Chapter Eight
Jaimie
By the time we reached the parking lot, it had begun raining, and the sidewalk was cluttered with innumerable wet leaves. I could sense Randy had something he wanted to say, but he waited until we were both in the car.
“That was really something, wasn’t it?” He glanced through his rearview mirror at the mostly empty parking lot and the overcast sky. “We are about to have a tough, tough decision to make. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I think I’m leaning one way, but I’d like to hear what you think.”
I was quiet for a moment, watching a stray dog scurry across the parking lot toward the shelter of a striped awning. “Of the six guys we met today, I think Bruce and Braxton—is that his name?—were easily my favorites.”
“Mine too. I’d like to pick at least one of them.”
“Bruce is more subdued and soft-spoken, but he would also be less volatile and more reliable. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to cause drama. Braxton would be… What’s that phrase you use?”
“High risk, high reward?” said Randy.
“Yeah. He’s like a comet who would capture everyone’s attention for a moment but is just as likely to flame out in spectacular fashion, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.”
“True.” Randy started the car. “But at the same time, it might be worth the risk. It’s true that he hasn’t been to jail in over a year. He seems to have really gotten his act together.”
“Yes, but how long is that going to last? I’ve known guys like that, and their demons have a way of resurfacing.”
“No, I think you’re right about that. Where do you want to eat, by the way?”
“Oh, anywhere is fine with me.”
He turned onto the highway. “I think you’re right, but I can’t shake how much I just like the guy. Like you said before, Bruce would be the safer pick, but he’s more mild-mannered. And right now, with our support just barely holding steady, I’m not sure a safe pick is what we need. You think about a guy like Muhammad Ali—he was intense, volatile, frightening at times—but you couldn’t look away from that guy. He had star power, and that’s what Braxton has, and that’s what interests me even more than his fighting skills.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Randy seemed to have his heart set on Braxton, and it wasn’t going to be easy trying to talk him out of it. “So it’s between the two of them, is it?”
“Yeah, or we could keep looking—but I don’t know, I just had a good feeling about them. Call it a hunch, I guess.”
“I’ll admit to being more gripped by their fight than by anything I’ve seen in a while,” I replied. “Maybe we could just put those two in an octagon again and watch them go at it.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Randy as he pulled into KFC. “Maybe I’ll have more clarity once I’ve eaten. It’s almost noon, and I didn’t have anything for breakfast but a cup of coffee.”
“Randy,” I said, not in a mean way, “you really need to take better care of yourself.”
“I know, but I just get so busy. You know how it is.”
“I do.” I hadn’t eaten anything that morning, either.
The inside of the KFC smelled of chicken and grease fat. At a table a few seats behind us, a woman was buckling her son into a high-chair and trying to explain that they couldn’t go to the park that day because it was raining. Randy ordered us a family bucket and sat down across from me looking battered and tired.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Jaimie,” he said sadly. “This is one of those times when I wish I was more decisive.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.” I opened the carton of gravy and poured it over my mashed potatoes. “Maybe you should do what I do when I’m debating whether I should ask a guy out.”
“What’s that?”
“Make a pros and cons list.”
Randy took a brown paper napkin from the dispenser and scribbled out a list. But by the end, he was no closer to making a decision than before. He sat looking it over with an unsatisfied air.
“I think in the end I’m just going to have to pick one. I don’t see any other way around it. Maybe we could have them fight to the death.”
“I think that would just make things harder for us,” I pointed out. “Legally speaking.” At the table behind us, the woman was now begging her son to eat his chicken.
Randy breathed in deeply. “You know what I do when I’m in a situation like this?”
“What do you do?”
“I take a deep breath and remind myself that I’m alive, that I exist.”
“Does it help?”
He nodded, already brightening. “It really helps.” Dipping his chicken wing into the gravy, he added, “Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that anything exists, rather than nothing. And then that we get to be here in this world for a few years—it’s the greatest miracle of all.”
“I didn’t know making decisions like this stressed you out so much.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t both excellent. If I could, I would’ve hired them both on the spot. I liked them that much.”
“Here’s what I do in situations like this.” I shoved my plate away and placed the bones back in the box. “I close my eyes and ask myself, ‘Which boy would cause me more regret if I had to say no?’”
Randy shut his eyes and breathed in deeply, inhaling the scent of chicken lard and fried skin. Finally, he nodded and said, in a voice that was barely audible over the screams of the boy at the next table, “Braxton.”
