I tried to lose myself in Downton Abbey, but my mind kept wandering. When I watched the characters I’d come to know so well navigate their way through the upheaval of World War I, social mores, and class conflicts, the only thing I could think of were naked bodies, leather straps, chains, and sex. After what I’d seen tonight, the genteel people with their old-fashioned morals and veiled attitudes about sex and romance no longer interested me. It made me feel uncivilized and shallow. Wasn’t I better than this? I was a virgin, got straight As and read high Victorian literature for fun. Sex just wasn’t my gig.
Besides, I’d never have lasted this long as a weekend cocktail waitress if I let the opposite sex get to me. I was forever dodging boob- and ass-grabbers on my cocktail shifts. Plus my uniform at Benny’s, the bar where I currently spent my weekend evenings, was a short, form-fitting black dress that left little to the imagination. It was great for tips, not so great when it came to avoiding drunken slobs out for a free grope. I coped by shutting down below the neck doing my best imitation of an Arctic glacier.
The only time I’d broken that cardinal rule of cocktailing was my first-ever shift, at a now-defunct place called Mr. D’s, spring semester of my freshman year, and I’d ended the night with two bruised boobs and almost no tips. A veteran cocktailer named Trixie (no joke) took pity on me, showed me the right way to act, and I’d never looked back.
“You always want to play hard to get,” Trixie had said. “Let them think they have a chance with you only with your eyes, not your body. Right now you’re doing it backwards. They think they can touch you without having to pay for it first. That’s why you aren’t getting anywhere.” True to her word, the next night I cleared almost $300 in tips, and anyone who tried to grab my ass either didn’t get close enough to touch me, or else got a swift knee to the groin and a visit from the bouncer. Before long I was acting the same way on campus, at the mall, or anywhere else the opposite sex might have a chance to flirt with me. I didn’t want the complications of relationships or a sex life, and Trixie’s tips worked like a charm when it came to keeping the men away and me on the straight and narrow path.
There were practical benefits too----I had to keep a certain GPA to maintain my scholarship, and I needed to focus hard on building my clips portfolio if I wanted a future in the competitive world of journalism. Staying ice-cold celibate for all this time might have made me unusual among the college coed set, but it worked wonders for my long-term career and financial prospects.
As my mom frequently reminded me, “College is temporary, but education is forever. And student loans are even longer than forever, so don’t lose that scholarship of yours, dear.”
The ice-queen routine had worked for almost three years, but now it was wearing thin. Even I had limits. And tonight I’d met them head-on.
I couldn’t concentrate on the TV, so I switched off Downton Abbey in disgust. I knew I had to be plenty addlepated to not be interested in my favorite show. Something had to give.
For a split second I thought about masturbating. I’d never done it before. I wasn’t even sure how to go about it. It was another one of those sexual things that I understood only in theory, as described in clinical-sounding textbooks. I wished there were instructional videos on how to do it or something. Then again, I’m sure there were, but I probably wouldn’t be able to get them from Netflix. No, that was probably the type of thing you bought at some sleazy adult bookstore on the side of the interstate. Not exactly my scene.
I was sitting there stewing in my own pent-up juices when I heard the front door open. Hannah was back. As much as I hated the idea, I had to bring her up to speed.
I went to meet her in the kitchen/front-hall combo. To my surprise, she was alone. “Hi,” I said, craning my neck to see if Ted might still be outside parking the car or something. He wasn’t. “So how was the symphony?”
Hannah shrugged off her coat and hung it on one of the pegs by the front door, then dropped her keys in the glass dish we kept on the hall table. “It was awful. Some kind of weird atonal postmodern thing. I fell asleep.”
I blinked. If Hannah’s outing had gone badly too, maybe my evening wasn’t a total loss. “I thought you were really excited about this performance?” I asked, hoping she’d give me a few more details, like why Ted hadn’t come home with her for the first time in weeks.
“I was. But there was a last-minute change in the program. Apparently the first and second violin chairs both came down with ptomaine poisoning, along with the regular conductor and half the wind section. So they had to do some last-minute switching of the material, and do without almost a third of the orchestra. The only thing the remaining musicians could play was some John Cage monstrosity that sounded like a dying cow. Horrible.”
Without asking, I ducked into the fridge, pulled out two cold beers, and handed one to Hannah. “Looks like we both could use a drink then.”
Hannah flopped back into one of our green plastic kitchen chairs from Ikea. “So did your evening suck too? Oh and by the way, Ted dumped me.”
I immediately enveloped Hannah in a hug. She had the absolute worst luck with guys. “Oh Hannah, I’m so sorry. What happened?”
She took a long dreg of her beer. “I don’t know. He just up and told me at the end of the performance that he didn’t think we should see each other anymore. No explanation, no nothing. And to think, I swallowed for him just this morning. Asshole.”
Swallowed? I had to think about that for a minute before I understood what she meant. “Oh, wow. Asshole is right. Did you get the material you needed for your review at least?”
“Not really. I was supposed to review the Cleveland Philharmonic’s interpretation of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony and place special focus on their new first violin chair, which they went to great lengths and expense to pilfer from Vienna, but of course he was down with the ptomaine poisoning so I couldn’t do either one. My assignment editor is going to throw a fit.”
