Rabbits(17)

A few minutes later I called the server over and explained that the phone belonged to my friend, and I would do my best to let him know it was here. She told me she’d put it in the back office for safekeeping.

Once again I called the number that Alan Scarpio had given me, but this time there was no answer, and no voicemail option.

I waited until I saw the mystery woman leave the arcade, and then ran across the street to ask Chloe if the woman had mentioned anything about Alan Scarpio.



* * *



—

Chloe and I had almost gotten together once—or at least, that’s the way I choose to remember it.

It was a week or two after we’d met. Both of us were single at the time.

A mutual friend had an art opening, and Chloe and I were there, along with a handful of other people we knew from the arcade.

I had no idea how she felt about me, but I’d been attracted to Chloe from the moment we met. She was smart and funny, and into a lot of the same terminally uncool shit I was. And even though she might come across as somebody who doesn’t give a fuck, I could tell that she did. She gave all the fucks. She was deeply engaged and cared about a lot of things, you just needed to take the time to get to know her.

Chloe referred to herself as a “recovering musician.” She’d lived a completely different life from the ages of sixteen to nineteen as the singer and principal songwriter in a semipopular indie rock band.

Like Pavement with “Cut Your Hair” or Radiohead with “Creep,” Chloe’s band, Peagles, had a hit single that overshadowed a critically acclaimed full-length album. That song was called “MPDG (Manic Pixie Dreamgirl).”

Chloe smashes the absolute shit out of a ukulele in the video. It’s really cool.

Although Peagles released only one album and an EP before they broke up, “MPDG” was a big hit, and that song’s ubiquity in movies and television shows meant that, unless she really wanted to, Chloe didn’t need to work for the next couple of decades.



* * *



—

After the gallery show, a couple of our friends suggested we head back to my place for a drink. My apartment was not only large and roommate-free, it was also right around the corner, and I always had booze.

There were six of us there, but I spent most of the night talking to Chloe and her friend Amanda. It was a great conversation. We talked about games, movies, comics, television, and whatever else popped into our heads. By the time I finally glanced over at the clock, it was one in the morning, and everybody else had gone home.

I walked Chloe and Amanda to the door, and on the way there Chloe and I shared a brief look. She smiled just a little as she pulled her hair behind her ear, and I felt a wave of electricity move through me. I suddenly couldn’t figure out breathing.

Was I on an inhale or an exhale?

I eventually remembered how to work my lungs, the three of us hugged goodbye, and I shut the door.

As I made my way back to the living room, I thought about the best way to ask Chloe out. Was dinner too prosaic? Definitely. Was there maybe a cool band playing The Crocodile this weekend? I would check first thing in the morning.

Then I heard a knock on my door.

I was absolutely positive that when I opened the door, Chloe would be standing there. She’d tell me she came back to suggest a late-night walk or something similar, that she’d been having a great time and that she didn’t want it to stop.

But it wasn’t Chloe at the door. It was Amanda.

She said she’d forgotten her glasses and suggested we have one more drink. She wanted to talk about Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.

We ended up staying together for five years.



* * *



—

Chloe was balanced precariously on a stool behind the front counter when I arrived. She wore a faded NPR T-shirt, ripped jeans, and standard-issue Apple AirPods, which she pulled out of a tangle of crimped blond hair when I walked in.

She smiled and held up her middle finger.

“Super unprofessional,” I said. “This is a place of business.”

She shrugged.

I asked about the mystery woman from the diner. Chloe told me that the woman didn’t ask any questions, just played one game of Robotron and left.

“Why the interest in random business lady?” Chloe asked, suspicious.

I told her about what had happened with Scarpio.

“Alan Scarpio?”

“Yeah.”

“Asked you to help him fix the game?”

“Yeah.”

“Rabbits?”

“Yes.”

Chloe stared for a moment, then shifted her weight to her back foot and crossed her arms. “That didn’t happen.”

I smiled.

“For real?”

“I swear. It really happened.”

“Holy shit!” Chloe said, and her gum almost fell out of her mouth. “That woman did ask if I’d seen Alan Scarpio in here. I thought she was fucking with me.”

“It really happened, but Scarpio missed our meeting earlier today and I haven’t been able to get back in touch.”

“Tell me everything,” she said.

So I did.

Chloe made me describe what had happened with Scarpio down to the most minute detail—twice. As I found myself repeating what had happened, it made less and less sense. Alan Scarpio, billionaire philanthropist and possible winner of the sixth iteration of Rabbits, had told me something was wrong with the game and that he needed my help to fix it.