CHAPTER THREE:
JJ'S MANAGEMENT TEAM
[EPISODE THREE: THE FORBIDDEN ZONE]
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The following evening, her phone pings while she's braiding her hair to sleep in and, after quickly tying it off, she bounces her butt along her bed to check what the notification is from where her phone is plugged in on her nightstand.
hey it's rafe, sarah gave me ur number n i
just wanted to apologise for yesterday morning
She purses her lips, pulling her knees up to her chest as she hesitates before writing back. It's okay, is what she reluctantly replies with, even though she supposes it isn't okay, and rather than forgiving him she'd much rather know exactly what he'd been up to. As much as she hates to admit it, she's been thinking about it for most of the day.
Before she's even put the phone down and turned away from it, it pings again.
there's a party tonight. i can pick you up?
She glances across her room at her dressing table mirror. Facemask on, hair braided, wearing her pyjamas.
as much as i love a party, i'm a little
busy tonight. some other time?
shame. you're the only person who's mildly
interesting here nowadays
and i'm holding you to that promise
you're forgiven for yesterday but i
shall never forget, so don't even
try to flirt with me, rafe cameron
But despite the threat, when she looks up again, her reflection in her dressing-table mirror is smiling. And she smiles wider when she sees Rafe's reply.
no promises, rita fletcher ;)
how about midsummers?
what's midsummers?
some party. we have it annually.
will there be guns?
no pogues allowed, don't worry.
i mean, walking in there is like
walking into a room full of dolls,
and me and top would prefer it if
our dad's weren't around so we
could have a little more fun
i'm guessing fun is a euphemism for
girls and weed?
not my drug of choice, but okay rita
fletcher, i see u
She laughs under her breath, despite her better judgement. After a moment, she catches herself and swallows. It's Rafe Cameron -- who knew he was funny?
Fucks sake, she thinks after a moment, for the first time really realising what she's thinking. This guy is up to something, that much is startlingly clear from the way he was snooping around her house yesterday. She has to keep it together, has to remember above all else that, as charming as he is, he's also a slimy piece of work -- a piece of work who she can't figure out for the life of her. And she's not used to that.
He's intimidating, he's charming, he's laughable, he's a cliché; she's scared of him, she teases him -- and now, most importantly, he's flirting with her.
Keep it distant. Keep the replies short. Don't entertain.
sure, sounds good ill ask my dad about going
well, if he isn't invited, i want you
to come with me
Her heart twinges. Genuine, or not? Over text, it's even harder to tell if he has some ulterior motive.
She hates herself for hoping there isn't. Hoping that he's genuinely a little bit interested. Having a boy to talk to would be some entertainment, at least -- and she's hit the jackpot with Rafe Cameron, who has an endless supply of jokes to be made about him that will go right over his head.
do i have a choice?
of course
but pick the obvious right answer
what a charming and eloquent way
to ask me on a date
who said it was a date?
Fucks sake, she thinks. Her face heats with embarrassment, made worse by the fact it's Rafe, of all people, who's caught her out and embarrassed her -- Rafe, who had no idea she was joking when she told him his waxed chest was "as smooth as a baby's bum".
But her phone pings again.
a date would be an honour, rita
fletcher :)
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"Oh. It's you."
"So you remember me?"
Well, of course Rita remembers JJ Maybank. And not for the nice reasons, like the shock of blonde hair and the eyes, so blue and so piercing when they'd stared at her so without shame, in that bathroom. No, she remembers him because, not only has it only been three days since the party, but he also had had a gun on his person -- the first she'd seen in real life, ever.
So the sight of him at her door isn't the most pleasing start to her morning. Her hair is still wet from her shower and bound up in the towel on her head, and she's pushing a earring into her ear when she pulls open the mahogany door and props it wide with her hip.
On the white marble doorstep, JJ grins and pulls off his cap, leaving his blonde hair sticking up in haphazard waves. The late morning sun is behind him, making her squint behind her glasses -- which becomes a grimace when she spots a rolled cigarette propped on his ear. "Rita, right?" he says.
"Yeah..." Rita says wearily, putting in her other earring -- a dangling silver moon -- before dropping her hands and giving him a proper once over. "Why are you here?"
"Your dad sells drones, right?" he asks, putting the rolled zoot between his lips.
