The Numbers Game (25 page)

            “Was that
someone you know?” Clarissa asked tentatively. Like all women, she had the
uncanny ability to decipher different types of heys, though as a lawyer she’d
probably have picked Serena as ex-girlfriend material even without it.  Why
else would Markie have been forced to crush her fingers in their grasp?

            “Sort of,”
Markie replied. Because that wasn’t a lie; he did sort of know Serena. She was
sort of the girl he was going to propose to once upon a time.

            “She seems
nice,” Clarissa smiled and Markie automatically froze inside.

            He hated
when girls did that! Seemed nice, how in the world did a person gather that
after a second’s viewing? Was Serena displaying some telltale signs that
indicated she paid her bills on time, went to church on Christmas and didn’t
take holy bread without confession? Hang on…on second thoughts maybe she did
display telltale signs, because those were the same thoughts that had run
through Markie’s mind upon first meeting. Maybe Clarissa also relied on her
intuition, and that’s what made her a success both in the courtroom and out.

            “Yeah I
guess,” Markie said, looking back over his shoulder wistfully. All he could see
was the back of a hundred heads.

            Clarissa
stopped, just as promised, at the hot-dog vendor parked beneath C-Lounge’s
entrance and ordered two extra-large, with everything servings.

            “Oh but
I’m not hungry,” Markie commented, rubbing his stomach to indicate it was full
of heartache and sorrow.

            “That’s
okay, I only ordered for myself,” Clarissa hummed, watching the pink flaccid
sausages and onions sizzle on the iron grid. “Did you want one too?” she asked,
in between salivating.

            “No, I’d
rather not,” Markie squirmed, feeling somewhat like he wanted to throw up. He
knew they said it was great when a girl has a big appetite but surely there
were some exceptions, like after a sighting of your girlfriend it should be
banned. 

            Once the
hotdogs were done and Clarissa had the little suckers sitting on a hundred
napkins, they took to the nearest bench and convened there until Clarissa
washed them down with Coke and sufficiently licked her fingers clean. Markie
didn’t mean to but he went dead quiet at this point, given the Serena
situation. Except this silence unfortunately excited Clarissa incredibly.
Oh
Lord what a find, call Cosmo immediately! Here’s a man who isn’t trying to jump
my guns, who isn’t trying to do anything...

            “Would you
like to escort me home?” she said shyly, after a little while of simply
eyeballing one other, “I live only around the corner but I don’t like to walk
home alone.”

            “Excuse
me?” Markie broke from his reverie to listen as Clarissa stated the same
proposition again.

            Would he
like to take her home? He didn’t hear her the first time because all that
eyeballing gave him time to think more about Serena. What was she doing going
to C-Lounge, especially on her own? Was she meeting someone? She had to be.
Serena looked too beautiful, wearing a tight new dress and some snazzy silver
earrings. Everything about her was new looking and this freaked Markie out
cause there was nothing which he could grasp and say:
I know that, I was
there, that was once a part of me and you
. 

            “So?”
Clarissa asked for the third time, this time a bit more impatiently.

            “I don’t
know; is it far?” he mumbled, wondering erstwhile whether it was too late to go
back and pick up the pieces of his broken heart.

            “No, it
isn’t,” the lawyer sighed.

            She was
borderline ready to give up. “But even if it was, I would insist you join me.
There’s nothing to fear, you know, I don’t bite.”

            Markie
paused and debated the issue of ‘to reject’ or ‘not reject’ the offer. The last
thing he wanted to do right now was get seduced by yet another woman. Women as
far as he could tell only contributed to greater and more complex problems. He
loved Serena, and thus Serena it had to be and no one else.

            Then again
Serena hadn’t stopped to say hello and maybe, just maybe, it was because she
was carrying out her end of the game. Possibly right now she was kissing some
nameless ex-lover on top of a podium in the C-Lounge, grinding crotch to groin,
eager to get into his pants.  If so, Markie didn’t have any choice. He would
have to sleep with Clarissa.

            “Fine,” he
said, slapping his knees with new resolve, “it would be my pleasure to walk you
home.”

            As long as
on the way they could stop and purchase a pack of chewing gum for his date.
Once the onion smell eroded he would put aside all idealistic thoughts about
Serena and get back to work drilling more notches into his bedpost. Clarissa
here would be number four and given that it was almost week five, Markie was
way behind on schedule.

            Though
really when did anything go according to schedule? Life wasn’t like it and luckily
in this department Markie knew he had nothing to fear. For him - in both love
and sex- nothing ever, ever went according to plan.

When it came to
careers in a previous lifetime, Tabitha decided she must have been a party
planner.  

            Yep she
could see it now, being best buds with Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and
intoxication planning the March two day festival Bacchanalia in Rome. Nowadays
there were no good orgies held anywhere but back then… now they knew how to
honor Dionysus: the infamous celebrations were so notorious for their sexual
and criminal character that in 186 BC the Roman Senate was forced to forbid
them.

            Luckily, her
years had taught Tabitha a bit of astute restraint.  

            “To the
best of my ability, I promise not to do anything which will get me banned from
The Land of Serena,” she said, while scouring the liquor store to find bottles
with the highest alcohol content.

            Earlier
Tabitha decided that anything with less than 20% was a complete waste of money,
thus the reason for lack of beer (which topped at 4.5%) and wine (it was hard
to find one at twenty per cent). Instead there were about five groceries bags
sitting in her trolley of pre-purchased Coke and Sprite with an interesting
array of liquor.

            Vodka of
course appeared as a feature act, given its dependable 40%+ content, but also
making an appearance was whiskey at 43%, Tequila at 40%, and the rare-to-find
but delicious Veccia (another 40%). Hidden in the corner of the trolley (under
the balloons and streamers) was also her one secret treasure Tia Maria but it
was best not to mention it as it had a less than impressive alcohol content.

