Consumed: A MMA Sports Romance (18 page)

“All right,” she says.
“I’ll talk to you then.”

She hangs up.

Recently, I learned the
perils of pretending like nothing’s wrong when it clearly is. I don’t know
what’s been bothering Ash, but I know something is. There have been a few times
that I’ve almost gone as far as to ask her what’s going on, but the truth is
that I’m not really sure I could deal with anything else going wrong right now.

I change out of my normal
clothes and put on something a little bit nicer.

Today, we’re having a
picnic in Lake Park. I’ve never really gotten the big draw of picnics, myself,
but maybe this will be a good opportunity for us to clear the air.

I get my share of the
food in a cooler and watch a little television while I wait for Ash to get
here. When she arrives, we get in her car and go to the park.

She’s quiet, so I’m
quiet.

It’s not until we’ve got
a blanket down and all the food set out that we finally start talking.

“How’s your day going?” I
ask.

“It’s fine,” Ash says. “I’ve
been looking forward to this. I haven’t been on a picnic since I was a kid.”

“Me either,” I tell her.
“What made you think of it?”

“I don’t know,” she says.

Then comes the
all-too-familiar silence.

I want to say something,
but I’m honestly a little afraid at what she might tell me. Maybe it doesn’t
have anything to do with me, but whatever it is, it’s hijacked the last week of
our relationship.

The spread is mostly made
up of the standard picnic fare, or at least what the internet says is standard
picnic fare. There are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips, dip and soda.
The most interesting addition to the meal is the bar of raspberry German
chocolate Ash brought for dessert.

We sit and eat, hardly
talking more than to ask each other to pass something. Eventually, the
awkwardness gets to be too much and I put down my sandwich.

No, that’s it. I don’t
say anything or do anything else. I just put down my sandwich to indicate that
I’m done eating and I leave it at that.

It’s not clear whether
Ash knows what I’m doing and why or not, but she puts her sandwich down, too,
and we start clearing up the food. We’re hardly speaking to each other.

We get the food put away
and we start carrying everything toward the car, waiting a moment for a jogger
to pass before crossing the paved walkway. Only, the jogger doesn’t pass. She
stops about five feet away from Ash and I. She peers at us.

I squint through the
evening sun toward the woman walking toward us. She looks really familiar.

“I’m sorry, I know this
is going to sound weird, but do we know each other?” the woman asks.

“A friend of yours?” Ash
asks.

“I don’t know,” I answer
quietly, before looking back to the woman. “You do look really familiar.”

“What’s your name?” she
asks. “I’m Heather.”

“I’m Mason,” I answer,
looking to Ash for a moment for any kind of advice on what to do here.

“That name sounds really
familiar, too,” she says. “Do we know each other?”

“I honestly couldn’t tell
you,” I answer.

“I’m sorry,” Heather
says, extending a hand toward Ash. “I’m Heather. I would tell you how I know
your husband, but—”

“Oh, we’re not married,”
Ash interrupts.

“Oh, well, I’m really
sorry to bother both of you, but you just look so familiar,” Heather says.

This is more than a
little weird until it clicks and I remember who she is. Now it’s a lot weirder.
I’m just hoping she either really doesn’t remember me, or that she knows better
than to let it slip.

“
That’s
right,” she says, her voice sounding remarkably like the
mockery of the universe at my expense. “It was at the mall here in town.”

“Oh
yeah
,” I respond, hoping that’s as far as she goes. “I remember
you.”

She starts giggling.

Oh please, for the love
of god…

“Yeah,” she says. “I was
just hanging out in the food court, waiting for some friends to show up when
you came over and started talking to me.”

“Yeah, I remember that,”
I tell her. “Well, it’s been great to see you, but we should really—”

Heather giggles again.

Oh, just make this stop.

I glance back at Ash to
try to gauge her mood, but her expression is inscrutable.

“You were pretty
convincing,” she says. “Not that I didn’t flirt right back.”

“Oh, really?” Ash asks. I
cannot, for the life of me, tell whether hers is a teasing tone or an “I’m
about to gut you right here and now” tone.

“Yeah, well, it’s good to
catch up, but we’ve got to get this stuff in a refrigerator before it spoils,”
I tell Heather.

She just giggles at me
again.

This is exactly what I
don’t need right now.

