“You can expect them as per schedule,” Raspberry reiterated, surely rolling her eyes. “You do have the schedule don’t you, seeing as your office sent it yesterday, Miss…er… what exactly was your name again?”
“Uh right, the schedule of course,” Tabitha rushed in a bumbling way. It was definitely time to get off the phone. “Yes, in fact here is it right in front of me. Sorry to have bothered you Raspberry.” With that, Tabitha slammed down the phone.
Bitch!
And speaking of bitches, bastard!
Even for someone who couldn’t have been less informative, Raspberry had pretty much confirmed Tabitha’s worst nightmare was true. Otherwise when Tabitha mentioned Rick, Raspberry would have said:
“Rick? How unusual that you mention him given that he is one of our confirmed stayers. Something about a wonderful girlfriend he doesn’t want to leave behind, I heard.”
What did she do now? Tabitha paced her home office back and forth, trying to avoid the moon and sun wind chimes that dangled from above. Surely Rick would have told her given half the chance. He would have sat her down and taken her through the situation: Markie got an offer; it’s for millions of dollars and way too good to refuse. Maybe that’s it, Tabitha clicked her fingers; maybe she simply hadn’t been approachable enough lately.
Tabitha thought back to all the work functions she had attended with Serena in the past and ended up spending them in the corner with no one to speak to. It wasn’t because Serena knew everyone and left her out; nup, oftentimes it was Tabitha who invited her. Serena would go over to get a glass of punch and in the process spark up a conversation with someone –anyone really – and one minute later bang they’d discover they had so much in common. It was like a gift Serena had – the ability to make any individual feel at ease, and centre on the very tête-à-tête they both had in common.
Whereas Tabitha, well she had to refer to books and websites for ideas on what to talk to strangers about and by the time she arrived at the parties, her mind was always be blank. And people sensed that. They would come up to her, make a crack about the funnily dressed penguins and she would respond in some inappropriate way. Usually it was because she took them seriously or didn’t know whether to take them seriously. So two seconds later, they would retreat, confused or not willing to put in the effort.
So maybe what she needed to do was make it EASY for Rick to tell her. Make the situation an “I’m-moving-to-LA-whether-you-like-it-or-not” friendly one.
Yes that was it. That was exactly what Tabitha needed to do!
Chapter 30
You would be amazed at how many songs contain the word Runaway.
Serena was. While searching for mood-enhancing music on ITunes she came across over fifty options with the aforementioned term: Runaway by Bon Jovi, Runaway by The Corrs, by Linkin Park, Janet Jackson and Real McCoy etcetera. In no condition to decide or even decipher which were good songs and which were bad, Serena downloaded every single one of them onto her IPod and it was enough to fill up one long playlist. Not that Serena cared. After all she had that time to spare.
Who would’ve thought these songs would be the new “I Will Survive”? Serena sure didn’t but funnily enough they were her savior. Runaway, whenever she heard the word now until the end of time she would think of Jasper and the nasty way he did the dodge on her...twice. Two weeks had passed since their blow-up on the veranda and it was just as long since she’d last heard from him. It was like he’d fallen flat off the face of the earth. No more seeing him at work, no more living at his home; Serena had even gone down to the art gallery in hopes of finding Jasper standing by his painting, spurting a dialogue of wisdom to all his admirers. But neither the artwork nor him were there to be seen.
“Excuse me!”
After going crazy with frustration on her third outing to the museum, Serena grabbed a familiar-looking curator as he walked past. The man turned to face her and Serena was pleased to see it was the same guy from the opening night. Yes, William according to his nametag.
“You probably don’t remember me,” she started and from William’s expression Serena could tell he wanted to reply – you’ve got that right. “I’m a friend of Jasper’s, the Californian who won the National Art Awards a few months ago. I’ve noticed the painting isn’t here at the museum anymore; could you perhaps tell me where I could find it.”
William raised his eyebrows and without a word, walked over to the left hand wall where a bunch of shiny A4 pamphlets sat upright in a wooden coffer. He lifted one out and brought it back to Serena.
