by Jeff Pollard
“So what's my score?” Caroline asks.
“25,” Kingsley says simply.
“25!? 25!? Is that good or bad? Is that a 25 out of 10, or a 25 out of 30? What's your scale?”
“Out of 100,” Kingsley says.
“What!? Well, you're a 47 on my scale of 1 to a billion.”
“It's not a linear scale,” K says.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, okay, there was a golddigger I was with a while back, and her score was...” K does some math in his head. “One. She gets a one-point-one-repeating.
“That sounds like some calculated math you've got there.”
“It's A equals B-P over D-squared. That's Attraction equals Beauty times Personality divided by Difficulty squared. So she was a beauty score of 10, a personality score of 4, so 40 divided by a difficulty of 6-squared, so she's 40 over 36, which is 1.1 repeating.”
“And I got a 25, so let me guess what I get,” Caroline says, doing math in her head. “5 for beauty, 5 for personality and a 1 for difficulty.”
“No,” K says.
“Then what?”
“You get a 10 for beauty, a 10 for personality, and a 2 for difficulty. And until about eight hours ago it was a 1 for difficulty. So you were a perfect 100 and you've dropped 75% in a day.”
“I had a perfect 100?”
Kingsley sighs, “yep.”
“Why can't you say nice things like that to me?”
“You want me to come up to you and be like, hey baby, on my scale of A equals BP over D-squared, you get a perfect 100. You'd either stare at me blankly or slap me, or laugh at me.”
“How do you define difficulty?”
“If a bimbo is clingy and desperate for attention, and creates fake drama, gets upset easily, things like that are difficulty. You're none of those things, you're a proper woman.”
“But I've gone up a full point because of our little fight, that I want kids?”
“No, you went up a point because you brought 90 pounds of luggage for a 9 hour stay in New York, and you made me wait with the plane running. And forgot my iPod. And insulted my favorite suit.”
“Oh, well I see those aren't petty reasons at all.”
Kingsley sighs and shakes his head.
Caroline keeps reading from the Playboy interview, “This rocket scientist is hell bent on making rockets reusable, but thinks women are expendable.”
“Rocket engineer,” Kingsley corrects.
“Quote, everyone else is married to a woman and throw their rockets away. They've got that backwards. It's easier to get another woman than another rocket. It's certainly cheaper. So I'm married to my rockets and my women are expendable,” Caroline reads, jaw dropping.
“Hey, this interview isn't new, I wasn't talking about you,” K says.
“It's from a year ago,” Caroline says accusingly.
“Yeah, we were barely dating then. You were playing hard to get still.”
“Pig,” Caroline mutters.
Kingsley lands at the Kansas City Downtown airport. They take a taxi across the Broadway bridge into downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
“See, tall buildings and everything,” Kingsley says.
“I didn't think Kansas had it in them,” Caroline says. “The only thing I knew about Kansas before today was something about a law banning sustainable development. Like they were making it illegal to build green energy things.”
“Yep, that's Kansas. Where life begins at ovulation and solar panels are the devil. But again, this is Missouri.”
“Where are we going?” Caroline asks as she notices the skyscrapers receding behind them as they head past downtown.
“You kept calling me a pig,” K says.
“And?”
“You got me in the mood for some pork ribs.”
Kingsley and Caroline arrive at Gates Bar-B-Q. Within seconds of entering the restaurant, they are greeted by two African-American women shouting “Hi may I help you!” at the top of their lungs. It's more a demand than an offer to help. They'll continue shouting at you until you order off the menu above the cash register. Minutes later K and Caroline slide their trays onto a table and slink into their booth.
“I'm just saying,” Caroline says, “no reasonable chef would name something 'Burnt Ends.' That sounds like you're covering for a fuck up. I meant to do that. It's supposed to be black.”
“Just try it,” K says. Caroline finishes eating well before Kingsley, as he continues to eat.
“You really don't want kids?” Caroline asks. K wipes some Sweet N Mild sauce off his cheek. “You didn't get it all.” K wipes a few more times, thinking long and hard, buying time. He thinks of something to say, his eyes narrow on her as she waits.
