Tough Sell

by Trixie More

  The coffee maker spluttered and spat from its place on the counter, sounding as if this was the last pot of coffee it would ever brew and she made short work of scrambling a couple of eggs and toasting a muffin. As she worked, she thought about Edward. Whatever had made him turn down her offer that night? She knew now that he had been attracted to her and that he was definitely interested in sex, and despite what she had thought that night, he didn’t seem to ever think she was slutty or too easy or creepy in a stalker kind of way. He might be the first man ever to be OK with her overzealous pursuit. She smiled. No, everything she had assumed that night was wrong. She carried her plate to the living room so she could sit on the couch and be near a window. She liked the city in the evening, as the sun went down and the lights came on.

  Nothing smelled better than food cooked in butter. The steaming hot eggs tasted divine after all the walking, the English muffin was crunchy and the sweet orange marmalade was like a bit of dessert on her tongue. Did Edward like breakfast for dinner? It was one of the best things about living on her own, eating omelets and pancakes for dinner. I’m fucked-up, Dorothy. That’s what he’d said to her the day after he’d escaped from her clutches in the kitchen. He’d kissed her neck. Her boobs had been so sore that day as he kissed and mouthed her neck and told her how sorry he was.

  On the street below her apartment a little girl dragged her feet and followed behind her mother, one arm stretched outward and upwards, her hand swallowed inside the woman’s larger hand. Dorothy thought about what had happened the evening after, when she had raced to buy a new bra, then dressed in a mini skirt and her Mets jersey and rushed to get to Edward’s place. He’d been on his knees in a flash. That day had been so hot. She felt a thrill just thinking about him kneeling at her feet and then later hauling her up into his arms and kicking open the door to his bedroom. But there had been another moment hadn’t there? When she had teased him and he’d turned and picked a fight with her. Just a little one about what she’d been wearing. She set her plate down with a thunk on the coffee table.

  It’s hard for me to let anyone touch me, well, that way.

  That’s what he’d said that day, the morning after he’d left her. And then later, I’m fucked-up, Dorothy.

  What the heck was going on with him? What the hell had that court case been about?

  It was just twenty short feet to where her cell phone sat on her dresser. Curiosity burned and prodded at her, making her start down the hall and retreat back to the couch twice before she made up her mind. She grabbed up her phone and pressed the text icon and stopped. What the hell was she doing? Hadn’t she just told him that he knew where to find her? Hadn’t he had an entire day to reach out? Wasn’t that silent cell phone enough to get the message through her thick head? The man didn’t want her. Her finger hovered over the phone as she wrestled with her thoughts.

  Then she hit the back button and got up to wash her plate.

  The light through the dirty windows was bright white and cruel, so Edward’s blinds were closed. He could feel the stubble of his beard every time he moved his hand across his mouth, which was often, since he wasn’t keeping his scotch in the glass as well as he should. He was on his twelfth hour of virtual war gaming and he thought his reflexes were getting better but that might have been the booze talking. The superintendent had been up about an hour ago, telling him to turn down the music or at least play something different for Christ’s sake.

  Ed grinned. Pansy asses couldn’t listen to the same Dispatch album for more than ten hours? Weak, weak people. He lined up his next shot and then launched his character across a gap between two virtual buildings that were supposed to be somewhere in the Middle East he assumed. Pansies. His character’s head exploded and the game reset. Maybe his reflexes weren’t quite what he thought they were. The MP3 ended its current run of angry youth rock and for once, Edward’s apartment was silent. Silent, that was, until the banging started. Must be the super again. Ironic that the music had just ended, wasn’t it? He looked around for his whiskey glass. It had rolled under the table and was lying under the radiator by the window. Fuck that. He drank from the bottle.

  The banging wasn’t stopping, and now it was accompanied by the voice of a woman calling his name. The super really was a pansy. That got a chuckle from himself but the sound of his own voice was more of a cackle. He tried to heave himself up by putting a hand on the back of his desk chair. Wheeled chairs on hardwood floors were tricky though and he went down hard on his knees.

