Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone

Chapter Twenty

Eliot

It’s been days since I’ve talked to her. But I saw her on the street the day after learning who she was. She’d been standing in front of our closest bodega talking to one of our neighbors. I would have backtracked and avoided them but she caught sight of me, so instead I just awkwardly waved and went past. The expression on her face was . . . I don’t know.

Shortly after that I uploaded the next chapter of my webcomic and spent a stupid amount of time deciphering the comments in the hours afterward. Could she have left a comment of some kind? A code for me to decipher? What would her username be? Could she be happypants2018? Probably not. Or what about justiceforbuffy?

I’m guessing no.

A few days after that I ironically found myself in the middle of dispensing romantic advice to Fred. I warned him that I’m a fraud and an amateur and no one should ever listen to me in matters of the heart, but he was insistent. Apparently he’s been flirting with a cute girl through a customer service hotline and he needed help with what to do next.

“Be honest,” I told him. “Tell her everything. Don’t keep secrets because you think it’ll improve your chances.”

What I don’t tell him is that even if he’s completely honest and shows her pretty much everything, this woman he has a crush on is still a living, breathing, complex person who lives within her own complicated brain and is guided by her own complicated heart and getting to know someone is almost impossible.

I know, I know, nihilism is not a good look on me.

In the middle of the week I got a disturbing message from my sister. She wanted to know if I’d been part of a joke gift my parents had given her over Christmas. They’d gifted her this stupid shirt that basically called her a quitter. When she asked me if I’d been part of that gag gift, I realized that I might be dropping the ball on this whole brother thing. There’s no way in a million years I’d ever want her to think I’d give her something as insulting as that.

The expo she’s participating in is coming up on Friday and Saturday, and I realize that I need to make an effort for her. So, come Thursday afternoon, I pack a bag and head to Jersey. She doesn’t need to face down our parents alone the night before the biggest professional engagement of her life.

The drive is trafficky, but almost meditative for me. I concentrate on the cars around me, the route, and for once my brain doesn’t obsessively track back to Jessie. Of course, once I park in my parents’ driveway, I immediately check my phone, see absolutely nothing from her, and I’m plummeted back into the world of Why. It’s the name of the planet I’ve been living on. I’ll make sure they carve that word on my tombstone. Why is the worst word in history. It’s an asshole stalker and won’t leave me alone. Sure, it’s cute if you’re in the middle of reading a mystery novel. Or halfway through a movie. When you can be certain that all of your whys are about to get turned into ohhhhhs. But right now, all signs point to never understanding Jessie. And I just have to make my peace with that and move the hell on.

I have to come back to earth. Where the people who love me and need me live. Like my sister. I take a deep breath, grab my stuff from the backseat, and head inside.

As I quietly kick off my shoes in the foyer of my childhood home, I can hear my mother gently nagging Vera in the kitchen. As she always does, Vera is joking back at my mother. Teasing her, lightening the mood, deflecting the seriousness, never showing how much my mother’s attitude hurts her.

When I step into the kitchen, a smile on my face and a six-pack of beers in my hand, I decide I’ve definitely made the right choice to show up in Jersey. Vera’s expression makes the whole thing worth it. She looks like she was seconds away from drowning and I just tossed her a gigantic rubber ducky. She practically launches herself across the room at me.

Vera and I grab the beers and head down to the basement together, which hasn’t changed a lick since we were kids. In fact, I’d bet twenty bucks that there’s still a half-watched Die Hard VHS in the VCR right this very second.

We plunk down on the side-by-side beanbag chairs.

“So, this is unexpected,” she says.

I can’t help but wince. There’s no censure in her tone, but it would almost be easier if there were. “I wish that weren’t true. I wish you’d been able to just assume that I’d be here to support you.”

