I shrugged. A change of location was not the weirdest thing to ever happen on a reality show production. It wasn’t even the weirdest thing to happen on a production with David. At least so far there were no monkeys involved. “This is TV, baby. You gotta’ know how to roll with the punches.”
I’d grown up with three younger brothers, identical triplets nine years my junior. Like David, they had kept me busy. I’d learned early not to sweat the small stuff, keep an open mind, and have a sense of humor. It was probably those skills that made me a half-decent television producer now that I thought about it. I’d need to thank the little bastards at Christmas.
“Casey, did you just call me baby?” He sounded surprised and pleased, both by my reaction and my joking term of endearment.
I smirked. “It was just a figure of speech. Don’t get accustomed to it.”
“Ok, whatever you say…Baby.”
Resisting a smile was impossible, although I wasn’t the hugest fan of the term ‘baby’ being applied to grown women. I usually found it weirdly infantilizing. Coming from David, though, and coupled with the smoldering way he was looking at me…
“I need to get to work,” I scolded before I fell totally under his spell. Something about the way his eyes raked down my body felt like he was undressing me with his eyes. “You’re distracting me.”
He grinned at me and then his expression turned more serious. “I like distracting you, but ok, I’ll let you work. Before I go though, are you feeling better now? Is your tummy feeling totally back to normal?”
I nodded sheepishly and looked down at my laptop, so I wouldn’t have to see his eyes. I sincerely wished he’d not witnessed (or at least heard) my earlier episode. There is pretty much nothing less sexy than listening to someone vomit. It’s right up there with watching someone defecate. “Yeah. I feel totally fine now. It’s bizarre. I’m really not sure what’s going on. Must be a travel bug. Or raisins.”
I certainly wasn’t going to mention the pregnancy possibility until I was sure, even if my other explanations sounded distinctly lame. Once I knew it wasn’t pregnancy the prospect would be something we could laugh about. Until then it was better not to worry David. Or freak him out. Or anger him. I still had no idea how he’d react. Hence the secrecy.
“Ok. I’ll get out of your way now. Text me if you need anything,” he said, kissing me on the top of the head and then adding, “baby.”
He made a hasty retreat before I could say another thing. In the back of my mind, the need to buy a second pregnancy test slipped further down my to-do list as I attacked the internet in pursuit of information on the island of Nico. What I found was disappointingly sparse and somewhat intimidating.
Nico was actually a small archipelago of islands rather than a single island, which lay to the north of the island we were currently on, in the dangerous Strait of Nico. The principal and eponymous island was named Nico Claro, the one I assumed David referred to, and had a top population of just under fifteen hundred people. The number of residents varied substantially with the seasons. In fact, these islands were generally inaccessible via boat between December and March due to rough seas. Having been sculpted by repeated volcanic eruptions, the terrain of the island was incredibly steep and rocky, and typhoons were common.
The photos that I found of the island were absolutely gorgeous in a spare, exotic way. There were few trees, but plenty of low plants that could survive on the windswept, steep rocky terrain. Rain seemed to be a constant on the island, and the dichotomy between the bright green vegetation, grey skies, and black volcanic ground made the whole place look more like a Game of Thrones filming location that a real one that existed on Earth. If I were a pirate, I’d definitely want a lair on this island. No one could get close to you without you knowing they were coming, and there were ample caves at the top of the peaks in which to hide.
And the best part? No permits required.
14
David
I spent most of the afternoon diligently reading through Alberto’s notebook at the hotel. We’d planned on filming additional b-roll in Manila and hit a few landmarks we’d not managed to reach yesterday, but a sudden thunderstorm made it impossible. The torrential rain ended up being a blessing in disguise, however, since the crew needed the additional time to prepare for the trip north anyway. That left me—the so-called ‘talent’—with nothing much to do.
I hated feeling useless, so I worked on interpreting Alberto’s journal as the rain lashed the windows in weird, horizontal sheets. The rain here was nothing like the rain where I was from in Philadelphia. Here, the aggressive, tropical downpour seemed to fall in whatever direction it pleased. The fact that we were on the edge of typhoon season was not lost on me. Every time I turned on the news, the weather radar just showed bands of red approaching across the sea. They looked like invading armies more than weather, and I knew they could be at least as destructive.
In between the bursts of booming thunder, I read through the translations of Alberto’s notes. Nathan hadn’t been underplaying Alberto’s eccentricity at all. He really did seem like a very obsessive-compulsive type of guy from his writing. What was particularly striking about his journal, however, was that the farther I read, the less those obsessive tendencies appeared in his writing. He was far less repetitive and more relaxed sounding in the second half of the journal. The first half of the narrative, all written before I met Alberto, sounded nothing at all like the man I knew. They honestly sounded half unhinged. The final few chapters could have been written by a totally different guy than the first half, although the photos I had of the original pages showed that the handwriting matched precisely.
The other thing that stood out to me were the biometric observations that Alberto had been keeping on himself. Nathan thought they were symptomatic of someone with an obsession, and he might have been right except for one thing: Alberto’s measurements demonstrated a profound change in his body composition. Since I had the time, I plotted out the changes on a few graphs. The results were surprising.
