Chapter 9 Center Control
I wrote a paper about Faust once, for high school.
The character, I mean. From Goethe’s play.
It isn’t a happy story. Once upon a time there was this really smart man, a certified scholar, named Faust. And like many scholars do, he gets depressed.
And after he suffers operatically for a while, he rings up the Devil’s right-hand man, Mephistopheles.
Because for some reason, Faust thinks that getting smarter will cure him of his sadness—questionable!
But he agrees to the Devil’s bargain: Faust will get to learn about everything ever, but only for like twenty-something years.
And then, at the end of all those years, smarting around, the Devil gets to take Faust’s soul.
I never got why he did it. Like, really.
It’s a bad deal. At first, Faust uses his Devil-knowledge-skills to seduce a woman named Gretchen, and it goes about as well as you’d think a Devil-skills-seduction would go.
Poorly! People die! In some versions, Gretchen’s soul is saved, and in others, Faust’s, and it’s really a whole mess that pretentious literary men have been reinterpreting forever.
It’s the literal classic deal with the Devil.
Faust signed his life away on the dotted line for temporary satisfaction.
A bad idea.
That now I’m starting to understand.
Sometimes, we ignore the signs and ask the Devil himself if we can borrow his pen.
After I remember how to breathe, I flip that switch inside me, the one that stops caring about anything that isn’t work. My real work. Getting the job done for Imogen so I can get paid and keep moving.
I spend that night with my noise-canceling headphones on, triangulating Bernard’s location from his sponsored Instagram content.
He’d tagged a Marriott chain as his “Australian home away from home,” though according to his last post, he’s helping open up a new rooftop pool at some boutique spot.
A quick chat with my concierge confirms that the big party is Wednesday, before the race weekend kicks off.
“But my friend was over there all night, putting together lounge chairs,” he tells me.
I’m sympathetic, interested, talk about my dad’s old union back home, American labor struggles, and my concierge slips me a one-day key card, “So you can see the nonsense yourself.”
“Thanks.” I pocket the Golden Ticket. “Think I could get a swim in?”
“Yeah, it’s technically open to their guests now.” He smiles. “You need company? My smoko’s in fifteen.”
“Maybe later.”
I spot him before he spots me. At the open white cement doorway, a splash of orange-red hair and yellow Leone Racing T-shirt and boxy gold swim trunks, not his color at all.
I don’t wave. In my blocky black sunglasses and spider-silk-fine bikini cover-up, I imagine he’d rather have the pleasure of thinking he found me on this lounge chair, waiting for him like Venus in an oyster shell.
Wearing my Stark-Benzin-gray bikini.
“Good afternoon,” Bernard says when he’s a few flip-flop thwaps away. “Don’t I know you?”
I feign surprise, lowering my magazine. Harper’s Bazaar, March issue, with Whoopi Goldberg on the cover. My little warning sign to him; as Whoopi said, I don’t want somebody in my house. “Hi?” I cock my head. “Wait… yeah. Bernard, right?”
“Guilty as charged.” He pushes his Ray-Bans up his head. Basic. Masculine. Insecure. “Are you helping with this party?”
I pout, my own sunglasses staying firmly in place. “What party?”
“Oh, sorry. I just…” Thought you were an employee everywhere I go. His eyes dip down to my stomach, which is covered by the magazine. They dart back up. “Are you all staying here?”
“No, don’t worry about that.” I smile, and he relaxes a bit—I’ve made us our first in-joke. “Want to sit? Seat’s free if you’ve got a second.”
“God, please. You’re saving me from this bullshit.” Bernard looks over his shoulder, shoots the hotel workers a little wave and a five minutes? gesture, and takes the lounge chair next to me. He misses the employee rolling her eyes as they poof out the door, just as relieved to get away from him.
I pull myself up, going for my pool bag and letting the magazine slide off my stomach. “Want a water? I’ve got…” I make a show of rummaging through the big Jacquemus straw tote, “Lemonade, mango, and plain.”
“Aren’t you prepared? Mango sounds good, thank you.”
I crack the drink before I hand it to him, just like a mother would. I go for plain, and tilt my water his way. “Cheers.”
He taps his can against mine, takes a sip, then gives me the skeptical look I knew was coming, complete with sheepish smile and another body scan. This time, the gray bikini seems to register. “You’re being pretty nice to a guy who quit on your first day,” he says, his voice tight.
Noted. My fake team loyalty makes him uncomfortable. I soften my shoulders, play up a frown. “Oh my gosh, what? I don’t blame you for that.”
“Really?”
Behind the safety of my dark lenses, I roll my eyes. “Why would I?”