“Of the twelve men who walked on the Moon, ten of them got divorced.”
“What does that mean?”
“Go talk to any of those old NASA guys, rocket guys, astronauts, any of them. They're all divorced. They were all too busy, and their wives were all stuck at home, looking after the kids without a husband. Back then, it was okay, leave the wife to do that stuff, but I wouldn't be able to do that without feeling guilty about it, or if there was a nanny, I would not feel good about not raising my own kids. So I don't want any.”
“I just wish we'd talked about it earlier.”
“I'm not great at this communication stuff, I mean, you know me, but you shouldn't be mad at me that I didn't answer a question you never asked. I mean we never talked about it.”
“What if I wanted to have kids anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, what if I accept that you won't be able to be there all the time, and I still want them. What about that?”
“I'd feel guilty about not being there for my own kids,” K before he gnaws on the end of a pork rib. Caroline sighs.
Back in the air, over the Rust Belt, Kingsley flies with Caroline reading next to him. Kingsley's cell phone rings from his backpack in the cabin. “Could you get that,” K asks. Caroline gets up and finds his cell. “Who is it?” K asks.
“Hannah ICE. Who is this that she's your In Case of Emergency?”
“My former assistant,” K says. “Don't answer it.”
“Kingsley's phone,” Caroline says as she sits back down.
“Oh god,” K mutters.
“He's busy flying at the moment. . . Oh this is Caroline, I'm surprised I've never met Kingsley's emergency contact. . . No he hasn't changed it. I'd think I would be his emergency contact, but what are you gonna do? . . Oh my, that's such a coincidence we're going to be in New York tonight.”
“What's a coincidence?” Kingsley asks, alarmed.
“We would love to do dinner,” Caroline says.
“Oh jeebus. No. No dinner.”
“See you then, okay, buh bye.” Caroline smiles exaggeratedly at K. “That was Hannah, your former assistant, who is still your emergency contact, who you've never bothered to mention to me. We're meeting for dinner tonight.”
Kingsley sighs.
“What?”
“This is gonna be awkward,” K grumbles.
“Why?”
“Well...we were kind of a thing,” K says. “So now I'm going to dinner with my girlfriend and my former assistant slash sort of girlfriend. Awesome.”
“You banged your assistant?”
“I didn't say bang,” K says defensively.
“Where does she fit into your Venn Diagram of Bitches and Hos? Was she a bimbo you hired to follow you around and take orders? Or was she a really bright girl that loved the genius of your cock in her mouth?”
“The latter,” K replies.
“So she wasn't attractive enough for you? Kingsley, I'm so sorry you had to go through such an ordeal, having someone adore you who didn't have perfect titties. I mean, bless your heart. Are you okay.”
“This is going to be awful.”
“It's just your uppetance cometh back to haunteth.”
“I don't
think that's grammatically correct.”
“Well, I guess I'll get to compare notes with her, see if you gave her the same presents and compliments.”
“We didn't date, okay, she had a crush on me, we ended up fooling around, but we weren't a couple, she thought having sex with someone meant you were in love and in a relationship, we weren't, so when I brought in a groupie for a threesome...yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea.”
“You just don't know when to stop digging do you?”
“Clearly not.”
“Did you fire her for wanting to date you and making it awkward?”
“Of course not. I moved her to a different part of the building. I gave her a promotion actually. But she quit a while back, went with Dexter when he defected. What's she doing in New York?”
“I don't know,” Caroline responds, “but apparently Sarah Palin twittered about you. You've got like . . . fifty of these red flashing things from people asking if you saw what she... tweetered? Twitted?”
“In this case, you could say she Twatted,” K replies. “What'd she say?”
Kingsley and Caroline enter Le Cirque, a circus-themed French restaurant in Manhattan, complete with an abstract “big top” light shade over the main dining area. The bar is made entirely of glass and features a kaleidoscope tower of wine bottles nearly nine meters tall.
