Fool's Gold (Contemporary Romance) (9 page)

Victoria dressed herself slowly. She went to the kitchen and checked the fridge for something non-alcoholic to drink. The buzz from the wine was gone, and she needed something else to wet her throat. The fridge was practically empty. A carton of orange juice and a box of Chinese take-out were all that was in it. The orange juice was expired.

She settled for a glass of water, then went back to Trent’s room to wait. The fire between her legs had ebbed, but she was still ready for a second round. When he finally got out of the shower, she hoped that he’d want to finish what he started, but when he came to bed and turned his back to her, she knew he was done for the night.

She rose and went to the bathroom. It was slate and chrome and gleaming glass. She turned on the shower and stepped inside. If he wouldn’t finish the job, she could do it herself.

C
HUCKLES 
lay stretched out on Beta’s desk, his gray head tucked against his paws. He watched the screen with rapt attention as the corp’s lasers danced over the hull of some poor shmuck’s jump freighter. Noobs ought to know better than to light a jump beacon in a system with someone else in it.

Bloodboat’s voice came through the speakers, deep and gravelly, “Nice catch, Beta. How’d you get him?”

Beta grinned. ‘Boat was always interested in learning a new trick. “Just the usual. I’ve had an Orca in here mining for a while, so he got used to seeing it. As soon as he lit the beacon, I switched ships on him.”

The last bit of the jump freighter’s hull ticked away, and it exploded into a shower of white and orange. The other half dozen guys on the op moved in and started collecting the loot it left behind. It didn’t take long to gather it up and dump it into the storage containers Beta had brought in for the purpose. Chuckles batted at the screen as the other ships zipped around on it.

“Alright, Beta, take care. Call us if you find anyone else.” Sexxlazor wasn’t a bad pilot, but Beta was pretty sure the kid was only fourteen.

“No problem, Laze.”

Everyone but Beta and Bloodboat jumped out to the next system and started their long trek back to their own part of the galaxy. ‘Boat warped into the protective bubble that surrounded Beta’s tower and logged out. He had his own jump freighter, which made it easy for the two of them to transport their loot.

“Beta dude, you heard anything back on those resumes?”

“One rejection and a whole lot of silence.”

“Damn dude, I’m sorry to hear that.” ‘Boat’s freighter winked into existence on the screen. Chuckles swatted at it, a low hiss forming his throat.

“Hey ‘Boat, I don’t think this cat likes your jump freighter. You better watch out for friendly fire if he sees it and I’m not around.”

‘Boat snorted. “You still taking care of your girlfriend’s cat?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, but yeah.”

“Dude, that’s a hell of a nice thing to do for a girl you aren’t even seeing.”

“We dated a while in college, then she broke my heart.” Beta clicked around on the screen, opening the storage for ‘Boat to start loading up.

“Wow, that’s intense. She dumped your ass and you
still
took her cat. Are you still in love with her or something?”

Beta stroked Chuckles’ back, reducing the hisses to purrs. “I guess. Everyone keeps saying I am, so they must be right.”

“So let me get this straight. You’ve known this girl your whole life. You dated her in college and she left you. Then you took her cat so she could move to New York to be with some Wall Street prick?”

“Yep, that’s it.”

“So why’d she leave you?”

“I don’t know.” Beta scratched his own head, leaving Chuckles to fend for himself for a minute. “Actually, I talked to her best friend a couple weeks ago. I told you about that, right?”

“Nope.”

“Oh, well I talked to her best friend. Girl I’ve known as long as I’ve known Victoria. Charlotte told me I still love her and that I should move to New York and pursue her, but I should grow up first.”

“So she left you because she thinks you’re immature. Got it.”

“I know, right? It’s not like I’m a womanizer or have a gambling problem.”

Chuckles rubbed his head against Beta’s hand.

“What do you do besides work and EVE?” ‘Boat’s voice took on a more serious tenor.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have other hobbies? Every time I log in, I see you on here.”

