Ch 10 – Rico
R ico staggered into his tiny apartment, dropped his jug of water and creatine mix on the breakfast bar, and leaned on the counter for balance. Was there anything better than getting absolutely wrecked at the gym first thing in the morning?
Nope.
Out the window, the rising sun sent rosy fingers across the buildings of downtown San Diego. Even this early, the city still wasn’t quiet. A garbage truck rumbled down the street and a dog yapped on the street below. Soon, rush hour traffic would clog the streets and the sidewalks would fill with the bustle of city residents. After taking a moment to recalibrate, Rico moved to the bathroom on shaky legs and stripped off his sweat-soaked gym tank. The mirror above the sink showcased the satisfying fruits of his labor.
Rico flexed and studied his padded pecs and hard shoulders. Nice! He tightened his abs and nodded with satisfaction at the taut slab of muscle in the mirror. He'd come a long way from the pathetic twig he’d been in high school.
The mirror showed him a man. Strong. Capable. Dare he say . . . studly? Rico grinned at himself. A majority of his Twitter followers thought so, and who was he to contradict the masses ?
After a well-earned shower, Rico dressed for work and moved into his small kitchenette. His post-workout endorphin high began to drop as he glanced around the aging apartment. Turns out, serving as the guardrail of society paid shit. One day soon, though, things would change. He’d earn an anchor chair and double his salary. He’d move into one of the newer, trendier downtown condos with a gym and pool in the building. He’d also be able to give his mother more money, maybe even move her into a nicer place.
One day.
For now, he’d just keep showing Diane he was the best damn thing that’d ever happened to KPVM. Rico ducked into the fridge and loaded up on all the ingredients for his morning smoothie: almond milk, spinach, strawberries, kale, avocado, and peanut butter. Spreading his bounty on the counter, he snapped a banana from the bunch sitting in the corner and pulled a massive 10-gallon canister of vanilla whey protein from the shelf in his pantry.
As Rico dropped a handful of spinach leaves into his well-used blender, a soft scratching sound snagged his attention. He peered into the living room at the large glass tank sitting on his coffee table.
“What do you want?” he asked his involuntarily adopted new pet. The large brown-and-white rat pressed its little paws against the side of the tank and stared at him with black beady eyes. Its long snout quivered.
After Hue had nearly eaten Rico’s poor mother out of house and home on Friday, he’d been all too happy to hand over a metric ton of rat gear that his asshole of a tenant had left behind. This included a large glass fish tank with a mesh lid that now took up the whole of Rico’s small Ikea coffee table. A large bag of rat pellets and a half-full bag of wood shavings now sat beneath the table .
Elena had oohed and ahhed over the rat but, unsurprisingly, hadn’t been willing to take the creature off his hands. She had, however, given him a name.
“Sancho, didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” he chided the rat. Rico hadn’t understood the name reference.
“He’s the sidekick to Don Quixote,” Elena had informed him just before he’d departed for San Diego. “You’re Don Quixote in this scenario.”
“Who?”
His sister had groaned. “Read a book for once in your life, will you?”
Rico hadn’t read the book, but a scan of the Don Quixote Wikipedia page had told him everything he needed to know. Apparently, the deluded character thought he was some brave knight bent on rescuing a damsel in distress who didn’t exist. Sancho was his poor, constantly berated sidekick.
Now Rico tried to ignore the rat but felt its beady eyes on his back as he dumped two scoops of protein powder into the blender and turned it on. Pouring the resulting goodness into a to-go cup, he glanced over his shoulder again. The rat was still staring.
“Fine!” Rico snapped. He grabbed a dish towel and spread it on the counter. Then he popped off the lid of the tank, scooped out the rat, and plopped the animal on the towel.
Sancho immediately scrambled off the towel. He sniffed the discarded banana peel, slipped around the peanut butter jar, then snatched an errant spinach leaf between his paws and shoved it into his mouth.
“Hey!” Rico moved to tug the spinach leaf away from the rat, then reconsidered. “Actually, smart choice,” he admitted .
He leaned his elbows on the counter and watched Sancho eagerly crunch through the verdant leaf. “Spinach is packed with manganese, vitamin K, and calcium,” he informed the rat. “Those are all great for building strong bones. It’s also super low carb.”
