"Half Canadian bacon with pineapple, half artichoke with pesto, and light on the cheese. Thanks." Lisa hung up the phone, beside herself with excitement. This was the day: the pivotal step in her and Johnny's plan. The day he would gain access to The Room.
Seconds later, the doorbell rang. Lisa was seized by conspiratorial fear. She was expecting no one but the bearer of the celebratory pizza.
"Who is it?" she barked.
"Denny," replied a deranged, child-like voice.
Lisa relaxed, a little. She opened the door just enough for the scrawny young man to wriggle through.
"Hey Denny, how are you doing?" she recited absently.
"I'm fine," he said, distracted by his hungry eyes. He searched up and down Lisa's invigorated, renewed body lustfully. "What's new?" he asked ironically.
Lisa exhaled. Once again she was to endure his lechery.
"Actually, I'm really busy," she remarked, echoing the words of her prey. She changed the subject. "Do you want something to drink?"
"No thanks," he replied, "I just want to talk to Johnny."
Lisa was relieved, only momentarily. The excuse proved as ineffective for her as it did for Mark.
"You look beautiful today," Denny said as his breath became audible. His dead eyes stared beyond Lisa's. A chill ran through her as she stood motionless, avoiding his gaze. She pleaded silently for the moment to end.
It didn't. "Can I kiss you?" he added. He leaned toward her in anticipation. The expectation suffocated her. Johnny loved this nymphomaniac. If she were to spend her life with Johnny– an eternity with him– would she never escape the sick advances of Denny?
"You are such a little brat!" she joked. Though Denny had rejuvenated to a physical age younger than Lisa's, in true age he was her senior.
She successfully disarmed him. "I'm just kidding!" he lied. "I love you and Johnny." This, Lisa knew, was the truth, as much as she tried to forget it. She played her expected role soullessly until he finally departed.
Johnny's lustrous black hair cascaded down either side of the steering wheel as he rested his forehead against it. His pale fingers gripped the wheel tightly as the car idled in the afternoon heat. When he finally sat up, the corners of his eyes were moistened with grief.
He stared ahead at the entrance to his building and killed the engine. He grasped the door handle, but couldn't open it. He felt paralyzed– pinned by the weight of his failure. In the passenger seat lay a dozen red roses, their leaves beginning to wilt in the sun. A pathetic apology, stained by the consequences of his sacrifice.
She didn't even recognize him. The woman who owned the flower shop. He went there all the time to select the finest arrangements for his princess. He was her favourite customer, and yet she'd greeted him as a stranger.
He glared balefully into the rear-view mirror at the monster he had become.
"Oh, hi Johnny. I didn't know it was you."
Didn't know it was him. Her favourite customer.
Inside, Lisa was waiting. He couldn't avoid it forever. With a heavy sigh, Johnny snatched the bouquet and opened the door. He lurched out and trudged leadenly to the apartment door.
Lisa bounced from her seat as the door began to move. Her warm smile of greeting amplified his anguish.
"Hi babe," he offered meekly. He produced the roses from behind his back. "These are for you."
"Thanks, honey. They're beautiful." She kissed him tenderly on the cheek. The meaningless pleasantries concluded, she lunged for the real prize.
"Did you get your promotion?" She smiled without apprehension. It had been three months, after all. A million excuses raced through Johnny's head. Overwhelmed, he turned away from her expectant face and tried in vain to express one of them.
"Nyuh," was all that came out. He stepped away from her, then, feeling light-headed, threw himself onto the couch.
Fury blazed through Lisa's body. She trembled as she struggled to contain it. He didn't get it. She tolerated all of his nonsense, she agreed to marry him, and he didn't get his promotion. She recoiled away from him for a moment until her calculating mind had reset. She returned to sit across from him, clutching a vase so tightly she feared it would shatter in her hands.
She looked at him. At the disgusting face. "You didn't get it, did you?" She knew, and yet she needed to hear it.
"That son of a bitch told me that I would get it within free months!"
And so began the excuses. The complaints. The whining. Lisa didn't hear them. He didn't get his promotion, that was all that mattered. Even after all the time he had spent at the Chronobank, he still didn't have full security clearance. Their plans stretched further away, almost beyond the horizon.
Johnny stammered on, speaking rapidly in his desire to explain. Repulsed, Lisa thought again of Mark. His rugged masculinity. The firm black tent in his jeans...
A pause in Johnny's grumbling arrived, unheeded. Lisa shook herself back into awareness and quickly planned her escape: she would stupefy him with the strongest, grossest cocktail she could imagine and then plant the seed of discord.