by Ryan Schow
It ended in a weird breakup, of which they’d had a few.
“Yeah, it’s definitely peaceful,” he told Maisie. “The house, the property, yes.” Just not Jill. Jill, the lovely nightmare. Jill, the girl with the strong soul, the no BS voice, the heart and will of a juggernaut.
“You have a sadness in your eyes,” Maisie said. She reached out, took his big hand in hers and said, “Who stood you up?”
“Someone…curious. A surprise.”
“Are you sad?”
“Actually, no. Not about her. You just remind me of someone I’ve never dated.”
“Hah!” she said.
“It’s true. It’s one hundred percent true and I don’t understand it. I mean your temperament is super chill, you’re attractive but seemingly comfortable without make up or overdone hair, and you’re soft spoken but perfectly interesting.”
“You find me interesting?”
“Actually I find you intoxicating,” he replied, knowing he shouldn’t be flirting, but unable to help himself. There was nothing here, just two people and some steak.
She stood up, wiped her mouth, then leaned over and slowly kissed him.
Uh, okay…
It went like that from there. This unbelievably average woman had stepped in where he’d least expected it and totally caught him off guard. This was perhaps what fascinated him most about women—all their many colors.
In this case, Maisie was a godsend.
She walked him to the bed, pulled off her clothes while he watched, then took off his and showed him what it was like to not be rushed, to not be run through—like Jill could sometimes do—just to be savored, to be enjoyed, to be taken care of.
“My God,” he said, when she was done.
“Not what you expected?”
“No,” he said.
She lay on top of the covers, spent, but satiated; he lay beside her, thrilled but exhausted from the day, the workload.
“If I don’t leave now, I won’t be able to get up.”
“I want you to stay,” she said, taking his hand again. “So stay.”
“Okay,” he said.
He heard his phone beep, letting him know he’d gotten another text, but he ignored it. If Amber felt bad, or wanted to rub it in his face that she’d gotten him, he’d tell her yes, that she’d gotten him. Sac town two, Hollywood one.
But he couldn’t leave Maisie.
When she curled her body into his, the feeling of her was so euphoric he didn’t know what to make of it.
He was asleep within minutes.
When he woke next, it was to the flickering lights on the television. He had to use the bathroom, so he stood, walked through the TV’s light so as not to trip on anything, then—what the hell?
On the television, there were pictures of the Sacramento skyline, the same as he’d seen earlier, but the skies in this clip were buzzing with black dots that later appeared to be various sizes of drones.
The headline read: MIXED SIGNALS?
Standing there naked, he found the remote, switched the TV to closed captioning. He read the text boxes with an icy realization that this could be an issue. After all, it looked like an alien invasion.
“We don’t know where the drones came from, or why they’re here, but at first it seemed as though there might’ve been an issue within the military. Several of our sources within the Pentagon report that more than one command structure is involved. According to our other sources, and this still needs to be confirmed, all drones have gone active and are acting almost out of a hive mindset.”
“That makes no sense,” he muttered as he watched drones of all sizes buzzing all over the skies of not only Sacramento, but San Francisco as well.
When they started cutting scenes from city to city to city, he looked over at Maisie, asleep under the comforter, and then back at the TV.
“Our sources in the different cities all report the same thing: nearly every single drone, from the largest to the smallest, appears to be armed…”
He shut off the television, padded into the pitch black bathroom, lifted the toilet lid and prayed his aim was true. As sleep dragged at his face, as the images on television ran through his head like an alien invasion film, he started to wonder if he was even himself, if this was even his world anymore.
He shouldn’t be there, using a stranger’s toilet, watching her TV, sleeping in her bed. He rubbed his eyes, then looked sideways in the near perfect darkness and startled. There was a woman’s decapitated head on the vanity.
His breath came fast and high, but then he realized it was not a decapitated head.
He reached out and touched it. Hair? At that time in the morning, standing in the dark, all done using the toilet, he couldn’t make heads or tails of the situation. Unconsciously, he reached out and let his fingers play through the strands.
Snapping out of it, he turned and flipped on the light. On the counter was a perfect mane of coppery-red hair.
Waves of dizziness crashed over him.
He put his hand on the counter to steady himself through the torrent. It was all coming together now. Everything made sense. In addition to the wig, there were makeup trays, false eyelashes, a contacts case. He opened the plastic case and there were two green lenses.
You have got to be kidding me!
And then there was her cell phone. Rock opened it up and there was her picture, like some Hollyweird glamour shot. Amber Gunn. He didn’t know how long he stood there, maybe long enough to wonder if Maisie was all an act or if the real act was Amber Gunn.
As he chastised himself for having fallen for her, for the plain-Jane act, she suddenly appeared behind him.
“You came thirty minutes early,” she said.
That was her only reply.
He looked hard at her, trying to see her, trying to find Amber Gunn in all that plainness, but all he could see was Maisie.
“How, though? I mean, how did you do it?”
He was about to reach for the towel, but she was standing there naked and he was standing there naked, so being nude wasn’t the issue. She was comfortable with herself, and he was comfortable with himself, but he wasn’t comfortable with this at all.
