Ace picked gristle from his teeth while he compiled a list of questions and jotted them down on a napkin. Although I felt more than a bit off-kilter, settling our minor dispute/poor attempt at flirtation with a bit of trivia, I had to press my lips together against a betraying I’ve-so-got-a-crush-but-I’m-pretending-I-don’t grin.
If Eric were any other guy on the devirginizer list, I’d have already made a play. But slightly older, a rehab grad and prodigal son - I wasn’t sure I could handle the weight of all that baggage. The most complex thing about guys on the list, guys like Ty, was their ability to shotgun a dozen beers during a Super Bowl commercial.
Eric’s shoulder brushed mine as he leaned on the counter, folding a new release flyer into an origami creature yet to be determined, and I couldn’t stop staring at his hands. Fold by fold, the paper morphed into a crane, its neck arched, regal despite the blood red fonts and hacker film graphics on its surface.
“We made a thousand, and I do mean precisely one thousand, of these for my sister’s wedding last year,” Eric said, pushing the crane along the glass until it sat before me. “She taught ESL in Japan one summer and really got into the culture. Chopsticks, Manga. She pretty much forced us to make them. We strung them up around the reception hall.”
I reached out, but Ace got to the crane first.
“Nice,” he said, carelessly turning it this way and that. “These are given as a wish for long life or something, right?”
Eric nodded. “Or a long life together. It’s more of a curse, really. Abby’s a contrary bitch most of the time. A few years of her and you’d go into congestive heart failure.”
“Well, my arteries are clogging as we speak.” Ace tossed the crane aside; it toppled over on the glass. He picked up his list of questions. “I’m all for making the most of my slovenly life, and it doesn’t include having you two around, so let’s do this thing.”
The crane looked distraught lying there. I pursed my lips and blew a long, low breath in its direction. It fluttered and spun in a circle.
“Kid,” Ace pointed to Eric, and then jabbed his finger toward the wall, “stand here and keep your distance so I can keep my eye on you.”
“What, like I could cheat somehow?” Eric laughed, and then swore when he tripped over Oscar. Way to go, Oscar, keep the rotten cheating cheater on his toes.
While they were distracted, I snatched the abandoned crane from the counter and stuffed it in my pocket.
“Do you think they will?” I asked Eric, careful not to crush my new treasure.
“Will what?”
“Your sister and her husband,” I reminded him. “Think they’ll live long and prosper?”
Eric shrugged. “She torched the cranes the day he left her.”
“He left her?” I crushed the crane in my fist.
“Sure, I told you Abby’s not all sugar and spice. They lasted almost a year.”
“Enough with the sister and her paper birdies already,” Ace slapped his palms together. “You kids ready?”
“Bring it on.” Eric shook his head like a dog and performed a few bodybuilder poses. His lean frame made the moves even more asinine. I gave him the finger.
The challenge began as the crane unraveled in my pocket.
Eric proved to be a fierce competitor, our Ferris knowledge evenly matched. Ace volleyed questions at us, and all too soon we’d expended his prepared list. For all the build up, the writing stuff down and staring blankly at the ceiling, Ace failed to offer much of a challenge. Ten minutes later, neither of us had made an error. The DVD was still fair game.
A crowd, (okay there were like five people), had gathered throughout the nearby stacks. Their initial impatient grumbles had settled into a respectful silence, broken only by their collective groans as we continued to answer correctly.
Desperate, Ace pulled a whopper bit of trivia out of his ass and smeared it in our faces.
“What’s Charlie Sheen’s character’s name, the guy Bueller’s sister makes out with at the police station?”
Eric and I shared a panicked look, each expecting the other to spew out the answer before it came to us. But we were both struck dumb.
Frantic, I performed a mental run through of the scene - the heavy petting and glimpse of tongue, Charlie Sheen’s dazed expression and spikey bedhead when they broke apart. His name, what the hell was his name?
Near the exit, a coffee machine churned its toxic sludge in the intense quiet.
Eric opened his mouth. My heart lurched.
The crowd held its collective breath.
“I got nothing,” Eric said, defeated.
The crowd gasped.
Everyone stared at me.
I shook my head.
No one moved. What did this mean? Who would go home victorious now?
A voice spoke near our frozen tableaux.
“Excuse me, but I think I know this one.”
Eric and I spun around to see a guy in his late thirties approach the counter dressed in winterized overalls. His steel-toe boots scraped into the tile floor with each thudding step. Ginormous, he ducked his head to avoid movie posters that hung from the ceiling.
“He was an un-named character,” the guy pronounced. “The credits refer to him as ‘Boy in Police Station.’” He held out a catcher’s glove-sized hand. “Mine for the night, I think.”
Jesus. What was I? Brain dead? How could I miss Ace’s stupid trick question? Eric wore a similar expression of disbelief.
“He’s right.” Ace gave a you-win-some-you-lose-some shrug and handed the DVD over to Mr. Fix-it. Eric and I could only watch the transfer, beaten. “Anything else for you today, good sir?”
“Actually…” the guy looked at us, and the crowd, now jostling for a place in line. He cleared his throat.
“I think he means the porn, everybody. Let’s give the guy his privacy. It’s that way. Clear a path, guy needing a porn fix here.” I gestured toward the sputtering neon sign, stomped past Eric and shoved my way outside. Sleigh bells on the door jingled behind me. I turned back to shout, “Christmas died a commercial death months ago, Ace. Bah-fucking-humbug.”