[Brackets]

by Sloan, David

  “…just one hour ago,” Deborah Cheney was saying, “smoke began pouring out of the first floor windows of this small downtown New Haven brokerage firm. A few office workers received medical attention for smoke inhalation, but I’m told there were no casualties. However, the building has sustained massive damage. While fire fighters now have the blaze under control, it may be too late to save any of the interior. One witness reports that the fire started in a back room soon after a large rock was thrown through one of the windows. If confirmed, these facts may point to the Wall Street bomber as the culprit. We’ll have more details as this story unfolds.”

  As the camera panned the front of the smoldering building, the attention of the office was focused on the empty brick building next door. A Cheney Real Estate sign was in the window, and a layer of smoke and debris now covered one side.

  “Look at that,” said Tom. “That building is going to be impossible to sell for at least a year.” Others nodded solemnly. “Looks like we should have listened to Cole.” Even Linda, whose face had gone ashen, had to nod in agreement. Cole could only watch as he wondered exactly what kind of luck he was having.

  [East Division: Sweet Sixteen]

  [Friday, March 27]

  Cole came to work on Friday as early as usual. But this time, he found the door unlocked and the lights on. Strange. When he walked in, he found himself staring directly into the large black eye of a television camera lens, highlighted by a small red “on” light and crowned from behind with the scraggly hair of a cameraman. Cole wondered if he should say something.

  Standing nearby to help was a reporter that he recognized immediately as Deborah Cheney. She shook his hand, introduced herself, and asked politely if he had a few minutes for an interview. He nodded.

  Deborah began to explain what to do: try to smile, don’t look at the camera, just stay loose. As she talked, he scanned the room and noticed Anne Marie, looking very pleased and wearing the smile that she usually reserved exclusively for clients and important people. Behind her was Nera, watching him with amusement. Tom was lurking in the background, shamelessly removing donuts from a box near the coffee machine.

  Deborah moved in close, cleared her throat, and checked her jacket for anything unsightly. Cole tried to give himself a quick look too, since he hadn’t spent more than five seconds on either hair or clothes that morning. But it was too late; the camera was on him again, and the interview began with a classic Deborah Cheney monologue.

  “It’s the dream of every March Madness fan: a perfect bracket. And for this young administrative assistant, that dream might come true. I’m here at the Cheney Real Estate Agency in South Windsor with Cole Kaman, a man who has successfully predicted each game of the tournament so far. Cole, how does it feel to have a perfect bracket going into the Sweet Sixteen?”

  She lifted the microphone to Cole and he answered, forgetting whether he was supposed to look at her or the camera.

  “Uh, it’s pretty amazing. Definitely a new experience for me.”

  “I’ll bet. What was your method for picking the winners?”

  “Oh, uh, I don’t know. Just whatever felt right when I looked at it, you know.” Cole was having a hard time remembering to blink.

  “I see.” Deborah saw that she was going to have to inject the necessary energy into the conversation. “Looking at your bracket here, I see that you have UCLA winning it all in the final game, is that right?”

  Cole blanked. He glanced over at Nera, who nodded her head.

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “I’ll bet you have some friends and neighbors here who are wondering why you didn’t pick UCONN to go all the way. Was it hard to pick against the local favorite?”

  He hadn’t thought about that at all, actually.

  “Oh, no, I mean, it wasn’t anything personal. Actually, though, they did turn me down when I applied there, but I didn’t think of that when I was filling it out.” He kept looking at the camera.

  “I’ll bet they wish they’d let you in now! It might have been the luck they needed against Vanderbilt last night.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe. That would have been good.”

  Cole saw the reporter thinking about searching for more of a story, then giving up as she turned back to speak directly into the camera. “We’ll be keeping a watch on Cole and his amazing bracket as the tournament continues. For now, UCLA might want to send this young man a brochure. More news coming up.”

  The camera light went off, and Deborah Cheney turned to shake his hand again. “Good job. Let us know if you make it out of the next round.”

