With a painful groan, still not entirely sober, Ian woke the next morning. He tried to sit up, but nearly threw up. He took a quick assessment of himself and realised he had an incredible headache and even worse dry mouth. The sound of his heart was beating hard in his ears, creating a nausea that he finally could not escape. Trying to piece together the night before was too difficult a task this early in the morning. All he knew was that his hundred dollars went down range at the bar within the first two hours of getting there. He and Dave had their fill of drinks, got drunk, tried picking up a couple of women from the university, went home alone, deaf, broke and obviously the worse for his experience.
Anticipating being sick, he made his way to the bathroom to prepare for the inevitable. Ian started feeling the results of his race the day before. He looked at his elbows and knees and saw the bruising. After a tough look in the mirror, he examined the rest of his upright corpse. His left elbow and shoulder had borne the brunt of his roll after the collision with the car. The bruising was a lot worse than it appeared yesterday. It was now disfiguring and sore. Ian had earned worse, and experience told him that these would last for at least a week before his normal colour returned. He took small consolation in that long sleeves would cover all the damage, so he would not stand out too much.
He took a long look in the mirror. He saw a gaunt, pallid, face staring back at him. The face showed strain that went beyond the usual hangover. He contemplated shaving, figured that he could go one more day before looking too shaggy.
Ian took a second to look deep into the mirror and reflect on his status of victor. He was definitely someone who had more than his fair share of victories. He had endured some crushing defeats too, but on the whole, he was one who won more than he lost. His parents never approved of his gambling or daring activities. His father and mother had come from India two years before he was born. His father, a successful physician, wanted a son who would fully embrace the new country, becoming an Indian-American rather than being an Indian in America. So, Ian was given his name. When he asked as a child why he was called Ian, he was told, often with his father's teasing smile, that those were the last three letters in Indian. Ian believed it to be true until he was thirteen, at which time he was told by his Dad that the last three letters of the word technician, statistician and veterinarian were 'ian' as well.
Ian's mother was a hard-working woman who had been a nurse in India. While Ian's father could eventually practice in the US, it had proven to be far too difficult for his mother to meet all the bureaucratic gateways to nurse here. The bureaucracy would allow her to volunteer in the hospitals, which she did, but she could not get a wage or salary for it. She did not like America for that. However, that did not stop her from being a leader in the Indo-American societies in Seattle, where they lived. She was the traditionalist. She wanted to name Ian something more akin to what he would have been named in India, like Sanjay. However, Ian he became. Instead of dwelling on that, she did her best to infuse him with as many of the traditions of India and his cultural heritage. Ian dreaded some of the time he spent talking to his mother when younger, but now that he was living in Great Plains, and he was 24, not 13, he missed them.
Having a father push him into American society and a mother keeping him grounded in Indian society gave Ian an edge. On the one hand, he was able to move seamlessly in both circles. He could talk hockey with his American buddies and describe last night's hat trick on the ice with enthusiasm. On the other hand. he could still talk cricket with his Indian cousins and describe yesterday's hat trick on the pitch with eloquence and ease. The other thing his parents provided for him was an ability to think about anything from multiple perspectives. Politically, he was not an ideologue for any party because none of them represented what he thought. He could look at economics with a practiced eye and readily see the pros and cons of any proposal or program and balance them out. This proved very beneficial in university where he found writing papers for class to be a breeze. It took him almost no time at all to write a 2500-word essay espousing any position on any subject. His grades were adequate because he did not do the volume of research demanded by the professor, but his logic was always sound and his prose was concise and effective. This gave him more spare time than most during the school semesters.
But it was not all roses and easy education. Ian was a rebel. He did not like the pressure to be and remain a top student. His Dad's 'ian; comment when he was 13 made Ian realise that all his Dad looked at was highly technical, demanding jobs. Almost the stereotype of the tech savvy Indian customer service agent. As a result, Ian forsook technology. He developed his brain, becoming both smart, and a smart ass. But, he purposefully avoided having any more exposure to tech than was necessary to withdraw money from the bank machine.
Ian's spare time was spent in almost any attempt to beat the odds at almost anything. He started back in Seattle, in eighth grade. He could see the cocky lead of the school play strutting his stuff around the school, but underneath that veneer of confidence Ian could see the kid was as nervous as a criminal standing in a lineup. A mere comment to one of the kid's pals started a minor feud. The feud was avoided when it was decided to settle this with a bet. Ian bet $5 that the lead would screw up his lines, not once, but twice during the play. The bet was accepted, and for the first time in a long time, the school play, of which Ian was never a part, was interesting. The cocky lead screwed up his lines twice within the first five minutes, and for good measure dropped one of the props he was fumbling with. The $5 bought a celebratory ice cream for him and his neighbour Indika. He was hooked. As long as he could envision the outcome, he would be game for a bet. He did not like to play games of chance, except for pure fun. He preferred games where he had some measure of control over the outcome or could readily assess the balance of probabilities of something occurring. He had won plenty over the past dozen years. And now he was recovering from his latest victory.
He put some antiseptic on one of the cuts on his arm. It stung. It stung bad. All he could utter was "Krap!." Inwardly, he felt truly hurt, but decades of growing up where the sound of an Indian man cursing was not only discouraged, but in fact the basis of comedy, changed his vocabulary to cover all sorts of pseudo curse words.