“I have lunch with my parents sometimes.”

“So you work at a job you hate, you play videos games with all your free time, and you’re wondering why the girl of your dreams thinks you need to grow up?”

It sounded so harsh when he put it like that. Beta looked around the apartment, taking in the bare walls, the unmade bed. There were some books on his nightstand, but they were dusty with disuse. And they were all programming and science fiction, anyway.

“Okay, so let’s hypothesize that you have a point.” Beta sat up straighter in his chair. “What should I do about it?”

“Tell you what, how about you fly out here?”

“To New York?”

“Yeah. You said your girl’s friend told you to do that, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“So do it. Fly out here and bring a suit and some resumes. We don’t have anything open at Fox Creek, but I’ll ask around. Surely we can find you something entry level.”

“Uh, ‘Boat, I really appreciate the offer, but I’m broke. I have a shit job and my parents cut me off after college. I can’t afford tickets.”

“You need
a
ticket, not multiple tickets. One way. Or hell, take a bus. You can sleep on my couch for a couple weeks. Charity won’t mind.”

“Dude, I can’t do that. I can’t impose on you guys. And besides, I have Victoria’s cat.”

“So? Bring it. We’re not allergic.”

Beta leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

“Tell you what, man. I’ll ask around this week. If I can get you something setup, you promise me you’ll show up for it, okay?”

“Uh...”

“Quit your job, Beta. It sucks. We both know it. Haven’t you ever read
Where the Red Fern Grows
? You gotta meet me half way here.”

Beta sighed. Chuckles was staring right at him, an intense look on his face. “Alright. Deal. But I’m only going to come for a week at first, okay? I can’t just move if I don’t have a job.”

“Awesome. Alright, man, I gotta log out. Charity needs some attention.”

“Take care, ‘Boat. And thanks.”

“No problem.”

‘Boat’s jump freighter vanished, and a few seconds later he disappeared from the voice chat interface. Beta rubbed Chuckles’ back again. “Okay, little buddy, we need to get our stuff together if we’re going to do this. You feel up to moving halfway across the country?”

Chuckles yawned.

T
WENTY 
Twenty girls sat in a row of folding chairs waiting on their turn to audition. The lights in the club were all on, revealing the true seediness. Uneven brick walls climbed two stories on either side, looming overhead and making Victoria feel like she was in a warehouse. If the bricked-over bay doors on the right were any indication, that’s exactly what it had been. Louie’s Jazz and Cabaret wasn’t even open yet, but it already smelled like stale smoke and cheap beer. It wasn’t her first choice or her third choice or even her fifth choice, but it was an audition and if she wasn’t at least trying to do something with her voice, she might as well go back to Nebraska.

The girl on stage hit everything perfectly, and her voice filled the room, even without amplification. Victoria shifted on the uncomfortable seat. If the rest of the girls trying out were half as good, she was screwed. One of the girls a few people down coughed in the middle the song. It seemed like a low blow to try to screw up someone else’s audition, but then the girl followed up a few moments later with a sneeze. The girl to Victoria’s right did the hiccup thing, like a sneeze was trying to come, but wouldn’t quite come up. She finally let off with something between an airhorn and a tornado warning.

“Sorry.” The girl wiped her nose with a tissue, then stuffed it back into her purse. “Been having a cold I just can’t kick.”

Victoria shrugged and scooted a little to the left. The last thing she needed was to come down sick. A few more girls did their auditions, then the man and woman running the show announced that they were taking a five minute break. The girl to Victoria’s right got up and went outside. Probably to smoke. Half the jazz singers in the city smoked and drank whiskey, claiming it gave them a better sound. Half the jazz singers in the city were alcoholics, too.

“They’re not very good tonight.”

Victoria jerked in her chair, then turned to her left. The girl beside her was looking at her. “I’m sorry?”