“There’s nothing you could have done. Just explain what happened and write a story on the John Cage thing, whatever it was. Who’s John Cage, anyway?”
“Some overrated midcentury freak who wrote bad music,” she sneered. “Don’t ask.” She paused to guzzle the rest of her beer, then went to the fridge for another. I knew then that whatever had happened between her and Ted had to be very bad----Hannah only drank more than one beer in a sitting if she was extremely depressed. I had a feeling she’d call in sick to work tomorrow and spend the whole day lounging around in her grubby old flannel footie pajamas, too, the plaid ones with the old-fashioned trap door that she only trotted out when she was recovering from a breakup. “So tell me about your evening, Nancy. It had to have been better than mine.”
I didn’t even know where to begin. “It was, um, interesting.”
“How so?”
“I take it you haven’t checked the Plain Dealer’s online newsfeed then.”
Hannah cast me a sidelong glance. “Should I have?”
“Maybe you should just punch up your laptop and look at the front page of the Web edition.” I figured it would be faster for her just to read the article with my byline on it than try to explain tonight’s turn of events----especially since I was still trying to figure them out myself.
She set her beer on the kitchen counter and went to retrieve her laptop from her room. “All right, I’ll humor you. But this better be good.”
“It could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it,” I replied.
Hannah came back in and settled at the breakfast bar with her laptop. She powered it up, typed in the URL for the Plain Dealer’s news page. She read the headline for my story----prominently displayed at the top in large font----and her eyes widened. My byline was at the bottom of the column so it took her a moment or two to realize I was the one who’d written it.
“Oh. My. God.”
I moved to sit across from her on one of our wooden barstools. “Well?”
“Looks like you’ve go
t quite the nose for news, Delaney. How on earth did you manage this?”
“Well, I didn’t manage the thing about the naked people screwing in public,” I said, conveniently leaving out the part about me, cable ties, and Peter Rostovich. “I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.”
“And that’s really the trick to being an ace reporter, isn’t it?” She scrolled back through the story, shaking her head in disbelief as she reread it. “Wow, don’t you have all the luck! My editor is going to kill me for missing this and pawning my assignment off on a freelancer. A college student freelancer, no less. No offense intended, of course.”
“None taken. By the way, I should probably tell you not to expect much in terms of a review.”
She folded her arms across her chest and gave me a stern look. “Why? Because you already sold all the best information to the Plain Dealer behind my back?”
“Hannah, please don’t be mad.”
“If you were anybody else, I would be absolutely furious. But because you’re Nancy Delaney, my best friend and roommate, I’ll offer you my congratulations. Seriously, props to you. Selling an exclusive to the Plain Dealer on the fly like that? That takes balls.”
“I’m a girl, I don’t have balls.”
“Whatever. Of course you also understand that I’m probably going to lose my job now.”
“Oh Hannah, you’re overreacting as usual. It’ll be fine.”
She slapped the countertop. “I’m not overreacting! You have no idea how much pressure I’m under at work. My assignment editor is a total bitch, especially since the quarterly ad revenue numbers came out last week. Art News Now is on the verge of bankruptcy. If I don’t deliver some good copy pronto, the magazine is going to fold.”
I reached across the counter to give her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. Hannah could be very melodramatic sometimes. Both of her parents were independently wealthy ER physicians with million-dollar trust funds who loved thrill-seeking activities like ziplines, African safaris, and Alpine skiing. High-stakes drama ran in her family. “Surely the fate of the entire magazine doesn’t just rest on you.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t. But the bulk of our remaining subscribers live in the Midwest, so of course it’s important that the Midwest section provide good coverage.” She closed out her browser window on the laptop and shut it down. “Please don’t abandon the assignment, Nancy. Put together whatever copy you can and email it to me by Tuesday afternoon. You don’t even have to mention the public sex thing if you don’t want to, though I should tell you that my editors would absolutely love it. Especially if you could put a positive spin on it somehow.”
“I thought you said your editor was complaining that you guys published too many rave reviews.”
“She did, but she also loves anything racy. Play up the sex in your review, and rave or pan, she’s bound to be thrilled with it. And we need whatever opportunity to boost circulation we can get.”
“You know, I actually met a living, breathing subscriber to your magazine tonight. I was beginning to think that they were rarer than Sasquatch.”
“Is that so? Who was it, pray tell?”
“None other than the artist himself. Peter Rostovich.”
Hannah’s jaw dropped. “Wow. So you actually got to meet him?”
I paused, thinking carefully about how I wanted to answer her. “Yes. Briefly.”
She smirked at me, gave me one of her typical don’t-give-me-that-bullshit looks. “Oh? Is that all?”
I felt my cheeks flame, but stayed silent. I didn’t want to go there with her. Not yet. There was still way too much to sort out.
“Well, I hope you at least got a decent quote,” she said, nursing her second beer. Given Hannah’s usual level of alcohol tolerance, I knew I’d have to get whatever else I needed out of her now before she passed out from too much booze. The girl was a serious lightweight.
