by Brian Olsen
“Oh my god, Mark, chill out. No, of course it’s not gold, it’s brass.”
“Real brass?”
“You have to play this cool, Mark. You’ve been around rich people before.”
“Just your parents.”
“My parents aren’t rich,” she said defensively. “They’re well-off, maybe. Not Dundersfield rich. The Dundersfields are Connecticut high society, all garden parties and charity galas.”
“I don’t know much about galas. Should I have worn a tuxedo?”
“No, they’d think you’re a waiter. Just follow my lead, I’ve been to enough society functions with snooty trust-fund bitches. It’s been a while but I can play the game.”
The elevator slid open onto a small vestibule. The door to the apartment was ajar and Mark could hear music coming from down a short hallway. They stepped through the doorway and down the hall, their footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor. They emerged into a party that didn’t seem much like a society function to Mark. More like a sorority kegger.
“Oh, I can play this game, too,” he whispered to Dakota, his worries evaporating. He turned to the room and called out, “Hello, ladies!”
A chorus of giggled hellos greeted him in return. Pickle’s penthouse was far and away the biggest apartment Mark had ever been in. A large central area was currently serving as a dance floor for a sextet of blonde thirtysomething socialites, dancing identically to some wispy pop song Mark didn’t recognize. Beyond them he could see a large balcony wrapping around the building; four more beauties were outside snorting something illegal. A few more women were scattered around the room in multiple seating areas, chatting and drinking. More female voices came from behind a door which Mark assumed led into the kitchen. The only other man appeared to be the bartender, a handsome blond guy standing behind the bar. He kept playing with the top button of his shirt, as if he were unsure if he was expected to take it off or not.
A tall, shapely brunette glided up to Mark and gripped him by the arm. “You must be Mark. I’m Muffin, I’m Pickle’s oldest and dearest friend.” She dropped her voice an octave and leaned in closer. “We share absolutely everything.”
Muffin was quickly elbowed out of the way by her oldest and dearest friend. She lost her balance and stumbled drunkenly into the wall.
“Mark!” Pickle exclaimed. “You made it!”
Mark looked Pickle up and down. At the gym, in her work-out clothes, he had rated her as passably cute. Now, she was made-up for the party, wearing her blonde hair down around her shoulders and sporting a little black dress that showed off her toned body. He decided he had severely underestimated the attractiveness of the pint-sized businesswoman.
“Sorry about the speakerphone thing,” Pickle continued, slurring slightly. She didn’t seem to be quite as far gone as her friend, but she had definitely seen the bottom of a shot or two. “Muffin’s an idiot. I’m super embarrassed.”
“Hey!” Muffin cried indignantly.
“That’s okay, I’ve been called worse,” Mark replied. “Muscular and Asian are both true. As for boytoy...let’s see how the party goes.”
Pickle blushed, which was the reaction Mark was hoping for. He found her blushes adorably sexy.
He heard a cough from behind him. “Oh, right. Pickle, this is my roommate...”
“Dakota?” Pickle eyes widened as Dakota stepped out from behind Mark. “It’s Dakota Bell, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Dakota said, offering her hand. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember me, we only met the one time.”
Pickle shook her hand numbly. “I...” she started, then trailed off. She stared blankly at Dakota for a moment.
Mark and Dakota exchanged looks, unsure of what to say.
“Pickle? Are you okay?” Mark asked.
“What?” She looked at Mark, and the spell seemed to be broken. “Yes. Yes, I’m sorry, I’ve had a few drinks already, I apologize. Of course I remember you, Dakota, it’s great to see you again. How funny you two are roommates, what a coincidence.”
“Yes,” Dakota said wryly. “A coincidence.”
Pickle seemed unsure of herself. “There’s food laid out, if you’re hungry. And plenty of booze, obviously. And, uh...” She shot a nervous glance at the women partying on the balcony, then back at Dakota. “...other things. Muffin! Why don’t you show Dakota the apartment?”
