The Numbers Game

by Frances Vidakovic

  “Sit in,” Serena motioned to Cindy Glass as she entered the trailer. Once the le chic movie star slid into place, Serena threw a silver apron over her and Velcro-ed it at the back.

  “Nice weekend?”

  “So, so,” Cindy yawned and that was that.

  This was a good thing. Unlike most make-up artists in the industry, Serena was a non-talker on the job. She didn’t idly gossip about who was banging who on the set and who ate what for breakfast. It was what got her the work time after time. The ‘stars’ wanted her because they felt comfortable around her; they relished the silence and intuitively knew she could be trusted. Not that they were stars in Serena’s eyes; most of the time Serena felt sorry for the wildly insecure bodies strapped in her chair. No doubt they had enough money to buy new breasts and a few million dollar properties, but how little did count when it came at the expense of one’s privacy, when one’s every move was being scrutinized and evaluated by the press: the good, the bad and the evil. The little delicacies we commoners enjoyed, like getting pissed and pigging out at McDonalds at three A.M, were a mystery to the famous.

  “So what did you and Markie get up to on the weekend?” Champagne asked. Obviously she was a talker, a chatterbox in the literal sense of the word.

  Serena froze at the question. Crap. Usually Champagne didn’t give a damn about what she got up to outside work hours. In fact Miss Hair probably didn’t care now but was rather asking the question merely as a pre-emptor to a monologue of her own adventures (think abseiling and mud-wrestling).

  “Cat got your tongue?” she said, pulling a bobby pin out of her mouth and using it to secure a curler. She had Baby Malone down in her chair.

  “Maybe,” Serena smiled - anything to avoid the question. What else was she supposed to say? Oh I have no idea where my boyfriend was this weekend. You see, I gave him this pass that lets him have sex with nine different women and now I don’t know where he is. As for me, well I spent Saturday night hiding and spying on ex-lovers from inside my car.

  “Okay, mystery girl,” Champagne whistled, “If that’s how you’re going to be, fine. From now on I might just keep my escapades also to myself. “

  “Is that a promise?” Cindy muttered from below, whose eyes were still closed shut.

  “No,” Champagne huffed, “it most certainly isn’t.” Within seconds, she filled the empty break with new stories of her night out with the best boy.

  “Big dick, he has,” she insisted, “felt like I was sleeping with a donkey.”

  Of course last week Champagne compared the assistant director’s balls to a bull. There was absolutely nothing one didn’t hear within this trailer. They had started principle filming for “Never, Ever Again”, a slapstick comedy about a girl who does all the things she vowed never to do again, about three weeks ago. If all went according to schedule – and with tough nut producer Marie on the cards, it surely would - the wrap party would by coincidence take place on the same night as Serena’s intended confrontation with Markie.

  So Serena had more reason than one for the movie to finish. But for now she was okay with it – the long hours, the stress, as long it got her through the day.

  The art of picking up women: Markie noted that as yet no such literary classic has appeared on the bookshelves - a shame because right now he could do with some good ole humble advice. His own technique seemed obsolete, an outdated practice of simply being himself.

  “Don’t even think of going there,” Rick insisted, shaking his head. “You’re looking for a woman to screw, not bring home and pretty up your empty nest.”

  This was where Markie realized men and women were completely different. If push came to shove, a man could go out at night, hook up with a complete stranger and screw her brains out. Then in the morning, like all good boys who leave a tidy mess, they were competent enough to slip out the door without saying goodbye.

  It didn’t take a fool to work out that different thoughts flicked quite rapidly though a women’s mind. To the contrary, they awoke up feeling quite distraught by the rumpled sheets on the empty side of the bed. When they gave away the hoochie, they usually gave away their hearts and souls at the same time. They thought “this guy is the one”, my future husband, the one for whom I will bear children. No matter how drunk a woman was or how out of her mind, there always existed this element of hope: that last night’s ‘making’ love was the beginning of the end; that the search for love was finally over.