“I got quite a bit of him on tape,” I said, purposefully vague. “I’ll let you know what I’m able to pull together. But just so you know, the press photos weren’t at all representative of the exhibit. And I’m not sure if I even still have them. The place kind of went into chaos after the, um, incident, and I think some stuff fell out of my press bag.”
“Can’t you just call the gallery and have them send some more photos over? They can upload print-quality files using our FTP site if they don’t want to mail glossies.” Hannah was always so efficient when it came to these things, I should have known I’d never be able to pull anything over on her.
“I’ll umm, I’ll see what I can do.” Best to stay as noncommittal as possible. “But I guarantee you that the exhibit was plenty racy. Maybe even a little too racy for your magazine.”
“I’m sure my editors will be willing to bend their usual standards for such a hot topic, especially if the Plain Dealer story goes national,” Hannah replied drily, polishing off the rest of her beer. “We’ve been needing something like this for a long time. Who knows, you might even make the cover. We’ve never made a capsule review a cover story before, but there’s a first time for everything. Unless of course you’d like to turn it into a feature---“
“Ummm, I really don’t think so. I’m too busy with school right now to work on anything feature-length.” A total lie, of course. But I was technically still committed to write a feature for the Plain Dealer on the show and the artist---and unless I was prepared to go back on my word officially with Eric Burgess, I couldn’t well agree to write another one at a competing publication. Not that Art News Now actually competed with a major city newspaper of course, but it was the principle of the thing.
“Fair enough.” Hannah stretched and yawned. “I should really turn in, I’m beat. Plus Ted kind of made me feel like crap. Do you know what he said? Besides saying he wanted to see---or rather, fuck---other people, I mean.”
“What?”
“He said that my life lacked direction. What the hell does that even mean? My life has plenty of direction. Unlike him, I have an actual job. Meanwhile, he’s mostly working as a fratboy beach bum living off his parents’ money. I mean, come on.”
I thought about remarking that Hannah still lived mostly on her parents’ money too, but I bit my tongue. “Maybe you just outgrew each other,” I offered. “Or rather, you outgrew him. It’s his loss, not yours.”
Hannah gave me a quick hug. “Thanks Nancy, that’s really sweet. I’m off to bed.” She stood and tossed her two empty beer bottles into the recycling bin, then staggered a bit. She grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself. “Whoa. When did the room start spinning?”
“You should know better than to drink two beers in ten minutes,” I scolded. “You weigh what, ninety-five pounds soaking wet? Here, I’ll help you walk to your room. By the way, Ginger died, so I’m going to need a ride to campus tomorrow.”
Hannah clapped her hand over her mouth. “What? Ginger who?”
“You know, Ginger. My car. She totally stalled out and died. The transmission is toast.”
“Ginger died? Ohhhhhh. When’s the funeral?” Now she was slurring her words. She staggered against me and then began to laugh uncontrollably.
Alas, I was too late. Hannah was completely hammered and probably wouldn’t remember a word of this conversation tomorrow. “Just go to bed,” I ordered. “I’ll wake you up at six so you’ll have enough time to drop me off at campus on your way to work.” I guided her to her messy room, deposited her on her bed, and headed back to mine. I could hear her snoring by the time I was halfway down the hall.
I glanced at the clock. It was well past eleven now, but I still wasn’t even remotely tired. Too much excitement today for that. I changed into my pajamas and decided to see about getting a little work done before falling asleep.
Against my better judgment I pulled my press bag back out from under my desk where I’d stashed it and dumped its contents on the bed. Everything was as I expected---digital recorder, my reporter’s notebook, a few od
ds and ends----except for one thing I spied from the corner of my eye. A folded-over piece of paper with “Nancy” handwritten in block lettering of the type you’d typically see on architectural blueprints. The paper was thick and textured, a high-quality rag paper, the kind used for fine watercolors. It was sealed shut with a scrap of mounting tape, also artist-grade.
I broke the seal and opened the note. Something thin and white fluttered out from inside and landed on my bedspread.
A cable tie.
I stared at it for a moment. The white plastic thing stood out starkly against the dark-brown cotton duvet cover, just like the cable ties in the sharp-contrast black-and-white photos had. The effect on my body was almost immediate. The mere sight of that thin plastic strip brought back a rush of memories and sensations. Racing heart, sweating palms, itchy wrists, burning crotch. Legs that felt heavy and a head that felt light. Sweat on the forehead. And a dull ache deep inside me that demanded relief, relief that could come from only one source, relief that I wasn’t even sure how to obtain, or what it would feel like.
Life as a horny, naive virgin certainly wasn’t easy. Especially when the object of my desire was a piece of white plastic from a hardware store.
I turned my attention back to the note, which had also fluttered down to the bedspread after the initial shock of seeing the cable tie. Written on the inside in the same block lettering, all caps, was a simple message:
CHECK YOUR EMAIL.
I stared at it for a moment. Who had written this? Peter Rostovich, of course. What other explanation was there? He’d had possession of my press bag. He was an artist with access to fine watercolor paper, graphic-design-style lettering, and fine mounting adhesives. Oh, and cable ties. He had lots of those available, obviously. But where had he gotten my email address?
Domino (The Domino Trilogy) Page 7