The Numbers Game (46 page)

            William
raised his eyebrows and without a word, walked over to the left hand wall where
a bunch of shiny A4 pamphlets sat upright in a wooden coffer. He lifted one out
and brought it back to Serena.

            “There you
go. I believe this will answer all your questions about the missing “Towards
the Sea” painting and the artist.”

            “Oh
thanks,” Serena replied, confused to see William scurrying away so soon.  So
much for asking her only hope a few investigative questions…

            Oh well…she
was sure she could track him down again if necessary. Serena looked down at the
brochure he’d handed her – some glitzy piece surely informing visitors how
vital the museum was to the community and desperately in need of funds too. Or
not...

            “What the
f…?”

            The
blown-up face, pasted on the front page, almost made her drop the brochure. It
was Jasper, smiling like a Cheshire cat with a foreboding grey-white castle in
the background. Scratch that, it was actually the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna Serena discovered by reading the byline to the photo.
Jasper Carrington
continues to ride his wave of success in Vienna.

            It was
enough to make her puke. At least that explained where the bastard was.
According to the article, Jasper had flown off to Austria ten days ago where he
was immediately pounced on by art royalty and mass media alike. They all wanted
a piece of him apparently, this young, on-the-verge-of-being-a-new-Picasso-or-De-Vinci-superstar,
seeing as he was rumored to pick up the big gong at the awards this coming
weekend. Talented and good-looking, what a combination, the article went on to
say– at which point Serena promptly crumpled up the page. Why bother to read on
when it was surely biased female journalist reporting.

            Ha! Just
when she thought she couldn’t be more depressed…

            On the way
home, Serena decided it was time to ask the dreaded question, the one she’d
been avoiding for quite some time. Let’s say that Jasper hadn’t heard that
phone call from Markie, let’s say there’d been no premature stupidity on her
part - would a break up have been inevitable in their future anyway?

            Of course
Serena liked to think the answer was a definite no. She liked to think they
would have continued happily ever after, with no interruptions, no problems, no
wrong. But really, what were the chances of that happening? Jasper had a
history of taking off without notice, what was to say he wouldn’t do it again?
(Oh shucks –he did do it again).

            Serena had
never addressed that issue of theirs. One of her pet hates was people who ran
away from their troubles. If one had a problem you dealt with it, you didn’t
sweep it under the mat. So why then did Jasper disappear all those years ago
without a trace? All she did was sleep with him once, it wasn’t as if she
robbed him dry or stalked him until he had no choice but to leave town.

            “I didn’t
ask him because I was scared of what he would say.”         

Serena muttered
those words aloud and realized how true they were. When Jasper came and said he
never ever wanted to let her go again, she was willing to let go of the past.
Forget about it; eradicate all her hurt and anger and frustration. And for
what? Despite what Jasper had said he just went and did it to her all over
again. He lied, broke her heart and left without a trace. So maybe she wasn’t
exactly in the right (having an ex-boyfriend call her) but maybe she was. Either
way Jasper should’ve given her the chance to explain.

            I don’t
know, Serena sighed. She loved Jasper but it wasn’t easy. Never was she
guessed: loving someone you found hard to trust.

It eventually came out
that Markie didn’t have a girl hidden away permanently in his bed.

            Rick, the
wise man that he was, must have figured this out after waiting futilely for the
mystery women to pop up from beneath her stone. Obviously she never came.

            “Damn it,
I really thought you were back on track,” Rick whined, shaking his head. “It’s
two weeks until Serena comes back and you still aren’t anywhere near achieving
the target numbers. What are you up to now; three, four?”

            “Five
actually,” Markie interrupted, all five images running through his head: Biffy,
Lola, Clarissa, Miss Venom and Beer Goggles. If he had to fail on his mission,
halfway wasn’t a bad spot to conk out.

            “Only
five; man, you are in deep crap! To get to ten, you have to average a girl
almost every second day now. And we both know what the chances are of that happening.”

            “Slim?”
Markie offered.

            “Hmpf, I
think impossible is a better word. Unless…” Rick put an index finger to his
chin. “Hang on, I have a fabulous idea. What are you doing tonight?”

            “I’m
busy,” Markie offered.

            “Busy
doing what? Washing your hair doesn’t count, mate. Whatever it is, cancel it.
Tonight you and I are going to celebrate the move to LA. If a million bucks
isn’t a good enough reason, I don’t know what is.”

            “Does this
celebration by some chance involve excess alcohol and vision impairment?”

            “Absolutely
not,” Rick blasted, looking offended. “It’s rather a chance for us to spend one
last night of bonded mateship in Frisco before you get swamped by Serena and
Tabitha sends me to the grave.”

            “Everything
all right with Tabitha?” Markie asked, sympathetically. After a full month of
overdosing on the clown, Rick was surely beginning to see the light.

            “Yeah,
peachy. Still haven’t told her about LA but not to worry. Tonight it’s just you
and me and an evening full of fun. Look,” Rick glanced at his watch, “I’ve
actually got a meeting with a client tonight at six, which should finish by
eight. How about you get yourself spruced up and I’ll come past and pick you up
eight fifteen sharp. From here, we can go straight to the surprise location.”

            “I guess I
wouldn’t mind a night out,” Markie admitted. A night out did mean no Tabitha
coming over and annoying the crap out of him.  “It’s been a while.”

            “Yeah it
has,” Rick nodded, smiling deviously, “indeed it has.”

            Once he
ignored the Joker laugh that followed, Markie found he was actually quite
looking forward to the night ahead. He could do with a bit of distraction, a
bit of casual chitchat over some beers. Maybe Rick’s plan was to take him to
see “Leaden Heart”, this up and coming Frisco rock band Markie had been keeping
his eye on. They were in town apparently, he read about it the last time he
picked up a freebie magazine at the music store.