“My first role in a movie was as a makeup artist,” she said. “I got the role because for two years, I was a makeup artist to the stars. J-Lo, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlet Johannsen, Kate Beckinsale. It was an easy transition from makeup to the silver screen.”
“That’s not what the E! Channel says in its overblown documentaries.”
“You don’t actually believe that garbage,” she said. “Do you?”
“I’m literally speechless right now,” he said.
“Do you feel duped?”
“Yes.”
“But did you like it?” she asked. “Did you like being with…me? This me?”
“Yes, but that was a game.”
“No, Amber is the game. Maisie is real. This is me. And my real name, the one you won’t find anywhere is Maisie Sullivan. I’m from Oregon, not Arkansas like they said.”
“So basically everything about you is a lie.”
“I’m from Hollywood, so of course it is,” she said, as if he were dense. “You think I want that big hair, that expensive car, that holier-than-thou image? That’s all just a means to an end.”
“Nobody buys a Lamborghini as a means to an end.”
“Ah, but it is a means to an end. I got the big paycheck on this as-yet-untitled Star Wars spin-off with contracts for two more films if this one hits big, which it probably will. By the second film I secure my position as the series lead, then demand a bigger paycheck on the third movie and call it a day.”
“Just stop acting all together?” he said, taking a towel from the rack and wrapping his waist.
“I’ll buy a nice house in Tennessee for next to nothing, put the rest of my money in conservative investments, disappear from the Hollywood scene like I was never even there in the first place. Even you didn’t see Amber
in me. No one else will, either.”
“What about your car?”
“Everyone in L.A. wants a car like mine,” she said.
“Not everyone can afford it.”
“Everyone doesn’t have to be able to afford it, just one person. And there are enough people willing to trade their souls for a Lamborghini, so I’m not worried.”
“Towel?”
“Why, are you embarrassed looking at me?”
“Of course not.”
That’s when it hit him. He got a late night text. If he was with Maisie who was Amber, then who was texting him back?
Oh boy…
He went back to the table where their food was sitting out, grabbed his phone and opened it up. The text was from Jill. Actually there were two texts.
The first read: I THINK I’VE HAD ENOUGH TIME APART. CALL ME. The second read: I’M AT THE SHOP AND UR NOT. LEONARDO GAVE ME AN EAR FULL.
Now the bottom of his world really dropped out.
“Is everything okay?” Maisie asked.
He turned and she was in a robe, cinching the belt. He was still amazed that this woman he was looking at, this woman he so thoroughly enjoyed, was the same Amber Gunn.
“I seriously don’t even recognize you like that,” he said. “It’s sort of freaking me out.”
It’s like he wanted to be nice to her, to be polite, to not have sex and run, but then again, if Leo ran his mouth to Jill the same way he ran his mouth to everyone else, chances were good he told Jill that Rock had gone on a “non-date” date with Amber Gunn.
“I’m so good with makeup, Rock, if you give me thirty minutes and a picture, I could show up tomorrow as you.”
“What you’re good at is manipulation,” he said, pulling on his briefs, then his pants, shirt and shoes. He stuffed his socks in his back pocket, the feet hanging out like a pair of hankies.
“Please don’t leave.”
“Trust me, despite how we got off the first time, I want to stay, but Jill…she came to the shop.”
Maisie pursed her lips, then said, “Aren’t you guys on a break?”
“Yes.”
“So you can do what you want, right?”
“Of course I can.”
“So stay and let’s do it again, then you can go back and do your happily-ever-after.”
He just looked at her, not sure what to say, not sure if he should kiss her, have sex again, be mad at her or just leave.
The decision ended up being clear.
He left.
Chapter Six
The day of the attack…
Jareth was planning on going straight to work, but the nostalgia took over. He decided he wanted his coffee and a muffin one last time.
Inside Specialty’s Café and Bakery, he waited in line with the early morning crowd—which wasn’t overwhelming just yet—then he saw Jen who both perked up and tempered down the second she saw him. He was happy to see her before he started the day.
“Wow, you look different today,” she said.
He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days, so he was sure she was responding to that. Of course, he wasn’t dressed for work, either, and he was carrying his large (gun) case and a backpack. He knew he was a bit off, though, because every time he looked up, he saw alien ships and that bothered him. He’d never seen aliens before being off his meds, but then again, his meds dulled his senses and he needed to enjoy the little things in life if he ever hoped to be happy.
“It’s probably because I’m getting ready to go on vacation,” he said with an easy smile.
“Where to?” she asked, taking in the whole of him.
“I’m heading south most likely,” he said, amiable, radiating an air of calm. “Just going to do my thing and see where it takes me.”
“Good for you,” she said, her bright eyes returning. “The usual, I’m assuming?”
“The usual,” he replied, softening his gaze.
“What’s in the case?”
“Camera equipment. I’m starting a photography blog,” he replied with a hopeful smile. “I think it’s going to be about architecture and animals. Something like that.”
“That’s great, Jareth. Really great.”
