The Numbers Game (33 page)

            Tabitha
went over and simply lowered the volume on dreadful Rick and didn’t come back
when Serena turned the knob this time all the way back. She must have pulled
out her ear plugs or something, just assuming that good ole Serena was
suffering from PMS or the after-effects of a bad lay; nothing serious. Well
Serena would show Tabitha serious. As the walls vibrated with pulsating sounds
of a man who should never have gotten a recording contract, Serena folded up
every item of clothing into the tiniest square until her bag was jam-packed and
her soon-to-be ex room was bare.

            People way
overemphasize the need for goodbyes. Why say goodbye to someone when leaving
them without a word so much better shows them how you feel? Serena didn’t plan
to speak to Tabitha ever again. Never ever in this lifetime at least; she’d
rather star in a porn film with lots of hairy men sporting moustaches.

            So that
was how Serena came to be standing outside her old place without the slightest
semblance of support. But what fat good are friends when they end up been worse
than your enemies? Slowly Serena walked to the front door and inserted the key
into lock. She was almost surprised when it not only fit but opened the door to
inside. To her house, her own very house which she hadn’t sighted in weeks!

            For many
moments Serena felt that strange disorientation one gets after returning home
from a long holiday. The furnishings, the walls, the paintings all took on a
surreal larger-than-life quality.

            “Oh my.”

            She
brought a hand to her mouth and walked about the house in daze. It looked…it
smelt…absolutely divine. It was absolutely clean as well. Serena never realized
how beautiful her surroundings were before; the perfect color coordination,
perfect balance between soft and sharp angles.  If she was a home decorator
critic (and by Lord she felt like one now) she would’ve given this house ten
out of ten for marks. Talk about taking things for granted. All one needed was
a bit of time away.

            Speaking
of smells, Serena’s nose picked up on the faint whiff of Gucci Envy, Markie’s
trademark fragrance. Had the image of him together with that long-legged girl
at The C-Lounge not flicked instantly in her mind, Serena might have felt
nostalgic. Oh shucks…she felt nostalgic anyway even with that awful picture
still imprinted on her brain.

            To think
that once upon a time she had thought she’d die without seeing Markie every
single day and now his absence was as familiar as changing her underwear. She’d
slept with two men since he last laid a finger on her Serena realized and the
notion was as horrifying as it sounded. It was horrifying mainly because that
was exactly what she’d set out to achieve – as part of this fantastic ‘game’.
But rather than feeling satisfaction and proud, Serena saw that her life – as
it stood right now, game over and all - was in bigger shambles than it had ever
been.

“Okay,” Markie said,
bringing his papers together and tapping them upright against the conference
table, “So I believe that brings us to a consensus. In the coming weeks,
Guerrilla Zoo will be executing its new meticulous marketing campaign for
Product X, encompassing all the best ideas brought up in today’s brainstorming
session.”

            The heads
around the table nodded, and rushed to pack away their Limited Edition Delta
Pens and bright every-shade-of-the-rainbow laminated folders into briefcases.
Markie sighed and assumed that this was how a schoolteacher must feel like when
the bell rang to signal home time.

            The past
two weeks had been the most horrible of Markie’s life. Not only on the work
front, but there it had been especially bad. Like an obese man who weighs four
hundred pounds and wants to be half that, it had taken much effort for Markie
to fight through his feelings of utter dismay. Back then his sole goal – that
of regaining the respect of his staff – had seemed as far away as the distant
stars.  But day in, day out he stuck to his daily diet of persistence and pride
and now almost, just almost he could see himself slipping back into his old
pants.

            Moving in
with Rick had definitely not helped; mainly because his partner had dealt with
the whole “accused poofter” issue by overcompensating with sad humor. Rick’s
idea of winning back the confidence of the staff involved sharing stupid jokes
about dumb Blondes and leaving Kit Kats on everyone’s desk. Markie called that
last action ‘buying people’s love’ and the scheduled darts competition, chair-racing
contest and Guerrilla Zoo Sunday Afternoon Picnic a big waste of time. But oh
no, Rick didn’t see it that way.

            “It gives
us a chance to really bond with our employees; find out more about the person
behind the work mask. I believe that’s what’s called staff team-building and
apparently it’s essential for any company’s success.”

            Right.
What Rick really wanted to do was show off to the crew how un-homosexual he
was. He thought that by hanging out with them and bringing nymphets to the
picnics, they would all crowd around and proclaim him Mister Cool, a straight
Mister Cool that is.

            At least
by Rick making a fool of himself Markie got to salvage some of his
credibility.  He thought they called it the polar effect. By one person saying
something dim-witted, you get to look smart. By one person acting like a child,
you get to look an adult. And so on.  Hopefully it didn’t apply to the
gay/straight flip of a coin though because that would make Rick’s work all
counterproductive.

            They had been
sharing the house together for only a fortnight and already Markie wanted to
kill Rick. Sure Rick had visited his place often in the first half of the
break, for a beer or to watch the footy so he had an idea what living with him
would be like. But that obviously wasn’t enough time to found out about the
‘person behind the work mask’. Markie certainly hadn’t seen any signs of
chronic flatulence then nor of that disease which inhibits people to wash the
dishes and flush the toilet after use.

            The only
possible benefit of living with Rick was on the girl front. Rick, in his
desperate crusade to prove himself sexually active with the female species, was
on the hunt for conquests twenty four seven, and none of that ‘if she likes me
she’ll come my way stuff anymore’; no way. As a man on a mission, Rick let
nothing get in his way. Over the past fortnight alone, he had picked up and
slept with (or so he said) five women, which Markie really had no reason to
doubt, seeing as Rick did bring them home and there was lots of noise coming
from the bedroom when they stayed the night. It was just that Markie couldn’t
get his head around Rick possibly having a stud chromosome floating somewhere
in his body. Rick’s taunts hadn’t made it any easier on Markie either.