“I’ve heard better voices in karaoke bars.” The girl was tiny, almost child sized, but with the features of a woman. She might have been twenty, or she might have been thirty-five. Victoria didn’t have the faintest idea.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Oh, sorry, I’m Roxanne.” She had the twang of a native New Yorker.

“I’m Victoria.”

Roxanne grinned. “You’re a transplant, I take it?”

“I’ve been here a couple months.” Victoria could feel herself warming to the other girl. She had a genuine smile, the kind that lit up her whole face and actually reached her eyes.

“I’ve been here my whole life. Private music school, Julliard, the works. Most of these girls are just pigs.”

Victoria’s shoulders hunched a little at the word “Julliard.” The University of Nebraska at Omaha wasn’t a bad program, but it was barely in the same universe as Julliard.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be snide. It’s just...” Roxanne sighed. “Half the gig is the way you look, not the way you sound. I could sing like Fitzgerald and it wouldn’t matter.”

It was a strange idea, and one Victoria hadn’t considered. Were the talent folks really judging them on their looks? She crossed her arms, suddenly feeling uncomfortable with her body. God, but that was the last thing she needed.

“Alright, next!” the woman at the judging table called.

The girl to Victoria’s right still wasn’t back. A thrill went through Victoria at the thought of one less competitor. She immediately felt ashamed for thinking that way. The girl was sick, and probably needed the gig even more badly. If the girl was anything like Victoria, health insurance was a luxury she couldn’t afford.

A couple more girls went, and then Roxanne. She did a masterful rendition of “Body and Soul” in a style somewhere between Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. The judges sat up straighter, scribbling furiously. Roxanne finished, and as she passed Victoria, slowed down, saying, “Good luck.”

“Next.” The man at the judges’ table sounded excited, and Victoria had a feeling it wasn’t because it was her turn.

She gave the judges her name, then sang, “Fever.” Halfway through it, she felt like she might have even been selling it. The judges just looked bored.

Oh well, one more rejection to add to the stack. She was starting to get used to them. She followed the same tired path to the front doors that girls before her had taken, and a minute later she was standing on the sidewalk in front of the club. Cold air hit her in the face, the first hint of autumn. As much as she wanted to take a cab and save herself the hassle of dealing with the trains, money was tighter than she felt like admitting, so she headed toward the closest subway stop.

G
ETTING 
to New York turned out to be cheaper than Beta expected. Murderboat came through with an interview, and the company offered to fly him in for a couple days. They were even giving him a per diem to cover his food while he was in town.

There was just one problem: Beta wasn’t actually sure what Murderboat looked like. He said he’d be in a red jacket with a blue ball cap, but it turned out that half the baggage handlers were dressed exactly like that. And there were a lot of baggage handlers.

Beta checked his phone again, hoping there would be a response to his last message, but the screen was as empty as the Nebraska prairie. He adjusted his backpack, and let the crowd carry him to baggage claim. As he walked to the right conveyor, he saw a big black guy in a red jacket and a ball cap holding a sign.

“BETA.”

Had ‘Boat actually sent a driver for him? Dude must really be raking it in to pull something like that.

“Uh, I’m Beta.”

“Beta-dude!” The chauffeur wrapped him into a hug.

Beta went rigid for a second, then his brain kicked into gear. The guy had ‘Boat’s voice and he referred to him as ‘Beta-dude.’ No one but Murderboat did that. “Uh, hi,” Beta finally said, as ‘Boat released him.

“Welcome to New York! I’m glad you finally got off your ass and came out here.”

“Yeah, uh, me, too.”

Beta stepped back, trying to fit his mental picture of ‘Boat with the actual physical human being. In Beta’s head he was a skinny white guy, the New York version of himself. Hours and days and months of playing games together had reinforced the idea. The reality was so far different than anything he’d ever imagined, he couldn’t quite get the two images to reconcile.

‘Boat grinned at him. “I’m bigger than you expected, huh?”

