Pops used to say never confuse politeness with stupidity, just because you smile through an asshole comment doesn’t mean you don’t understand the insult. I’m not always the best with people, but I know that whatever lack of synchronicity I have with them doesn’t mean I’m stupid. There’s a catch here somewhere but I can’t think of what it is and so I follow her upstairs, the pug at my heels. Tony’s office door is closed, I can hear a quiet murmuring. I follow Jazz into Tristan’s office.
His phone is in here she says, lifting it from the desk, and I can tell she’s one of those girlfriends that rifles through everything, reads every text message and checks his social media accounts with the belief he belongs to her. She enters the pin code with her long apricot-coloured nails. She must know he follows me on Instagram, she probably has noted every comment he’s made so far. She’s probably searched my posts psychotically and checked out my followers and who I’m following. She probably knows more about me than I do.
Here you go. She hands his phone to me, to my surprise.
Maybe I’m wrong about her. Maybe the hollow rumbling in my stomach is making me wrong about everything.
His credit card is here too, she says, opening a drawer. You should maybe use his business one, yeah. She looks at me and I’m not sure if it’s a question. For a business expense, she adds.
Oh yeah, okay, I say, but I don’t know about these things and I’m still suspicious of her intentions. I look at his phone in my hand thinking this is it, this is her trick, there’s something on the phone she wants me to see, a screen saver photograph perhaps of the two of them together, or a text message she expects me to nosily discover, thinking that I’m like her but I’m not. She won’t reel me in. I go straight to the app store feeling cocky and self-assured that I have dodged a bullet, I have not played into her hands.
What were you guys doing in here last week, she asks.
I try not to smile. A-ha. That’s what she’s up to, fishing for info. And so I supply it. He was showing me sample video games, I say.
Here’s his card, she hands it to me.
I sit on the couch and concentrate on setting up the account. Name, registered business address, credit card details.
It’s fun seeing how it all begins, isn’t it, she says.
Yeah it really is. So interesting to see the inspiration for these things.
She’s already turning the plasma on. Did you see this one, she asks.
I purse my lips to stop myself from smiling at how obvious she’s being. She’s testing me, did I really see the videos or were we screwing on the couch.
Music starts up, some fancy swishing sounds, but I keep my eyes down as I insert the long credit card number and then double-check that it’s correct. I mean, I could be a fraud. I could steal his details right here right now and all she’s worried about is whether I kissed her boyfriend or not.
This game is only early stages but Rooster is excited about this one, she says. It’s been developed faster than any other game they have. I play this one a lot.
Now that gets my attention. I didn’t think she was a gamer and I look up to see the words fire across the screen: Warden Wipeout. They diminish in a bloody slither down the screen.
So the idea of the game is to hunt down the parking warden when you get a parking ticket, she says perkily.
She’s sitting on the arm of the chair, long shiny legs out before her. Ankle bracelets around her thin ankles. Handling the PlayStation controls like a pro.
I look at the screen, my mouth suddenly completely dry. Cotton mouth. I watch the half-developed town centre that looks like it’s modelled on Malahide. A Main Street, a diamond shaped intersection and laneways growing from it. There’s a lone person walking the paths, dressed in navy blue and a high-vis vest. There’s a map on the top right hand of the screen with a red dot showing where the parking warden is. And a timer. A countdown that tells you when the parking ticket has expired.
Suddenly a siren sounds, as she’s issued a parking ticket. Jazz’s avatar takes off in the direction of the target on the map, to the parking warden whose features come into view. The warden is female, she’s dressed exactly as I am now. She has a nasty face, twisted in a scowl like a witch, a long nose and chin, all elongated bony features. It would scare children.
And freckles.
Look at this, Jazz laughs, and suddenly her avatar lashes out and punches the parking warden.
The warden’s hat flies off and blood gushes from her face, flying into the air in a big red spray. The avatar high-kicks, gets her right in the stomach, and she doubles over, blood dripping from her mouth. The warden’s equipment falls to the ground, the avatar picks it up, throws it at the warden’s head. More blood and sprays, so that the warden’s face is like a bruised plum. Then the avatar stomps on the equipment, stomp, crunch, smash. The warden starts to run away, tickets and papers flying around her like confetti. The screen vibrates with Warden Wipeout thumping high-paced music and the avatar – let’s be honest, it’s Jazz – continues her attack. Thumps, kicks, headlocks. The warden doesn’t fight back, but she makes sounds. Yelps, oomphs and uhhs. Pained sounds with a horrified expression beneath the bloodied and bruised face. Then Jazz picks up a pay-and-display parking meter, uproots it from the concrete, and whacks it across the warden’s head. The head flies off, blood sprays from her open neck, the headless body wobbles drunkenly around in circles on the pavement for a moment before collapsing in a heap on the ground, the head rolls.