  Markie didn’t want to tread on any of these hearts. He wanted to get out there, do his thing for three months and leave without an irrevocable trace.

  “So you need to go for a different sort of woman,” Rick explained.

  Markie raised his eyebrows. “Exactly what sort of women?” In his head he was envisaging all sorts of Divine Brown mutations.

  “Well you want an easy woman.”

  “As opposed to a hard one?”

  Rick nodded his head. “You know the type; the ones that suck up more time than they’re worth.”

  Not really. Unfortunately after five years of no use, Markie’s radar system had become a bit defective. So he asked Rick to explain and Rick was more than happy to oblige.

  “An easy woman is easy enough to pick. She’s the one who’s dressed in little more than a handkerchief. She’s either got the cleavage or legs on show but usually it’s both. Her feet are encased in either one of two options: knee-high screw-me boots or four inch heels and their face is caked in that crap they call foundation with lots of eyeliner and red, red lipstick.”

  “You sound like you’re describing a hooker, Rick,” Markie said in disbelief. “And I see more of those outside clubs than inside them.”

  “Okay, okay,” Rick sighed, “So I painted a kindergarten level picture. In case the more obvious suspects have been snapped up by faster dimwits, just keep your eyes on the girls who keep their eyes on you. That’s a sure fire sign she’s interested.”

  “But what if she’s of the nice, can’t-hurt variety? How will I tell them apart?”

  “Markie, Markie, Markie,” Rick tut-tutted. “Isn’t it obvious? You want for her to approach you. That way she can’t blame you for nothing the next day. The good girls, they never come your way. They might sit and pass off signs as loud as a May-Day fire but at night they go home and cry into their pillows about what could have been.”

  “And?” Markie asked when Rick stopped. This was good, good riveting stuff. If only he had a notebook with him.

  “Listen you’re a smart guy, surely you can tell the difference between a bad seed and a good seed.”

  “No, they’re all the same to me!”

  One look at Markie and Rick could see this was a desperate situation. So he laid down the law as simply, concisely and best as he could. What is listed below is nothing less than the truth.

  Bad girls (these are the type you want):

  Think Jersey Shore and girls about as attractive. They drink beer and shots. Swear out loud. Always leaning forward and flicking their hair. Forgetting to cross their legs or sometimes leaving them a bit open. They wear g-strings or nothing at all and frequently go without a bra. Their midriffs are often bared and showing off bellybutton rings or a back tattoo. .They smoke heaps and when they flirt its over-the-top and presumptuous. Conversation is either frivolous (what’s happening on the latest reality show) or nonexistent. No good woman in their right mind would leave their partner alone with this sort for a minute, no matter how trustworthy their boy is.

  Good girls (save these for when you want to get married)

  Think Prom Party Princess. They are always in a group of similarly demure-looking friends. Quiet spoken and shy, she drinks only wine (one per hour) or bottled water. Their clothes are flattering but they almost never ever show off ALL their curves. Lots of whispering to her friends, who then try and suss you out. They have great smiles and curious eyes that skirt over your way but which they never do anything about. They never wear loud colors or provocative
outfits, no outrageous dancing on bar tops and if you can get them to speak, it is usually about how they want to change the world.

  “Does that make sense?” Rick asked.

  “Sort of,” Markie frowned, “Though honest to good, Serena falls into neither of those two categories.”

  “Okay so it’s a bit generalized, so what. The point I’m trying to make is that the female species in general can be looked at as black and white.”

  “You did a good job.”

  “Thanks but now it’s your turn. Tomorrow night, we’ll go out and see how well you can differentiate the good from the bad.”

  “You’re giving me a test?”

  “I wouldn’t want to throw you out like raw meat in the jungle.”

  “What’s my reward if I do well?”

  Rick smiled. “I think mate, you might get that party in your pants you’re looking for.”

  “And if I fail miserably?”

