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“Hilarious.” I look over the nest wall and wonder aloud how many bones I’d break if I leapt out and if time served in a hospital bed would be deducted from nesting time.
The eighteen-foot diameter nest is anchored to the ceiling of the three-story lobby, fifteen feet from the ground. It’s bigger than many city dweller’s entire living space. It’s got a couch long enough for me to stretch out on, two arm chairs, an executive-style desk and office chair, and a variety of tables, lamps and places to store everything I need to do the paperwork part of my job.
It would be a damn nice office in any other setting. Catherine consulted with me in choosing the furnishings before I lost the bet. Thinking back to those conversations, I wonder if she’d always planned for me to be her rooster.
“Hey.” She touches my arm. “You ready for the opening night party?”
“Feathers are preened,” I deadpan.
“Going to be a lot of eyes on you. People wanting to talk to you,” she says.
“And?” I know I’m being difficult, but the last time I was in a mood this foul, I’d just lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a venture capitalist’s nightmare situation. And the thing that pisses me off the most is that a week ago, all I wanted was to convince Catherine to go out with me. Now? Just the sight of her makes me think of a Phoenix bursting into flames, just like my burned-up investment in exploding, GenOne Hoverboards.
I have no interest in pursuing any kind of relationship, or even maintaining a friendship for that matter, with a woman who makes me feel like a loser.
Catherine seems to think thiscondo nestadventure is going to benefit me. It might if my goal was to be the butt of jokes. But by nine tomorrow morning, once the news stories have started to make the rounds, I’ll be the guy who was so stupid he made an unloseable bet—and lost.
“Okay then,” Catherine says, stepping away. “I’ll see you in two hours at ground level. Your scaffolding will be waiting.” She sounds upbeat and cheerful.
My reply is monosyllabic and monotone. “Yup.”
I’ve decided that that will be exactly how I respond to all interview questions tonight. Yup. Nope. And a few mm-hmm’s to mix it up.
She opens the door in the nest wall and steps out onto a platform. The scaffolding is my way in and out of the nest. It’ll be rolled into place when needed and stored in a utility room when not. I was the one who stupidly argued against her original plan to integrate a treehouse-like ladder into the exhibit. I did such a great job convincing Catherine that it wasn’t needed, she now says it would ruin the message of the installation.
Fan-fuckin-tastic.
I move to the only space that offers privacy and silently bash my head against the padded headboard of the queen size bed. A bed I’d tried to coax her to share with me. Despite admitting to being attracted to me, despite the spark we both feel when we touch, despite exchanging deeply personal stories from our twenties and thirties, she is immovable on the subject. Relationship cursed, she says.
Now that our working relationship has come to an end, I see that she’s right. She may not be cursed in the literal, “a witch cast a spell on her” kind of way, but I now understand that the intense energy of creating something new and innovative and socially important changes once the build is done and all she can see is the message of the piece, not the negative impact of her passion on the people close to her.
And I hate it. In part, I think, because I can see many of the same tendencies in myself.
I hear a sigh and lean around the corner to see her still standing where I left her.
8
CATHERINE
I hatethat Eric is so miserable that he won’t even look at me. I never expected him to actually live in the nest. It was a dumb bet to make the point that he’s not quite as woke as he likes to think he is. That’s all.
I have no intention of forcing him to spend forty-three days and nights as a jailbird. I just wanted him to feel the discomfort of being forced into a situation over which heshouldhave control and autonomy, but doesn’t. All because he made one bad decision.
I stand at the top of the scaffold, semi-paralyzed. Should I stay or should I go? The beat and lyrics of the song by the Clash pop into my mind. Either way, there will be trouble, but I can’t remember which one was double …
Yes, I’m using him to make a point, but only because I think he’s a good man with a good heart and some blind spots that, if only he could see them, would make him a great man. And … possibly … a great man to be in a relationship with.
“Whoa …”
Eric comes out of his bedroom. With nothing but one raised eyebrow he asks, “What are you doing?”
“I’m thinking,” I answer his silent question.
“Here comes trouble,” he mutters under his breath.
Our eyes meet. There is nothing playful, no tease in his expression.
It twists my gut like rotten eggs.
