Fluke Read online

  I grabbed my clothes from the corner of the closet (a few things had actually made it there), threw them on the bed with the other stuff, and started jamming it all into pillowcases. I was ready to make my mad dash to the little on-site launderette to clean my things. Lifting my two overly stuffed “laundry baskets” I shot a glance at my bed, and went ahead and ripped off the sheets and hung them around my neck. Sara deserved clean sheets.

  And a lawyer, or a doctor. Maybe a fighter pilot.

  “Shut up, Adam, shut the hell up,” I said out loud, grabbing the orange bottle of Tide, and lunging through the front door.

  ****

  The launderette was one of my least favorite places to be, especially at such an early hour. It was always hot, and there were almost always ten kids running wild, jumping on the washers, throwing things, or dropping trash everywhere. Parental supervision seemed nonexistent, although, every ten minutes or so, a worn-beyond-her-years woman would poke her head in from the courtyard and tell the kids, “I’m gonna tear yer asses up if you don’t settle on down!” The kids would give mom about ten seconds to disappear back to wherever she was hiding, then they were right back at their hooliganism. I considered it torture, so I normally tried to do laundry late at night, when everyone else was asleep or drunk or practicing spousal abuse. Of course, I had to get the place cleaned up today, so I was stuck in the launderette.

  It was quiet to begin with, just a couple of women sitting in the plastic chairs, faces buried in cell phones, and only two children. The kids played with Matchbox cars on the floor quietly. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a horrible day.

  After I loaded all my clothes into three washers (a small miracle, finding three empty this time of day), I sat back in a chair and leaned the back of my head against the wall. It was quickly relaxing, with the quiet sloshing of washing machines and the hum of dryers soothing me.

  My thoughts drifted to the first morning at Sara’s, after we sat down to our not-so-continental breakfast.

  I hadn’t had the courage that morning to ask her about the strange, trance-like state she had been in before. As I ate my eggs, though, I tried to rationalize the situation:

  Maybe she was in one of those weird sleep state kind of things, like a sleepwalker.

  Okay, so how did she tell me “Don’t go,” if she wasn’t really conscious?

  Maybe she was just still drunk, and got a little moody, I offered myself.

  Hey, Adam-boy, did she seem drunk when she snapped out of it?

  No, I admitted to myself, she hadn’t seemed drunk at all. In fact, she had seemed more lucid than I felt at the time.

  I had finished my breakfast by wiping up the yellow puddles of yolk on my plate with my toast, and decided to just give up thinking about it and not worry so much. She had smiled at me and said, “Those were the best eggs I’ve had in years.”

  The buzz of a dryer startled me and caused me to lift my head from its resting position. A lady stood up and headed for the dryer, pink clothesbasket in hand. She opened up the round glass door on one of the mustard yellow dryers and began pulling out towels. I resumed my comfortable state, head back against the wall, and drifted back to thoughts of Sara.

  When Sara had finished her eggs and toast, I cleared the dishes off of the table and put them in the sink. I brought out the coffee pot and topped our cups off, and returned to get some milk and sugar for hers. I was becoming quite the domesticated man.

  “I don’t need any more cream or sugar, Adam,” she called as I turned to head to the dining room. I did a one-eighty and set the milk and sugar back down on the counter and went to the table.

  “You do take cream and sugar, though, right?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “Depends on how I feel. If I’m hung over, I’ll drink it black. Something about the bitterness of it makes me feel better. Plus, cigarettes taste better with black coffee.” She stated this matter-of-factly, not even realizing that she just explained the exact reason that I like my coffee black.

  We smoked and sipped our black coffee, and I took a long, slow look around her apartment. The dining room wasn’t so much a room as it was a square section between the living room and the kitchen. I could picture the brochure for the townhouse advertising a “dining nook,” or a “dining area,” as opposed to a room. The walls were decorated with three Georgia O’Keefe flower-as-symbolic-vagina prints in black frames, two hanging on the wall behind her entertainment center in the living room, and one behind the table in the dining nook. A large, spotless wood-framed mirror hung on the wall by the entrance to the kitchen, and an ornate looking scroll, with a family crest and some calligraphy-type writing hung to the right of the mirror, a thin rope holding it on a nail.

