Death and The Devil, Chapter 4
Caaji arrives at her old friend Racine’s with a pocketful of ambition, a suitcase of business clothes, and a whole truckload of emotional baggage.
A note: This is an entry in our periodic, serialized fiction series — “Tales of the City” by way of the Rust Belt. We will gradually meet 5 characters (Wyatt, Racine, Fred, Caaji, and Matias) whose stories and fates intertwine . We will link to the previous chapters as we go, but you can enjoy them individually; just a touch of flash-fiction before we return to regularly scheduled programming.
Chapter 1: Present Day - Racine and Wyatt are set for an epic showdown
Chapter 2: Three Years Ago - Wyatt reconnects with his friend Racine, and has a run-in with her chaotic neighbor
Chapter 3: Fred gets a ride to the hospital, and learns more about Wyatt’s…situation.
Racine grimaced into the bathroom mirror at her ghoulish reflection. Still wearing a faceful of last night’s party makeup, she methodically scrubbed every inch of irritated skin until it was clean enough for her to apply an expensive cream that she was starting to believe did nothing at all.
The whole fiasco with Fred falling down the fire escape had drawn enough focus away from Sharice’s appearance that Racine was just now starting to unpack how she felt about seeing an old friend that had turned out to be no friend at all. Seeing her, and having Wyatt back in town again, made Racine feel as though her life was moving in reverse, like a record spun backwards under the finger of a sadistic DJ.
Wyatt had been that one stand-up guy. Unthreatened by the nerdy Black girl in AP English. Actually listened to her NBA Draft hot takes. Never once hit on her or “made it weird.” But that was years ago. They’d both been so focused on making it out, that Racine assumed their lives would intersect at high school reunions and chance run-ins during holiday trips home. Not as townies.
She was roused by the jangle of her phone. With a quick glance at her screen, she sighed and thought, speaking of sadists…
“Rae!” Caaji huffed into the receiver. The noisy flush of a toilet echoed on Racine’s end of the line. “Pull up your pants. I can’t concentrate when I know you’re naked from the waist down.”
“What about from the waist up?” Racine volleyed back, unhurriedly moving towards her kitchen.
Caaji ignored this quip and pulled off the footpath by the East river, breathing hard, hands on the smooth waist of her muted spandex short set. She checked her heart rate on her watch and tapped up the call volume on her ear bud. “Just 3 quick miles – it’s a rest day today.”
Racine began thumbing through her mail. “REST is a rest day.” Bills. More bills. Oops, collections agency. Racine tossed the envelopes onto the floor by the recycling bin. “Remind me, when’s your flight tonight?” Racine said, fluffing her hair in the hall mirror and smacking her chapsticked lips.
“8ish, or something. I’ll get a car from the airport, but please be home. I’m not in the mood to track you down in a place I barely know…again.” Caaji started jogging back down the path, scanning the benches, scowling with concentration. Her heart was in her throat. Her face lit up, finding her quarry: a man with a gorgeous, graying crewcut and a runner’s lean body; looking out towards the river, he hadn’t seen her yet.
“Whatever, bitch. I provide free shelter and this is the treatment I get? Barred from living my life because my insufferably rigid friend can’t roll with the punches.” Racine grabbed her slouchy woven bag and her keys, letting the apartment door slam satisfyingly behind her. “Caaji? Hellooo?”
“Yes…sure… see you tonight,” Caaji tapped off her ear bud, and veered off the path to draw near and slide her hand up the back of the man’s shirt in greeting.
*****
“Racine! Do you have any, like, produce? Yogurt or something? Damn, you live like a frat boy” Caaji called, her voice muffled from inside the refrigerator door.
Racine called back “ha!” without much mirth. Every time they were together they slid back into their neat roles, like an old pair of Uggs – Caaji Wong’s fastidiousness to Racine Brown’s disorganization. Caaji’s celery to Racine’s Milky Ways. Caaji’s Virgo to Racine’s Aquarius. A particular brand of banter from their college suitemate era. The older they got, the more those tired tropes felt like performing a vaudeville sketch long after the audience had stopped laughing. How much could you really know someone anymore that lived 600 miles away and worked 70 hours a week?
“I’ll stock you up tomorrow” Caaji smiled, having emerged from the fridge with an NA beer. Racine immediately tamped down the mutinous thoughts, feeling guilty. Caaji could easily be staying in a hotel downtown on the corporate dime, but here she was. This is what it felt like to be old friends, maybe – with a little sadness mixed in.
She patted the sofa for Caaji to sit, moving aside a throw pillow – possibly a surviving vestige of that college suite, now that she thought of it. “When are they just gonna accept the inevitable and grant you guys the contract?”
Caaji sipped her beer, and smoothed her hand down her perfectly flat midsection – a nervous tic Racine recognized. “We’re close. If we nail it, this project will have me slumming here in the City for six months, at minimum. Not glamorous, but it would be tremendous for my career."
“Tremendous?” Racine cocked an eyebrow. There was always something weirdly automaton-like about the way Caaji talked about her work at the consulting firm.
Caaji smiled back, human again. “It’ll be like undergrad flashbacks, pulling all nighters with Luca’s pizzas. You and me.” Racine felt a small twinge of that annoyance again. Racine was from here. She hadn’t become a bougie Manhattanite like Caaji, but she wasn’t over here scarfing down Luca’s and partying like a college freshman, either.
In the silence that followed, Caaji’s phone chimed for what felt like the hundredth time since she’d arrived at Racine’s. She inspected the message and flushed, redness splotching across her neck. Racine looked from Caaji’s telltale blush, over to the phone, and back, sizing up. She smirked. “Okay bitch, I see how it is – who is he? I need stats, I need details, tell me everything.”
Caaji tossed the phone into her open tote bag. She felt a little bit hysterical. She counted her in-breath to four. Made steady eye contact with Racine. “Oh, that?”