  Anne Marie walked up behind her. “That was great, Cole. He was very good, wasn’t he?” The sisters exchanged a glance and walked back into Anne Marie’s office. As they left, Nera approached, smiling. It felt good to see her. She had been out of the office for most of the week.

  “So, that was weird,” Cole said quietly. “What’s going on?”

  “Anne Marie was pretty bummed by the whole burning building thing, so when she remembered your perfect bracket, she had this idea about using it as a publicity stunt to promote the agency. She had Tom keep her posted about how you did on the Sweet Sixteen yesterday. When you got all the picks right, she called her sister to have her do the interview. You’ll be on local news state-wide in,” she checked the clock, “they said in about five minutes.”

  “Wow,” he responded. “Wait, does Anne Marie really think people are going to start buying houses from us just because the receptionist made a lot of lucky picks?”

  “You never know.” Nera raised her eyebrows. “People are weird about things. Remember that octopus that chose World Cup matches? They might think of you as a good luck charm. You’re good karma. Like, did you notice how Deborah Cheney kept saying ‘I’ll bet’?”

  “I did notice that.”

  “I kept wondering if she was trying to send you a message, like what she was really saying was, ‘Hey, I will bet. Money. Right now’.” Cole laughed along with Nera, then laughed again at the thought that she was actually talking to him.

  “It’s probably a good thing she didn’t. I seriously couldn’t remember who I put down as the winner, and I didn’t even know that UCONN played last night. I probably would have told her to bet on a school that wasn’t even playing.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Nera, with a sly smile. “By the way, I owe you lunch. Sorry I’ve been so busy this week. Would today work? 11:45?”

  Before Cole could answer with an absolute, enthusiastic yes, Tom came up behind them, a clump of jelly donut still bulging from the corner of his lip.

  “Cole Kaman, the man doing the impossible!” He slapped Cole on the back. “I’ve taken all the other brackets off the wall. They don’t matter anymore. From now on, we’re all on Team Cole.”

  Cole grinned. “Good to know. Just curious, how much is Linda beating you by?”

  “I just said that doesn’t matter anymore,” Tom retorted. “I was going to give you your cash pool winnings now, but…” He took out an envelope and waved it at Cole. “Nah, I guess you can have it.”

  Cole accepted the envelope and looked at the wad of cash inside. “I already won?”

  “No one else can beat you. Not a person in the office has an intact Final Four. I feel kind of bad for you, actually. If we had done this online, you could have been entered to win like a million dollars for a perfect bracket. Instead you just get ten bucks a piece from us. It’s too bad.”

  Cole considered that bit of information as he sat down to his minimum-wage secretarial job. Most of his coworkers came in time to watch his interview broadcast and have some fun at his expense. When they returned to their desks, easy listening wafted overhead, and Cole was left alone with a stack of items marked ‘Urgent’ and time to think about a million dollars, fifteen seconds of fame, and the fact that very little had actually changed for him.

  Half an hour after the segment aired, the phone rang.

  “Cheney Re
al Estate,” Cole said, with just the hint of a sigh as he put on his headset.

  The voice on the other end sounded old and gravelly. “Ah, yes, this is Cheney Real Estate?”

  “Yes, sir, how can I help you today?”

  “Uh, yes, are you the young guy I saw on TV with the perfect basketball picks?”

  “Um, yes sir,” Cole answered cautiously.

  The man’s voice suddenly became much louder. “What do you mean not picking UCONN to win the championship? You should be ashamed. What’s the matter with you?”

  Cole looked around to see if he was being pranked. No one was even looking at him.

  “Sir,” Cole responded with professional courtesy, “I’m sorry that they lost. I just made a lucky guess, that’s all. I didn’t mean for them to lose.”

  “You have no right to influence games in this state! I am writing a complaint to the NCAA and drawing attention to your infractions. Shame on you, son!”