            “Whoa,
that quite a truckload,” Martin said when Tabitha started plopping the stuff
near the register. She and Martin were on a first name basis, and had been ever
since Tabitha discovered the beauty in having a friend with access to unlimited
booze at three o’clock in the morning.

            “Party?”

            “Um…sort
of.” Tabitha hated to commit to a yes or no lest her ‘friend’ request an
invite. “It’s a girl thing actually,” she added quickly ingeniously.

            “Ooooh!”
His eyes lit up like Christmas sparkles and Tabitha knew what he was thinking.
How even if there were a hundred girls invited, all would be rolling about
naked by midnight if they consumed that lot.  But that wasn’t part of Tabitha’s
plan. Tab just needed one girl to lose full use of her cerebral faculty:
Serena.

            Speaking
of Serena, Tabitha hadn’t seen the girl for at least three days. This avoidance
was intentional, probably on both parts: Serena’s because she was too
embarrassed to show signs of being a love struck fool and Tabitha’s as she
feared Serena would ditch attending the party on the first opportunity. But if
she didn’t see her, then she couldn’t do that, Tabitha smiled to herself.
Besides the party was on Sunday night…it was not like Serena had anything
better to do than reminisce and recover from her Yosemite trip. 

            The South
American quartet – Dominique, Enrique, Fernando and Ramiro had thankfully all
been up for the challenge, but then what guy wouldn’t be? Two hundred and fifty
bucks for the first guy who gets Serena into the sack; with only one condition
and that was the others keep their hands away after the deed was done. The boys
had naturally looked at Tabitha as if she was a fruitcake: not only do you want
one of us to screw your best friend; you plan to make it easy-peasy for us? 
That and the guarantee of unlimited alcohol (this was where Martin might come
in handy) had secured their spot on top of the guest list.

            All Tabitha
had to worry about now was decorating her terrace. The theme -and she was not
joking when she said it the first time- was Sexual Predators. She thought this
was a good change from all the Abba and Madonna tributes. The by-line on the
invite, which was a cost-effective condom packet with a two-by-two inch card attached
to the back, had stated furthermore:

Come Dressed as Your
Biggest Fantasy.

            In order
to avoid any boring people ruining the party by coming in normal clothes
Tabitha was prepared to stand by her front door, dressed in her leather bunny
suit with matching whip all night if required, with a supply of backup costumes
in tow. Because there would be no normal clothes floating about in her party,
Tabitha would see to that. Anyone who hadn’t wisely dressed appropriately right
from the start would be very sorry they hadn’t because they didn’t know what
scary crap Tabitha had locked up in her closet!

            Tabitha
had chosen to forego the usual balloon ornaments for blown-up glow-in-the-dark
condoms. On the walls she had already adorned a stack of the Playboy Playmate
posters her dad kept hidden in the garage (surely a man didn’t need THAT many).
That along with a few good soft porn videos (which she planned to have
flickering against the wall using an overhead projector) and the ambience of a
brothel would be complete.

            As for
food, all the hor’dourves were quite cleverly cut into mini-penis, breast and
fanny shaped pieces (the ricotta-filled pastizzi needed no alteration whatsoever).
Hopefully her guests wouldn’t feel as though they were being subliminally
sexually assaulted so just in case Tabitha tackled this potential problem by
rapidly increasing the guest list every day. That way if some of her guests
drew back and ran away in horror, she’d still have enough around to make Serena
feel okay about going to bed with one of the Brazilian Force. All the girls:
Champagne, Violet, Becca, Norma-Jean, and Ainslie were already in on the trick.

            “We want
Serena to feel comfortable on the night,” Tabitha had  briefed them, “It’s not
fair that Markie is out there screwing other chicks while she lays in bed and
cries herself to sleep every night. We want Serena to have fun, girls, do you
know what fun is?”

            “Yes,”
they had all nodded knowingly. Fun = excess alcohol = sex with good-looking
stranger.

            “Good
then,” Tabitha sighed, “then I don’t want to see her ever with an empty glass
or empty gaze.”

            Not even
for a second.  The girls nodded, no further explanation was required.

Chapter
17

Erstwhile on the other
side of San Francisco, Yosemite was a picture perfect postcard of a fading
winter and season of solitude.

            Serena
looked at the brochure again and frowned at the devilish word: Snow. Something
definitely did not sit right there. As far as she was concerned late February
did not constitute true winter nor did it constitute white puffs of nebular.
Mmm… maybe the one woolly jumper she had the insight to pack could double as
pajamas, evening wear and an interesting pair of leg-warmers.

            “It’s not
really going to snow, is it?” Serena asked, tilting the glorious ashen-tipped
mountain photo on the cover Jasper’s way.   “Is it?” she repeated when no
response was forthcoming.

            “Huh?”
Jasper jerked his head her way.

            He was
obviously preoccupied with driving down the busy freeway (giving more evidence
to the theory men couldn’t multitask at all.) For a moment he almost defied
belief by reaching over to squeeze her hand but then he pulled it back just as
quickly to the steering wheel when a zooming yellow convertible zipped in front
of them. 

            “Oh snow,”
he said, acknowledging the magazine. “Yeah it might do, I thought the
compulsory snow chains would have given that away.”

            “No. I
thought they were just for show.”

            Serena had
read the Yosemite Rules and presumed the first one in CAPITALS and bold print
was clearly a bit pretentious.

            Between
November 1st and March 31st, you are REQUIRED to carry tire chains even if you
are driving a four-wheel drive vehicle and all roads are open with no
restrictions. If you do not have chains you may be cited.