I pause for a minute and consider telling her everything. That I’m really just a kid in a grown-up’s body. That I’m constantly one second away from screwing everything up in my life. That I’ve been trying to juggle everything perfectly and to my absolute and utter horror, I’ve just realized that Vera’s one of the things that’s slipped through my fingers. I want to tell her that everything she’s going through with Mom and Dad—the skeptical expressions, the passive aggressive needling, the constant underlying doubt—that I went through all of that, too.

We talk for a minute about Mom and Dad, but before I can figure out how to steer the conversation in the direction I want it to go, her phone starts ringing. She digs it out from her pocket.

She makes a big show of frowning, but there’s a flash of vulnerability when she sees who’s calling. My stomach drops. It’s definitely a dude who’s calling her right now. Vera has, let’s just say, interesting taste in men. Which is why I’ve tried so hard to set her up with Fred. She just needs to meet someone who doesn’t hide most of himself from her. She needs someone as genuine as she is. “Uh-oh. Who’s the guy?”

She glowers at me. “Ugh! When did you become all-knowing? It’s annoying!”

“Oh, crap. So it really is a guy? Vera, no!”

“What’s wrong with me getting a phone call from a guy?”

“It’s not the phone call that’s the problem. It’s your taste in guys.”

“What’s wrong with my taste?”

“You have a proclivity for fuckboys.”

“I do not! I . . .” She sags, apparently deciding that this argument isn’t worth the energy. “Oh, fine. Yes, in the past I’ve been attracted to fuckboys.”

“In the past? So this guy isn’t a fuckboy?”

“Welllllllll.”

“Oh, Vera.”

“He’s definitely the best guy I’ve ever had a crush on. He’s sweet and supportive and a good listener.”

I’m instantly suspicious of these descriptors. If he was this perfect, then she wouldn’t be sitting in the basement making excuses about him to me. She’d be upstairs, swinging her feet on her bed and playfully telling him to hang up first. “Then why did you just reject his phone call?”

She looks chagrined for all of half a second before she’s blinking up at me from under big eyelashes and pulling a don’t kill me expression. “Well, he’s got this thing called a girlfriend.”

“Vera!” If I could wrestle her phone out of her grip right now, I’d put the whole thing down the garbage disposal. Phones are the enemy as far as I’m concerned. They’ve got both of the Hoffman siblings careening toward heartbreak. They should be considered heavy machinery. Vera and I need a license for these things.

“It’s not my fault! You can’t control who you have feelings for. And it’s not like anything is gonna happen.”

She’s right. All of that is right. Lord knows I’ve learned that the hard way. But that doesn’t mean she’s not waltzing her ass right into a train wreck.

“Seriously!” she insists. “That’s why I’m avoiding him right now. Because I’m trying to get over him. That way I can be a good friend and be happy for him and his perfect girlfriend.”

“You’re avoiding him so that you can get over him?”

“Yup.”

“Are you dating anyone else?”

“No, but say, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you set me up with Fred?”

“I know you’re joking, which is the only thing that’s keeping me from strangling you right now. Your timing is unreal. Fred’s finally taken.”

“What? Fred, my sweet, sweet destiny, is dating someone? How dare he?”

“No, he’s not dating her. He’s just really into her. It’s a long story.”

For a moment, I think about all the other long stories I have for Vera. I didn’t used to be a secret-keeper. But now, I’ve got so many things that I’m not talking to anyone about. But we’re sitting here, in our musty, familiar childhood basement, and maybe I should just tell her. She’s sitting in her beanbag chair the same way she’s always sat in it. Completely surrendered to gravity. I know from experience that she’ll struggle for a full fifteen seconds to get out of it. She’s the same sister she’s always been and maybe I’ve been doing myself a disservice keeping all these secrets from her.

