“I’ve never once seen her husband. Not for any of her big presentations, not for social events—he wasn’t even at her graduation ceremony. We once went over to her place for a group project—get this. She lives in this huge house. I snuck upstairs to look at her room. No men’s clothing that I could find. There weren’t even any pictures on the wall. I’m pretty sure she lives there all alone. It’s so sad.”
Have you ever had a person in your life who always smiled in your face but who you could tell secretly hated your guts? Which was fine because you didn’t like them either? For me, that person was Elizabeth Ann Margaret.
She insisted that everybody call her by all three of her first names and only by all three of her first names. But she never mentioned her last name, which was Loge—as in Kenneth Loge, the hacky children’s television producer who made a fortune in the 90s turning out the kind of soulless, cookie-cutter cut-rate animations you can’t get away with these days.
I don’t want to call Elizabeth Ann Margaret untalented. But construction on the state-of-the-art Loge Student Center began her freshman year at RhIDS. And she claimed that she’d decided to get an MFA in experimental animation because all the jobs at commercial animation houses were just so utterly boring. But I’d heard it from another undergrad program mate of ours that since her father no longer had powerful connections, she couldn’t find a house willing to hire her based on her skills alone.
In any case, she was always giving me backhanded compliments. Or worse, taking way more credit on our group projects than she should have.
“Wow. How do you think she affords all of that?” the person she was gossiping with asked.
The other voice was male, and I also recognized it right away. It belonged to Asher Peretz. He was a playwright from Carnegie Mellon’s MFA Dramatic Writing program. But he was doing an interdisciplinary thesis year with our class because he had written an experimental play that revolved around an animated character having to decide whether to stay in his cartoon world or join our real one.
He was really cute in a bookish guy next door kind of way. Like, he was that actually hot guy Hollywood cast in films to play the nerd. They just threw a pair of glasses on him so that people watching wouldn’t say, “Hey, none of the nerds at my school look like that!”
So yeah, Asher was Hollywood nerd hot. But he was also friendly. He contributed to class discussions without monopolizing it like so many of the other guys did. And his feedback was always helpful and encouraging. He was just super accessible. Like an Israeli Paul Rudd.
I wasn’t surprised to hear Elizabeth Ann Margaret talking about me. But I was taken aback to hear him asking her follow-up questions. He’d never been anything but courteous to me. He’d even asked to hang out a few times like maybe he wanted to be more than friends.
Not that I took him up on any of his invitations. Letting group meetings happen at my house occasionally was as close as I ever got to socializing with the opposite sex. This mess with Victor was bad enough as it was. It wouldn’t have been fair to drag a nice guy like Asher into it.
At least, I’d thought he was nice. But here he was, gossiping about me with Elizabeth Ann Margaret behind my back.
“You didn’t hear it from me,” she told him in a dramatic hush-hush voice. “But our working theory is that Dawn’s the daughter of a drug kingpin or something. I mean, she has a car with a driver that takes her everywhere. And she’s the only black person in the MFA program who isn’t here on scholarship. How else could she afford her lifestyle?”
“Wow, so you’re pretty sure her marriage is a sham?” Asher asked. His voice was a little breathless, like he was hanging on Elizabeth Ann Margaret’s every word.
“No way she’s married. She’s a total liar,” Elizabeth Ann Margaret answered. “It’s probably just part of her cover story. I let her get away with it on account of us being such good friends. But I’m totally going to call her out on it before graduation.”
Okay, that was enough.
“Nice to know what you really think of me, bestie,” I said, walking around the corner. “I’ll remember that the next time we’re assigned to a group project.”
Both their eyes widened. And I couldn’t help but take a mental picture. If I ever needed to draw two people caught gossiping, this was the reference I’d use.
But other than that mental photo, I breezed right past them. I didn’t want to give either of them the satisfaction of knowing that they had enough power to hurt my feelings. The husband they were so sure I didn’t have had already done enough of that.
“Dawn! Dawn! Wait up!” Asher called after me as I pushed out of Eastland Hall, where RhIDS’s school of animation lived.
I kept on walking, but I wasn’t much faster in my checkered Vans than I’d been in my high school uniform Mary Janes. Asher quickly caught up with me.
“Hey, that wasn’t what it looked like,” he said, falling in step beside me.
Yeah, sure it wasn’t. Whatever. I didn’t answer; I didn’t want to waste any breath talking to his fake ass.
But just as I reached the path leading to where the black Audi was waiting to pick me up, Asher caught me by my arm. “Please, Dawn. I’m sorry. I just want to say I’m sorry!”
I snatched my arm back like he’d burned it. It was too far away for me to see more than the outline of the man I still simply referred to as “the day guard” going on nine years. But I knew he was watching. He was always watching. And most likely reporting all of it back to Victor.
So I did my best to appear outwardly calm as I told Asher, “You don’t have to say you’re sorry for not being who you pretended to be. I’m used to it.”
Asher’s expression became sympathetic. “From who? Your husband?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I thought you and Elizabeth Ann Margaret decided I couldn’t possibly have a husband. That I was a total liar.”
Asher winced. “No, Elizabeth Ann Margaret said that.”
He splayed a hand across his chest. “I never did. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I asked her about you behind your back.”
His tone was so sincerely apologetic. My anger faded a little. But still, I had to ask. “Why? Why were you talking to her about me? I thought you were nice.”
“I am nice,” he quickly assured me. “I’m also really into you. And I don’t want to sound like a creep, but I was kind of hoping she was telling the truth. If you’re lying about having a husband, that would mean I stood a chance with you. And I’d…”
He looked down at the ground shyly, then back up. “I’d like to stand a chance with you.”
Wow…
My heart melted. Then sank with regret.
Five more months. If he’d waited to approach me for five more months, I would’ve happily played my part in this rom-com moment. I would’ve confessed that I did have a husband, but we have been living apart for years and that we were finally getting a divorce. I might even have asked for help moving into the short-term apartment I was already planning to buy because I didn’t want to live in that dream home disguised as a prison for a moment longer than I had to after Victor and I separated.