The Enigma Contingency
This is my first year as a NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge participant (I participated in the flash fiction challenge last year, making it to round three).
The SSC is a three-round writing competition that divides participants into 100 groups and provides each group with a different genre, subject, and character which must be used in a story of no more than 2,500 words for round #1. The stories were due 8 days after the release of the group assignments.
For challenge #1 I was assigned to group 78 and received the following prompts:
Genre: Comedy
Subject: A mail-order bride
Character: A bully
Here is what I came up with.
The Enigma Contingency
by Shannon Chapel
KOBAYASHI RESIDENCE
“I don’t know about this, Emiko,” Kazumi said, bobbing over the newspaper. “Why are you looking at personal ads, anyway? And what does ‘SWM ISO PAF MOB NSA’ even mean?”
Emiko sat at the vanity brushing her long black hair, glaring at her sister’s reflection in the mirror. “It means single white male in search of petite Asian female mail-order bride. No sex arrangement.”
Kazumi bolted upright on the chaise. “You can’t be serious. Father will kill you! Mail-order bride? Have you met this guy? What if he’s old and fat? He could have pendulous balls. You don’t want to marry an old fat guy with pendulous balls, do you?” Kazumi scrunched her face in disgust.
Emiko whirled, flinging the hairbrush. Kazumi ducked, the brush whizzing past her face and lodging between the cushions behind her. “Keep your voice down, he’ll hear you. Besides, by the time father finds out it’ll be too late. Why finish college and work the rest of my life when I can marry money?”
Kazumi opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again. “What makes you think he has money? Besides, you’re not petite.”
Emiko smiled. It was a localized, fixed grin; all lips and cheeks, not teeth and eyes. “No, I’m not. But I am young and decent looking.” She leaned in close, lined out the perfect cat eyes — right, then left — brushed a quick layer of mascara on her lashes to complete the sultry effect, and stood. “There. How do I look?” she asked, smoothing the cardinal-colored dress over her ample hips.
“Like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack.”
“If you weren’t my sister I’d knock your teeth out.”
Kazumi tapped an upper right incisor. “May second, twenty-thirteen. You threw the TV remote at me for daring to touch the iPhone you got for your sixteenth birthday. Broke it in half, remember?”
Emiko smiled again, and this time the grin spread all the way to her phony cat eyes. “Yes, I do. And you should remember crossing me has consequences. That’s why you’re going to run interference. The cab’s on its way. Gene and I are meeting at Enigma in forty minutes.”
Kazumi giggled with delight. “‘Gene’? Oh, my God, he is old! You know, you’re not a nice person, Emiko. You are mean and manipulative, and I hope your…your saggy septuagenarian sees right through you.” She stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her.
VIOLA MORTIMER’S BASEMENT
“Airdrop, airdrop!” Eugene screamed into his headset. “Dude, maybe there’s a Ramshackle Longneck in that crate. Let’s check it out.”
“It’s right outside someone’s base, man. Take your Gigantopithecus,” Dean said into his ear. “He’ll kick their asses for them if they get too cocky.”
Eugene loves role-playing games and ARK is his favorite, at least for the time being. His character, Bob, perched high on his tamed Giganto’s shoulders beats feet to the airdrop. “Holy shit, a double! RPG blueprint and a rocket launcher, bitches. Hell, yeah!”
“Yo, don’t you have a date tonight? We can always meet back here later, bro. Unless you get lucky that is.” Dean snorted into the mic.
Eugene glanced at his watch. He regretted placing the personal ad the moment he’d done it, but he wasn’t good at meeting girls. This was easier, safer. Just what women want: a twenty-two-year-old virgin who lives with his mother and plays video games in his down time. They’re lining up.
At five feet six inches tall, one hundred and thirty pounds, Eugene Mortimer knows he’s not a ladies’ man. When he’s not at work he’s “nerding out in the basement”, as Mom likes to say, and effortless tête-à-têtes with the opposite sex aren’t in his cards. Conversations are simpler in world chat, he reasons. Everyone is invisible; just another player, an unknown gamer on the map.
“You there, Eugene? Wait, did my fucking Wi-Fi connection drop again? Son of a bitch!”
“Nah, still here thinking about not showing up for my date tonight.”
“You gotta show, man. She might dig you. You’ve emailed and stuff, correct? Texted, talked on the phone?”
“Yeah, but you know how it works for guys like us. She’ll take one look at me and split. Happens every time. Always has, always will.”
“And by ‘every time’ you mean twice, right? I mean, you’ve only been on two dates in your entire life, dude. Give the girl a chance. She might surprise you.”
The front door rattled and Biscuit, Viola Mortimer’s Yorkie, barked like a lunatic. The sound was high pitched and ridiculous, as if the five-pound dog had swallowed a helium balloon.
That’ll put the fear of God in them. Sick ’em, boy.
“Bisky! Hi, precious!” his mother baby-talked, her voice shrill and exaggerated as it wafted downstairs. “Mommy’s home. You want a treat? Come here and give me kisses. Oh, I love my Bisky. Yes, I do. Eugene, you home?”
He had a vision of himself then, sitting in the same chair through the decades. Same basement, same threadbare Albert Einstein t-shirt. Like watching time-lapse photography in fast forward, holes appeared in the tee, he developed a five o’clock shadow which turned into a full-blown beard. Seasons passed on the other side of the ground level window; winter after fall, summer after spring, year after year. His skin, once taut and perfect, turned fragile and crepey. Deep, diffuse crevices etched his face and neck, his hair turned white before falling out altogether, and the light had long since left his eyes.
“Eugene Tobias Mortimer, come here and give your mother a kiss.”
