Maxed Out (5 page)

“You’ve been interviewing people in the middle of the
night?” I ask.

“It’s almost midnight in Korea,” Jeremy says. “I got a few
calls in to some contacts a little while ago. It’s not amazing stuff but it
backs up what you were already suspecting.”

I need to sit down. I clear a spot on my desk. “Thank you,”
I say, finally. I can’t believe some of the things he’s managed to find – all
of the things that my research had hinted at he’s found a concrete example of
in a cite-able format.

“You really just expected me to take that article and run?”
Jeremy asks.

“I thought you were an asshole,” I say.

He shakes his head. “Probably still am,” he says. “Phil says
I’m going to be working with you for a while, though, so I need to stay on your
good side.”

I’ve been trying to raise my guard up for this moment, for
when he’ll inevitably try to convince me that we’re on the same side. When it
finally comes all of my defenses melt right through my fingers.

“Okay,” I say. “I’m going to go grab a muffin. Do you want
anything?”

“Coffee?” he says.

I’m so enamored of him right now that I go to the place
across the street instead of the break room to get it, and when I get back, I refuse
his offer to reimburse me. It’s really nice to have something go my way for
once.

I can’t imagine that this will last.

“It’s brilliant,” Phil says.

I’ve finished the article in record time, thanks to Jeremy’s
notes. It’s the sort of thing Phil likes to see first before I pass it on – he has
this obsession with conspiracy theories, exposés and the like. There’s a whole
cabinet in his office devoted to crazy stories that we didn’t have enough
evidence to run. Every once in a while he gets this gleam in his eye that
suggests that he might actually believe that there’s someone stopping us from
printing them, that it’s not just an issue of credibility given that we can’t
back them up.

We get stopped from printing things all the time, of course.
Phil knows this . He doesn’t care about
those
kinds of stories – they’re
inevitably boring reviews or critiques that we don’t run to avoid offending our
advertisers. Whenever we have something negative to say about one of our
clients, someone on the business end crunches the sales we’d gain from printing
it versus the cost of losing the advertiser, and a decision is made. This
basically means that the bigger the company, the more newsworthy something
negative we print has to be.

The logical extension to this is that any of those stories
that are interesting enough for Phil to care about are interesting enough to
sell papers, so they get printed. Anything interesting conspiracy wise would
get printed
instantly
if we could find evidence to sell it. Phil doesn’t
care. He has too much fun living in this little fantasy world where the
Rothschild family sends their kids to the Build-a-Bear group or whatever to
control global politics, one where people beyond our advertisers actually care
what we print.

So, of course, this is right up his alley.

“This was the sort of thing I hired you for,” he says,
obviously to Jeremy.

“Jeanine did all the heavy lifting,” Jeremy says. “I just
did a little research for her as a favor.”

“I didn’t see her here all night—“

“I was just investigating her leads across a time
differential,” Jeremy says, cutting him off. “Really, it was all her.”

Phil shrugs. “Whatever. I’m just glad you two are working
together – I thought I caught a whiff of something earlier.”

“No problems here,” I say. I mean it, too.

We go out to lunch, Jeremy and I. To say that he’s grown on
me since this morning would be an understatement on the scale of ‘the holocaust
was bad’ or ‘Skrillex has stupid hair.’ It’s almost unbelievable how much my
feelings for a person can change in such a short time.

My phone keeps buzzing, interrupting any chance of me
actually talking to Jeremy now that I don’t hate his guts. First it’s Renee,
worrying about me having to work with that prick that I described last night.
I’m surprised she cares: all my friends seemed to care about last night was my
relationship with Max. I tell her that everything is working out alright, that
I overreacted, and her next text is ‘please don’t fuck him’ in about as many
words. Thanks, mom, wasn’t planning on it – but if I was, it wouldn’t be any of
your business. She probably thinks I’m on rebound from Max still. I’m not. We broke
up like civilized adults. Still, I’ve always been rather attracted to Jeremy,
and now that I respect him professionally –

My phone saves me from finishing that line of thought. It’s
Tiff, telling me she’s ‘there if I need her.’ I try to stay positive with my
reply, but the degree to which my friends think I’m an invalid because Max and
I decided to separate is ridiculous and I don’t really want the attention. Next,
Alice is going to send me an offer to go clubbing or something – which would
probably count as a rebound to Renee, so I wouldn’t even be able to take her up
on the offer without offending my temporary landlord.

