by Jamie Knight
Everything looked good. There were no immediate or obvious warning signs. Except that he was a corporate lawyer, which I tended to trust as far as I could comfortably spit them. I tried to take people as they came. Not even the Nazis were all bad as project Valkyrie clearly demonstrated.
“Everything looks in order,” I said, returning the clipboard.
I took a position behind the camera, so I was close to the table but didn’t get in the way of the shot.
Everything was set. Camera was ready, lights were angled, and Addie looked absolutely scrumptious. As if waiting for exactly the right moment, the man of the hour, Addie’s first date of the run, ‘the chiseler’ as I had already come to think of him in the Gangs of New York sense, came breezing in.
“Am I fashionably late?” he inquired, removing the designer shades that he thought made him look cool but actually made him look like even more of a twonk.
“Not at all,” I said, trying to sound pleasant through my seething rage.
I could already tell he wasn’t good enough for her. I hadn’t known Addie long, but I was able to get a pretty good sense of people. She might have had some issues, lack of confidence primary among them, but he just oozed the essence of a raging asshole. I considered calling off the entire shoot and take the financial hit. Sadly, I was too late. They were already filming.
Hope for the best an prepare for the worst. This was the advice my realist grandfather one gave me. He had lived through two world wars, so I figured he might know a thing or two about a thing or two. As much as I hated to admit it, not simply because Addie was taking the brunt of it, the first date on the first season of Second Chance Bachelorette really was a prepare for the worst situation. I could only hope that show’s title would ring true.
The fisher was rude, which came as no surprise. The problem was the more he drank the ruder he got, running through the entire repertoire of English swear words, eventually turning to other languages of the world. He came out with things that would a Portuguese sailor blush.
I gave the signal to cut camera. Traditionally, this action was meant to be reserved for the director, but I reserved particular rights in emergency situations. Something I invoked with a single phase.
“Code black.”
My statement worked like an incantation, spurring all and sundry to start taking down any and all recording equipment.
“What’s happening?” Addie asked.
“Emergency stop,” I said, putting a protective hand on her shoulder.
“Wha’ da fuck ya talkin’ ‘bout?” the chiseller asked, his speech only vaguely resembling the English he was speaking.
“We’ve called you a cab,” I said firmly.
“I not goin’!”
The wine bottle exploded on the edge of the table, forever staining the lovely linen tablecloth. Red wine dripped from the remaining shards like blood from a jade-toothed maw.
“Shit!” Addie stated, her eyes like dessert plates.
“It’s okay,” I said stroking her back.
As Samantha shepherded Addie out of harm’s way, I started unbuttoning my jacket, making my way toward the bottle-wielding chiseller. I could see it coming from a mile away.
The swing was hard and wide. He reached back so far that his arm formed a right angle with his back. It missed by a lot, and the useless, make-shift weapon actually whistled as it hit absolutely nothing. I was a lot luckier, landing a clean, hard haymaker on the right side of his jaw. He just stood there for a moment as if trying to make up his mind before folding like a lawn chair.
“He signed a waiver, right?”
“Yep,” Samantha said, actually checking the records.
“Very good,” I said buttoning up my suit jacket.
I escorted Addie out to the car where Clementine was waiting, who ditched her cigarette as if I wouldn’t notice.
“Done already?”
“Sadly so. Drive fast, please,” I said. The beast was already coming around when we left. I didn’t want to risk him following us.
“The Sixty?” Clementine asked.
“Yes,” I said, holding Addie tight as she trembled.
I didn’t know if it was because she had never seen much violence or if she had seen too much and was having flashbacks. Either way, she was upset and there was no way I was leaving her in that state.
“Go get some food. I’ll call you when I need you,” I said, giving Clementine a fifty.
“Got it, boss.”
“Would you like a drink?” I asked, sitting Addie down on her bed at the Sixty.
“Very large whisky,” she said.
“Coming right up,” I said going to the mini bar that I already paid for.
Emptying two of the tiny bottles into a tumbler, I got myself a tonic with a twist of lemon. I took both glasses back to the bed.
“Thanks,” she said, taking the tumbler in a shaking hand.
It only took two sips. Two sips of whisky and Addie’s head was on my shoulder as she cried. Putting both glasses on the night table, I wrapped both arms around Addie, holding her tight.
“Am I really so disgusting?” she asked, clearly thinking the altercation was her fault when it wasn’t.
“Not at all. He is that stupid. We can only hope I knocked some sense into him.”
“That really was cool,” she said, starting to calm down.
“He had it coming.”
“Yeah, he did. What a prick.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“D-do you think you could stay with me?”
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about it. That and a lot of things. Despite the less than ideal cause, holding her in my arms, particularly while sitting on a bed, was filling my head with all sorts of ideas.
Did I want to stay with her?
Yes.
Did I think I could stay with her?
Not really.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” I said, without actually saying no.
