by Brett Cooper
Chapter Seven
When Alexis heard the commotion, she had a feeling Rick was behind it. She heard a girl cry out in pain, the sound having come from the area where only a minute ago she’d introduced Rick to Christine. It seemed likely that Rick had put the fear of God into the girl, one way or another. This morning he’d told Alexis that it was time to “take steps.” Christine Gold, he’d said, was a Girl Who Knew Too Much.
“I’ll talk sense into her,” he’d said.
Seeing as how Christine had proved herself bold enough to snoop about in Alexis’ desk and how Jimmy Gold had warned Alexis that the other day he’d accidentally sent his daughter a revealing text meant only for her, she knew Rick was right; so she’d relented, half-heartedly adding, “Don’t do anything stupid.” As if saying that to him had ever helped.
Rick had a knack for causing commotions. That was one reason Alexis had been drawn to him in the first place. She’d grown up in a quiet house with quiet, focused parents. She’d been quiet and focused, too. From a tender age she’d proven herself a gymnastics prodigy, and she’d set her sights on the Olympics. Much like most of the girls at her academy, she’d built her life upon two pillars: academics and gymnastics. So when Alexis had seen her dreams evaporate due to an ACL injury sustained after a botched balance beam dismount during the Olympic Trials, she had refocused her energies upon the one remaining pillar on which her life had then balanced: academics. She’d decided to major in business and work towards her new goal of opening her own gymnastics academy.
Alexis remained laser-focused and was still a very quiet girl during the first months of her junior year in college, when a few friends dragged her to a fraternity party and she met Rick Winger. The star of the wrestling team, he was chiseled, handsome and supremely confident. Most of all, he was wild. Alexis had always known what her next step in life was to be. She’d had goals and lists to guide her at every turn. But with Rick those things could be forgotten for awhile.
At two in the morning he’d say, “I’m hungry. We’re going out for waffles.” And everybody in his vicinity would follow him to the IHOP.
Or he’d say, “I know what we’re doing tonight. We’re going to Toys R Us and we’re gonna buy us a trampoline.” Then he’d get everyone to chip in to purchase and assemble a top-of-the-line 12-footer for practicing front and back flips and waging bouncy wars.
It was this unpredictability that Alexis loved most about Rick. She grew tired with herself, always knowing what she’d do next. She liked that Rick redirected her path here and there and everywhere, without warning. It was just the sort of release she needed. Plus Rick was smokin’ hot. And so she married him.
Every good quality has a flip side. The flip side of Alexis’ focus was her predictability. The flip side of Rick’s unpredictability was his foolish and sometimes dangerous impatience. He had the shortest of short fuses.
One time, when a waiter at a Denny’s forgot to bring straws, then promised to bring them right away, and then returned with napkins but no straws, Rick pounded the table with his fist, toppling their two glasses of water.
“You’re a waitress,” he shouted, turning heads throughout the restaurant. “You want a tip, right? Here’s a tip. Customers want straws. Here’s another tip. Customers who don’t get straws and then ask for straws really really want straws. I’m a thirsty paying customer. I want a freaking straw, now. So you better pull one from out your butt or I’m gonna do some damage. Comprendo?!”
Alexis hid her face. The Denny’s manager kicked them both out, threatening to call the cops. And then Alexis and Rick made out in his blue pickup before heading over to McDonald’s for shakes and fries. The bad boy in Rick had always turned Alexis on. This, she knew, was her weakness. Falling in love with a bad boy meant inviting danger into her life. Marrying a bad boy meant institutionalizing a constant threat of danger and required her unending vigilance in order to step around the inevitable land mines that must be avoided in order to forestall catastrophe.
This business with Christine, this new commotion Rick had caused, was a land mine that Alexis thought must be approached with extreme caution. The first order of business, she determined instinctively, was to try to mollify Christine. Racing over to the uneven bars, she found the girl on her haunches, rubbing her heel; Rick, meantime, was in a heap beside her and feigning injury himself, though she could tell he wasn’t hurt in the slightest.
“Christine, dear, are you okay?” Alexis said. “What can I do?”
Christine only gave her the stink eye.
Later, Alexis and Rick stopped for beers and nachos at Chili’s. The beer calmed Alexis’ nerves, but there was a part of her that continued to ascertain a growing foreboding over the way things had been shaping up lately. The Christine situation was volatile. Alexis wanted it defused. Time to move on. They could earn extra dollars some other way.
“Can I make a suggestion with reference to Christine?” she said to Rick as she selected a nacho, scooped additional cheese and then some beans and beef.
“What’s that?” Rick said. He guzzled the last third of his beer, pounded his mug to the table, raised a hand to signal for another.
“Chill. Just a tad.”
“You’re a softie, is your problem. A situation like this will go away on its own if we just wait it out – that it? That what you think? See, here’s why you need good ole Rick. You should be thanking me for taking action where you never would.”
“Thank you for taking action where I never would, oh great and powerful one,” Alexis said.
Rick puckered his lips and made a sarcastic kissing smack, then said, “The scout called.”
Alexis couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
Rick noted this. “Mmhmm. Ms. Anderson conveyed to me that Christine has been in touch with her. Asking about the gym, about us. Rather curious, wouldn’t you say?”
“Worse than I thought,” Alexis admitted. If Christine had broadened the scope of her amateur investigation to include Kerry Anderson, then she was drawing ever closer to the truth. The truth would not set her and Rick free. More likely, it would put them in jail. “What else did she day?”
Rick only called for the check, would not say another word till they got in the truck and headed for home. Then he said, “Deal’s over. Our scout’s returning the money.”
Alexis could not care less about the money at this point. “Fine. So we return the $5000 to Gold and call it a day. Wipe our hands clean of this mess.”
“Are you insane? We ain’t giving no money back. Matter a fact, we’re gonna double our cut.”
That’s when Alexis felt a roiling in her stomach, lowered her window halfway and threw up out the passenger window.
“I don’t believe you just did that,” Rick whined. Alexis had hoped for a modicum of sympathy, but she wasn’t surprised to hear that her husband had none for her just now. “You’re hosing that down when we get home,” he added.
“Maybe I should have made my deposit in the glove compartment,” Alexis said.
“Very funny, woman. Lucky for you, I’m always at least one step ahead of the competition. Christine’s little fall today, that was a start. But I think we need to inject a mite bit more drama into this scenario, get her attention, and her dad’s. Put an exclamation point on things.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If Christine Gold were to injure herself early in tomorrow’s meet, our scout could not reasonably choose her for a scholarship.”
“I don’t like where you’re going with this.”
“Nothing too serious, my dear. A sprain or a hairline fracture will do. We need the girl out of commission. Scare her. Scare her dad. That’s number one. Two is to keep our scout’s $2500 cut. Three, to keep your boyfriend’s cut.”
“Boyfriend? Leading Jimmy on was your idea,” Alexis said. “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“I’m not certain Mr. Gold knows that. But he will, once we retain his money and all he gets
in return is a broken little girl.”
When they arrived home and settled in for the night, Alexis didn’t think it wise to deny her husband in bed; but afterwards she brought her phone with her into the bathroom and made a furtive text to Jimmy Gold.