by Brent Jones
Drew knew that wasn’t true. If anything, he needed his father, not the other way around. Russell was mostly taciturn, unless it came to Angela, and Drew rationalized his own introversion by looking to his father for guidance. Then again, he had to work—professional gambling wasn’t a permanent career choice. Surely his father understood that.
Fourteen minutes and one second.
“So, I’ll just go visit Dad when I can,” he continued. “And we’ll talk on the phone, I’m sure. Maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll stick around for a while.” If I’m lucky? He’s suffering. I should be hoping for a swift and painless death. “I guess right now, I should probably just focus on supporting myself.” Who am I trying to convince? “They say a boy doesn’t become a man until he loses his father. I guess I’m about to find out if that’s true.” Drew stopped talking long enough to finish his beer. “Maybe it’s time I start thinking about doing something more with my life . . . something more than Dad even thought possible for me.”
In truth, Russell had never uttered a discouraging word to Drew. Not that he rooted for his son to change the world. But his father had remained relatively hands off as a parent, allowing Drew to blunder through the blackness on whatever course he chose for himself.
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll be just like Logan one day, drowning in my own indignant brand of self-righteous bullshit. But in the meantime, I’m content to live in the moment, day by day. I’m gonna answer phones with the rest of the working poor. And if a caller needs something complicated, I’ll just hang up.”
Drew recalled his introduction to Kara at the interview. He felt blood rush to his groin at the thought of her.
“I met this chick at the interview named Kara. She’s, I don’t know—a couple years younger than me, maybe? And she, uh, talked to me. Like actually seemed to not mind me. I mean, she wasn’t just fun to talk to. She’s stacked. Although I doubt much of anything will happen between us. I mean, she could get her hands on anyone, really.” I found out Dad has cancer and here I am with a raging boner. I’m a special kind of fucked up.
Fifteen minutes and twenty-four seconds.
“All right, well, that about sums it up. Dad’s dying, and I can’t do a damn thing about it. Mom’s been dead for twenty years now, and I can’t change that. Logan’s still an asshole, doubt he’ll change much. And, uh, I met Kara . . . whose ass I’d like to pound if I ever got the chance.” Drew was impressed for a moment with his own vulgar belligerence. His crass remark reminded him of Neil. Neil . . . now there’s a guy Kara would probably fuck.
“So basically what I’m saying is that life is what it is, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. All we get is the present, this one spot in time, and it feels like I’m stuck here.”
Fifteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds.
Drew stopped recording, giving his laptop a chance to process his ramblings. He opened Facebook, doing a quick search for the name Kara Davenport. After sifting through the results for a minute, he located her public profile.
Kara Davenport, single, female, twenty-five, over seven hundred friends. Spent the last four years working as an administrate assistant. No education listed. Recent timeline posts include memes about social justice and other do-gooder advocacy bullshit.
Drew clicked over to her photos and scanned through her albums. She looked fashionable and put together in every shot—a full face of makeup, hair done, always in a different outfit. Then he spotted an album of hers labeled: Jamaica.
He clicked through, flipping from one photo to the next. The obligatory airplane selfie. The luggage carousel at the airport. The resort lobby. Photos of the pool filled with random strangers. Kara getting a drink from the lobby bar. Kara hugging a friend. And then—jackpot!—Kara at the beach.
In the first photo, she was face down, sunbathing on a chair. The beach was crowded with vacationers, but her flawless legs were the focal point, absorbing rays of golden sun. Her scant bikini was untied across her back and face was turned toward the camera but covered with a sun hat. The edge of her mouth was visible, her lip curled, as if to give the photographer a shy smile. Somewhere behind her was a local man selling sunglasses on the beach.
In the next photo, she was edging her way into the sea. She posed for the camera, imitating a model with her arms behind her head, her lips puckered, her eyes shielded with what looked like newly acquired sunglasses. Drew’s eyes zoomed in on her bikini top, now tied in place, enclosing small and sprightly breasts—delicate, pert, and alluring. She stood with her weight shifted to one side, her backside protruding for examination.
