The Muse (20 page)

Instead of replying to her message right away, I decided to stalk more. I went onto her Facebook profile and read through her timeline and interactions. That same girl kept liking everything Eva posted even if she said something silly like ‘It’s raining, and I forgot my umbrella in the car again.’ I clicked on the girl’s profile and accessed an alarming amount of information. She wanted the world to know exactly what she did with her life. I read all about her, about how she loved basketball and rollerblading on the pier and shrimp fried in beer batter. She loved Notre Dame football and adored live theatre and especially her girlfriend Eva Handel, whom she’d been devoted to for the past five years.

Girlfriend.

My heart bucked. My throat dried up. My blood turned thick as oil. Who was this bitch and why hadn’t my Eva told me about a girlfriend?

I read more. She graduated from University of Maryland University College with a master’s degree in computer engineering and moved to Boston to pursue a position at a tech firm. She loved to visit New York City, where she enjoyed meeting up with her girlfriend to watch her act in plays. She wrote a small tribute to her saying Eva was her teacher and mentor and the reason she smiled and loved life.

All feeling evaded me. I could no longer swallow. My head buzzed. My temples pulsed. Alarms in all bodily systems flared to tsunami warning levels. The ground may as well have eaten me up and swallowed me whole because I no longer wanted to be a part of this ride, this life, this existence. I just wanted to shut my eyes and pretend I never landed on Eva’s mismatched shoes, never imagined her adoring smile from afar, never tweeted to her about Old Bay seasoning, never tangled myself up into a web that grabbed me and strangled the life from my cells like a mad tornado sucking all fixtures from a house.

I tortured myself further. I trekked into her pictures and saw several of them holding hands. I searched recent pictures and could find none of them together. I saw this gorgeous, blonde girl with hair as smooth as glass and a size two body with style and grace and sex appeal. In her cover photo, she leaned against a red sports car wearing a set of Ray Bans. She looked like a freaking sunglasses model.

I wanted to throw up.

I retraced my steps back to Eva’s profile and scanned to find more information on this chick named Sara. Nothing. I could find nothing on Eva’s profile that connected the two other than Sara’s incessant, compulsive need to ‘like’ everything Eva posted. Eva’s status said single. Her pictures showed no signs.

I reread her message to me. Was this the norm? Flirt online where your lover won’t catch you? Were they lovers? Was she taking me on a fake ride to see how far she could get me to go?

Was she just a big fake like me? Did we cancel each other’s fakeness out and that made it okay for us to mingle and flirt? I savored my secrets, she savored hers. Two wrongs making a right?

I needed to understand this in full detail.

I would bait her. I logged into Messenger. “What did you dream about?”

“You and I were acting in a short film together. One that you wrote. I stood before you as a professor and you sat as my pretty, flirty student.”

And just like rainwater, her words and her charm washed away my envy and lifted me up to higher ground once again where I no longer wanted to punch something. The girl could’ve just had a crush on my Eva. Who wouldn’t? Eva didn’t commit a crime here. “Maybe one day I’ll surprise you and write something for you.”

“I love surprises.”

“I bet there’s a lot you love,” I wrote. “I want to know more about you.”

“Like?”

“Like how did you get involved in acting?”

“I played the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz when I was in second grade. That’s when I got the itch.”

“You must’ve been adorable.”

We continued to message back and forth for two hours. I fed her question after question and enjoyed learning all about Eva Handel’s passions and silly fears. She would volley me a question, and I pointed her away with the skill of an Aikido master, focusing her right back to herself. Eventually, she stopped me and begged me to tell her something personal about myself.

“I hate talking about myself.”

“It’s weird because most people like it.”

“I’d rather let my story unfold naturally.”

“Well at least talk to me about your writing. Have you written me another sweet story yet?”

“I wrote one last night. It’s not sweet, though. It’s sort of sad.” I hung my vulnerability on the line like I would a set of wet towels. Progress?

“Good writing needs to be honest. Sadness is part of life. I want to read it.”

“I’ll send it to you.” I wanted the attention off of me and back on her. “So tell me more about other good things happening in your life.” I hoped she’d take the bait and offer something up about this girl.

“Well, my company just offered me an incredible opportunity. I’m going to be the spokesperson for them. I’ll be the face of Martin Sporting Goods in a series of public service announcements.”

“Wow,” I wrote, sounding markedly surprised. “That sounds fantastic.”

“I’ll be filmed right here in a film studio. I get a wardrobe allowance. I get national coverage in commercials.”

“I’m so happy for you.”

“My aunt and uncle are thrilled. I’m finally going to be able to pay them off for when they bailed me out of a bad house deal.”

“Oh? What did you do? Buy when the market climbed too high?”

