MUSIC TRACK LIST:
Lena -- Satellite
The Gambler -- Kenny Rogers
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David's POV
When I arrived at Bru's Wiffle, Atticus was nowhere to be found. Typical. He was going to make me wait just to prove a point. If my eyes hadn't set sight on all the delicious food before me, I would have bolted right there and then. But Atticus had me exactly where he wanted me: caught in the middle between my hunger and my pride. And today both hunger and Atticus would win. Pavlov's dog, I cursed myself while quickly catching the drool falling from my mouth as a waitress floated by me with a scrumptious waffle smothered with chili and cheese, driving me faint with desire.
I sat at a table, and glanced down at the glorious descriptions of food on the menu. This was pure torture. Meatball Marinara Waffle and Chicken Curry Salad Waffle and ugh... For a moment I thought about ordering now to try to stick Atticus into paying for two meals, but thought better on it. What if he suddenly decided not to show up and then I was stuck with a bill I couldn't pay? It was either food or booze, and I already had a plan to hit up the liquor store on the corner after I was out of here. I set the menu aside and tried not to look at or smell any of the food around me, which was hard considering Bru's Wiffle was packed as usual.
Instead I closed my eyes and tried to go over in my mind the ground rules:
1) Do not eat like this is your first real meal in weeks. Yes, he will see how skinny you are and he can easily guess your situation, but that's no reason to belabor the point.
2) Make him stew. Tell him you need a night or so to think whatever he needs from you over. And then don't call him for three days.
3) Don't let Atticus talk you into doing his dirty work for him. No matter how persuasive he is. No matter how alluring the opportunity sounds.
4) Remember to put on your poker face!
5) For god's sake, put your nice guy morals aside and revert to blackmail if you must. Or at least remind him exactly who holds the ace card in this situation.
6) Negotiate, negotiate, and negotiate.
7) Never forget: Atticus is not your friend; he is nobody's friend but his own. He would as soon sell you out for a price of an OK Cupid membership than feel any sense of common human decency for a poor kid down on his luck and miles from home. A kid whose life and future he callously trampled on in order to save his own skin.
8) And whatever you do: don't suck wind through your teeth – he knows your tell.
When I opened my eyes again, Atticus was sitting quietly in front of me, sipping coffee and studying my face. I blinked and stared right back at him. It had only been a few months since I had last seen him but he was a little worse for wear. I studied the topographical map of his face: the terrain of his swarthy skin was a little more graveled than before, the wrinkles a little more etched in stone. The folds of his ruddy skin sunk heavily into the crevices where the tectonic plates of his face met. The tufts of his hair that spiked up on his skull like mountain peaks donned a few more inches of snow. And the hulking boulder of his body was a little more eroded at the sloping shoulders. But it had none of the Grand Canyon's deep red and yellow-blotched earth tones from that time he was screaming after me when I had last spun on my heels and walked away from him for good.
It was a face set in stone that revealed little fellow feeling because Atticus simply had none.
"Hello, Atticus," I sighed. How an old codger with a cane could sneak up like a ninja was beyond me.
"You're looking well, David," Atticus jibed. The bastard.
I gave a curt nod to that and let the sting of the barb roll down my back. Poker face, remember.
"Have you ordered?" he asked.
I simply shook my head no, sensing he might realize that my not ordering food gave away yet more of my financial position than I had planned to reveal.
Atticus raised the menu up so I could no longer see his face. I smiled softly to myself when I realized he also was careful not to reveal any human weakness at having to squint at the words or put on his glasses at the risk of emphasizing his aging and bleary eyes. Same proud old bastard as ever.
I glanced down at my menu and tried not to faint at the sight of food. You ever get so hungry you can't even begin to order? The easiest thing would have been for me to ask for the largest or most expensive thing on the menu but I couldn't reveal more of my desperate situation than necessary or Atticus would easily have the upper hand.
"I dunno..." I drawled to the waitress when she suddenly appeared beside me, "I'm not all that hungry, what do you recommend?"
