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Betty Ingrid
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IN MANY WAYS, BETTY was an anomaly. In one way, however, she was the ultimate cliché. Twenty-six, single, and trying to make her way on her own in the city, the only one to greet her at the door was her cat. It was a beast of an animal, closer to the size of a small dog than a feline. It was a tabby with one eye permanently closed, and a half lobbed off the tail. His name was Gus Gus, after her favorite Disney character, and the moment she opened her front door, he was there by her feet, yowling loudly to make his discontent known.
"Hey, Gus, move it. Not in the mood tonight." She pushed him gently with one boot-clad foot and the volume of his yowl increased. He moved out of the way, but only enough to let her inside and lock the door. There was no danger of him trying to make his escape. Gus Gus was a happily domesticated animal and didn't appear to have any intentions of changing his station. Once she had come home to find a rat in her apartment and Gus Gus perched on her kitchen counter, voicing his objections. He was her companion for the long haul, and she was grateful for it. On nights like tonight, a companion was exactly what she needed, and the roommate life just wasn't for her.
“Oh, buddy,” she sighed heavily as she plopped down on the couch, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what kind of a day I had. You are seriously lucky that you get to live in here and don’t have to go out into the real world. Trust me on that.”
Gus Gus wasn't great with leaping anymore, which meant that the graceful leaps of his more svelte feline brothers were out of the question. Betty kept meaning to put him on a diet, but she didn't have the heart for denying him. If she ever had kids, she was going to have to hope that their father wasn't a total pushover, although the idea of ever having anybody to father a child with was feeling pretty remote at the moment. Still, as cranky as he was, Gus was a loyal animal, and he didn't like it when he sensed she was upset. Despite the amount of effort it required, he fumbled his way onto the couch beside her and shoved his head underneath one of her dead-weight hands. He mewed again, but more softly this time. She thought about telling him that his diet might be about to start soon whether he liked it or not, then realized there was no point in bothering. He was a cat, for God's sake. It wasn't like he was going to answer her. Why waste the energy?
“What the hell?!”
The sound of her phone ringing startled Betty so badly that she sat up bolt right. Gus Gus scowled and rolled away from her. He eyed her reproachfully from the sofa's arm as if to ask her where the hell she got off being so disruptive in his home. Or maybe he was as freaked out by the phone call as she was. Nobody ever called her, or at least hardly ever, and they definitely didn't call her at night. The handful of people she was close to knew her well enough to know she was always working or studying at night and they didn't want to become the recipients of her wrath when she was disturbed. Betty ran through a mental checklist of all of her bills, trying to figure out if she was late enough on anything to start getting calls from creditors. But that wasn't it either. For once, she was completely up to date on everything. With that option out, she had no idea who was calling her or why. Her first instinct was to reject the call and go about her business, which was what everybody she knew did with numbers they didn't recognize. Something stopped her, though, and before she fully understood that she was going to do it, she was swiping ‘answer’ instead.
“Hello?” Her voice sounded little, like a little girl’s, and she cleared her throat roughly. Whoever was calling her wouldn’t get to hear how down she was feeling. Nobody got to hear that but her and Gus, who wasn’t telling anyone anytime soon.
“Betty? Is that you?”
“Is this–?” She was sure she knew who it was, but it wasn’t possible. She hadn’t given him her number. Everything had gone to shit before they had gotten to that point.
"It's Zach. Zach Jameson, but please don't hang up. Please, Betty. Just listen to me for a minute. Do you think you might be willing to do that?" His voice cracked at the end of his sentence, and despite everything, she felt herself thawing out a little. She bit the inside of her cheek, bit it hard, to keep herself from letting that happen.
For all she knew, that was a talent of his. He could be pulling it out whenever he got bored and thought that messing with a stupid waitress would be the best cure.
“How the hell did you get my number? You shouldn’t have this number.”
“I know that. I know I shouldn’t.”
“Then why do you?” She was starting to get panicky. Her skin felt hot and clammy. Her hand held onto the phone so tightly it hurt.
