Here Goes
By Alexandra Ravensblood
Rating: PG-13 for language
AN: Title taken from a Frank Sinatra song. Written for the 2003 V-day contest at Ariasink.com--5000 word limit. Story takes place in an Alternate Universe and enjoy.
Fate is—on occasion—a real, true blue bitch. Puppets have had a smoother go at life than many of Fate's un-favorites. Sadly, many of us make her crap heap.
But, sometimes, Fate will throw an accidental smile our way and life is just that much more wonderful.
And sometimes she flips us the bird right afterwards.
Vague blues and grays fogged up his vision, so he wiped his glasses. It still didn't help, but it wasn't Mother Nature's fault. The sun was shining, as usual, high above from his throne in the sky, though those down below in New York City bundled up in deference to the winter temperatures. A migraine insinuated somewhere between the backs of his eyes and the base of his skull—God only knew how he managed to keep from shouting his road rage to everyone else clogging the streets of Manhattan.
The Advil hadn't helped any, and the taxis yelling at each other in Arabic and Hindi only served to heighten his annoyance. Besides that, the briefcase at his right was the original source of his headache. Ordinarily, relief would build to a fever pitch and he'd be damned glad to have finished, but today, he possessed no such luck. His hand still shook occasionally, and his left eye twitched uncontrollably at random intervals.
He couldn't keep doing this.
There was no way in hell he'd keep doing this.
Every day the same litany passed through his brain, but every day he found himself staring down the concrete mountain that created his anxiety. He'd typed up his resignation at least four months ago. Twice he'd even managed to hand it in. And twice it'd been rejected and handed back to him. Unopened. Twice he'd been given outrageous raises and a few pithy commendation plaques.
His heart thudded in his chest as the taxi managed to wend its way towards Wall St. The shaking in his right hand moved to encompass his left. He took a few deep breaths to steady himself and opened the door.
"Ahem." The cabbie caught his attention.
He rifled through his overcoat pockets, trying to locate the hidden, forgotten voucher. With hands that still hadn't calmed to their normal precise efficiency, he filled out a form for what his bleary eyes took to be fifty-five dollars on the meter. Oh well. He couldn't remember whether he'd taken the subway today or not. Either way, the cabbie was getting a big tip.
"Sir—"
Without a backward glance at the taxi driver, he eyed the stalwart, graying building with trepidation. Sweat beaded uncomfortably on the hand clutching his briefcase and he felt the bile rise treacherously in his throat. He shook off a slight feeling of dizziness, stiffened his spine, and assumed a blank stare that any Hollywood actor would have been proud of.
And he walked into the devil's den.
Sound pressed down on all sides of him, suffocating him with the high-pitched chattering of receptionists and secretaries, the low-throated chuckles of the good old boys, and the stampede of shoes heading towards the Floor.
Again, he dug into his coat pockets and reached for the ID pressed into his wallet. Wallace Drummond smiled over towards him and he gave a short nod in reply.
"Warner, Darien. Social security number six-three-two nine-five four-nine-four-oh. Date of birth, Eight-three nineteen-seventy-three. Employer, Holbrooke and Fairfax, Limited Liability Corporation."
The guard looked down at the information in front of him and nodded abruptly, obviously well-beleaguered from the drill in progress since the sun first broke the horizon. Darien walked through the metal detectors after putting his keys and change in the plastic dish nearby and putting his briefcase on the X-ray conveyor belt.
"Thanks," he mumbled and picked up his belongings and walked like an automaton towards the heavy doors.
El estómago del Diablo. The belly of the devil. In the heart of the New York Stock Exchange pandemonium of the first order reigned as if in no-man's land. The credo tattooed on the hearts of the Floor brokers: kill or be killed. Here men were crowned kings and moments later usurped and dethroned by their former allies.
They were bloody cannibals, the lot of them.