Eugene tossed the headset and bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. “I’ve got a date tonight, Ma,” he said, giving her a peck on the cheek. “I need to shower and get dressed. I’m supposed to be there in forty minutes.”
Viola clapped her hands together, resting her chin atop pudgy fingertips as if in supplication.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
Pray for us virgins,
now and at the hour of our dates. Amen.
“Oh honey, that’s wonderful news! Can I meet her? What’s her name? Where are you going?”
“She’s nineteen, her name is Emiko, and we’re going to Enigma. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, okay? Gotta run.”
ENIGMA
It was an exquisite restaurant. Eugene congratulated himself on making reservations weeks in advance; there wasn’t an empty chair in sight.
Dimly lit and intimate, the sparse seating arrangement afforded people privacy while maintaining a social atmosphere. A huge fireplace occupied the center of the room, casting romantic, ambient light to every nook and cranny while a string quartet played Gershwin’s Summertime upon a mahogany stage.
The bouquet lay in his lap, and he closed his eyes to steel himself. Even if she doesn’t show, this is pretty awesome.
They’d already talked about everything. She knew he graduated high school at sixteen and had been working as a software engineer for the past nine months. He admitted to moving in with his ailing mother to help care for her and do odd jobs around the house. She lived with her father and eighteen-year-old sister. She attended university, majoring in marine biology.
Eugene worried they’d have nothing left to discuss, but he figured he’d cross that bridge if and when.
“Gene?”
Opening his eyes, he saw a plump Japanese girl smiling down at him. He didn’t have a problem with plump girls; he liked their curves, but bigger girls drew attention to his own small frame, highlighting his shortcomings even more. Doesn’t matter. Give the girl a chance.
“I’m Emiko.,” she said, sitting across from him. “Strange, but I feel we’re old friends. Great to finally meet you.”
Eugene breathed a sigh of relief. This might not be so bad after all. She seems nice. Maybe Dean was right. Maybe she will dig me.
“So, how does this work?” Emiko asked, leaning toward him and speaking in whispers. “Do we start by getting a license? Blood tests? I’d like to keep the whole thing secret until it’s done, and I want to keep it simple — a Justice of the Peace should work fine. I mean, it’s a business arrangement, right? At first, anyway. Perhaps an emotional connection will come later, but for now you have something I want: financial security, and I have something you want: companionship. Simple.” She made a Voilà motion with her hands as if she were Harry Houdini having just performed the most spectacular trick of his career.
Eugene recoiled, gobsmacked. “I…I’m sorry, can we start over?” His heart hammered in his chest. He was sweating and lightheaded. He hoped he didn’t pass out. “What are we talking about, exactly?”
“Marriage, of course!”
Emiko looked confused, and Eugene thought there was something else, too, just under the surface. Anger? Disgust? Both, he decided.
“Look, Emiko. I’m not sure what I did or said to make you think I wanted to get married. I’m not saying I’m against marriage. Later on, if everything goes well and there’s chemistry I’d be open to the idea, but we don’t even know each other. This is a date, a — ”
Emiko pulled the ad from her purse and slid it across the table to him. “It’s right here in your ad,” she said, poking the paper with her index finger. “Single white male in search of petite Asian female mail-order bride. No sex arrangement.”
Eugene threw back his head and laughed. Oh, shit. Dean will never let me live this one down. “That’s not how it works, is it? Mail-order brides, I mean. Don’t they advertise themselves, not the other way around? Take sites like RussianCupid and AsianDate, for instance. The women are the ones offering themselves. Men don’t place personal ads for mail-order brides, do they?”
He was babbling, and people were staring at them now. They’d drawn the attention of the bartender, too, who glared at them intently as he toweled a tumbler dry. We’re going to get eighty-sixed if we’re not careful.
Eugene took a deep breath and began again, quieter this time. “When I called the paper, I told the guy I wanted to place a personal ad for a date. He asked me a few questions about what kind of women I like and where I wanted the date to go. He read it back to me once he worked out the details: single white male in search of petite American female. Meet over breakfast. No strings attached. I thought putting ‘American’ in there would clarify that I don’t discriminate. I think all women are beautiful. I imagined meeting over coffee. Talking. Getting to know each other. You said you like to sleep in and preferred to meet for dinner, so here we are.”
“We did talk. We got all the pleasantries and idle chitchat nonsense done over the phone. I thought we were going to get down to business tonight.”
The front door burst open, and Eugene turned toward the commotion glad for the distraction.
A young woman was speaking to the hostess, frantic, scanning the room with her eyes before settling on Eugene and his date. She pointed.
The hostess led the woman to their table. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but this woman says she knows you. Apparently, there’s an emergency.”
“I jumped out when Father was busy parking the car,” the woman said. “He’s outside. He’s coming in.”
“You must be Emiko’s sister. I’m Eugene. I’ve heard a lot about you, Kazumi.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you hear.” Kazumi shot Emiko a furtive glance, side-stepping farther away.
Emiko stood. “I was just leaving, anyway,” she said, tossing her napkin on the table. “Thanks for wasting my time, asshole.”
They watched her go. Her crimson dress wended its way through the dining room, a burning flame flaring, flickering, gone.
“This whole thing has been a monumental misunderstanding. Your sister thought the ad said something it didn’t….” Eugene shook his head, still reeling. “God, what an embarrassing, utterly absurd situation. I was really looking forward to this date. These things aren’t easy for me.” He placed the bouquet on the table. I’m here, I have a reservation, and I’m staying. He motioned for the waiter.
“Beautiful flowers,” Kazumi said, blushing. “These things aren’t easy for me, either. It’s simpler to talk to people online, don’t you think? No one sees or judges you. There aren’t any preconceived notions. You’re just another gamer on the map.”
Eugene smiled.
