The Price of Inertia

by Lily Zante

  “First of all, I don’t go running to him, and secondly, nothing happened between us.”

  We fall silent. I take a bite of my sandwich, but now I’m conscious of chewing, of him watching me eat. “Did you write?” I ask when I’ve swallowed.

  “I can’t. I’m stuck.”

  “You get that stuck without your pen?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me,” I say, with a little more need in my voice than I would like.

  “Today hasn’t been a good day,” he replies, but it’s not a growl, not what I’m expecting. He seems tired and worn out. As am I.

  “It’s been a long day,” I say, lifting up my plate and my glass of water. I was going to eat here, but he seems to want to hang around.

  I can’t be around him.

  I can’t be around him and not feel anything.

  I can’t.

  I need to escape to my bedroom. “Goodnight.”

  Chapter Twenty

  MARI

  * * *

  “How’s he been?” Jamie asks me in a hushed voice after his morning session with Ward.

  “Who?” I’m in the kitchen fixing lunch. This morning I got up super early and prayed that Ward wouldn’t be asleep in his study. I wanted to get his desk tidied before he showed up. There wasn’t as much litter in his room either.

  Jamie glances over his shoulder, then whispers. “Ward.”

  “Fine, why?”

  He pulls out something from his pocket.

  A pen.

  It’s not just any old pen.

  It’s the pen.

  My eyes almost fly out of their sockets. Enraged, I snatch it from him. “What are you doing with this?” I hiss.

  “It was a joke. You said the guy had been an ass to you, so I wanted to put him in his place.”

  “When did I say that?”

  “Over dinner the other day.”

  “You thought taking his pen would be the answer?” I’m so livid I want to hurl the pen at him like a flying missile. He has no idea of the grief his little stunt has caused. The problems it has created. The thing it has started.

  “How did he react?”

  “How did he react?” I cry, then remember to lower my voice. “Do you have any idea how angry he was?”

  Jamie’s face turns hard. “Did he blame you?”

  “Duh! It was there one minute, and then it wasn’t. Who else is he going to blame?”

  “He could have mislaid it.” Jamie’s jaw tightens. “What did he say? Did he threaten to fire you?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He ... he just got annoyed.” I decide to keep the news about the entire saga to myself. “I’ll put it back on his desk. Please don’t do anything so stupid again. I can fight my own battles.”

  Jamie leaves and I try to figure out how I’m going to return the pen to Ward without him knowing the truth. He’s seen me search for it on the floor, under the desk and on the couch for it. He saw me look all around his room.

  I can’t just tell him I found it there. Jamie has no idea of the mess he’s landed me in. This is a drama I could do without, given everything else that’s going on.

  My phone rings and I rush to answer it. My heart misses another beat when I hear Brenda’s voice. What now?

  “Your mom’s fine,” is the first thing she says. “She wanted to speak to you.” I walk away, far away into the entrance hall and listen as my mom thanks me for coming to see her yesterday.

  “That’s okay, Mom. I was worried.”

  “You worry too much.”

  “Just be more careful. Try not to trip.”

  She laughs. “You’ll come again on the weekend?”

  “I sure will. Love you.”

  As I walk back into the kitchen, I freeze at the sight of Ward’s back. He’s examining the pen. I stop breathing for a few seconds.

  “You found it?” he asks, rolling it between his fingers as I slowly return to the salad. I pick up the salad dressing and pour a little in, trying to think of what to say.

  “What?” My eyes are riveted on the salad, as if I’m performing some kind of open-heart surgery.

  “You know what.” His voice is playful. This is both new and alarming. I lift my gaze to his. Amusement dances in his eyes.

  “Oh, the pen …” I murmur, noticing that he has shaved completely. There’s no hint of stubble on his face. When did he get that his haircut? I start to think back to last night. Did he get it cut while I was with my mom?

  He taps the pen on the island, breaking my reverie. “Yes. The pen.”

  “I was going to tell you.”

  “How did it end up here?” The way he cocks his head, the way he doesn’t fly into a rage or accuse me, should make me feel relieved. Should make it easier for me to breathe.

  But it does neither.

  He’s waiting for an answer, only I can’t give him the right one. “I ... I think I ... I think I might have accidentally picked it up to write you a note.” That’s the best I can come up with on the spur of the moment.

  He lifts an eyebrow. “After I told you not to touch anything on my desk?” There isn’t an ounce of anger in his voice.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I must have grabbed it by mistake.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d done.” His lips turn upwards, just a fraction, but he looks as if he’s trying not to smile. “Where did you find it?”

  “Here somewhere.”

  “Where somewhere?”

  “Why do you need to know?”

  “It’s a very important point. I’m a stickler for detail,” he says. I’m scared that he knows Jamie took it.

  “I can’t remember.”

  “We had a disagreement over this, Mari. You really can’t remember?”

  “You call what we had a disagreement?” That’s putting it mildly.

  “What would you call it?” he asks.

  “Your behavior? Bullying rudeness, in the first instance.”

  “Don’t hold back.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I believe you didn’t.”