  On his knees again. Bastards.

  He used the trunk in front of his couch to help himself stand. Meanwhile, the voice from the hallway took on an urgent tone. Was it Dorothy? That thought got him moving faster and he made it to the door. The woman on the other side of the peephole was quite frankly, a little frightening. Her jet black hair was arrayed in spikes and she had multiple studs in her nose but that wasn’t what set Edward back a bit. More frightful was the glare she was giving his front door as she waved the white paper bag in her hand.

  “Yo! Hustle up in there. I got other deliveries to make today,” she yelled.

  For fuck’s sake, he hadn’t ordered anything. Imagine, having his bender interrupted for food. His stomach growled and he pried the door open a crack.

  “’Snot mine,” he informed her.

  “Look, dude. I’m not here to discuss this. I got an order for you. The person who ordered it also has a message for you.” She looked at the bag, where something had been scrawled in blue ink. “Turn your phone on. Gunnar.” She thrust the bag at him. “Are you going to take this or not?” When he hesitated, she dropped the bag by the door and turned on her heel. “Thanks for the tip, asshole,” she called as her boots clattered down the stairs.

  Edward opened his door and bent over for the bag. His head thundered. It was fuckin’ bright in the hall.

  Inside, he examined the bag. Turn your phone on. Gunnar was written on the outside and inside, was a heavy foil wrapped torpedo that could only be a sub. He took it out and unwrapped it. The smell was wonderful and terrible at the same time. Oregano, sharp tomato and Italian spices exploded around him. His stomach rolled. It seemed it was at war with itself, both starving and nauseated. It occurred to him that he was drunk off his ass.

  His need for food won; he tackled the first half of the meatball sandwich standing at the counter. His eyes landed on empty Thai cartons scattered across his stove. When had he ordered that? After eating half the sub, his brain felt a little clearer. Gunnar had ordered this food for him. Why hadn’t he called? Searching for his phone took him into every room of his apartment and he finally found it in the storage room next to his weight bench, dead.

  While it charged up, he polished off the rest of the sandwich, had a bottle of water and took three aspirins preemptively. He figured in an hour or so he was going to be in real pain. Then he sent a message to Gunnar.

  Thanks for nothing, man. You just wrecked a really spectacular bender.

  His partner’s reply came back in seconds.

  Fuck you. Get on your damn computer and talk to me.

  A few seconds later it pinged again.

  Idiot

  He shut down his war game and started a video call with Gunnar.

  “What the fuck, man?” Gunnar’s face loomed in front of him, nostrils flared and eyes furious. “You just drop off the planet? In the middle of a work week?”

  Edward glanced at the time. Three thirty in the afternoon. “What day is it?”

  “Day? Day? You don’t know what fuckin’ day it is? You better have a cast on. Show me where the bus hit you or I’m going to kill you myself.”

  Shame started to crawl up Ed’s back, or maybe it had been riding him for days now. He remembered how this started. Dorothy had left him. He’d watched the video. How many times? He remembered thinking he was done. He remembered putting the Scotch away and watching the video again. He thought if he just watched it enough, he’d become desensitized to it, would just g
et over it. Be able to show his face anywhere and just own it.

  Obviously, that hadn’t happened. He turned to look at his TV. A bright ball of color bounced from side to side, the screen saver. He was almost afraid to look at what was under it.

  From the computer, Gunnar called to him. “Ed?”

  He ignored Gunnar and picked up the remote that was sitting neatly on the trunk, he hit play and the screen saver disappeared.

  “Jesus Christ, man,” whispered Gunnar.

  In front of him the video was frozen once again on his face, another man’s dick crammed in his mouth, his own eyes looking up and that hideous, unthinkable smile on his face.

  He couldn’t turn the TV off fast enough. Gunnar had seen it. He couldn’t make himself turn around and look at his friend, instead he stood frozen in shock at what he’d revealed.

