“Don’t be dissin’ my greenbacks, Heavy B! I got the dollars if you got the digits.” Bobby sighed.
“Alright, alright. Let’s do it.”
“None of this insurance scam bullshit this time, yo. She has to give you her phone number because she wants to do a little naked bed wrestling. Are you down?”
“Yeah, yeah. You want to try first again, Mr. Smooth?”
“Damn straight, and this time your sorry ass isn’t going to get a turn!” Bobby watched Trent head across the plank floor to the round plastic table, strutting suavely past the submarine as another anonymous jock and another drunken sorority sister folded into the dubious privacy of its steel belly. Trent approached his mark from behind, leaned in over her shoulder, and trickled a hot, moist whisper into her ear.
“Did it hurt?”
The woman recoiled in surprise, choking on a sip of her drink. She twisted in her plastic chair and sized him up furiously.
“Did what hurt?” she snapped.
Trent smiled and slid into the seat next to her.
“Did it hurt when you fell down from Heaven?”
The girl gave Trent a fiery scowl.
” That’s not the direction that I came from,” she growled. “Get lost, asshole.” She crossed her legs tightly and returned her stare to the bar.
“Oooh, feisty!” Trent said with a wide, gleaming smile. “I love the women down here in Florida. Y’all keep it real, yo. I hate it when people try to act fake and pretend they’re something they’re not, you know?”
“Bullshit,” the woman spat. “You’re the stereotypical fake asshole poseur male. Look at yourself. You’re a mess. Your skin is a fake bottle-bronze, your fake gold jewelry looks like it’s out of a box of Cracker Jacks-even your big, fake, shit-eating grin looks like it’s made out of toilet-bowl porcelain.”
Trent covered his conspicuously white teeth with a conspicuously bronze hand in embarrassment.
“Damn, baby, why so harsh?” he said, pretending to investigate her cocktail.
“You must be drinkin’ the Haterade! I came here to get myself enhanced, not beat down!”
“Well, I came for the view,” the girl snarled. “Not to get harassed by every fake asshole tourist looking to show off his newly enhanced fake dick.”
“Oh no, I assure you, little Moses is all natural,” Trent said defensively, puffing out his chest and adjusting the lump in the front of his trousers. “And he’s ready to raise his staff and divide your Red Sea, girl!”
From across the bar, Bobby saw Trent take a whiskey sour square in the face. Dampened and downtrodden, he returned to his loser stool at the bar.
“You must have really scored that time!” Bobby grinned. “She bought you a drink!”
“Shut up,” Trent growled. “You’re not gettin’ none a’ dat. She’s got da itch wit’ da capital B.”
“Well,” Bobby said, finishing off his fourth beer, “at least she’s already spent her ammo on you.”
He set down his mug and waddled off toward the boiling feminist. Trent called after him in a forced whisper.
“Remember, the number has to be for sex! ”
“Yeah, yeah …”
Trent watched from the bar as his rival approached the girl’s table. She looked as if she was about to smash her empty tumbler on the table and ram a shard of jagged glass through his throat. As if oblivious to the danger, Bobby just sat down and started talking.
Trent was impressed: If nothing else, his adversary had balls. It was a shame this chick was about to tear them off. He took another sip of his drink and glanced at the submarine. To chaotic applause, another frat boy climbed out of the hatch and held aloft a pair of red satin panties as if they were the Holy Grail. Trent took another casual sip of his drink and looked back at Bobby just in time to see the skinny girl grinning from ear to ear and handing him a folded cocktail napkin. She continued to gleam with happiness as Bobby returned to the bar.
“Oh you are so bullshit,” Trent snapped. “Quit frontin’. I said that the number had to be for sex! ”
“It is! I don’t know how you didn’t catch the vibes she was throwing off, but that girl is horny as hell. I assure you, this number is for sex.”
“You’re lying!” Trent bawled. “You’re such a big liar they call you Simba the lyin’
king! If it’s for sex, then prove it, fat boy!”
“Alright, alright. Keep your shorts on.”
He gestured over the bar to Sunny.
