Worth

Chapter 15

Violet prepared to lock up in case there was still no sign of Ed by the time John showed up to take her to lunch. They generally informed one another of a basic schedule so they could co-ordinate appointments better, and it was atypical of him, during normal business hours, not to let her know whether he'd be in or not. It was especially atypical that he showed up at nearly a quarter to one in the afternoon wearing a white and pastel racquetball outfit and carrying an empty gym bag. He said little at the desk as Violet gawked at him. He adjusted his headband and checked his messages.

"Well get you!" she said crookedly. "Since when do you play?"

"I don't," Ed said gruffly.

"I think you should grow a pencil moustache then for a touch of authenticity." He sent a hairy eyeball her way. "Is your wife forcing you to join a club?"

"My wife likes me at a physical disadvantage. She had nothing to do with it, and don't you bring it up during one of your gab sessions."

"Fine. Your secret's safe with me, but I draw the line at covering your tracks." At an afterthought, Violet frowned. "Please don't tell me you're running around."

Under the closed lips of an arrogant smirk, his tongue ran across is teeth. "Nothing like that. If you must know, a good friend of mine recently got some new neighbours and one of them is in a rock band. They have these crazy jam sessions and we got invited last night. Man, it was a wild party," he said wistfully. "I was killer on those bongos."

"I would have taken you for more of a triangle man."

"There's nothing like smacking the skins."

"There's a lovely thought."

"Anyway, I told my wife I was going over to my friend's place to help him paint his garage. In reality, we were slinging back Sho Gun shooters and taking turns keeping a little groupie named Kiki from dancing off the table. She kept saying my beats were throwing her off but the truth is she was kind of spastic. After a while, we were all just chilling." (Here, Ed's over pronunciation of the 'ing' part of 'chilling' gave Violet the shivers.) "Then this guy, Drako, decided we should all play a game of Who Am I?, only we couldn't find any paper to make headbands, so this happened." He made a cascading gesture from the top of his outfit downward.

"I don't get it."

"Haven't you ever been hammered?" Ed asked making irritated googly eyes. "We wrote on our foreheads."

"Let me see!" Violet said, excited.

"No, it's ridiculous. I couldn't find any hat that sat low enough."

"How bad is it?"

"Bad enough that I had to pretend to have a paint fume headache so I could keep an ice pack over it all morning."

"Let me see it!" Violet leapt at him wickedly, but Ed dodged her. Then he made a big production out of raising his headband to reveal the four black block letters stained into him with a felt marker. Violet did not try to hide her delight.

"You can see it's a problem."

"Oh, Ed, it's only short for Richard."

"I don't remember there being a Richard at the party. If my wife sees this, she'll put my collar back on. You got any make-up that will cover it?"

"I don't carry that kind of spackle. What you need is an exfoliator."

"In English."

"A facial scrub."