THIRTY-FIVE Five-Star Rating
E LLIANA
The day before Christmas Eve, I traipse into work noting the second much more extensive set of security updates I authorized. Andre and I supervised the installation of this package over the past week, and in his manager’s office downstairs now resides a security station on one wall.
Except for the entrance to the restrooms at the foot of the stairs, those display monitors show nearly every inch of Blingblang, inside and out. It’s now been nearly a month since any sign of my stalker has shown up, and I hope and pray that means whoever it is gave up. I mean, what do they have to gain through this?
The bare bones of it add up to some jerk leaving me oddball cards along with breaking a window and display case. The vandalism could’ve been so much more severe, and the lack of theft still puzzles and frustrates me.
I mean, what is this dude’s point?
With so much time passing, I’ve pondered some possible reasons, and all this strikes me more like a child throwing a tantrum than someone being legitimately insidious. It’s as if he’s testing me, trying to attract my attention without being fully committed to getting it.
What if this whole thing has been some elaborate prank perpetrated by some asshole with too much time on his hands? Only rather than ringing my doorbell and sprinting away like some ornery preteen, he busted out some glass instead?
It’s way less creepy to think about it that way.
I’m starting to relax at work again bit by bit. For one thing, nobody’s strolling into my store without being on camera and recorded. For another, Andre has been on the warpath. Anyone who has acted anything resembling squirrely has been told to hit the road.
Of course, he deals with them in his own suave manner, cloaking his insistence on their departure in excellent customer service. I’m extremely lucky to have him. I’m also extremely lucky to have my guys.
My guys.
I think about Tristan, Noah, and Jackson and smile to myself. I don’t know what I would’ve done without them during this troubling time. Any misunderstandings seemed to have worked themselves out, and any individual issues among us have taken a backseat to us becoming one seamless unit.
A notification chirps on my phone, and I glance at its spot on the far edge of my workbench. Since it’s a text informing me of a new message from Elegance, I lay down my specialty tools, wipe my hands on my apron, and retrieve my work laptop. Only after holding still so the special encrypted site can scan me with its facial recognition software can I see what it says.
The time has come for your final assessment of the services Elegance has provided you. Please give a rating for your overall degree of satisfaction. If you were unsatisfied, please choose one star. If you were less satisfied than you hoped, two stars. Somewhat satisfied, three stars. Satisfied, four stars. Exceptionally satisfied, five stars. If rating less than four stars, please post why in the comment box below.
There’s an easy quiz. I scoot my finger across the screen until all five out of the five stars transform from white to blue and press “Done.” The screen alters and the word “Success” appears, followed by another message.
Thank you for your feedback.
Your current contract will be concluded at 9am on January 15 th . If you wish to renew this contract, please choose “Renew.” If not, press “Don’t Renew.”
Be advised. If you renew, you will have the option of renewing with the same terms or you can alter your arrangement however you see fit. Whichever option you choose, your contractors will receive the updated contract which they can then decide to accept or not accept. If you do not renew, this will mean your last full day of service will be January 14 th .
Please make a choice by selecting the appropriate button below.
I bite the inside of my cheek and make my decision. The message that comes back asks if I’m sure, and I choose, “Yes.”
I blow out a long breath feeling kind of trembly. But it’s done. Tonight, once I get off work, I’ll talk to the guys about my decision and the reasons why. I want them to comprehend my logic, to understand my rationale. Then, I hope they’ll be willing to move forward on an alternate path.
It’s only about five minutes after this that I receive a phone call. It’s Tristan, requesting Facetime, which is unusual, but I agree to pick it up.
When the screen lights Jackson is right next to him, and each man is wearing a put-out expression. Well, half put-out and half kicked puppy. Dread sours my gut. Surely, Elegance won’t have notified them of my decision this early on. Right?
We still have three weeks and a crucial conversation to have before that final countdown.
Also, where’s Noah? His schedule has him off from the firehouse today barring some major calamity. My palms are instantly sweaty.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“ What’s going on ?” Tristan parrots back at me, his features drawn tight. “That’s what we’re calling to ask you. Why the hell have you canceled our contracts?”
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit .
Apparently information input into the Elegance site updates the second you enter it. If I’d known that, I would’ve delayed.
