we want to pretend they don’t exist. Those who wield the power make sure they stay invisible.”
I let out a huff and raised one hand into the air, feeling suddenly energized. “Bartender, I’d like a Long Island iced tea. Please.”
The bartender, who had been eyeing me warily ever since I sat down, slunk off and returned a minute later with the iced tea.
Randy, meanwhile, continued to stare soberly down at the polished countertop.
“You know, I never thought of that. I guess being a woman would make you more aware of such things.”
“It does! There are so many things I would like to change about the way our society is run. Men have been in charge for so long that it never occurs to them that things could be different.”
After I finished my tea, I ordered a lemon drop martini. I continued to rant while Randy listened, nodding placidly, and heads turned throughout the bar.
“Look at me, for example. I’m not what you’d call skinny, exactly—I believe ‘thick’ is the word the kids use—but I’m not hideous.”
“No, not at all,” said Randy quietly.
“Maybe one day Greta Gerwig will play me in a movie.”
“Mmmm. How old is she, thirty-two?”
“Thirty-four, I think, but she looks younger.” I drained my glass and motioned for the bartender to bring me a refill. “She’s much prettier than me, but she’s got those thick thighs and sad eyes.”
“Didn’t you once tell me you wanted to be a writer? Maybe you could go to Hollywood.”
“Maybe.” I clutched the base of my glass tightly. “God, there’s so many things I want to do with my life.”
“I read about this actress,” said Randy, “I forget her name, who taught herself to write screenplays by going to the library and reading books on writing. And she wrote and produced her own film and then became a famous actress. She just went for it. Sometimes that’s all it takes.”
“Initiative,” I said miserably. “That’s the one thing I don’t have.”
“Well, if I knew how to get it,” Randy said with a shrug, “I’d tell you. Motivation is a bit like wisdom. You can’t just impart it to someone. They either have it, or they don’t have it.”
He stretched, and when he turned back around his eyes were wide. “Don’t look now but it’s the guy, the one who’s playing next week.”
“Braxton?” I nearly shouted. It was all I could do not to turn around.
“Is that his name? My memory is foggy tonight. But yes, I’m really looking forward to seeing him play. By all accounts he’s an even better fighter than Bruce.”
For a brief, anxious moment I thought maybe he had been mistaken. But then I saw him out of the corner of my eye sidling up to the end of the bar.
The moment he saw me, Braxton came over and sat down beside me.
“Well, of all the gin joints in all the towns in the world…” he said quietly.
“Hello, Braxton.” I was already slightly tipsy and didn’t much feel like talking.
“You must be worn out after that fight.” He appeared to have just gotten out of the shower and smelled strongly of Axe body spray.
“I wasn’t the one fighting.”
But he remained undeterred by my terse answers. “I don’t feel tired at all. I feel like when you’re a kid on Halloween, and your parents let you stay up late and eat candy. And then all the sugar rushes to your head, and you can’t get to sleep.”
“Yeah, but eventually you crashed and ended up crying into your mom’s lap because you were so tired and grumpy.”
Braxton smiled as though savoring a particular memory. “Sometimes I wish I was a kid and it was still Halloween.”
He said it with such understated melancholy that for a moment I forgot to be annoyed and was genuinely moved. It was the first really interesting and sincere thi
ng he had said in the brief time we had known each other. “I never pegged you as the sentimental type.”
“Some things you can’t help but be sentimental about.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
Braxton shrugged. “The way a newborn cries when his mother holds him for the first time. The taste of the first fish you ever caught with your own hands. The smell of wood smoke and incense in autumn.”
Randy, who had been sitting there quietly listening all this while, let out a loud sniff. I turned to look over at him and found that he was crying.
“You gonna be okay?” I handed him a coarse napkin.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine in a bit. I think I need to be heading to bed. Breakfast again in the morning?”
“Yeah, I’d love that.”
He turned to leave, then turned back around. “By the way, how did we do tonight earnings-wise? How much did we bring in?”
My insides twisted miserably. I hadn’t been planning on having this conversation tonight. “We did just fine,” I lied. “We made so much money.”
“Good,” said Randy, looking relieved. “See you.” He turned and left.
I don’t know what had possessed me to lie like that. He was going to find out eventually, and when he did, I would be in trouble for misleading him. Guilt weighed on me. And the worst of it was that there wasn’t anyone else here I could talk to—not about this.
“Bartender?” I said loudly, shoving my glass back across the counter. “I’m going to need another drink.”
Chapter Fifteen
Braxton
“You know what’s weird and a little sad?” I asked the woman. “I’ve been seeing you all over Vegas this weekend, and I still don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Jaimie. Jaimie with two I’s.” She sat absently scraping a ring against her martini glass, her eyes traveling the length of the bar as though desperate for a distraction.
Now that we were both sitting down, I was finally able to get a good look at her. She was wearing what might have been a cardigan or might have been a kimono over a white blouse and a pair of denim shorts that accentuated her thick legs. It was chilly in the bar, and goosebumps had formed on the front of her thighs.
I had been feeling unusually brave all night, like I could do whatever I wanted and prosper at it. “Is it weird that I find you kind of really attractive right now?” I asked.
“Why would that be weird?” asked Jaimie, sounding a little insulted.
“I don’t know. You’re just not the sort of girl I normally go for. You’re—” Sensing that I was digging myself into a hole, I decided to change course. “…so much smarter than any girl I’ve had the pleasure of dating.”
“We’ve known each other for all of about ten minutes,” said Jaimie, clearly annoyed. “I could think Rome is the capital of Narnia for all you know.”
This conversation wasn’t going at all like I had wanted it to. “I—”
“Is it because of the glasses? Did you assume I was smart because I’m wearing my reading glasses?”
“I’m sure it helped.”
