The Numbers Game (40 page)

            “A man has
his right to his privacy you know.”

            Which was
true, Markie hardly disagreed with having a bit of privacy. But to act weird
and strange and extraterrestrial-like in this process, well that was screwed.
Totally screwed.

            On
Thursday Markie decided enough was enough. He already had a sufficient amount
of his own crap without having to deal with James Bond too.

            “Listen I
think we need to talk,” Markie asserted, waltzing into Rick’s office once the
coast looked clear. He noticed that Rick jumped up automatically, the remaining
hairs from his second haircut in a fortnight standing up on their ends. “It’s
important.”

            “Can’t it
wait till tonight?” Rick huffed, “I’m about to run out to a lunch meeting.”

            “No it
can’t,” Markie insisted, fed up with the entire BS.  “Can you not for one
second just pull that rod out of your ass and sit down?”

            Rick
glanced at his watch and back at Markie. He look worried, an expression which
never skirted on the old face Markie once knew and loved. That Rick didn’t know
worry any better than he knew calculus.

            “By the
way, where are you going anyway? We have a meeting with the magazine sales team
in twenty minutes.”

            “I thought
you could cover for both of us…” Rick’s face was now strained.

            “You
thought wrong; your presence is required. I’d love to know though who or what
you gave precedence to.” Markie put his hands on his hips.

            “Nothing
important.” Rick shrugged. “Just a friend.”

            “A
friend!” Markie’s eyes lit up. Now this was a clue. “Perhaps a male friend? It
would sure as hell explain why you’re acting like a closet case.”

            “Absolutely
not!” Rick fumed. One could tell Markie had hit that homophobic nerve. “As a
matter of fact, it’s a woman that I’m meeting, my new sort-of girlfriend
actually.”

            “You have
a girlfriend?” Markie asked, raising his eyebrows.

            As much as
it seemed like a perfectly good explanation, too many things did not fit into
place. For starters, if Rick really did have a girlfriend why would he be
hiding the fact? It was more his style to throw a show-off celebration party.
Look,
see how cool I am, I am capable of maintaining a reasonably committed
relationship.

            The only
reason Rick would keep a real live chick to himself was like Markie said
before: she was either dog ugly or dog ugly…but he was too superficial for
that. Rick wouldn’t go out with someone less than eight out of ten any more
than politicians could give a speech without a few white lies.

            “Who is
she then?”

            “Like I
said, it’s no-one important.”

            Rick went
to ignore Markie by walking to his cabinet and reaching for the Product X file.
Oh well it was nice to know he at least remembered which client they were to be
dealing with next. Just as he pulled the folder down and began flicking through
its pages, Rick’s cell phone went off. Markie glanced at the silver apparatus,
vibrating away on the table like a centipede on speed.

            “Here you
go,” Markie volunteered, picking up the phone to pass to Rick.

            “No!” Rick
squealed suddenly, dropping the folder so that important sheets went flying
everywhere. “Let me get it…” He reached to grab the phone, just as Markie spied
the name flashing away in blue.

            “No way…”
Markie muttered quietly, dropping the phone like a hot potato into the pile of
paper.

            But it was
too late, he’d seen the name and it burnt like on a hotplate in his mind.

            TABITHA,
Rick was going out with Tabitha!

The moment of truth
arrived later that day. It would’ve been nice if Markie and Rick could have
right then and there laid everything out on the table but they had a client to
attend to and in business, the client always came first. They would talk
Tabitha and business takeovers once their client’s needs and concerns were
fully satisfied.

            Rick,
realizing what a wanker he was, decided to spill the beans on Tabitha. Yes,
they were sort-of dating. Rick called it sort-of because they hadn’t as of yet
made it to the sack.

            “Maybe
there’s a chance tonight,” he explained, “Seeing as I asked her to pack her an
overnight bag. I was about to pop out and buy some nibblers and good champagne
for the occasion when you came into the office.”

            “So the
day time rendezvous was a lie then?”

            “Yes I
lied. We usually meet in the evenings.”

            “But why
didn’t you say anything?”   Markie tried to keep the bewilderment out of his
voice. So maybe a few times he said less than favorable things about Tabitha,
maybe a few times he questioned her sanity and intelligence. But that didn’t
mean Rick had to keep his love for her a secret. They were friends for God’s
sake and friends understood that sometimes you make bad choices.

            “You don’t
like Tabitha, man,” Rick confirmed, “so I thought why open my mouth if you’re
just going cut her down.”

            “But I
don’t hate her!” Markie bellowed, “She’s Serena’s best friend.”

            “Bull crap,”
Rick laughed, shaking his head. “You go on and on about how the sight of Tabitha
makes you want to gouge someone eye’s out. How a bull terrier would make a
better prom date. I thought if I saw her privately at first and she was as bad
as you said she was then I could keep the whole episode under wraps. But I
don’t know man…” He stopped and his eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Tabitha’s
something else but not in the way you think.”

            “I’m sure
she is,” Markie insisted, speaking through gritted teeth. “Maybe I’ve only ever
seen her on an off day. Look how about you invite you over one night for dinner
and that way I can fall in love with all her wonderful attributes as well.”

            Rick
lowered his head and frowned.

            “Are you
pulling my leg?”

            “Never, I
swear I’m serious,” Markie replied, swallowing hard. One dinner couldn’t
possibly kill him and it was the least he could do for a friend. “If the two
people closest to me are absolutely rapt by Tabitha, then I want to be in on it
too.”

            “Great…I’ll
plan it for sometime soon.”

            Ideally
Rick would’ve been just as enthusiastic about the Ad Palace takeover news. But
he wasn’t. In fact Rick was furious as hell.

