The Numbers Game (45 page)

            Still whilst
expecting the worst, Markie hoped for the best. ‘The more of these guys I can
take with me, the more confident and at home I will feel” was his rationale and
speech to them.

            So to
bolster up everyone’s morale a bit during the last few weeks, Markie and Rick
instigated Project Easy Transition. This involved allowing each staff member to
spend up to half an hour a day on personal Internet browsing (for real estate,
new employment, whatever they desired).  At reception, they could pick up their
own daily copy of LA Times or any brochure from the healthy bunch Rick had
accrued (or more specifically begged or stolen from about a dozen different
travel agencies.) Most importantly, if they were undecided about what to do,
they could simply ask Raspberry to book them in for a session with a career
counselor, already briefed on the company’s situation.

            It was
Rick himself, stressed from the pressures of a new relationship or merely
Tabitha, who volunteered to road test Dr Jamison first.

            “To see
whether this counseling thing is really worth offering our staff. We wouldn’t
want to invest money in something which corrupts them, would we?”  He winked.

            “No we
wouldn’t,” Markie agreed. In fact, he thought,
while you’re in with the
counselor why not tackle your own ‘attracted to losers’ problem and that way we
get our full money’s worth?

            Markie
still couldn’t see what Rick saw in Tabitha. They had been going out for a full
three weeks now, which was surely a record on both parts. At first, Markie
thought maybe his minor irritation would go away after seeing Tabitha often
enough for a while – like any human builds up their immunity against common
diseases. But the reverse ended up being the case. After five nights of her
sleeping over in a row, five nights of bumping into the airhead in the
bathroom, living room, kitchen, Markie felt the slightest contact with her
would bring on a panic attack. Shortness of breath, dizziness, dry-retching
leading to vomiting: the whole shenanigans. To combat this effect, Markie took
to entering the house via the back entrance and running straight up the
stairwell to his bedroom, do not pass go, go straight to jail.

            The first
time Rick caught him buried like that under the covers he was certain, so, so
sure there was a girl smuggled underneath with him.

            “Who is
she?” Rick demanded to know, when Markie made the mistake of venturing down to
refill his two liter water bottle. It was times like this that one was better
off staying dehydrated.

            “Who is
who?” Markie replied, willing the water to fill up the container quicker. Come
on, come on, he needed to get out of there before Tabitha popped out dressed in
her teddy bear and suspenders like last night. This time heart failure would
surely not be a false alarm.

            “The girl
in your bed, you secretive wanker!” Rick continued, pointing to upstairs. “Damn,
you must be ecstatic, finally getting it de-rusted and oiled for action. And
there I thought your dick had been permanently rendered soft.”

            “Oh
right,” Markie said, clearing his throat. “A girl is…um…waiting for me. Yep, I
better go. Don’t want to keep the lady waiting.”

            With that,
he took off back up upstairs, locked the door and kept the radio on till the
wee hours of the night. The only time anyone ever left on the radio while
sleeping was when a new lover shared their bed so Markie thought it lent well
to the authenticity of his lie. Yep, that would keep Rick’s mouth shut for a
while…but would it keep Tabitha’s? That was another question.

            Deep down,
Markie was a bit pissed off at Rick for allowing a spy to enter his house…let
alone his bed. Why not install a full-spectrum video surveillance camera hooked
up to Serena’s computer while you’re at it?  What with Tabitha’s mouth, it was
probably the same thing.

            Ah darling
Tabitha... Markie knew he shouldn’t hate her too much because of the traitor
reporting …hell he’d probably do the same if the shoes were swapped. Still it
made the reality of this embarrassing insider situation no less hard to deal
with. Now Serena knew 100%, as opposed to merely suspecting it that he was not
a full-raging stud. Now she knew about how his days started, how his days ended
and all that happened in between. Tell me now… if a couple’s sole reason to
separate was to profit from the ensuing intrigue (and that was almost certainly
their reason), what was the point of the break when the intrigue and wonder was
taken away? He might as well just forfeit his life to The Truman Show.

            Or screw
it all, he decided…in the figurative sense. Seeing as Markie had lost all
longing to do it in the tangible way.

Tabitha was obviously
less than impressed to learn about the Harry Sangster offer from Serena. What
girl wouldn’t be? Surely if your boyfriend was potentially moving hundreds of
miles away you’d rather hear it straight from the horse’s mouth than via the
piddly local grapevine.         

            Yep that
Rick was definitely in the league of horses now - donkeys and asses
specifically. Tabitha was tempted like hell to call him up the moment she left
the studio, with view to laying on the abuse. But something stopped her from
doing so. It must have been the book she was reading, she thought to herself.
Her latest bag companion was “Smash a Pillow and Not Their Face: Anger
Management for Beginners and with advice like ‘stay calm, take deep breaths,
maybe the content was subliminally entering her unconscious.

            “Fine,
fine,” Tabitha huffed, stuffing her cell phone back into her cardigan pocket.
So
maybe you’ve won this time but don’t think you can get away with being obtuse
for much longer! Really man, Serena said its three weeks before Guerrilla shuts
shop. And I would love to know when exactly you’re expecting to drop this
bombshell… or if you’re planning to even tell me at all…

            In the
meantime Tabitha sought solace in the suspenseful waiting game. Each day she
walked straight from work to number 34 Lavender Street, and upon entering
Rick’s house, wondered whether that day would be the day that suck-up roses and
Ferrero Roche chocolates landed in her arms. She assumed that was the approach
Rick would take: softening bruises with love that money could buy. After all,
boys were all the same…why lay their balls on the line when they could
adequately protect them behind a perfectly good set of earrings, lingerie or
perfume, delicately wrapped in gold silk and pink ribbon?

            Except
after a week not one gift had been forthcoming.

            “That’s
strange,” Tabitha thought to herself, “Rick’s still acting like he’s on cloud
nine relationship wise. He speaks about what we’re going to be doing next weekend
and the weekend after.”  Nothing about moving had come up. Maybe he was having
second thoughts about it or something.

            There was
only one way to find out. Tabitha decided to bite the bullet and call Guerrilla
Zoo. First thing the next morning she put on her best international voice – a
cross between British, South American and Oztraliyan – and asked “Raspberry
speaking” the question on her mind.

            “Hello,
Raspberry. This is Karen calling from Ad Palace in LA. I’m just calling to make
sure that all is going well in the office and whether you guys require any
further assistance with the move.”

            “Oh wow,
oh hi, Karen!” Raspberry bumbled down the line. “How nice of you to call us
here! Yes, yes, the move is going great.” This was a receptionist who clearly
punctuated all sentences with an exclamation point.

            “So you
are all moving?” Tabitha asked, changing gears into investigative mode. “All of
you at Guerrilla Zoo?”

            “Oh no,
not all of us. Surely you got the figures I faxed through yesterday morning. Of
the seventeen staff, nine have agreed to go and eight have said nay.”

            “Does that
include both Markie and Rick?”

            “Of
course,” Raspberry answered efficiently. But the fact she didn’t say which
category they fell in left Tabitha stumped. She cleared for throat before going
in for more.

            “Meaning
we can expect Rick and Markie to arrive in LA when?”  A leading question would
surely work the best.

            “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!

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.”