  Behind him Gunnar gave a cough. “What the hell brought this on, Ed?”

  Edward didn’t turn; he really was a coward. Instead he shrugged weakly, like a child called before the principal.

  “You haven’t done this in years.” The Nordic accent sounded soothing. “It never crossed my mind this is what you were doing. I thought …” The voice behind him trailed off.

  Edward found the courage to look at the computer. “You thought what?”

  Now it was Gunnar’s turn to shrug. “I thought you were bang—um, dating that pretty girl from the other day. I thought you got carried away.”

  Edward covered his face with his hands. “Dorothy,” he muttered. “Her name is Dorothy.”

  “Yeah, well, I was kind of hoping that was the thing that was happening.”

  “She’s done with me.”

  On the screen Gunnar’s face relaxed and he leaned back in his chair. Edward slid into his seat too and suddenly they were just them again. Two guys who owned a business and talked on video. “No way that girl is done with you, man. What did you do?”

  “I stuffed her clothes in a box and shoved her out my door.”

  “Oh.” Gunnar’s eyes widened and his head rocked back a bit. Then he grinned. “They generally don’t like that.”

  “No shit.”

  “How did the presentation go?”

  “What? Oh man, I’m sorry. I didn’t even tell you.” More shame, why the hell not? “It was fantastic, man. She did a fantastic job. Amazing.”

  Gunnar lunged forward. “No! Really? When does it launch?” He smacked his hand on his desk. “This is great. We need this thing so much.”

  Edward felt even worse if that was possible. Gunnar’s face fell. “What went wrong? Does this have something to do with that damn video? What the hell is going on?”

  Edward recounted the whole messy tale from those first wonderful minutes, watching Dorothy sell their company to the whole room, through what amounted to just any excuse to fire her, from Ed’s point of view, to their fight and finally to her showing up at his door and him tossing her back out. He stopped there though. He had no idea how to explain how he went from that to the video.

  Gunnar was silent, shock and dismay on his face.

  Finally, Gunnar spoke. “Are you nuts?”

  Edward sat back. Of all things Gunnar could say, that wasn’t what he expected. His partner continued. “Because I think you’re nuts. Why the heck did you chase that woman off?” Gunnar exploded from his chair and started pacing around his office. “I understand why you don’t want to be our spokesperson. I understand why you don’t want to be on video and I even understand why it’s hard for you to get to know people. But damn it, Ed, why didn’t you ask me to work with her? Why didn’t you ask her to just sell us the campaign?”

  “She was working for them when she created it. It doesn’t belong to her. All that work is gone.” The sense of disappointment washed over Edward again, just as sharp as it had the first time he realized the extent of their losses, sometime during his binge.

  “No. Are you for sure? I mean are you good and damn sure she was fired?”

  “She was here with all her desk belongings in a file box. What do you think happened?”

  “Did she tell you she was fired?”

  God his head hurt. “No. Not in so many words, but I’m sure she was.”

  Gunnar started pacing again. “OK, OK, so CDP owns the rights to the campaign. And she created it while she worked for them. So they own it. So we need them to do this campaign. That’s what we need.” He stopped in front of the screen and stared expectantly at Ed.

  “What? What do you want me to do? The campaign belongs to CDP and Dorothy wants nothing to do with me.” Except that wasn’t exactly true, was it?

  Edward offered the only thing he could think of. “I got us some cash from the video …”

  “Oh, you and that goddamn video!” The words ripped into the room. Edward realized that Gunnar was actually yelling at him. “That’s your problem, man. That video got you so wrapped up in being outed that your whole life is about you!”

  “Not outed. NOT outed!” Ed roared. Damn it, there was nothing to out. He’d been raped.

  “No. Not outed like a normal homosexual … I get that Ed, I really, really do. You aren’t gay. You’re just an asshole.”

  Edward froze. How could Gunnar talk to him like that? He was his friend. His only friend.