  My mouth opens but I forgot what I was going to say. Is he referring to me in my underwear? Or the things I called him when I had the chance? I’m trying to deflect his attention from where he thinks I found the pen, but in doing so I’ve inadvertently walked myself into a blind alley.

  “Do you need to borrow it still?” he asks. His eyes glitter with something mischievous and it makes me more alert.

  I didn’t borrow it. I didn’t even take it, but thanks to Jamie, I’m now paying the price for it. “No,” I answer. Then, “Your lunch will be ready soon. Did you want me to add chicken to it?”

  He narrows his eyes, because he knows I’m steering the conversation away from what he asked me. “You don’t usually ask me what I want. Are you offering me an a la carte service?”

  “You’re the boss. You get to call the shots.”

  He gives me the tiniest hint of a smile, but it’s a naughty, knowing smile, as if we share a secret.

  Sweet Jesus. I need a fan to cool down my face. I want to comment on his haircut, but I’m scared he’ll make something else of it.

  “I don’t mind what you cook. You seem to have a knack for knowing what I need.”

  As he leaves, I suddenly understand why he’s not angry, why he’s being playful.

  He thinks I’m flirting.

  He thinks I took the pen on purpose.

  He thinks I’m trying to catch his eye.

  The look-at-me-in-a-bra stunt I pulled has led him to him to think this. He’s shaved today.

  Completely.

  Just now.

  He definitely had his usual five o’clock shadow last night. That much I remember, even if I don’t remember the haircut. I was too scared to look at him for too long.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen him that he’s been clean-shaven. Underneath all that growth lurks a fine figure of a man.

  My heart
starts to race.

  My body’s telltale signs of approval.

  I am so in trouble.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  WARD

  * * *

  She took the pen and hid it from me and I have no idea why. Some people are drawn to celebrity, but I don’t consider myself to be one. Authors aren’t in the same bucket as movie stars.

  Why would Mari take my pen then pretend she hadn’t? She’s not the type of woman to play those types of games.

  I push this new drama out of my head because I’ve wasted too long not writing.

  I’m also struggling to forget that I’ve seen her shirtless, and that whenever we talk, there seems to be an undercurrent vibrating in the air between us.

  I have to block her out.

  I look through my notes and poke at my plot in the same way as I poke at my salad. I scratch my face, and my fingers find smooth skin. No beard, because I shaved it off completely. I liked the comfort of my beard. It was a thing of safety, something to hide behind. It also takes a while to get used to having a lighter head of hair. If Mari noticed, she didn’t comment.

  Mari and her games.

  Women do this sometimes. Mess with your head. My mother did, when I was a child, and then again on her deathbed.

  It takes great resolve, but I keep to myself for the next few days. Jamie comes and I have my hourly gym session with him every day, but for the most part, I avoid running into Mari.

  Jamie says I’m making good progress. I can see it for myself. To begin with, I can do more than a handful of push-ups easily. I managed thirty today. I’m also back on track with my healthy eating. Jamie says he’s surprised because most people don’t make such a huge leap in progress. He’s surprised that I have. When I set my mind to something, I can pull it off.

  How else have I managed to write so many books? It takes patience, and persistence, and a concerted effort, fueled by dogged determination.

  It’s not just my diet that I’m keeping an eye on, I’m taking to exercise as if my life depends on it. This is what I tell Rob when he calls one day for a progress report.

  “Your life does depend on it,” he says. He wants to know about the book, because that’s all he cares about. I string out the conversation and talk about everything else but the book because I like to wind him up like that.

  The first draft is coming along better than I expected. In a few more weeks’ time, I’ll have written the ending. Then comes the hard task of rewriting it and polishing it and checking to make sure that everything makes sense. But I hope to be back home by that stage.

  “Keep it up,” Rob tells me. “I look forward to reading the first draft.”

  I look forward to finishing the first draft.

  Two weeks go past and I stay burrowed away in my study, away from Mari. She appears to be avoiding me too.

  We can easily go for days without seeing or talking to one another.

  The only reason I know she’s around is because my food magically appears on time.

  * * *

  MARI

  * * *

  I was worried for no reason. Ward has locked himself away in the study, keeping away from me.

  It’s better this way.

  Sometimes I look back on that time when he came to my room to apologize, and I wonder what I was thinking. I’m not an exhibitionist by any stretch of imagination.

  Maybe Dale’s betrayal cut deeper than I thought. It dented my pride and took away a huge chunk of my self-esteem. That man broke my heart and I’m not sure I’ve recovered.

  I don’t have time for romance. I have no interest in striking out or meeting someone new, but I feel unnoticed, unattractive and forgotten, here in this place, all alone.

  I need to be around people. I need to be appreciated, I thrive when I’m told I’ve done a good job by my peers, my managers, and the customers I serve. This is why working here leaves me so unfulfilled and unappreciated. The desire to be acknowledged and needed is necessary for our delicate human egos.

  Although we’ve kept away from one another, I found myself staring at Ward as he was putting his dishes into the dishwasher. I couldn’t help but notice how his arms were more defined. There was a shape to his muscles that hadn’t been there before. And since when did he start wearing t-shirts that hugged his body like that?

