Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

Chapter Eleven

Eliot

It’s the morning after the club and I wake up to someone knocking on my front door. I peer at the sunlight dappling my bedspread through bleary eyes. As I stumble past the hallway mirror I see that my hair looks like someone tried to hide Easter eggs in it. I’m a disoriented cartoon version of myself as I swing open the door, complete with little boinging spirals of confusion springing away from my head.

My best friend, Fred, stands on my welcome mat looking equally confused. “Did I . . . get the day mixed up or something? We said Saturday, right?”

“Oh. Right. The thing. The thing. That thing we said we’d do.” I’m snapping my fingers, trying to get my brain back online, meanwhile, Fred is cocking his head to one side and studying me.

“Late night?”

“Yeah. Sort of. What time is it? I must have slept in.”

“It’s ten.”

“What? Wow. I slept for like six straight hours.”

“You sound surprised. Have you not been sleeping well lately?”

“Yeah. No.”

I’m beckoning Fred inside, pointing him toward the coffee maker.

I disappear for a minute. Wash up and pull some decent clothes on and then I’m back in the kitchen and Fred is pouring me a cup of coffee he’s just brewed and orange juice for himself.

“Thanks, man.”

“Is everything all right, Eliot?” Fred has these all-seeing eyes, and they’re currently staring straight at me. He’s an interesting guy. He set up his own internet startup a few years ago and it’s really beginning to gain some traction. He’s a computer genius, calm, kind, intuitive. But he’s also reclusive and private and gets lost in his own world more often than not. It took me about a year to convince him that we should be best friends.

“Yes. Yeah.” I don’t tell him that I’m not sleeping well. Because then I might have to explain to him why I’m not sleeping well. And I haven’t told anyone about that night. Not Fred. Not my family. “I’m just a little disoriented is all. I went to a club last night.”

He chokes on his orange juice. “What? A club? Why?”

Fred would volunteer to do someone else’s taxes before he’d freely walk into a club. He’s quiet and contemplative and not into sweating all over strange women. Which is one of the many reasons I really wish he’d just date my sister already. He’s a stand-up guy and pretty much the opposite of everyone she’s ever dated. I’ve been angling for years to set them up, but Vera has told me to shove my dating suggestions up my ass in about a thousand colorful ways, and Fred has become very adept at changing the subject. I wish they’d stop being stubborn and just meet one another already. I’m positive I’m right about them being a match.

“I had . . . kind of a date?” I tell him by way of an explanation for my first club experience in half a decade.

“Really? With who?”

I give him the short version. “With a wrong number I didn’t mean to text. We’ve been talking a fair amount.”

“So you decided to meet up with her at a club?” He still looks like he has absolutely no idea why anyone would ever do such a thing. I almost laugh at the expression on his face.

“Well, technically we didn’t meet up.”

He cocks his head and waits for me to explain.

“Because, technically, I don’t know who she is.”

His brow furrows but still he patiently waits for me to continue.

“Because, technically, she won’t tell me who she is. Even though, technically, we’ve already met at some point before.”

“So . . . you went to the club . . .” He shakes the cobwebs out of his head. “To meet a woman you simultaneously know and don’t know. But you didn’t meet up with her. And then you came home.”

“Yup.”

“Well . . . okay?”

I laugh. “I like her.”

“Like, romantically?” He looks slightly unsure how to have this conversation. Fred doesn’t often talk about romance.

“I think so? It’s kind of hard to tell, since I don’t know who she is.”

“Right. That eensy-weensy detail.”

“Here. The boxes are over here.” I point him to the living room where I’ve boxed up a bunch of the old equipment I used to use in my graphic design job. I was employed by a big tech company for a while, that’s actually where Fred and I met. The job was a little bit over my head when I started and I ended up buying a bunch of different tablets and mouses and touchscreens and all sorts of digital-age detritus that I thought would give me a leg up. Now that I work from home and I’ve figured out the best setup for myself, it’s all just gathering dust. Fred volunteers at this afterschool program that teaches kids how to code, and I offered to donate the equipment. He said he’d come by today to see what they could and couldn’t use.

He kneels down and starts pawing through the equipment. “This is great, Eliot. We probably wouldn’t use this or this. But everything else is awesome.”

“If we carry it down to my car, I can drive it over right now.”

“Great!”

We’re schlepping the boxes down the stairs, but my mind is still on JD. Apparently so is Fred’s.

“So, is it that she doesn’t want to tell you who she is, or she just doesn’t want to meet up with you?”

“Um. I’m not sure. Maybe both? But she’s definitely set on not telling me who she is.”

“Huh.”

“Any guesses why? It’s kind of stumping me.”

“Any guesses as to why a woman might not want to give out information involving her identity to a random dude she maybe kinda vaguely knows and has only had a few phone conversations with?”

“Yeah. You’re totally right. To her, I could just be some strange perv.”

“I mean, if she’s met you then she probably knows you’re not a total perv. You’re a good person and that’s pretty clear from the get-go. But even so, she might be . . . waiting? To get a better read on you? Or she might never want to tell you. Maybe anonymity is important to her for any number of reasons.”

“Like what?” I ask as I lean to one side, attempting to open the front double doors of the building with one foot. They’re sticky and not cooperating, so I lean my weight on one of the doors and kick my foot up higher on the other, heaving them open.

Fred, who like I said, is a genius in some ways, is not exactly a genius in others, and for reasons known only to him, instead of stepping over my extended leg, attempts to duck under it.

“Aaahahggghaahhh! Fred!” But it’s no use, he’s already halfway underneath me, clutching a box full of expensive equipment. I improvise, kicking my leg even farther up the doorframe and nearly tearing out the ass of my pants at the same time.

Of course, because it’s been years since the universe allowed me to look cool, this is the exact second that my tatted-up super opens the door of her first-floor apartment. I look back over my shoulder at her as her eyes grow wide.

“Just. Trying. To. Move. Some. Boxes,” I tell her, straining between each word because I’m pretty much doing the splits while my friend does the limbo.

She covers the bottom half of her face with her hands, but the damage is done. She’s obviously laughing at us. At me. As usual.

She strides forward and holds the far door for me. My leg falls down and I try to shake some blood back into it. Nothing left to do but flee the scene of the crime.

“Thanks,” I shout back over my shoulder to her as the doors to the building fall closed.

“What were you saying?” I ask Fred, hurrying to catch up to him.

“Oh. Just that people have all sorts of reasons for wanting to maintain anonymity. Think about the internet. People find a lot of freedom or comfort in being anonymous.”

“Sure, but aren’t people usually worse versions of themselves when they’re anonymous? Like, so they can troll? And that’s not JD at all. She’s so sweet. Well, sweet isn’t the right word for her. But she’s got a ton of integrity. You can just tell. I’d be willing to bet that she’s pretty much always the best version of herself, anonymous or not. That’s just the vibe she gives off.”

We’re walking up to my car right now and I’m busy trying to dig my car keys out of my pocket and balance the box on one hip, so it takes a minute for me to register the look that Fred is giving me.

“JD?”

“Oh. That’s what I call her.”

“Hey, Eliot?”

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”

That’s one of the things I like best about Fred. He doesn’t ever feel the need to get the last word. If he were my mother, or even my sister, he wouldn’t be able to restrain himself. The words would be written all over his face. He’d write it down and get it notarized. He’d call me again in half an hour to remind me. But Fred is Fred. So, instead, he just gives me a look, assumes I’m not an idiot, shuts his mouth, and the two of us drive to drop off the supplies.