“I don’t have an answer for that.”
“What a shock.”
"No, seriously. I didn't know I had it until about a minute ago. I was going through my pockets, and it was just in there. I don't know who put it in there. Somebody who wanted us to talk, I guess."
Betty wanted to call bullshit on that the same way she'd called bullshit on every other excuse that had come out of his mouth that day. Something stopped her, though. It could have been how far-fetched the story sounded. It didn't seem like the kind of thing he would have been able to make up on the fly, although she was willing to acknowledge that she might be being unforgivably naive. Zach Jameson had a reputation for business savvy that far preceded him and gave him a substantial amount of notoriety. Betty knew little about the world he operated in, but she was willing to bet that it involved a certain amount of ruthless sneakiness, unlike anything she had ever experienced. The second reason she thought she might honestly believe him was less substantial, or at least less concrete. It was something in his voice. There was a desperation there, something that sounded almost wounded, and she had a hard time believing it could all be fake. Maybe some of it, but not all of it. The odd little break at the end of the sentence was the thing that sealed the deal. She believed him, at least about the weird way he'd wound up with her number. God help her if it was another massive mistake, but she did.
“Okay,” she finally answered.
“Okay? What does that mean? Okay to what, exactly?” His voice sounded excited, almost feverish.
"Okay, I believe you. About my number being in your pocket. I don't know how it wound up there, but the people I work with at The Bellevue don't have a whole lot of scruples. I definitely wouldn't put it past them to pull a stunt like that. Although I guess I don't work with them anymore, do I?"
“Does that mean you’re willing to talk to me?” Zach’s voice was cautious, but Betty thought it was cautiously optimistic. He chose to gloss over and ignore entirely the reference to her firing, for which Betty didn’t blame him. If she had been responsible for getting another person fired she wouldn’t want to talk about it, either. Although she seriously doubted she would ever do anything that would get somebody fired, which was just one of the many differences between the two of them. She should hang up the phone, pour herself a glass of the cheap Riesling chilling in her fridge, and call it a night. That was what she should do.
“Alright.”
“You’ll talk to me?”
“I’ll listen to what you have to say, at least for a little while. But not if you keep asking me. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how annoying it is to have somebody repeat themselves?”
“No,” he laughed, “they haven’t. I don’t usually act like such a moron.”
"I'll have to take your word for it," Betty answered dryly. It wasn't a nice thing to say, but she was far from being in a nice mood.
“I guess you will,” he sighed, “but I hope to make you believe it eventually. I need you to understand that I never meant to get you in trouble today.”
“You already told me that.”
“I know. I need you to believe me.”
"You know what, though? It doesn't matter whether I believe you or not. The fact is, you did get me in trouble. You got me more than in trouble; you got me fired. I know I played a part in it–"
“No. As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t. That was all me. I fucked up.”
"That's very chivalrous of you, but it's not true. I should have had a better handle on things. I shouldn't have let you distract me, especially when I knew it was me who would deal with the consequences if you did."
"Let me make it up to you, then. I want to take you out. I did before, and I want it even more now."
“Two problems with that. First, I’m not your charity case–”
“Nobody is saying that you are. Taking girls out because I feel sorry for them isn’t my style.”
“And second,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. She was determined to have her say without letting him derail her or talk her into submission. “Second, I don’t go out with guys who already have fiancées. Never saw the point in it. Call me crazy.”
“I know that part makes me look like a dick, but–”
“You said it, not me.”
“But there’s a reason for it. I’m hoping you’re willing to believe me.”
"I'm willing to listen. That's all." Betty felt like she was having an out of body experience. There was the part of her agreeing to hear him out, the part still having this conversation. Then there was the other part of her. This was the part that was screaming inside of her head for her to hang up and never look back. She wasn't a stupid girl, but he sure must have thought of her that way if he believed she was going to fall for whatever crap he was about to spout. The best thing for her to do was extricate herself from his crazy before it hurt her any more than it already had. She knew it was the smart play, and still, she listened. She had to hand it to him; he certainly had a talent for captivating his audience.