  I had seen the scrolls before; a guy sold them at the mall. He set up in the center of the mall, with a couple of long wooden tables and a big, thick book, brimming with nearly any last name you could think of. Along with each last name, there was a family crest, history, and meaning of the name. I stopped once to look for Fluke, unsuccessfully. I gave the salesman, a thin, bearded guy with thick glasses, a good-natured hard time about the exclusion of Fluke as a last name, and he said that he’d “get right on the Flukes.” I didn’t really care so much, as I doubted the validity of these things. It seemed like so many names with so many different meanings that it just didn’t seem that important to me.

  I stubbed out my smoke and walked to look at Sara’s scroll. Hers was interesting to me, no matter how sketchy or thinly stretched the premise might be, because, well, it was Sara.

  DuBeau, the scroll said in fancy, medieval strokes. “A person from beauty,” it said for the meaning. In smaller, though no less grandiose pen strokes, the scroll went on to explain that it was a name of French origin (as though I didn’t guess that already), and it originated back in the eleventh century.

  I sipped my coffee and tried to contemplate the eleventh century when I heard Sara ask jokingly, “What are you doing? Admiring your handsome self in the mirror?”

  “No, I did that for about two hours yesterday,” I responded. “I try not to go over two hours of admiring myself in the mirror a day. Such a thing can be overwhelming to mere mortals.”

  She laughed heartily at this, and I felt my confidence, which had sagged significantly earlier, re-fortifying itself. I was doing fine, and this was going to be a good morning.

  “Actually,” I told her, “I was checking out your name here on the scroll.”

  She walked over and stood behind me and rested her chin on my shoulder, looking at the scroll. She asked, “What do you think?”

  I went in for a shot of flattery, which was no exaggeration, and said, “I think it hit the nail right on the head. ‘A person from beauty’ is the perfect description for you.”

  As soon as I said it, I realized that it sounded a little too sugary sweet, and could have been interpreted as condescension. Or ass-kissing. Or a lie. I felt Sara’s chin on my shoulder, and hoped she had caught the sincerity in my voice. She had.

  “Well, thank you,” she said. “Thank you very much.” She shifted her head and kissed the side of my neck. Then her hands moved to my sides and guided my body about two steps to the right, centering us in front of the big mirror.

  “What’re you doing?” I laughed, still feeling her warm lips on my neck.

  “Look,” she said. “Look at us.”

  In the mirror, our reflection stared back at us, my shirtless top half, her head resting on my shoulder, her fingers laced together over my midsection. My hair was shifted around crazily, warped would have been the best word to describe it. My pale chest had about a dozen little hairs scattered across the center. My eyes had large, puffy black bags beneath them, and I saw a developing pimple on my left shoulder. Sara’s face looked as beautiful as it had when we stood beside my car, making small talk, which seemed like forever ago.

  My God, was that really just ten hours ago? It hardly seemed possible.

  Her long brown hair hung off
to the side, draped over my right shoulder, her green eyes looked alive and focused on me. What I noticed most about her face, though, was that it was looking right back into mine, our eyes meeting in the mirror.

  “We look good, right?” she asked. It was probably a rhetorical question, but I answered, “Yes, we do.”

  It was true, we did.

  I yanked my head up at the sound of the launderette door flying open and hitting a metal trash can, which was followed by the sound of kids yelling at each other, playing what sounded like some sort of space-ranger-versus-evil-alien game.

  “You are a Zargonian and you will pay for what you did to my people!” screamed the space ranger.

  “Never! You will die like the rest of them!” yelled back the Zargonian.

  Shit. Relaxation time was over.

  I got up from my chair, eager to finish the laundry, before the Zargonian decided that I should die like the rest of them.

  5.

