Sweet Talk by Cara Bastone
Chapter Seven
“Hey! Hi! I wasn’t sure you’d call tonight, JD.”
“I called to say sorry.”
“For what?”
“For falling asleep last night.”
“You’re sorry for that? Isn’t that kind of the point of what we’re doing here? Killing time before we fall asleep?”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“In my opinion, the baking show was a winner. Entertaining enough to give us something to talk about and relaxing enough to knock us out. I hope there’re, like, a hundred seasons.”
“I really hope it doesn’t take you a hundred seasons to get your sleeping issues figured out. What’s that noise?”
“I’m washing paintbrushes.”
“What kind?”
“. . . the kind you use for painting?”
“You don’t say. No, I mean, what were you painting? Like, your walls? Or a canvas?”
“Oh! Right. I was doing some watercoloring.”
“Good, because in my experience painting your walls in the middle of the night never ends up being a good idea.”
“I take it you’ve made some questionable color choices in the past?”
“That’s how I ended up with a blood-red bedroom a few years back.”
“There’s something very . . . King Henry the Eighth about a red bedroom.”
“You mean the king who killed all his wives?”
“Yeah. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But it’s kinda like, is it possible to have a blood-red bedroom and not sleep in a velvet robe? I don’t think so.”
“You’re deeply weird, Hoffman.”
“You’re the one with the red bedroom.”
“It only lasted until the paint dried, and then I promptly painted over it. Anyway, I didn’t know you did watercolors.”
“Yup. Some oils, too.”
“How’d you get into that?”
“Well, there were some fine arts courses required for my graphic design major. But even before that I was drawing and painting all the time. My parents had this thing on the weekends when we were little that Saturday and Sunday mornings were supposed to be for quiet activities. So, my parents and my sister would usually read, and I would draw. Once they realized that art would keep me quiet for more than five consecutive minutes, they always made sure I had all the supplies I’d need.”
“The way you talk about your family, it seems like you guys are close.”
“Yeah. My sister and I are. She only lives a few blocks away from me. And my parents are really good people. They can be a little . . . too involved, I guess you’d say? So, over the last few years I’ve had to put up some . . . I guess you could call them boundaries. Which means that maybe we’re not as close as we used to be, but it’s a good trade because I no longer have to suppress the urge to tear my hair out whenever we talk.”
“What kind of boundaries?”
“Oh, well, my mother would still be coming over to do my laundry if I let her. At one point she was trying to convince me to pay extra for this grocery delivery service because that way she could make the grocery list online for me, and she’d never have to worry about whether or not I had enough milk. What else . . . oh! For a long time, I thought my dad was just really interested in the ins and outs of my job because he’d call almost every day to talk about this deadline or that project. And then I eventually realized that he was taking meticulous notes on everything I was telling him and he was really calling to make sure that I was getting all my work done on time.”
“Wow. That’s . . . wow.”
“It’s all done from a place of love. But they can just be a bit much. Why are you laughing?”
“Just . . . my dad is pretty nosy, too.”
“He’s super involved in your life?”
“Yeah. Not the same way your parents are. He loves to know what’s going on in my life. Gossip-wise. And he took, like, crazy good care of us while we were growing up. But the second I was out of the house after graduation, it was like, kid, manage your own life. Kind of a life-lesson thing, I think. He really wanted us to be able to handle stuff on our own. If I ever come to him with a problem, he’ll listen, but if I don’t mention it, he definitely doesn’t offer an opinion.”
“That sounds freaking wonderful.”
“He’s pretty great.”
“Do you have any siblings?”
“Yeah. I have a brother. Hey, uh, what was the painting you were working on?”
“Oh. Ah . . .”
“What’s the pause for? Is it something embarrassing?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Lemme guess. Nude self-portrait?”
“That’s your first guess for what I’d be painting? Oh, my God. I must have made a weird first impression on you when we met.”
“So, that’s a no on the nude self-portrait?”
“I can honestly tell you right now that I have never painted a nude self-portrait in my life. Nor do I plan to.”
“Shame.”
“It’s a shame?”
“Sure. You’re a looker, Hoffman. People would probably pay good money for a nudie.”
“You’re saying something that sounds like a compliment, but I’m one hundred percent sure that you’re making fun of me right now.”
“Five points for the astute observation.”
“This point system is starting to make me feel like I’m a puppy and you’re my owner. Maybe I shouldn’t be so easily manipulated by imaginary currency.”
“I’ll give you twenty points right now if you tell me what you were painting.”
“. . .”
“Eliot?”
“I’m thinking!”
“Haahhaha. I thought you were gonna start rejecting the point system.”
“Twenty is a lot of points! I don’t want to pass up this opportunity just to take a stand.”