And blacker, but that wasn’t exactly something he could say out loud. Beta just nodded.

“It’s cool, dude. My wife says I need to get off the computer and exercise more. Maybe with you here in town and not running any ops this week, I’ll actually do it.” He laughed. “I’ll probably just get fatter. We’ve got to make sure you see the town while you’re here, and that means eating.”

“Uh, did you not get my email?”

“What? You said you were staying a week, right?”

“I did on chat, but when I talked to the company, they got me tickets to fly in today and back out on Tuesday. I sent you an EVE mail to your jump freighter account.”

“Crap, dude. I haven’t logged into that account in the last few days. Okay, well, we’ll just take you out tonight and you can see your girl tomorrow. Or vice versa. Doesn’t bother me any.”

“Okay.” A buzzer sounded, and the conveyor started moving. “Let me get my bag and we can get out of here.”

Once Beta had his suitcase, ‘Boat led him out toward the parking garage. “So ‘Boat,” Beta said, “I don’t know actually know your real name.”

“Jerome Davis. You can call me ‘Boat or Jerome, I don’t care.”

Given Jerome’s prodigious size and his surprise racial heritage, Beta was expecting him to drive something like a 1990 Lincoln Continental with giant rims or a tricked out Escalade or something. The Prius was cornflower blue and it had a red, white and blue donkey bumper sticker on the back.

“It gets great gas mileage,” Jerome said as he opened the back hatch. “We mostly take the train or walk, but Charity likes having a car for emergencies. And groceries. You ever tried carrying eight bags of groceries six blocks? It’s not fun.”

“I didn’t say anything.” Beta set his bags inside.

Jerome somehow managed to fit himself into the driver’s seat and wrap the seatbelt around his belly. “You know much about New York geography?”

“Not much.”

They merged into traffic and headed away from the airport on a wide six lane street. “I live down in SoHo. That’s ‘south of how-ston.’ It’s spelled like Houston in Texas, but up here everyone calls it how-ston.”

“That’s weird.”

“That’s New York.” He shrugged, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

They approached the base of a bridge, and Jerome perked up. “This is the Williamsburg Bridge. When we get up on it, you’ll get a real eyeful. You can see the whole southern end of Manhattan.”

It was no lie. Buildings stretched out in front of them, sweeping up the concrete coast to the north. Beta stared, slack-jawed. Tower after tower marched down the coast and across the island. The pictures didn’t do it justice. It was a scale he couldn’t quite comprehend, like looking at someone’s elaborate model of a city.

“Wait ‘til you actually get down among the buildings. It took me two weeks to stop gawking.”

Beta nodded. He couldn’t even form words. They swept down the highway and amongst the buildings, and he hardly paid attention to where they were going. All his focus was on the towering mountains of glass and steel. They moved into a neighborhood with lower brick buildings. At ten or twelve stories, they were still huge, but nothing like the skyscrapers.

“This is SoHo proper. My building isn’t too far.” Jerome turned right, and Beta noticed the trees on the street. It had a sort of homey feel, and he could already feel himself starting to like it.

Jerome slowed down, and they turned into a low garage in the middle of a building. Jerome swiped a badge against a reader and the metal grate that blocked access rose out of their way. They descended into darkness. It took Beta’s eyes a minute to adjust, and then he saw the cars all around them. Jerome drove carefully down a very narrow aisle, then pulled into a numbered stall.

“This parking space costs nearly as much a year as the car. If Charity didn’t insist, I wouldn’t even bother.” He pushed open the door and squeezed out of the car.

Beta collected his suitcase, letting Jerome take the smaller carry-on, and followed the other man through the garage to an elevator. “Everything is so cramped.”

“You get used to it. The nice thing is that you don’t have to walk far. Every little part of the city is like its own little village. Well, if you consider a hundred thousand people to be little.” He chuckled. “Shoot, unless we feel like going up to the Met or Broadway, we don’t go more than ten blocks from home for weeks at a time.”