"Are you here for business?" she asks sceptically, and when she sees him raising his hands to light the cig, she leans forward, plucking it from his mouth.
He raises his eyebrows -- half teasing, half annoyed. "Not in front of daddy?"
Rita places it in her mouth, then casually fishes her own lighter (blue, with a cartoon yellow flame on it) from her pocket and lights it. JJ's face slackens and blanches, and she's sure he barely hears her when she says through an exhale of the smoke, "Daddy's busy. What do you want?" She tries not to show her surprise that it's pure weed -- no tobacco.
"A drone," he says. Rolls his eyes, flexes his jaw. "Obviously. Can we rent one?"
"For what?"
"None of your business," he replies, and she likes the bluntness of it, so she grins, despite her better judgement (she hasn't forgotten he's a gun carrying lunatic... although, so is everybody around these parts), as she takes another inhale. "They can go underwater, right?"
"Yeah," she says, and then nothing else, hoping he'll go on and reveal more about his motivations and wants. What does JJ want with an underwater drone?
But all he says is: "Well?" It's accompanied by a sharp raise of his eyebrows and him pushing his salmon-coloured cap back onto his head, backwards, a puff of blonde hair sticking out.
She sighs. "It depends how deep you wanna go."
"About a thousand feet. No more."
Easy peasy. "I can do that. It'll cost you, like, fifty bucks, depending on how long you want it for."
"Can't I pay afterward?"
She exhales smoke again, and he wafts it away with his hand, irritated -- which thrills her. "Fine, I'll cut you a deal. Deposit of forty, cash in hand, to have it for the rest of the day," she says, plucking numbers from the top of her head. "Bring it back before five, and I'll give you twenty back. Insurance."
"Is that company policy?"
"Of course," she lies with a charming smile, even though, guessing from the tone of his voice and the glint in his eyes, she can tell he sees right through her.
He knows it isn't company policy, because of course it isn't -- her dad doesn't even have a company. The only reason they have such extensive camera equipment around the house is because her dad loves to tinker with it all (she jokes that he's searching for his next big break to ramp them up to Palm Beach, the next level of his retirement game).
Besides that, the truth is her dad's due back at 5:30 from lunch and golfing with the Camerons, and this is the perfect chance for her to make a quick twenty bucks. She's taking advantage -- which might make her a bitch. To be honest, it definitely does; her dad'll be pissed, and this is the type of shit that made her hated in high school when she was younger, and she knows these 'Pogues' don't have that sort of money.
But she can't help it.
As much as a deep part of her wants to be kind, so generous and understanding and filled with sunshine that it radiates from her, that she glows with it...she truly can't help it. And at night, she lies awake and wonders why she does this, why she feels bitter and holds grudges and loses her temper so easily -- when it's the opposite of what she really wants, deep down. Superiority complex? Attention-seeking from her childhood? Curing her boredom from moving across the globe? Which of these makes her...
Well, as her mom would say: what makes her such a 'sarky' bitch?
Is it the intelligence? The weird combination of self-hatred and simultaneous arrogance that she definitely gets from her mum? Who knows. But she wishes she weren't so.
"Look at me. Do you honestly think I have forty bucks to spare?" JJ asks, and for the first time there's a hint of desperation tinging his voice.
She looks him up and down: tired sneakers, cargo shorts, worn orange t-shirt -- and she almost feels fleeting pity. Her eyes try to linger on the ripple of toned arms, but she forces herself not to, remembering the way those arms had raised to fire that gun into the air. Such vivid thoughts of the gun shock her back out of her temporary joy at the thought of twenty bucks (and the momentary pity), and she's suddenly slightly scared of him. He's at her door, and she's home alone.
She steps back. "If you have the gun on you, you're not coming into my house."
Then, before he can speak, the initial panic steps up a notch. The realisation that he's at her house sinks in. Properly. Amusement washes away.
"For God's sake, dude, I don't," JJ starts to say, exasperated and rolling his eyes, but Rita's already frowning, her heart picking up speed.
"How the hell did you get my address?" Rita demands.
Because, as she now realises, there's no logical reason for him to be here. When people want to borrow the camera equipment her dad keeps, it's usually one of her dad's friends, who he's previously offered it too. Her dad doesn't rent them out for a price -- certainly not to his friends, and only to the occasional fisherman who found his number on Facebook and dial him up. Nobody ever knows their address. So why the hell has JJ come to her?
