The Numbers Game

by Frances Vidakovic

  What if at the end of this break Serena didn’t love him anymore? What if she didn’t even want him near?

  Serena sighed and flopped down onto the lounge with a brandy in hand, deciding she had had better days.

  Looking at the wall clock, she shuddered to see the big hand on the six and little on the nine. To think she just got home from work now! To think that this was what was in store for her for at least another four weeks. Or even more if “Never, Ever Again” fell any more behind schedule and from the looks of it, it was highly likely it would.

  Oh well. What could one do? Serena really shouldn’t be complaining, given that her job had of late become like a savior. While everyone else on the set grunted and complained endlessly about their social and personal lives disappearing before their eyes, Serena was secretly thankful. Whilst busy with the application of makeup, it was hard to think about other things…things that might have otherwise set off the tear works.

  One would think that after crying bucket loads the well inside her might have dried up. But no, the fountain was still full and waiting to activate at the slightest reminder of… Serena couldn’t bring herself to even mention the person’s name. That individual and the memories associated simply had to be filed away for good; preferably with the key thrown away. Even if it killed Serena, even if that very person refused to stop leaving a hundred messages a day.

  The doorbell rang and Serena jumped, scrambling to her feet.

  “Christ!” She wasn’t even ready yet. Her hair was a mess, her face void makeup and worse still, she felt inundated by the stinky stench of actor Cherome who had insisted on spraying his cologne on her bum as a ‘souvenir’. There was no way Serena could get away with showering and making herself presentable before answering the door, unless she had Harry Potter as a friend. Instead she resigned herself to the horrendous fact and opened up, after checking in the peephole.

  “Ah hi,” she said, biting her lip with embarrassment.

  “Hi,” her beaming visitor said back and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “These flowers are for you. You like white orchids, don’t you?”

  “Love them,” she replied, lifting the wide blooms to her nose and getting intoxicated by the fragrance. It sure smelt better than the cologne on her bum. “I just got home from work a minute ago so I’m not quite ready yet. Do you mind waiting ten minutes?”

  “Serena, take your time. There’s no rush for us to go anywhere; in fact,” he lifted his head and gave a shy smile, “we don’t really have to go to the wrestling. You’ve worked so hard and I know you didn’t really want to go…”

  Serena started to interrupt but he pinched her on the nose to stop. “I’m happy if we just stay home and watch this.”

  He pulled out a DVD from behind his back and Serena could see it was The Joy Luck Club. Over the past week it had become evident to Serena that she was the only women aged between twenty-five and thirty in the USA who had never seen the film and maybe she’d mentioned it out loud a few times during dinner or something.

  “But what about the tickets? They’re ringside, you were dying to go,” Serena exclaimed.

  “I know but in the end I decided your well-being is more important at the moment. So I sold them on e-bay, got quite a good return on them too.”

  “Oh pumpkin,” Serena squealed, throwing her tired arms around his neck. Inside her a big ball of relief was inflating; it was like he could read her mind. All that she wanted was a good night in at home. “You definitely didn’t have to do that but thank you, thank you anyway. Maybe we can watch the wrestling on cable? It’s live isn’t it?”

  “It is….but don’t worry about it. I’m getting Michael to tape it.”

  “Absolutely not!” Serena scolded. “You will watch it live, we will watch it live. Let me just go upstairs and get ready while you call Pay-Per-View.”

  “If you insist.” The smile coming her way was warm and grateful. Serena reached over to kiss it one more time before running up flight of steps.

  Really, it was no surprise she was this much in love with Jasper.

  As one may have guessed, Jasper did forgive Serena for the Black Bear Incident. Or maybe forgive wasn’t quite the right word. More like he completely banished the incident from his mind. It turned out in the end Jasper wasn’t even angry with Serena at all. To the contrary, he had called her a paranoid fruit-loop for letting thoughts like that get into her head.

  His aloof behavior, which she had so hastily interpreted as fuming rage, was actually contributed to some pre-exhibition awards nerves. A piece had come out in the national paper on the day they returned to San Francisco stating that his work “Return to The Sea” was contrived and lacking originality. That criticism had shot Jasper straight through the heart.