  Markie had to consider all the possibilities. Rick looked at him in dismay.

  “Trust me, Markie you don’t want to go there. The nice girls eat up nice boys like you alive. Worse yet…” Rick paused for the full effect. “Nice girls don’t know how to throw up. They don’t know and won’t want to ever, ever let you go.”

  Markie got the picture. In this instance, good girls were the bad ones and bad ones were first-rate. He’d have to get use to this. Beware the evil angels, whose sweetness was undoubtedly a poison. Hello queen bitches, whose mouths undeniably needed to be washed out with soap but at least they knew how to go down with it.

  Reluctantly Markie prepared himself for a night on the town.

  Deep down all he really wanted to do was stay home and watch the clash between Manchester and Arsenal on cable. Now that was going to be a game: full capacity crowd and the usual rough English antics. But no, Rick insisted his friend get off his shoddy ass and go out on a hunt instead, on a Tuesday night, of all things.

  “You’re not wearing that?” Rick asked, as he filtered through the front door. His voice sounded shocked and appalled all at once, as if Markie’s mother had infiltrated his body.

  “What’s wrong with it?” Markie looked down at his outfit and what he saw was fine: black shirt and beige colored cords. Okay so he was hardly adventurous in his style but since when has that been a crime?

  “Did Serena take off with the iron?”

  “No it’s in the laundry.”

  “Oh,” Rick tried to hide his smirk. “Isn’t it about time you learnt how to use one?”

  Damn. Of course, you don’t just throw something out of the washing machine into the cupboard! Markie had forgotten there was something in between.

  “No, but it’s really time I got myself that cleaner.”

  Or Serena back. She would never have let Markie leave the house looking like a mess. Since her departure, the house looked as if a hurricane has charged through it. Once tossed, clothes never make their way back up off the floor. Dishes lay squished in the dishwasher, unpacked since they finished the last cycle or two. He could never remember if they were dirty or clean so he sent them through another wash, just to be sure. In the living area, it was a little scarier. Even Markie treated the place as if it was a minefield, hop-scotching and tiptoeing across the paper, glass, and plastic debris. He wasn’t used to living in filth; it’s just that without Serena there to press the point of cleanliness there didn’t seem to be any point.

  “I really should stay in and clean this mess.”

  “Bullshit,” Rick said. “Women love seeing this crap. It brings out their nurturing, ‘please let me help you’ side. The moment you clean it up you’ll be labeled as either a fag or neurotic Jerry Seinfeld clone.”

  Damn Markie couldn’t have that. He needed to make sure he sent out the right message. For the next three months, whether he liked it or not, he would forget about loving Serena and concentrate on living the life of a single boy. I am single, I am single, he affirmed to himself all the way to the club. It wasn’t working.

  The place that Rick took him to wasn’t a typical weekend dance club but rather an ordinary sort open mid-week. Markie preferred to call it a pub or better still a drinking hole. Macy’s, as it was so named, looked like the sort of place Liverpool’s supporters back in England would be rushing to celebrate after the winning of a game. It was dark and seedy, with a thick mist of smoke intermittently being cut by a spinning fan.

  “Mmm, I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us here,” Markie said, as they pushed their way through saloon doors. For some reason, he did not think the sort of woman he was after resided here.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Rick replied. “Going out mid-week and to places like this are exactly what your social calendar should be filled with.”

  “You have two minutes to explain,” Markie said, taking in the surroundings: the velour couches in purple and orange; the cheesy bartenders with missing teeth and cigarettes tucked behind their ears, the men with big beer bellies. In less than five seconds, he saw all he needed to see and had little reason to stay.

  “It’s like this,” Rick said, “you have girls that save their play for Saturdays night and you have those who train hard every night. Which of the two is more likely to jump your gun?”

  Such was Rick’s rationale.

  “I’m not sure. Could it be the same one but only uglier?”

