Brenda Read online

  Title Page/Table of Contents

  Brenda

  By Lee Ellis

  Text copyright © 2014 Lee J. Ellis

  All Rights Reserved

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Title Page/Table of Contents

  Chapter 1-Jacob Moves In.

  Chapter 2-Jacob Goes to a Disco.

  Chapter 3-Lunch with Lucy.

  Chapter 4-Jacob’s Parents.

  Chapter 5-Jacob Goes to Work.

  Chapter 6-Jacob Bonds with a Coworker.

  Chapter 7-The Office Crew goes to a Bar.

  Chapter 8-Jacob Tries to use a Kiddy Taser.

  Chapter 9-Lucy Tells Jacob Something. Something Important, Obviously.

  Chapter 10-Jacob Gets Chewed Out.

  Chapter 11-Jacob Refs a Football Game.

  Chapter 12-Jacob is Late to a Meeting.

  Chapter 13-Rock’s a Mall Santa. A Drunk One, Of Course.

  Chapter 14-Jacob Bangs Bethany.

  Chapter 15- New Year’s Party. Definitely Not a Christmas Party, Mind You.

  Chapter 16-Rock is in Love. What a Pussy.

  Chapter 17-Jacob Makes an Important Compromise.

  Chapter 18- The Wedding.

  Chapter 1-Jacob Moves In.

  Jacob Stanton entered his new downtown apartment and took a look around. It wasn’t much, but it was all his. For the first time in his life, he would be living by himself.

  “Would you care to instruct the movers as to where the furniture should be placed, or shall I do that, sir?” His butler Reginald Q. Angloton entered behind him. Reginald had been his personal attendant since Jacob was a small child, and had done more to raise him than either of his natural parents. He’d cared for Jacob as a baby, changed his diapers, soothed him as he cried, and even nursed him. So technically, he wouldn’t be living alone, but with Reginald.

  “You can take care of that Reginald. I’ll just have you rearrange it later if I don’t care for it. That way, I don’t have to talk to anyone.”

  “Well, actually sir, you’d still have to talk to me.”

  “You don’t count, Reginald. You know what I mean. When I say I don’t want to talk to anyone, I mean I don’t want to talk to anyone… you know, real. Anyway, while you and the movers finish getting this place set up, I’m going to go and check this building out.”

  “Very good, sir,” Reginald said. Jacob left $20 for a tip on the counter and left the apartment just as the movers were bringing in his couch. He slipped through the door, bumping into one of the movers in the narrow passage.

  “Ugh, seriously. Fuck people,” Jacob muttered under his breath as he got onto the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. He sighed as the elevator stopped and Jacob started to move to exit, before looking up and realizing they had stopped on the second floor. The doors opened and an older lady got on. What the fuck, Jacob thought, being a miserable prick. You ever hear of stairs? I hope you have a heart attack, you old crone.

  Jacob smiled and held the door for his elevator-traveling companion as she exited the elevator. As he entered the lobby, he took a second to orient himself and looked around. There was supposed to be a fitness center somewhere on the ground floor, but he saw no signs of it or for it. There was a concierge at the front desk, but rather than ask him he figured he’d just use the Moses method, wandering around until eventually he found what he was looking for. He was in no hurry, and this method had the dual advantages of killing more time while allowing him to avoid a conversation with someone he didn’t know, which to Jacob was basically like cancer, if cancer were a mild inconvenience instead of a deadly disease and also nothing like cancer.

  As he walked past the mailroom and into the lobby, he heard a familiar voice call out to him, “Yo, Jake!”

  “Rock,” he muttered in surprise. Walking toward him was an old drinking buddy of his. His name was Peter Rocarelli, but everyone just called him Rock. Well, at least he insisted on everyone calling him Rock. Rock was slightly on the tall side, leanly muscled with spiked, bleach blonde hair. He was clad in the sleeveless shirt, shorts, and flip flops he considered his signature, and Jacob noted that in the few years since they’d seen each other, Rock had developed a bit of a beer gut. Combined with the sunglasses giving UV protection to his forehead, he looked like a Guido with less muscle and fewer (hopefully) STDs.