  He was over it though. Taking Serena’s advice, Jasper had decided to just let fate do its duty. If he was meant to win the competition in a few weeks time in Vienna, he would win it. If he was not meant to, he wouldn’t. No amount of stressing or worrying about the damn thing would make any difference.

  It helped Serena having Jasper around. She was proving to be his little inspiration, his creative sounding board or so he said. Serena figured this notion would quickly be popped if she told him about sleeping with Enrique though, which was why she didn’t say a thing. And rightly so; it wasn’t like they had expressions like ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’ unless they were tried and true. Always learn from the mistakes of others, her mom used to say and for a change Serena was heeding her advice.

  Her mom used to also say something along the lines of: if they betray you once, shame on them; if they betray you twice shame on you. It had to do with treachery and disloyal backstabbing friends, of which there were quite a few back in school. Mom said as a rule of thumb you could forgive someone once but if they did it again to drop them without further ado. For some reason that counsel kept flashing in Serena’s mind like a neon sign, as did the score 1:1 in sparkling lights – much like in a grand football game.

  1:1; what on earth did it mean? A moment later, Serena felt her heart fill with dread when the name Tabitha blazed into her mind.

  “Tabitha”, she muttered under her breath, voice full of contempt. “That’s a name I was hoping I’d never have to hear again.

  Ever since the infamous party, Serena had avoided Tabitha successfully like the plague. It had taken lots of hard work; it meant never answering the phone or opening the front door without looking in the peep hole. It also entailed shopping ten miles away to avoid the local grocery store and wearing shades with a white head scarf Jackie-O style whenever venturing outside. Secretly Serena feared it made her even more conspicuous.

  So far it was going well. The chunk in her heart, which had been severed the day Serena lost her best friend, was starting to heal slightly…when she didn’t pick at the scab that is. She’d been lucky enough to fill the big empty void with lots of work and Jasper. Even if she missed Tabitha, it was more the idea of her, the idea of being able to just say stupid things, borrow someone else’s funky clothes and have an good excuse to eat lots of chocolate that she missed. Serena certainly didn’t miss Tabitha the person, the girl who paid an ex-lover to sleep with her for a measly couple of hundred bucks. No way.

  1:1.The numbers flashed again and this time Serena saw the face of Fernando. Oh so that’s what her dim-witted conscience was getting at. I screwed up once so that meant Tabitha was allowed to screw up once too. Except Tabitha wasn’t a youngling anymore; she couldn’t use that plea. Serena was still a teenager when she allowed myself to steer off the straight and narrow whereas Tabitha was almost thirty now and definitely an adult - if not in her head then certainly chronologically.

  “So what?” Fernando’s face was defying. “A deed is a deed is a deed.”

  Yes, well I definitely won’t be listening to your advice prick.

  Making up with Tabitha was simply not on her agenda yet, even if the separation was killing her inside. Serena had ot
hers things to worry about, like Markie for instance. Her boyfriend of five years who was maybe expecting to get back together in four weeks, the man who her other love Jasper knew nothing about.

  Yep at the moment she had bigger problems on her mind.

  Chapter 23

  For the fiftieth time in the past fortnight, Tabitha stared at the computer screen and let out a long desperate grief-stricken scream.

  “Argh!” Tabitha kept it going as long as she could and then paused for a breath. “Argh!” she started once again.

  Frankly there was nothing else she could do but scream, bar ripping out all her hair clump by clump. But she tried that last week and to be honest bald spots weren’t a good look. Staring back at Tabitha in her email inbox was yet another returned message with: “Do not send anything to this address” flashing in the subject line from “Subject unknown.”

  Except if it was subject unknown my ass, why would it be coming up as Serena Morrow sender. Bitch! Tabitha muttered to herself. She had really thought this would work. That Serena would cave in to the subtle approach, given that all else (home and work visits and countless calls) had failed miserably. Tabitha had thought via email it would be a piece of cake. After all, the perfect apology was already devised in succinct and sincere form (no fluffing it up due to on-the-spot nerves); all it required was the click of a mouse to send.

