5. April 7, 2023
Cherry
“Never do anything halfway,” Kubrick read off the slip of paper.
“In bed!” There was a chorus of giggles from three of the four women having lunch together. Cherry covered up her lack of laughter by shoving a forkful of garlic chicken into her mouth.
Kubrick, Waters’ girlfriend, an athletic, long-haired blonde, was a film director in Hollywood.
Today, she’d breezed into Tribe’s office building with Chinese takeout for the office at large.
The men were probably eating in TB’s office because it was always open, since he preferred to do his office work standing at the armory table.
The women had confiscated the conference room, and Kubrick showed her inner ten-year-old boy by putting a sign on the closed door that said, “No boys allowed!” She’d even found a crayon to write the message with.
The girls usually attempted to get together for lunch on Fridays. Since Kubrick was about to depart for China in the middle of the following week and rarely took breaks when on location, they were eagerly trying to get in girl time.
Flame, a romance novelist who looked as if she was from some mishmash of the Victorian era with her boned corset tops and a sixties hippie with her long, flowing boho skirts, sat across the table from her.
She was picking through her food, culling out the peas and baby corn from her fried rice.
Eight months into her surprise pregnancy, morning sickness had been all day long from almost day one and had never stopped, so any sort of food for lunch was a crapshoot, and her “hell no” foods changed daily.
Vegetables always seemed to be at the top of the list.
Projected on the telescreen was Gem, Nemo’s other half. Currently, she was sitting at a desk in front of a laptop, her feet up, spooning something out of a bowl with what looked like a leaf. Cherry shuddered. Heaven only knew what she was actually eating.
She and Nemo were somewhere in Africa, working on their diamond mine project from a few months earlier.
Until the end of September, Nemo had worked for Tribe.
They’d been trying to prove where some conflict diamonds and other precious stones were being mined—stones that were being used to fund the Salieri’s purchasing of women through the skin trade.
When that project had finished, Nemo left Tribe to go work with Mythos, whom Gem contracted for.
There had been several reasons for the move, primarily that the playboy thief was head over heart in love with the woman and had been for almost seven years.
Tribe was still adjusting to the aftershocks of his unexpected departure, particularly his fraternal twin, Midas.
With a snort, Kubrick laid the fortune from her cookie onto the conference room table. “Never have to worry about that problem myself.”
A chorus of fake disgust at her TMI overshare swept through the room.
“I wouldn’t say that. Whatever Waters is going to do without you for twelve weeks is definitely going to be ‘halfway’ since only one of the two of you will be present,” Flame teased.
Breaking her fortune cookie into additional pieces, Kubrick tossed one into the air and caught it in her mouth. Her eyes twinkled. “That’s what computers are for.”
Another chorus of “Eww” came from the girls.
“Oh, hush,” Kubrick chastised. “You can’t say ‘Eww,’ Flame. That’s how you and TB met.”
“Stop it,” Flame ordered. Her pale skin blushed deep enough to match her red hair.
Kubrick shrugged. “It’s true.”
Gem made porn music sounds in the background. “I’ve got no complaints either. Nemo’s still Nemo,” she confided. She raised her eyebrows up and down several times, smirking as she ate her next bite of food.
“What was the latest location?”
“More importantly,” Flame inserted, “did you get caught?”
“We never get caught. And I can’t tell you where we were specifically, but those napping rooms in hospitals for the doctors are not comfortable at all. Someone needs to speak to their union.”
A cheer rose from the two women. “I’ll add it to my notebook of places he’s been,” Kubrick told her. “Might get to use some of those ideas in a movie someday. Maybe he can consult on the scene,” she teased.
“Yeah, because your last movie consult didn’t end up hot and steamy between the sheets as it was. I know you two took a page out of our book and had sex on your set, so you don’t need my guy too,” Gem shot back.
“Not on the set specifically. No worries here though. Nemo was always more partial to Flame.”
If possible, the redhead blushed further. “Maybe I should put it in a book. Although I don’t know if hospitals in the 1700s had napping rooms.”
“I’m not even sure they had hospitals,” Kubrick said. Her head snapped back to Gem on the screen. “Wait. Why were you in a hospital?”
The woman waved off the question, setting her bowl down. “It wasn’t a Mythos member, so it’s not important. What about your fortune, Cherry?” All eyes were now on Tribe’s handler.