On a hunch, he tore off a segment of kale and held it out to the rat. Sancho pressed his paws onto Rico’s fingertips, sniffed at the kale, and took it.
“Wise choice, my friend,” Rico said, pleased. “Your body is a temple.”
The rat finished his kale leaf and looked to Rico expectantly.
“How about this?” Rico plucked a small strawberry from the plastic carton, sliced a quarter from it, and handed it to Sancho. The rat wasted no time in shoving the scrap of red fruit in his mouth.
“Good, right?” Rico popped the rest of the strawberry in his own mouth. “Well, Sancho, you’ve got some good nutritional instincts. I’ll give you that.”
He quickly packed the ingredients from his smoothie away while keeping an eye on Sancho. The rat scurried back and forth on the kitchen countertop, completely ignoring his designated dish towel. Every so often, Sancho would pause, lift onto his back feet, and sniff the air. It was almost endearing.
Rico realized he was smiling and quickly squelched the expression. What was going on? Was he really feeling warm and fuzzies for a creature most often associated with trash heaps and sewers? He took a sip of his smoothie and addressed the rat.
“Look, Sancho, you seem like a decent fellow, but we’ve got to get one thing clear. This”—Rico waved his arm around the apartment—“this is a temporary situation. You can’t stay here. No girl is going to want to stay over if I’ve got a rat in the living room. And I’m not a pet person. I’ll find you a new home, promise. Someone who will take good care of you. Okay?”
Sancho looked at him inquisitively.
“Talking to a rat,” Rico muttered to himself as he plucked Sancho from the counter and dropped him gently back into the cage. “New low, Torres.”
He dropped a small pile of pellets into Sancho’s food dish before popping the lid back on. The rat ignored the pellets and instead stared at Rico as he grabbed his computer bag. Why did those beady little eyes look so plaintive?
“Temporary,” Rico reminded the rat as he grabbed up his smoothie and pulled open his front door. “Don’t get attached, Sancho. I don’t do long-term relationships.”
*
The day was already turning warm as Rico pulled his SUV up the ramp from his building’s parking garage. As usual, he faced a wall of bumper-to-bumper cars. He rolled down the windows to get some fresh airflow while waiting for the minor miracle that was someone willing to let him in.
“Hola.”
The greeting came from a smiling man as he crossed in front of Rico’s car, a well-used weedwhacker in his hands. He wore a dirty, long-sleeved shirt, stained jeans, and a large straw hat. A lifetime of outside worked had tanned his face a rich bronze. Rico tensed. His father had worn a straw hat just like that. He’d had that same tanned face and calloused hands.
Rico nodded to the man, then brute-forced his SUV into the street just as the cars in line began to move. He earned a flurry of loud honks and several choice words from the bespectacled, silver-haired driver behind him. Rico hardly noticed. It took the entire drive to the station for him to shake off the echoes of his father’s constant criticism.
An hour into the workday, Melissa stuck her curly head into his office.
“Rico, can I ask you a question about this sewage story?” the bubbly reporter asked.
You mean my sewer story? He forced as much of a smile as he could manage. “Shoot.”
Melissa sat in the chair next to his desk and frowned, an expression he hardly ever saw on her freckled face.
“There’s just so much here,” she started. Her usual pep seemed flat, the twinkle of merriment nowhere to be found in her large, hazel eyes. “So many records. It’s been a little, uh, overwhelming to try and process it all.”
“It’s a big story,” Rico answered. “Lots of different pieces.” That I’ve spent the last three months painstakingly knitting together. “What are you confused about?”
“Well . . .” She rubbed her cheek. “I noticed that you don’t have any comments from the sewage treatment plant owner or manager. I was wondering if I should call and ask for comment?”
He almost spewed his mouthful of protein shake all over her pink polka-dotted blouse. Lord, please end my miserable, hopeless life. Asteroid. Lightning strike. Bubonic plague. I don’t care how you do it.
“Melissa,” he articulated carefully, “we never alert the subject of a negative story until the very end. Otherwise, they might start getting rid of documents, intimidating sources, or putting out a counter-narrative.”
“Oh.” Melissa’s frown deepened.
“And when we do ask for comment, we do it in person and on camera,” he added. “Otherwise, they’ll just lawyer up and either not comment at all or put out some bullshit nothing statement. If we want to hold them accountable, we’ve got to confront them. We’ve got to force them to face what they’ve done.”