I’m wrong, thankfully – the next buzz is from Max, asking if
I want to talk. This is handled more simply: the part of me that wants to move
on texts ‘no thanks’ and hits send before I give myself a chance to think about
it. I consider Tiff’s offer for another moment, longer than I’d like to admit.
Sending those two words looses a whole spill of emotions that I’ve been trying
to avoid for the last few days. Doesn’t matter, I tell myself. I can’t afford
to dig a relief well right now. I need to move on with my life and not wallow
in my feelings.

I turn off my phone.

It’s almost a pleasant lunch after that. We talk a little
more about Jeremy’s former workplace and about Phil’s silly obsession. Jeremy
says he was working on some ‘sensitive’ articles before he left
, so Phil probably thinks that he got fired for
uncovering a conspiracy. It lines up – Jeremy was laid off right before the
last article in the series finished – but given that almost 20% of the rest of
the staff got fired at the same time, he’s pretty sure he was just downsized.

“You gotta admit, it sounds like the perfect cover,” I say. “No
better way to disguise firing a guy writing about something you didn’t want
people to know. What were you writing about, anyway?”

He laughs. “Nothing exciting. I was trying to give the whole
European debt thing a rock-and-roll spin, make it seem like there was some kind
of conspiracy or narrative behind it all. It was all supposed to climax in some
big reveal in the final article. Honestly, I’m glad I got downsized before I
had to write it. All I had was some boring facts about physical reserves.”

“No actual conspiracy?” I say.

“None,” he says. “I guess I did a good job spinning it if I
fooled Phil, but it’s all just politics as usual. Maybe a little lack of
forethought or imagination regarding some specific issues – I tried to cast
that as greed or malice where I could – but that only proves that the people
leading our society are human and that’s hardly a story.”

“What’s so important about physical reserves? Why would Phil
think they fired you to keep from writing about them?”

Jeremy smiles.  “I purposefully saved that for last and
alluded to it in a bunch of places because conspiracy theory people are
obsessed with physical gold. There’s always a big theory about how much gold
countries do or don’t have, about buying it unfairly from developing countries
or selling them plated lead as bullion – if you googled ‘gold reserves’ right
now I would be surprised you had to go further than a page down to find
something about Cecil Rothschild’s supposed hidden vault, which is supposed to
contain more gold than is publicly held by every Euro country combined. There’s
absolutely no evidence of this gold existing – no records of vault
construction, of transporting more than ten thousand tonnes – supposedly – and
the records we have of mining gold, which are fairly accurate, don’t support
the existence of even a hundredth of this magical unaccounted gold. People are
obsessed with it, though – they think that the Rothschilds use it to control
the IMF or some similar rubbish, that it’s a giant axe hanging over the world
economy. I took advantage of this and alluded to it where I could, but all I
had to write about were some boring facts and the fact that this theory
existed.”

“So you tried to write a conspiracy article.”

“I tried to make it look exciting. There was simply no
evidence for any sort of conspiracy,” he says.

“That’s really boring,” I say.

He nods. “Yeah. Like I said, I wasn’t really looking forward
to it.”

We sit in silence for a while. I manage a few bites of curry
before he pipes up again.

“So you live in Point Loma?”

I wince. He’s asking about Max, indirectly, and as much as I
hate Renee pretending to be my mother, this line of questioning won’t end well.
“Used to,” I say.

“Had a fight?”

“Not exactly.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

It’s a genuine relief that he seems interested in my
feelings about the situation instead of barging in with unhelpful advice like
all of my friends. “Not really,” I say. “Thanks, though.”

“Do you need a place to stay?” he asks.

“What?”

