I show him what I’ve got on my phone, and as we look at it together I begin to come to a conclusion. When we’re done he makes the same conclusion out loud. “He was kind of pulling away, wasn’t he?”
I have to nod, though it enrages me. “He wanted me around to impress his friends, but then he started backing off. Probably knew I’d figure out he was full of it about suing the show.”
Sam nods. “I’ll look into ways to find him and let you know as soon as I have something.”
Before I know I’m going to do it, I grab hold of his hand and give it a squeeze. “Thank you. You’re the best.”
He squeezes back, though his neck turns blotchy red again. “No, that’s you. That spear fishing you did was awe-inspiring.”
I want to compliment him back but he wasn’t on the island long enough for me to know what he can do. After an awkward silence, he says, “Well, should we keep going with the videos?”
“Yup.” I’m grateful for the distraction from Will. “I really appreciate the work you did here. It’s such a huge goal, this video thing, and I do want it but it’s scary.”
He turns the page. “I get being afraid of a big goal. I’ve got one myself.”
I look up from the plan. “Like this?”
He shakes his head. “It’s kind of stupid.”
I laugh. “You’re talking to someone who has ‘hair braiding videos’ as a goal. Can’t be more stupid than that.”
He raises his eyebrows. “That isn’t stupid at all. Do you really think it is?”
The intensity in his eyes makes me uncomfortable. “I... no, of course--” I sigh. “Yeah. I guess I think I do. I do want it, but... I mean, it’s not world peace, is it? Or a cure for cancer? It’s kind of, well, I think stupid is the word.”
A grim chuckle escapes him. “Want to know mine? I want to be able to squat two times my body weight by my birthday in February. That’s it. Talk about pointless.”
It might seem pointless, to anyone who can’t see the passion in his face. “But you obviously want it. So that makes it not pointless.”
“Does it now,” he says, giving me a ‘do you hear yourself?’ look.
I wrinkle my nose. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. But anyhow, why that goal?”
“Hugh at my gym, who happens to be Melinda’s brother, was mocking my squat numbers,” he says, looking embarrassed but also determined. “That made me research what’s considered a good squat, and I found out Arnold Schwarzenegger did double his weight on his thirty-second birthday. So I want to do it too. He weighed a lot more than I do, so the number isn’t the same, but...”
I nod. “I can do a little over my weight, or at least I could when I was actually training. Haven’t done a thing since the show. I think that’s a neat goal, actually. Not stupid at all.” I actually think he should be focused on making this Hugh admit how rotten his sister is rather than on trying to impress him with his squat numbers, but maybe after he reaches the squat goal he’ll smarten up.
“Well, thanks,” he says, heaving a sigh. “But I don’t think it’ll happen.” He looks down at his ankle. “Not now.”
I frown, then I understand. “That’s what you meant when you said everything was weaker now.”
“Yup. I should have been building up for all these weeks and instead I’ve done nothing. I tried this morning, and...” He grimaces. “Didn’t even make it to my body weight before my leg couldn’t handle the movement. Sucks.”
I nod, feeling bad for him in the face of his obvious frustration. “It’ll work, though.” I tap the pages of his plan. “A bit at a time, like you said for me.”
He smiles. “Thanks. I hope you’re right. I just want to get stronger, that’s all.”
I take a breath to answer then jump as a sultry voice, like an extra-sexy Jessica Rabbit, says, “You look plenty strong enough to me” and a red-nailed hand gives Sam’s arm a squeeze.
He turns, startled, and I look up and say, “You’re early.”
Shannon laughs and says in that same ridiculously skanky voice, “No, I’m right on time.”
As she takes a seat uninvited I glance at my phone and realize she’s right. We’ve blown through several hours and not even noticed. The power of passion, I suppose.
Shannon seems to be developing a passion herself. “You look amazing,” she purrs, letting her eyes slither all over Sam. “Why would you think you need to be even stronger? Is that even possible?”
He flushes. “I’ve got some goals, that’s all.”
“Shannon,” I say, wishing I’d met Sam somewhere else, “we’ve got a few more things to discuss. Do you mind...”
“Listening in? Not at all.” She smiles at Sam. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
I can’t tell if he does, but I certainly do. Still, telling her to take off will only make her want to stay so I say, “Well, fine. But why don’t you go get a drink?”
“Want him all to yourself?” She giggles. “Can’t say I blame you. But okay. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
She walks away, her hips swishing more than usual, and I look back at Sam while resigning myself to seeing his eyes glued to her backside.
Instead, they’re glued to the plan.
Happiness filling me, although I don’t know why since I have no romantic interest in him, I say, “Sorry about that. She’s quite... um...”
“Yeah,” he says, giving me a shy smile. “I can see that.”
I smile back and we hurry through the final few things he’d wanted to tell me, and as we deal with the last one Becky arrives and Shannon returns from the coffee line.
“What are you up to?” Becky eyes the pages. “Looks complicated.”
Sam doesn’t answer, so I have to. “It’s for my braiding thing.”
She leans closer to give the pages a better look. “I thought that was just your hobby. Are you trying to do something with it?”