"You might not believe this, but I'm kind of the black sheep in my family. When it comes to business, I'm great, but it's always been a major thorn in my side that I wouldn't take any money from my dad to get started."
"But why? I would think he would be glad that you didn't want anything. Sounds like a parent's dream." She couldn't help it. She was fascinated. She thought about all of the times she had seen this man on the cover of a magazine or glimpsed him on a television screen while hurrying on her way to do something more important than watch gossip. She understood that there were people who would have done just about anything to get the insight she was getting into Zach right now. The things he was telling her weren't part of the dialogue about him she'd picked up through osmosis and through the inane conversations of her former co-workers. This stuff was all new and she was inclined to believe him. There was vulnerability in his face. More than that, there was pain. Not only did he finally feel really human to her, he felt like her, too. She wasn't yet sure what this believing meant for how she felt about everything, but she believed him. Point one in his direction.
“You would think, right? But my dad isn’t most parents. He would have loved for me to ask for money, for plenty of it, because it would have given him something to hold over me. That’s what drives him crazy about me. He never wanted me to be successful without using him as a crutch.” His voice had taken on a hard, bitter quality that she hadn’t heard in her limited experience with him. When she heard him sound like this, she had a much less difficult time imagining him as the ruthless business mogul he had earned a reputation for being.
“Are you sure? That’s a pretty poor characterization.”
“Who gives a shit if it’s poor if it’s true?”
“Okay, so maybe your dad sucks. What does that have to do with you being engaged?”
"It wasn't me. It was a setup. He agreed to it, agreed to my marrying her, without my consent. I keep telling people I don't want to do it, that I won’t do it, but nobody is all that interested in what I have to say on the matter. I feel like a fucking ghost.”
“But that’s insane. What you’re talking about is an arranged marriage.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that.”
“But this is the United States. Things like that don’t happen here. People don’t do that kind of thing.”
“I told you, my people aren’t the normal kind of people. My parents don’t approve of my social life with women–”
“Yeah, I’ve heard tidbits here and there. I can’t say I blame them.”
"Fine," he answered hotly, the first sign of anger he'd flashed at her since this conversation had begun, "don't blame them. I’m aware of what my lifestyle has been like. I work hard, and I've played hard. I don't care if you blame them or not, but my past doesn't give them the right to dictate my future."
“Okay, okay, you’re right. It doesn’t.” Was she agreeing with him, then? Was she actually comforting him? After every exhausting thing that had transpired that day and all of her righteous anger, she couldn’t quite figure out how she had wound up in the role of counselor. Nor did she understand how any of this had anything to do with her.
“Lucille, that’s her name, she doesn’t have any problem with it, either. That’s the really fucked up thing. She seems thrilled with the whole thing, which makes me wonder what kind of person she is. My guess is that it’s all greed, all the time.”
“Alright but, Zach? I’m not trying to sound like a bitch here, I’m honestly not, but what does any of this have to do with me?” She spoke gently now, most of the anger drained out of her, but she still felt bad as soon as the words were out of her mouth. Whether she meant to be a bitch or not, the question still sounded unbelievably harsh.
"I need to make them understand, once and for all, that this marriage isn't going to happen. My parents need to understand it, and Lucille needs to understand it, too."
“Okay. And?”
“And that’s where I was hoping you could help me out.”
“You want me to pretend to date you?”
“I would prefer it if you would actually date me, but–”
“Zach. We’ve already been over this. What I saw at The Bellevue -”
“I know. I maintain it wasn’t what you think it was but I know. So then yes, I guess I want you to pretend to date me.”
“And why on Earth would I do a thing like that?” She was utterly flabbergasted. She had no idea what had given him the impression that she would be open to something like that. Maybe the fact that she was still on the phone, that she hadn’t hung up. And why exactly was that, again?
“Because,” Zach answered, his voice oddly flat and all business, “I’m going to give you one hell of a tip in return.”
