“A nd there’s no sex?” Clearly James was disappointed.
I’d come clean on the dinner with Sarah. Of course, he wanted to know every detail.
“Come on, James. Would I even be interested?”
James looked at me, shaking his head.
“Hey, man, keep your eyes on the road.”
He slowly shifted his gaze to the road ahead of us. The rickety box truck chugged along, occasionally coughing and spewing puffs of black, brown, and gray smoke. The old girl burned oil, and we’d never had enough money to fix the problem. The problem being, the truck was old, and if we were going to use a truck as a way to produce income, we needed a new truck. In our current fiscal crisis, even a newer truck would suffice.
“A make-believe girlfriend. It’s very strange, amigo.” James pursed his lips, and affected a frown on his face. He squinted his eyes as if he was assessing the situation. I wished I’d never mentioned it.
“Actually, it’s a make-believe boyfriend, James. She’s the one who has to pretend. Pretend that I’m her boyfriend until this Sandy character gets his big paycheck. Then, it’s off to France, or wherever they’re going. It’s all just a joke.” He’d beat it to death. I know exactly how his mind works.
“This paycheck-”
“Must be a monster. She said he’d never have to work again. They could do anything they wanted.”
“Man. Can you imagine how much that would be?”
“Two million or more?”
James laughed. “Try ten or more. These people live in a different world, compadre.”
“True.” How could someone imagine ten million? How could someone spend ten million?
We’d stopped at Pep Boys and bought a case of oil, then stopped at Gas and Grocery and picked up a case of Yuengling long necks. Much better than the stuff at home. James had an open bottle tucked beside his worn cloth seat and he checked the rearview mirror to make sure there were no cops following us.
“James, I haven’t agreed to do the deal.” The bonus was very tempting. But there was Em.
He took a long, deep swallow of beer, this time keeping his eyes on the road. “But you will get the job, pally. It’s the Lord’s will.” James’s sarcasm was shining through.
“All you have to do is pretend you like the girl and you make an eleven thousand dollar profit. It can’t be that hard, Skip. Think this through.”
I hadn’t told him about the bonus. Man, he would go crazy if he knew. And I knew that sooner or later I’d spill it. I always did. James, love him or hate him, was my best friend, and sooner or later you tell your best friend everything.
Unless you’re sleeping with his wife. And that thought got me thinking about Sarah, sleeping with somebody else’s husband, and that got me thinking about playing make-believe with Sarah, and what Emily would say about that. And then I thought maybe I wouldn’t tell Em. Just not mention it. I wasn’t really cheating on her. I wasn’t really having any physical contact. I mean, how much trouble would that be? A couple of months-keep it low key, and then I get the bonus, the commission, and no one has to know anything.
“So tell me again. She meets this guy online?”
“Some sort of a dating service.”
“Sarah shouldn’t need a dating service. Is she still built like a brick-”
“She’s built, James. Very sexy. And she dresses in really high heels, a tight dress and a plunging neckline. I mean, it was the complete package.”
He pulled into our parking lot and parked the truck in front of our shabby apartment. A rusted-out Ford pickup truck was pulled in at an angle next to my old Chevy, and Jim Jobs’s Odd Jobs Chrysler van was on the other side with its hideous orange and red sign. Jim Jobs’s Odd Jobs/ No matter what the job, Jim Jobs can do it. We’d never explored the veracity of the statement.
“Think about what it would have been like if she dressed like that in high school.”
“I don’t want to think about it. She never would have gone out with me at all.” She would have been propositioned by every good-looking senior guy in our graduating class, and probably by every guy in her class as well.
“Skip,” he stepped from the truck, avoiding the loose running board. He’d twisted his ankle twice on that dangerous piece of aluminum. Someday I was going to get a hacksaw and just cut the damned thing off. “Skip, I love you like a brother-”
“But?”
“But you were never in her league.”
I smiled and got out of the truck. “Tell me, James. Am I in Em’s league?”
“You got me there, pard. No one is in her league. Your snotty little rich bitch? Just ask her.”
He was right, but it didn’t seem to matter to Em. She seemed to “get” me, and I was very happy about the relationship.
I put the case of oil behind the passenger seat, in the narrow closet of the truck. James took the case of beer inside. By the time I hit the front door, he’d popped the cap on his second bottle.
“Internet dating services.”
“A dating service. You could use one, James. It’s been a dry spell the last several months, hasn’t it?”
“Screw you.”
He sat down at the computer and booted it up, sipping on his beer. Actually, I’d picked up the tab on the case. It was my beer. Very seldom did James have enough liquid capital to buy the brown stuff.
“Internet dating services. If I just Google dating services, and put in her name, maybe I could-”
“She’s found the guy, James. I’m sure she’s not still listed.”
“Yeah, but sometimes these people keep their profile up for a while.” He stared at the screen, running his fingers over the keyboard. “You know, in case it doesn’t work out.” Click, click, click.