“You boys are all the same.” She raised her glass as though offering a toast. “You watch porn with skinny girls who are supposedly plus-sized. You think a nerd is someone who dresses in a schoolgirl uniform and wears pigtails. But the woman isn’t even given a voice. She can’t signal her intelligence through her words because she isn’t allowed to use words. She’s just there to fuck a guy on film. Men are the worst, I swear.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” I was really beginning to regret having come over here.
“No, you’re not,” said Jaimie in a resentful tone, eyes glinting dangerously. “If you were a decent guy you’d never have gotten involved in MMA. I hate this job, and I hate everyone involved with it.”
She was speaking loudly enough now that people were turning to look from across the room. A couple bearded men covered in tattoos, one of them bearing a slight resemblance to my brother Curtis, glared in annoyance from a booth by the door.
A life-sized cardboard cutout of Tanya Tucker had recently been knocked over and now lay flat on its face. The bartender emerged from behind the bar to pick it up. Passing me on his way back by, he said low in my ear, “If the two of you can’t keep it down, you’ll need to find somewhere else to hang out tonight.”
Turning to Jaimie, I asked, “Do you want to go sit by the pool?”
Jaimie frowned as though sniffing something unpleasant. “When I looked out there an hour ago, there was a young woman making out with a fat old man. I’ll probably be seeing that image in my dreams tonight.”
“He probably took her back to his room,” I replied. “I bet the pool is empty now.”
“I bet it’s closed,” said Jaimie. But even so, she got up and followed me outside onto the patio.
We knelt down at the edge of the pool and dipped our feet into the cool water. It was a warm night, and if I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine I was lying in bed at my parents’ house with the windows open. The illusion was only dispelled by the faint sound of sirens and loud rock music in the distance.
“You doing okay?” I asked her.
“Yes. No. I don’t know,” said Jaimie. “I wish you would stop asking me that.”
“That’s the first time I’ve asked you, but whatever.”
“And I wish you would stop correcting me, God!” She folded her arms over her chest, looking petulant and, somehow, adorable. “What does a girl have to do to get you boys to leave her alone?”
But I wasn’t fooled by her declarations of hatred. She had followed me out here: on some level, she must have been enjoying my company.
“You want to know a secret?” I asked her.
“Hmmm?” she said noncommittally.
“Sometimes I don’t particularly care for other MMA guys, either.”
“Yeah? They’re the worst, aren’t they?”
“They are,” I said. “The worst guys in the world.”
It was hard to tell whether she believed me or not—even I wasn’t sure how sincere I was being—but at least I had gotten her attention.
Jaimie leaned back and dipped her toes into the water. “Why are you in the MMA if you dislike them so much?”
I had to think about it for a minute. “A man needs to make a living somehow. And I was never particularly good at anything else. I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake not going to college.”
Jaimie laughed bitterly. “I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake going at all.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“I don’t know. The people I went to school with.” She shook her head. “The most pretentious group of teens you ever laid eyes on. They acted like they were in charge of the world—and the sad thing about it is, one day they probably will be.”
“One of my brothers had the same experience at college,” I said. “The others all seemed to like it.”
“They just weren’t my people. Do you ever feel that way, like you haven’t found your people yet?”
“All the time.”
“Really?”
“You act so surprised.”
Jaimie stared out over the water. “It’s just, when I saw you up there tonight with your buddy, you both looked so happy. I could see you were in your element.”
“I love Nick. I’d never tell him this, but he’s probably my best friend. Everyone else, though… There’s a guy in our troupe who’s been married for three years, and every so often I’ll run into his wife at a party or she’ll come by the gym, and she’s always got a black eye. The first time it happened, she said she had fallen and hit her face on the corner of a table, but that doesn’t explain all the other times. Another guy, his girlfriend’s always getting bruises in interesting places.”
“Geez.” Jaimie shivered, although it wasn’t remotely cold out.
“Now I don’t want to dig too hard into anyone’s personal life, but it’s obvious there’s something not right there. And I’m not
perfect, either; I’ll be the first to admit that. We’re all young guys, and we’ve never learned how to solve problems with anything other than our fists.”
“Yeah.” Jaimie lay back on the concrete. She looked oddly sexy, just lying there. “I think I’d be scared to date anyone in this business. Maybe that’s why I haven’t.”
“Yeah, you’re probably better off meeting someone at church.”
She turned to look at me. “Have you ever dated?”
“I’ve had a few flings. One-night stands, that sort of thing. Never wanted to get too close to anybody. Didn’t want to find out what would happen if they were dragged into my orbit.”
“Makes sense.”
There was something weirdly intimate about these frank personal disclosures. It was thrilling, in a way, but at the same time, I began to wonder whether I had said too much.
I sat there for a moment watching her breath rise and fall. I suppose it was fortunate she had been drinking, or she might never have said all those things. I’d have been irritated if my best friend had come up to me and started sharing his deepest secrets, but I didn’t mind so much with her.
“You want to hear something funny?” I asked.
“Hmmm?”
“I feel even more weirdly attracted to you now that we’ve been talking.”
Jaimie sat up, bristling slightly. “Are you trying to say you want to sleep with me?”
“No”—although yes, God yes. “I just find this whole conversation really fascinating. You’re way more interesting to me than the last girl I slept with.”
“Did you even know the girl’s name?”
I shook my head. “I may have, but I’ve already forgotten it at this point.”
Jaimie extended her hand. “Well, my name is Jaimie Allen, and I’m a professional accountant. I work with MMA even though I should know better.”
I took her hand in mine and shook it firmly. “Pleasure to meet you, Jaimie. I hope you remember at least some of our talk in the morning.”
Jaimie clutched a hand to her head as though in pain. “God, I hope I don’t. If you run into me in the hallway, I want you to pretend like we’ve never met.”