            Come to
think of it, even if Rick wasn’t thinking of going to see Leaden Heart because
of his brain cells erosion, he could suggest it to him, casually, if he was
open to a change of location and why wouldn’t he be?

            This will
be great, Markie thought, as he rushed home to get ready. It wasn’t often that
he left the office before six, but tonight he made it a priority. That way he
could take in a decent extra-long hot shower, make something healthy to eat –
like maybe a lemon chicken and vegetable stir-fry, then settle down and watch
the late news…

            So Markie
did just that. He made sure to enjoy every single second of having the house to
himself and at seven-thirty he jumped into the shower to begin preparations for
the night. It didn’t take him long to get dressed – crisp white sweater, cream
chinos – and even less time to do his hair and slap on the aftershave. Gosh
that left him with - Markie took a quick look at the wall clock with a pair of
breasts in the background - twenty minutes to go. Perfect. Markie went back to
the living room, grabbed the remote and nestled back into the couch lengthwise
with his feet propped up on the armrest.

            He was
just catching the end of some insipid wrestling match when the doorbell went
off. That’s strange, Markie thought. He was sure Rick had said he was going to
simply toot the car horn so they could take off immediately.  Then again that
couldn’t possibly be Rick at the door, could it? The guy had his own key and
usually used it to get in.

            “Hello?”
Markie called out, before he’d even lifted his ass off the couch. When he got
to the door, he stuck his eye to the peep hole and discovered a hand was
obstructing it.

            “Who is
it?” He frowned. Whoever the mystery person was, they had to think he was
stupid if they thought he’d open the door simply out of curiosity. This was America after all, not a tiny Italian village for God’s sake.

            “It’s us,”
came the voices from the other side. Female voices, completely dainty and
unfamiliar.

            “Us who?”
Markie asked. This sure as hell sounded better than “Serena, is that you?”

            Next came
the giggling. “I’m afraid you’ll have to open up to find that out, Markie.”

            Markie, oh
feck, they knew his name, which meant they couldn’t be strangers or criminals
or murderers. Which meant it was probably okay to open up. How much harm could
a pair of high-pitched girls do to him anyway?

            “Yes?” he
said, once the door was open and he’d adequately taken in the sight before him.
And what a rare sight it was to see. Two young blonde girls, identical twins
obviously, with their slender arms linked together. But there was nothing
slender about the focal part of their body however. No way. These girls could
definitely give porno actresses a run for her money in the tit department and a
lesson or two on the meaning of au naturale.

            What they
were doing outside Rick’s house and how they knew Markie’s name was anyone’s
guess…

            “If you’re
looking for Rick, he should be home any moment. But not for long; he and I have
a meeting we need to rush to.” The words flew out of his mouth before Markie
could stop them but he couldn’t help it. After all, he was really looking
forward to tonight; a pair of like-life Barbie’s showing up on their doorstep
didn’t change a thing.

            “We don’t
think so,” the girls replied in unison, shaking their heads. At this point
Markie realized strangely enough that the twins had different eye colors. One
of them was blue-eyed, the other had green and he had no idea which of the two
was wearing the contacts.

            “Let us
introduce ourselves. I’m Sammy,” said the blue-eyed one, “and this is my sister
Sophie. We’re here to let you know Rick actually can’t make it tonight. He’s
been held up unfortunately so he sent us over to make sure you spend the next
few hours firstly not alone and secondly as pleasantly as possible.”

            “Has he
now?” Markie replied, everything dawning on him quite quickly. The band, the
beers, they were never going to eventuate tonight were they? Instead Rick sent
him over some friends of Biffy to loosen up his collar, so to speak. Truly, he
didn’t know whether he was up to it. Then again…

            Sammy and
Sophie didn’t give much thought to Markie’s less than impressed expression.
They pushed their way inside and removed their matching white woolly coats by
the cloak stand. Underneath they were wearing more white: white boots, white
knee-length skirts and tops that obviously didn’t require or allow for bras
underneath.

            On second
thoughts, maybe Markie shouldn’t be so quick to condemn Rick’s offer. Maybe
everyone, even hookers, required a second chance once in a while.

In lieu of the night
ahead, both Tabitha and Rick had prepared their own agenda and luckily it sort
of crossed over… if breaking bad news and unearthing it could be considered
such a thing.

            Tabitha
was determined not to go home from Rick’s without getting some sort of report
on the Sangster offer. If Serena knew about it and the whole office knew about
it, then it was fair to say Tabitha deserved an earful of it as well. After all
she and Rick were pretty much an item now, not that she had called him a
boyfriend to his face as yet. She guessed a time factor of three months was
required to pass before one did something as deadly as that.

            Rick on
the other hand was well aware of his predicament. Like it or not, he was going
to be leaving for Los Angeles in about fourteen days and he still hadn’t shared
it with all the other important people in his life. Mom, Dad, his brothers, for
Christ’s sake, he hadn’t even told the girl he was seeing. It was a simple case
of avoid and maybe the responsibility would go away. But last time he’d looked
it was still there. Damn.

            That’s why
he’d called Tabitha to take her out to dinner. Rick saw it as a test run on
breaking the news. He had no idea how she’d react – would she cry, be thrilled,
or keep a straight face while fuming inside? It didn’t matter either way. Sure,
he liked her plenty; Tabitha had grown on Rick like a parasite after spending
days by his side. But work was work and he’d decided it came first. He wasn’t
about to miss the opportunity of a lifetime for anyone and Tabitha shouldn’t want
to hold him back either. If he stayed, there’d be too much resentment, too much
regret buried under the false charade of happiness.