“Was the office behind a
Sbarro or an Orange Julius?” she asks. “I don’t remember.”

“Pretzel Maker,” I
answer, hoping I’ve sated her curiosity.

“I thought you two said
you were
in
the food court,” Ash
says. “What were you doing in an office behind a Pretzel Maker?”

Someone kill me.

Heather giggles again,
and although I’m positive Ash pretty well has the basic idea down, she doesn’t
say anything. Apparently, Heather isn’t so shy.

“I had just gotten out of
a bad relationship,” Heather tells Ash. “The guy was a real jerk, but I could
just never quite seem to put an end to it. Then, of course, he slept with my
mom and my sister, and—”

“You slept with this
woman’s mom and sister?” Ash interrupts.

“No,” I answer quickly.
“No, absolutely not.”

“I’m talking about the
guy I was with before I met Mason,” Heather explains.

How can she not get that
she really needs to stop talking? She knows where this story goes and how she
thinks it’s an appropriate conversational topic is beyond me. Still, she
continues.

“Mason and I never really
got to know each other that well,” Heather says, staving off my nervous breakdown
for at least a few seconds. Of course, then she immediately undoes all the good
that statement could have done. “I really needed a good lay with a stranger,
and I don’t know how
he
knew, but he
knew.”

“We’re talking about
Mason now?” Ash says.

“Oh yeah,” Heather
responds. The way she says it would be very flattering if I wasn’t standing
right next to Ash. “He did things in that little room I can’t even begin to
describe. I’ve got to thank you for that,” she says. “Before then, I didn’t
know I was particularly flexible. Now, I do yoga.”

Seriously, take a knife
and stab me. Take a gun and shoot me. Take a rope and hang me. Hire a hitman.
I’ll pay for it.

Unfortunately, the only
two people here that might be able to help me with any of the above are the
person telling a story I really don’t want told and my girlfriend who seems
determined to hear all of it. I guess I’ll just have to deal with it.

“You two used to date?”
Ash asks.

“Briefly,” I answer.

“I don’t know if I’d call
it dating as much as I would a sweaty romp in an empty office,” Heather laughs.
I don’t laugh. Ash doesn’t laugh. Heather just keeps on going, “He was very
smooth,” Heather says. “I didn’t even realize you were flirting with me at
first, and by the time I did, I’d already started flirting back, myself. It was
inevitable, once he sat down and we started talking.”

“Well, I really think we
should get this food put away,” I say just a little bit too loudly, hoping to
communicate to Heather that she needs to put an end to this.

She doesn’t pick up the
cue.

“The way I was screaming
in there, I’m still surprised security didn’t come in and bust us,” she says.
“He’s really got a nice touch. You know,” she says, STILL TALKING, “up until
that day, I always thought I was going to have a quiet life and if I ever did
get married, it’d be to some jerk who never really fulfilled me, but after you
bent me over that desk—”

“Okay, seriously?” I ask.
“I’ve tried to keep quiet because I didn’t want to make this any worse than it
already is, but do you honestly think this is appropriate?”

Heather looks startled at
having come back into contact with reality, but she still finishes the thought.
“I just wanted to tell you that you convinced me not to settle for someone who
wasn’t going to make me feel the way you made me feel that day,” she says. “So,
thank you.”

She’s still talking.

“It was a long time ago,”
Heather says, turning to Ash. “I’m married now.”

“Well, it’s been great
catching up,” I tell Heather. “Good luck with the marriage.”

This time, I don’t wait
to see if Heather’s going to stop. I just start walking toward the car.

“Well, all right,”
Heather calls, now behind me. “It’s good to see you!”

Ash catches up to me a
couple seconds later. She looks over her shoulder and back.

I’m still not sure how
I’d managed to get this far with Ash. I mean, the first time we met, I was
half-naked with someone else’s blood on me. That’s not really the sort of thing
that makes for a great first impression. That’s usually the sort of thing
that’ll get people calling the cops.

Even with her nurse’s
stomach, I was pretty damn lucky to get even a second look from Ash. Tack onto
that my conman brother and the fact I used to pick up women in the food court
at the mall, and I think we’re about done here. All that’s left is the breakup
itself.

This is going to suck.

“You know,” Ash says as
we near the car, “I get that you’ve been with other people and everything, but
I swear that woman would just not stop talking.”