It was still before nine, but his heart rate had already picked up and his palms were already saturated. Nevertheless, he was in 'the zone.' His face was a study of cool confidence and an easy, distant smile graced lips that were a shade too sensual for the business world. The image he projected for the Floor bespoke a man who knew something big was going to happen; whoever wanted a piece of the pie would follow him.
Though his insides were quaking with his every step, he walked directly to the center. Whispers became murmurs, murmurs became frantic glances, and those nearest him looked on in blatant awe. The last time he'd walked out to the middle of the floor, he became a legend. The last time he'd done something similar, the stock market gained six hundred points in one day. The last time—
The last time, he'd been a ballsy bastard with nothing to lose and tech stocks were in.
A genuine smile creased the face that showed no emotion. He still had nothing to lose; however, his infamy depended on forgetting that there was a bear market.
Bells dinged to signal the opening of the market and a free-for-all ensued on his person. Calmly, he reached into his briefcase—after wiping his hands off on his tailored suit— and he pulled out a handful of documents.
He gazed at the ticker, looked at his watch, and then heartlessly broke the backs of ten companies waiting for Madame Guillotine, and raised a few new IPOs to instant stardom. And everywhere he bought and sold, the others followed.
An eternity passed. Or maybe it was a minute. Either way, the bell rang for closing. When he hadn't left for lunch, neither did three-fourths of the Floor. Trading had ensued online and over the phone until they could go at it again. Another five companies lost their struggle to survive. Three more gained the chance to thrive.
And when the day was over, the Dow was up three-hundred fifty points, the S&P up two percent, and Nasdaq gained one point five percent.
The horde wanted to fete him, bathe him in champagne, and praise him for at least another twenty-four hours. But when he collapsed in the midst of the cheering at 5:02 PM, his last feeling before oblivion was relief. At least it was finally over.
"You've had a false aneurysm."
"You'll be fine."
"You need rest."
"When can you be back at work?"
"You need to get rid of the stress in your life."
"You really pulled off another coup, Darien. When will you go back?"
"You need to make a decision about your career and your health, Mr. Warner. You'll only endanger yourself if you go back."
"You're amazing, Darien. Really, in-fucking-credible! But you gotta make a decision. You can be replaced. They're already starting to forget you."
"I can't do this. I really can't," he told himself. He was about to turn thirty and he'd already burned the candle at both ends—then burned out. Christmas had come and gone at some point, but he wasn't sure when or if or how he'd missed it. Had he been working? Had he been in the hospital?
His head fell back against the pillows. A false aneurysm, they'd told him. Not quite the real thing, but definitely close enough to scare the shit out of him. There hadn't been a flashing of his life past his eyes or even a big white light to bring him to his hereafter reward. While he was unconscious, he kept living out every hellish moment of what he'd thought was his last day on earth.
"I've gotta get out of here."
"You've got no clue what the hell you're doing, do you?" his best friend, Andrew, ranted over the cell phone. "Didn't you go to Harvard or something?"
"Wharton."
"Same difference. Didn't they teach you anything there?"
"How to make money. They never taught me common sense. Besides, isn't that what you're for?" Darien chuckled, putting his back into lifting his heavy luggage into the cottage
"What if you hurt yourself? There's nobody out there! Who the hell'd pick a hut out in the middle of nowhere? What if—" Andrew stopped suddenly. Then, gruffly, he added, "I just don't want you to get hurt."
Darien bit the inside of his cheek and looked down at the woodworking. "I know. And I don't want anything to happen to me either. But with all your worrying, you'll probably be the one to go have a stroke first. You sound like a mom. And New Jersey isn't the middle of nowhere."
A long drawn out sigh came over the connection. "You're an idiot."
"I know."
"Are you sure you don't want me there?"
"There's only one bed and no sofa," Darien reminded him.
"You can take the floor. I'll take the bed."
"Let me think about that." He didn't. "No. 'Bye, Drew."
Andrew sighed resignedly. "All right then. Talk to you soon. 'Bye, Darien. Idiot."
