He shifts on his stool and light hits his face. For a moment I see a beard and a very sharp blue eye.” My heart races.
“What’s your name?” he asks. I blink at the terseness in his voice.
“Helena,” I say. “And you’re right. I do have a broken heart. And I don’t drink whiskey. What’s your name?”
“Muslim,” he says. He waits like he expects something from me. When I don’t respond, he says, “Tell me about this man you love, Helena.”
The man I love? I suck in my cheeks and stare at the place where he’s sitting like I can see him.
“Tell me about all the women you didn’t, Muslim.”
He slides his glass back and forth across the bar top, considering me.
“It’s your power move,” I tell him. “Getting women to tell you their truths while you hide all of yours. Is that right?”
“Perhaps.” I hear the catch in his voice.
“What causes you to want that power?”
He laughs. It’s a deep, throaty laugh.
“The lack or distortion of something usually causes a deep need for it,” he answers. “Wouldn’t you think?”
“Unless you’re a sociopath. Then you just crave things because you were born with the need. Are you a sociopath, Muslim?”
“My truth for yours,” he says. His voice slays me. It makes me feel lightheaded with all of that richness. A grating finery. I want to kiss him based on his voice alone.
“All right,” I say slowly. I turn my body toward him because I’m really getting into this. “He’s my former best friend’s fiancé. They have a baby.” I tell him the story of Della’s time in the hospital, and of my time with Kit and Annie. When I’m finished, there’s a flash of light as he lifts his glass to his mouth and takes a sip.
“Yes, I am,” he says. It takes a minute for me to realize he’s answering my question and is not commenting on what I told him. “I find out what makes people tick, and then I use it against them.”
“And when you say people, you mean women?”
“Yes,” he says.
I am a little stunned.
“Don’t you … don’t you feel bad about that?”
“I am a sociopath, remember?”
“But you’re not supposed to admit that,” I say quietly.
And then he says, “Does he feel the same way about you that you feel about him?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “He feels something.”
“So why aren’t you doing anything about it?”
I am taken by surprise, though I probably shouldn’t be, considering he just admitted to being a sociopath.
“What is there to do? He’s with someone else. They have a baby.”
“You have something of his,” he says. At first I shake my head; I have nothing of Kit’s. I wish I did. Then I feel the ache in my shoulder. There is a manuscript in my purse, the envelope wrinkled and soft. How does he know? I get chills.
“I do. A book he wrote. I haven’t opened the envelope to read it.”
I expect him at least to recoil about that one. Instead, I see his shoulder lift and fall in a shrug.
“Did he write it to reach you?” he asks.
“Good question. I don’t know. Maybe to say goodbye.” My eyes focus on the tinsel. It doesn’t look so bad. I don’t know why I was so jazzed about it.
“You’ll never know unless you read it. Then you can decide what to do.” His voice is a little melancholy. I’m just noticing. Rich and sad.
“There’s nothing to do. He’s moved on. I told him to go.”
Where is the bartender? My drink is done. I need saving from this man who is trying to bend my thoughts.
“You’re going to tell me that all is fair in love and war,” I say. “And that’s just not true.”
He laughs. It’s a throaty laugh. Not insincere, but not completely honest either.
“There is only war in love,” he says. “If anyone tells you otherwise, they’re lying. The constant fight to keep love relevant, while growing and changing as a human, is the battle. You fight for them, fight to keep them, fight to love them. Do you fight for yourself, or do you fight for the relationship? What can’t you live without? There’s your answer.”
I listen. He speaks with conviction, and whether or not I believe him, I am compelled to weigh his words. I see him stand up, and I am given a brief glimpse of his face as he slides a bill out of his wallet and drops it on the bar. He is even younger than I thought, handsome, with a neatly trimmed beard. He walks toward me, and I tense. It’s the roll of his shoulders—a man who moves like a lion. I don’t want to know who he is, but I do. He feels dangerous, like a man with an agenda. I’ve barely had time to register the agenda part when he’s looming over me, and I have to look up at him. The sunlight from the windows glints in my eyes. I clutch the edges of my stool like a child.