“It was a long time ago,”
I tell her. “Well, I guess it was only a couple of years ago, but I don’t do
that kind of thing anymore.”

“Oh, I don’t care about
that,” Ash says. “I would have caught you if you were stepping out on me.
You’re not a very subtle kind of guy, Mason.”

I don’t know how she’s so
okay with what just happened. I’m not sure that I would be. Knowing your
partner has been with other people isn’t a big deal, but having one of those
other people walk up and give a detailed-enough account of the dirty hour or so
we spent together back in the day is sort of a different thing.

I want to ask her why
she’s not more bothered, but I don’t want to press my luck, either. Ash
genuinely has nothing to worry about from Heather. Apart from spotting her in
and around the food court of the New Hills Mall, I haven’t seen her at all
since that day. We never had a repeat performance.

It would be great if I
knew Ash was just being cool about this, but I’m still getting that feeling
she’s only being cool because of whatever she’s hiding. Maybe her secret is so
bad that she’s trying to soften my reaction by letting me off the hook about
Heather and the wildly inappropriate conversation we just endured.

The question I’m really
asking myself right now is whether this is something that I really need to get
to the bottom of right now or not. I can press Ash, possibly even getting her
to spill whatever’s been so on her mind; or I can just let it drop and hope for
the best.

“We never got to the
chocolate, did we?” I ask in the most thinly-veiled attempt at changing the
conversation possible.

“It’ll keep,” Ash tells
me.

Chapter Sixteen

Crimes and Crimes

Ash

Mason and I are sitting
in the courtroom, waiting for Chris to be brought forward for his arraignment.
They just brought him in, shackled in his red-and-white striped jail garb.

He was supposed to be
arraigned half an hour ago, but it looks like the court is backed up with
people in for possession of cannabis and others who are there because of
identity theft.

“What do you think
they’re going to do?” I whisper to Mason as the judge rules that the defendant
must surrender his vehicle and he remands the teenaged pothead to state
custody, pending trial.

“I don’t know,” he says.
“Knowing Chris, though, I’m sure we don’t even know the half of it.”

“Did he ever tell you
exactly what he did?” I ask.

“No,” Mason says. “I
think—” he starts, but stops when the bailiff gives him a dirty look.

The judge calls the next
defendant, a man accused of embezzling over $500,000 dollars from a local
charity. The prosecutor explains that only about a third of the money has been
recovered. The judge sets bail at $20,000.

Nobody says anything.

Next, the bailiff calls
Chris and I give Mason’s hand a squeeze, whispering, “No matter what happens,
we’re going to get through it, all right?”

“Yeah,” Mason says, his
eyes set on his brother.

Chris shuffles down from
the jury box and stands next to a lawyer wearing an immaculately-fitted,
$60,000 Kiton suit. What can I say? My dad’s an enthusiast.

Right now, we’re about to
find out whether Chris took Mason’s advice to heart, or if he’s already worked
out some shady deal to avoid as much responsibility as possible. After sitting
through enough defendants to get an idea how this court is run, I’m just glad
Chris didn’t get caught with a joint or he might be in real trouble.

Then again, I still
haven’t heard exactly what they’re charging him with.

Before the judge starts,
the prosecutor speaks up, saying, “Your honor, before we continue with this
defendant, I would like to amend the indictment to include four additional counts
of fraud and twelve additional counts of theft by deception. More victims of
Mr. Ellis’s cons have come forward—”

“Your honor, I am unaware
of any such witnesses, and I move that the charges against my client, including
those Mr. Babish decided to wait until the last possible moment to try to get
filed, be dropped,” Chris’s attorney retorts.

“I do apologize for the
delay, but many of these witnesses have only just come forward, your honor,”
the prosecutor says, handing a file to the bailiff who takes it up to the judge.
“Given the serious nature of the crimes Mr. Ellis has committed over the span
of numerous years along with his natural ability to con and his apparent
predilection of committing such crimes, the people ask that Mr. Ellis be
remanded, pending trial.”

“Your honor, I understand
that Mr. Babish is trying to grandstand here, but he’s suggesting remand before
my client—who has
never
been
arrested—has even had a chance to indicate his innocence!” Chris’s lawyer says.

