SLACK: A Day in the Life of Ford Aston (Rook and Ronin Spin-off)

by JA Huss

  There’s no way I’m taking communion, so as soon as our row gets up for it, I pat my mother on the shoulder as my only warning, and make my escape out the back. I stuff my hands into my coat pockets, sorta proud of myself that I lasted a whole hour in there, and then spy Ronin’s black truck across the street from my Bronco.

  I could put Rook’s present in the truck. I walk over to the Bronco and open up the glove box.

  Oh, God. Looking at Sasha’s gift wrapping handiwork almost makes me feel sick. What must she be thinking right now? I grab both presents and my knife and stuff them all in my pockets. I jog back over to Ronin’s truck. The doors are locked but the back glass window slides open when I try it. I hop in the bed, reach my hand in, and drop the little Eric Cartman package on her seat.

  I hope she doesn’t sit on it, but if she does, she’ll definitely know it’s there. I close the window and hop out, then spy my mom’s Mercedes down the street. Sasha would definitely be disappointed in me if I never gave that bracelet to her. And since I’m not sure if I’ll go home tomorrow for dinner—that’s asking a lot, even if it is Christmas—I better drop it off now, too.

  I have a remote on my key chain that unlocks her car, so I slip in the driver’s seat and prop the little gift bag in the ledge of her GPS console, and then get out and lock it up.

  I feel a little bit like Santa Claus and some of the dread and unease melts away as I walk back to my Bronco. I pocket my gift-wrapped knife and drive home. It stopped snowing and the sky is clear and black, with more stars showing than you usually see in the city.

  When the elevator opens to my penthouse hallway, I’m half expecting that psycho-pet to be here waiting, but she’s not. I’m alone again. I’m not sure how getting rid of the pets will affect me. I’m not even sure if I’m serious about it. I’ll probably call Pam up tomorrow begging for one. Surely she can’t have scheduled one for Christmas Day. There’s still time if I want to change my mind.

  I’m just not sure.

  I hang up my coat and change out of my suit and into some sweats and a t-shirt.

  What a fucking day.

  I pour some whiskey into a rocks tumbler and take a long slow sip. This is what I’ve needed since this morning. Teach me to drive all over two fucking states. My phone buzzes an incoming call and I look at the time. Almost one thirty. And it’s my mom.

  “Mom?” I ask, like she does every time I call, as if she didn’t have caller ID and know for a fact that it’s me.

  “Ford,” she says with a lightness in her voice. “You have caller ID, why do you always ask if it’s me?”

  I laugh.

  “I just wanted to thank you for the gift, Ford. It’s lovely. And who may I ask is Sasha?”

  My laugh dies. I forgot she signed the card. “She’s a kid who sold me the bracelet.” I tell my mom the story of where it came from because Sasha would’ve wanted me to, and I can tell she’s choked up about it. I even tell her what happened with her dad and the news broadcast. My mom is smart. She’s not delusional, she knows what I do. She knows that somehow I’m connected to this girl’s father. She knows Spencer, Ronin, and I are guilty as fuck of just about everything they say about us on TV. She knows. But she accepts me. My parents have always accepted me. The weirdness was never a factor. We chat for almost eight minutes. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to my mother on the phone for so long in my life.

  “I’m so sorry that happened, Ford,” she says as the conversation winds down.

  “Yeah, me too. I might drive up there tomorrow and see if she needs anything so you should probably just get Gary to come keep you company all day.”

  She sighs. “I miss your father every day, Ford. I do. He was my whole life. But he’s been gone for two years now and I’m lonely.”

  I nod, like she can see me. “I understand. It’s OK.” I’m not really sure that it is OK, but she needs to hear that, so I say it anyway. I’m not capable of much empathy, but I can fake it. And they never know the difference, so what the fuck. It doesn’t cost me anything to pretend to understand and be nice.

  We say our goodbyes and hang up.

  Chapter Ten

  Everything seems to be changing all of a sudden. This morning I had a routine. I’m not sure if it was a good routine or a healthy one, but it was there. Running, pets, solitude.