I want to tell her that six years ago I got drunk and married in Vegas and lost one of my closest friends. I want to tell her that I changed my entire life so that nothing like that would ever happen again. I want to tell her the reason I plan all my meals out for the week is because my deepest fear is that if I screw up one thing, I’ll screw up everything. I want to tell her that I’m the creator of a very successful digital comic and that a huge part of me wants to quit my job to work on it. I want to tell her that I would have already quit my job to do it full-time if I hadn’t gotten drunk and married in Vegas all those years ago. That maybe, for me, having my shit together is more important than my dreams. I want to tell her that I got robbed a few months ago and I haven’t slept well since. That I’ve been falling in love with someone and I tried so hard to make it perfect only to realize that it was doomed from the beginning.

I want to tell her that everything in my life feels like it’s connected, one thing bleeding messily into the next, only I can’t figure out how it all fits together. That if I could just decipher it, I might have a shot at fixing it. But looking at my life right now is like trying to read for me. Everything flips around on the page. Backwards and upside-down and hiding in plain sight.

“Vera,” I say. “I’ve gotta tell you some things.”

But she’s frowning at her phone again. I can tell she’s not listening to me. Her lip is bitten between her teeth and she struggles up out of the beanbag just like I knew she would. “I’m actually gonna take this call.”

“Stay strong.” I sound like a sarcastic asshole when I say it, but I actually mean it.

Vera’s gone long enough that I finish my beer and then I, too, struggle up out of the beanbag, not any more gracefully than she had. But suddenly I really don’t want to be the guy sitting alone in his parents’ basement drinking beer. I head upstairs and scrounge around in the fridge, smiling at the same neatly stacked tupperwares of leftovers that are almost always there. Without even opening them, I know I could find my mother’s mushroom chicken, a container of mashed potatoes, and a side of green beans. Because it’s Thursday night, and that’s what my mom always makes for dinner on Thursday nights.

I hear a noise from the living room and realize that Vera is in there, but she’s not on the phone. Instead, she’s burritoed into one of my mother’s Snuggies and staring at her phone. I don’t mean to snoop, but as I get closer to the couch, a word on the screen unexpectedly jumps out at me. I’m used to words being a jumbled mess, but clear as day, for just a moment, there’s a name I recognize.

I squint. “Wait a second. Who is that email from?”

Apparently she didn’t know I was standing behind her because she jumps about a foot in the air. I grab her phone and squint at the screen.

“Hey! Buttwad! Give that back.”

Vera tries to sneak-attack me over the back of the couch, but gets tangled up in the Snuggie. I step back and make sure I’m reading this right.

“Damn it!” she shouts. “This is stupid—I’m serious. Give. Me. My. Phone.”

Once I know for sure I’m seeing this correctly I can’t help but laugh. This can’t be true. Pieces fall into place from all over my life. Some people have all the luck. “This is the guy, Vera? Your newest fuckboy?”

“GIVE. ME. MY. PHONE.”

She’s free of the Snuggie and her fists are doing a great impression of lawnmower blades. She’d haymaker me if I let her, but luckily my big-brother muscle memory kicks in, and I plant a palm on her forehead, keeping her well out of the danger zone.

“Vera, can I ask you something?” I need to clear up a thing or two here. “Did you ever Google Fred?”

She ducks under my hand, emerges in hissing fury inches from my face and attempts to put me in traction as she grabs for the phone.

“Vera. God! Just quit it a minute and answer my question!”

She sags back against the couch, glaring at me. “No. I never Googled Fred. Why would I? I knew I was never going to date him.”

I can’t help but scream with laughter. Seriously. Some people just have ALL the luck.

She’s looking at me like she wants nothing more than to get her hands on a voodoo doll of me. “You look like a psycho right now. Give me my phone!”

This is the only fun I’ve had in a week. I’m not letting go of this opportunity. “Let’s go to his Wikipedia page, shall we?”

“I’m literally going to kill you. Not to sound like a nineties movie, but say your prayers, you twerp! Wait, why does he have a Wikipedia page?”

I search it on her phone. “Here we are. His page. I’m going to show it to you and you need to promise to look. Don’t just rip the phone away.”

