Douse (Book One: At the Edge of a Hurricane) (7 page)

CHAPTER 8

“Now
remember, in China, they have a different culture. You knew that though? You
have had to. The Chinese are everywhere and very distinct people. Hey, Violet?
Wake up. You’re speaking with cli-ents, you have to be awake,
girl.”

Caddy
snaps his fingers. I swat them away and keep my dull head firmly pinned to the
headrest.

“What
time did you sleep at?”

“Two,”
I say. “Or one. Somewhere around the morning.”

“Oo-oh.
He must’ve been good in bed then.”

“Shut
up.”

Caddy’s
briefcase sits on his lap, and he peruses for today’s dossier. Chinese
kids, three of them, from the mainland, not Hong Kong. Those are the details
swimming in my head right now.

“Here
we are,” Caddy says. Papers fill drift onto my lap and I straighten them
out, filing them between my legs. Caddy snaps his fingers again. “Hello.
Business girl, we have people waiting outside with their money.”

I
didn’t even notice the passenger door opening. Caddy’s standing
outside on the asphalt, wringing his hands, whining like a mosquito.

“They
don’t take many breaks in China you know.”

“Whatever,”
I say. “It’s not like we’ve ever botched a job with
internationals.”

International
jobs are practically botch-proof on account of the murkiness arising in deals.
Transparency isn’t valued when you could be decapitated for academic
dishonesty. You can butter up the students but never cross the boundary into
the Land of Friendship.

“You
see where they are,” Caddy says as I stand. “Now these are special
Chinese kids. Afro-Chinese.”

“You
find the most exotic people, I swear.”

“China’s huge. They have black people there now too and everything.”

We
walk over, all the while my legs drag, bending farther away from Bishop. Caddy
glances at me, throwing disapproving looks at my sluggish behavior.

“You’re
in love and it’s not even month three.”

“I’m
not in love.”

“You
couldn’t be a worse liar. You’re in love, girl.”

“I
just like him very strongly.”

“Meaning
you love him.”

I
open my mouth to respond but the Chinese kids stand before us. Two boys, one
girl. The girl speaks.

“Hello,”
she says. “My name is Wanda.” Her voice sounds as if it’s
being processed through a strainer.

Caddy
shakes her hand, and then I fall in line, shaking her hand too, though limply.

“Treat
them well,” Caddy says, leaving us. I turn to the students and usher them
to a safe sitting place, on a couple of benches eastward of the parking lot.

Same
routine. Lie the papers out. Riffle through sheets. Check who they are. Chat.

“Why
leave China?” I say.

“Better
opportunity.” I notice that Wanda does all the talking. Her two
compatriots sit and keep their heads straight, occasionally turning their
attention to the table.

“You
like it here?”

Wanda
reels backwards for a moment, then relaxes her hands against the table’s
edge. She grips furiously and speaks fast. “Of course!” she says.
“Much cleaner here. People are interesting to study. Air quality here is
much better. Honest government. Or, I should correct myself, more honest than
back home. Americans value the honesty more, it seems.”

She
glances at her compatriots. She nods; they nod.

“They
don’t speak English well, do they?”

“No,”
Wanda says. “They’re not very well spoken in English. They’re
still learning mechanics and issues of grammar.” She blushes. “So
am I. Honest, in China, in my circle of friends, most of us don’t even
bother that much with the studying. If you’re international, you have
money, you know people high up, then things are good for you, no lie.”
She relaxes her grip on the table and tilts her head. “That’s why
we come to you. You guys have good reviews online too.”

I
have to laugh. Caddy used to make decoy accounts when he still worked a
“regular” job. He would make decoys during lunch hours and in the
morning while eating breakfast, boosting our ratings on various sites.

It
did work. It got us clients like Wanda.

She
fishes her purse with her slender hand, then hands over fifty bucks.
“You’re pretty cheap compared to other sites, I have to say.
Why’re you so low?”

“It’s
to gain a bigger market share. Undercut the rest. We don’t play big boy
games though. We’re a small operation only, though that’s relative.”

Wanda
nods, though I’m not sure how much she truly comprehends. I plow on.

“One
week tops,” I say, “and you’ll have your papers ready.”

“Good.
You’re quick then, as it is online. One thing though. I must say this
because you’re more in tune with this country than me.” And Wanda
nods, almost bows her head. “Where are all the good men at?”

We
burst into laughter. It’s a magical, simultaneously shared moment between
us. Wanda jabs at her compatriots’ shoulders, as if they could
understand. She jabbers to them in Chinese. Neither of them share our humor.
They frown instead.

“Thank
you,” Wanda says. “You make me laugh good.”

And
so concludes our business. I sealed another deal. I enabled another cheater to
get away with their bad habits.

I
go to wait outside Caddy’s class. When he comes out, I say to him,
“I’m getting a part-time job.”

“What?
You’re going to actually start working now?”

I
slap his shoulder. “No. I mean I want to get a real job again.”

To
avoid my parents, I used to work at a grocery store. I’d work all sorts
of crazy hours to get away from them—I’d request
night shifts
even if my employers couldn’t or didn’t want to.