“There you go. I believe this will answer all your questions about the missing “Towards the Sea” painting and the artist.”
“Oh thanks,” Serena replied, confused to see William scurrying away so soon. So much for asking her only hope a few investigative questions…
Oh well…she was sure she could track him down again if necessary. Serena looked down at the brochure he’d handed her – some glitzy piece surely informing visitors how vital the museum was to the community and desperately in need of funds too. Or not...
“What the f…?”
The blown-up face, pasted on the front page, almost made her drop the brochure. It was Jasper, smiling like a Cheshire cat with a foreboding grey-white castle in the background. Scratch that, it was actually the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna Serena discovered by reading the byline to the photo. Jasper Carrington continues to ride his wave of success in Vienna.
It was enough to make her puke. At least that explained where the bastard was. According to the article, Jasper had flown off to Austria ten days ago where he was immediately pounced on by art royalty and mass media alike. They all wanted a piece of him apparently, this young, on-the-verge-of-being-a-new-Picasso-or-De-Vinci-superstar, seeing as he was rumored to pick up the big gong at the awards this coming weekend. Talented and good-looking, what a combination, the article went on to say– at which point Serena promptly crumpled up the page. Why bother to read on when it was surely biased female journalist reporting.
Ha! Just when she thought she couldn’t be more depressed…
On the way home, Serena decided it was time to ask the dreaded question, the one she’d been avoiding for quite some time. Let’s say that Jasper hadn’t heard that phone call from Markie, let’s say there’d been no premature stupidity on her part - would a break up have been inevitable in their future anyway?
Of course Serena liked to think the answer was a definite no. She liked to think they would have continued happily ever after, with no interruptions, no problems, no wrong. But really, what were the chances of that happening? Jasper had a history of taking off without notice, what was to say he wouldn’t do it again? (Oh shucks –he did do it again).
Serena had never addressed that issue of theirs. One of her pet hates was people who ran away from their troubles. If one had a problem you dealt with it, you didn’t sweep it under the mat. So why then did Jasper disappear all those years ago without a trace? All she did was sleep with him once, it wasn’t as if she robbed him dry or stalked him until he had no choice but to leave town.
“I didn’t ask him because I was scared of what he would say.”
Serena muttered those words aloud and realized how true they were. When Jasper came and said he never ever wanted to let her go again, she was willing to let go of the past. Forget about it; eradicate all her hurt and anger and frustration. And for what? Despite what Jasper had said he just went and did it to her all over again. He lied, broke her heart and left without a trace. So maybe she wasn’t exactly in the right (having an ex-boyfriend call her) but maybe she was. Either way Jasper should’ve given her the chance to explain.
I don’t know, Serena sighed. She loved Jasper but it wasn’t easy. Never was she guessed: loving someone you found hard to trust.
It eventually came out that Markie didn’t have a girl hidden away permanently in his bed.
Rick, the wise man that he was, must have figured this out
after waiting futilely for the mystery women to pop up from beneath her stone. Obviously she never came.
“Damn it, I really thought you were back on track,” Rick whined, shaking his head. “It’s two weeks until Serena comes back and you still aren’t anywhere near achieving the target numbers. What are you up to now; three, four?”
“Five actually,” Markie interrupted, all five images running through his head: Biffy, Lola, Clarissa, Miss Venom and Beer Goggles. If he had to fail on his mission, halfway wasn’t a bad spot to conk out.
“Only five; man, you are in deep crap! To get to ten, you have to average a girl almost every second day now. And we both know what the chances are of that happening.”
“Slim?” Markie offered.
“Hmpf, I think impossible is a better word. Unless…” Rick put an index finger to his chin. “Hang on, I have a fabulous idea. What are you doing tonight?”
“I’m busy,” Markie offered.
“Busy doing what? Washing your hair doesn’t count, mate. Whatever it is, cancel it. Tonight you and I are going to celebrate the move to LA. If a million bucks isn’t a good enough reason, I don’t know what is.”