  “Sir, are you interested in investing in some real estate or not?”

  “Ha!” exclaimed the voice. “I wouldn’t buy anything from you if you were the last real estate agency in the state. Are you even from Connecticut? You’re from Massachusetts, aren’t you? I’ll bet that you work for the same crew that stole the Patriots from us, you...”

  “Sir, would you be interested in some real estate if I weren’t working here?”

  “Well,” he stuttered, “no, but you should be ashamed…”

  “Thank you, have a nice day,” said Cole, and he removed the headset.

  “What was that about?” asked Tom, eating from a small bag of potato chips.

  “Craziest old dude ever. He was yelling at me for making UCONN lose last night. I can’t believe they let people like that have phones. There should be some kind of senile telephone law…”

  He stopped as he heard a faint, digital hum that sounded like a voice. Tom pointed to Cole’s desk.

  “I think you forgot to hang up,” he noted.

  “Oh, no,” Cole groaned, hitting the ‘end’ button on his phone. Then he leaned back and laughed. “He is not going to be happy.”

  “I bet he comes down and tears you a new one,” Tom joked. Within a minute, the phone rang again. Cole didn’t want to answer it, but he had to. It was his job.

  For the rest of the morning, Tom got very little work done. He spent his time pretending to be busy, but his ears and attention were focused on Cole, who received bizarre call after bizarre call. Tom heard phrases that he never thought he would hear in a workplace:

  “No, sir, I can’t endorse your book if I haven’t read it. And honestly, I’m just not that into mini-golf, so....”

  Click.

  “No, I can’t get you tickets to the Final Four, but I can get you a free quote on a nice property we have in…hello?”

  Click.

  “I promise you that I’m not out to destroy your business. I have nothing against bookies. Wait, you’re offering me a job?”

  Click.

  “Dude, seriously, I have no idea if it will work out between you two. Maybe if you had 63 other women fight it out I could tell you something.”

  Click.

  Nera walked up behind Tom’s desk as Cole was wrapping up a conversation with a woman who would only buy a house through them if he could promise that the house would last through the apocalypse.

  “He’s having a hard morning, isn’t he?” she said gently.

  “This is the best day I’ve had all year. I recorded the last three for my blog. My hit count is going to quadruple,” replied Tom.

  Cole’s phone rang again. The poor receptionist sighed very hard, ran his fingers through his entire head of hair, and answered.

  “How long do you think this can go on?” asked Nera.

  “Until all the loony morning news viewers get distracted by the evening news. So…all day.” Tom said.

  * * * *

  The stress from his unusual morning was washed away when Nera came over to get him for lunch.

  Down the street from the office was a small Chinese restaurant. It was the kind of place that seemed to stay open forever even though no one ever seemed to go in. Nera revealed to Cole that she was one of the mysterious individuals keeping it alive with regular visits. The host recognized her and showed them to a table in the corner. Without a glance at the menu, she ordered for both of them.

  “Oh, wait, are you allergic to anything?” she asked as the waiter walked away. He wasn’t.

  “You’re going to love this. I still don’t know what they do to the chicken, but it’s amazing.”

  Cole smiled and nodded without saying anything. He had always imagined that he would be on his game—affable, poised, maybe even funny—if he ever got the chance to be out with Nera. But now that they were there, all semblance of conversation escaped him.

  Nera interpreted his silence differently. “Cole, you shouldn’t let the calls this morning make you mad. They’ll end soon.”

  “I know. I just really don’t want to talk about it during lunch,” he said, meaning it.

  “OK,” said Nera. “I’m just saying, it seems like you let them wind you up.”

  “I’m not wound up.”

  “You’re not?”

  “No,” said Cole. “I know I can’t take these things personally. I barely even thought about the stupid thing. It’s not my fault that I didn’t have UCONN winning.”

  “It wasn’t? Whose fault was it?”

  A good point, though he still felt that the events of the day were happening to him, not because of him.