“You’re probably right,” she said.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”
I kissed her gently on the cheek, which raised no protest, and headed out. I got out my phone, hoping Clementine had at least already ordered.
Chapter Six
Addie
It was a dream. At least I tried to convince myself it was. Only I was confident there was just too much evidence to the contrary. Not least my hair cut. Everything had happened more or less the way I remembered it. The makeover. The horrible date. The producer taking me back to my place and me asking him to stay. That last bit wasn’t so bad. I really did want him to stay. It would have been better if he actually had, but I could also see his point. He had a show to think about, and I didn’t want Clementine to have to be waiting for his call all night.
I suddenly had the urge to tell someone and there was only one person who came to mind.
“What’s up, buttercup?”
“Well, hello to you too,” Mercy said, her tone distinctively icy.
“Sorry. I’m also sorry I didn’t call before. As you may have deduced from the radio silence, I got accepted for the show.”
“Figured,” Mercy said, the very picture of stoicism. Rather, she sounded like it at least.
“I am currently sitting in the Sixty hotel, done up like a 21st century Daisy Buchanan.”
“Jealous!” Mercy announced, as if it weren’t obvious.
“Don’t be too much. The date I was done up for turned out to be a disaster.”
“Define disaster,” Mercy said.
“He broke a wine bottle on the side of the table to make a weapon and the producer had to punch him out.”
“That’s a disaster alright,” Mercy concurred.
“At least the producer made sure the guy had signed a waiver, so the show won’t suffer too much.”
“See? A silver lining already!” Mercy said.
“Yeah, for the
producer particularly. He wouldn’t do well in prison. He’s much too pretty.”
“Someone’s got a crush.”
“Don’t be silly!” I protested.
“C’mon Addie. We’ve known each other since kindergarten. I recognize the signs.”
“No, I mean I think it might be more than a crush. A bit more anyway. Crushes are for teenagers. I’m way past that now,” I said.
“Oh, I see. So, love at first sight, is it? Much more mature. You’re entering Disney princess territory.”
“It was not at first sight.”
“Tenth?” Mercy asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“How long have you known him exactly?”
“That’s not important.”
“Nice deflection,” Mercy commended.
“What is important is that I really feel something for him, and I think he might for me, too. I can’t know for sure, of course. It could just be wishful thinking, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the signs.”
“Sign of the apocalypse?” Mercy asked.
“No, signs of affection. For the record, if I do see a sign of the apocalypse, I’ll say ‘the time is nigh.’”
“Oh, the science guy.”
“No, that’s Bill Nye.”
“Right, I always get those two mixed up.”
It was really nice talking to Mercy again. It was almost like her oddness kept me sane by comparison.
“Did you hear about this lockdown business?” Mercy asked.
“They’re going into lockdown?”
“Yeah, the whole city. Due to the pandemic. This Coronavirus— you know, COVID-19, as they’re calling it— is spreading quickly and the government wants to keep everyone safe.”
“Oh. Wow,” I said, feeling a bit stunned.
I had heard about the virus but my life had been so busy that I hadn’t been paying enough attention.
“That’s really crazy,” I added. “As if we’re living in some kind of sci fi movie.”
“I know, right? I wonder how they are going to keep the show going,” Mercy mused.
“Just what I was thinking.”
Of course, when I talked to Tobias again, I found out they had a plan. I should never have expected otherwise. It wasn’t a very good plan, but it was a plan just the same. It didn’t require me giving up and going home, so I was already in favor of it.
“You want me to do what?”
“Online dates, with video-calls,” Tobias calmly explained.
I don’t know how they did it, but they had gotten me into the office without any trouble. The lockdown hadn’t started yet but was coming soon. Not that Tobias seemed worried. Not in an invincible, He-Man idiot kind of way. More like the ten-steps-ahead, thought-of-everything way. I got the strong sense he had a deck of aces up his exquisitely tailored sleeve.
The dates were set up in rounds. Video-calls were a lot cheaper and could be shorter. There was lot of concern about the show getting boring, so they were just going to shoot as much as they could and edit together the most interesting bits. It was the age-old approach of throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck.
“Ready?” Tobias asked as a skeleton crew set up the video-date equipment in the hotel room.
“I guess.”
“That’s the spirit,” he teased.
“I’m just not sure about this. I mean, I’m not a Luddite or anything, but dating by computer just seems odd.”
“I know what you mean. It seems like it would take out the human element.”
“Exactly,” I said.
He really did understand. At least I had an ally in my dissent, even though there was nothing either of us could do about it. I still wasn’t sure how he had gotten to the hotel without raising alarms.
Maybe he had some kind of underground tunnel network. Then again, maybe they let him travel because he was on important business. He and those he brought with him were wearing masks and gloves as per the recommendations. They, like everything else about Tobias Ford, were stylishly understated.
With the equipment in place, the techs quietly left. Their work there was done. That left just me and Tobias alone in the luxury room. I sat at the newly upgraded desk and Tobias sat on a plush chair nearby.