When the waitress suggested a salad, I realized I had clearly overshot. I listened thoughtfully to her options, and then countered: "Hmmm....sounds great, I'll have the Bru's Special Salad...can I also get a Dwight's Special Fried Chicken? Does that come with a waffle??"
The waitress nodded while scribbling my order down, "So that's a salad on the side, I take it?"
"Well, wait...what are my options again? It comes as a side..."
"And as its own standalone meal," she said.
"I'll take the second option, thanks. With Dwight's Chicken," I confirmed, then nonchalantly noted to Atticus: "I'm trying to increase my fiber uptake."
If Atticus noticed the quivering hunger in my lips, he revealed nothing. Atticus merely sipped at his coffee and then pointed a fat thumb at an entree on the menu for the waitress to write down.
As the waitress sauntered away, I called out after her: "And can I get an order of roasted red potatoes with that?"
"More fiber, I take it" Atticus's beady clouded glaucoma blue eyes crinkled up in a smile.
I simply shrugged, and then steadied a hand on my knee under the table, forcing my foot to stop tapping impatiently for the waitress to break out into a sprint and order my food already.
Atticus sipped his coffee and said no more. I stared up at the ceiling and waited. I wasn't going to let him off that easy.
Moments passed. Then minutes. I closed my eyes and listened to the clatter of the diners all around me.
"Tired, David?" Atticus finally prodded after some time.
"Nope," I said popping the P in emphasis.
"I'm glad to hear it," he replied and then nothing further. I was glad my eyes were closed so he couldn't see me roll them. He never had shown any concern for my sleep when I was burning the midnight oil for him while taking on a full course load to boot.
More moments passed and then finally I gave in, as I knew he knew I would. "What. Do. You. Want. Atticus," I clipped.
"Don't be like that, David. Can't you let bygones be bygones," Atticus purred like the fat cat he was.
"Bygones be bygones?" I muttered, "You destroyed my future!"
"Stop being so dramatic!"
"I got kicked out of school because of you! With three months left to graduation!"
"A temporary blip in the grand scheme of things," Atticus countered, "We both know you have a very bright future ahead. Talented guy like you could do almost anything. Have you thought about running away and joining the circus?"
I began to suck wind through my teeth. Poker face, poker face. "Stop changing the subject," I said with a clamped jaw.
"Besides," he continued, "One could hardly blame me for what happened—"
"—Yes , Atticus," I cried, "One could BLAME you. I BLAME you. YOU are directly to BLAME," I seethed. I was getting overly emotional and quickly losing my composure and hating myself for demonstrating the weakness. If I hadn't spied the waitress making her way with the food I would have probably upped and left right then. What had I expected from him, anyhow...an apology? I snorted at the thought.
"What do you want from me, David. An apology? Fine — I'm sorry if you feel that I am somehow responsible for your current situation."
If the food hadn't arrived precisely at that moment I think I might have stabbed him with a fork, but instead I shoveled the fork into the steamy hot waffle and directly into my mouth. Shit! that was hot, but my mouth was already swallowing it before I could shout at my brain to slow down. I could feel the heat scorch all the way down my esophagus before plopping into the depths below. I don't know why I was getting so mad...it's not like this wasn't exactly what I expected from Atticus.
"Apology accepted," I said between forkfuls of food. Oh gawd, I can't believe I had forgotten the taste of diner food while it was hot. I was in heaven. Hot food is amazeballs. I need more food in my life. I could sing tributes to food. Food, glorious good! Smothered in tasty food...
I suddenly felt Atticus's eyes scrutinizing my face in the midst of my foodgasm. I slowly pulled the fork out of my mouth and said, "Now, tell me what you really want."
"The research proposal was accepted," Atticus stated.
"The proposal...?" I swallowed my food long enough to drawl, "The proposal...? Oh you mean MY proposal was accepted. Well, congratulations, Atticus. You must be very pleased. When do you start?"