“What do you think?” I
whisper to Mason. “Do you think he’s going to plead guilty?”

“No,” Mason whispers
back. “Even if he decided to listen to me, he’d never give up a bargaining chip
like that. I think the best we can hope for is that he doesn’t take any illegal
shortcuts to get a better deal.”

The judge looks down at
his desk, assumedly at Chris’s file or the papers the bailiff just passed from
the prosecutor, and he looks back up, saying, “On the charge of fraud against
James Bodine…” the judge holds up the pages in front of him for a better look.
He sets it down and removes his glasses, asking, “Is this going to be a split
plea where I’m going to have to go through each of the…” he looks at the paper
again, “forty-some-odd charges against your client individually, or can we
cover this by type of charge, Mr. Silver? I recognize that this is unusual, but
this court does have a full schedule today, and I’m reasonably certain we’ll be
here ‘til lunch if we do it the other way.”

“Split plea?” I ask
Mason, but have to wait for the bailiff to turn away before I get a response.

“Guilty to some, not
guilty for others, I imagine,” Mason says quickly as Chris’s lawyer continues.

“We are not looking at a
split plea at this time, your honor,” Chris’s lawyer, Mr. Silver, replies.
“We’re fine with a comprehensive plea.”

“In that case, Mr. Ellis,
on the charges of fraud, how do you plead?” the judge asks.

“Not guilty,” Chris
answers.

“On the charges of theft
by deception, how do you plead?” the judge asks.

“Not guilty,” Chris
answers.

“On the…” the judge looks
down at the paper yet again. “On the surprisingly numerous charges of
impersonating a doctor, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty,” Chris
answers.

“A doctor?” I ask Mason.

He shrugs and the judge
continues.

 
“On the charge of impersonating an officer of
the law, how do you plead?” the judge asks.

“Not guilty,” Chris says.

The judge sighs and
double-checks his page to make sure he’s covered everything. He finds something
else.

“On the charge of
resisting arrest, how do you plead?” the judge asks.

“He didn’t look like he
was resisting,” I whisper to Mason.

“Yeah, but we didn’t get
there until after he was already in cuffs,” Mason whispers back.

“Not guilty,” Chris says.

“Finally, on the charge
of lewd conduct, how do you plead?” the judge asks.

“Not guilty,” Chris says.

I glance over to Mason to
see if he knows what that one’s about, but he just shrugs again.

“Do the people have
anything to add regarding their request for remand?” the judge asks.

“Your honor, we are
looking at a man who has spent the better part of his life trying to swindle
decent people out of their hard-earned savings,” the prosecutor starts. “I
think the court would be doing not only this city, but this state and possibly
others, a great injustice by not remanding—”

“Your honor, all of these
charges can be easily explained and we have nothing but the word of the people
Mr. Babish has cobbled together to form his prosecution,” Mr. Silver
interrupts. “We’ve had no time to look over these new charges, and honestly,
I’m appalled at the behavior of Mr. Babish, trying to publicly railroad an
innocent man just to get his name in the papers.”

Mr. Babish almost shouts,
“Your honor—” but the judge holds up his hand.

“Mr. Silver, this court
has seen a lot of things. As a judge for fourteen years, I’ve presided over
hundreds of cases. With that said, I haven’t seen a list of charges like this
in a long time,” the judge says. He leafs through his papers a moment and out
of nowhere, he starts chuckling.

“Your honor?” the
prosecutor, Mr. Babish, says.

“Could the two of you
approach the bench?” the judge says, trying to hide his smile.

The judge covers his
microphone as the prosecutor and Chris’s attorney make their way to the bench.
They’re talking quietly for a few seconds until the judge can’t hold it in any
longer and lets out a loud guffaw.

“What do you think that’s
about?” Mason asks.

“I was about to ask you
the same thing,” I tell him.

I have no idea whether
this is good for Chris, bad for Chris, or if there’s just an amusing misprint
on one of the pages in front of the judge and he just wanted to share. Finally,
the lawyers go back to their original positions and the judge uncovers the
microphone.

“Mr. Ellis,” the judge
starts, “while this court can find some sort of amusement in regard to the specifics
of some of these charges, the charges are no less serious. I am granting the
people’s request for remand until trial which will be on the…” the judge trails
off, looking to his clerk.

