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“I wasn't thinking it”, I lie.
“He’s single, you know, if you want to give it a go. Plenty have tried before and failed, but you shouldn’t let that stop you. I feel it’s only fair to warn you, though, he has a policy where he doesn’t date people from work, which is a shame for you, because you’re definitely his type.”
“I think I’ll have enough on my mind with the job”, I lie again, my mind replaying the way his bum moved as he disappeared back into his office.
Candy smiles. “That’s you already into payroll”, she says, passing back my bank card.
“I’ll sort out the details of the contract, your security pass and get a desk set up for when you want to begin. How does next Monday suit you?”
“That sounds perfect”, I say, still unsure if any of this is real.
“Great”, Candy beams. “Welcome to Prometheus Productions.”
She digs a card out from the holder on the desk. “If there is anything you need, you can get hold of me on this number. You want me to help you find your way out?”
“No, that’s okay”, I say, “but before I go, do you mind if I just check Jack’s office again, I feel like I might have left something in there.”
She gives me a suspicious look, before rising from her desk and taking me back to the room I’ve just come from.
“I’m sorry”, I say, apologizing to Jack, before giving a cursory look around the seat I was sat in five minutes before, and around and under his desk. “I thought I might have left something, but I must have been mistaken.”
“No problem”, Jack says, seemingly happy for the interruption.
“See you next Monday”, I say on my way out, inordinately proud of myself that for once in my life I haven’t returned to a location because I’ve been driven by an obsessive feeling I’ve left something there, but because I simply needed to see Jack again to believe he actually exists.
Chapter Twelve
I’m not the kind of person that grows attached to personal belongings, but there is something utterly depressing about watching a car that has always been as faithful to you as a family pet get swallowed up by a gigantic metal monster that would make the Iron Giant look like a barbie doll, only to be shat out the other end like a gigantic metal die. After a week and a half on the operating table, and no matter how hard the mechanics sucked their teeth, they couldn’t put my humpty dumpty Toyota back together again. I didn’t have to come here to see this, but it only seemed right, kind of like attending the funeral of a colleague who works in the same company as you, but with whom you’ve never had a proper conversation.
The thick metal teeth whirr and grind as my car is licked, tasted and then gobbled up in one piece by the terrifying mechanism, the frame bending like plastic and glass spilling from its mouth like crumbs from an entire loaf of bread.
“Oil and water”, I mumble to Alice, who seems to be enjoying this spectacle much more than I am. “That’s all it needed.”
I feel like a mother mourning a malnourished child she had sole responsibility for looking after.
“Just think about the bright side”, Alice says, “at least someone’s going to get a brand new set of knives.”
The block of metal that is deposited out of the beast’s rear end is impressively neat.
I can see a flattened gear knob, half a windshield wiper, and the license plate sticking out of one corner like a label of identification, before it gets whipped away from in front of our eyes by a gigantic magnet on a crane, and stacked with all the rest of the metal blocks in a kind of graveyard of adult lego.
If it wasn’t my car and I had enough money to replace it, I might be enjoying this much more than I am, because this place is straight out of a film and perfect for comic book fodder. Superman found himself in a scrapyard, and as for Magneto, it’s practically a second home. I can totally understand why too. Everything is ten times the size it should be normally, and wherever you look there are accidents waiting to happen. It’s also a perfect place for nefarious deals. If you need to get rid of a body in a city, there are two places you can go. One is a construction site, and the other is here, and I know which would be more exciting.
“You probably want to move away from there, girls”, someone calls down to us from a forklift cab window. “It isn’t very safe.”
With my car cubed there isn’t much point sticking round. We pay our last respects and then head out of the world’s weirdest theme park and back to Alice’s fully functioning, well-nourished car, which is still and I’m sure would like to remain entirely in one piece.
“Are you alright, Penny?”
I realize I’m caressing Alice’s car absentmindedly. “Sure”, I say pulling my hand away quickly. “Let’s get out of here before they decide to crush yours too.”