I wondered if Em had a profile on a dating service. I’d never even considered it.
“And his name was?”
“Sandy Conroy. Or try Sandler. And I’m positive he’d put his name up on there so his wife could find it and destroy the poor S.O.B.”
“No need to get sarcastic, pardner.”
“Think about it, James. It just wouldn’t be a sound idea. The guy would not advertise his own name, saying he was looking for an affair. He’s a big-time business executive. He didn’t get to be president by being stupid. Got it?”
“You never know, Skip.”
“Whatever.” There was no way he could figure this one out.
His fingers flew over the keys. I went into the kitchen and opened a beer. Yuenglings. They brewed it up in Tampa, so James’s reasoning was it had to be fresh. Bud was brewed up there too, but when I had a couple of bucks, he opted for Yuengling.
“We should have started an Internet dating service, Skip. Could have made a killing.”
“Do you understand anything at all about setting up computer systems?”
“No.”
“Do you understand anything about women?”
“Now that you mention it-” his eyes were laser focused on the screen.
“So, it’s better left to the computer geeks.”
“Point well taken.” He kept stroking the keyboard, and as I sipped the lukewarm beer I could see images racing across the screen.
“If I take the job, we’d have installers come in and tear out the old system. Then, they’d do all the wiring, with the motion detectors and everything.”
“Uh-huh.” He was leaning into the computer screen, studying the pictures.
“James, you’re not going to find her.”
“So, there will be installers?”
“A job this big, we’ll need a couple of supervisors. A couple of people who get to know the layout of the building and will be able to work with the installers, getting answers for their questions, assisting the operation and stuff like that.”
“Uh-huh. Gofers, right?”
“Any chance you can get a week off from Cap’n Crab?”
“What?”
Cap’n Crab was the seafood shack where James worked. He cooked the crab. A far cry from his dream when he attended culinary school. But my security company was a far cry from my dreams when I attended business school at Samuel and Davidson University. James and I were still trying to find the American Dream. I was starting to think maybe, just maybe, I’d found a piece of it. “Can you get a week off?”
“Why?”
“James, I just told you. We need some supervisors.”
He glanced up from our computer, with it’s $40-a-month access fee that I usually ended up paying. “Me? A supervisor?”
“I was thinking.”
“How much does it pay?”
“Got to be more than you get boiling crab. And you won’t come home smelling like shellfish.”
“How much, amigo?”
“Twelve an hour. Eight hours a day. One hour for lunch.”
He gave me a big smile.
“Makes you happy, eh?”
“No. I’ll do your supervisor job, Skip, but that’s not why I’m happy.”
“What then?”
“Remember the movie Ten?”
“The little guy who played in Arthur? Dudley somebody?”
“No, a Belgian movie, came out about 2002.”
Usual obscure movie from James. While I watched most of the movies with him, I didn’t remember all of them. “What about it, James?”
“There’s a line in there. Two ladies are talking. One says, ‘You are wholesalers, we are retailers.’ ”
The movie didn’t ring a bell. James saw a lot of films and remembered a lot of quotes. To be honest, I didn’t have the interest in remembering everything about those movies. Sure, I saw the movies with him, but memorizing movie quotes happened to be a somewhat useless talent. I didn’t want to be reminded. “Get to the point, James.”
“I’ve got Sarah’s picture.” He nodded an exaggerated head bob and pointed at the screen.
“How did you find that?” On top of being a movie quote buff, James was also a whiz on Google and Yahoo.
“You just keep plugging in words, pard.”
“Give me a break. You found her?”
“Words like, Miami, date, executive, services. Stuff like that.”
When I needed information, James was always on top of it. “Sarah? She still has a profile?”
“No, Alexandra has a profile.”
“Alexandra?”
“Look.”
I took a swallow of beer and leaned over the screen. There she was, smiling back at me. There were face shots, upper-body shots, full-figure shots, and some casual shots of her in tight jeans and a halter top. God, she looked good. Sleek, tan, showing off a lot of smooth skin.
“Says here her name is Alexandra, Skip.”
She’d been a little cagey when I asked her about the dating service. And, when I’d asked if she knew Sandy was married, she said something like, “It wasn’t important.”
So she didn’t want anyone to know who she was. That’s no big deal.”
“You’re right. She didn’t want anyone to know who she was. Why do you think that is?”
“Don’t know, James.” With my roommate it was like playing Twenty Questions. He wanted to play it out to its conclusion.
“I’ll tell you, friend. This isn’t a dating service.”
“Then get to the point and tell me what it is.”
“The Empire Club.”
“Empire Club?” I took another swallow of my Yuengling, waiting for James to finally spit it out.
“It’s an escort service, Skip. The prostitute says to the housewife, “You’re in the wholesale business, we’re in the retail business.’ Your Sarah is a high-class prostitute. A hooker.”