  “I blame Tom,” he said, and Nera wholeheartedly agreed.

  Lunch arrived. In a few cardboard containers placed before each of them was more food than Cole had ever been served at one time. What added to his embarrassment was that Nera was breaking out chopsticks as he reached for the fork.

  “It’s OK,” she said sweetly. “You can use the fork on your Chinese food. I won’t necessarily think you’re any less of a man.” Cole briefly considered whether trying to eat fried rice with two sticks would help prove his manhood. The fork it was.

  They ate in silence for a while, mostly because the rice was very good, partly because Cole was very nervous. Cole began to realize that, although they had worked together for nearly a year, he actually didn’t know that much about her. He knew that she was cool, that she played all the sports that she liked, that she was probably a little smarter than her job, and that she could wolf down a container of lo mein in half the time it took anybody else on the planet. But when he thought further, he began to draw blanks. Nera was the one to break the silence.

  “How’s your back doing?”

  “Huh?”

  “Didn’t you hurt your back a few months ago trying to move that desk for Anne Marie?”

  “Oh,” Cole said, “that wasn’t anything. I’ve had a bad back for a while.”

  “How did you hurt it the first time?”

  “Skateboarding. Kind of a freak accident with this loose railing in a parking garage. I was in a body cast for a while after my senior year.”

  “I didn’t know you were a skater.”

  “I haven’t skated since the accident. I got into other stuff, like local bands and stuff.” He took a drink of water, trying to swallow the nervousness. “You like music?”

  She finished chewing her mouthful. “I like a little of everything. Pop, hip-hop, some latin, that kind of thing. You’re into rock, right? I know they’re always making you change your radio station.”

  “Yeah, I’m not really into dentist office music, but it’s not a battle I can really win with Linda around, you know?”

  She laughed and swallowed another bite of rice, almost without chewing. “I know. My mom was always listening to stuff from the seventies. Big Chicago fan. I still can’t hear them without…” She stopped talking without any intention of continuing. Her chewing became much more slow and deliberate. After a long moment, she shrugged off whatever thought was
in her head.

  “Anyway. Any good local bands? I don’t know much about who’s hot in South Windsor.”

  Cole looked at her and debated whether he was brave enough to go back a step in their conversation. He decided not. “Molotov Entrails. It sounds gross, but their drummer is really good.”

  She smiled. “You go to any concerts?”

  He nodded and took a deep breath. “Actually, I’m going up to a concert tonight at the Dodge Center.”

  “You mean HAIR?” she asked enthusiastically.

  “Yeah, you know it?”

  “Of course I do. I was going to go if I didn’t have to be out of town. I’m so jealous! I mean, I probably wouldn’t have known many of the bands like you would, but it sounded like fun.”

  Cole thought about his second ticket and felt a little sick. “So, your plans for the weekend must be really set in stone for you to miss out like that,” he suggested, looking for a ray of hope.

  Nera nodded soberly, disappointment among the emotions in her voice. “They are. I don’t come back until Sunday afternoon. But get some good stories to tell me on Monday, OK?”

  “Sure,” he said, putting aside his fork. Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore. “Now, what can you tell me about basketball?”

  “Everything,” she replied as she swallowed her last egg roll and began to attempt just that.

  * * * *

  When they arrived back at the office, they were laughing. Cole had never felt better. He thanked Nera for the third time in ten minutes, and she squeezed his arm and returned to her desk. Hopping into his chair with a half-whistle, he caught Tom’s eye. So is something happening? Tom asked with his eyebrows. Cole just grinned and called into his voicemail. He hadn’t even heard the first irate UCONN fan when Anne Marie poked her head out of her door.

  “Cole,” she called, “can I see you a second?”

  He entered the office; she closed the door.

  “Cole, while you were out, I noticed that your phone was ringing pretty constantly. Tom told me that you had been getting unusual calls all morning, but I didn’t want to miss any calls from clients, so I answered your phone.”