The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

bacon and pancakes. The way he enunciated the word me was even worse. He broke sharp at the M and spent very little time on the E — the hallmark indication of apathy toward a self-referencing pronoun. This was bad. Very bad. The interview was barely eight seconds old and already it was an out-of-control locomotive steaming off the tracks. Roland had to do something to right its course.
    The thought popped into his head: What would Regis do?
    He placed his elbow firmly on the table and lifted his hand up in a 45 -degree angle. “Let’s arm wrestle,” Roland said. “You and me. We’ll see which one of us is the real man here.”
    Silence.
    The interviewer’s eyes grew wide. His expression morphed from ambivalence to confusion and then outrage, all in the course of a few seconds. Meanwhile, Roland’s arm hovered precariously in the air. The interviewer took off his glasses and locked eyes with Roland.
    “Boy — what in hell do you think you’re doing?”
    Roland’s arm deflated to the table.
    “But . . . but I saw you flexing your bicep. Mason reached out and touched it.”
    The interviewer leaned forward. He seemed to be growing angrier with each passing second. “That young man and I work out at the same gym,” he said.
    Despite pleading with the man and practically begging for a second chance, Roland was ushered out the door and into the street. He mumbled to himself and replayed the embarrassing incident in his head. Could anything have been more humiliating? More demoralizing? Mason was going to get the big promotion and travel around the world while Roland was destined to live out his days in his dreary gray cubicle. And he wouldn’t just have to share it with Mason, who for all his ill wit and bad haircut was a diabolical trickster, but most likely with someone even more crafty and cunning. Roland groaned out loud and headed back to the office.
    At the time, he could have never known that the very next day, his fortunes would change.

four

    Bonnie, the woman Henrik bumped into at the lottery booth, left the marketplace and entered the apartment building three doors down from the market: a home she shared with her husband Clyde. Ten years ago when they met, Bonnie and Clyde were immediately taken with one another when they realized their names matched those of the famous movie couple. They based their entire relationship on this interesting, if somewhat irrelevant, coincidence. To Bonnie, it wasn’t just coincidence but rather a twist of fate. She fell in love with Clyde because the moon and the stars above told her to fall in love with him. Over the past decade, she’d gradually become disillusioned with Clyde’s rampant gambling and his womanizing ways. Moreover, he had an outright disrespect for her job. Bonnie’s job was of the utmost importance to her. Her parents and friends supported her. She couldn’t understand why her husband didn’t support her.
    From their wedding day, Bonnie’s love for Clyde deteriorated. Very quickly, she started to dislike him. This dislike developed rapidly into severe loathing. Twelve months ago, Bonnie phoned her parents up in tears. She wanted a divorce and she wanted them to pay for it. She couldn’t live with this man anymore. Not for another day. Bonnie was shocked when her father not only refused to pony up the cash, he insisted no daughter of his would be getting a divorce. “Not within my lifetime,” her father said. “We might forgive your lifestyle and accept some of the choices you’ve made, but you made a commitment to that young man and we expect you to live up to your obligations.” Bonnie pleaded with him, cried for hours, and when that didn’t work she appealed to his logical nature. Bonnie’s father wouldn’t budge. The right and left sides of his brain were in equal parts resolved. Bonnie couldn’t litigate her way out of this in a courtroom filled with attorneys and statutes and men in suits.
    So, for close to a year, Bonnie had been