“Does this celebration by some chance involve excess alcohol and vision impairment?”
“Absolutely not,” Rick blasted, looking offended. “It’s rather a chance for us to spend one last night of bonded mateship in Frisco before you get swamped by Serena and Tabitha sends me to the grave.”
“Everything all right with Tabitha?” Markie asked, sympathetically. After a full month of overdosing on the clown, Rick was surely beginning to see the light.
“Yeah, peachy. Still haven’t told her about LA but not to worry. Tonight it’s just you and me and an evening full of fun. Look,” Rick glanced at his watch, “I’ve actually got a meeting with a client tonight at six, which should finish by eight. How about you get yourself spruced up and I’ll come past and pick you up eight fifteen sharp. From here, we can go straight to the surprise location.”
“I guess I wouldn’t mind a night out,” Markie admitted. A night out did mean no Tabitha coming over and annoying the crap out of him. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah it has,” Rick nodded, smiling deviously, “indeed it has.”
Once he ignored the Joker laugh that followed, Markie found he was actually quite looking forward to the night ahead. He could do with a bit of distraction, a bit of casual chitchat over some beers. Maybe Rick’s plan was to take him to see “Leaden Heart”, this up and coming Frisco rock band Markie had been keeping his eye on. They were in town apparently, he read about it the last time he picked up a freebie magazine at the music store.
Come to think of it, even if Rick wasn’t thinking of going to see Leaden Heart because of his brain cells erosion, he could suggest it to him, casually, if he was open to a change of location and why wouldn’t he be?
This will be great, Markie thought, as he rushed home to get ready. It wasn’t often that he left the office before six, but tonight he made it a priority. That way he could take in a decent extra-long hot shower, make something healthy to eat – like maybe a lemon chicken and vegetable stir-fry, then settle down and watch the late news…
So Markie did just that. He made sure to enjoy every single second of having the house to himself and at seven-thirty he jumped into the shower to begin preparations for the night. It didn’t take him long to get dressed – crisp white sweater, cream chinos – and even less time to do his hair and slap on the aftershave. Gosh that left him with - Markie took a quick look at the wall clock with a pair of breasts in the background - twenty minutes to go. Perfect. Markie went back to the living room, grabbed the remote and nestled back into the couch lengthwise with his feet propped up on the armrest.
He was just catching the end of some insipid wrestling match when the doorbell went off. That’s strange, Markie thought. He was sure Rick had said he was going to simply toot the car horn so they could take off immediately. Then again that couldn’t possibly be Rick at the door, could it? The guy had his own key and usually used it to get in.
“Hello?” Markie called out, before he’d even lifted his ass off the couch. When he got to the door, he stuck his eye to the peep hole and discovered a hand was obstructing it.
“Who is it?” He frowned. Whoever the mystery person was, they had to think he was stupid if they thought he’d open the door simply out of curiosity. This was America after all, not a tiny Italian village for God’s sake.
“It’s us,” came the voices from the other side. Female voices, completely dainty and unfamiliar.
“Us who?” Markie asked. This sure as hell sounded better than “Serena, is that you?”
Next came the giggling. “I’m afraid you’ll have to open up to find that out, Markie.”
Markie, oh feck, they knew his name, which meant they couldn’t be strangers or criminals or murderers. Which meant it was probably okay to open up. How much harm could a pair of high-pitched girls do to him anyway?
“Yes?” he said, once the door was open and he’d adequately taken in the sight before him. And what a rare sight it was to see. Two young blonde girls, identical twins obviously, with their slender arms linked together. But there was nothing slender about the focal part of their body however. No way. These girls could definitely give porno actresses a run for her money in the tit department and a lesson or two on the meaning of au naturale.
What they were doing outside Rick’s house and how they knew Markie’s name was anyone’s guess…
“If you’re looking for Rick, he should be home any moment. But not for long; he and I have a meeting we need to rush to.” The words flew out of his mouth before Markie could stop them but he couldn’t help it. After all, he was really looking forward to tonight; a pair of like-life Barbie’s showing up on their doorstep didn’t change a thing.