In the eight months Alberto had been consuming flame-leaf on a daily basis, and absent any other medical, nutritional, or lifestyle changes, his weight decreased from nearly three hundred pounds to one hundred ninety pounds. His bicep and waist circumference both decreased accordingly with his weight, but once Alberto hit one-ninety and began holding at that generally ideal weight for his height, his bicep circumference began to increase. It was almost as if he were putting on lean muscle mass without exercising or consciously adjusting his diet—at least if his journal could be believed.
I tried to wrap my head around the idea that the extremely fit, trim, normal behaving guy I’d known had been obese, prediabetic, and struggling with obviously obsessive-compulsive behavior only eight months before I met him. If these results were actually indicative of what the flame-leaf fern could do, it had the potential to totally revolutionize medicine and burst through our paradigms of health. I began to get even more excited.
Instead of looking for a cool herb to cook with, I might be on the verge of a seriously profound biochemical breakthrough. The thought was staggering, and not only because it would definitely get me out of debt to my jerk of an uncle. If I could make the flame-leaf fern available to the world, I could help millions of people struggling and suffering with chronic medical conditions.
It was a huge shame that that Alberto wasn’t here with me to share in this search. He’d been extremely excited at the prospect of acquiring live samples and seeing his research come to fruition. The reality show we’d been initially planning to produce would have been a billion times better with his consulting expertise. Without him, I doubted we’d end up with anything half as compelling. Casey and the crew were talented filmmakers, but none of us knew as much about flame-leaf as Alberto. I’d consider this venture a success if we managed to secure one live plant. If we got a few good sequences for posterity, even better. I’d show them during my acceptance speech for my Nobel p
rize in science. Nathan would shit himself in jealousy if I beat him to that accolade.
My conversation with Alberto’s local contact, Dr. Cruz, had also been encouraging. She texted me again to confirm that we’d meet in the village where the ferry unloaded, and I thanked her for her help. She’d never met Alberto before in person, so I couldn’t ask her about the changes he recorded in his body. But perhaps she would have her own evidence on the flame-leaf from her patients on the island.
A soft knock at my door roused me from my reflection. It was Curtis. He smiled at me broadly. His teeth were very white and small in his huge mouth, like Shrek’s teeth.
“What I can I do for you?” I asked the older camera operator. We hadn’t spoken one on one before and I was vaguely intimidated by the man, if I was being honest. He was easily six-five, almost three hundred pounds, and looked like he’d been built to tackle quarterbacks, not shoot reality TV. He reminded me a bit of Dave Bautista, only with the coloring of a ginger and a bass voice like Barry White.
“I just wanted to come and pay you a visit,” he said amiably in his booming, low voice. “Daphne told me about your, um, relationship with Casey, and it occurred to me that we’d never had a proper conversation. You know, man to man. I thought it would be a good idea to get better acquainted.”
“Sure, come on in.” I was grateful that housekeeping had come and seamlessly erased the evidence of the frantic lovemaking the night before. I was half-surprised we hadn’t broken the bed or set it alight in a fit of passionate humping. Curtis took a seat in the small living room and watched me appraisingly above his gold-rimmed bifocals.
“Casey is a very nice girl,” he told me. Curtis’ voice was mild, but the pale blue eyes were deadly serious. “I just want you to know that Daphne, Trevor, and I are her friends. Not all of us are as nice as she is. In fact, they wanted to come with me to talk to you, but I impressed upon them that I was at my most intimidating when alone. I just want you to know that we would all hate to see her get hurt.”
Was he threatening me? He certainly seemed to be. I suppressed a smirk. Threats don’t usually go over too well with me. I’m much too sarcastic. Usually threats don’t stay threats very long. I push people. This means that threats either develop into actions or disappear. I wondered what would happen with Curtis. His biceps said the former, but his paycheck said the latter.
“Listen Curtis, I have no intention of harming Casey in any way, but I think you need to mind your own business. I’m technically your boss. This is insubordination. Even if it wasn’t, something tells me that Casey would not appreciate you coming over to intimidate me on her behalf. She’s more than capable of making her own decisions. What goes on between us is private.”
He rolled his eyes at me but broke into what I interpreted as an involuntary smile.
“You’re right, she wouldn’t appreciate this at all. She’d be furious at me. She’s fiercely independent, and I love that about her.” His smile faded. “Nevertheless, hurt her, and I will hurt you. She’s taken an enormous risk with her professional career to come out here with you. I’m too old to be successful. Daphne’s young enough to recover. Trevor’s, well Trevor is just a weird kid. But Casey, she’s going places in this business. She’s talented and she could have a really successful career. Plus, she’s a good person. A nice person. Don’t screw her over personally or professionally.” He fell silent and then added, “I consider Casey to be my boss, by the way. We all do.”
“I have to say that I really resent this exchange,” I told him. My voice was mild, but I meant what I said. “I feel like we need to be beyond this sort of paternalism as men who say they are allies to women. It doesn’t help the women we say we respect to treat them like objects behind their backs.”
He rolled his eyes at me a second time.