Drew unzipped his pants, taking his erection in hand, balancing the laptop on his knees. He pumped furiously, skipping to the next photo. Kara was on her knees facing the sea, bent over the sand and writing with her finger, her friend from the earlier photo watching her work. The first few letters of Jamaica was all she had managed. Her damp bikini bottoms clung to her hips, tracing silky crevices.
Drew set his laptop on the balcony floor, carefully this time, holding in his mind the image of Kara playing in the sand. He shut his eyes and imagined himself there. Kara slowly slid down her bikini bottoms for him . . .
Just as he was approaching orgasm, he heard a balcony door open below him, footsteps, and several adult voices speaking almost in a whisper.
Fuck, oh no. He couldn’t stop. He ejaculated at once, shooting semen to the edge of the balcony. He tilted his head back, hoping to muffle the sounds of his own ragged breathing.
Several moments passed before Drew gathered his remaining two beers and carried his laptop indoors, setting the beers next to his mattress and his laptop on a closed box. He thought of his father for an instant, before turning off the kitchen light and curling in the fetal position on his mattress. Sleep wouldn’t come for several hours.
* * *
Chapter 11
Transtel was exactly as Drew had left it—dismal and archaic, a gargantuan monument to the broken dreams of the retailer who had previously occupied it. The job fair signs with neon lettering were gone, but they would almost certainly be back one day soon.
He entered the building and peered through the glass pane onto the call center floor. Shift workers rotated positions—some anchoring themselves to workstations to begin their sentences, others collecting their meager belongings, anxious for the arrival of eight o’clock.
In the lobby, an easel stood upright with a message scrawled in permanent marker, instructing all new hires to proceed to the training room. At the bottom was an illustrated arrow, directing Drew down the same corridor Bucktooth had led him for his interview the week before.
The door to the training room was ajar and Hungry Paul greeted him with forced enthusiasm. “Drew, welcome. Please sign in. Grab a name tag and take a seat anywhere you’d like. We’ll get started soon.”
“Sure thing, Paul. You’re doing our training, too?”
“Yeah. I’ll be your trainer and your supervisor.”
“Wow. Judge, jury, and executioner, huh?”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Drew looked around. He was one of the first trainees on scene despite it being ten minutes to the hour. The perimeter of the room was lined with tattered office chairs and computers from the Stone Age. Each chair was turned to face an overhead projector screen at the front of the room. Drew had hoped he might locate Kara and snag a seat beside her, but she was absent.
He grabbed a blank name tag and wandered to the back of the room, taking residence in one of many available spots. Sitting at the back allowed him to blend in while maintaining a clear vantage point over the room. And that meant he could entertain himself for hours with internal dialogue, making inane observations on his fellow misfits.
The training room began to fill with forlorn faces—some crowding in one at a time, others in pairs. Each trainee signed in, adhered a generic name tag to his or her torso, then selected a seat to call home for the day.
Fift
een minutes passed and Drew recognized some familiar characters, although he made no effort to learn their real names. He saw the two guys who had worn matching bandanas to the interview—who Drew decided, for the sake of simplicity, needed nicknames. The first man in a bandana was tall, greasy, and had a thick Italian accent. He was about forty years old. In any other setting, Drew would have assumed he was an automotive mechanic. Grease Monkey it is. The other man was short and plump compared to his friend, but about the same age. He had a shrill, sissy voice. No detectable accent but he looked Italian, as well. Looks just like Super Mario, actually.
Mustache was noticeably absent. Perhaps he had difficulty finding a caregiver willing to endure alone time with Braden. Kara was still missing, too. Drew was disappointed, though he had no official reason to be.
“It’s a few minutes past eight, according to my watch,” Hungry Paul said. “So let’s go ahead and get started. Welcome, everybody. I’m Paul Yannic—and I believe I met all of you during the interview process.” He dimmed the lights, fired up a PowerPoint presentation overhead, and stood round and fat at the front and center of the room.