Melissa nodded, but the corners of her mouth bent downward. “It’s just that . . .” She fidgeted in the chair. Her blouse was so bright, he imagined one of the polka dots pinging off and taking out his eye.
“It seems so mean,” she finally managed in a small voice.
Rico reached across his desk and closed his fingers around the smiley-face stress ball he kept next to his phone. Diane had handed out the half-gag, half-serious gift to the entire evening news team at last year’s holiday party. He squeezed the smiley face. Squeezed so hard he was shocked the thing didn’t explode.
“You know what’s mean, Melissa?” He forced his voice to stay level. “It’s mean to pour raw sewage into the ocean while taking multimillion dollar contracts from the city. Poisoning the beaches so kids can’t play in the water for weeks at a time. That’s mean.”
“I . . .” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know if I can do it. Confront the sewage plant owner.”
For the love of . . . The stress ball bulged in Rico’s fist, one warped eye peeping out over his thumb. A new thought occurred to him.
Yes! His hand relaxed. The stress ball plopped onto his desk, its smile retracting back into place.
Rico nodded solemnly at Melissa. “It can be really hard to confront the target of a news story, and scary, too. Let me tell you, I’ve had some close calls myself.”
“You mean . . .” Melissa’s golden-brown eyes widened. “It could be dangerous?”
“I’ve seen it all,” Rico said with a sympathetic frown. “I’ve been cussed at, threatened. Remember when that guy who was stalking those college girls pulled a gun on me? ”
“Oh, I forgot about that.” Melissa’s lower lip trembled.
Rico leaned across his desk, lips pursed, eyes understanding, the very definition of sympathy. “Look, I know Diane wants to punish me, but she doesn’t need to punish you, too. You shouldn’t be thrown into the middle of a dangerous story like this.”
His eyebrows lifted. He smiled as if a solution were just occurring to him. “How about this? I’ll take the sewage story back. It’s really complicated and boring anyway. We don’t need to tell Diane. It’ll be our little secret. I’ll put everything together, record the story, and when we’re ready to go live, she won’t have any choice but to air it. I’ll take full responsibility, I promise.”
“Really?” Melissa’s frown transformed into an expression of naked hope. “You’d do that for me?”
Rico nodded. “It’s my fault you’re in this position in the first place. I feel really shi— bad about that. So, let me take this story off your plate.”
Melissa grinned and clutched the edges of his desk. “That’d be so great. Really. Oh, Rico, thank you so much!”
He shrugged humbly. “Just glad to help.”
“Wow! I feel so relieved.” Melissa bounced to her feet, happiness once again exuding from every pore in her body.
“Just remember, our little secret.” Rico made a zipping motion across his lips.
“Yes, of course.” She nodded eagerly.
As she turned to leave, a new thought occurred to him. Melissa loved every creature on God’s green earth, right? Maybe his erstwhile coworker could do him another solid.
“Hey, one more thing,” he told her. “A friend of mine has this pet rat. Great animal. So clean, rats. But he can’t take care of him anymore. This poor creature needs a good home, and of course, I thought of you.”
“Oooooh.” She gave him a wincing smile. “I would, but I’m extremely allergic to pet dander. That’s why I have two sphinx cats. Here, look!”
Melissa practically mashed her phone into his face. From the screen, two bags of wrinkled skin stared at him with huge, piercing eyes.
“This is Daffodils and here’s Mr. Jingles,” Melissa chirped in her sing-song voice. “Mr. Jingles is such a riot! Look how sassy he is in this picture.”
Both creatures looked equally terrifying, like they would murder him in his sleep under a full moon.
“So adorable,” he managed through clenched teeth.
“I know, right?” Melissa beamed. “OhmyGod, do you want to see them in sweaters?”
“Would I,” Rico squeaked.
Ten minutes and two hundred increasingly uncomfortable pics of hairless cats later, Melissa finally made her exit. Rico was just wondering if it was possible to bleach his eyeballs when Diane swept into his office.
No knock. No greeting. Full octane Diane.
“I’ve got a story for you,” she said, waving a sheet of paper in the air.
Rico tried not to groan. “You could have emailed me.”