Darien closed his cell phone and took a breath of cleansing fresh air. He'd rented a cottage for a month out on the Jersey shore. The air wasn't really all that fresh, the ocean wasn't really all that blue, and the beach wasn't really all that clean, but it felt a little like New York. The sea gulls reminded him of the squabbling pedestrian s and taxi drivers.
But the best part of all—the reason he felt like he was away from civilization—was that he hadn't seen another living soul since arriving in this weary little spot. It was interminably quiet, save the squawking, but there were no people.
It was magnificent.
It was doomed to failure before he even had the thought.
"Hey, neighbor!" A cheery, chirpy, damnably perky voice piped from somewhere behind him.
He tried to manage a smile to turn on her, but her animated voice conjured images of nagging, spoiled children, a loud, boisterous husband, and a minivan. He inwardly cringed when he thought of turning around and confirming his beliefs.
And then she came into view and he realized that maybe people weren't all bad anyways. Particularly when they looked like her.
Windswept burnished gold hair whipped madly in the wind and wind-kissed cheeks glowed rosily while she smiled one of those do-gooder, happy-to-meet-anyone smiles at him. God help him, she even carried a casserole dish.
"You must be Darien Warner. I'm from the welcoming committee! We baked you a 'Welcome to Strathmere' apple pie. My name's Serena Blair." She balanced the casserole on one hand and thrust her hand at him for a handshake.
"You've gotta be kidding me," he muttered under his breath, but mustered a suitably thankful smile. She was some sort of illicit demon-spawn borne of Katie Couric and a tornado.
Her smile turned wry and mischievous. "Of course I'm kidding. I'm your landlady. But I am Serena Blair. This food, however, is not for you."
Darien expelled a breath he wasn't even conscious of holding. "Please don't scare me like that. I just got out of the hospital. I don't need any more trauma."
"Sorry about that. But when you're out here all by your lonesome, the first new person you see does become your first victim. Let me show you around." She stepped into the cottage and turned on the lights. "I keep the pantry stocked because it's cold as all hell and we get some random reservations, like yours. You might want to run down to the grocery store, though, and pick up some perishables—"
"Where do you live?" he blurted out, and wondered where his tact went. That 'false' aneurysm was probably misdiagnosed and what he really ended up doing was losing the part of his brain that did finesse. Wasn't he the one who wanted to be disturbed by absolutely nothing and absolutely no one?
"In the cottage just behind this one. Anyway, as I was saying, you should go to the market down the street. They have some...well, mostly fresh produce." She swept past him again and started pointing out where things were located behind the handful of closed doors in the cottage. "Now there are towels in here, a washer/dryer combo off to the side, and the fireplace in the living room still works, I think—" she rushed off again. He got tired just watching her.
"Miss Blair?"
"—the coat closet just over there and the bathroom's located just off the bedroom." She finally stopped for breath. "Yes?"
"Are you always this bad," he gestured towards her with his hands, "or was this just for me?"
Serena stopped and looked up at her new tenant, who really had the most intriguing, intense dark eyes she'd ever seen. "Um, I've been told I'm a bit...much."
"Lady, you're a walking hurricane." But he smiled to temper his claim. Impulse grabbed him by the ears and took hold. "I'm trying to recover from too much time spent rushing around and being too busy for life. So, would you mind telling me all that again over dinner?" Did he just say that? No, he couldn't have just...
Damn. He had. And she hadn't answered yet. In fact, she looked just a bit confused.
Serena did a mental double-take. Beneath her lashes, she looked at what could only be the dark Greek god of geeks—complete with a pocket protector. She supposed it was only fair that God create such a perfect specimen of masculine pulchritude and make him the king of dorks. A flash of silver outside the window showed the silver Mercedes from whence he came. Okay, the well-to-do king of dorks.
But he sure didn't move like a geek. Or talk like one. Perhaps, he was a little socially inept—his whispered prayer to God about her 'perkiness' had been a touch too loud—but he seemed tolerable.
Besides, who was she to talk really? She wasn't the most socially inclined person either. Plus, she did live in a little town that only got a kick in the pants during the summer season.