“I feel like I'm on acid, and I'm not. And I know what being on acid feels like,” K says to Caroline as they're escorted to the table where Hannah is already seated. Kingsley is in fact not wearing his favorite silver suit, instead wearing the charcoal suit Caroline picked to match her dress.
“Pleasure to meet you dear,” Caroline says, kissing Hannah's hand.
“How ya doin' kid?” K asks, as Hannah stands to greet them, revealing a massively pregnant belly. Hannah gives K a fetus obstructed hug.
“I'm so good K,” Hannah says as she squeezes him tighter.
“I see,” K says awkwardly as Hannah and Caroline kiss on the cheek.
“So, Kingsley tells me you two used to be an item, it wasn't within the last nine months was it?” Caroline asks as the three of them sit.
“Oh my, no,” Hannah says, blushing. “We haven't seen each other for some time. So no, he's not really responsible for this,” Hannah says, pointing to her belly.
“So you must be doing good huh?” K asks, trying to put on a smile and not be awkward. He's a pro at being suave instead of anxious, like say when hitting on a girl. But he's awful at avoiding the elephant in the room, putting on a smile and tone of voice so fake that he blends into the circus-themed scenery. “No ring, I see, so that's cool...that you're an independent woman. No shotgun wedding for this gal.”
“Monsieur, Madame,” The waiter arrives, asking K and Caroline if they would like to order a drink, but in French. Caroline replies, conversing with the waiter in French, exchanging an apparently witty repartee that goes right over Kingsley's head. Caroline jabs K on the arm while apparently making a joke about him. The waiter laughs and then looks to K.
“Space Champagne, por favor,” K says sardonically. The waiter is confused. K turns to Caroline, “how do you say space Champagne in French?”
“I think you can figure out the Champagne part,” Caroline replies.
“Champagne d'espace,” Hannah says. The waiter is very confused.
“How about an Absinthe et Perrier,” K says to the waiter. “Make that a double.” Caroline and Hannah give K a glare. “What? That's the only drink I know how to say in French.”
“Those words are both cognates,” Caroline says.
“Exactly,” K says. “So back to discussing who knocked you up, what's up with that?” K asks.
“K!” Caroline says.
“Well,” Hannah says, “funny story. Umm, it turns out that I knocked myself up.”
“Oh, so you used a donor?” Caroline asks.
“The ole turkey baster tango,” K says. Caroline glares at him again. “Did you just glare at me while rolling your eyes, simultaneously? That's a god damn magic trick. I don't think I can even do that. That's like the cirque du soleil of harping.” K tries to roll his eyes while glaring at Caroline, it looks like he's having a seizure.
“That's very brave of you. It's quite a coincidence, because Kingsley and I were just talking about kids and how he selfishly doesn't want to have kids because he will feel compelled to neglect them and doesn't want to feel guilty about the neglect.”
“That's a completely bullshit, hyperbolic mischaracterization of...essentially what I said,” K says. The waiter returns with some kind of colorful fruity something for Caroline, and a glass of Absinthe with a sugar cube resting in an Absinthe spoon laying across the rim of the glass and a bottle of Perrier. “Hey wait,” K says as the waiter walks off. “You're supposed to light it on fire. Fine. I'll do it myself.” K pulls out a rusty old Zippo lighter.
“Kingsley, no fires,” Caroline says.
“What? I'm a rocket scientist, you think I can't manage to make a proper Absinthe?”
“Rocket engineer,” Hannah corrects him. K throws his hands in the air. Catching flak from everywhere today. He lights the Zippo and tries to lower it past the Absinthe spoon toward the viscous clear liquid in the bottom of the glass. The vapors light at once, filling the glass with a calm pulsing blue flame.
“See it's fine.” K says, flipping his Zippo closed.
“Okay, blow it out now,” Caroline says like she's talking to a toddler, patting him on the leg.
“No, you let it go for a minute, it...activates the wormwood, or something. And then you slowly pour the Perrier on the sugar cube, and that disperses the sugar into the Absinthe, putting the fire out and turning the clear liquid into a milky color in an instant.”
“So do it before you catch the building on fire,” Caroline says.