  It was a couple minutes past 10 when I parked right at the front door of Perry’s Pizza Palace, across three spaces (a big no-no for employees), and climbed out of my car. I said another silent prayer to myself that Perry wouldn’t be in today, something I had done a half dozen times already on the drive over. I walked around to the trunk, opened it up, and began loading items crazily into my arms. I came up with two “Palace” T-shirts (unwashed), a matching ball cap, one pizza bag (keeps your pizzas oven fresh!), money bag jingling with the change it held, and, finally, the magnetized sign for the car door. The heap in my arms was balanced precariously, but I thought I could make it without dropping anything. I glanced one last time at how I was parked and thought of what Perry would say if he saw this. I had tried to explain to him that nobody ordered pizzas at 10am, but this little fact wouldn’t deter him from hollering at me about parking in the front spaces, much less three of them at once. I could just hear him saying, “The front spaces are for customers, Fluke…how many times do I have to tell you that?”

  I walked over to the door slowly with my heap of things, hooked my pinky—my only free finger—into the front door handle and was able to open it just enough for me to squeeze through. I was concentrating deeply on the task at hand, though I was aware of the fact that Heather was at the counter smiling a greeting at me, while I jumped through the doorway.

  And, as I should have expected, in one not-so-fluid movement, the corner of the sign caught the frame of the door, and I immediately lost control of everything and watched it fall to the floor. Coins from within the money bag rolled across the floor in each direction, and I looked up at Heather and just shook my head.

  She giggled and said, “Well, hello, Adam. Does the root of all evil lack even the most basic form of motor skills?” She giggled harder as she said this, and held up a cigarette with her left hand. “Smoke?”

  I darted my eyes back and forth, a silent question: Is Perry here?

  “Nah, he went to the district office today. Probably to kiss up to Mike some more, in hopes of a raise.” A sigh of relief escaped me. That meant he was going to be out of the Palace for most of the day, if not all of it. Mike was the district manager, and his office was in Pensacola. He was a nice guy who always had a good joke for us when he made his visits. Even though Perry was able to slap his own name on the building he was still franchised out from a bigger company. He enjoyed talking about the day he would "own this place.” I couldn't imagine sweating my entire life away in the kitchen of a pizza shack, dreaming of the day that it would be mine. There had to be something better, right?

  “Do you think we could lobby to have Mike and Big P swap positions?” I asked her, smiling.

  “Jesus, Fluke, what’s wrong with you? Do you actually want happy people working here? All that smiling and laughing couldn’t be good for business, or else Perry would have tried it already.” She held up her cigarette and asked me again, “One more time: smoke?”

  “Sure,” I told her. “Always time to smoke.” I picked up Perry’s items, tossed them on the counter and followed Heather.

  “Always,” she agreed, her ponytail swinging from side to side as she walked ahead of me towards the rear of the kitchen.

  We went to the back door and propped it open with a large gray plastic trashcan that was set on top of a metal frame with wheels. The can was empty now, but by the end of the night the thing would have an awful reek emanating from it due to old pizza, empty olive cans, and other unused food items and waste having been in it all day. I normally got stuck emptying the damn thing. Never again. Well, at least not for Perry, never again.

  “What were you talking about back there? The ‘root of all evil’ thing?” I asked her as we both exhaled from our first drag on our respective smokes.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said and giggled. “Perry’s little joke this week has been ‘Adam bit the apple, and now YOU pay for his sins.’ He blurts it out every time he tells somebody about a change he’s made in the schedule involving that person, ‘because of Adam’. It’s kind of sick; he’s really holding some weird grudge against you. He laughs when he says it, and you can just see the threads strain on his shirt when that big stomach starts bouncing around.” She laughed more as she said this, and, not able to help myself, I laughed too. She really was a funny girl, but we had never hung out together aside from our talks at work.

  Why is that? I wondered. She was a good-looking woman with a good sense of humor, and she seemed to be into me.