            “You’ve
slept with only one girl in the same period! What does that take your total up
to? Five? Less than what I’ve had in a couple of days.” Rick laughed and looked
at Markie incredulously.

            Markie bit
his tongue and tried hard not to mention the fact that five girls in eight
weeks wasn’t a bad thing for some guys. But he didn’t say it because he knew
what Rick would say back.
You’re down to your last month, dude
(dude was
his new favorite word)
and only half-way there, shocking.

            The truth
was Markie was slightly panicking at the numbers. The last girl he had slept
with was a nameless beer-goggle find because he couldn’t stand the way Rick was
acting so smug and cocky and if it weren’t for his goggles, his score would
still be standing at pathetic four, those being: Biffy, Lola, Clarissa and the
Venom catch. Sometimes he wished that Serena’s numbers were never that high,
that she’d only slept with three or four more than Markie, so that he could
stop right here and call it quits.  He didn’t really see the point in having
any more meaningless interactions until he remembered that maybe they weren’t
that meaningless because otherwise Serena wouldn’t have had them too.

            Speaking
of Serena, Markie was feeling most panicky about her. Apart from their one
chance meeting at The Lounge he hadn’t seen or heard from her in two months. He
vaguely recalled that not seeing each other was one of the conditions of the
game but could no longer understand why or how that could’ve been thought to be
best. Surely meeting each other for weekly coffees and touching base would have
been a preferable option? That way if both of them, quite coincidentally,
decided the break was just a crock of crap they could jump into bed and forget anything
had ever happened.

            But the
dream of taking Serena to bed again seemed to be crumbling right in front of
Markie’s eyes. She didn’t want to meet for their halfway swap and that was
saying a lot. She must be angry or something on the account of that Clarissa
girl. If only Markie could speak to Serena he’d set things straight. Tell her
about how insignificant those liaisons were, how empty and hollow they left him
feeling. Over the past few months his heart had become so malnourished it had
shrunken to the size of a pea. The days, despite the looming coziness of deep
autumn, all seemed grey and miserable. Only the thought of seeing Serena again,
of holding her hot body close to his, spurred Markie to go on. And on he went,
erstwhile forcing himself to squash all the other niggling fears like:

           
What if
at the end of this break Serena didn’t love him anymore?  What if she didn’t
even want him near?

Serena sighed and
flopped down onto the lounge with a brandy in hand, deciding she had had better
days. 

            Looking at
the wall clock, she shuddered to see the big hand on the six and little on the
nine. To think she just got home from work now! To think that this was what was
in store for her for at least another four weeks. Or even more if “Never, Ever
Again” fell any more behind schedule and from the looks of it, it was highly
likely it would.

            Oh well.
What could one do? Serena really shouldn’t be complaining, given that her job
had of late become like a savior. While everyone else on the set grunted and
complained endlessly about their social and personal lives disappearing before
their eyes, Serena was secretly thankful. Whilst busy with the application of makeup,
it was hard to think about other things…things that might have otherwise set
off the tear works.

            One would
think that after crying bucket loads the well inside her might have dried up.
But no, the fountain was still full and waiting to activate at the slightest
reminder of… Serena couldn’t bring herself to even mention the person’s name.
That individual and the memories associated simply had to be filed away for
good; preferably with the key thrown away. Even if it killed Serena, even if
that very person refused to stop leaving a hundred messages a day.

            The
doorbell rang and Serena jumped, scrambling to her feet.

            “Christ!”
She wasn’t even ready yet. Her hair was a mess, her face void makeup and worse
still, she felt inundated by the stinky stench of actor Cherome who had
insisted on spraying his cologne on her bum as a ‘souvenir’. There was no way
Serena could get away with showering and making herself presentable before
answering the door, unless she had Harry Potter as a friend. Instead she
resigned herself to the horrendous fact and opened up, after checking in the
peephole.

            “Ah hi,”
she said, biting her lip with embarrassment.

            “Hi,” her
beaming visitor said back and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “These flowers
are for you. You like white orchids, don’t you?”

            “Love
them,” she replied, lifting the wide blooms to her nose and getting intoxicated
by the fragrance. It sure smelt better than the cologne on her bum. “I just got
home from work a minute ago so I’m not quite ready yet. Do you mind waiting ten
minutes?”

            “Serena,
take your time. There’s no rush for us to go anywhere; in fact,” he lifted his
head and gave a shy smile, “we don’t really have to go to the wrestling. You’ve
worked so hard and I know you didn’t really want to go…”

            Serena
started to interrupt but he pinched her on the nose to stop. “I’m happy if we
just stay home and watch this.”

            He pulled
out a DVD from behind his back and Serena could see it was
The Joy Luck Club
.
Over the past week it had become evident to Serena that she was the only women
aged between twenty-five and thirty in the USA who had never seen the film and
maybe she’d mentioned it out loud a few times during dinner or something.

            “But what
about the tickets? They’re ringside, you were dying to go,” Serena exclaimed.

            “I know
but in the end I decided your well-being is more important at the moment. So I
sold them on e-bay, got quite a good return on them too.”

            “Oh
pumpkin,” Serena squealed, throwing her tired arms around his neck. Inside her
a big ball of relief was inflating; it was like he could read her mind. All
that she wanted was a good night in at home.  “You definitely didn’t have to do
that but thank you, thank you anyway. Maybe we can watch the wrestling on
cable? It’s live isn’t it?”