The first in line was a doctor from Jersey. He was nice enough, but a bit boring. We tried to make conversation, but it was difficult. Tobias politely ended things after about twenty minutes. I sat back in the chair, half hoping that all of the interactions would be so uneventful. The last thing I needed was an online version of the fiasco from the night before.
The second contender was a lawyer. The very word made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I knew it was unfair, but the brain makes its own associations that are difficult to control.
Happily, he turned out to be great. He was only twenty-seven but had his own practice where he worked on civil liberties cases, primarily for artists. He was sweet and humble and didn’t seem to have much of an ego about him. Little did I know that he and the boring doctor would be the best interactions I would have that day.
Bachelor number twelve actually whipped out his cock and number twenty whispered all the disgusting things he wanted to do to me, most of which I was fairly certain were physically impossible. Tobias ended those right quick.
At the end of it all, I was expected to message the other producers of the show and tell them which guy I liked the best. The only problem was that I couldn’t. If I was honest, particularly with myself, the one I really wanted was Tobias. The one man I couldn’t have.
I had to say something so the show could move forward. Not able to tell the absolute truth but also not wanting to lie, I told the truth as far as it went. I nominated the young civil liberties lawyer as my favorite, which was true enough.
“I have to get back to office,” Tobias said.
“Okay.”
I wanted to argue but repressed the urge. It was way too early to show my cards. Tobias left, ever so slightly making me want to cry, but I held it together.
When he was gone, leaving me very much alone, I searched my brain as to what I might do. The idea came up fast as mercury. A wonderful, awful idea.
I needed to speak to Duncan. I was worried about how he was feeling during this whole lockdown phase, on top of the already different temporary change in custody. Even though he was the one who had agreed to it when Dave had demanded it, perhaps he had had a change of heart and was afraid to express it. Or maybe he was just afraid in general, with all the changes in the world lately.
I had tried to call every night, but Dave never answered. I left message after message. But my idea was to use a service I’d recently heard of that changed your number on caller ID to make it look like someone else’s. I randomly chose the number for the state lottery, hoping to trick Dave into thinking he’d won, since I knew he had been a daily player.
“Hello?” he answered hopefully, right away.
“Dave. Don’t hang up.”
“Hey, bitch,” Dave said, with a change in his tone. “Thought you could trick me by using some other number? Nice try.”
“Dave, I just want to talk to Duncan.”
“Having fun sleeping around, you slut?”
“I-I haven’t. It has just been dates, none of which have gone well at all.”
“It doesn’t matter really. You’ve still been gone. Abandoning your son.”
“In the care of his father,” I pointed out. “You said it would be good for him. He agreed…”
“That’s not what I am going to tell Child Protective Services.”
“We’ll see about that. Let me talk to Duncan, please.”
“Fat chance, bitch.”
He hung up on me. I slammed the phone down so hard I nearly broke it in half. Or least I felt like that might happen. Such was my burning, righteous anger.
There was nothing I could do. Dave knew that. What he didn’t know was about the ace up my sleeve.
Chapter Seven
Tobias
It was no use. I tried everything I could think of, but I just couldn’t seem to get Addie out of my mind.
It really wasn’t good, falling for a contestant like I clearly was. Not good for the show, anyway. It was difficult to tell what impact it might have on us as individuals in the world, when everything else was stripped away.
I tried to imagine a world free of complications. It was a wonderful place. Free of pain, but still interesting enough and with sufficient new experiences to make life worth living.
Challenges could make life fun, but there was a world of difference between challenge and outright obstruction, especially the kind of obstruction with no logical or even functional basis behind it. The sort that exist just because someone who thinks they have to power to do so say that the obstruction exists, and everyone just takes their word for it. There might be consequences, but that was hardly the same thing as reason.
“Deep in thought?” Clementine asked as I got into the backseat.
“You could say that, Clem.”
“I got you a treat while you were up there.”
“I thought all the stores were closed.”
“Never said I got it at a store,” she said, with a wink.
Sure enough, there on the seat beside me was a brown paper bag. There was something hard and square in it.
“No, it’s not porn, I know about your philosophies,” Clementine assured.
I picked up the bag careful and slid out the contents. It was the French first edition of The Plague by Albert Camus. I honestly could have cried.
“Thought it was on theme.”
“It is. It very much is,” I agreed, fighting the urge to hug her.
Not only might it change our relationship, social distancing was in effect and we couldn’t take the risk. The window was even up between the front and back, which it almost never was. The car hadn’t come with that feature. I’d had it added later, wanting the features of a limousine without the ostentation.
“Thank you,” I added, remembering that I hadn’t actually said it.
I had only given Addie part of the story about Clementine. I didn’t want to shock her or confirm any prejudices she might have. The fact was, Clem was gay, and from a part of the nation not known for their tolerance for the different, to put it very mildly.