  The laughter subsided, and she went on: “He left you an envelope we’re supposed to give you if we see you. Oh, yeah, and we’re supposed to tell you that you owe him $19.88 for a pizza and delivery change.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I brought Perry his damn money. What a schmuck.” I laughed a little at the thought of how his itty-bitty mind must work and flung my cigarette butt against the side of his building. Heather stepped in front of me and flung hers against the side of the building also, imitating me quite well, and causing me to laugh more. We walked inside dragging the oversized garbage can with us, and let the self-locking metal door swing shut behind us with a loud clunk. We made our way to Perry’s office, and Heather looked over his desk and handed me a small manila envelope with A. FLUKE written on it.

  I ripped it open and found my check for 18 hours’ worth of work and a handwritten note, which read: “Depending on your attitude, and sincereness, you might get your job back if you ask. You can pay the $19.88 you owe to whoever is on shift.”

  “Dumb prick,” I sniggered, smiling at Heather

  “What?” She leaned towards me to get a glimpse of the note. I smelled on her a hint of some fruity perfume, mingled in with the unavoidable smell of pizza sauce. It was impossible to work here and not carry the scent of pizza on your body, in your hair, and, if you delivered them, in your car. Sara had mentioned it at the pub on our first date, that my car smelled like pepperoni. "Just a little bit," she had told me, giggling, and confidentially, as though people were listening in on our conversation, as she hovered on the border between drunk and very drunk, "It's okay…it's cute.” It was a curse, but cute! It sure wasn't cute when she drove me to pick up my car the next morning. The essence of poached eggs was all through my nose and mouth, and with a quasi-hangover, I did not enjoy getting into my car that day at all. The rising sun had made it miserably hot inside, and if not for immediately rolling my windows down and speeding up to whisk the odor away, I might have lost the poached eggs and toast on the dashboard.

  But, I’d still take the pizza smell over the curse of working with Perry any time. Any time.

  “He offered to take me back depending on my ‘sincereness,’” I said, pointing at the word on the paper.

  “Sincereness? That’s not even a word,” she laughed. Boy, she liked to laugh, and she had an understanding of basic vocabulary too. I liked those things in a woman. But, mostly I liked the laughter.

  “I know,” I said, and we giggled together. Sometimes I pitied Perry. I fell to my knees in a melodramatic enactme
nt of my begging Perry for my job back. Hands clasped together in front of my face, fake crying, I wailed: “Please, oh please, King Perry, could you please let me have my job back? I’m so sorry I got out of line; it’ll never happen again. Please! I am swollen and fat with sincereness!” A few loud, fake sobs later, and Heather had tears coming out of the corners of her eyes.

  Boy, just give me an audience, and there’s no stopping me.

  “Hey,” Heather said, grabbing my arm, standing me back up. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s celebrate your dismissal from the Palace staff. How about you and I go to the carnival that’s in town tonight? We can ride the rides, eat cotton candy, and laugh at this place!” She seemed really excited at the thought, and I felt bad as soon as she finished.

  “Umm, well, I, uh, can’t, Heather.” I stammered. Wow, you’re so convincing, Adam-boy. “I, uh, have some things that I’m working on right now,” I lied.

  Why did you do that, bonehead? I asked myself. I didn’t have an answer because I really didn’t know.

  “Oh…well, okay, Adam,” she said, looking away from me. Was that a twinge of disappointment in her voice? “But, if you change your mind, give me a call, okay?”

  “Okay, Heather.” I felt like a jerk, knowing good and well that I was going to spend the evening with Sara. I couldn’t find the will to muster up humor for this uncomfortable situation; I had to leave. “I really have to get going. I have a busy day ahead of me.”

  “Okay. Bye, Adam,” Heather said as I made my way to the front door.

  “Bye, Heather. And, thanks for the invite, really. Tonight’s just a bad time.” I managed to make it through the door without hurting myself and jumped into my car.

  Nice job, dipshit, I thought.

  Sometimes I just lied to women. It’s as if it were ingrained in my way of thinking to always keep some sort of edge by not sharing everything. I guess that part of me just wanted to keep the "Heather Option" there, too (that is, of course, if it was an option and I wasn't just reading into a non-existent situation). Something. I don’t know.