  Like that chubby thing balancing her butt on the bar stool for example, I’m sure she’d go for it, or the giraffe with a gorilla head smoking by the poker machines. Markie glanced around and saw a half dozen of these mutations spread across the room.

  “You mean to say you wouldn’t give them a go if they wanted to?”

  Markie nearly fainted. Was Rick for real? He couldn’t possibly be speaking about these aliens...He couldn’t be.

  “Hell no! I wouldn’t sleep with just anything.”

  “Really?” Now it was Rick’s turn to be surprised. In the world according to Rick, it didn’t matter what shape or form the female came in as long as it wasn’t diseased or attached. “You’d say no a freebie?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it a freebie.”

  To Markie, nothing came for free. Even when you thought you were getting a great deal, you ended up paying for it in other ways: whether it was in favors, obligations, guilt or as was in the latter case, nightmares and regret. Markie had his standards and they weren’t something he was willing to stoop below.

  “I think I’ll stick to the good-looking ones mate,” he said, with a slap to his friend’s back.

  But you never know, give him five hours in this murky place, a caseload of beer and maybe, just maybe Markie might score a complementary pair of beer goggles. No he doubted it; even if he was delirious, no amount of drugs and intoxication could make his manhood go up with a freak.

  Markie took a seat at the bar and ordered two beers.

  “Friend, I hate to tell you but I don’t think either of us are gonna get lucky here tonight.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Rick huffed. He looked around the half-empty pub to see whether there was any talent he had previously disregarded. Then he looked at his watch again; ten o’clock he was probably thinking, still enough time for an absolutely horny stunner to walk in through that door. But to save you the sad story, she never did come.

  When it came time to pack up their stuff, Markie asked himself: since when had they, owners of a prestigious advertising agency, become such bloodthirsty desperados? Something had to change and quickly at that.

  Chapter 7

  The first thing Serena decided when she got home from work was that the spying would have to end.

  No more behaving like a celebrity stalker, sleeping in cars, hunting down ex-men who were now more like L-men (L standing for loser that is). Continuing to do so would make her a loser too and she didn’t feel like joining the club just yet. Unfortunately in the space of a week, Serena had slipped from feeling terribly hopeful to terribly disillusio
ned - all because her chunky list of twelve had disintegrated into eight. No point in counting Sean as an option, given he was gay and a part-time dickhead.

  If Markie were to see her now, sitting in Tabitha’s African jungle nightmare in her jammies eating Pizza Shapes dipped in tofu crap, Serena would die of embarrassment. Where was her class, her undisputed sophistication? Back at the ranch, Markie was probably riding horses while Serena was spending evenings playing Trivial Pursuit and watching Twin Peaks reruns. Not that there was anything wrong with that…

  “I thought you said being single was cool,” Serena complained that night as she and Tabitha were giving themselves pedi and manicures. “But this is no different from being back at home. Except now my partner is a girl.”

  “Welcome to the real world,” Tabitha tooted. “Soon we’ll be squabbling like a married couple and avoiding each other at home.”

  Serena thought that was impossible. One simply could not ignore Tabitha no matter how hard they tried. Even when out of sight, one could hear her vocal cords magnified in the shower or chatting away on the phone at the most unseemly hours of the night. Serena herself couldn’t remember the last time she had picked up the phone at eleven o’clock and called anyone to just say hey, hello. She and Markie had a habit of pulling the plug out every night at nine.

  “I’m afraid this stuff is normal, most of San Franciscans go into hibernation mid-week,” Tabitha continued. “At least we have my list though, if we’re desperate.”

  The list she was speaking of referred to the Wicked Adventure List that stood pinned to the refrigerator door with a naked well-endowed man magnet. Serena was there the day Tabitha had started it and pure boredom was the motivation: Tabitha had had enough of watching crap TV while eating takeout and decided then and there, there HAD to be more to life. She promptly purchased the latest edition of the Lonely Planet San Francisco guide and also began clipping out the entertainment section of newspapers in her spare time.