“You have to let it burn a minute,” K says. “Don't stare at me, I got this under control.”
“Why do you have such a rusty old lighter?” Caroline asks.
“It was Neil Armstrong's,” Hannah says.
“It seems there are ways in which you know Kingsley even better than I,” Caroline says.
“Well, it's funny you should mention that,” Hannah says, forcing a fake laugh. “Because he's the father.”
Caroline's jaw drops and she turns to Kingsley with fire reflecting in her eyes.
“No, no, no, I didn't, we're not, she's...it was a turkey baster, she just said!”
“You were artificially inseminated?”
“Mm hmm,” Hannah admits.
“With Kingsley's...gentleman juice?”
“That's right.”
“How did you get a sample of his...”
“Astronuts,” Kingsley offers up a euphemism.
“I just called Wendy,” Hannah says, confused by the question. Caroline is very confused by Hannah's nonchalant response. Of course, she called Wendy. Caroline looks to Kingsley and her angry eyes demand he explain who the hell Wendy is and why she has a stockpile of Kingsley's DNA.
Kingsley smirks, as he often does when being confronted. It usually just makes the other person grow angrier. “There's actually, a perfectly good explanation for this misunderstanding.”
Just then, the glass of burning absinthe shatters. The burning liquid pours out from the disintegrating glass, spreading over a wide area of the white table cloth, spreading a blue fire across half the table. They panic for a moment. Hannah's hand darts to a glass of water, but Kingsley beats her to the punch by taking a deep breath and letting out one powerful blow of air that extinguishes the flames all at once.
Caroline's angry glare returns to Kingsley.
“It's not my fault they used the wrong kind of glass, that's on them.” Caroline's glare grows angrier. “Wendy is my sperm agent. She sends out my DNA to various sperm depositories, banks and such. You know...Rocket scientist, genius, billionaire, CEO, engineer, astronaut, and philanthropist are in high demand.”
“So when y
ou say you don't want to have kids because you would feel guilty about not being there for them...you forget to mention that you are also okay with any woman having your babies without you knowing about it?”
“Well...I mean, that's different, they're not my kids, just genetically.”
“So you'd be fine with me calling Wendy and getting myself my own sample?” Caroline turns to Hannah, “Do you have Wendy's number.”
“I do, she's super helpful,” Hannah replies.
“God dammit Wendy,” Kingsley mutters. “I told her not to give samples to individuals, only to sperm banks. How'd you even get a sample?”
“She thinks I'm still your assistant, so she just kinda goes with whatever I tell her.”
“Okay, that's messed up, but...that means she thinks I had you ask her to give me a sample back of my own...Why would I do that?”
“When you deal sperm for a living you learn not to ask too many questions,” Hannah replies. The three of them sit in silence for a moment.
“So what's Kingsley's child's name?” Caroline asks.
“Griffin,” Hannah says.
“Check please,” K says to the waiter who stares with wide eyes at the burned table cloth and broken glass littering the table.
“Kingsley,” Caroline scolds.
“Fine. We'll stay for dinner,” K relents. “But bring me another drink, por favor.”
Hundreds of flashes nearly blind Kingsley as he drives the new Tezla X from a staging area out onto a platform, a bit like a runway model taking her turn in the spotlight. K parks the X and opens the door which causes an audible gasp to spread through the crowd as the door opens vertically like a gull-wing. The platform begins rotating immediately. Kingsley walks off the rotating segment of the stage and to a podium abreast the shimmering red car.
“I have the pleasure of introducing to you the new Tezla X,” Kingsley announces dramatically as a hundred reporters, photographers, bloggers, and other media personnel look on, flashing pictures, taking videos, looking up at this monolith of modern civilization. “The X is the culmination of the dream that is Tezla. Phase one of that dream was the production of a low-volume, high cost, high-performance vehicle, the Tezla R. With the R the electric car didn't just limp into the marketplace, it blew past its competitors, setting performance records. Now we are in phase two, medium volume, medium cost. The first part of phase two was the Model S, taking the lead in the luxury sedan market, sending our competitors into crash programs to develop hybrid and electric technology.”
