When I was finished, the sorry sap couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He shot up, swiped his jacket off the hook, tossed a wrinkled hundred onto the table, and booked it out of there.
I got the hell out of Dodge too.
No point in sticking around for a teary encore of her last Oscar-winning performance by the ladies’ room.
God, she’s good.
Truly.
She almost had me convinced that she was authentic Saturday night. The conversation flowed. She held her own. Couldn’t take her eyes off me.
I’m convinced the sole reason she pulled the brakes on her little operation was because she knew after I’d read her email, the jig would be up, there would be no lucrative payday, and her efforts would’ve been in vain.
I toss my jacket over the back of a chair and drop my keys and wallet on the counter before heading into a darkened living room lit by the night sky filtering in through the naked windows.
It was pure chance tonight that I spotted her inside Fino.
I was walking back from my cardiologist appointment when I happened to glance over and spot my little Anonymous Stranger sipping red wine and laughing with a tall, dark, and extremely rich-looking gentleman who had nothing but kaleidoscope eyes for our sweet Astaire.
He reminded me so much of myself a few days ago—minus the kaleidoscope eyes, of course, and I had to do my due diligence and warn the poor guy.
Checking the time, I head back to my room, change out of the day’s clothes and into sweats and a t-shirt, and settle into my bed.
Tomorrow I’m interviewing nannies for Honor—something I never thought I’d be doing in a million years. Margaux was supposed to send me all of their resumes along with a schedule before she left for the day, so I grab my phone and pull up my work email.
Sure enough, she sent everything at 4:58 PM—two minutes to spare. I’m about to select her message when I notice something above it—an email hot off the presses and sent a mere three minutes ago.
Smirking, I feed my curiosity.
TO: Bennett.Schoenbach@SchoenbachCorp
FROM: AnonStranger@Rockmail
SUBJECT: RE: re: re: re: Condolences
Bennett,
If you want to be miserable—fine. That’s your prerogative. But it doesn’t give you the right to go around destroying everyone else’s happiness. I’m not sure why you think I’m some kind of scammer or that I would have any reason to lie to you. I’ve never asked you for a thing. I’ve only ever shown you kindness, compassion, and sympathy. Perhaps those are foreign to you. Perhaps you’re so miserly and habitually dejected that those things are a language you couldn’t possibly begin to understand.
The things I did … sending you those emails … came from a good place, even if you refuse to believe that. And running into you last weekend was purely coincidental—not that you can say the same about tonight.
Maybe I should have spoken up last Saturday—and believe me, I wanted to many times—but I was enjoying my time with you. You made me laugh, you made me feel alive again for the first time since losing Trevor, and I was clinging onto that feeling until you put your hand on my knee—then I realized that I couldn’t possibly let it go any further, couldn’t bring myself to add insult to injury by going home with you, because you were going to read my email sooner or later.
So I saw myself out of that situation because it was the right thing to do, and clearly, it was for the best because you are the WORST kind of human being.
You are beyond irredeemable.
Please, if for some insane reason you happen upon me again, do us both a favor and walk the other way. I promise to do the same.
Best wishes—
Astaire
Sitting up in bed, I click on the lamp beside me and fire off a response.
FROM: Bennett.Schoenbach@SchoenbachCorp
SUBJECT: RE: re: re: re: re: Condolences
Astaire,
Best wishes? Seriously? What kind of uninspiring mind fuckery is that? I thought you were a professional manipulator? Surely you can come up with something more original than best-fucking-wishes.
But I digress.
On the extremely off-chance that you aren’t a gold-digging con-woman, then you owe me an enormous apology as well as an even bigger thank-you.
I’m sure you’re wondering why, so allow me to explain. When I took it upon myself to approach your date to let him know with exactly whom he was dealing, I strolled up to him from behind—where it just so happened I was able to catch a glimpse of the dick pic he was in the process of sending to another woman.
It’s an image I would pay an ungodly amount of money to un-see, but seeing how we’re lightyears away from that kind of technology, I’ll have to hope and pray that one day the visual of his five-inch uncut ‘gem’ will be wiped clean from my memory. Perhaps someday, I’ll be able to eat button mushrooms again without that nauseating graphic flashing through my mind.
Until then, like I said … you should thank me.
Also, while we’re on the subject of your date, I feel it’s only appropriate to point out the fact that you clearly have a type—only tonight’s doppelgänger was a bit of an insult to the rest of us tall, dark, successful, and impossibly handsome types because it was in talking to the poor bastard that I was able to glean that the twenty-thousand-dollar watch on his wrist was, indeed, a fake.
Perhaps you’re thinking, “But Bennett, I don’t care if his watch was real or fake, we were having a lovely time and that’s all that matters.” To which I would say, “Authenticity is everything. Believe people when they show you who they are and not when they tell you who they are.”
Anyway, you’re welcome, Astaire.
Yours in advice (nothing more, nothing less),
Bennett
I hit ‘send’ and toss my phone aside.
My body bakes beneath the covers, my legs restless and aching to move. I fling the covers down, pace my room, and head down the hall to pour myself a Lagavulin, something to help me ease back into a relaxed state—if that’s even possible at this point.
I’m not sure what the hell my problem is.
I’m not normally this wordy, at least not when it comes to women. I find the less you say, the more impactful the message, but it seems like whenever I’m dealing with her, I can’t shut off. Uncontrollable word vomit. Every-fucking-where.
I’m sipping my nightcap when I keep picturing her teary-eyed face, the way she said “move” through gritted teeth before disappearing into the bathroom. Half of me firmly believes all of this is a ruse. An expertly-crafted ruse.
The other half of me is beginning to wonder …
And that other half is also fixating on the fact that she went out on a date with a cheap imitation vanilla version of me—a version of me that made her smile ear-to-ear, bigger than she smiled last Saturday when I gave her shit for being the ray-of-fucking-sunshine that she is.
Trudging back to my room, I swipe my phone off the bed and refresh my email.