Beautifully Cruel

34

14

TRU

A

fter three hours and two-thirds of a bottle of chardonnay, the answer is: nothing.

Google helpfully provided 174,000,000 results for a search on his name. From there, I drilled down to images, social networks, and his cell phone number. I tried cross-

referencing his name with the Boston PD. I tried his name plus the word “enforcement.” I tried variations on the spelling of his name, I searched Irish genealogy sites and US government databases, I even paid thirty bucks for one of those background reports claiming to guarantee results.

Basically, I twisted my brain into a pretzel to find any crumb of information, but nothing worked.

Liam Black is either a ghost or a pseudonym.

I hear a knock on my closed bedroom door. Ellie calls, “Yo. You decent?” “I try to be. Come on in.”

She sticks her head in the door and looks at me, propped up on my bed with the laptop, simmering with frustration.

“You okay?”

“Define okay.”

She thinks for a moment. “Having slept well, eaten well, and had an orgasm within the last eight hours.”

“I aspire to your goals, my friend.”

She smiles. “It’s the simple things. Speaking of eating, me and Ty are gonna head over to South Creek Pizza for some pie. You in?” “I’m kind of working.”

She looks at the mostly empty bottle of wine on my nightstand, then looks back at me. “Did you eat anything today?”

“Does grape juice count?”

She makes a face, opening the door wider to stand inside my bedroom with a hand propped on her hip. Dressed in a tight black miniskirt, a short red leather jacket, and white lace baby doll socks with high heels, she looks like she’s starring in an 80’s music video.

“No, wino. Grape juice doesn’t count. I’ll bring you back some pizza.”

“Don’t bother. We have about six month’s worth of food in the apartment. Anyone who looks in our kitchen will think we’re doomsday preppers.”

She struts over and plops down on the edge of my bed. Gently squeezing my ankle, she says,

“Girlfriend.”

Keeping my gaze on the laptop screen, I say, “Yep.”

“You’ve got that constipated look you get when something’s wrong.”

When I glance up at her, she purses her lips. “You dumped the Irish hottie, didn’t you?” Sighing, I close the laptop and rub a fist into my eye. “I wish it were that simple.” “What’s up?

She turns to me eagerly, eyes alight. There’s nothing Ellie loves more than gossip. Well, maybe The Bachelor, but other than reality TV, it’s gossip.

I chew on my lip for a moment, debating what to tell her, but go with my default, “Nothing.

Everything’s fine.”

She folds her arms over her boobs and glares at me.

I roll my eyes, pull my knees up to my chest, and wrap my arms around them. “Okay, everything isn’t fine. It’s just…so…complicated. Forget it.”

When I don’t add anything else, she says, “You totally suck at the girl thing, you know that?” “What girl thing?”

“Talking. Opening up. Sharing your feelings.” She makes air quotes around the word “feelings.”

Because this is a failing I’ve been accused of before by various other people, I’m automatically defensive.

“I can’t help it! I grew up on a farm! Unless you were bleeding from a major artery or one of your limbs was hanging on by a thread, no one cared about your problems!”

“You’re not on a farm anymore,” she says flatly. “There are no tractors, roosters, or cow teats in sight. Tell me what’s going on with Liam.”

I collapse back against the pillows and stare at the ceiling. I know she’ll badger me until I submit, so I sum up the situation in a sentence. “He wants me to move in with him for a month then never see each other again.”

There’s a long pause. “So he’s married. He’s got a wife holed up somewhere.”

I lift my head and look at her. “Worse.” “What’s worse than married?”

I muse, “How to describe it?” I think for a moment, then drop my head back against the pillows.

“He’s…emotionally unavailable.”

“Ha!” She cackles. “Dude! It comes with the testicles!”

That obviously didn’t impress her. I have to give another example. “He’s also very, very, very… mysterious. Enigmatic. Unfathomable.”

She scoffs. “Puh. What, you want to know all the gnarly details about his private life? How often he jerks off? Plucks his nose hairs? Shaves his balls?”

My sigh is heavy. “Yeah, this girlie sharing thing is awesome. I can see why you like it so much.”

“Stop being sarcastic. A little mystery in a relationship is a good thing, not a problem.”

“This is more than a little mystery, Ellie. This is like…does-Bigfoot-exist mystery. Who-reallyshot-JFK mystery. What’s-the-deal-with-the-Bermuda-Triangle mystery. This is big.”

“Or maybe you’re just making it big.”

“I’m not making it anything. It is what it is.”

“Hmm.”

She clearly doesn’t believe me.

After a while of staring at me in faint disapproval, she says, “Can I point something out here without you getting offended?”

I groan. “You know when you say something like that, the person you say it to will get offended, right? Asking that question first doesn’t let you off the hook for being offensive.”

Ignoring that, she continues. “You need a man. Don’t look at me like that, it’s true. You’ve had one serious long-term relationship in your life—”

“Which ended very badly, let’s not forget.”