“I’m feeling generous. I’ll make it twenty-five.”
“Done. Okay. I was painting some concept frames for this other project I’m involved in.”
“. . .”
“JD?”
“I’m not giving you twenty-five points for that non-answer.”
“But I told you the truth!”
“I still have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s a concept frame? What’s the other project? What’s the subject of the painting?”
“Playing hardball, I see.”
“Cough up the deets, Hoffman.”
“Okay, okay. I kind of . . . do this webcomic thing.”
“What do you mean, ‘webcomic thing’?”
“I mean that I’m the author and creator of one.”
“You create the story and do all the artwork and stuff?”
“Yeah. Well, most of it. I do a lot of the artwork on a design tablet, but first, when I’m still working everything out, I do concept frames on paper. When I get to the color-blocking parts, I often use watercolors to see what I like.”
“That is . . . really cool.”
“Really?”
“Seriously, it’s way cooler than I thought you were. You’ve just upped your game by about a hundred degrees.”
“Ha. I thought you’d think it was nerdy.”
“Nerdy stuff becomes cool once you’re out of high school. What’s the name of the webcomic?”
“Why?”
“Because I obviously want to search it.”
“Nah. That’s okay. I have enough readers already.”
“Spill! Why aren’t you telling me?”
“Well, I guess, to be honest, because I’ve never told anyone else? I kinda do the whole thing anonymously.”
“Oh. Okay, well, I don’t want to force you to tell me then. I obviously understand what it’s like to want to keep secrets.”
“. . .”
“Eliot? You there?”
“You’re, like, a Jedi master or something, aren’t you?”
“Huh?”
“Now that you’re not making me tell you, all I want to do is tell you.”
“Ha. Then tell me! Honestly, if you’re gonna try telling somebody, doesn’t it make sense to tell someone who’s on the outside fringe of your life?”
“Right . . . right, okay. Well, it’s called Lotus.”
“Hold on. Gimme a sec . . . Is your author alias Lettermaze?”
“Yup. Did you find it?”
“Holy CRAP. Eliot, the artwork is gorgeous.”
“Thanks.”
“And you have . . . TWENTY-EIGHT THOUSAND subscribed readers on Digitoons? Look at these comments. Holy CRAP, people love this comic. Wow, you even keep up an Instagram account for it, too?”
“Yeah. It’s the best way to keep people updated on when I’m going to drop the next chapters and stuff. I can’t post as often as other authors because of my full-time job. So, instead of dropping chapters every Tuesday or something like that, I usually end up just posting like crazy on the IG account to let people know my schedule and then dropping the chapters whenever I have them. It probably stunts my readership a little bit to not regularly release on a set schedule, but I’m all about limits. I can’t do more than I’m doing right now without quitting my job.”
“You have sixteen thousand Instagram followers.”
“Yeah. People like the artwork I post there. I post a lot of sketches and concept boards and stuff.”
“You just posted. Is this the painting you were just working on?”
“Yeah.”
“So, your comic is about two different worlds?”
“Yup. Our world, and then a parallel, flipped world that’s accessible only from underneath the lotus flowers in this one pond. And only when the lotus flowers are in bloom. Some of the characters go back and forth and get stuck on the other side and stuff like that.”
“This is so kickass. This is SO KICKASS.”
“I like it. I love it, actually. Sometimes I wonder if I should just—”
“Shhhhhh.”
“Huh?”
“I’m reading.”
“Oh, God. Don’t read it right now!”
“I’ll call you back later.”
“JD! No! Please don’t hang up on me in order to read my webcomic. Seriously. I’ll just spend the next couple hours completely stressing about what part you’re on and what you think and don’t do this to me! You’re supposed to be helping me sleep, not stressing me the hell out!”
“All right. I’ll just read it later. And I won’t tell you when I do, so you won’t have a panic attack.”
“Thank you.”
“This is seriously cool, though. How come you’ve never told anyone else?”
“I guess because at first it was just this little hobby and I didn’t think it would become anything. I’ve always had all sorts of little projects that I start and stop, and there didn’t seem to be a reason to tell anybody about it.”
“You weren’t sure you were gonna stick with it.”
“Right.”
“And then?”
“And then, when it started to gain popularity, I think I liked having it all to myself. I live a pretty . . . regimented life. And I think having this big secret made me feel more interesting or something. Like I’m capable of surprises.”
“I get that.”
“It’s my superhero side.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a theory I have. That everybody is secretly Spider-Man in some aspect of their life. There’s the Peter Parker side that we show everybody. Which is the side that makes public appearances and goes out to dinner and buys Christmas presents for his family. But the Spider-Man side cruises the city at night and makes out with people upside down in the rain and has all these friends and enemies and dramas that the people who know Peter Parker will never know about.”