“What’s up, Bobby?” Sunny asked.
“I don’t know how open you are to experimentation,” Bobby said, pushing the napkin across the bar, “but that girl with the bad attitude over there really wants to get up your skirt.”
Vivian’s wheezing Rabbit skirted the ornate fountain that stood in the center of the traffic circle, welcoming her to the town of Port Manatee. Although she was only ten miles north of Stillwater on the map, she was a million miles away financially. There were no roadside tourist traps in Port Manatee, no cut-rate rental cars or seedy hotel chains. There were only seaside manors, private beaches, and a harbor full of yachts so sprawlingly gargantuan that they threatened the very laws of hydrodynamics. In Port Manatee, the air itself smelled of high society and old money.
Vivian glanced down at the large analog clock in her dashboard and winced. She was officially over twenty minutes late. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have taken so long to get here, but the man at the gas station had made her so paranoid about her spare tire that every tiny imperfection in the road rattled up her steering column as a warning to slow down. She turned off of the main street and onto a spotless white concrete driveway that swerved between rows of perfectly manicured miniature palms. With a lingering press on the brake, the Rabbit scraped to a grinding halt in front of the valet counter at the Banyan Terrace.
A green-vested valet rushed up to the disintegrating car with a look of smugness pulled tightly across his pimply teenage face. In his dark eyes was the cold glare of a tyrant with little to be tyrannical over. He glowered at the shuddering Rabbit as if it were a pile of freshly skinned kittens.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said curtly. “The Banyan Terrace’s parking structure is full to capacity this evening. You’ll have to park your … vehicle someplace else.” His mouth and tongue formed the word “vehicle,” but his voice clearly said
“piece of shit, unworthy of our accommodation.” A second valet pulled a long black Mercedes around the rattling convertible as if to literally drive this point home. Vivian quickly understood how things worked at the Banyan Terrace.
“Perhaps you could check again,” she said, digging into her purse. “I think there may be a space that you’ve overlooked.”
With a subtle flick of her wrist, she pressed a crushed five-dollar bill into the valet’s hand. He looked at her contemptuously.
“No,” he said. “There isn’t.”
Vivian smirked and pulled out the remainder of her cash.
“Okay then,” she said, “how about now?”
She took the valet’s hand and slipped him a pair of wrinkled one-dollar bills. The oil on his face seemed to ripple with insult.
“Oh, come on,” Vivian pleaded. “I’m already half an hour late for my reservation. Work with me here.”
The valet looked at the line of impatient luxury sedans building in the acrid blue smokescreen pouring from the Rabbit’s back end. After a long pause, he stuffed the money into his pocket and opened Vivian’s door with a stiff bow.
“All right,” he muttered under his breath. “I might be able to squeeze it in under a ramp somewhere, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t get scratched.” The way he delivered the phrase made it seem not as much a disclaimer as a promise.
“That’s fine. As long as I get it back in one piece,” Vivian sighed. “Just leave it in gear when you park it. The hand brake is out.”
“I would expect nothing less,” the valet sneered.
Vivian quickly wrenched her sneakers fr
om her feet and replaced them with a pair of black heels of a timeless design that any generation would have found bland. She started to toss her ragged sneakers in the back seat but then thought better of the idea and set them on the dashboard instead.
When the snobby valet slipped behind the wheel, he found himself face-to-acne-riddled-face with two mangled ruby tongues effusing a foot odor so noxious its use in warfare would have been banned by the Geneva Convention. Vivian gave him an innocent smile as he covered his nose, put the shifter in gear, and wrestled the ornery vehicle up the driveway and into the parking garage. Slinging the narrow straps of her purse over her shoulders, Vivian turned and proceeded up the sidewalk toward the restaurant. Her awkward, stumbling steps betrayed how long it had been since she had been given an opportunity to wear high heels. Even so, the scenery made up for her inconvenience.
