The Numbers Game (14 page)

            “Oops,
looks like I caught you at a bad time. Maybe I should come by later.”  At a
more civilized hour. Two in the afternoon perhaps, do you think you might be
dressed by then?

            “Who is
it?” another voice echoed down the dark corridor.

            Oh damn
Serena would have recognized that lean shadow anywhere. It was Jasper.

            “Oh my gosh,
Serena?”

            He emerged
into the light and for some reason seeing him hurt Serena terribly. It wasn’t
that Jasper looked bad, he didn’t. He looked great. His hair was different -
shorn to the scalp and the arms were more muscular but his face had retained all
of its youthful cheekiness. As much as he looked like a man, Jasper seemed still
a boy, like he had a twinkle in his eye.

            Serena
nodded. “I was just leaving. Now is a bad time.”

            Her voice
betrayed her totally. It sounded more like a distressed wife walking in on an
unfaithful husband than a friend visiting a friend
. I’m jealous; I can’t
believe I’m jealous. I don’t even care for this guy and yet it kills me to know
he is sleeping with this voluptuous stranger. Have I lost my mind?

            “Serena,
don’t leave.”

            But it was
too late. Serena had already started clomping down the razor thin steps. Now
would be as good a time as any for them to collapse.

            “Listen,”
Jasper grabbed her arm from behind. Wow, she got down there in record time! Did
they give out medals for that?

            “What?”
Serena bit, turning to face her assailant. Her tone was uncalled for, she
decided too late.

            “I don’t
get it. Where are you going? You turn up on my doorstep after five years and
then you attempt to escape without saying goodbye.”

            “You and
your girlfriend are busy. I don’t want to disturb you.”

            “Girlfriend?”
Jasper looked back up at the stairwell. “You think Harriet is my girlfriend?”

            “What is
she then?” Sex partner perhaps, Serena added silently.

            “From that
tone I gather you won’t believe me when I tell you Harriet’s a temporary
roommate. She waitresses downstairs at the C-Lounge and I’m helping her out of
a jam. Oh and she’s also a lesbian.”

            Serena
laughed. “You’re right, I don’t believe it. Am I supposed to?”

            “Yes,”
Jasper smiled back. “Because I kid you not, it’s true. If however you would
prefer I make a new tale I’m sure I could come up with one.”

            “No that’s
okay; the truth will do just fine.”

   
        That’s
if you’re telling me the truth
.  For a second there, Serena was confused.
She didn’t remember Jasper as having a sense of humor, so she was inclined to
believe him. She wanted to trust him with her entire soul like in the good ole
days when Serena and Jasper were the greatest of friends. But then there was
the other part in her – the part that dredged up the not-so-good memories and
made her cold and wary. Sure Jasper’s face might be the same but what if
everything else had changed?

            To trust
or not to trust, that was the question…

            “How about
we go in and have a hot chocolate,” Jasper asked, nodding to the C-Lounge. They
were standing almost directly outside the back door. Good thing he was wearing
clothes. “We could do some catching up as well.”    

            Was this
really the Jasper Serena knew and loved so well? The Jasper she knew didn’t
touch chocolate, didn’t enter smoke-altered premises, and was cute but not in a
totally confident way.  It was like he had forgotten it all: the past: who he
was, who Serena was and instead decided to grow up in that time.

            But one
fact still remained - the last time Jasper and Serena had convened it was the
day they had spent together in bed.  Fingers crossed, Serena hoped to pick up
where she left.

“Firstly tell me about
your accident. And where you have been all these years,” asked Serena.

            So Jasper
obliged. He started right at the beginning and recounted his increasing
disillusionment with art as a career. Yes, it was creative, yes, it was
fulfilling but when your job doesn’t put food on your table…you start to resent
it. For the first time Jasper understood why suicide was so high among
retrenched folk and retirees. What one does for work and how much money we earn
from it has a huge impact on our self-esteem. We might all complain about suckful
a job is but the truth is one doesn’t know bad until they don’t have a job at
all.

            “Try
earning nothing for a while and see how long you would survive.”

            “So you
sold out?” Serena said.           To be honest, she was a bit pissed off at
Jasper’s giving up. He was supposed to be different, someone who never, ever
let their dreams die. Isn’t that why she liked him in the first place?

            “Not
exactly,” he replied with a smirk. “I decided to travel instead. I figured if I
have to live in the U.S earning pittance, I might as well do it on the streets
of Spain and France.”

            “You worked
in Spain?” Serena’s mouth fell wide open.

            That was
her only big regret in life; never stopping to work in any of the countries she
had visited whilst traveling. She had always planned to but one thing quickly
led to another and then came her movie industry break and Markie; before she
knew it her passport was void of a working visa. Serena would’ve killed to have
lived in any one of the gorgeous European cities she had visited, even London
in a worst-case situation but Markie’s argument always was ‘why travel the
world when you haven’t even seen half your country?’ His extreme patriotism
made Serena feel like a traitor, for all she remembered was the old adage: Life
is a book and those who never travel read only one page.

            “Among
other places,” Jasper confirmed. “The past four years I spent abroad, doing
everything from being an English-speaking tour guide to toilet cleaning and
dusting off statues at art galleries.”

            “The
latter must have been a favorite,” Serena commented enviously. This was the second
time today she felt a violent stab of jealously. All of the sudden, her news:
her venturesome leap into the world of film as a make-up artist sounded bleak
in comparison. Incredibly, Serena was actually jealous of someone who had
cleaned toilets!