Thirteen
was when I’d started my first business. I would help pluck weeds or mow
lawns. “Guy” stuff.

“Where
would you even work?” Caddy’s asking. “I don’t get it.
Where would you work with your Bachelor’s in Business? You need to
specialize if you want to get a decently paying job.”

“I
just want some normality in our life. I mean, don’t you feel weird
hanging around college campuses when, well, I’m out, and you’re
almost out. It’s like we should be moving on. Doing other stuff. Bigger
more important stuff with our lives. Travelling or something. Helping
people.”

“So
idealistic.”

“Don’t
you feel that way at all?”

“I
do. But at the this moment in time, with the money we’re pulling
in…”

“It’s
good but—”

“Patience,”
Caddy says at the car. “It’s not realistic. Yet. You just need a
bit of patience.”

So
we hop into the car, blasting the stupid dad rock tunes again. I put my hand
against the passenger door glass.

Making
life choices is kind of like touching the glass. You can see the outside. You
can even roll down the windows. But when the car’s got momentum, there
isn’t really anything you can do besides ride along, and wait for a
stopping point.

Patience,
I guess, is Caddy’s virtue, his blessing to me.

CHAPTER 9

Besides
cooking, there is one grand skill Piranha possesses.

She
is absolutely neurotic about the English language—what’s more
American than English?

Caddy
and I watch her bang out the first paper in two hours flat. It’s a rough
copy, but good enough to sail to the kingdom of B’s. We proofread her
work, and where needed, add in our own flairs. Swap word choices out, delete
adverbs, add adverbs, change adjectives, gussy up the styling, strip the
styling down. She couldn’t give a speech to save her life, no sir, but on
paper she’s gold.

Her
favorite topics are the ones related to Civil Right’s in the United States. If she can even tangentially relate the given topics back to the Civil
Right’s, she will, she will. Lo and behold, Video Games and Today’s
Current Youth becomes Video Games and Today’s Current Youth with a Tie-in
to Rosa Parks.

Caddy
brews coffee in the kitchen. I sit myself atop the countertops, browsing my
text messages. Bishop hasn’t sent any today, and I don’t want to be
the first to contact.

“It’s
the cheating,” I say. “It’s eating at me.”

“Then
tell him if you want. You’re at date three and beyond now. Go tell him,
girl.”

“Like
that’s so easy.”

“It
is. You take your mouth, open it. Then use these magical things call vocal
chords.”

“You’re
not in my position. He’s a good guy. Good boy from the country. Then
you’re telling me to just blurt out that, wow, I’m a bad girl. Look
at me, I help people cheat in school.”

“You’re
being so melodramatic,” Caddy says, pouring coffee into three separate
mugs. He drops several sugar cubes in the one for Piranha. She’ll need it
with the backlog of work we have. “What kind of relationships do you want
in your life? One’s built on honesty or lies?”

“I
don’t exactly have the best track record for honesty.”

Even
working those part-time jobs meant I had to lie. I was at friends’ houses
or at an after-school club, cheerleading, debate, but not at Mom and
Dad’s.

“I’m
a liar.”

“No,
you’re a good girl who’s just trapped in bad circumstances. Anybody
would do what you do. But we can change. Patience, remember?”

With
the coffees done, we return back to Piranha’s room. Her fingers rap the
keyboard in loud strokes.

“I’m
almost done with the Russian boy,” she says. “Coffee? Why thank
you.”

“I
made it extra strong.”

“Even
better.”

As
I watch Piranha type, I wonder if Caddy’s right. Melodramatics aside,
would other people really do what I do or have done?

The
worst thing for me is to be considered a bad person. I’ve always thought
my parents to be wretched human beings. Striving to be better than them away
from them, figuratively, literally, was always the goal. To be better than
them. Have a moral compass they could never posses or comprehend.

I
will be better than them.

“I’m
getting a part-time job,” I whisper to Caddy. “Tomorrow I’ll
start applying.”

“What
happened to patience?”

“I
can’t wait anymore. I’ll work two jobs. This one and the one
I’ll be working at soon.”

“Where
will you even work?”

Piranha’s
typing grows incessant and louder. She cranks her head to the side every once
in a while to offer a big fat “Shush!”

We
leave the room again.

“You
won’t bail on us?”

“No,”
I say. “I’ll stay with you. It’s just I need to do this for
myself and all. See how things can work. See if I can be the first.”
Caddy raises an eyebrow. “You will have to get ‘real’ jobs
eventually, too. Piranha already has one, sort of.”

“Maybe.
She works like ten hours a week max there.”

“Shush!
Stop arguing, please.”

“Yeah,
Violet.” Caddy drags me back in. I keep my mouth shut for the duration of
Piranha’s work schedule.

At
approximately eleven o’ clock she finishes all her tasks. We compensate
her sixty percent. Normally she chastises us about Educate, but she has
expensive taste in Americana she needs to support. Morals die in the face of
Piranha The Consumerist. More perplexing is her ability to mentally extricate herself
from the business, as if she’s had absolutely no part in it, before
bidding us goodnight with a “You’re going to get caught.”