Cherry broke her fortune cookie in half. “Your heart will skip a beat.”
“In bed!” the women chorused again, followed by long, drawn-out interjections of “ooh” from Gem and Flame while Kubrick emitted obnoxious kissing noises.
Cherry didn’t even break a smile. Normally, she was up for all the antics that her friends induced during their lunches, but today? Today, she wished she’d had an excuse to stay at her desk. Cherry shoved another bite of her lunch into her mouth.
There was a pregnant pause. “I saw the moody doctor this morning,” Kubrick admitted. “Definitely sporting his BAMF-mode persona today,” Kubrick said. “Mm-mm-mm.”
Gem wolf-whistled. “I so love when any of them are in BAMF mode.”
Flame scrunched up her face. “What the heck’um is BAMF mode?”
In stereo and without thought, Cherry joined Kubrick and Haskell. “Badass motherfucker.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Flame shuddered. “Demon even gives me the shivers when he’s dressed in BAMF mode.” She whispered the acronym since she didn’t swear and then giggled.
“Don’t let TB hear you say that. He’ll tie you to the bed and not let you up for days.”
Flame shivered again. “You think? Hmm.”
Kubrick shoved a chocolate cupcake in her mouth and winked at her bestie.
There was a snort from Gem. “You seriously shoved a whole snack cake in your mouth. Fortune cookies weren’t enough? You’ve had like twelve of those. ”
“I’ll work them off later.” She winked. “Just don’t come by Waters’ office for an hour after lunch.”
A ripple of laughter passed among the women.
“So how are preparations going for China?” Cherry asked. Maybe she could deflect the conversation she knew was coming.
“Nope. I won’t allow myself to be distracted. Seriously, he was broody before. He’s been downright mopey since your little powder-keg party at the café. Why won’t you put that boy out of his misery?”
“Because I don’t have a gun on me.”
Gem barked out a laugh. “Girl, that bloke loves you so much he’s bleeding internally. You don’t need to insult the poor sod by shooting him too.”
“The man’s an asshole. On top of that, he’s an addict. I refuse to attach myself to that. You can’t trust an addict.”
A sharp inhale came from Flame, her eyes wide and instantly watery.
Kubrick hissed. “What the fuck, Cherry?” she whispered.
Immediately, Cherry realized her mistake.
Flame’s voice was small when she spoke. “I’m an addict. Do you see me differently?”
Setting down her fork, Cherry apologized to her friend.
“I’m sorry. That was cruel and thoughtless of me.
But your circumstances were completely different,” she qualified.
“You didn’t make that choice. Gendry forced that shit on you, and you haven’t had drugs in years.
Demon chose to be an addict, and he’s still using. ”
“Does anyone really choose how they cope?” Gem wondered.
Her gaze swung to the woman on the screen. “Now you’re defending him? You used to hold it against him.”
Gem shrugged. “Let’s just say that Zimbabwe changed a lot of things. Besides, we never really know why someone makes the choices they do, and coping mechanisms are like shoes. They match the external circumstances.”
“I vetted all the guys personally. I know exactly what his glitch is. ”
“And yet you hired him anyway,” Flame pointed out.
“She’s not wrong,” Kubrick agreed.
Gem let her feet fall from the desk, and she leaned toward the computer.
“Just because you know the order of events in someone’s life doesn’t mean you know what the cause-and-effect relationship is.
Hell, I know that from Nemo firsthand. And you should know that too.
Have you ever known Demon to be blotto enough not to do his job? ”
“No,” Cherry admitted. “But that’s not the point. The point is he uses. Period. He doesn’t need to; therefore, the reasons don’t matter.”
Flame put her fork down. “And now we’re back to that.” Flame stood up from the table and packed up her leftovers. “Sorry, Kubrick. I seem to have lost my appetite. Have a wonderful trip if I don’t talk to you before you leave. Be safe.” With that, she left the conference room.
Kubrick was silent as she began cleaning up the table.
“Shit,” Cherry murmured, her eyes beginning to water.
“I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me.
” Flame’s drug use was so far in the past, she didn’t even consider it as part of her.
Drugs had been used to keep her compliant as a teen by a pedophile drug dealer who pimped her out to anyone he owed money to.
That wasn’t her fault. But by saying it didn’t matter why Demon used, she’d just equated him to Flame, and that wasn’t fair.