  After the two did their stupid bro-shake, where they clasped their hands at the thumbs and do a sort of half hug, half shoulder bump, Jacob started, “Now that we’ve done our totally not-stupid special handshake, what are you doing here?”

  “I live here dude. Who thinks our handshake is stupid?”

  “Nobody,” Jacob responded, confusing the word nobody with the word for everybody. “Anyway, that’s awesome. I just moved in.”

  “What!” Rock responded as if this were groundbreaking news. “No way bro! Which apartment?”

  “801.”

  “Cool, cool. In the ole three oh eight-o myself.”

  “Nice, nice. So, what have you been up to?”

  “Oh, you know, doing some partyin’, some chillaxin’,” Rock non-answered, unable to pronounce the g at the end of –ing. “Yeah, I normally wouldn’t be up this early, but I had a little el mishap-o with the plumbing, so…” Rock just grimaced and sucked air through his teeth rather than finish his thought.

  “Up this early? Rock, it’s three in the afternoon.”

  “Yeah, and don’t I know it,” Rock joked giving Jacob a friendly punch on the arm. “Anyway, what have you been up?”

  Before Jacob could give his own non-answer, the most beautiful woman Jacob had ever seen in his life walked by. She wasn’t really that beautiful from an objective perspective, more cute really, but something about her appearance struck Jacob like, I don’t know, a punch to the face or something. She was fair complexioned with brown hair that flowed slightly past her shoulders, wore those stupid over-sized sunglasses that girls wear and a black sundress that showed off her long, albeit kind of pasty, legs. She walked a Pomeranian through the front door which she picked up as she approached the concierge desk.

  “Hello, do you have a package for 405?” she asked in an Australian accent that melted Jacob’s heart. The concierge came back with a small package, and after she put her dog back down and signed for it, she picked up the package and headed toward the elevator.

  “Yo, Brenda,” Rock called out, and gave a bro-like nod in her direction. She responded with a polite smile and wave. Jacob, intimidated by her beauty, averted his eyes. Jacob was being a complete pussy. As soon as she got on the elevator, the pussy turned to Rock.

  “Hey, Rock, who is that?”

  “Brenda Chastain. You know, like the soccer player who took her shirt off. And I’d like to see her take her shirt off. Woah-oh!” Rock leaned back and pointed at Jacob with both hands shaped like guns, the way that an idiot would.

  “Yeah, that was Brandi Chastain. Anyway, who is she?”

  “Uh, she was a player for the US soccer team, obviously. That’s what we’ve just been talking about.”

  “No, not Brandi Chastain, you idiot,” Jacob said to the idiot. “The girl who just walked by with the dog.”

  “Oh, some Australian chick who lives on the 4th floor. I think she’s friends with Lucy up in the penthouse. You remember Lucy from high school, don’t you?”

  “Sure, yeah I remember her. Wait, is that the Lucy you’re referring to? She lives here now?” The two had gone to high school with a girl named Lucy Fontaine. The three had been friends, of sorts. They ran in the same social circles and attended the same parties, though really what that meant was that Jacob’s friends tried to fuck Lucy’s and vice versa.

  Lucy was a somewhat ordinary girl, pretty but not stunning
, but she did have two features that distinguished her: wealth and shallowness. Lucy’s parents were rich, a point that she casually inserted into most conversations, and though all students in their school had been well off, Lucy stood a cut above the rest. In addition, Lucy was not only the shallowest person Jacob had ever met, but the most socially malleable. Her personality was determined almost entirely by the prevailing social trends. She definitely would have been a Nazi.

  “Yeah. Lucy Fontaine from high school. Anyway, I think the two of them are friends, but Lucy pretends to be friends with everyone, so it’s hard to tell. All I know is I heard Lucy and a group of girls talking about her at a party one night.”

  “Really? What were they saying?”

  “Hell if I know. There’s only one good use for a woman’s mouth, and it ain’t talkin’, if you know what I mean,” Rock said dickishly, with a creepy grin on his face.