Her tone, filled with confusion and something that sounds like disgust, silences me, which unfortunately gives Shannon the chance to jump in, lay her hand over Sam’s, and say, “I’ve got lots of business ideas myself. If you can get things going for Ashley, maybe I’ll let you help me next.”
Sam, not seeming to notice her ‘and by help I mean in the bedroom’ tone, says, “Well, Ashley and I have a lot of work to do first. But she’s going to do great.”
I smile at him, touched by the sincerity in his voice. “You really think so?”
“I know so. Get a few more videos posted, promote them like we talked about, and then we can get together again and see how it’s going. Cool?”
“Definitely.”
He pushes his chair back and said, “Well, have a good evening, ladies.”
Becky mumbles a goodbye, Shannon winks and says, “Hope we’ll see you again soon,” and I say, “Thanks again, Sam.”
Looking at me, he says, “We’ll talk soon,” and heads toward the coffee shop’s door moving slowly and awkwardly in his walking boot brace. I feel bad for him. How will he ever become who he wants to be while hobbled by his past injury?
“Well!” Shannon elbows me, too hard. “You’ve been holding out on us. I thought Will was the man of your dreams.”
“My nightmares, more like,” I say. “And Sam’s just my friend.”
“With an ass that belongs in an art gallery,” she says, watching him cross the parking lot. “If you don’t want him, can I have him?”
He is in fantastic shape. Not that I care. “No way.”
She laughs. “Then you do want him.”
Nope. I just don’t want her to have him. She’d use him and throw him away, and I can already tell he deserves better. I remember from the show’s broadcast that he’s been married and divorced, and that combined with this horrible baby thing means I feel bad for him.
Besides, if he did like her I might lose him as a friend, and I don’t want that. For once, I want a good thing to stay with me.
Chapter Twelve
I come out o
f the shower the next morning to find myself with two text messages. From Sam, a thanks for letting him use me as a guinea pig for his business, and from Shannon, something less sweet.
Hey, Trump! Randy the WWB is going to be out tonight, so we have the TV all to ourselves if you want to come over. BFB is. Let me know.
Randy might indeed be the world’s worst brother, but Shannon and her insistence on referring to me as Donald Trump because of my new-found business interest made last night’s outing one of the worst we’ve ever had. Becky picked up the nickname too, of course, which annoyed me since she so hates her Big Fat Becks one, and though I knew they were just teasing it made me feel like they thought my dreams were useless. And since I feel that way myself, like nothing will ever work out for me, hearing it from them made me so angry I needed two glasses of wine to get to sleep.
I write Shannon back to say I can’t come over because I’m busy getting my toupee cleaned, and Sam to tell him I appreciate his help, then sit down at the computer. I have to make another video. I went over my past ones before my shower and none of them are worthy of Sam’s hard work. People who liked the other ones have been asking me to post more, but I can’t post these. Why put time into promoting if the thing you’re promoting stinks?
I fiddle around for a bit but can’t come up with anything to film, so I fetch myself a half-glass of wine and sit watching Silver flying around the room to get my brain moving. After two sips, though, my cell phone rings.
I glance at it, then cringe. I know why my boss is calling and I so don’t want to answer.
But I also don’t want to hear the bitchy message he’ll leave me, so I sigh and answer the phone.
“We need you in today,” Saul says without bothering to respond to my hello. “Sally’s sick.”
She isn’t. I overheard her yesterday telling Charity that she’d be calling in because she wanted to go to a craft show and felt like a day off.
I do too, and unlike her I actually deserve one, but Grandmother used a lot of favors to get me this job, the highest-paying one among my friends, so I make myself say, “I can be there in an hour.”
“Make it half,” he says. “We need a supervisor on the floor.”
This perks me up. I hadn’t expected I’d get Sally’s supervisor position even for the day since Saul’s made it abundantly clear in the past that only those with post-secondary education can get anywhere close to a management role in the company. “Oh, okay, I’ll get a move on,” I say, pushing back from the table and heading into the bedroom to find some work clothes. “And thanks for trusting me with that.”
Silence, then he laughs. “No, Ashley,” he says, sounding like he’s explaining astrophysics to a three-year-old. “You can’t be a supervisor. Not until you get a degree, or at least some education after high school. I feel like I’ve told you this before.”
My cheeks blazing as anger and humiliation stampede through me like runaway elephants destroying everything in their path, I mutter, “I just thought--”
“You were wrong. Marshall’s the supervisor and you’re taking his spot.”
This makes everything even worse. Marshall’s enough of a jerk at the best of times, but when he takes on the power of a supervisor he makes MC’s ex Phillip seem like a calm reasonable man. I search frantically for an excuse not to go in, but I can’t find one.
Not that it matters, because Saul says, “Be here in thirty,” and hangs up before I can answer.
Holding the dead phone, I stare at the work clothes I hate. Will I still be wearing them in thirty years, still going to a job that doesn’t appreciate me and doing dull repetitive work I hate?
Of course I will. My life is one long slow slog toward the grave. I had one chance to change it, and that’s over. Might as well give up and quit hoping for more.
