CHAPTER 3

"She's about five feet eleven, blonde, blue eyed, stacked, and totally gorgeous." Again, all true (of my girlfriend anyway) but my tiny Vikings fan gives me the stink eye. Her eyes are brown, as is the long ponytail sticking out from under her cap. And as far as I can tell from the drape of her long coat, the "stacked" part certainly doesn't apply to her either.

"Well we're going to want to see pictures of you two at the beach, but you're definitely going. You're getting naked with KIRA!"

I've already calculated the correct response to that and now I whoop loud enough to be heard by the kids down at the end of the block, a few of whom turned to look. Little Miss Brown Eyes joins in as well.

"That's right," Alice says, with over-the-top enthusiasm, "you two are going to the Hidden Springs Beach Resort in Cozumel for a seven-day, all-inclusive vacation, airfare included. But the best part of this trip is that the beach at the resort is clothing optional. Peter, who is it that's getting you naked on the beach in Mexico with your blond and stacked lady friend?"

I've listened to enough of their radio promotions over the years to know exactly how they'd like to end the on-air portion of this call. "Classic Rock KIRA 103!" I yell with gusto. Then we go off the air as the dulcet tones of Rod Stewart come on. Roger hands me off to his producer to tell me how to claim my prize.

The girl waits for a moment as I begin to give the station my info, but then she reaches inside her stocking cap and pulls out a very short pencil from behind her ear. She reaches down to snag the newspaper and tears off a corner of the front page. She quickly jots something down on it.

When I finally hang up and return her phone, she hands the scrap of news print to me. All it has is a phone number. "What's your name for real?" I ask.

She looks at me like I haven't been paying attention. "Kira." Then she turns and heads right back for the front door of the house, newspaper in hand.

"Don't you even want my number?" I call out to her.

She turns at the door. "Just remember your promise, Peter Malakhov," she says, then slips inside and closes the door behind her.

I tuck the scrap of paper into the little nylon case that holds my Sony strapped to my arm, then switch to my normal play list. The plaintive sax intro to a Bob Seger live cut fills my ears and I begin to run for home, only now realizing that I'm thoroughly chilled from having stood still for so long in my lightweight running apparel.

I think about the situation as I get back up to temperature. Obviously, I can't take the kid with me, even in the unlikely event that she's actually legal. If I go, I'm taking my girlfriend. While, indeed, we aren't technically living together, we've been exclusive for two months. I'm either going to have to buy out the other half of the vacation from "Kira," have her (or more likely her parents) buy my half from me, or just give the whole thing to them. After all, without the use of her phone, I wouldn't have won the silly contest in the first place.

The idea of not keeping my word to a pushy kid whose real name I don't even know never occurs to me.

I live in a loft above my machine shop in an older, industrial part of town. I bought the building, aging CNC tools and all, for a song at a bankruptcy auction four years ago. It's not zoned for residential, but I fixed up the space above the machinery as my own personal apartment anyway. What the city fathers don't know won't hurt them.

I unlock two big deadbolts and swing the heavy steel door outward. Stepping in and locking the door behind me, I hang my running gear on the hooks just inside the door and head over to the corner where I have my barbells, bench and squat rack. I clothe myself in a weight belt and get busy.

I push myself hard, concentrating on my form and trying to set a new personal best. I almost get a fourteenth rep on my third set of squats, but I come up just short. Unaided, there's no way I'm going to get the bar back up onto the hooks. With no spotters, I might have been in trouble, but I've designed and fabricated alternate means to aid me on the last rep.

I bite down on the mouth switch I'm holding between my teeth, and a motor and cables begin to slowly lift the barbell. I don't quit, though, still heaving with everything I've got left. I know this is the part of the lift that gives me the most results, going all out after I'm already exhausted. This is going to hurt later, but in a good way.

When my workout is finally completed, I hang up the weight belt, put on my steel toed boots, and tie on a thick, custom made shop apron that hangs clear to my ankles. Thirty seconds later I've totally put the workout and my vacation problems behind me as I suddenly envision an answer to the engineering problem I'd been contemplating during my run. Trying it out might take all day.

It does indeed take thirteen hours to tack together a good enough prototype to convince myself that the idea is going to work. From long habit, I've set an alarm to alert me when I need to get ready. I know myself well enough not to trust my usually accurate internal clock when I'm building something. The chime tells me I've now got precisely one hour before I need to meet my girlfriend at her favorite club. I put the boots back in their cubby, hang the apron on its hook, then trot up the stairs and into the shower.

The Time Zone is a trendy kind of place. The music is excruciatingly loud and modern, the crowd young and hip, the furnishings cold and sleek, the drinks watered-down and ludicrously over-priced. My mind is operating at maximum workload now, computing the correct responses and producing witty repartee for my acquaintances as I work my way through the crowd. I'm familiar with most of these people, though I've seen very few of them anywhere but here. I don't really know who they are outside these walls and frankly, it hasn't struck me that I should care. I just keep up my front as I make my way back to the table where I know my Destinee will be waiting for me.