  “Wow. You are a dick.” Jacob had somehow forgotten this about Rock, despite it being his defining feature.

  “Whatever.” Rock put his sunglasses on, somewhat humbled and still indoors. “Oh, and the dog’s name is Romeo.”

  “Really? So you know her well enough to know that.”

  “Oh, she didn’t tell me, but I was looking through girls’ online pictures one day, you know, jacking it, and noticed like twenty girls have dogs named Romeo.”

  “Alright, then,” Jacob sighed, finally having had enough of Rock’s douche-nozzery. “I think I’m going to take off.”

  “Hey, where you goin’?”

  “I think I’m going to check out the gym and the pool. The moving men are still in my apartment, so I figure it’s a good time to get oriented and figure out where everything is. You’re welcome to tag along if you like.” Jacob immediately regretted his politeness out of fear Rock might accept.

  “Nah, I think I’m going to make some chow and get some shuteye,” Rock responded to Jacob’s immense relief.

  “By which you mean warm up some pizza, drink a beer and pass out on the couch watching Archer reruns?”

  “Ooh, you know me too well. Haha. Hey, by the way, while we’re on the subject of masturbation, how long is it before masturbating to your high school yearbooks qualifies as pedophilia?”

  “Goodbye, Rock.”

  “Later.” Rock started to walk toward the elevators as Jacob continued to walk around looking for the gym, when Rock stopped. “Hey, wait a minute. We should grab lunch sometime and catch up.”

  Jacob stopped, turned, and walked back up to Rock so the two wouldn’t have to yell across the lobby like a couple of inconsiderate jackasses. “Sounds good. When’s good for you?”

  “I’m free anytime. Tomorrow?”

  “That works. Meet you in the lobby at noon?”

  Rock inhaled disapprovingly, wincing. “Noon’s a bit early, isn’t it? How about one?”

  “How about you drag your lazy ass out of bed earlier? Okay, how about 12:30?”

  “Alright, fine, fine,” agreed Rock the lazy ass. “See you at 12:30 in the lobby tomorrow.”

  Rock held out his fist for a goodbye bro bump, and though he felt and looked like an idiot doing it, Jacob obliged. Rock headed up the elevator, presumably to lay about pissing around for the rest of the day like the lazy sack of shit he was. Jacob began walking the other way, intending to wander around until he found his new building’s gym.

  He didn’t have to wander long until he saw signs directing him to the “fitness center,” which he immediately resolved to refer to as a gym so as not to sound like a pretentious ass. He followed the signs around the corner until he saw a series of floor to ceiling windows and a glass door labeled “fitness center.” Great, Jacob thought to himself. So any jackass passing by can watch me working out. That’s good, since we all know the only reason to work out is so that other people can see us doing it.

  Not too shabby. All I really need is a treadmill anyway, Jacob thought as he looked over the “fitness center”. Having gotten a good look at the gym, Jacob decided to check out the pool. Realizing he had no idea where the pool was or how to get there, he decided he’d better ask for directions. After asking the concierge for directions, a process that surprised the socially awkward Jacob by being exactly as painless as you would expect, the young Mr. Stanton made his way for the elevator and pushed the button to take him to the roof.

  As he approached the pool, the first thing he noticed was the lack of a bar and the “no alcoholic beverages” sign. No alcohol? Then why even have a pool? Jacob looked around and saw that the pool was more crowded than he would have liked, by which I mean there were about three people sunbathing on the chaise loungers that surrounded the pool. He took particular note of a young shapely woman at the far end of the pool, until she lowered her gossip magazine and he recognized the face of Lucy Fontaine.

  His first instinct was to try to walk away before she noticed him, but he could tell from her body language that she recognized him, so he reluctantly made his way over to make some small talk about whatever retarded shit she wanted to talk about. Besides, he had set his sights on this Australian girl Brenda, and Rock said that she and Lucy were friends, so Lucy now seemed like a relationship worth investing in. Jacob had never believed in love at first sight, because Jacob was usually smart, but Brenda had him rethinking this position, because Jacob could also be very dumb. He made his way over and took a seat on the chaise next to Lucy’s.