“Come on. Please. Spare me your ‘woke’ bull shit. This isn’t meant to be a progressive gesture, just a threatening one. I’m a good feminist ninety-nine percent of the time. But I’m an imperfect creature, as we all are. The other one percent of my time is when I’m kicking your ass for hurting my friend. In fact, if Casey were a dude, we’d be having the exact same conversation. By the way, Daphne and Trevor are also on board with project ‘destroy David’ if you hurt Casey.”
I had to admit, he did seem to be a devoted friend to Casey. I didn’t know anyone who would go threaten Casey on my behalf. Certainly not Nathan.
“Alright,” I agreed after a moment when I fought for my composure as I considered the hilarious prospect of Nathan threatening Casey over my honor, “Fair enough. You three are threatening me in a non-gender specific way. I suppose I can respect that.”
“Great. It seems like we understand one another. I’m glad we had this little talk,” Curtis said, rising and heading back toward the door. “See you bright and early tomorrow.”
He closed the door behind himself to leave me sitting, shocked in my armchair. What the hell was that? The prospect of being dumped in an unmarked grave on the Filipino roadside by a teenager, a giant, and Trevor had just become disturbingly plausible. I prayed they wouldn’t figure out that there was no distribution deal for this show.
15
Casey
“Hello, um, do you speak English?” I asked into the receiver of the hotel phone. Whoever was on the other end said something to me in a language I didn’t speak. It was clearly a negative, however, because a moment later, another voice came on the line.
“This is Darwin, I’m the hotel concierge. How may I help you?” The voice had the perfect diction of an expensive, overseas education.
“Hello Darwin,” I said, relieved. “I need to make an international call.”
“Certainly. Just a moment Ms. Morgan. May I place you on a brief hold first? Which country do you need to reach?”
“Of course. The United States.”
I waited impatiently from the little desk in the corner of David’s room. It was late afternoon, and David was downstairs working on something of his own. I had stolen away from my work in order to make this call privately.
The call connected to Arkansas and my sister’s voice echoed through the line from thousands of miles away.
“Happy birthday!” I said. “I’m sorry I’m calling so late, but I didn’t want to miss it.” Tanya’s birthday was almost over back home. In the background of the call, I heard the baby start to cry.
“Thanks Casey.” Tanya’s voice was tired, as she often sounded when we talked. Especially in the past few months. Her baby had just started crawling and was now everywhere. “Miles, can you take him this time?” She said to her husband. I heard his muffled affirmative and the cries of the baby faded as he was carried off, presumably to another room.
“Sorry I woke him up,” I said, now doubly ashamed. “I just wanted to call and wish you happy birthday.” Tanya laughed lightly.
“Don’t be silly, I’m glad you called. And you didn’t wake him up. He’s up every four hours no matter what. No. Matter. What.”
“And you’re sure you want another one already?” The sentence was out of my mouth before I knew how to stop it. I could imagine the skeptical, disappointed look Tanya must be making at that moment.
“Of course, I do. That way he’ll have someone to play with.”
Tanya and I had taken very different paths in life. She taught school just a stone’s throw from our hometown and had never ventured out of her Arkansas comfort zone. She felt comfortable in a world that had never felt like home to me. Although we were only a couple of years apart, we’d never been particularly close. I’d always wanted to escape, maybe because she had always fit in so much better than me. Our relationship had improved now that we were adults.
“I tried to Skype you,” I told her. “But it said that the account I set up for you was offline. Did you install it on your laptop like we talked about?”
I wasn’t trying to be pushy, but Tanya was one of the most technologically impaired people I’d ever met. Our grandmoth
er used the computer with more fluency.
“I couldn’t figure out how.” That was just Tanya-speak for not wanting to bother with it. If she truly wanted to figure it out, she would have called our brothers to do it for her. I bit back a sigh. It was her birthday, I reminded myself. She was a busy mom with a new baby. Don’t get frustrated.
“No worries. Well what did you do for your birthday? I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there.”
From the quality of the silence before Tanya answered, I knew she had brightened at the change of subject.
“It was a wonderful day,” she said. “Miles took me to breakfast at Mimi’s and then we dropped Joey off with mom and dad. We went to see a movie, but I can’t even remember which one. I fell asleep in the theater; can you believe it? I’m like an old lady now. I just sleep whenever I can find a second.”
“You need to sleep. You have a new baby,” I told her firmly, although that hadn’t sounded like a very exciting birthday to me. “Naps are necessary when you’re sleep deprived.”
“For real. Anyway, after the movie we went to get Jo-Jo and had dinner. Mom made lasagna and that Seven-Up cake that I like. I didn’t eat much of it though. I’m trying to lose some of this baby weight before I blow up again.”
Like Tanya ever needed to worry about that. She’d always been naturally thin and athletic. Unlike me, Tanya had been a cheerleader back in high school. Head cheerleader, in fact. Her effortless popularity had always grated on me. I seemed like even more of misfit in high school when compared to her.
“Did you get the present I sent you?”
“Yes. Thank you. I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to use them, but they smell great. We don’t even have that store around here.”
Lost and Found (Scions of Sin Book 4) Page 9