  Damn, well then I’ll just have to go with Plan M, Tabitha resolved. Or come up with one first. Find some other way of cracking across the Great Wall of Serena’s Stubbornness to make her see that I’m not a fault. Or if I am at fault then at least I am very, very sorry for it.

  Let me see…Tabitha leaned back into her comfy swing chair, taking the pen to her mouth and scanned her immediate surroundings for clues. Maybe there was someone here at the real estate office whose brain she could pick at for a moment. Except…wouldn’t that entail explaining to them the whole story from scratch - Markie’s two lays versus Serena’s twelve and so on? Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. People already thought Tabitha was loopy enough without having them know her friends were ten times worse.

  I know… Tabitha sat up straight in her chair. All she needed was someone who was quite disconnected from their social circle, someone whose wisdom and outsider-looking-in perspective might shed some light on this dilemma. Like her mom for example; she was always very creative when it came to twisting someone’s ear around when they didn’t want to listen. And if a girl couldn’t turn to their mother in times of need who could she turn to?

  “Hey Mom,” Tabitha said, when the receiver got picked up on the other end.

  “Tabitha?” The woman was clearly shocked. “Tabitha, is that really you?”

  “Yes,” Tabitha swallowed hard.

  “Gosh what a surprise! How long has it been since we last spoke? Months or perhaps it’s almost a year even.”

  “Maybe, whatever.” Tabitha didn’t see the point in getting into the finer details of phone log management. “Look I thought I’d call to just to see how you are.”

  “You could have stopped by, honey,” her mother huffed, “I saw you driving your fancy car past our house the other day.”

  “I know, I know but I was rushed then. And this is important; I need to ask you for some advice, about a hypothetical problem.”

  “Does it involve a hypothetical pregnancy?” Her mom asked suspiciously.

  “No,” Tabitha groaned, suddenly remembering why she didn’t visit that often anymore. Did all moms make you raise your voice when you were speaking to them? “It’s about a friend.”

  “Do I know this friend?”

  “It doesn’t matter if you know her,” Tabitha cried, her tone escalating by the second. “Just be quiet and listen for one bloody second!”

  “Okay.” Her mom murmured, and it came out sounding more like a Mickey Mouse peep. “Go on then.”

  So Tabitha went on. She explained about this stubborn ‘friend’ who wouldn’t forgive her pal for a silly big mistake she made. The pal had tried and exhausted all standard avenues of approach– calling, stalking, sending gifts and leaving messages begging for forgiveness but nothing worked. Now he/she was desperate; could she think of some other suggestions?

  “Without bordering on harassment please.”

  “Well,” her mother cleared her throat. “Let me just put on my thinking cap.”

  Oh gosh, it sounded as if her mother was really reaching for a magical cap and slipping it on top of her curly, befuddled head. Tabitha reached for another Tim Tam, given that she might be here for a while.

  “I know,” her mother snapped. “December 24, 1974. The day your father threw a psycho because I used his Penthouse Pets issues to line the kitty litter and birdcage. He swore it was instant divorce and that he’d never speak to me again, until I pulled out the secret weapon.”

  “What was your secret weapon?” Tabitha exclaimed, loving how every bloody story mom had about her dad revolved around big-breasted women and temper tantrums. But one had to give it to her: Tabitha’s dad was stubborn; the guy would have happily starved to death and slept on the streets if it proved a point.

  “I took the roundabout approach. Decided if I couldn’t talk him round then someone with a bit more sensibility and tact could. Remember Lorna the Mourner, the lady down the street?”

  “Mmm...” Tabitha acknowledged the hazy memory of an always-in-white-robes woman.

  “Well she’s the one I sat down with dad and made him see the futility of fighting.”

  “Wasn’t she a nun though?”