The Banyan Terrace’s front walk was straight from the pages of a fairy tale. Even though there had been a downpour only hours before, the velvety emerald carpet that blanketed the path was perfectly clean and dry. Through the decades since the restaurant opened, the hanging root systems of a pair of two-hundred-year-old banyan trees had been carefully braided over a series of wire arches, forming a knotty wooden tunnel that led to the sparkling green glass front of the building. When she reached the end of the path, a doorman greeted her wobbling stride with restrained doubt and ushered her through the entrance.
Nothing that Vivian had seen in her life on the other side of the poverty line could have prepared her for the wave of dining opulence that broke over her and smothered her senses.
The main foyer of the Banyan Terrace was nothing short of spectacular. Directly in front of her an artificial rock face towered the full height of the two-story interior, spilling a crystalline, almost champagne-like waterfall quietly over the stone and into a serene goldfish pool below. The floor was an exquisite mosaic of seashells, arranged by natural color to form an idyllic image of a peaceful beach at sunset. On each side of the waterfall, elegant oak staircases flanked with golden banisters spiraled to the second floor. The whole room smelled of fresh bread and sweet linens.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
“May I help you, miss?”
Vivian looked to her right and saw a narrow, balding maitre’d posted behind a gold-trimmed lectern with a tiny, emerald-colored banker’s lamp.
“Yes, I’m supposed to be meeting with a friend,” she said, turning the word over in her mouth as if trying to make it sound true.
“The gentleman’s name, please,” the man said through his nose, thumbing his reservation book.
“It’s um … Nick.”
“The gentleman’s last name?”
“I, uh … I guess I don’t know his last name,” Vivian admitted meekly. The maitre’d gave her a glare that made the way the valet had looked at her car seem like true love.
“If you don’t have a reservation, miss,” he droned, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to-”
“Check under Aspen. Nick Aspen.”
Vivian turned to find Nick standing behind her, grinning confidently at the flustered maitre’d and holding a drink in each hand. He was wearing an olive-green suit that was tailored to his body with such precision that one could imagine a team of biomechanical engineers blowing an entire grant on its construction. His green eyes caught hers, delivering a friendly wink. Despite all efforts to the contrary, Vivian blushed.
“C’mon,” Nick said, gesturing with a broad shoulder. “We’ve already got a table over here.”
Vivian shot a satisfied glance of victory at the scowling maitre’d before taking a step, falling off of her heel, bumping into Nick, and splashing his drink onto the pristine mosaic floor. The maitre’d put his fingers to his forehead in a gesture that screamed, “There goes the neighborhood.”
The table to which Nick led Vivian was located in a corner of the dimly lit restaurant overlooking the outside gardens. A tall white candle stood in the center of the table, flickering its light as if to demand that romance transpire in its presence. Nick set down his beverages and escorted Vivian into her seat before taking his own.
“Where you been, Red?” he smiled. “I’ve been here for like, an hour. I just hit the bar and picked up some drinks while I was waiting for you to show up.” He pulled a tall glass of light beer toward himself and pushed the other glass toward Vivian. It was a stemmed fishbowl the size of her head, filled with a frosty pink beverage and ornamented with a fat strawberry.
“I got you a strawberry daiquiri,” he continued, “to match those beautiful strawberry locks of yours, Red.”
“All right, stop calling me Red,” Vivian snapped. “My name isn’t Red-it’s Gray. Vivian Gray.”
“Vivian Gray,” Nick said dreamily. “Vivian Gray. That’s a pretty name.”
“No it isn’t,” Vivian scowled. “It sounds like one of the suspects from Clue. ” Nick smiled and raised an eyebrow.
“Well, with a tight little body like yours, I’m sure that you could get away with murder.”
He threw her a wink and magnificent grin. Vivian rolled her eyes.
“So, have you spoken to Boltzmann about my job yet?” she asked.
“That’s no way to be, Vivian Gray!” Nick laughed. “You’re in the most expensive restaurant in Port Manatee! And just look at the rockin’ dude you’ve got on your arm! That bogus McJob of yours should be the last thing on your mind right now. You need to just loosen up for a while.”
He took a sip of his beer, smiled his centerfold-perfect grin, and put his hand on Vivian’s knee. She politely removed it.
