V: The V in Vigilant

half-turnedin his seat and gave the guy a stare most couldn’t return. Itworked—the fellow gulped and glanced out the window at the drivingrain. “I’m a little early. Can’t leave until I’m supposed to.”
The man fingered his Bluetooth. “When’sthat?”
Vic shrugged. “Ten minutes or so.”
“Shit,” the businessman cursed beneath hisbreath. “My stop’s just ahead…”
Vic shrugged again. “You could walk.”
The man’s eyes widened. As if on cue, therain picked up outside, flinging down with such force, the busrocked slightly from the pounding. “It’s pouring. Can’tyou—”
“It’s only water.” Vic turned back to thewindshield, dismissing him.
They sat in an uneasy silence as Vic waited.One minute, two…the man paced to the front of the bus and peeredout the open door, worry etched into his chiseled face. Threeminutes, four, five…he was now officially late for work. Sevenminutes, eight…he looked at Vic, who leafed through the morningpaper he’d brought with him to work and waited. “How much longer?”the guy asked.
With a glance at his watch, Vic checked thebus schedule. He’d been going too fast in the rain and reallywas a bit ahead of schedule, but he’d sit here all day if hehad to, just to ruin this fucker’s day. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Shit,” the man swore again. He turned up hiscollar, which didn’t even meet the bottom of his expensive haircut.“Can I borrow your paper?”
Vic gave him a look of pure loathing. “I’mreading it.”
The guy sounded like a petulant child when hemoaned, “But I’m going to get wet.”
Vic stared him down. Without another word,the guy ran down the steps and across the sidewalk to the coveredbus stop, his shoulders and back growing dark with rain in theprocess. “Shit!” he cried, shaking like a wet dog. On the benchthere he grabbed a discarded copy of Style Weekly, one ofRichmond’s free papers. Tenting it over his head, he raced out intothe downpour, expensive shoes splashing through puddles as hehurried down the street toward his office building.
Vic waited two minutes, then closed the busdoors. He released the brake, put the bus into gear, and eased backinto the flow of traffic. As he passed the asshole runningpell-mell down the drenched sidewalk, he sent one last thought intothe guy’s head. ::Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?::
Sometimes Vic loved his job.
* * * *
Matt diLorenzo was thankful to be on thephone when the gym’s receptionist, Roxie, dropped by his office todeliver the mail. Through the large window in front of his deskthat overlooked the pool, he watched her approach and groaned as hesaw her flipping through yet another jewelry catalog, the secondthis week. All he did was request a copy, one, and now he couldn’tseem to get off their damn mailing list. Every time a new catalogcame, Roxie started in again on how he just had to let herbe in the wedding.
What wedding? He wasn’t planning anything,really. He just thought maybe he and Vic could exchange rings, orsomething sweet like that. Hell, they lived in Virginia, forChrist’s sake. They couldn’t legally get married here. ButRoxie had a dress all picked out, to hear her tell it, and she wasdetermined to be Matt’s maid of honor.
“Grooms don’t have maids of honor,”he’d tried pointing out once, with little success. “They have bestmen. You don’t exactly fit in that category, Rox.”
She had simply shook her head, patting thechopsticks holding her dyed hair into twin buns on either side ofher head. She looked like some sort of anime creature with it uplike that, but when Matt had asked what Pokemon she was supposed tobe, he had to duck to avoid the stack of bills she chucked at him.“Vic’s your best man,” she said. “He’s the only guy you know, Matt,and he’s already in the wedding. So that leaves me. I’ll wear a tuxif you want. Oooh! Wouldn’t that look cute? Tails over my flouncylace miniskirt with striped leggings, and my Doc Martens, ofcourse. What do you think?”
What he thought was that Roxie mightbe a little bit more excited about the whole thing than he washimself. He hadn’t even spoken to Vic about it yet, and if he knewhis lover at all, he knew Vic wouldn’t want anything big. Maybejust a quiet evening at home, the two of them exchanging rings,whispered promises of forever, and the rest of eternity spent ineach other’s arms…
Roxie interrupted his thoughts as she enteredhis office. “Matt, check these out—oh!” Her brassy voice dropped toa stage whisper. “I didn’t see you on the phone.”
Sappy violins wailed in his ear, but Mattgave her a stern look and put a finger to his mouth to warn her.She didn’t have to know he was on hold. Maybe she’d just drop offhis mail and leave.
No dice. Leaning back against the open door,she continued to flip through the catalog, waiting for him to hangup. Great. “Roxie—”
A click in his ear cut him off. “Hello?” heasked, his voice a little too sharp. “Is this customerservice?”
“My name is Tom,” a man said in a liltingIndian accent. From the sound of his voice, Matt seriously doubtedhis name was anything so simple. “How may I assist you today?”
Turning his back to Roxie, Matt fingered theinvoice on his desk and started in on his complaint. The newlockers delivered for the women’s locker room off the gym’s poolwere the wrong style. Instead of having a latch to allow members touse their own combination locks, each locker came equipped with akeyed lock already installed. Matt knew he had ordered the rightthing—he’d ordered a hundred lockers in the exact same style forthe men’s room the month before, and they were correct. It seemedsimple, really. Someone on the distributor’s end had made amistake.
Apparently, conveying that to someone half aworld away wasn’t as simple as it sounded. “Tom” refused toacknowledge an error had occurred—he insisted that Matt had orderedthe wrong thing. Matt found his voice rising in anger, and theconstant sound of Roxie turning pages behind him didn’t helpmatters. After almost five minutes back and forth, he snapped. “Letme talk to someone in America,” he said, pissed. “That’swhere I ordered the damn things from in the first place.”
With a resigned sigh, Tom conceded.