“So”, Alice says when we’ve made our way back to mine and the subject can’t be avoided anymore, “have you decided what to do yet?”
It’s thursday afternoon, almost two weeks since Logan gave me his number in the first place, and I promptly lost it the following morning, and three days since Jack replaced it for me, and I still haven’t called him.
I shake my head.
“Call him”, Alice says.
“What about Jack?”
“Jack didn’t give you his number”, Alice argues. “You can’t date them both.”
I screw up my eyes as though not being able to date them both is something I can’t comprehend.
“You should consider yourself lucky that Logan is interested in you, and that by some considerable stroke of fortune you have managed to get his number again. Besides which, didn’t you say that Jack has a policy?”
“That’s what his secretary said”, I say. “But I think she’s just saying it because she’s got a crush on him.”
“Call Logan”, Alice says again. “Jack sounds like he’s out of bounds anyway. You can leave him for me.”
“Double dating twins”, I say, “Don’t you think that might be a bit weird?”
“Weirder than you dating them both?”
“I can’t help but think it’s fate, Al, the whole thing. My obsession, Logan giving me his number, mom meeting Brandon and getting me an interview with Jack, even the job is perfect.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet”, Alice argues.
“He saw my sketch, one of the dirty ones with me and the twins. Until Monday, you were the only person in the world I’d shown that to.”
Alice shakes her head in disbelief. “Don’t mess up your chance with someone who sounds absolutely perfect for you because you’re obsessed with dating two guys at once. This is real life, Penny, and I don’t want to see you mess it up because of one of your fantasies. He’s an archeologist. A sexy Indiana Jones.”
“He’s sexier than Indiana Jones”, I say. “He’s like a young Indiana Jones crossed with Thor.”
“There you go then”, she says.
“But what about Clark Kent?”
“Isn’t one enough for you? Do you have any idea how difficult it’s going to be dating two guys when you’ve barely had experience of dating just one?” I’m about to speak but she cuts me off. “And Casper doesn’t count.”
I know she’s right, but I don’t want her to be right. I can’t ignore the fact that this all seems way too convenient for it to be anything other than fate. Logan does sound perfect for me, but then so does Jack, and the combination of the two would be out of this world.
“I could make them fight for me”, I say, picturing a classic joust for the hand of the fair maiden.
“Reality check, Penny”, Alice says. “Let me give you a rundown of how this works because I know you don’t really seem to get it, and as your best friend I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
I narrow my eyes at her, but it doesn’t stop her continuing.
“Jack interviewed you for a job, and I know you got all starry eyed, but that doesn’t mean that he felt the same way.”
“You didn’t see the way he looked at me”, I say. “And he was being suggestive with his words.”
“Did he offer you job or invite you out on a date?” Alice asks.
“There was sexual tension”, I say. “Coming from both sides.”
Alice sighs. “This is the real world, Penny. I know it’s hard to come to terms with that, especially for someone as brilliant and creative as you, but in the real world people don’t date two people at once, even less so if they are twins. My cousins are twins, they are as competitive as hell and they hate sharing. Have you even thought about how a threeway relationship would work practically, beyond the double anal?”
I haven’t thought at all about the practicalities. “It could work”, I say, “it depends on the people.”
“Just think about what you’d prefer”, Alice says, “A relationship with Logan, or nothing at all.”
I know what I’d prefer, but it isn’t in the list of options she’s just given me.
“What if Jack comes on to me?” I say.
Alice can’t help but smile. “For someone who has been so clearly terrified by finding yourself a boyfriend in the past, you are incredibly optimistic about your chances with both of these twins.”
I shrug. “I guess I just like to dream big.”
“There’s dreaming big and there’s dreaming enormous”, Alice says and then after pausing for thought, “alright, what about this. Call Logan, tell him the hilarious story about how you lost his number, and then the equally bizarre story about how you got it back again after meeting his brother, and then ask him if both of them might be interested in a double date with me and you. That way you can get a different perspective on this sexual tension thing.”
