Page 59 of Rat Park
Dominic kept his look steady. “Aren’t you going to ask about my record? I could be a liability to your shop.”
Fiona looked at him for a few seconds. Dominic had been under the stare of drug dealers, police officers, judges, junkies, and yet he still found himself struggling not to shift under Fiona’s slicing expression.
“What exactly will your record show me that your current character will not? What I care about is how you conduct yourselfnow.”
“Right. And isn’t my past behaviour a good, you know, predictor of how I’m gonna act now?” Dominic couldn’t help but ask.
“Not really.Whyyou behaved the way you did would be a good predictor, sure. Everything else is situational. As far as I can tell, your situation has changed, so your behaviour should, too, if your character is honourable.”
“How do you know that my character is honourable?”
“I don’t. What I’m saying is I’m willing to find out,” Fiona said. Dominic struggled to understandwhy. Fiona raised her eyebrows. “Any other questions? You want to argue yourself out of the job some more?”
Dominic clamped his mouth shut, trying not to feel like an idiot.
Fiona shook her head, but she was smiling. “The only thing I’ve got to say about all that is that we have a policy of sobriety here, like at any other job. No drugs or alcohol whilst you’re on the clock. However, if you relapse and call ahead, you won’t get fired. You get clean and the job’s waiting for you on the other side.”
Dominic stared incredulously at her. This woman was crazy. Fiona outright laughed at his expression.
“Look, I get your incredulity. The world’s fucked up and thinks you can pressure addicts out of their addiction. There’s a big difference between pressure—the threatening of negative consequences—and motivation—the support of positive outcomes with good behaviour. In my experience, pressure just makes it worse. I’m asking you to work hard. That’s what I want. You’re loyal to me and I’m loyal to you, and that means not dropping you on your ass on your first mistake. That sound good to you?”
“Yeah. Sounds good to me,” Dominic said, his voice coming out low and soft.
“All right. Let’s get our hands on a car then, see how fast you pick things up,” Fiona said, getting up. Dominic stood and followed her out into the shop.
Fiona watched him with the same assessing look as they tinkered inside a car. Dominic tried to concentrate through his nerves, thankfully managing not to fuck anything up too badly. The car didn’t explode in his face, at least.
“All right, looks good,” Fiona said as they washed their hands. “When can you start?”
Dominic froze. He blinked, trying to get Fiona’s words to filter fully through his brain.
“What?” was all he managed to say. Fiona smiled, though it looked more like a smirk than anything else.
“You want the job?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“Okay, you got it. When can you start?”
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to get something this good on the first try. Not this easily.
“I can give in my notice at the current job tomorrow, so…whenever you want.”
“Great. Let’s go back to the office and I’ll explain how the training will go.”
Dominic followed, the banging drum of his head fading everything else out.
*****
Dominic stood in the middle of his apartment when he got home, his keys still gripped in his hand. There was a buzzing underneath his skin, softer around the edges than full-blown anxiety but still rattling his insides.
Dominic clenched his fists, feeling the metal of the keys dig into his palm. When he’d been younger, he’d thought he’d feel good when good things happened and bad when bad things did, but life turned out to be so much more complicated than that. Sometimes the worst moments in his life had filled him with a numbness that was nothing, and the best times carried with them a fear that had him shaking inside his skin.
Dominic took out his phone. He could leave himself to his own mercy. Or…
“Hello?” Flor’s voice had the buzzing inside Dominic slow down even as his stomach clenched.
“Hey. Sorry. You busy?” Dominic said, setting the keys stiffly on the coffee table.