Too late to cry over spilled milk now, though.
I straighten and square my shoulders. “First of all, I didn’t cancel them, I just didn’t renew them.”
“Are you seriously playing the semantics game with us right now? Seriously?” Tristan snarls at me, shaking his head. I’ve never seen him this agitated, not even with Jackson. “We can’t believe you did this. After everything we’ve... You know what? Never mind.” He twists toward Jackson then stomps out of the frame. “Here, you talk to her.”
Abruptly, only Jackson’s bearded face fills my screen. Inexplicably, he’s wearing his smirk, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to reaching his eyes. He reminds me of a cardboard cutout of a person. A hollow facsimile.
“Tristan’s pissed as you can probably tell.”
“I can.” Kind of hard to miss.
“He even broke some of your plates, which I suppose they’ll dock from his pay.” He draws a finger along the flat side of his guitar pick but doesn’t flick it across anything. Then, I notice his other hand, which lifts his own phone. On the top of the screen are five gold stars lined up in a row, but I can’t make out the rest. “So, five out of five, eh?” His tone sounds nonchalant, but I recognize it as a fa?ade. “Yet you’re throwing us all out with the trash.”
“No one’s getting thrown out with the trash. That’s ridiculous, Jackson. And you have to know that’s not how I meant that.” Jesus fuck. How am I going to fix this? “I care about you all too much to keep you tethered to a paid contract. I want to have more.”
“More men? More as in not us ?”
What ? How could he think that?
“No. Of course not. Listen, I can’t talk to you about this over the phone.” Time for a change of topic. “Where’s Noah?”
He sighs, dropping his fake expression. What replaces it looks bleak. Desolate. “In his room.”
“Why is he in his room?”
“Because he’s crushed, Elliana. We all are. Crushed to the point of being fucking gutted . I mean, Christ, it’s like you just slugged us in the stomach while simultaneously kneeing us in the balls.”
“But that’s not what I intended. I would never—” There’s a knock at my door, and the only one to ever do that is my BFF. “Hang on, let me go send Andre away.”
I set my cell down on the bench and cross my workshop feeling a million things at once. This isn’t how I pictured this going at all. I was supposed to be home with the three of them couching everything in terms where they could understand my overall objective, even if putting myself on the line like that would be hard to do.
Since I’ve been keeping this door perpetually locked during business hours, I have to flip the deadbolt before I can open it. During that second and much more thorough security update, the company installed a peephole, but I’m in too much of a hurry to bother using it. I have to return to my conversation with Jackson ASAP, so I fling the door wide, already speaking.
“Andre, I...” But I trail off into nothing because it’s not my best friend standing there. It’s a woman with a pale complexion, sleek dark brown hair, huge sunglasses, and a parka-type coat. “I’m sorry. Customers aren’t allowed—”
“I’m not a customer, Elliana.” Her voice sounds familiar, but I’m having difficulty placing it. “What? You don’t remember me? Does this help?” She drags her hair down—hair that proves to be a wig—to display a blonde buzzcut underneath. The woman looks militant and unhinged, and only then does it click for me.
“Tanya Brubaker?”
Tanya and I had gone to high school together. When I first met her in choir, the girl had acted as if she couldn’t stand me—even jeering the name “Elephant” at me and holding up my ponytail of braids like it was a trunk—only to do a one-eighty and act friendly toward me later that year.
I’d been a freshman when Tanya had been a senior and yet she’d dropped out a semester before graduation. I never knew why. All that had been well over a decade ago.
“Elle?” echoes the tinny sound of Jackson’s voice from my phone. I forgot about him being on the other end of the line.
“Look, Tanya, I’d be happy to catch up with you sometime, but now isn’t ideal.” I glance down the stairs toward the public restrooms. We have a sign that says no patrons beyond the bottom step, but she must’ve overlooked it.
Maybe we should get a gate added, too.
“Aww, poor wittle ting...” Is she using baby language with me? She must be because Tanya has her mouth pulled into a full pout. “I’m afraid you’ll have to make it ideal.”
She yanks down her sunglasses, and her eyes send a shiver up my spine. They’re so devoid of feeling they remind me of a doll’s or maybe of a dead animal’s. Movement below her chin draws my gaze as she raises the barrel of a small pistol in her hand. It’s tiny enough to be easily concealable beneath the voluminous fabric of her winter coat.