“We can do it on the
eighteenth at ten-thirty, or if you’d prefer, there’s some open space the
following Monday, that’s the twenty-first at noon,” the clerk, a smarmy-looking
man who’s sweated through his shirt so thoroughly at this point, it looks like
it’s made from a darker fabric.

“Given the sheer volume
of charges, I’m going to schedule trial for the twenty-first at noon,” the
judge says. “Mr. Silver, I trust that will be enough time to fold these new
charges into your defense?”

“No objection, your
honor,” Chris’s lawyer answers.

“So ordered,” the judge
says, tapping his gavel. “Mr. Ellis, you are hereby remanded to the custody of
the state until the completion of your trial. I encourage you to refrain from
attempting this kind of deception while in custody. Neither prisoners nor
guards are known for responding well to the efforts of confidence men.”

“Your honor,” Chris’s
lawyer says, “I move that the last portion of your remarks be removed from the
record as I believe it to be prejudicial against my client.”

“The guy’s got some balls
calling out a judge,” Mason whispers to me.

Even the judge looks
stunned for a moment, but after considering the request, he states, “So
ordered. My personal comments directed at Mr. Ellis are to be stricken from the
record.”

“Holy shit,” I mutter,
then cover my mouth.

I never swear, and I just
did it in a courtroom. Not only that, I must have said it pretty loudly,
because the people around Mason and I are stifling laughter and the judge is
now staring me down. I’m almost expecting to be arrested for contempt or
something.

Still, Chris’s lawyer
just got the judge presiding over his case to strike his own remarks to the
defendant. It’s entirely possible that Chris’s lawyer is, himself, a conman,
and I don’t just mean in the same way that every lawyer is skilled at parsing
the truth. The guy may very well be in the confidence game.

Chris doesn’t really
react as they take him away. He just goes as he’s guided with those shuffled
little steps.

With that, Mason and I get
up and leave the courtroom.

It’s not until we get out
of the courthouse that it feels okay to talk again.

“What do you think they
were laughing about?” I ask.

“I really don’t know,”
Mason says. “You’ve heard as much about what he’s actually being charged with
as I have. He never really goes into specifics with that kind of stuff because
he knows I’ll lecture him. It’s a strange world when I’m the responsible one in
the family.”

“Seriously,” I tease.

“Chris has actually
pulled some funny stuff over the years, if I’m honest,” Mason says, chuckling.
“Like, when I was just about to turn eighteen, he decided I needed something to
burn the day into my mind. So, he called up a local radio station and told them
I had this rare genetic disease that made everything taste like a roast beef
sandwich.”

“What?” I laugh.

“It was actually pretty
great there for a little bit,” Mason says. “The radio station said something
about it on the air, and before I knew it, people were sending me gift
certificates to restaurants and coupons for free sauce and that kind of thing.
I was a little pissed he’d given my address to the DJ, who apparently then
blabbed it on the air, but I ate really well for a couple of months. So yeah,
he made the call on my eighteenth birthday and just told me that my present was
in the mail. I guess people thought if I just had the right kind of food, I’d
be able to taste something else—I don’t know, it sounds pretty weird saying it
out loud, but he’s always loved making a con look like a stupid prank.”

I try to imagine the way
that conversation between Chris and the DJ must have gone down, but I can’t get
past how bizarre the story was to begin with. People do get what’s called
dysgeusia, which is where a person’s sense of taste is altered, but I’ve never
heard of anyone only ever tasting roast beef sandwiches.

Mason’s laughter, once
boisterous is now quiet, reserved. It’s possible I’m focusing on the wrong part
of the story.

“That’s funny,” I cover.
“Did you get any coupons for places that serve roast beef sandwiches?” I ask.

“Almost exclusively,”
Mason chuckles. “How did you know?”

“It seems like the only
kind of restaurant that wouldn’t be hurt by doing that sort of thing,” I
answer. “The worst thing you could say about a roast beef sandwich with such a
peculiar form of dysgeusia is that it tastes like a roast beef sandwich. But
say you got a coupon to an Italian restaurant and ordered cavatappi with
marinara sauce and a red wine reduction and you say
that
tastes like roast beef, people would probably stop eating
there.”

He’s laughing as we get
to the car. “You know,” he says, “sometimes I forget just how much smarter than
me you are.”