When she wasn’t looking, he slid a one hundred dollar bill into the tip jar, then went to wait for his drinks.
“So are you heading into the office then?” Jen asked as she handed him his muffins over the glass case.
He took them from her and said, “I have to put a few things to bed first. You know how it is. You can’t clear your brain until all your work is done. And where I’m going, I want my slate wiped clean.”
“I hear that. Well, enjoy yourself!”
A different barista handed him his drinks in a drink carrier; he switched hands so the hand carrying the gun case also had a hold of the bag of muffins. It was a lot to juggle for the walk he had back to N Street, but the day was gorgeous, as usual, and the air was clean, not yet heavy or blunted by the rush of morning traffic.
He saw several people he recognized, said hello; they said hello back. He even said hi to a few people he didn’t know. Heading for the front door of the BOE, he spotted a woman he had seen over the years but never really talked to. Seeing him bogged down, she opened the door for him and smiled as he walked past her.
“Wow, look at you!” he said, grateful, “saving the day and everything!”
Her expression was pleasant, her eyes wanting to be inquisitive, but remaining largely restrained despite the spectacle he was making out of himself with the coffee and muffins, the gun case and the big backpack.
With a gracious air about herself, and the air misting with the scent of her perfume, she said, “You’ve done it for me enough times. Now I get to do it for you.”
“We appreciate that,” he said. “You smell amazing by the way, what is that?”
“Donna Karan’s Cashmere Mist,” she told him. She gave him a funny look, though. It was only a flash of one, but it wiggled down inside him and took root nevertheless. Suddenly it hit him—he knew the funny look: he’d said “We” rather than “I.” As in “We appreciate that,” rather than “I appreciate that.”
The security guard, Will Crabtree, saw Jareth and his eyes adjusted to the overloaded sight of him. For a second, Will seemed to hold his breath. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jareth held out the coffee and muffin.
Like Jareth, Will had become slower on his feet, a little tired from a difficult life and clocking hours on a menial job. That’s all either of them had left. Well, not a job in his case. Jareth wished he would have asked Will something about his life, anything.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you the last couple of days,” Jareth said, “but I’ve been off.”
“I heard you were fired,” he said, cautious, eyeballing at the carrying case and the backpack with a fair amount of either curiosity or concern.
Jareth offered an embarrassed smile, measured his reply, thought about saying something, but what would he say?
“Yeah, I guess I was.”
He was going to talk about the blood, about that day, how it reminded him of his CO, but not to Will. Will didn’t know him. He didn’t know about the sight of gore and what it did to him.
“Can I ask you something?” Will said.
“Sure.”
“Do you remember me at all?”
Jareth laughed and said, “Of course I do. I’ve only seen you every day for years.”
“No man, in Fallujah.”
This stopped Jareth. They knew each other from Iraq? He found himself looking at Will through different eyes. Something pressed against his memory, wanting out, but was unable to break loose. He struggled with all his might to crawl backwards through that damaged brain of his and catch a glimpse of this insistent memory, maybe grab it, turn it over and see if there was a thread he could chase down, but alas, it eluded him.
“I…I wish, wait…so you’re saying we knew each other?”
Will looked visibly de
flated. Jareth felt it. Will then perked back up and waved it off. Almost like it was funny that Jareth forgot, but really sad at the same time.
“I’m the guy that got you to triage that day,” he finally said with eyes made watery by age, abuse, and the lack of anything truly important to do. “That was when you were shot in the head. Just outside that warehouse.”
He stood straight up, forgetting the weight in the backpack, the rifle case in his hand, the coffee he hadn’t sipped or the muffin he hadn’t eaten.
“You got me to triage? That was you?”
“You carried all those guys out of that warehouse. You had your CO’s guts all over you and this crazy, empty look in your eyes. Not like you wanted to kill everything in sight, but like you didn’t know what planet you were on.”
He shook his head, a way of warding off the memories, but then he said, “Sure thing, man…yeah, that day.”
“I know what’s in the case,” Will finally said, leaning forward with a whisper.
Jareth felt his body slump, tried to stop it.
“Just answer me one question,” Will said, his watery eyes suddenly dry. “Is that recreational or tactical?”
He straightened his chest, thought of MaryAnn, his dead wife (Are you sure she’s dead? Of course she’s dead!) and the cat he’d never see again, and then he set his jaw, refused to even blink his eyes.
“C’mon man,” Will whispered, tap-tap-tapping his arm. “We served together.”
Jareth cleared his throat, then: “Tactical.”
Will smiled, gave an acknowledging nod, then said, “I knew it, man. Saw it coming from like ten miles away. So how are you so calm right now?”
This was not the Will Crabtree he knew. This Will was alive. Not just a security guard watching a clock, seeing his life slip away in short, insipid intervals. This was a soldier who left his life behind and died every single day on his feet.
He didn’t even have a ring on his finger.
Jareth would bet every last dollar he had that Will lived in an apartment with plants, a Lazy-Boy recliner and a freezer full of microwave dinners. He didn’t want to reduce the man to that, but Jareth knew the type. Maybe he was the type.