Muffin had been distracted by the bartender, who kept tucking and untucking his shirt. At the sound of her name, she snapped her head back. “Who the fuck is Dakota?”
“I am. I work with Pickle. Hi.”
“For me, actually. Dakota, this is my oldest friend, Muffin Preston. Muffin, this is Dakota Bell, she works in my division at AmSyn.”
Muffin stared at Dakota, trying to focus. “Hello.” She paused. “I love your hair.” She turned back to Pickle. “Why do you want me to show her your apartment?”
“Muffin.” Pickle’s voice was ice cold.
Muffin looked at Mark. “Oh, right. Follow me, Dakota. Let’s start in the kitchen, we don’t want to overwhelm you.” She tottered away.
Dakota shot Mark a glare as she followed. Mark, unsure of what else to do, gave her a thumbs up. The glare didn’t abate as she disappeared into the kitchen.
“Can I get you a drink?”
Mark turned to see Pickle watching him innocently. “Sure. Thanks,” he replied.
“I need a refill myself,” she said. “Let’s hit the bar.”
She crossed the wide living area to the bar at the other end and took a seat on a stool. “Gin and tonic, please,” she told the bartender.
Mark sat down next to her. “Just a beer. Whatever you’ve got that’s good.”
Pickle laughed. “It’s all good.” She leaned forward slightly and rested her hand on his knee. “I’m so glad you made it. I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Oh, yeah, well, I’m glad I did. Looks like quite a party. What’s the occasion?”
She sat back. “Nothing special. I just felt like spending time with some old friends. I have the place to myself this weekend, that seemed like enough of a reason.”
Mark decided not to bring up the fiancé this time. He felt a twinge of guilt, but justified it by reminding himself that she was the one who was cheating, not him.
Well, nobody had cheated yet, he thought, but that was clearly where the evening was headed. Mark had never had much of a problem picking up signals from women, and Pickle was broadcasting on all frequencies. Even if Muffin hadn’t given away that they had been talking about him, the way Pickle was devouring him with her eyes made her intentions obvious. Also, the way her hand had found itself back on his knee while he had been thinking.
“Are these college friends?” he asked her.
“Mostly. Some are older, friends from high school or from growing up – my parents’ friends’ children, that sort of thing. Same social circles. You know how it is.”
“I don’t think we grew up in the same sort of circles,” he said.
She laughed. “Are you a snob, Mark Park? Or are you calling me a snob?”
“Neither! I’m just thinking about my friends from high school. We partied a lot, but not in places like this. We were usually in a field in the woods, or in a convenience store parking lot.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“Washington state. Olympia.”
“Really? I’m surprised. I figured you were a West Coaster but I assumed California. I thought you might be a closet surfer dude.”
“Nah. I was a jock in a family of hippies. But I went to college in L.A. and did a little surfing there.”
“Are you any good?”
“You’re probably never going to see me surf, so sure, I’m awesome.”
She laughed again. Her hand had moved further up his thigh, and she was pretending as if she had done it absentmindedly. He knew he didn’t even have to ask her any questions about herself, if he didn’t want to. He could ask her to show him the apartment right now
and they’d wind up in her bedroom.
Mark had always had a lot of success with women. He was genetically gifted, handsome and muscular, and his charm varied between blazingly sexy when he was trying and endearingly goofy when he wasn’t. His pull rate wasn’t one hundred percent, of course. He occasionally ran into a woman who “wasn’t into Asians.” He tended to shrug comments like that off, although if Dakota was there the woman would wind up with a drink spilled over her head. Still, he couldn’t really complain. If the mood struck him he could almost always go out and find somebody to go home with, and he was self-aware enough to know that most straight guys couldn’t say the same.
Of course, most of the time, if he was really looking to score, he was on his own – nobody to shoot the shit with, nobody to rate the talent pool with, no wingman to take his intended target’s friend out of the picture. When he went out with his roommates, they went to gay bars. Alan and Dakota were both gay, and Caitlin worked in a straight bar and preferred to spend her off-hours not getting hit on by drunk idiots. Most of the friends he had made since moving to New York he made through Dakota, which meant most of his friends were lesbians.