  And now, I’m not sure where I am, let alone where I’m going.

  I turn the TV off and leave my whiskey on the coffee table. My bedroom feels sterile to me. The only hint that someone actually sleeps here is the rumpled duvet from my earlier fuck with psycho-pet. I’m just about to turn off the light and give up on this day when my phone buzzes.

  What could my mother want now?

  I pick it up and look at the face.

  Rook.

  Life improves instantly.

  “Miss Corvus,” I rumble out smoothly. Even I can hear the want in my voice. “I realize you don’t need beauty rest, but some of us do.”

  She snorts at me. “Ford, you are so, so stupid! I just called to tell you I found this little Eric Cartman toy on my seat. In fact, I sat on it and it made me jump.” I picture this in my head and I wish I was there to see it. “And imagine my surprise when I opened it and found that card.”

  Busted. I didn’t write the card, Sasha did. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Tell me what the card says.”

  “It says,” she stops to clear her throat. “To Ford’s friend who is a girl. He likes you a lot, but I’m gonna try and steal his heart when I get my braces off, so you better move fast. Merry Christmas, Sasha and Ford Forever. XXOO, heart, heart, flower.”

  I laugh. I laugh so hard it echoes off the walls in this stupid ultra-modern condo. “Well,” I tell her, “that pretty much made my whole day. If I could have you and Sasha together, my life might be complete.”

  “I got you something too, Ford. But I was afraid to call it a gift. Ronin says you don’t like holidays.”

  “Some people make some holidays more tolerable than others. What did you get me?”

  She takes a deep breath. “I talked Ronin into letting me do another season of Shrike Bikes. But I’m not gonna do it unless you’re the producer. So if you’re out, I’m out too. Because I never realized how much we do together until we were separated this month. When I don’t run with you every day, I feel a little lost. You kinda ground me, Ford. I need it. I need that show and I’m really looking forward to all of us being together again.”

  I breathe deeply to calm my racing heart. “I just heard today that Season Two is on. My assistant called from LA and said they want to film during the trials. I know it’ll be hard, but we’ll manage it, OK? Ronin, Spence, and I will make sure we come out of this looking squeaky clean.”

  “I’ve never doubted you guys, Ford. Never. I look at my life today and I think to myself—Rook, how the hell? Ya know? Just how the hell did you get here? Remember when you asked me that last summer?”

  “Yeah,” I say as I think back to that day. I was falling in love with her and I didn’t even know it. “Last Christmas I was in Japan, all alone, producing a game show. Two Christmases ago I was still enjoying the fact that I had two parents, even if I did take them for granted. Three Christmases ago I was fighting with Ronin and Spencer so bad, we stopped talking completely. Four Christmases ago Mardee was dead from an overdose. Five Christmases ago I was running cons with Ronin and Spencer like we were invincible. I feel like I’m going in circles, ya know? Ending up right back where I started. But you, Rook. You’ve changed my life.”

  I stop there because I’m very close to telling her how I really feel and I’m not gonna confuse her like that on Christmas. She loves Ronin, not me. If I was a good guy I’d leave her the fuck alone, just move on to my next job and get over it.

  “Well,” she says to slice through my silence. “Five Christmases ago I thought Wade Minix was my forever guy. Four Christmases ago I thought Jon Walsh was my forever guy. Three Christmases ago I was getting
the shit beat out of me by my soon-to-be husband. Two Christmases ago I thought I was going to be a mom.” She stops here to pull herself together and it almost breaks my heart listening to her talk about the baby she lost. “And last Christmas we had this big party at our house in Illinois. It was a nice party actually, but I can only really remember two things. My body was very sore from Jon beating me the night before and I was very cold because I was standing outside in the middle of the night, looking up at the stars. Like I am right now.”

  “You’re outside?”

  “Mmmhmm. I saw this star that night. It was so, so bright. And it had a bluish color to it. And maybe I’ve never really looked before, but I’ve never seen a blue star. It struck me as special, ya know?”

  I grab my coat from the front closet and slip outside on my balcony so I can look at the stars as she talks. “I’m outside now too. It’s fucking cold out here, Rook!”