“I wanted to see your face when I gave it to you.” His boss’s devious smile made his balls want to retreat up his windpipe. What disgustingly sweet story had she dug from the bowels of hell for him?
“Girl Scout Troop 575 is presenting the local fire station with a handsewn quilt for putting out a grease fire at their school last month.”
“Noooooo,” Rico moaned. “This is torture. ”
“Take a look at this quilt. It’s really adorable.” Diane pressed the paper on his desk.
“A trained bear riding a unicycle could shoot this story,” he whined. “I’m so much better than this.”
“Well, you should’ve thought of that before you started sticking Little Rico into every female crevice you could find.”
Those female crevices were happy to have Little Rico over for a playdate, thank you very much, he thought. Not that she’d understand. Diane was such an ice queen she could probably break a California heat wave just by stepping outside.
Huffing out a breath, he reminded himself that at least he’d reclaimed his sewage story. Even if he had to go steady with human interest stories for the next three months, at least he could cheat a little with some real news on the side.
His boss turned to go.
“Hey, how’s your niece, um, Chole, doing?” he spoke up.
“I presume you mean Claire?” Diane crossed her arms and gave him a look that said, This should be good.
“Right, Claire. That’s what I meant. She’s old enough for a pet, right?”
Diane’s voice was dry as Death Valley. “As a higher schooler, I believe she has the capability to keep an animal alive, yes.”
“Perfect.” Rico gave Diane his most winning smile. “You know what the new rage is with the kids these days?”
“Snorting Adderall and selling their souls to TikTok?”
“Rats.”
“Rats.” If possible, Diane crossed her arms harder.
Rico spoke fast. “Pet rats, that is. So adorable. And did you know they’re very clean animals? I happen to have—”
Diane turned and walked out the door. “Have fun hanging with Troop 575 today,” she called over her shoulder.
Rico looked down at the assignment sheet on his desk. Diane had included a picture of the lopsided quilt below the story description. Were those supposed to be flowers or runny eggs? Flowers. Probably flowers, right? Of its own accord, Rico’s head thunked onto the desk, nearly knocking over his empty smoothie container.
He was being punished for being so good in bed that women launched complaints when he dumped them. How was that even fair?
The surface of the desk vibrated beneath Rico’s forehead. His cellphone was ringing. He closed his eyes. It was probably Diane calling from her office with another soul-destroying story. Did the Lollipop Brigade want some news coverage now? Without looking, Rico swept his arm around his desk until he grasped his phone. He pulled it to his face.
“So help me God, Diane,” he muttered.
“Uh, hello, Rico . . . I mean, Mr. Torres?” asked a soft, tantalizingly feminine voice on the other end of the line.
Rico shot up in his chair, the Girl Scout news pitch sticking to his forehead. He flailed at it, finally tearing it off on his third swing.
“Hello, Rico here,” he said in his smoothest voice. “And who is this?”
“It’s Jax.”
“Who?”
“Jacklyn. We met at the pet store.”
“Jacklyn!” He immediately recalled her pretty face, those curious brown eyes, and that sweet plump mouth. “What can I do for you?” He practically purred the question.
“I was, uh, hoping I could meet with you. ”
Rico grinned. He still had it. Why had he ever doubted his powers of persuasion? Even an orange fuzzball pissing down his sleeve couldn’t quench his erotic appeal. “I’m so glad to hear you say that.”
“Uh, just to clarify, this is for an assignment,” she said, her voice tightening. “My journalism professor is letting us skip the final if we can interview a professional journalist.”
Swollen pride, meet jagged ice pick. Rico felt his chest deflate. “You’ve got Hopkins?” He remembered she’d mentioned going to SCC.
“That’s the one.”
“I had him, too.” Rico put his elbows on his desk. “His finals are just as bad as the legends say. You did the right thing coming to me.”
He heard a soft noise on the other end of the line. A laugh. His chest began to reinflate. Sure, it wasn’t the “my panties are wet for you” call he’d been hoping for, but this was a start.
“I mean, I’m guessing you’re pretty busy,” she said, breaking the silence. “If you don’t have time, I under—”
“For you, I’ve got time,” he said. “I’d be happy to do an interview, Jacklyn.” Rico sat back in his chair and smiled to himself. “But I’ve got some conditions . . . ”