  The transformation that’s taking place in front of me is so hard to ignore, he is changing fast before my very eyes. I don’t hate him as much as I used to. I’m not even scared of him, and I definitely don’t feel nervous around him.

  I wish he wouldn’t hide away the way he does. My mind strays back to the day I saw the tentpole in his pants. I shake my head and try to throw out the images that tempt me.

  But Jamie confirms what I’m seeing. He says Ward is doing really well and he is shocked by the transformation. He makes a comment about Ward’s new haircut and beard and jokes that the guy is probably getting ready for publicity once the book releases. The movie is coming out as well. I’d made myself believe that I might be the reason for Ward’s new makeover, but Jamie’s words now make me doubt that.

  I’m being silly. Fantasizing again. Making up stories where there are none. Being weak and filling myself with romantic ideas as usual.

  Jamie is one of Ward’s fans. Right now, he’s reading a book that Ward wrote and he tells me to read it, but like always, I decline to.

  It makes me wonder, what possesses a man to write horror?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  MARI

  * * *

  Every day is the same, like Groundhog Day. The only thing I have to look forward to is Jamie’s visits.

  Visiting my mom on the weekend breaks up some of the monotony. Maybe next weekend, I’ll allow myself an evening of drinks and dinner with Jamie. Some normal conversation. A group of our friends are getting together, Jamie tells me. He said that Raleigh, a friend more Jamie’s than mine, is going to organize a get-together in a couple of weeks’ time. She liked Jamie and I’ve always wondered if there was a hint of an attraction between them. It would be good to catch up and see everyone and see what they are doing now.

  We haven’t managed to talk much in recent days because he’s doing an extra half an hour, at Ward’s request. When he finishes, he has to rush off to make it back to the gym where he works.

  I’m in the study early one morning, tidying up Ward’s desk. As I begin to polish his desk, moving his papers and notebooks out of the way, I catch sight of my name scribbled on a sheet of paper.

  It’s a scribble in his spidery scrawly handwriting:

  Mari

  I bend over, lowering my head and peering closer.

  He wrote this.

  My name.

  Why?

  “What are you doing?”

  I jolt my head up as his sharp voice pierces the air. “I ... I ...” I lift my hand, duster and all, trying to figure a way out of this.

  Ward walks towards me. There’s a sharpness to his features that wasn’t there before when his beard hid most of his face. My heart threatens to crash out of my ribcage, my pulse gallops like wild horses.

  “I told you to keep your hands off my work.”

  I quickly put his notebook on top of the papers and try to make his desk look neat and orderly, just how he likes it.

  “What were you doing, Mari?” He lifts up his pen, that pen, and taps it on the desk as if he’s a headmaster waiting for an answer.

  I try to straighten up to my full height, to regain some semblance of control, of authority, but his menacing glare makes my insides quiver.

  “You wrote my name.” I state, lifting my chin in a way that I hope signals defiance.

  “You were looking through my papers,” he replies, as if that explains everything.

  We’re facing one another and only the chair, neatly tucked into the desk, stands in our way.

  “Why did you write my name?”

  He scoffs, as if I’ve lied. “Did I?”

&nbs
p; “Who else would?” I quip cheekily. “I can show you.” I go to pull out the sheet of paper.

  “Don’t touch my notes.”

  My duster falls to the floor and I reach down to get it. I forgot. He doesn’t like me snooping around.

  Then, in a softer voice, probably because he’s reminded of what an ass he can be, he says, “I must have been thinking.”

  “Of what?” I ask, standing up. His Adam’s apple bobs, telling me he’s not as calm as he pretends to be. “Am I in trouble?” I want to know. I can’t help but think of my job, and my mom, and the expensive nursing home. I’ve given this man enough chances to fire me.

  “In trouble?” His eyes glint in the dim light of the room. “Any reason you would think that?”

  “I didn’t read any of your papers. I swear I didn’t. I saw my name and I ...” I can’t think of what to say. Him writing my name means something, doesn’t it? Or am I desperately trying to make it mean something?

  “But you managed to find a sheet of paper with your name on?” he asks, calmly.

  “It was sticking out. I didn’t go looking for it. It caught my attention.”

  “Did it now?”

  I blink, and I’m about to ask him what he means but I have lost the ability to think. The nerve endings all over my body throb like a thousand miniscule drums.

  This is the wrong reaction for me to have here in this room standing so close to this man. I’ve done nothing wrong, I remind myself, and I never took his pen.

  “First you take my pen, and now you find a sheet of paper with your name on it. What’s going on, Mari?”

  I gulp. “You’ve got it all wrong. I saw my name, and I was curious.” I try my power move tactic and take a step towards him. I’m so close now that I accidentally brush my hand across his naked forearm. I shiver, not because he’s accused me wrongly, but because the heat and hardness of his arm, of his body, of his muscles, causes a peculiar reaction inside me. He advances a teeny bit, and I retreat but now I’m pushed up against his desk and I have nowhere else to go. If I inch back any further, my bottom will be perched upon it.