  “I know. But I wanted to look for that star when I called you, can you help me find it?”

  “Was it in the south?”

  “Ummm, yes, I think. I was standing next to Jon’s car, looking up over the trees behind the house. That’s South, right?”

  I don’t want to think about that house but I force myself to picture it on the satellite image Spencer and I used to find Rook when she took off last fall. “Yeah, the woods were south, so you would’ve been looking southwest. Where are you now? On Ronin’s balcony or the garden terrace?”

  “Garden terrace.”

  “Walk over and look at Coors Field.”

  “OK”

  “Then look left a little bit, then up at the sky. It’s twinkling tonight.”

  “I see it! Oh my God, Ford, how do you know this shit?”

  How I love to make this girl happy. I’ve never wanted someone to be happy so much in my life. “It’s called Sirius. It’s the brightest star in the sky and it’s prominent in the winter. An educated guess, that’s all.”

  She’s silent for a few seconds. “I wished on that star, Ford. I asked Santa Claus or God or someone, it didn’t matter to me who it was. I just wished on that star and I asked it to make my life change. Because I couldn’t live like that anymore, Ford. I was thinking bad things last Christmas. It was a very dark time for me. But I wished on that star that my life would change. It didn’t even have to be a good change, but it just couldn’t stay the same. And it did. I took a lot of chances. I accepted a lot of risk to get here, but here I am. I feel like I’m home now.”

  I nod, but inside I’m devastated. “I understand, Rook, I do.”

  Ronin’s voice calls out to her from a distance. He must be in the doorway to the studio.

  “Well, that ball and chain is barking at me to come inside and go to bed. Will I see you tomorrow, Ford?

  There is nothing I want more than to see you tomorrow. I want you every day. These words try to come out, but I hold them back with great difficulty. “No, I think I have plans tomorrow. With a girl up in Wyoming.”

  “Would that be Sasha?” she chuckles.

  “Yeah—” I want to tell Rook everything. Every single thing that happened to me today from Merc to Sasha, to Veronica and Spencer, and my mom and her new boyfriend. So much happened today and I have no one to share it with. No one. I just want someone to listen to me for once.

  “You’ll be at the New Year’s Party for sure, though, right? Exit interviews for Shrike Bikes Season One? You know how I hate those…”

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “I know. And for sure I’ll be there.”

  “OK, Ford. Merry Christmas. I’ll see you soon. Bye.”

  The phone beeps that the call has ended and I’m alone again. I look up at Rook’s Christmas star and make my own wish. I need something new. I need someone new. I need change, good or bad, like Rook said. I just need this life to stop being mine.

  I take a deep breath and go back inside to my totally empty, ultra-modern, sterile, cold and lonely condo.

  The knife I bought from Sasha is still wrapped up in pretty Christmas bows and paper, so I pick it up and sit on the couch to open it. I untie the gold ribbon and then carefully peel back the red paper. It’s stupid to be excited, I know what the gift is, I bought it for myself. But even so, Sasha made it special.

  Inside the case is the Snubby CQC . But that’s not all that’s in there. I smile as I pick up the silver flash drive all decorated up with mini stickers. Snowflakes, Santa faces, reindeer, and a few guns.

  Fucking Nikita.

  I grab my computer from the office and set it on the coffee table so I can plug the drive in and see what’s on it. It can’t be anything personal, she didn’t have time. But the curiosity is killing me.

  It’s got an autorun program that pulls up a welcome screen. It’s bobbleheads with transposed pictures of Sasha and her father’s faces on them, bobbing their heads to Jingle Bells.

  The menu almost breaks my heart. This must be a photo CD of trips Sasha and her dad took. I click a link and it cycles through a series of images set to Christmas music.

  I bet that little girl is kicking herself for giving me this drive. I get up and go to my closet safe and get out the external drive I keep here with my scripts on it and run a Wyoming DMV crawl for the name Cherlin. There’s a few of them, one in Cheyenne, obviously Sasha’s father. A few in Laramie, obviously not cattle ranchers since they are within city limits on the satellite map. And one family up in Big Horn, just south of Sheridan. I memorize the address and blow out a long breath of air.