  “Yes…but that’s beside the point. You, I mean, your desperate pal, have to find a neutral contact of this friend, someone, like her boyfriend perhaps, if she has one, or one of her male friends.” Her mom paused for a moment, like a self-help counselor on air waiting for this all to sink into the caller.

  “If truth were known,” she continued, “no one can ever resist simple persuasion coming from the opposite sex. Give this ‘friend’ of yours an honest talking to from a down-to-earth guy and she will melt, no matter how stubborn she is.”

  Tabitha nodded her head in recognition of this astuteness.

  “Yes, yes, I think you’re right!” she said. For a change. “I have to go mom but thanks, thanks a lot.”

  “Will you come over and visit with Serena when things are all right again?” a proud voice tinkered on the other end.

  “Yes, yes, I will,” Tabitha had already pulled out her wooden-covered address book and was flicking through it. “Huh, what do you mean Serena? Everything is okay between us,” Tabitha insisted.

  “Right,” her mom chuckled to herself. “Say hello to her either way.”

  Damn, some mothers were honestly too smart for their own good.

  Tabitha had been looking, searching, and waiting for this moment her entire life.

  She could hardly believe it; a real live chance to call Rick! For the first time ever she held a legitimate, sane reason to call her crush out of the blue and say hi. Hi, this is Tabitha and I am just phoning to… Tabitha frowned as she walked her through this imaginary conversation. Surely something rather spectacular had to come after this. Not simply ‘my best friend hates me because I paid a guy to sleep with her and now I need you to talk her round.’ No, that would definitely not do. Why go into too much information anyway, when a simple request would suffice.

  “Could you please contact Serena and let her know it is absolutely paramount that she calls me immediately.”

  Yes that sounded very sophisticated and laidback. Not rehearsed at all. As long as Rick didn’t delve into it by asking too many questions like: why don’t you call her yourself, everything would be okay. Tabitha took a deep abdominal breath and reached for the phone. In two minutes this would all be over, she affirmed to herself, in two minutes all this will be over.

  “Hello, Guerrilla Zoo. Mark speaking.”

  Oh crap, crap, crap. Tabitha had definitely not prepared herself for this part; for Markie picking up h
is partner’s office phone.

  “Ah…” Tabitha stood frozen with her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

  Torn between slamming down the phone (a very appealing idea) and saying something, anything (in case their phone had caller ID), she behaved like a deaf and dumb mute who knew only how to say Arrrrrr.

  “Excuse me, can I help you?” Markie asked again.

  “Yas, yas”, Tabitha replied in a pompous part-British, part-South African, part-alien voice once she got herself together. “I vood like to speak vit Rick if hiz available.” Yes and a touch of French thrown in for good measure.

  “Who may I ask is calling?” asked Markie, sounding half-serious and half-amused.

  “Oh vis is a personal col.”

  Oh blimey. Tabitha had a mini panic attack as the sound of murmurs and footsteps filtered down the phone line. Hang up, you have to hang up now blasted through her head briefly; after that bloody scene they’ll think you are a lost screw. But before she could hang up Rick’s voice, all masculine and alluring shrilled into her ear and had her hooked. I’ll just tell him I was exacting the new privacy policy because I didn’t want Markie to know it was me. He’ll understand, he’s a nice guy and nice guys aren’t judgmental of girls who put on stupid phony voices when they call.

  “Hello Rick speaking.”

  “Hi Rick,” Tabitha spoke up shyly. “It’s me Tabitha, Serena’s friend. I’d prefer though that you don’t tell Markie it’s me on the phone.

  Back at Guerrilla Zoo, Rick was already motioning to Markie to piss off out of the room and shut the door behind him. Markie obliged, assuming it was just another one of Rick’s illiterate foreign escapades.

  “What can I do for you? I mean, how are you and everything?” Rick’s shift from his professional to off-duty persona took only about a second

  “I’m fine, thank you,” replied Tabitha, relaxing immediately. Then she felt a new surge of panic. What if he didn’t really remember her? What if he was just acting nice while flicking through a million mental images of all Serena’s friends? After all, it wasn’t like she and Rick had ever had a proper conversation before.