“Do you need a place to stay?” he says again. “I’ve got a
spare bedroom in the place I’m renting – two, actually. The unit I signed for
ended up having a completely rotten floor so they upgraded me to a three
bedroom two bath for free.”

“For how long?” I ask.

“The other unit will take at least three months to fix,” he
says. “You can stay with me until then for free. It’s no trouble.”

“I, uh—“

“Where are you now?”

“With a friend,” I say.

“Bed or couch?”

“Couch.”

“My unit is furnished,” he says.

“Where is it?” I ask. It doesn’t matter, he’s won me over.
As much as Renee says I’m not interfering I can tell that she wants to claim
her place as her own again. Besides, I’ve got a crick on my neck from sleeping
on her couch.

“National city,” he says.

I frown.

“It’s nice. You’ll be surprised,” he says.

“I can’t complain about a free bed,” I say.

Renee’s advice comes to mind, unbidden.
Don’t fuck him
,
she said. Easier done than said, I tell myself, but I have been missing Max a
lot at night, and Jeremy will be just a few feet away. Maybe he’s gay or
something. Besides, why should I listen to Renee? I’m fully capable of making
my own decisions.

I don’t make it to nightfall. Hell, I barely make it an hour
past lunch before I’m sneaking Jeremy out of the building for a little
investigative reporting of the most intimate nature. As much as I tell myself
otherwise it’s all my doing – he’s the one putting up a token resistance and
acting surprised. I’m calling the shots.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m doing this. Part of it is
because Renee told me not to, undoubtedly, but I’m smart enough to realize that
rebound sex isn’t usually a good idea. Maybe I just want to fill that sudden
emptiness in my life, to feel wanted. Max dumped me, after all. I need to prove
to myself that I’m desirable. This is why I’m ripping off Jeremy’s clothes on
top of Renee’s couch (she lives like a block away from work) and forcing myself
on top of him. To feel loved.

Predictably, he’s not quite as into the entire thing as I
am.

“Look, this is great and all but can’t we wait until after
work?” he says.

“Why?” I ask, slipping a hand in his boxers.

“Because… Phil… work?” he manages. I’m almost impressed; I
can be quite distracting when I want to be.

“I wouldn’t worry,” I say, leaning in to kiss him in between
sentences. “We just got done with a big article. We don’t need to write
anything for another couple of days.”

“What if someone sees us?”

“Like who?” I ask. My hand clearly isn’t distracting enough,
so I tug his boxers the rest of the way off and start teasing him with my
mouth.

“That guy,” he says, pointing.

I turn to look. There’s a guy walking  with a bunch of
flowers in hand outside, visible in between the slits of the blinds. I can’t
get a look at his face but there’s no way Will would wear that jacket, which
means Jeremy and I are in the clear. He’s probably visiting the old lady next
door.

“And why would he bother us?” I ask, redoubling my efforts
to take Jeremy’s attention.

There’s a knock on the door.

Jeremy looks at me with an expression halfway between ‘I
told you so’ and ‘oh my god I’m going to die’ which is honestly more insulting
than anything else – if the Clinton administration taught us anything it’s that
a guy caught in this position is hi-fived while the woman is called a slut. Still,
we haven’t been caught yet. I throw Jeremy’s jacket over his crotch and adjust
my blouse before getting up to answer the door.

It’s Max.

I slip outside and close the door behind me. “What are you
doing here?” I ask. I try not to let my anger slip out.

“I could ask you the same,” he says. “Aren’t you supposed to
be at work?”

“Something came up,” I say. Granted, I had to do a bit of
coaxing to get it up, but I’m not technically lying.

He looks at me intensely for a moment. I’m torn between
having too much to say and too little. There’s a mountain of words – La Mesa de
Herveo, if I had to pick one -- bubbling up inside me but I’m afraid to unleash
even the smallest one lest the resulting mess turn out like the Armero tragedy.

“I missed you,” he says.

“So did I,” I say.

“There’s a guy in there,” he says.

The unspoken accusation hangs between us, that slight pause
before he spoke just as hurtful as if he had come right out.
But,
he
meant to say.
But
there’s a guy in there. You obviously didn’t miss me
that
much.