Ian left the bathroom. He thought about skipping his teeth because the taste of the toothpaste might make him gag. Then, he consciously thought about the reality of his breath and went back to clean them. He found a set of old clothes, not soiled at least, and put them on. He walked down to his local coffee hangout, the Sunshine Diner, and ordered himself a coffee, an aspirin and some dry, white toast. As he stared at his plate and mug, he really started to regret the night before.
It was not so much that he regretted the party. He did enjoy a good party. It was just that this past year, he had a few more bets than usual go against him. He was in some trouble, and always in fear of being kicked out of university. That hundred dollars spent in the bar last night, plus the other fifty he got out of the bank machine to augment his drinking, would have covered some smaller debts he owed. But the money was gone. And he would have to find some way to pull in some more to cover his debts.
He looked around the diner to see if there was anything worthwhile to bet on. Along the counter were the same two middle aged guys who were in every morning at this time. They did not speak English to each other and Ian did not ever feel the need to talk to them. But today he watched. They were talking at conversational level, with no emotion in their voice. They were dressed as they usually were in jeans, button down shirts and workboots. Both had rather longish hair and the ugliest pair of moustaches. A quick analysis based on observation told him that these guys were immigrants like his parents, and they probably came from the same country, but did not work together, hence the daily 'how are you doing' breakfast meeting.
At the counter sat a 30-ish woman who was wearing nurses' garb. Ian did not see her often in here, but when she was, she always seemed rushed. She had a big set of car keys sitting on the counter with at least one photo key tag. Her shoes were extremely worn, but her nurses' scrubs were nearly pristine. Her hair was tied up in a tight bun on the back of her head and she did not seem to be wearing any makeup or jewellery. If Ian could say, he would think her moderately attractive, but she was always in, get the coffee, a bagel and run. His assessment told him that she was a nurse or nurse's aide at the nearby health care center. She was also a single mom who rushed so she would not have to have the child care any longer than necessary, but the job did not really pay her well enough to cover up the expenses of child care.
Neither the two gentlemen nor the nurse would be a source of money for Ian today.
He drained his coffee and taking a page out of the nurse's meal plan, ordered a bagel to go. Bagel in hand, he headed out the door, back to his apartment. It was still quite early on a Saturday for him as he got inside the door to his apartment He looked at the clock. 9:30 am. What a time to be upright with a headache. He tossed his jacket over the back of the easy chair. Then, in a pique of conscience, he realised he needed to do something right today, he put his jacket in his closet.
The phone rang. Being leery of answering the phone, fearing a collection agency, or worse, Dave wanting to taste the hair of the dog, He let it ring. His routine was to wait and see if his call display was going to show him the number that would help him identify who was calling. Collection agencies had taken to using call blocking to avoid this. Dave did too. Collection agencies did to try to catch Ian unawares, Dave because he was massively guarded about his privacy. Ian looked and the number came up as local. Thinking that it was not likely a local collection agent, especially given that it was a Saturday, Ockham's Razor stated that it was someone else looking for him. He picked it up. Attempting a pseudo deep voice to offer the deniability that he was himself, as well as clear up the funk that seemed to have attached itself to his voicebox, if it was indeed a collection agent, he muttered a quick hello.
"Hi, I am looking for Ian," soothed a seductive feminine voice over the phone. Ian did not need to ask who it was. His memory flew to thoughts of this striking woman, his mind's eye fixed upon those eyes.
Clearing his voice, in a feeble attempt to get it back to normal and wipe out any vocal remnants of his drunken night before, "Hi, it's me here. Umm, it's Ian, I mean."
"Hi, Ian. I never gave you my name yesterday, but I'm Kate. I thought that I should call sooner rather than later to set up our interview."
Ian, a little disappointed at the fact that she was still all work, replied, "Great. Great. Where and when did you want me?" He tried to play it conservatively and not put out any of his corniest lines. This was an opportunity that he could not squander.
"How about next week, on the 23rd, at the psychology department at UGP?"
"Sounds good to me."
"By the way, we pay $25 for your participation in the study."
"Money is no real object with me," Ian lied.
"Well we pay everyone, that way it keeps the playing field even by eliminating bias. We don't want someone to state that money becomes a reason to spin a set of answers. It spoils the research."
"Ok, I'm not one to argue with you." Ian took a quick gulp of air, then jumped in with both feet. "Can I offer you coffee anytime today, perhaps?" He realised he was holding his breath. This was, for him, the make or break moment where he would determine whether the mysterious Kate was purely interested in him for study, or whether there was an indication for something else to follow.
After what seemed like an hour, she gave the curt response "Would you like to meet for a quick lunch? I could call it a pre study screening."
Thanking his lucky stars, Ian accepted. "I can meet you anywhere you like."
Kate quickly quipped, "How about we pick a place near you, as I have a car, and you don't". Ian offered to meet her at the Sunshine Diner, and Kate proposed the time. With that she hung up.
Ian smiled. He had a date with Kate. As he put his phone back into his pocket, it struck him, how did she know he did not own a car?