As a consequence, Mark’s East Coast sexual history suffered somewhat in comparison to his West Coast sexual history, which led him here, to a lavish penthouse apartment where he was being gently fondled by a rich white engaged woman. He hadn’t intended to attend the party tonight – for some reason, Pickle’s relationship status was nagging at his conscience far more than it usually would. But he had wanted to help out Dakota, and he was discovering that his conscience wasn’t quite strong enough to resist temptation now that it was touching his inner thigh.
“I, uh...” he started, “I hope it’s okay that I brought Dakota. You said I could bring a friend.”
She removed her hand and sat back. That had been either the right or the wrong thing to say, depending on how he looked at it.
“Oh, sure, it’s fine,” she said, her lips pursed. “It was just a surprise. I didn’t expect to see anyone from work tonight.”
“So you didn’t know we lived together?”
“No, of course not. How would I have known that?”
As far as he could tell, her confusion was genuine. She was right – how could she have known? Dakota had explained to him the series of coincidences involving her office, and while Mark acknowledged that it was odd, he hadn’t quite been able to see how these different situations all fit together. If Pickle didn’t know that Mark knew Dakota, then it really was all just a series of coincidences – wasn’t it?
Of course, there was still the original reason Dakota had come tonight – to rat out her boss. That would probably kill the mood, and with it any chance Mark had of getting laid. He wondered if he could manage to sneak upstairs with Pickle before Dakota came back from her tour of the kitchen.
He noticed Pickle was smiling at him. “What?” he said.
“You look like you’re thinking really, really hard. It’s sexy. You know what’s sexier?”
“What?”
She leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Not thinking.” She downed her drink, then took a sip of Mark’s untouched beer. She put both drinks down on the bar. “Come on.”
She took his hand and led him towards a staircase leading to the upper level. As Mark followed her, he heard scattered laughter from a few of her friends, but from most he was getting a seriously bad vibe. He saw disapproval and head-shaking, and heard a few expressions of disbelief. One woman broke off from her group and stood in front of the staircase. She was skeleton-skinny but tall, and her outstretched arms were long enough to block their way.
“Hey, Pickle. What’s going on?” the woman asked not-so-innocently.
“Hey, Cookie. I’m just showing Mark the apartment.”
“You haven’t shown him the balcony yet,” Cookie said. “Why don’t we take him outside?”
“Because, Cookie, I want to show Mark the bedroom. I think he’ll really, really like it.”
“And would Dexter really, really like it?”
“Cookie!” Pickle exclaimed angrily. “Ix-nay on the exter-Day!”
Cookie turned to Mark. “Dexter is Pickle’s fiancé. They’re getting married in the fall. Have you met Dexter?”
“Uh...”
“He doesn’t work in a gym or fuck other men’s fiancées so you probably haven’t bumped into him.”
“Cookie!” Pickle shouted again. “What the hell are you doing?”
“What am I doing? I’m trying to stop my friend from fucking up her entire life, that’s what I’m doing. What are you doing, that’s the question.”
“I’m...”
“Back off, Cookie!” Mark turned to see Muffin storming towards them, followed by an aggrieved-looking Dakota. “Pickle’s just goofing around, stop embarrassing her!”
“While you’ve been in the kitchen entertaining the help, Muffin,” Cookie retorted, “Pickle has been sitting at the bar drooling all over her side order of Asian beef. She was about to bring him up to her bedroom.”
“What?” Muffin turned on Pickle. “Pickle, you were serious about this? I thought you just invited him here for eye-candy.”
“I...” Pickle’s earlier momentum had dissipated. She looked up at Mark, but her eyes seemed vacant. She was staring at him with the same confused expression she had directed at Dakota when they had first arrived.
Mark looked around the room. The party had gone quiet; everyone was watching them. Even the women doing coke out on the balcony were still. He ignored them all and looked down at Pickle. “It’s okay,” he said. “Your friends are right, you don’t want to...” He broke off as he saw the confusion in her eyes turn to horror.