Like a fucking hot air balloon without the basket.
He began by promising the group that he would cover the job itself, but wanted to begin their first day by reviewing policy. He then droned on for forty-five minutes, articulating everything from what to do in the event of a fire alarm to when it was acceptable to take a bathroom break.
The training room was unpleasantly warm and clogged with the stale musk of human bodies. Drew did his best to sit upright and remain attentive. But between the mugginess, the dimness, the dreary dynamic, and the monotony of Hungry Paul’s voice, he found himself fading fast.
The backs of Drew’s eyelids featured imagery of a homeless man who had begged him for change that morning. His cardboard sign had read God Bless in large, crisp, black lettering. Why do bums always have such pristine handwriting? It always looks so fresh and dark, like it was written just hours before with with a brand new Sharpie . . .
Bubbles made a loud and sudden popping noise with her chewing gum, which startled Drew back to earth but failed to slow down Hungry Paul, who still prattled on.
“. . . just be sure to lock your car doors before you come inside, because Transtel management won’t be responsible for. . .”
The training room door swung open and the fluorescent lights in the hallway created an aura that hugged the edges of Kara’s frame. She bowed her head toward Hungry Paul in emblematic apology. “I’m so sorry, Paul. I got here as fast as I could.”
“Come on in, Kara—you told me you’d be late. I didn’t forget. Go ahead and grab a seat.”
She stirred up a commotion, bumping into more than one chair in the dark before settling in next to Drew—one of the few spots still remaining—with a pen and notebook in hand.
Drew couldn’t hide his excitement. “You made it,” he said softly.
“Good morning, Drew Thomson.” She flashed him a demure smile.
He studied her from the corner of his eye. Messy bun, chic blazer, skintight leather pants, and stilettos. She was striking, albeit overdressed for the occasion. But he was seeing Kara in a different outfit, and that meant new material for his spank bank.
“. . . absences not reported to the sick line at least an hour before your scheduled start will be treated as a no-call, no-show, and that means . . .”
Kara leaned toward Drew, secreting the same floral-citrus scent she had worn to the job fair. “Did I miss much?”
“No, not really.” He inhaled her with subtlety. “Found out we can only drop out of queue to use the bathroom twice a day outside of regular break times.”
“Only twice? What if I’ve got to pee?”
“. . . all incidents of theft will be grounds for immediate dismissal, and could result in prosecution under . . .”
“You have to hold it until break time, I guess.”
“Should we protest?” Kara raised an eyebrow.
“Definitely.”
She smirked.
“. . . such incidents will be documented and taken into consideration when completing semiannual performance reviews, so . . .”
“Where were you?” Drew asked. It wasn’t like him to follow up, but surely Kara had been somewhere magical and forbidden.
“It’s a secret.”
“. . . other instances of unacceptable conduct, such as sexual harassment or coming to work under the influence of . . .”
I’m surprised his ankles haven’t given out yet.
“All right,” Hungry Paul announced at last. “Enough of the boring textbook stuff, right?” Trainees offered up a polite and disingenuous laugh. “You’ll each get an employee handbook to review. But for the time being, we’re going to do a little icebreaker so we can get to know each other a bit better.”
Fuck me.
“This one’s called Two Truths and a Lie,” Hungry Paul explained. “Have any of you done this one before?” Half the room raised their hands, but he ignored them. “How it works is you’ll each take turns telling the rest of the group three things about yourself. Two of them will be true, and the third will be a lie. It’s up to the rest of us to guess which one is the lie.”
A dark-skinned man with a permanent grin glued to his face—he hadn’t stop smiling since training began—tapped his foot and wrung his hands with nervous energy. He cranked his head to the side and discharged a series of rapid-fire tongue clicks.
Press one for English, two for Spanish, or three for Tourette syndrome . . .