He opened his eyes again with a look of renewed conviction. “I think if I had to refuse Braxton, I’d regret it almost immediately. And probably for a long time after that.”
Now we were finally getting somewhere. “So what do you want to do?”
In a firm tone, Randy replied, “I think we need to sign up Braxton. I want him to be on our roster for the event coming up on Saturday.”
“Okay!” I said happily. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll start filling out the paperwork. I want to make sure we have the funds available before we do anything concrete.”
“Okay, but in the meantime, I think I’ll go home tonight, pour myself a glass of whiskey, and call Aardman. I want him to know we’ve made a decision, so Braxton at least has a few days to prepare. Plus, he seemed pretty keen on this gig, and I don’t want to leave him in suspense for too much longer.”
“Mmmm, good thinking.” I licked my fingers, which were sticky with grease and fat. “I’m just about done here; do you mind if I get a refill on my soda before we go?”
“No, go right ahead.” He rose and began gathering our trash into a single pile. “And if you want to work from home for the rest of the day, you can. I know you’re tired.”
***
After I finished my work that night, I drove over to the tattoo parlor. I found Rennie standing back behind her desk, sterilizing needles in the dusky gray light.
“You ought to turn on some lights in this place,” I told her. A single ornate Victorian ceiling light hung from the ceiling, faintly illuminating a wall of exposed brick. “I can barely see two steps in front of me.”
“I like the atmosphere,” said Rennie, lighting an incense candle. “I thought you of all people would understand, being a fellow writer. How is your book coming, by the way?”
“It’s not coming at all lately,” I said in a tone of frustration. “I’ve had zero time to myself since last weekend, between flying, and going to Disney World, and seeing one MMA fight after another. I don’t have your gift of being able to churn out five thousand words on my lunch break.”
Rennie laughed. “I’m sure it doesn’t help that your boss is smitten with you.” Seeing my look of horror, she added, “You can’t pretend you haven’t noticed. He drags you with him everywhere, and you’re too naïve and polite to say no. Anyone else would’ve figured out he liked you ages ago.”
“It’s not like that,” I said, irritated. I picked up a glass tumbler off the desk and began fumbling with it nervously. “He just depends on me a lot because I have certain administrative gifts that he’s lacking.”
I spoke the words as if they had been carefully rehearsed, which they had been. I wasn’t blind to Randy’s attention, but I felt there were other and better explanations.
“Anyway,” I added, “I think if he liked me it would have been obvious when we were in Florida.”
“It’s obvious already!” cried Rennie, punctuating each word with a clap. In a lower voice, she said, “Has he given you the D yet?”
I was so surprised I nearly dropped the glass tumbler. “What? No! Of course not!” A flush of humiliation tinged my cheeks. “Why would you think that?”
Rennie shrugged. “Just a question.”
I could think of a hundred objections—he was my boss; he was old enough to be my dad—but I know she would just dismiss them all with a wave of her hand. “Is this the book you’re writing in your head?”
“I just think it’s cute. You’re like his au pair, like Jane Eyre: the kindly young woman who gives him a second chance at life and becomes his friend and helpmate.”
“Rochester was a creep, and he had a secret wife in his attic.”
“I’m not saying it’s a one-to-one parallel—for your sake, I hope it isn’t—but you do seem to be living out that archetype.”
“You and your archetypes,” I muttered with a shake of my head. “One of these days, your obsession with stories is going to get you into trouble.”
“Or it will make me rich,” said Rennie serenely. “Anyway, you need the D. I don’t care how you get it, I can guarantee it would cure your creator’s block right up.”
“You’re one to talk. Have you ever slept with a boy?” When she didn’t answer, I added, “I think it would be unwise to get involved with anyone I work with. MMA isn’t known for spitting out mature, high-functioning men.”
“But Randy, though?” She tugged on the window curtains, plunging the room into near-darkness. “He’s not like the other boys. He’s at least twenty years older, and he doesn’t even wrestle. He’s an executive, wealthy and powerful. The sort of man who goes home at the end of a long day, sits down in a padded armchair, and pours himself a glass from a decanter of aged brandy.”
“You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought.”
Through the haze of darkness, I could see Rennie’s slender silhouette shrugging. “I’m just saying you don’t want to turn down an opportunity to date someone like that. It might not work out long-term, but in the meantime, he could make it worth your while.”