“Sort of. I went through an ugly divorce when I was nineteen. We had to sell low and we still owed money. My aunt and uncle bailed us out so we could sell it and make a clean break.”

Girlfriend? Divorce? What next? Fuck the mysterious and discovery phase. My heart couldn’t take anymore. “You were married?”

“Just for a very short time. I married my high school boyfriend. It ended ugly. We never should’ve gotten married. I realize now that I only did because he was a way out. Thankfully, it’s behind both of us now.”

I wanted to know her story. Was Handel even her real last name? Why was it ugly? How could anything with her be ugly? “Can I ask you something personal?”

“Of course, honey.”

“Are you dating anyone? And, if you are, you don’t have to hide it.”

“Are you?” she asked.

I chuckled on this one. If she only knew. “No.”

“I’ve had this on-again, off-again, relationship with this girl for several years. Right now, we’re off.”

“What’s her name?”

“Her name is Sara. She’s just really jealous and possessive.”

“How so?”

“She doesn’t want me to act because she doesn’t want anyone else near me.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, honey. It’s not. I don’t want to hurt her, but this is my dream.”

“I’d never do that to you.”

“I adore you,” she wrote.

“I think I adore you more.”

# #

The next night after work I couldn’t resist. I combed through her Facebook profile again searching for some clues about an ex-husband. That girl appeared again, liking everything Eva posted. Eva still had yet to like any of hers.

Good girl.

By ten o’clock, I caved and just asked her. “I want to hear about your ugly divorce. Did he treat you badly?”

“No. I wish I could say yes. I was sort of a bad person.”

I defined a bad person as a mass murderer, an animal torturer, a child abuser, an elderly exploiter. So, I exhaled on the faith that she was none of these. “Spill it.”

“You have to answer at least one personal question for me first because my story is going to get deep.”

I blew out hot air. “What’s your question?”

“What is your typical day like?”

“I wake up, I work out, I sip coffee, I stalk you on Twitter—hehe totally kidding—and I sometimes fantasize about winning the Pulitzer Prize.”

“Why are you so afraid to talk about yourself?”

“I don’t understand. I just did.”

“That could’ve been anyone’s life. I wanted something personal to you. It’s like you’re hiding behind that baseball cap brim.”

The inevitable started. “Give me time. I unpeel very slowly.”

“Okay. That was super sexy and hot.”

A warm ripple surged through me. “Mmm. Well, that’s because you have a way of bringing that out in me.”

“Well, I wish I could bring out more in you.”

“Here’s one more piece of my puzzle and then it’s back to you. I love John Denver.”

“Whoa. Way too much information.”

“I thought so. Now spill your story.”

“Here goes. I cheated on him and got pregnant. I passed it off as his until I discovered it was a molar pregnancy.”

I already typed in molar pregnancy before she sent her next message.

“He blamed himself for the molar pregnancy, so he scheduled a vasectomy because he didn’t want me to ever suffer again.”

I read the medical site. It described that a molar
pregnancy was when tissue that normally became a fetus instead became an abnormal growth. The pregnancy was thought to be caused by a genetic issue of the egg or sperm. The growth needed to be removed immediately or hemorrhaging could occur. Sometimes this disease kept growing after the molar pregnancy was removed and turned into cancer. My chest sunk. I imagined her crying, sadness seeping into every morsel of her life at that moment, planning one minute to be a mommy, the next to end up a cancer patient.

“I confessed that I had gotten pregnant when he had been out of town for a month. He assumed I was two months pregnant when in fact I was three. That’s how I knew the other guy had gotten me pregnant.”

I kept reading the medical article and learned that a woman had to be blood tested for the following six to twelve months to ensure no more of the diseased tissue remained. If it appeared, it could turn into cancer.

“Was it cancer?”

“You’re researching this right now, aren’t you?”

“Well, tell me.”

“I cheated on my husband. Did you read that part?”

“You were nineteen. I get it. Was it cancer or not?”

“It was not cancer. The guy I slept with served in the war. Some soldiers at the time had issues producing healthy babies.”

“Thank God.” I always wanted her healthy and glowing, hair flowing, eyes sparkling, lips pouty and fleshy and full of color.

“So, penises, huh?” I asked.

“I went through a phase.”

“Isn’t it usually the other way around?”

“I’ve never been one to abide by the norm.”

“Good news for me (wink).”

“Those winks get me every time, honey.”

My libido hung on the line with my vulnerability waiting on the breeze for its dance. I wanted to play. “I’m glad.” As long as both of us were probably still hiding a couple of things, why not? I didn’t plan on a real relationship with her anyway. CarefreeJanie craved more euphoria, more stoking, more fire. “Did I tell you that you woke me up caressing me with your yummy lips?”