Chapter 2

Her name was Janelle.

It was a melody he couldn't stop singing despite himself.

Will, what are you thinking? You know what this'll do to you. How are you going to make rent next month? She's... gorgeous. Not to mention married -- and not to the nicest guy in the world, if the vibe you're getting about this mystery object is any indication. Get up. Run. Never look back. Change your locks -- to hell with what the landlord says, if he can't respect your privacy...

"Relax. I won't bite." She'd lost any trace of that fear as they'd talked. Lightweight stuff -- weather, the food, the decor, going on about each thing between brief bouts of silence the way strangers do.

"Sorry," he said. "I just... I'm not good at small talk."
"That's okay, neither am I."

The silence was worse than the chit-chat. He could only stare at his food or at the car parked outside for so long, and then he had to look at her. And he began to notice things. Like the slightest tinge of color to her skin, something between mocha and olive. There was a not-quite-caucasian look to her features, a hint of something exotic, too subtle to identify, something in the slight cant of her doe-eyes, the round broadening of her nose, the curved pout of her lips, the slivers of amethyst in her gray eyes.

And she seemed to radiate in his attention. Most women didn't like being stared at, at least not the way Will did it. He'd never mastered the art of the brief friendly appraisal or the sly appreciative glance. Maybe because he spent so little time with people and so much time with objects. Maybe because most of the time that he was around people was in the safety of Dream, intimitely disconnected.

But the more he looked at her, the more she seemed to glow. And that was a problem. Women like Janelle operated on a different plane. They wanted things. They made men stupid; whether by nature or intent didn't matter.

"You're not like Randy at all."
The comment came out of the blue, on the tail end of a shared laugh about the waitress' upside-down nametag.
It stopped Will's heart for a moment, like that sliver of silence that came before an explosion.
She'd dropped a bomb, all right -- complimenting Will, alluding to the connection he'd made with her, and bringing up her husband all at once. It was the kind of comment designed to suss a man out, at once disclaimer and enticement. A siren's song sung to separate salacious from sedentary. Go big or stay home.

Will rationalized a third option.

"Why do you say that?"
"Well, for one, you're... interested." Gulp. Busted. "I mean in things, people, life."
"That's a lot to get from a two-minute conversation on the way to a diner." It was flattering, but at the same time, it was like she was trying way too hard. It made him feel like it wasn't about him at all, but just about grabbing the nearest floating debris after a shipwreck.
"And five minutes waiting for our food," she corrected. "But it's enough. Randy barely even talks anymore, and when he does it's always about dominating somebody."
Gulp. "What does he do?"
"You mean when he does anything? His new thing is sales. Industrial equipment, I think. Before that he did private security work. But when he first got here it was football. Mean sport -- and he was the meanest. He got off on people cheering after a big hit, 'rhino, rhino, rhino'..."
"Wait... Rhino? Randy -- Randall. Randall Holden? The football player?"
"That's what I said."
"No, I mean, the football player, the Randall Holden, played for the Raiders."
"Yeah. So?"
"God, I used to watch him play when I was a kid. Middle linebacker, Number 54. The Rhino. All-Pro six years running, until that collision with what's-his-name, McManis." Will remembered the incident -- open-field tackle at full-speed, a good clean hit, but so hard and at just the wrong angle that it snapped McManis' neck. Some said he was dead before he hit the carpet. "Man, that had to be rough. No wonder he retired. --Oh, sorry. Went into Sports Mode for a sec there."

He looked at her -- another good look, despite his earlier declinations. Rhino Holden would have to be about forty by now, but Janelle... not a day over twenty-five. And if she'd been around him when he was playing, some... ten? twelve years ago? then... Hmm. So it was like that.

Janelle had been looking out the window -- apparently even a few seconds of Sports Fan Reminiscence bored her, even if, probably especially if it was about her husband. But she looked at Will now. "He didn't want to retire. They forced him."

Will wasn't sure what to make of that. Except that his imagination began drawing exaggerated images of a hulking rhino of a man in full football armor bearing down on him...

"He still takes his aggression out on other people. He's just more subtle about it now." Janelle looked down at her hands, one rubbing the other.
Will caught a glimmer of something in the statement, and her movement, and then the ugliness of Janelle's meaning became clear.

Will felt suddenly hot. He found few things more reprehensible than-

But Janelle deflected it, her demeanor lightened. "He's always bragging about his latest conquest -- what competitor he stole his latest customer from, how bad he beat another rep in the monthly numbers." Her previous implication seemed withdrawn. "They're all so competitive." She shrugged. "Men..."
Will relaxed a bit, smiling as he put up an obligatory defense of his gender. "We have to know where we stand."