“Dunno. Guess I just thought you wouldn’t want to…” He rubs at his knee. “Ah, it’s stupid.”
“No, say it.” I giggle. “I love stupid.”
He laughs. “I sort of thought you wouldn’t want to talk to me,” he admits quietly.
“That’s crazy.”
He laughs much, much louder. “Is it?”
Time for the critical hit. “Um, you’re Bernard Baudelaire.” I bite my lip. “Who wouldn’t want to talk to you?”
Bernard blinks, shocked by my so-called honesty.
Then he shakes his head, doing that whole exasperated yet enchanted man thing—as if a woman speaking her mind is new to him.
“Hey, how about this,” I say before he can get a word in.
“You can make it up to me, if you really feel so bad about my first day. Which was fine, by the way. Or it wasn’t, if you’d rather think it was a disaster. ”
More head shaking. “Yeah? What can I do for you?”
“You can take me to dinner.”
His breath puffs out, and I think his face is actually going red. “I—yeah. That sounds like something I can do.”
“And it isn’t just because you’re an F1 driver,” I tack on. “I promise.”
Admittedly, I’m moving much faster than I’d like to, but I already feel like I’m on borrowed time. I don’t think Faust knows who I am, or what I’m doing. If he did, he’d just say it, wouldn’t he? Instead of…
Cat. You know what it means.
I don’t.
For once, I have no fucking clue what a man is thinking.
And I really, truly hate it. But there isn’t any use stewing in the shoulds.
Should I have seen it coming that Faust was going to tell me off at some point, seeing how weird he’s acted since we met?
Should I have really believed I was breaking through his prickly outer shell?
Should I feel bad that he pried out my actual fashion opinions?
Yes, no, and yes. But I should stop thinking about him. I need to.
“Can you wait ’til Japan for our date?” Bernard asks. “I am working this weekend.”
“Me too. And sure, if I can make it.” I sigh. “Can I get your chat app? My phone’s been acting weird. I mean, if that isn’t strange or…”
“Not strange at all.” His lips droop. “Wait, you might not be at the race in Japan?”
“The team’s being weird about traveling. You know how they are.”
Stark-Benzin, our common enemy. Great conversation fodder. “They’re a bit strict,” Bernard says. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Yeah? How’s Leone?”
It’s the perfect question. I smile and nod and laugh as he talks about himself, his new team, his new car, Formula 1’s complicated racing rules.
“They call it the pinnacle of motorsports, you know. A lot of women would kill to be working on a team like you are. And I’ve always supported getting more girls into F1.
Especially doing what you’re doing with—clothes and things. ”
“Oh, thank you.” By now, I’ve got my legs drawn up to my chest, sunscreen uncapped as I apply more to my shins. He’s talking so much, it’s nice to have something else to do. “Do you usually go out to dinner with the new girls?” I smile. “Or am I special?”
Surprise sends his brows rocketing up his face, and he looks at me, slightly bewildered. My heart thumps with glee. Bewildered is good.
“This might shock you, but I’m something of a romantic.” He cards his hand through his pale orange hair. “I don’t like dating much… but I do want to find a wife.”
Sure. Left yours at the altar once or twice. They must be easy to misplace. “I bet it’s hard to meet people who want to settle down, doing what you do.”
“Seriously. Call me traditional, but I just want a woman who wants to be a wife and mom. It’s impossible to find that these days.” He flashes me a toothy smile. “You know, if this goes well, our kids might get my red hair. Just saying.”
Out of nowhere, more of Faust’s words from yesterday ricochet through my head.
Your freckles look like Bernard’s.
“Oh. Yeah.” Shit, I sound uncomfortable. How can I make sure he doesn’t think it’s because of his casual family planning? “I like red hair.”
“Good,” he says, oblivious. “What about you? You want a family? Kids?”
Nope. “With the right guy? Sure.”
“Well, not with the wrong guy,” he jokes. I smile. He does, too.
When I make some comment about feeling a bit warm, Bernard vanishes to grab us drinks—“on him this time”—and I’m alone to shake off the residual Faustian weirdness.
This is so annoying. Why can’t I get his stupid, deep voice out of my head?
I don’t want to remember him noticing things about me that Bernard doesn’t.
He’s not physically here, and I’m still getting frustrated by him.
Stubbornly, I stand, strip off my cover-up, and march to the pool.
Glorious, heated water envelopes me as I sink into the shallow lounging area, made for drinkers and the occasional child.
There. Bernard will return, bearing alcohol I won’t drink and a newfound appreciation for my swimsuit.
We’ll banter some more, I’ll tiptoe around his tradwife fantasy long enough to really secure our dinner date, and then…