“You will truly be lucky if you see the sunrise.”

I palm her forehead again, because someday I’d like to have children and I don’t trust her not to kick me in the jewels right now. I turn the phone to show her. She squints at the screen and then immediately looks like her brain has short-circuited.

I figure I might have to explain. “I call him Fred. Because I met him at work and he goes by Frederik or Fred at work. But in his personal life? He goes by his middle name.”

I can clearly see that she had absolutely no clue that the man who just emailed her, the man who she was just talking to on the phone, is my best friend, Fred.

“Eliot. Give me my phone.”

I blink at her. She does not seem shocked or joyous or amazed. I immediately drop my hand from her forehead and hand the phone over to her. I may have miscalculated this.

“Wait. Crap. Vera, I didn’t think you’d be this upset. It seemed funny to me, but . . .”

“Cal is Fred.”

“Yes—”

“He lied about who he was?”

“No. Well—”

I track back to my conversation with Fred earlier in the week. About the cutie he’s been talking to through the customer service line of his company. Be honest, I told him. And my guess is that the email she hasn’t opened yet contains every bit of that honesty. Unfortunately, my nosy ass got in the way in the meantime.

“Why the hell is he masquerading as a customer service representative!?”

I’ve really got to do some damage control without further inserting myself in their business.

“He wasn’t trying to be deceptive—”

“This entire time I’ve been talking to the CEO of the company!?”

“Really, Vera, he was trying to—”

“Don’t talk right now!”

She’s got her I-mean-business face on and I know from experience that she definitely, you know, means business.

“Let me just—”

“Eliot!”

“Say one more—”

“I swear to God.”

“Read the email, Vera.”

“How do you know what’s in the email?”

“He’s one of my closest friends! I helped him—”

“This is sick. This is next level. Even for you. Tell me the truth, did you know? Did he?”

“What? No! Vera, I’m not a good actor. Do you honestly think I had any idea before the last five minutes?”

She deflates, looking defeated and confused and shocked. And honestly, I can’t blame her. In fact, now that I think about it, I don’t even know why I thought she would be anything but that. I know exactly how it feels to have someone’s identity abruptly revealed to you. To not expect them to be who they are. To develop feelings for someone and then have to reconcile the fact that they’ve hidden themselves from you.

Oy. For a moment, I see on Vera’s face exactly what must have been on mine this entire past week. I can’t get further involved. But I can’t leave things like this, either.

“Read the email. Seriously.”

I have to trust in my best friend to fix this for Vera. I can do nothing more right now.

Vera disappears down the basement for privacy and I plop into her vacated spot on the couch. I eye the discarded Snuggie for a minute and then shrug it on. For a moment, the world hugs me, and I let out a big sigh.

Jessie’s got secrets.

Jessie wants space.

I miss Jessie.

I laugh into my palms. I can’t believe that after years of failing to set Fred and Vera up on a blind date, they anonymously fall in love with each other through a customer service call.

Does this count as an Eliot fail or an Eliot success story?

There is only one person whose opinion I’d trust on this matter and she still hasn’t responded to my text from last week.

I wish . . . but no.

I wish . . . but that’s a bad idea.

I wish . . . seriously, Eliot. Just stop.

If only there were a way to tell her how I feel without forcing myself into her life.

Something occurs to me and I try to spring straight up, but I am promptly strangled by the Snuggie. No wonder Vera was having so much trouble attacking me initially. These things are just a fleecy straitjacket. I finally free myself and slump over, hands on my knees. An idea has just rocket-launched itself out of my brain. It’s an idea so satisfying and exciting that I wouldn’t be surprised to look down and see eight inches of air between my feet and the ground.

I’ve suddenly realized a non-intrusive way to communicate with Jessie. A way to reassure her of my feelings but give her space all at once.

It’s brilliant, it’s ridiculous, it finally gives me something to do with all this restless energy.

I have the sneaking suspicion that I might actually sleep well tonight.