*****
No matter how low I’d set my hopes, they’d have been dashed by that shift at the factory. Marshall spent every possible moment lording his status over me, Sally’s best friend Charity called me Princess all day with more attitude every time, and a new guy named Jay drove me crazy with his constant questions about why we did what we did and how he could fit in better. He mentioned that he had no education past high school so I did tell him he couldn’t get promoted, but he just smiled and said, “We’ll see,” and that annoyed me too. To top it all off, I got such a static shock from one of the machines that even by the time I get home my arm’s still numb.
Wanting everything else to be numb too, I pick up the wine glass I abandoned earlier and fill it right to the brim then begin again trying to hunt down Will.
Once the wine’s gone, and I’m forced to admit I have no idea how to find him, I slump on the couch and watch the most mindless TV I can find until I’m too tired to keep my eyes open then stagger off to bed. Lying there, waiting for unconsciousness to take me, I realize I could have worked on a video. It didn’t even occur to me. No point, though. It’ll never work out. My life will never get any better. Why bother trying to improve it?
Why bother hoping?
Chapter Thirteen
“Annoying, right?”
“I never understand that sort of thing,” Sam says. “Why is some degree, any degree, necessary? Sure, if it’s a specialized skill, but just having the piece of paper? I don’t see why he should care.”
“Me either.” I take a long sip of my latte. “But he does. And I’ll never be anything more than a factory drone without that paper.” Jay the new guy pops into my mind. When I worked with him today he went on and on about his big plans for his career at the factory. He believes he’ll be more than a drone. Well, he’s wrong.
“I can see why you haven’t uploaded another video. I wouldn’t have either with that annoyance taking all my energy.”
I’m not sure that’s actually why I haven’t made any more videos, but I go with it because admitting that I probably just don’t have the guts has no appeal. “Yeah.” I sigh. “This time of year gets to me too, I think. Everything’s so crazy.”
“Yup. I won’t ask the question everyone asks these days, but... have you?”
“Finished my Christmas shopping?”
He smiles. “That’s the one. And I haven’t, for the record.”
“Me either.” I’ve hated doing it, since I can’t shop for Brett and I so want to. “I’m done with my friends, and Grandfather, but Grandmother...” I shake my head. “There’s no pleasing that woman. Either I spent way too much and she tells me I’m an idiot, or way too little and she gets all quiet and hurt.”
“Quiet is probably better, of those two options.”
“Yeah. Just wish for once I could make her happy.”
He nods. “Got any ideas for her?”
“I bought a heating pack since she’s always complaining about the cold, but that’s it. I need more. And I’m running out of time.”
“Seven shopping days until Christmas,” he says, his tone echoing every ad that had been running on the radio for weeks.
“I’m doomed. What about you? What’s left to get?”
It turns out everything is left for him to get, so we decide to finish up our drinks while he shows me a few ideas for promoting my videos and then head over to the mall together. I do my best to act excited about the ideas, since they’re good and it’s not Sam’s fault that I’ll never implement them and that they won’t work even if I do, and his pleasure at my reaction makes me smile for the first time today. When we go to the mall, he drives so we won’t need two parking spots, and being in his truck with him for the first time feels strange. But nice.
In fairly short order we find gifts for his parents and for his younger brother, and a plaque that reads “The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train” which I hope will amuse Grandmother since she says that often. I spot a gorgeous pair of silver heels, exactly like the ones I remember on my mom and ‘only’ three hundred dollars, and can’t stop staring at them. Sam encourages me to try them on but I refuse since I’d n
ever buy them and even if I did I’d have nowhere to wear them so there’s no point in owning them.
Once he gives up on pushing me to give them a shot, we keep searching for the perfect gift for his aunt and uncle until he says, “I had a thought.”
“Did it hurt?” I say, as I would have to Shannon or Becky, and as he chuckles I realize I’ve never before felt comfortable enough with a guy to make those sorts of jokes. Sam makes me feel safe and calm, entirely unlike how Will revved me up and made me excited about his plans. Fury at Will rises in me but I push it away, not wanting to ruin my outing with Sam. I’ll ask him later if he’s come up with any ways to track Will.
“It hurt a little,” Sam says, giving me a mock grimace and rubbing his forehead. “But I’ll survive. I was thinking, maybe you should get a diploma or something. I don’t know the details, but my brother’s girlfriend did an admin assistant thing in about four months. Might be worthwhile to get off the factory floor.”
Being an admin assistant doesn’t appeal, since Becky complains so much about her job, but the concept makes sense. “I’ll look into it. Got any idea where she went?”
Sam pulls out his phone. “No, but I can get one.” He fires off a text, and we finish with the store we’re in then head off for a rest at the nearby coffee shop. I need a bathroom break, and when I return he says, “Got an answer. Come look at this.”
I sit down next to him and realize he has the school’s web site open on his phone. “Aw, thanks.”
He smiles at me. “No biggie. I’m curious too. I’ve got some basic fitness certifications but I’ve considered doing more.”
It turns out that he can, there. We find a six-month personal trainer course that he thinks looks interesting, and an admin assistant one for me that would take only three months and is largely online so I would be able to do it around my erratic work schedule.
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