            “You mean
to tell me you received an offer from Harry Sangster and never told me until
now?”

            “Hang on,”
Markie bellowed over him, “I told you already, the meeting only took place
three days ago and I tried to mention it but you were busy acting like an
Entourage star all over town.”

            “So?” Rick
exploded. “I sure as hell would’ve stopped what I was doing for a few million
dollars.”

            “If we
decide to accept it; I still haven’t made up my mind if I will.”

            “What?”
Rick spat out. “Are you crazy? There’s no ‘think’ or ‘I’ in this equation.
We’re going shopping for our new wetsuits this afternoon.”

            Markie
sighed. Try and explain the meaning of silent partner to Rick at a time like
this.

            “Let just
consider all the pros and cons before making a hasty decision. Moving to L.A. is a big step and it doesn’t involve just you Rick but everyone here in the company
and their families.”

            “Screw their
families,” Rick muttered, crossing his arms defensively. But at the same time
the dollar signs in his eyes dimmed out a bit. He was beginning to understand
that one doesn’t just click their fingers and get a million dollars. The move
would take lots and lots of hard work.

            “When do
we need to come up with a rejoinder by?” he asked, this time with a bit more
tact.

            “In three
weeks would be perfect, four weeks max. As soon as we know the answer, there's
no point keeping Sangster hanging on.”

            Rick
nodded.

            “I think
this calls for a drastic after-work meeting. No point in stalling.” He got up
to leave but then as if remembering something important, he stopped and changed
his mind. “Actually its better if we wait a few days before spilling the beans,
gives us a chance to get our bearings.”

            “Okay,”
Markie grinned, waving Rick goodbye.

            Of course
he’d be getting more than his bearings on his dinner date with Tabitha tonight.

Oh my God, oh my God,
oh my God.

            Tabitha
stood in the middle of her clothes-strewn, nerve-infested room and pulled
harder at her hair. How in the world did she decide what to wear tonight? Not
only did the outfit need to be sexy and stylish (to please Rick), it had to say
demure and serious as well - in order to pass the best friend test.

            Yes, she
was going to be getting a Markie sighting finally.

            Then if
all went well, she’d be paying Serena a visit tomorrow (completely bypassing the
futile telephone step). Even if the cow was still playing hard to get, she’d do
whatever she could - break into her house, beg, scream, cry, demand – to have
Serena make up with her. No doubt her acting capabilities wouldn't be tested
though because Serena was guaranteed to melt at the peace offering - the
handing over all of Markie's vulnerabilities on an open platter.

            Tabitha
reached down to her hip and adjusted the tiny Dictaphone attached to her briefs
so that it sat more comfortably. Then she flicked it back onto voice-activated record
and walked around picking up various items of clothing while saying:
"testing one, two, three. This won't do and neither will this." In
the end Tabitha settled on a jade green wraparound dress which showed a lot of
cleavage (a plus) but was made acceptable by being loose everywhere else. She
could have the atomic bomb strapped to her waist and the boys would have been
none the wiser.

            Twenty
more minutes and Rick will be here, Tabitha hummed to herself. It would be
another sleep over of course but this time she didn't need to carry a bag
because everything was there already. Her nightie, her toothbrush, her facial
wash and emergency makeup bag had all already found their special spots back at
Casa Rick. Somewhere near the condoms, Tabitha chuckled to herself.

            She and
Rick had first-time sex a week ago, following their tiff on the telephone. If
she had to rate it out of ten, Tabitha would've given it a three, because the
occasion itself was sabotaged by pressure, fear and high expectations. You see,
it was one thing to go somewhere and totally not expect to intertwine with a
strange body and another thing to see it coming. That was the minor difference
between mind-blowing events like winning the lottery or hitting the jackpot in
comparison to childbirth, blood tests, and colonic irrigation.

            The sex
was getting better though. Now that Tabitha had her temper under control by
keeping her teeth on her tongue, Rick's confidence as a partner was rapidly
escalating. For example, on the first night they had stuck to the fairly boring
missionary position, while now the pair - move over Hollywood porn stars- were
agglomerating new moves, some of which were even illegal. This gave them at
least an eight out of ten, with bonus points for kinkiness.

            But that’s
just between me and Rick, Tabitha smiled. It wasn’t like Markie, the boy whom
she wished to impress, knew about any of this. All he knew were the basics -
that Rick and she cared for each other, that they were a fresh couple and
maybe, just maybe from the way Rick scanned her body tonight and tried to
envisage it naked, he might guess they had been physical.

What a
slut, was the first thing that ran through Markie's mind as he offered his hand
and a kiss to Tabitha that night. After all it was one thing to sleep with a
man and another altogether to do things involving a few holes at the same time.

            On second
thought these skills would probably make Tabitha a very rich woman at a sex
club. She'd most likely pull in a couple of hundred grand a year for part-time
work, even more with video distribution, offering Rick exactly the comfortable
lifestyle he was after. Rick didn't need Harry D. Sangster, Markie realized,
but he was not about to mention this exciting information to his best friend.

            Because
all day Rick had been saying one thing - "be nice to Tabitha, be nice to
Tabitha" - and Markie couldn't risk offending him now. It was safest just
to lay low, answer questions when spoken to and smile at all appropriate
instances etcetera. Like now...Rick was pulling out a chair for Tabitha to sit
in and of all things it was opposite Markie. Markie was kind of hoping she
could sit at the head of the table; not only because she was the guest and
guests always scored the best spot...but because it would mean he didn't have
to stare straight at Tabitha's mug all night