Re-Wired (12 page)

It would take him three days—if he chose to sleep—and all of his savings to reach her, but he would figure it out once he got there. He thought that it was actually a good thing Tricia was missing because she would have talked him out of it somehow, and he would still be moping around. He flew his car up into the fast highway; he hadn’t been driving in a while so he had enough fuel to last several hours. The electronic waves of the highway caught unto his car—allowing it to move automatically towards his chosen destination—and before long he was speeding alongside other cars towards Miami.

“Call my mother,” Brad said to his car after an hour had passed. The phone connected and he heard the chime that meant she would be connecting soon. He hadn’t seen her since the last year when he went to visit. It had been a hard trip to make, since he hadn’t been face to face with them since he dropped out of school. His father didn’t explode into scolding and name-calling like he’d expected him to—he’d probably been coached and begged by his mother not to. This made the reunion pleasant, and though his brother kept to pattern by letting him know how much of a failure he was, he got to eat his mother’s cooking, and that made it worth it.

“Brad?”

“Hey, Mom,” he said. His voice cracked a bit from emotions he couldn’t understand.

“Hey son, is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to let you know that I’m driving to Miami.”

“Miami! What’s in Miami?”

“My girlfriend, apparently. I finally heard from her, and she wants me to visit to see if I like the area. I don’t have much going on in the city, so I’m gonna take her up on it. See if the new locale can reignite my passions, y’know? I need to grow up a bit.”

“Bradley, do you know much about this girl? It seems awfully odd that she would disappear like that and then call you out of the blue with a summons. What if she’s in trouble?”

“You’re right on how shady and strange this all is, but I have nothing, Mom, and she knows I have nothing. What could I possibly be getting myself into from her? I’ll be fine. I’m excited about it.”

“Are you taking your android with you?”

“Uhm, yeah, yeah, I have it all packed up in the trunk,” he lied.

They kept on talking for another hour, and Brad’s mother was happier than she had been for a long time being that their calls had always been so brief. After the call he began to feel really optimistic about the change in scenery. He would move in with Priscilla for a while, get situated, and then he would get the money to fly up and collect Tricia. With her living with him in Miami, he could figure out a way to replicate his work, and upon creating a second version—while recording his steps—he could go public with his creation. He cruised along listening to the radio as he alternated between international news and music.

A few days later after a near wreck, some nasty weather, and exhaustion from lack of sleep, Brad pulled into the condo’s parking lot. It was in the evening and he called Priscilla to let her know he was there. She came out to greet him, and he hugged her tightly to make sure she was real. He held her there for a long time and she did a little dance when he released her.

“Bradley! Did you drive all the way here?”

“Yes I did, and I am about to pass out.”

“Come, come inside and sit down. You look so tired. I’ve made some Tandoori chicken, so just relax, baby.”

The condo she was in was small and tidy, with artwork on the walls depicting beach scenes and lovers. She had a medium-sized, curved television that was suspended from the ceiling, and the radio was on, playing tunes from the Caribbean. To Brad it was paradise, and he removed his shoes and sat on her soft couch. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep but when he woke up he was stripped down to his boxers and Priscilla was sleeping next to him. They lay in a full-sized bed with the windows open and the curtains blowing rhythmically from the tropical breeze. The clock on her desk read 4:15 a.m. so he closed his eyes and stayed like that until he fell back asleep.

When he awoke he was alone in the bed and the smell of food permeated the house. He walked out to the kitchen and there was a plate with breakfast waiting for him on the couch. In the living room area Priscilla sat in front of the television with a young man and woman. They both waved when they saw him and it made him wave back.

“Hello,” Brad said awkwardly. He looked down at his bare chest and boxers and suddenly felt self-conscious.

“Hey Brad, this is Sean and Marcia. They’re in the dance class with me here. Guys, this is Bradley. He’s spending some time with me here.”

Spending some time
. Brad let the words sink in and he wondered if he had misunderstood Priscilla’s invitation to stay with her.
It would really suck if I did all that driving over a misunderstanding
, he thought, and then began to eat his food. Priscilla and her company went back to their program, and they were giggling and joking with one another as if they were lifelong friends. He watched their interactions as they went on and he noticed Priscilla flirted quite a bit with Sean. He was the color of chestnuts, and his arms were muscular and well defined. There was one point when he had to get up to use the bathroom and he did so by shifting to the side and getting up into a cartwheel, which was beyond impressive to witness. Brad hadn’t realized that he had come into a situation where he could lose the love of his life, but the way she was acting during their banter made him feel sick to his stomach.

After a while he went back into her room to shower and change into some clothes. When he came back they were gone, and Priscilla was sitting on the bed, waiting for him.

“Well, hello there,” he said to her, as he was surprised to see her there.

“Hey, you. Did you miss me?”

“Of course I did. I tore Seattle apart looking for you. Who’re your friends? Are they together?”

“No, Sean teaches our dance class, and Marcia’s his sister. They hang out here once in a while after class. They’re like my little brother and sister.”

“Awesome. So what do you have going on today?”

“Well I have to go into work, and then dance class. I have a key for you so you can come and go as you please. Make yourself at home, Brad. You’re home baby, so don’t be a stranger, okay?”

She slid over to him and kissed him, and it escalated into the reunion that he had been looking forward to. When she had gone off to work and he was alone, he used the day to relax and recover from the drive. Since he knew nothing about the city or the people, he opened his computer on the kitchen counter and did some research on the area. It was an expensive place to live in and pretty daunting to someone who didn’t have a job to begin with. He pulled up his bank account and realized that $5,000 had been deposited recently. He knew that it was his mother and it made him feel even worse.