Sweet baby Jesus.
“Don’t make any noise,” Tanya continues, pivoting her head to the side like a curious dog. With those dispassionate eyes of hers, the effect is android-like. “I set a little charge down there at your register. Don’t want your tall, dark, and handsome cashier blown to smithereens, do you?”
I wish Tanya was bluffing, for this all to be some ill-conceived joke. But who jokes with a gun and a threat to someone’s life? That’s when the epiphany skids into place.
“You’ve been sending me cards,” I surmise.
“I have. Did you like them? I thought that last one might’ve been a bridge too far, but then, I’m not always the best judge of such things.” Tanya tilts her head to the opposite side and nods at some point above my shoulder as if gesturing at someone. Fleetingly, I take a jerky peek at the space behind me but detect nothing.
No one’s there.
This woman is not okay.
“I uh, I did like the cards, but I have a phone call on hold so...”
Tanya pushes my door closed and snatches my cell from the workbench beside her.
“Elliana?”
I hear Jackson shouting my name as Tristan demands, “What the fuck is happening?”
Even Noah calls out to me more faintly with a worried, “Elle?”
From the tension of Tanya’s posture, I can read what she’s about to do, and the only thing I have time to do is yell, “I love you guys. I love you all.”
Before I can even finish my sentiment, Tanya covers the butt of her weapon with a knit scarf and slams it down onto the screen.
“Scream again and register man dies,” she bares her teeth at me and flashes a rectangular metal remote in my direction. Recognizing what it is, I gulp down any further noise as she bashes my phone again and again, breaking the protective outer casing into bits.
Why am I so stupid? Why didn’t I check the fucking peephole?
Despite exerting herself, Tanya shows barely any strain as she raises to her feet and kicks the remnants of my cell beneath my workbench. She replaces her wig back on her scalp and peers over at me with that infantile pout and blank gaze. The effect is downright eerie.
“Now, you’re going to walk in front of me and act as though everything’s fine, aren’t you? Remember, one word that might tip him off and kaboom .” Tanya pantomimes a massive explosion, and numbly I nod, trying to think of any alternatives.
The windows in here aren’t the kind that open, so that’s a bust. My brain is sifting through one method of escape after another, but none of them has the slightest chance of not proving lethal to Andre.
Then, Tanya shoves the barrel of her pistol into my ribs and makes me lead her down the stairs. Before we enter the salesfloor, Tanya wraps an arm around my shoulders. I can still feel the gun poking into me, though I suspect she’s concealed it from view.
Andre glimpses up at us, and his jovial expression turns cautious. I know I have to handle this just right in order to spare his life. If Tanya finds anything fishy, it’s all over.
“Andre, this is an old friend from high school. I’m going out with her for some coffee,” I say this on the fly as Tanya propels us forward. I have a terrible feeling that this might be the last time I ever see him. The least I can do is keep him alive.
“Oh, okay, girlie girl. Have fun reminiscing.”
“We will, crazy boy.” Without moving my head, I glance over my shoulder to indicate Tanya, hoping he catches my altered code word without reacting.
You’re smart, Andre. Figure it out.
My BFF blinks at me in bewilderment, but it’s the best I can do. I can’t risk alerting him beyond what I’ve already said, or he might come vaulting over that counter and get himself killed. Hopefully, he’ll contact the police without giving away that he knows something is very wrong.
Tanya directs me out the entrance and into the alleyway beside it. Inside that alley is a dull orange-brown shithole of a car, which she shoves me toward.
Once inside, I detect the disturbing reek of mold and mildew realizing that must be what’s covering the inside of the doors and floorboards. It’s so disgusting inside that I have to stifle my gag reflex, but I don’t fight as Tanya pushes me into the backseat.
“Try to pull any kind of fast one, and I’ll trigger this.” Tanya displays the remote again. “It has an impressive range, believe me.”
I do. I’m too afraid not to.
Everything in me desperately wants to attempt an escape, but I don’t dare. Seconds later, my kidnapper is behind the wheel, but she’s watching me from her rearview. Hitting the accelerator, she careens out into the clogged D.C. traffic.