The thought of speaking in front of a large group, two dozen or more trainees, seemed to terrify Permagrin, but Hungry Paul didn’t notice. He peeped at his watch and said, “I’ll give you two minutes to jot down what you’re going to say, and then we’ll get started.” He turned on the lights.
“It’s kinda like being back in kindergarten,” Drew muttered.
“Oh, come on,” Kara teased. “It’ll be fun.” She tore a sheet of paper from her notepad and ripped it into two pieces, handing one to Drew. “Bet I can guess when you’re lying, Drew Thomson.”
Why is this chick so fucking sexy? “What are you going to lie about?” he asked.
“You’ll have to guess.”
“Time’s up!” Hungry Paul hollered. “Who’d like to go first?”
A young female trainee raised her hand. Bubbles, as Drew remembered her.
“All right, Katrina. Come on up. Introduce yourself to the room before you start.”
Bubbles took the stage with the angst of an adolescent orphan. True to form, she was dressed like an underage prostitute and chomping on a wad of gum.
“Hi, I’m Katrina,” she said, waving to the room. “But you probably all knew that.”
She’s awfully confident. Like a modern day Veruca Salt visiting the Transtel Chocolate Factory.
“Here’s what I wrote down,” she said. “I used to work part-time as a Disney princess, my favorite Kardashian is Kim, and both my nipples are pierced.”
Drew and Kara exchanged glances, confirming they had both heard the same thing.
“Um,” Hungry Paul mumbled, “who—who wants to guess the lie?”
Grease Monkey raised his hand first.
“Chris, go ahead. What’s your guess?”
“I’ll bet you’ve only got one of those nipples pierced.” He said, licking his lips.
The crudeness of his response wasn’t lost on the rest of the room, but Super Mario fist bumped his friend regardless. They both laughed.
Bubbles covered her mouth, her attempt at bashfulness unconvincing. “Nope. They’re both pierced,” she replied with pride.
Kara raised her hand.
“Kara,” Hungry Paul prompted.
“I’m guessing it’s the Kardashian thing.”
“You got me,” Katrina replied with a giggle. “Khloe is actually my favorite.”
Kara leaned in to Drew. “Totally not what I meant.”
&
nbsp; “You’re up, Kara,” Hungry Paul said.
“The person who guesses correctly goes up next,” Hungry Paul said. “But, um, let’s try to keep this game appropriate for a professional environment, okay?”
Kara sauntered to the front of the room and Drew followed the hypnotic motion of her leather pants. She offered the room a genuine smile. “Hi everyone, I’m Kara—nice to meet you all.”
I think she actually likes meeting new people. Oh well. No one is perfect.
Kara glanced at the note she had scribbled for herself. “Okay, so here are my three things. I took a trip to Jamaica last year, I was a secretary before I started working here, and I was late today because I was at the dentist.”
Drew’s hand shot up with such exuberance that trainees seated near him took notice.
“Drew, go ahead,” Hungry Paul said.
“You weren’t at the dentist. That one’s the lie.”
“You’re right,” Kara replied, surprised.
She’s going to wonder why I was so certain about that.
“You’re next, Drew,” Hungry Paul said.
Kara passed Drew as she returned to her seat, casting an inquisitive glance in his direction.
“Ahem.” Drew cleared his throat. “Uh, okay. So, these all happened last week. First I got in a fistfight with my brother at a cemetery, and I won. Then I, uh, won fourteen hundred dollars at the casino that night. And then my dad died of cancer just a few days later.”
A distinct gasp arose as trainees traded muddled glances. Even Hungry Paul seemed unsure how to react.
It was unlike Drew to draw attention to himself, but—at that moment—he couldn’t be bothered to humor Hungry Paul and his senseless icebreaker.
Grease Monkey leaned back in his chair. “That’s easy. The first one. You’ve never been in a fight in your life.”
Super Mario emitted a sharp laugh—more of a shriek—both men oblivious to the uneasiness around them.
“Nope,” Drew replied. “And if you think I’m a pussy, you should see my brother.”