            “So you
ended up in Ibiza…” she continued, prodding Jasper along. This was her way of
showing him she didn’t care that much.
So you led a thrill-seeking life and
stuffed enough exciting memories into your knapsack to last ten lifetimes, big
deal. I’m sure it wasn’t always a bed of roses.

            “Yeah I
moved to Ibiza last year. An opportunity came up to help manage a new nightclub
over there.”

            Okay so
maybe it had been picture perfect.

            “Things
were going real great until about three months back when I got shot. Ibiza
ain’t the best when it comes to medical technology so once my condition
stabilized they flew me back to Frisco. And here I am.” Jasper’s opened his
arms wide.

            “Whoa,
whoa, whoa. Slow down for a minute and reverse. You got shot?”

            Jasper
nodded. Then he lifted up his shirt to reveal a messy scar to the far right of
his belly button. You could tell the doctors had done their best to patch it up
but still, a wound is a wound, even when repaired.

            “I’m lucky
to be alive.”

            “I can see
that,” Serena agreed. “Who in the world shot you?”

            “Just a
crazed rival nightclub owner who couldn’t stand to see his business falling in
the popularity stakes. Happens all the time.”

            “I don’t
know what’s more painful, the shot or the fact you had to leave glamorous Ibiza.”

            “Tsk,
tsk,” Jasper clicked his tongue. He obviously sensed Serena’s current
dissatisfaction with their beautiful city. “Frisco ain’t so bad”, he insisted.
“The good thing about it here is being close to family and friends. You don’t
know how many times homesickness almost made me hijack a plane home.”

            “I guess I
don’t,” Serena said wryly. Her life in the last five years seemed awfully bland
in comparison.

            “So how
about you?” Jasper asked probably sick of talking solely about himself (and
rightly so). “Last I heard you were dropping out of college.”

            “You heard
right,” Serena replied. “And life since then has been a non-stop breath-taking
roller coaster ride.”

            That’s
what they tell you to say isn’t it? When you have nothing gripping to share,
lie through your teeth - in the nicest possible way.

            “How about
a boyfriend?”

            “What
about one?” Serena blushed. Now they were heading towards dangerous territory.

            “Do you
have one?”

            “Well,”
Serena said vaguely, “Before I answer that can you ask you a question?”

            Jasper
wrinkled his brow.

            “Sure go
ahead. Ask me another.”

            “Okay,”
Serena paused for a sec. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

            It came
out as stupid as it sounded, as if she was interviewing Jasper for a biography
because she had no life of her own.

            “No, I
don’t,” he replied, “Does it make a difference? On whether you have or don’t
have a boyfriend?”

            “No
difference,” Serena shook her head, “I’m newly single either way.”       There
you go, her complex relationship didn’t sound nearly so complex anymore. What
was the point of going into details like breaks and shakes when it just
complicated things? She didn’t owe Jasper overly personal information, for
God’s sake, she wasn’t sure yet whether he even deserved any at all.

            “Good…”
Jasper smiled, cocking his head to the side.

            He was
trying to win her over. This head tilting was just one of the many moves Jasper
picked up during his travels, tested and proven on countless European beauties.
Serena wondered how many women Mister World Traveler himself had slept with
over the past five years. Fifty? A hundred maybe? Did it really matter? At last
check Jasper’s count was very similar to Markie’s when she’d had him.

            Serena
wondered now if - let’s just say hypothetically – Jasper’s numbers had skyrocketed
up to two hundred, whether she would’ve gone neurotic with jealously like
Markie had and insisted on stupid things like breaks and making up the numbers.
Maybe or maybe not.

            For now
though, it was best to keep Markie out of the picture, as punishment to both
the boys.

            “By the
way, you never told me why you dumped me that day?” Serena started.

            This was
the only question that needed answering before she could even think about
taking the next step. Serena could not wait to hear Jasper’s excuse…

            He paused,
looking at her with his soft, deep artist’s eyes. Then he took her by the hand.

            “Listen
Serena, I know I screwed up once before but I’m not going to screw it up
again.”

      Now it was her
turn to say
feck, feck, feck
.

Chapter
10

If Markie was anything
he was a good friend. So he did as Rick asked and avoided sleeping with Lola
for the next twenty-four hours. In fact, he went one better than that and kept
away from the event altogether.

            “Let’s say
we just go out tonight and get totally plastered,” Markie suggested to Rick.
Why not? It was Friday, no school tomorrow plus they held tickets to a swanky
new alcoholic beverage launch.
Vemon: the latest in vodka and lemon combined
.
They could do worse than that you know; the alternative events were a hair
replacement therapy bash or a “Jam is the new Ham” PR do.

            “With or
without Lola?” Rick asked, testing his luck.

            But Markie
held his ground.

            “Why don’t
we leave work behind for a change?”

            It was
times like this Markie was thankful for the linen closet featured in his
office. The last thing he wanted to do was go home first; back home the house
was giving him the evil eye. It hated him, hated Markie with a vengeance, he’d
decided. Why else would the dishwasher, dryer and iron all break down on the
same day? Why else did it smell of damp and mould and feel like a meat freezer even
though fall was fast approaching?

            The house
obviously missed having a women’s touch. It missed Serena. Markie still hadn’t
gotten around to finding that cleaner to come in. He rationalized that a messy
place felt cozier, less sterile. The more crap that piled up, the less likely
he was to remember that Serena was gone, off at Tabitha’s who was no doubt
taking his girlfriend to hell and back.