 “It’s
funny, the essay they wanted,” Piranha says before I shut my door.
“It was an essay about cheating in American universities and how to stop
it...”

CHAPTER 10

My
first round of job applications involves trolling the Internet for available
openings. There’s waitressing, hostessing, being a receptionist.
Low-paying grunt work. Thankless work where you’re ordered around like a
mule.

I
fire off the last of my applications. At around three o’ clock P.M.,
after much puttering around the apartment, I decide to call Bishop.

“Haven’t
heard from you in a while,” he says.

“I
was sort of…been thinking of you is all.”

“Really?”
He breathes close into the phone. I can hear the sound of tires against
concrete. “I’m out and about. I actually have freetime soon, if you
wanted to get together.”

We
pick this French sandwich place. Lez Magaritez or something—Caddy would
crucify my pronunciation and unearthly lack of global savvy. The walls of the
place are covered in posters displaying what appear to be French singers in
dramatic poses done in black and white. The music played is along the lines of
Edith Piaf, old and rustic, rugged and plentiful whiny. Caddy would call her
“mournful” but he’s more sophisticated about these things
than me.

“You’re
beautiful,” Bishop says over his soup. “You’re stunning
today.”  

“You’re
stunning yourself.” I stir my own soup. The heat emanating from it warms
my fingers. I stir and focus on the ripples.

“How’s
life?”

“Decent.
I’m getting another job,” I say. “Applying to a lot of
places.”

“Where
at?”

And
then it strikes me how silly I would sound listing off high-school level jobs.
Bishop’s a working professional. Today he’s dressed in khaki slacks
and an oxford shirt. He wears a
tie
while I wear barely fitting cotton
trousers, five bucks at the local Goodwill.

“One
job is more analytical,” I say, “like the kind of job you would get
for data entry, except more hands on.”

“Getting
to call more shots?” he says, smiling.

“Kind
of. It’s exciting, I think. A chance to move up.”

How
ridiculous. It’s not a chance to move up at all. What happened to
honesty?

“What
about you?” I say, trying to erase my bad feelings. “How’s
life for you?”

“Same
old same old. I’d like—promotion. I’d like a promotion at my
job. It’s just hard. You get so comfortable working the job you have. Is
the promotion worth it? Eh. Old habits are hard to break.”

I
sink in my chair. It’s like he can read me.

“They
are,” I say. “They are.”

We
chat about random, ordinary things, despite the extraordinary looming in my
background. So self-centered of me. I can’t seem to shift the focus away
from myself. When Bishop opens his mouth I think only about how he might
perceive my living situation at home, my “job”.

“Something
on your mind? You look a little distressed.”

“No,”
I say quickly. “No, no. I’m fine. Yes, just thought it would be
nice if maybe we could get some air.”

Bishop
gathers up the leftovers to doggy bag. He stretches his arms out and bends to
the side for a moment. “Good,” he says. “I wanted to take a
nice drive around. Walk, perhaps?”

“Do
you have another date area in mind?”

“We
could go to the movies if you’re free. Any suggestions?”

“I
only want to be with you,” I say.

“Do
you want to come home again?”

I
swallow the lump in my throat. “You want it again?”

“Not
to offend you. I was just wondering, since we’ve already done the deed
once, I figure, well—”

“We
can cuddle. And talk?”

“That’s
good too,” Bishop says, offering a grin.

He
turns on the ceiling fan. Slow rotation, nothing fast. He swathes both of us in
blankets together, and we just chill out, with him running his fingers
throughout my hair. On his phone he sets up a digital radio station, running
through some country-Christian singles.

“Even
though I don’t really believe in it,” Bishop says, “I like to
play the music my parents raised me with. It’s nostalgic.”

“I
can understand nostalgia.”

“Yeah,
honestly, it makes me feel like my parents and I still talk. You know? We used
to talk all the time and were really connected. Then, I told you, they become
uber weird.”

“What
did they do?”

Bishop
cocks his head to me. “Hmm,” he says, “they would say things
like gay people were disgusting. They used the other word, of course. They were
pretty brutal on poor people, saying that they all brought it upon themselves,
that they weren’t in good graces with God and that’s why they were
they way they were. Damned, I guess.”

“Wow.”

“They
were strict about other things too. Curfews were the worst. Always had to be
back home at seven sharp for more studies. I actually went to college for
religious studies because of their influence. They really wanted me to learn
and be devout like them but that just never happened.”

 “You
and I share interesting parents,” I say. “Mine were no
better.” I touch my scar.

“You’re
beautiful though. I can’t say the word beautiful enough.”

I
shrug. “I know, I’m beautiful. Don’t worry, my self-esteem in
that department is fine.”

Bishop
wraps his leg around mine. The warmth of his leg heats my inner thighs, and I
flush red, both with embarrassment and guilt.

“I
just want to cuddle,” I say.

“I
know. I respect that. I’ve had to respect that a
lot
actually.”

I
laugh into his armpit. The smell of his sweat is sweet and aromatic and
dizzying.

We
fall asleep, arm in arm, leg in leg.

But
my heart thumps. Not with lust but out of fear.

Of
being caught.