"We start Monday."
My eyes bugged out a little. He must have known for months. Why would he come to me suddenly now? "That soon? Who is all 'we'?" I asked, feeling my shoulders tense up and a wave of nausea hit the back of my neck.
"You and me," Atticus said flatly.
Huh. "What about the others?" I asked softly.
Atticus shrugged, "They quit."
"The ENTIRE team?" I shouted in disbelief and looked up from ravishing my plate to study his face.
Atticus nodded.
The rolls of nausea began to lightly trace its fingers up my neck and massage my scalp.
"And...Alice?" I asked without looking at him. I busied myself with cutting the tender chicken that was just falling apart.
In the corner of my eye, I could see Atticus shake his head.
I looked up at him with questioning eyes. He finally relented under my gaze, "She went... back." He said the word "back," sharp and harsh, as if recoiling from a stumbled upon cobra.
I stopped eating for a moment and my mind started wandering towards that subject I never allow myself to think about.
And then the nausea was replaced with hope. "She told the dean what really happened?" I inquired, my voice cracking.
"Don't be stupid, David. Of course she didn't," Atticus chided softly.
"Then how exactly is it that I can go back? I know you did me no favors by confessing your sins."
Atticus stared at me for a moment and pursed his lips. "You aren't going back...not in...an official capacity, at least."
I snorted. And there it was.
"Let me get this straight," I said stabbing the salad and avocado and goat cheese in its giant meal-sized bowl, "You want ME to work for YOU on MY research without ANY of the recognition LET ALONE glory?"
"Our research," he corrected feebly. "And it's quite generous when you think about it, David."
"Ha!" I laughed and almost choked on a grape.
"What else are you going to do, David? What else can you do? Join the Occupy movement? Options are pretty limited nowadays for experimental sound engineers."
Tell me about it.
I pushed my empty plates aside, and then peaked up at Atticus through the shaggy bangs hanging down over my eyes. I clenched my jaw as I cleared the mixed greens and fried shallots from my gums, "I would need to double the stipend..." My heart pounded, I needed to negotiate for my life... if I didn't, they would take it away like it was nothing. Negotiate...
Atticus nodded.
"And a third of your cut—and before you tell me that that's not what grant funding is for, I know all about your tricks," I gave him a challenging glare. Negotiate...
Atticus didn't nod, but he didn't laugh with incredulity, so I pressed further, "And an advance." And negotiate.
Atticus pulled out a check book. "For back rent and utility bills, I presume," he said as he clicked the top of his pen.
"I prefer to use the phrase: awarded damages for mental distress and suffering," I replied.
Atticus poised the pen over the blank check. So I continued with rule number 2. "And I'll need the weekend to think about," I said, while sucking wind and dressing through my teeth.
"Let's celebrate. Why don't you order dessert?" Atticus smiled showing his sharp carnivorous teeth as he wrote me out the check.
I smiled as the waitress came back.
"Three peanut butter and jelly waffles," I grinned. Atticus didn't look up at me but he stopped writing. I smiled at the waitress and she smiled back at me. "For dessert."
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A/N:
A little bit of a longer chapter to make up for Wednesday's shortie. Thanks for all our dedicated readers...so far 100 of you! We feel so blessed.
So...what do you guys think happened with Alice to get David kicked out of school? What do you think of Atticus so far? Does the food from Bru's Wiffle's sound tasty? I was drooling over the pictures while writing. I'll be in LA in a few weeks and hopefully I can have a meal with Jim there. Maybe we can convince them to make a special multiverse waffle? Hmm...what would that taste like? Jim and I haven't seen each other for two years ever since the epic adventure: Conspiracy for Good (check it out online if you can) so I hope we can post lots of a squeeable moments together.
Ta for now. And remember...if you liked this chapter: comment, vote and fan!!! <3
Next chapter Wednesday noon Eastern. Emma and David FINALLY cross paths!!!
<3
~C
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