  Sasha will never have another happy Christmas. She will never live through this day without thinking of how her father was killed, how she was left in a cabin to wait out some fucked up black-ops job, how she ended up in the hospital—orphaned.

  I can’t do this anymore. I can’t do this. I can’t be this guy, I can’t live this life, I can’t stay here tonight. I walk into my bedroom and stuff a backpack full of clothes. I grab my toothbrush and some toiletries, shoving them inside as well. And then I pull on a pair of jeans and a hoodie, shrug myself into my boots and leather jacket, and walk out the door.

  I can’t change the fact that Sasha got her dad taken away from her on Christmas Eve, but I can be the guy who shows up on Christmas Day, trying his best to make this fucked up shit just a little bit easier.

  Epilogue - New Year's Eve

  The Chaput New Year’s Eve party is famous in Denver. I’m not a party person and for me New Year’s Eve is a time to be alone, so I’ve only ever been once besides this year. I wouldn’t even be here tonight if we weren’t filming for the season finale of Shrike Bikes, but Rook disappeared almost the entire month of December with Ronin. First the GIDGET runway show in LA, then a week in Cancun, then Christmas.

  So, here I am, trying to pin her ass down and get this over with.

  I’d rather be anywhere but here. I’d rather talk to anyone but her.

  The entire studio has been cleared of equipment and replaced with tables and a dance floor. The band is playing, the lighting is moody and atmospheric, and there are almost three hundred people here all dressed in black. I’ve finished the exit interviews for everyone except Rook, but she’s conveniently made herself scarce.

  A waitress walks by with a tray and I tap her on the shoulder as she passes. “Have you seen Miss Corvus?” I ask politely. I creep her out, I can tell, because she immediately pulls away from me and then points wordlessly over the crowd to Antoine’s office.

  She’s gone before I can thank her.

  It’s quite difficult to be polite and when I’m handed rudeness in return, it makes me want to morph back into the old me.

  I drop that thought as I make my way through the throngs of people and spy Rook standing just inside the door with Veronica. They are thick as thieves these days. If I were Spencer I’d watch out. They will be into trouble soon, if they’re not already.

  Ronnie is wearing a short black dress with very high heels. Her look says she takes her fun seriously.

  Rook, on th
e other hand, is dressed like a dark princess. Her dress is not a dress. It’s a gown. A long midnight-blue gown that breaks the black only rule, but no one cares because she is stunning. The dress has a tight strapless bodice and elaborate skirts that touch the ground. Her hair is flowing down her back in long waves and atop her head is a shiny blue cardboard tiara.

  Just as she turns and spies me, the light catches the blue of her eyes and her crown at the same time. It’s like a flashbulb and my mind takes a picture.

  “Rook,” I say loudly and with a smile. She winces and it’s official. She’s been avoiding me. “It’s your turn, let’s go.” Veronica pats her on the shoulder like she needs her sympathy and that makes me angry. But I strike through that emotion and beckon my friend with a finger.

  “Ford,” she starts. “I’m not in the mood. I’m tired of talking. I’m sorta drunk. I’m not ready for this. I’m—”

  She goes on and on like that but she follows like a good girl and I just tune it out. We exit the studio and walk down the hallway to the room where I’ve set up the camera. When I wave her through the doorway she’s still talking about waiting guests and Ronin missing her if she stays too long.

  I nod. Yes, yes, yes, I get it, that nod says. I motion for her to sit. She sits. She always does as she’s told when I’m the one asking.

  It should make me feel good, that I have this control over her. But it doesn’t.

  I sit across from her and sigh.

  And it’s only then that she notices. I’m surprised it took her so long, her skills at reading body language are astute.

  “What?” she asks. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

  “I’m not going to tape an exit interview of you, Rook. We have so much footage of you from the news, there’s no need.”

  She smiles and the knife slips in. She gathers her dress in her fingertips and rises out of the chair. “Good, then I’m not needed here and I’ll just be going,” she says, twisting the knife just a little.

  “I’m leaving,” I say quickly.