“So, shall I assume then that you have not yet spoken to Boltzmann about my job?” she asked sourly.
Nick’s smile faded.
“Alright, you got me. I haven’t,” he admitted. “And, to be totally honest, I was never really going to.”
“Oh, come on, Nick,” Vivian pleaded. “Extortion is a very simple process! I go on a date with you; you get me my job back. What part of this transaction don’t you understand?”
“The part I don’t understand,” Nick frowned, “is why you’re so anxious to get that heinous job back when you could be doing something so much more intense with your life!”
“Oh right,” Vivian huffed. “Like what? Selling Fusion Fuel like you?”
“I was thinking more like selling Fusion Fuel with me,” Nick said seriously.
“Vivian, I want you to ditch that grocery store job and come join my modeling agency. That’s the real reason I wanted to take you out tonight.” Vivian burst out laughing, but her good humor quickly turned sour.
“I can’t believe I wore lipstick for this,” she grumbled, wiping her lips on a napkin. “If I’d have known that you had no intention of getting my job back I never would have come here.”
“Seriously! I know, ” Nick said with exasperation. “For some reason you’re so dead set on living at the bottom of the retail food chain that you won’t even give a dude a chance when he wants to kick your career up a level! I could make it so that the next time you walk into Boltzmann’s Market that fat bastard would be kissing your ass instead of the other way around. Doesn’t that interest you at all? ” Vivian’s harsh scowl suddenly softened around the edges as the thought poured over her mind. She took a long, contemplative pull from the straw of her daiquiri before finally speaking.
“All right, I came all the way out here for this; I may as well hear the pitch.”
“Rockin’ cool! That’s the way to be!” Nick grinned. “I’ve had my eye on you ever since I saw that fiery hair of yours this morning, Red … er, Vivian. I’m tellin’ ya, you could be the Angie Everhart of the Gulf Coast if you just joined up with my agency. Nobody can ignore a natural redhead! You’d get the top-dollar jobs just banging down your door!”
Vivian looked over her glasses at Nick skeptically.
“I see. So you’re just looking to make sure that I exploit my follicles to the fullest
?” she challenged. “I suppose there’s nothing in it for you?” Nick’s smile wilted as his eyes shifted guiltily to his drink and lingered there for a long moment.
“Well, I guess you would need somebody to show you the ropes,” he said innocently. “And, you know, I guess I do need to find myself a top-shelf partner if I’m ever going to make platinum level …”
Vivian nodded her sudden comprehension.
“Ahh, yes. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to remind you that I’m not the boss’s daughter,” she said, drawing finger quotes in the air. ” ‘Nailing’ me isn’t going to provide you with anything but sexual disappointment.”
Nick shook his head defensively.
“It’s not like that,” he explained. “The boss’s daughter isn’t just sleeping with Mr. Platinum, she’s also working with him. They’re a promo modeling team. No, that’s not even fair-they’re a promo modeling force. But you and me, Vivian, if we teamed up we could totally kick their asses, hardcore!”
Vivian laughed joylessly.
“Oh, we could not. Have you even bothered to look below my scalp, Nick? I’m not exactly supermodel material here. I’m just a tall, skinny goon with no fashion sense. I’m not even pretty!”
Nick tipped his head and a long smile blossomed across his face. He put his hand on top of Vivian’s and spoke in a voice like warm honey.
“You are too pretty, Vivian. I know you’ve got the soul of a model, if only you’d stop trying so hard to hide it. All you need to do is just let down your hair and take off your glasses.”
With a slow, comforting reach he grasped the corners of Vivian’s thick black rims and pulled her glasses from her face. Almost immediately her eyes turned toward each other, leaving her staring at her own nose in a blind, cross-eyed goggle.
“Okay,” Nick conceded. “So maybe just let the hair down then.” Vivian snatched her glasses and planted them back on her freckled nose, straightening out her vision with a series of quick blinks.
“Just forget it, Nick,” she said. “Nothing you can do or say is going to make me want to be your modeling partner. End of discussion.”
Nick sighed and picked up a tall green menu. Vivian did likewise.
The Oblivion Society Page 12