Most importantly, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been out on an interesting date.
"Strathmere doesn't really have a restaurant. Can you cook?" Her cocky smile was just a tad overdone and he relaxed at her nervousness.
"I can boil water. That's about it."
"Oh dear."
'Oh dear' was a definite understatement. 'Oh God, the horror' would probably have been more accurate.
Dinner was an amalgam of spaghetti and hot dogs, pre-packaged salad, not-nearly-from-scratch mashed potatoes (a la Potato Buds), and a carton of Breyers ice cream.
The chicken breast initially on the menu had been butchered then gratefully scrapped. Quite mercilessly, in fact. Neither of them knew how to de-bone or de-skin or do anything with the poor bird, except hack at it with a lethal looking meat-cleaver. It didn't quite look right and they weren't very certain how to clean a chicken, so they threw it in the freezer. That was when the hot dogs were added to the spaghetti.
"This was a very sorry meal."
"Hey, I told you to pick up that package of ramen noodles," Darien retorted.
"Let's just be grateful I listened when you said to buy the hot dogs," Serena chuckled.
"Boiling water is a useful skill."
"You didn't do anything."
He couldn't quite hide his smile and her insides melted just a little bit at the appearance of sinfully decadent dimples. "I supervised."
"Telling me what I already knew isn't supervision."
"Ok, so I was Quality Assurance."
She snorted in disbelief and he had the unmitigated gall to laugh. The laughter just rolled out of his belly until he doubled over with it. He even kept laughing after he ran out of oxygen and his face was a mottled red and he started wheezing.
"Are you okay?" She rushed to his side frantically, not knowing whether he had been in the hospital for respiratory problems or insanity. "Do you need me to call a doctor or something?"
He waved off her hand and she began entertaining the notion that maybe he was a little bit insane. She went over everything she learned about him tonight over making dinner and hesitated for only a moment before reaching a conclusion: he was most definitely unbalanced.
But kooky was good—more often than not. And Darien pulled himself off the floor pretty quickly, and looked at her with an explosive combination of amusement and attraction, so she wasn't nearly as bent on calling the nuthouse as she had been. Then he stared at her with those rather intense eyes of his—an evocative midnight blue—and all thoughts flew right out of her head.
"It wasn't even that funny, but it felt good to laugh." His eyes got wistful. "Really laugh. I don't think I've done that since college."
Her gaze was a bit too direct. "What have you been doing to yourself?"
Darien shrugged negligently, but his eyes slid away from hers. "Too much. Not enough. Who knows?"
He waited for her to say something, but she just kept looking at him with eyes the color of a storm-ready sky.
A hand raked through his black hair and he removed his glasses when he sat down. "I'm a trader—a stock broker." He said it the way most lawyers did when they stated their profession—wary and defensive.
"So?"
"So, I'm a really good stock broker. Was. Am. I don't know."
"And?" The man was as about as forthcoming as a brick wall.
"And I'm burnt out."
"Ouch. That's sucky."
He finally looked up to face her and pinned her with a gaze that made her think that she was daft. She had to make amends, so she quickly asked, "So why were you in the hospital?"
"I had a stroke."
"You what?!" she bounded up from her chair, ostensibly to check him for a fever or some outward sign of illness, but promptly sank back down in defeat when she realized that he looked fine.
"Well, that's a misnomer. It was an almost stroke. A 'false' aneurysm. A blood vessel in my brain collected too much blood in it, and kept expanding. Thankfully, too much stress made me pass out and they were able to treat it with one of those ultrasound directed injections."
"But you're in great condition..." she trailed off.
"Sure, I work out a couple of times a week, but I wasn't eating right, not getting enough sleep, I was permanently jittery. There was a ton of stuff wrong with me. The average Exchange broker lasts two years. I was there for four. I've seen men have heart attacks on the Floor."
"And I thought I had a high-pressure job." A sardonic smile crept around her mouth, in spite of the concern still evident in her eyes.