  “Jacob, how are you? I haven’t seen you since high school.”

  “I know. What have you been up to?” Jacob responded, leaning in for a token half-hug.

  “Not much. Working for daddy’s company. What’s new with you?”

  “Graduated from college. Just moved in here. Ran into Rock earlier today. You two still in touch?”

  “Uh, yeah. We hang out sometimes.”

  “Cool. Anyway, that’s about it. What’s new with you?”

  “Nothing really. Oh,” Lucy sat up in her chaise with an excited look on her face. “Did you hear about Theresa?” Theresa was a girl they went to high school with. She had first come to their school as a sophomore, and had been one of Lucy’s five or six best friends forever sophomore year. The two had then been hated enemies junior year for reasons that no one quite remembered, and switched on and off senior year. I’m not sure what their status was when they graduated, so I better play this one close to the chest, Jacob thought. Come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure they knew what their status was by the end of the year.

  “No I didn’t. What happened to her?”

  “Well, you remember that guy she started dating sophomore year?” Lucy leaned in and lowered her voice as if she were about to reveal some state secret.

  “The 23 year old? Yeah.”

  “Well, after high school, they moved in together while she went to college.”

  “That’s a good life choice.”

  “Anyway, it turns out that he’s an abusive alcoholic who beat her.”

  “The 23 year old guy who dated a high schooler turned out to be an asshole? I’m shocked.”

  “I know, right? I mean, he seemed like such a nice guy. Anyway, there’s more.”

  “Oh do tell.”

  “Her sophomore year, she accidentally got pregnant.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “And he was super-pissed off about it, but she didn’t want to get an abortion.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “I know. Wait. What’s terrible? Him being pissed, or her refusing to get the abortion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway, since he was pissed about her keeping it, he became more and more abusive.”

  “So sad.”

  “Then one night, he got really drunk, and punched her in the stomach trying to abort her.”

  “If he wanted to abort her, shouldn’t he have punched her mother in the stomach?”

  Lucy lay back in her chaise. “Anyway, he got arrested, but cut some plea with the prosecutor because she didn’t wan
t to testify. Last I heard though, they were back together. Can you believe that?”

  “No. Absolutely not. I’m shocked,” Jacob muttered, not at all surprised.

  “I know, right. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. And the thing is, she was such a smart girl, too.”

  No she wasn’t, Jacob thought. “Yeah, she really was. Totally,” Jacob said.

  “Anyway, I just don’t get it,” Lucy concluded, laying back in her lounge. With the conversation seemingly at an end, and Jacob growing bored, the two sat in an awkward silence for a few moments before Jacob said, “Well, I got to get going.”

  “Cool. Anyway, it was nice seeing you again.”

  “Same.” Jacob started to walk away, then remembered Lucy’s apparent friendship with the girl he had decided he was destined to be with, since that’s totally something you can tell from seeing someone for thirty seconds. “Hey, we should meet up for drinks sometime.”

  “Yeah, cool. Just give me a text whenevs.”

  The next day, Jacob returned from his morning workout to a text from Rock that read “running a little late how about i head up to ur place around 1?” Figures. Lazy fuck, Jacob thought as he replied “k”, since apparently adding the “o” was too much effort for him.

  “How was your run, sir?”

  “Meh. It was alright until some dumb jackass tried to take the treadmill next to mine. Totally fucked up my Feng Shui.”

  “The nerve of some people, trying to use a communal space.”

  “Well, yeah, but seriously, there were like ten other open treadmills there. Why do you have to take the one treadmill next to the only occupied one in the room?”

  “Hmmm. When do you leave for your lunch with Sir Rock?”

  “Well, it was supposed to be 12:30, but now the lazy ass says he’s going to meet me here around one. So I’m just going to shower and then look for a job until he shows up.”

  After showering and browsing Reddit for a couple of hours, there was a knock on the door. Jacob answered it, and Rock walked in and plopped on the couch, in all his sleeveless shirt and shorts glory.