“That . . . actually makes sense to me. It’s kind of badass. I’ve never thought about it that way before.”
“Does my theory apply to you? Do you have a Spider-Man side?”
“Hm. Well, I guess if we’re thinking about it that way, sometimes I feel like I’m way more Spider-Man than anything else.”
“You do seem like a very private person.”
“Not usually. I generally pride myself on being an open book. But lately things have just gotten really . . . complicated. Anyway, you’re probably my Spider-Man side. No one knows that I’m anonymously chatting with a random dude every night.”
“Bo-ring. Everybody chats with randos at night. It’s the nineties.”
“Is that right?”
“You’ve never chatted with a random before me? Then what the hell are you using your internet connection for?”
“Talking to people is too stimulating. I usually use the internet to find something that will put me to sleep.”
“Ah. Of course. I forgot the whole reason we’ve found ourselves in this situation. We’re hopeless insomniacs.”
“Hey, have you ever talked to anybody about it?”
“About why I’m not sleeping?”
“Yeah. Like a doctor or a counselor or something?”
“No, actually. I haven’t.”
“Pride?”
“Um . . . not exactly. It’s more like, I already know the reason I’m not sleeping, so going to a doctor or a counselor just seemed like a waste of time. It’s just something I have to get over. It’ll take a little time. That’s all.”
“So, you’re taking the tough guy route, huh?”
“Ha. No. That’s part of the problem, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, this whole not-sleeping thing started because of a sort of traumatic experience I had two months ago. And let’s just say I was the opposite of a tough guy.”
“Do you . . . want to tell me about it?”
“Eh. Not to dangle it out there and then leave you hanging, but . . . I’ll tell you about it at some point. I just . . . not tonight.”
“Sure. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Ha. Are you joking right now? You’re the queen of prying. You just bribed me with twenty-five points so that you could pry to your heart’s content!”
“There are lines I won’t cross! I won’t pry about important stuff. I was only prying before because I wanted you to admit you were painting a nude self-portrait.”
“Okay, well, now it’s my turn to pry.”
“You can try.”
“How come you don’t sleep, JD?”
“Hmmm. Habit mostly, I think. You know that phrase you have to wake up pretty early in the morning to whatever whatever?”
“Sure.”
“Well, that phrase applies to my dad in a literal way. If I ever wanted to help him out with anything, I had to wake up pretty early in the morning. Or else he’d just already have done everything himself. So, at some point, I started going to bed after him and waking up before him.”
“And your mom . . .?”
“Not in my life anymore.”
“Ah. Sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay, I guess. She was never a super-healthy presence in my life. It didn’t take long after she left for me to realize that I just felt . . . kinda relieved? My dad has always made sure I felt loved.”
“He really sounds like a great guy.”
“He is. He’s the best. That’s why I . . . never mind.”
“Hey, JD?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m doing my absolute best to mind my own business. But look, if you ever wanted to finish that sentence—doesn’t have to be now—but I’ll be here to listen to it.”
“Thanks, Hoffman.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So . . . ready to watch that baking show and hate ourselves for not buying any baked goods today?”
“I have no idea how something can possibly be so soothing and so torturous at the same time.”
“Let’s make a mental note to buy cookies tomorrow so we can be prepared for the torture tomorrow night.”
“I cannot start eating cookies in bed every night, JD.”
“Right. Gotta keep it tight for your nude self-portraits.”
“You’re obsessed with this idea. Now I know what I’m going to get you for your birthday.”
“If you send me a nude self-portrait I will call the police.”
“If I paint you a nude self-portrait I’ll call the police on myself.”
“Ha. Good to know.”
“Hey, uh, I know we’re joking around here. But just for the record, I’m not a perv.”
“Um. Okay?”
“Like, I’m never going to do something like that.”
“Like what?”
“Ah, send you a naked picture of myself.”
“Oh.”
“I just . . . I know that you don’t know me very well, and I don’t know you, like, at all. But I just wanted to be clear, in case you were worried about that at all. In the back of your mind or whatever. But I like you. I’d like us to keep talking. And I definitely don’t want to traumatize you.”
“I’ve seen you in person, Eliot. A naked picture of you would definitely not traumatize me.”
“Hey—oh!”
“Wow, that really made your week, didn’t it?”
“I may not know much about you, but at least I know you don’t find me traumatizingly unattractive.”
“You’re incredibly easy to please.”
“All it takes is a few compliments and a few imaginary points, and I’m good.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. All right. Baking show. Let’s do this.”
“I’m ready.”
“Press play on the count of three?”
“One, two, three—bam.”