This stupid island... First Rafe, now JJ, all of them turning up in places they certainly shouldn't be... The guns... This stupid, stupid island. Even stupider for making her so scared.
Startled by the question, JJ looks at her, and for the first time says nothing for a moment -- he's too busy realising she's starting to panic. Her hands are on the door now, her feet shuffling back, starting to shut him out.
"Hey, what, no --" he stutters out.
"How did you get my address?" she demands again.
He opens his mouth, trying to find the words, failing hopelessly. Then, after a long few seconds, he sighs exasperatedly and drops his eyes to the floor, remaining silent like that for a moment before he says, "It's a long story. Your dad's up at the country club today, right? Golfing?"
Rita doesn't nod. Another thing he knows, that he shouldn't. "Have you been stalking me all weekend?"
"Princess, I don't have the time," he retorts, surprisingly offended by that. "We saw him this morning." We? she notes, as he pauses and lifts his cap to adjust his hair. "Look," he breathes eventually. "We really need that drone, dude, and everyone around here knows that your dad has a shit tonne of them. So, yeah, we snooped on you. Got your address through some Facebook stalking, and now I'm here, asking politely. I'll pay you, I swear to God. And you can have it back by tonight. But it's essential."
"We?" she asks, ignoring the rest of his words for the time being.
He hesitates, then confirms, "We." It doesn't reveal much, but she can tell he means the Pogues. Because, well, who else?
She swallows, adjusting her glasses up the slipper slope of her nose, and she props the door open a little wider as she thinks, trying to pick her next question wisely. The confession about Facebook stalking isn't exactly very pleasing, but it's better than the alternative that her mind had automatically jumped to out of anxiety. "What do you need it for?" she asks.
He blanches and, for the first time, truly falters. Clearly, the rest of his buddies had sent JJ to her door for a reason: the kid could talk out his ass like it was nothing. But she'd caught him out with that question -- and she could tell.
So, naturally, her interest is piqued.
Rita smirks, tongue in cheek. "I have to know," she adds. Tilts her head. "Company policy."
JJ just stares at her for a moment, eyes lingering on her face and taking in her features as he thinks, tongue swiping over his lips after a moment. Then, abruptly: "Come on," he says, turning on his heel and jumping down her steps in one leap. She watches him take a few steps down her driveway, before he turns back to see if she's following. "I'm not kidnapping you, Princess. I came here for the drone." He tilts his head. Grins. "We just gotta consult my management team."
His 'management team' are gathered in a van at the end of the driveway, and when they see her coming the figure in front waves their arms (the sun is glinting off the glass of the windscreen, making it almost impossible to see inside aside from the frantic waving) and the side door slides open. Leaning out is Kiara, wearing a bandana, and a black kid in a polo shirt.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Rita untangles her hair from the towel on her head and folds it over her arm, letting it hang wet over her shoulders just as they reach the van and the driver -- John B -- winds the window down and leans across the front seat to talk to them all.
"She wants to know," JJ says simply.
"If you tell me what it's for, you can have it free for the day," Rita adds, curiosity mounting. This is serious.
Kiara turns her head and looks with pursed lips at John B, while all three boys simply stare at Rita in thought, John B leaning over the middle of the front seats to get a good look at her. Feeling uncomfortable, she glances between them, eyes landing on the stranger last, and smiles brightly.
"I'm Rita, by the way," she says, holding out her hand.
With an uneasy smile, but it's kind enough, he shakes it. "Pope," he says, dropping to sit on the edge of the van. "You moved here a few weeks ago, didn't you?"
"Unfortunately, yeah. I'm from Maine. St Clouds?"
Pope is the only one who seems to know where that is, because John B doesn't register the words and isn't listening, and both JJ and Kiara give her confused glances. But Pope smiles nicely enough -- and she soon decides she already likes him the most.
JJ, still beside her, looks at John B, who Rita has deduced is their unintentional leader. "We can't tell her shit. She's a kook."
"I'm not a kook," she grunts.
"See Exhibit A: your house," JJ says, turning and gesturing at it with a jab of his hand, palm upward. He turns back to his friends. "But it's forty bucks to hire it."