“What was I...” She pulled away from him. “I was...” She turned to Muffin and Cookie with a look of helplessness.
Muffin took charge. “Let’s go. Cookie, take Pickle to her room.” Cookie put a protective arm around Pickle and whisked her upstairs. “Everybody, out. Let’s go, ladies. Not a WORD about this to anyone, you understand? Bitch amongst yourselves if you must, but nothing happened, there’s no gossip worth sharing, I have dirt on each and every one of you, don’t make me use it.”
Quickly, the party started to break up. The various groups of women, grumbling, finished their drinks and made their way to the elevator. Muffin picked her purse up off a coffee table and walked over to the bartender to settle up.
Dakota was livid. “What the hell?” she hissed at Mark. “I finally manage to get away from that...woman...” The word dripped with contempt. “...and you get us thrown out before I get a chance to get any information at all? Can’t you keep it in your pants for one night?”
Mark was about to protest, but before he could think of anything else to say, he felt a piece of paper being pushed into his hand. He looked down to see one of the women from the balcony, white residue caked on her left nostril, smiling up at him. “I don’t normally like Asian men,” she said, “but you...” She ran a finger down his chest. “Call me.” She followed her friends out the door. Avoiding Dakota’s glare, Mark opened his hand and let the woman’s phone number fall to the floor.
Muffin stormed over to them. “You’re still here? Out. Both of you.”
“I just need to talk to Pickle for one minute,” Dakota said.
“Are you insane? Are you batshit fucking crazy? I’m not letting you anywhere near her. Get out of here.”
“Muffin!” Cookie appeared at the top of the stairs, calling down. “I need you!”
“I just want to make sure...” Muffin began.
“Now!” Cookie disappeared again down the upstairs hall.
Muffin hesitated. “Out. I mean it. And...don’t steal anything.” She started up the steps, then turned back. “I didn’t say that because you’re African-American, I said it because I don’t know you and you’ve made a poor first impression.” She went upstairs and followed Cookie into Pickle’s bedroom.
Dakota plopped down on th
e sofa. “I let that bitch touch my hair,” she muttered darkly.
Mark stood in the center of the room, lost, as the last of the guests filed out. The bartender passed him, then stopped and turned back. “Bro, seriously? Another hour or two and I was set for a three-way at least. Not cool, bro. Not cool.” He hurried out the front door to catch the elevator.
“Fifteen minutes,” Dakota said. Mark slowly sat down next to her. “Fifteen minutes we’ve been here. Ten of those minutes I spent in the kitchen telling Muffin that yes, I’m from Connecticut, but no, I don’t know her nanny.”
“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “She was coming on strong. I thought if I shot her down we wouldn’t get any information from her at all.”
“And?” Dakota looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
“And...I wanted to sleep with her before my conscience caught up with me. I’m sorry. I really am.”
He stretched his arm out along the back of the sofa. After a moment, she slid over and put her head on his shoulder.
“I don’t know what to do, Mark. She’s at the center of all this and I didn’t get to ask her a single question. Did she say anything to you about AmSyn? Anything at all?”
“No. I asked her if she knew we were roommates, and she said she didn’t. It seemed like the truth, but who knows?”
Dakota sighed, then stood up. “We should go before they come downstairs. All we can do is go home and wait for Caitlin and Alan. Maybe they’re having better luck with Derek.” She looked at the huge spread of food laid out on a long table near the door to the kitchen. “Fuck her, I’m wrapping some of this up.”
Mark watched Dakota poke at the food dejectedly. She looked lost. Weak, even. It didn’t suit her. He remembered a night a little over four years ago – they were in her dorm room and he was weeping, literally crying on her shoulder, at the thought of having to move back home after graduation. Dakota knew what his family was like, and without a moment’s hesitation she had said, “You’re moving to New York with me.” And he had. Much later she had told him that she was so used to him being happy all the time that the idea of him being so sad made her feel like the world was broken.