“We don’t think so,” the girls replied in unison, shaking their heads. At this point Markie realized strangely enough that the twins had different eye colors. One of them was blue-eyed, the other had green and he had no idea which of the two was wearing the contacts.
“Let us introduce ourselves. I’m Sammy,” said the blue-eyed one, “and this is my sister Sophie. We’re here to let you know Rick actually can’t make it tonight. He’s been held up unfortunately so he sent us over to make sure you spend the next few hours firstly not alone and secondly as pleasantly as possible.”
“Has he now?” Markie replied, everything dawning on him quite quickly. The band, the beers, they were never going to eventuate tonight were they? Instead Rick sent him over some friends of Biffy to loosen up his collar, so to speak. Truly, he didn’t know whether he was up to it. Then again…
Sammy and Sophie didn’t give much thought to Markie’s less than impressed expression. They pushed their way inside and removed their matching white woolly coats by the cloak stand. Underneath they were wearing more white: white boots, white knee-length skirts and tops that obviously didn’t require or allow for bras underneath.
On second thoughts, maybe Markie shouldn’t be so quick to condemn Rick’s offer. Maybe everyone, even hookers, required a second chance once in a while.
Chapter 31
In lieu of the night ahead, both Tabitha and Rick had prepared their own agenda and luckily it sort of crossed over… if breaking bad news and unearthing it could be considered such a thing.
Tabitha was determined not to go home from Rick’s without getting some sort of report on the Sangster offer. If Serena knew about it and the whole office knew about it, then it was fair to say Tabitha deserved an earful of it as well. After all she and Rick were pretty much an item now, not that she had called him a boyfriend to his face as yet. She guessed a time factor of three months was required to pass before one did something as deadly as that.
Rick on the other hand was well aware of his predicament. Like it or not, he was going to be leaving for Los Angeles in about fourteen days and he still hadn’t shared it with all the
other important people in his life. Mom, Dad, his brothers, for Christ’s sake, he hadn’t even told the girl he was seeing. It was a simple case of avoid and maybe the responsibility would go away. But last time he’d looked it was still there. Damn.
That’s why he’d called Tabitha to take her out to dinner. Rick saw it as a test run on breaking the news. He had no idea how she’d react – would she cry, be thrilled, or keep a straight face while fuming inside? It didn’t matter either way. Sure, he liked her plenty; Tabitha had grown on Rick like a parasite after spending days by his side. But work was work and he’d decided it came first. He wasn’t about to miss the opportunity of a lifetime for anyone and Tabitha shouldn’t want to hold him back either. If he stayed, there’d be too much resentment, too much regret buried under the false charade of happiness.
But it wasn’t as if staying behind in San Francisco and holding Tabitha’s hand was even an option. It wasn’t. If she wanted to come along for the ride then great; if not then oh well…what could he do? Such was life.
The restaurant he’d chosen for the occasion was a swish one called “The Establishment”. He picked up Tabitha up at seven o’clock, after first having his luxury treatment – massage, pedicure, manicure. Yes very wanky but the truth was Rick had nowhere else to go. Markie was waiting for him back at the ranch, expecting to go out hunting on a big boy’s night but Rick had no intention of returning there. No way. The truth was Markie also needed some time to do a bit of pampering, of the female kind. Sammy and Sophie had come highly recommended by men wanting to experience the ‘double fun’ but not ‘double the trouble’ approach. Now that should quickly bring Markie’s numbers up to a decent level.
“So here we are…” said Tabitha, clapping her hands as they pulled up to the restaurant entrance where a valet parker was waiting to take over. “Ooh I definitely haven’t been here before.”
“Neither have I,” Rick admitted, bringing the car to a stop, “but it comes highly recommended.” Just like Sammy and Sophie. “Why don’t we make our way inside, I’m starving.”
The Numbers Game Page 31