She scowls, but says nothing, because there's no counter-argument against the existence of her house and her family's money. Plus, even though she hates the obvious wealth gap between her family and their friends, and the Cut -- hates it just as much as the next person -- there'll be no convincing JJ or any of the Pogues of that -- that much she can tell already. Her view of them is as solid as their view of her. Although, she's pissed to be lumped into the same category as Topper.
Until the previous night, she would have been pissed off to be considered the same as Rafe, too. Part of her still is. But as easy to tease as he is, and as much of a cliche jock he is, the kid is certainly charming.
"Can we pay you afterward?" John B asks.
"No can do," says Rita, as JJ shakes his head irritably. "Where's the guarantee that I'll ever get it back?"
"Let's see," says Kiara, "we're not assholes?"
"Yeah, but you are gun-waving lunatics," Rita replies, gesturing sideways at JJ. The group all roll their eyes, as Pope mutters, We don't encourage that type of behaviour. She likes Pope, so she looks at him out of the rest of them, eyes serious behind her round-rimmed glasses. "You see why I'm weary, don't you?"
He looks away awkwardly.
"Can't you trust us?" John B asks desperately. "We need it. We need it today."
"Oh, I don't trust anyone," she remarks. "Especially not people who seem so desperate but won't tell me why."
"It's better that you don't know. Please, you're the only person we knew to ask."
"Look," Rita says, starting to get a little frustrated. I mean, what's the big issue? "I don't see what the big deal is."
The group look between themselves.
"It's a no-brainer, man," JJ starts.
But then, with his eyes on the floor, Pope says, almost invisibly, "Tell her, John B."
"Don't," JJ and Kiara say simultaneously. John B seems to be considering it, judging by the purse of his lips and the fact he's turning away, and through the corner of Rita's eye she sees JJ turn away too in frustration, running his hands through his hair and muttering. Kiara sighs, and starts to rant, trying to keep it together. "What happens if we find it? She'll want a piece. And for what -- because she's our only option for some stupid drone? No, we can't tell her shit. I sure as hell wouldn't."
John B lifts a hand and Kiara cuts herself off with an inhale, and everything stops. His fingers feel around the wheel of the van, turning white as he grips and pink as he flexes his knuckles. None of the Pogues can look at each other, and Rita's heart is pumping weirdly. Curiosity has turned to frustration and mild panic over how big of a deal they're making.
Eventually, just as the moment almost snaps like an elastic band pulled too tightly and Rita explodes into questions, John B speaks, staring straight ahead as he does, "When we find it, it'll have to be turned into cash anyway, right? And we're not planning on telling anyone how much?"
They all look at Pope, who flickers his eyes up to Rita, then back to John B. He nods. "Pawn shops our best chance at getting it exchanged into cash. I- I hadn't really gotten to that stage of planning."
"She can have the first bunch of cash," says John B.
"John B--" JJ protests.
But John B has set his eyes on Rita, looking at her fixedly from under his eyebrow. "I'm guessing your dad won't want you selling off his drones?"
"He wouldn't be too happy," she admits, a little disgruntled and perturbed by the three glares she's receiving.
"Well, in exchange for your hard work, we can offer you a thousand bucks. Just for the drone, and for your silence."
A thousand bucks. A thousand dollars.
She almost laughs -- in delight at first, but when the initial thrill fades, it simply becomes disbelief, especially when she looks between the four Pogues again. "Where are you planning on getting that money?" she asks, half grinning.
"If silence gets too hard, you can have a couple more thousand," John B says, and when JJ and Kiara both protest, he lifts a hand again and looks between them both fiercely. "It can come from my share. I don't care. If she can help us, it's worth it. We won't get to it without her help, will we? There's two options: she helps us and takes a chunk, or she doesn't help us and none of us get anything."
Rita's still laughing, but it's not in happiness, and she's not even smiling as she does it. She just looks between them, and the moment spins out as they wait for her to realise they're telling the truth.
"I... Where are you gonna get a grand from?" she asks, glancing between them.
"Go get your camera shit," says John B, "and we can show you."
authors note:
finally getting back into writing this!! i've been rewatching a few episodes of obx and i'm still obsessed, so expect a few updates soon!
let me know what you think!
although rita's getting involved in the adventure here, after this it'll still be a long way to go before she's fully involved in the hunt for the money. but i'm still glad i can get into her relationship with the pogues finally (and her friendship with pope!! because i've been planning that brotp since the BeGINNING)