  “You wallowed in that video when you should have been telling me what was going the fuck on! It’s always about you and that damn rape. Well, you know what? Now it really is all about you. You got it. Because I’m done. This company is going down and I’m not letting it suck my family under with it.” Gunnar lunged at the screen, gesturing at it with a sharp, quick chopping motion. “Get ready to liquidate partner.”

  The screen went blank.

  What had just happened?

  “What the fuck just happened?” Edward yelled at the computer. Nobody answered. The desk chair spun away from him as he lurched to his feet, grabbing at his head. He turned around and took in the disarray of the darkened room, the stale odor and the empty food cartons. The Glengoyne bottle on the floor and the two bottles of Maker’s Mark on the counter glittered in the light from the PC. He turned in a circle and his eyes settled on the silver thumb drive, still protruding from the USB port. He bent over, ripped it from the drive and shoved it in his pocket. If Gunnar thought his life was all about him, then Ed would make good and sure that he was right. He shoved his feet into his sneakers, grabbed his wallet and keys and stormed out of his apartment.

  He was going right over to Dorothy’s and he was going to show this to her once and for all. That would be the end then. He marched down the street and around the corner to the subway. There would be nothing left of his life. He would give all his money to Gunnar, let him have the damn business and maybe Edward would just disappear. Maybe he would just go. He was halfway down the metal capped stairs to the tunnels when his mind hit up against the enormity of his aloneness. Maybe he would just go where? He stopped dead. Behind him, a woman cursed and dodged around him, but he didn’t react. He just stood.

  After that, where, really, could he go? He started walking again but much slower. He literally thought of nothing. White subway tiles shined, the odor of urine and stale air filled his nose. Soft leather in his palm, his wallet unfolded, the paper subway card slid out under the swipe of his thumb and it passed silently over the window in the turnstile. Beneath his feet, the squeal of brakes and the rumble of the trains signaled the passing of time. He stood and let the crowd surge around him. Then he walked down to the platform and the train that would take him to Dorothy.

  “Dorothy?” The receptionist smiled kindly at her. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to Brian Tilldun’s office.”

  Nervous butterflies skittered around inside her stomach. She had a very bad feeling about her chances. Dorothy pasted on her best attagirl smile and followed the matronly lady down the tiled hallway, through the wood double doors and beyond. The HR manager’s office was only a few yards away but it felt like a mile to her. This was h
er third interview today and unexpectedly, she already knew that she would not be hired by the first two. Both interviews had been short, and when she had offered to show them examples of her work on the Walker and Birkeland account, the interview had ended rather quickly. There was, of course, no overt statement that she wouldn’t be hired. But she’d been expecting to meet with multiple people, as she had when she’d been interviewed in the past, but in each case, she moved no further than a meeting with an HR representative. At the prior interview, she suspected she’d been the first person the young man had ever interviewed.

  “Come in, Ms. Johansen.” The man behind the desk appeared to be in his late fifties. He had an alarming degree of shoulder slump and a waistline that challenged the buttons on his suit. His face, however, was pleasant and intelligent. She relaxed a bit and stepped up, shaking the hand he offered, and accepting a seat at a small round table. He joined her there, after the receptionist exited, shutting his office door quietly.

  “How are you?” He seemed to be asking her something else, because his gaze stayed on hers with an intensity out of line with the question.

  “I’m well,” she replied and tried on another smile. “How are things going for you?”

  “Oh, fine. Good.” He glanced at a folder before him. “I had thought you would be interviewing with one of our managers today, but sadly, he’s had to attend an important meeting with a client.”

  “That’s ironic, I have to say.” The words just slid from her mouth. “Because that exact same situation has occurred at the last two companies I interviewed at today.” She crossed her legs and leaned back. There didn’t seem to be any reason to be on her best behavior. “I have to admit, I’m more than disappointed. Actually, I’m confused.”

  Mr. Tilldun had the decency to look pained.

  “At the other two agencies, I at least got to show my portfolio. Would you like to see it?”

  “Does your portfolio contain work you created while employed at Cogent Digital?”