"Renting out cottages is high-pressure?"
Serena rolled her eyes. "I'm a writer."
Pleasure lit up his whole face. "Really?"
"Don't get too excited. I'm a"—she took a quick sip of her drink and mumbled it into her glass—"wromrnseknuberisk."
"A what?"
The wine they'd bought earlier lodged in her throat, making her regret her reckless action. "I'm a romance novelist."
There, it was out. First, he'd ask whether or not she was into porn, because weren't romance novels just literary porn? Then he'd make some sort of wisecrack about how easy it was to write one and make some quick money. And if he was really disgusting, he'd start leering at her and asking if he could help out with the sex scenes.
Unbeknownst to her, her emotions, clear as day, were being broadcast across her expressive face. Darien kind of thought that her face scrunched up in indignation was cute. Only brunettes seemed to be able to turn red without resembling vegetation. And while he couldn't, in good conscience, classify her as an exception to the rule, she made a rather cute beet.
But she probably wouldn't appreciate that analogy, so he settled on an innocuous question. "Any bestsellers?"
She seemed startled, but responded with just enough wariness that reminded him of himself. "USA Today. I made the New York Times extended list."
"You must do pretty good for yourself."
"I do all right."
She was as skittish as an elephant in a roomful of mice. He was—with good reason—terrified of getting her pissed at him.
"You know you want to ask it." Her eyes narrowed and glittered in the dim light.
"Ask what?" He looked frantically for some means of escape.
"Where I get my ideas from."
"Uh, no, I don't." He scrambled out of his chair and gathered up the dishes.
She jabbed a finger into his chest. "Just ask it."
"But I don't want to ask the question because you'll just get pissed at me." He took a good look at her face. "Okay, more pissed at me."
"It's okay, really," she gritted out.
"I just figured you were a romantic at heart."
Her righteous posture suddenly deflated. "Oh." She walked around the kitchen a little. "Well."
"If it makes you feel better, my friend Andrew's girlfriend made us both read one when we kept calling it girl porn. I can't remember what I read, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be."
"An educated one. Wow. I've got to meet this warrior woman who forced you two to read it."
A self-deprecating chuckle escaped his lips unbidden. "No, thank you. Unleashing her on the world is bad enough. Creating two of you would be tantamount to male suicide."
She laughed, and he was struck by how light and beautiful the sound was. It was infinitely better than having her angry at him. He smiled at her and there was a silent 'click' that happened for the both of them, the forming of an inside joke, a friendship sealed.
"I haven't had so much fun in years," she finally whispered, after her laughter had died but the smile still remained etched giddily on his face.
His grin turned lop-sided. "Me neither."
"Then either that means that I'm really, really interesting, or we are way past boring."
Darien looked as if he contemplated the answer. "No comment," he deadpanned.
Serena hit him.
"Hey!"
"You know you deserved it."
"But I didn't say that you were boring by yourself."
"I hit you because you said that I was boring. Period."
He sighed dramatically. "Women."
She sighed dramatically then smirked. "Men."
The grandfather clock on the mantle chimed midnight, interrupting their wry moment.
Serena bit her lip. "I should get going."
"Yeah." He sounded as enthusiastic as she did.
"Ah, so this is what an interesting date is like."
"I guess so. You never want it to end." He grabbed her coat from the coat closet and helped her into it. "So, will I ever see you again?"
A mega-watt grin split her face. "Of course, you silly, silly man. I live right behind you, and I'm not letting you out of your lease until I get to know you better."
Those dimples appeared in his cheeks again, deeper and more spectacular than ever. "Lady, that might take years."
Serena leaned up to place a short, all-too-chaste kiss on his full, sensual lips. "That's what I'm hoping for. Didn't you know that you're great fodder for romance novel heroes?"
Before he could answer that outrageous statement, she sailed through the door. Dazed and bemused, he still found himself smiling in the face of her whirlwind. Ah, hurricane season had begun. He was going to enjoy himself.