“I created an android to be independent and I can’t even be independent myself,” he said out loud, and then reflected on his situation.

He had a little bit of money to his name but he needed a job. Not just any job, but one that paid enough for him to start over. He could eventually get Tricia there, and possibly get himself back into school to finish. He spent hours on the computer looking up this information, and while it was frustrating, it gave him a good perspective on what he could do and how long it would take for him to do it.

When it was 8:00 p.m. and Priscilla was still not home, he began to worry for her.
Maybe the dance class goes on for a really long time
, he thought, and forced himself not to call her. After another thirty minutes she appeared, and like before the brother and sister were with her, laughing and flirting as they had done the day before. The whole spectacle annoyed Brad, but he played nice and sat with them to watch movies and talk into the deep hours of the night. When they had gone home, Priscilla was not in the mood to get intimate, and they ended up falling asleep at different times. This happened for three days and Brad began to question whether or not Priscilla was serious about their relationship.

On the fourth day, Sean had to leave early to get some fuel and Brad offered to ride with him so that he could ask him some questions. When they were on their way to the gas station, Brad turned to him and asked, “Sean, what did Priscilla tell you guys about me?”

“Oh, Silly-Silla? Well she said that you guys are old friends and you all were kicking it for a bit, or something.”

“So, at no point did she say that we are in a relationship?”

“Not really, man. I mean, I can tell you’re into the girl, but she says she’s only helping you out.”

“Helping me out?” The words crushed Brad as he repeated them, but they confirmed what he suspected was going on with Priscilla. He had stumbled into another game involving a woman, but he was not going to let it get the better of him as it had in the past. The driving had been a task, but he would rather drive all the way back to Seattle than stay in her house as a charity case.

“Sorry, man. I was wondering what the deal was with you two.”

“Has she been seeing anybody?”

“Well, I don’t know how to tell you this, man, but we’ve messed around a little bit. Kind of on and off, nothing serious, but she hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend. If she did, you know, I wouldn’t have.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she hasn’t mentioned me. How long has she been in town?”

“As long as I’ve known her man. Like a few years? She joined the class a while ago but then she was gone up north for a few months.”

Brad got quiet as he thought about Priscilla, Trinidad, and the strange condo story that came with her stay in Seattle. He didn’t know what to think anymore, and the feelings he got from what he assumed was betrayal made him feel anxious. He spoke about a few more things with Sean and they returned to the apartment where he tried his best to act like things were normal. It didn’t take much for Priscilla to realize that the two men had talked, so she made them leave early and asked Brad if he wanted to go out.

“Go out? Like where?” Brad asked, curious as to why she would ask this after a week of inactivity.

“I don’t know, a movie or something. We haven’t had any alone time since you’ve arrived, so I thought maybe we could do a date night.”

“Date night? So we’re dating now? It’s been four days, Priscilla. Should we invite Sean and Marcia?”

“That’s not cool. Why are you acting like this?”

“Probably because this right here is the last link in a chain of events in this pathetic life of mine. I’m going back to Seattle tomorrow and I want to forget everything about you and the joke of a relationship I thought we had.”

“What the hell did Sean say to you? Why are you so mad at me all of a sudden?”

“Sean told me where I stood. It was one of the most honest conversations I’ve had in a long time, and it was an eye-opening one. I just have one question for you, for women like you who play games like this. What makes you think that it’s okay to do this? Huh? Am I so undeserving of—never mind.”

Priscilla continued to protest his revelation but his mind was made up and she could not get through to him. In the end she was in tears and went to bed alone, and Brad packed his car and took off for home. She had let him stay in her house alone for all those days, and told her friends he was a charity case. Did they ever have a relationship, or had he imagined it all? These were the questions that he asked himself as he pushed the car along the top highway away from Miami. When he had dealt with Mika, he had promised himself that he would never let a woman play with his heart again. Yet there he was, and he felt no different than he did back then.

So much time wasted, so many resources, so much drinking, drug taking, depression, all for a girl who didn’t love him, had probably never loved him, and had made him drive for hours just to embarrass him.
Maybe I should give up on women for a time and rebuild my life
, he thought.
I can get things back in order, get back into school and turn my life around
.
Emotional reactions got me here; I need rational thought to get me out of here
.

He tuned his radio to the Saeed Muhammad show, where the host was talking about being a man with confidence. Brad had always relied on the pills to make him feel like himself, but the show’s host talked at length about building self-confidence and much of it resonated with Brad.

He had assumed that people were inherently good, and that he was unlucky in meeting the few bad guys and gals that were out there, but Saeed was telling him that this was not so. People will run over you if they can, he said, and it takes a confident man with his eyes wide open to dodge the traps that are laid out for you in life. The more Brad listened, the more he felt firm in his decision to focus on himself and to let the Priscilla’s of the world find other suckers to play with.

He was an hour into the show when his device lit up and the car announced that it was Priscilla.

“What?” he answered, ready to flex some of his new confidence muscles against her.

“Brad, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I let everything get unraveled and I just want you to know that what we had in Seattle was—“

“Why are you telling me this now? I was in your house for four days. I drove down there for two whole days to be with you, and you made sure that your lover was there every day to embarrass me. Any of those days would have been a good one to say to me, ‘Hey Brad, I’m not interested in you at all anymore.’ Actually, it would have been fantastic to tell me this news before having me drive all that way.”