They rode up to the eighth floor and stopped. A credenza with a green fern sat across from the elevator. Pale yellow walls stretched left and right, broken only by numbered doors.

“We’re in 807.” Jerome adjusted the bag on his shoulder and knocked on the door.

A slim, dark woman with deep brown eyes and a wide mouth opened the door and smiled. She held out a hand. “Welcome to New York, Beta. I’m Charity.”

Beta took her hand, thinking she wanted to shake, but she just squeezed it and gave him a hug. “Thanks,” he said.

“Now come inside. I have lunch ready for you.”

Beta’s stomach rumbled. The early flight out of Omaha hadn’t given him much time for breakfast, and it was approaching 2:00 already.

“Sounds great, baby.” Jerome gave his wife a hug and added a peck on the lips. “What are we having?”

“Tuna tartare and a salad.” She moved out of the doorway and beckoned Beta inside. “I’m sorry we don’t have a spare room, Beta. You can just put your bags in the corner.”

The corner she meant was obvious. It was the only one without a computer or a TV in it. The apartment was small, not much bigger than the studio Beta had in Omaha. One of the computer desks was messy, covered in papers and books and coffee mugs, all scattered around a laptop. The other was lean and spare, with a notebook tucked between the keyboard and the flatscreen monitor.

Jerome went to the cleaner desk and dropped into the chair. “This is the command center.” He scooped a set of headphones from the computer tower under the desk and set them on his ears. “Primary the Apoc.” His voice grew serious. “Guardians rep Sexxlazor.” He grinned and took off the headphones. “What’s the corp going to do without us for a few days?”

Beta set his bags down and eyed the sofa. His feet were going to be hanging off the end, but at least it looked soft. He turned back to Jerome. “Probably let all our towers get burned down.”

“Boys, no talking about spaceships,” Charity said from the kitchen. She didn’t need to do much to make her voice carry. The kitchen was maybe five strides from the living room. She stood behind a bar with two stools, and pointed at Jerome with a pair of tongs. Beta wasn’t sure what to think--the warning in her voice conflicted with the smile on her face.

“Yes, ma’am.” Jerome went to the bar and sat. In the light, away from the crowd of people, Beta could see that his size wasn’t all fat. He was built like a defensive lineman, broad shouldered, and equally broad hipped.

Beta sat beside him. “You play football as a kid, ‘Boat?”

“Yep. All through high school, then three years at Cornell. That’s where I met Charity.”

Beta raised his eyebrows. ‘Boat had an Ivy League education? The guy wasn’t dumb, not by a long shot, but Ivy League and online games didn’t seem like it fit.

“So how’d you end up playing EVE? You weren’t busy with football and school?”

“I blew out my knee my junior year. That put an end to my football career. Not like I was going to go pro, anyway. The football just helped with tuition.”

“Don’t you believe him, Beta.” Charity set a bowl of salad on the counter. “He could have if he’d wanted to, but he was more interested in me.” She said it with pride.

“Also true. When you find the girl you want to be with the rest of your life, you gotta make adjustments. And spending all my time in rehab, practicing and studying sounded a whole lot less fun that spending it with Charity.”

 Beta tried to make sense of that. He abandoned his dreams to chase after Charity? It was strangely romantic, considering the dedicated gamer he knew.

“That sounds terribly sweet of you.”

“Well, it’s because I’m a real romantic at heart.” He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “And because I was lazy. Bust my ass to get back into playing shape for one last season, or spend it chasing--“

“Jerome!” Charity jabbed at him with her tongs.

He snickered. “See, how could I resist such charms?”

Charity passed them each forks. “Let’s eat, boys. Beta, later this evening, we’ll show you around town, alright?”

“Sounds good.”

It did. It was good to be in the city, and better to be there with friends. He just hoped the interview went well tomorrow.