“We are only given one life. You want to waste it waging war against yourself, go right ahead.”
He reaches out and touches a thumb to the space between my eyes, then leans down to speak close to my ear. “Or you can fight for what you want,” he says softly. His breath blows up strands of my hair. “What are you scared of, Helena?”
I’ve never said it out loud. Never confessed to a friend, but here I am confessing to a stranger.
“I’m scared of what they’ll really think of me. If I embrace who I know I am.”
I am trembling. My confession saps the strength, the whiskey, right out of me.
He smiles like he was waiting for this all along. He has warm skin; I can feel the heat radiating off him. God, this man is probably never cold.
“Let people feel the weight of who you really are, and let them fucking deal with it.”
I am breathless—my mouth open and my eyes glazed. An orgasm for the truth.
He drops a piece of paper on the bar next to my empty glass and walks out the door.
The spot on my forehead where he touched me is tingling. I reach up and rub it. The weight of who I am. It isn’t my responsibility to deal with it. It is theirs. Muslim is right. I am, what I am, what I am. Stay or leave.
His words settle over me. I narrow my eyes against them. I don’t have to believe. I don’t. But I do. And that’s when things change. Can change wash over you in a matter of seconds? It just takes the right moment, the right words, the aligning of brain and heart. I will fight.
Muslim Black is staying in Manresa Castle. I hear it’s haunted to high hell—dead women tortured by love and all of that bullshit. You can’t even die and escape a broken heart. Depressing. Haunting or not, there’s something about Muslim that tells me he won’t mind a few ghosts. I don’t call him right away. I carry the slip of paper in my pocket. It feels like a live thing. It’s just your curiosity, I remind myself. Did he creep me out, or was I attracted to him? Maybe it was both. What does that say about me anyway? When I do finally call him, he answers the phone saying my name. The voice that encumbers enough rasp and spice to make every hair on your body stand on end. And then it says your name. The E’s are breathy, the last letter strong. It’s his own way, and no one has ever said it like that before.
“Hello, Helena.”
“How’d you know it was me?” My heart pounds, and I have to bend over at the waist and hide my face between my knees until it’s time to talk again.
“I don’t give people this number.”
“You gave me the number.”
“I can’t hear you…”
I sit up and say it again.
“You’re not people,” he says.
I wonder if he’s lying on the hotel bed or walking around the room.
“Who am I?”
I hear him shifting the phone around. Perhaps changing positions. Is he weighing how best to answer me? I don’t want to be part of his game; that’s not why I called. When he answers me, his voice is rich, back to normal. “You’re Helena. Isn’t that enough?”
I sniff. “Don’t do that,” I say
. “Try to make me feel special so you can hook me.”
He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Okay.”
“Can you teach me how to do what you do?”
“Which is what?”
I don’t want to play that game. I want him to read my mind like before. Not make me beg.
“Never mind.” I start to hang up the phone when I hear him say, “No, no, no! Wait. Helena…” Did his facade falter? I’m curious. Which is the only reason I bring the phone back to my ear. I don’t have time to be sorry for calling, because then he’s telling me what I want to hear.
“Yes. Yes, I’ll teach you.”
To get what you want, but to still be suspicious—it’s a grimy feeling. Like you’re doing something wrong. And I am, aren’t I? I decide to check Muslim’s motives, not mine.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because you asked me to.” And then, “Would you like to meet for dinner?”
I agree to meet him at Alchemy the next night. I suggested somewhere light and warm with lilac walls that reminded me of Greer, but Muslim wanted Alchemy.
“I like the name,” he said, before we settled on six o’ clock.
I dress all in black, but when I look at myself in the mirror, I look deranged and frightened. So, I change into a beige sweater and ripped blue jeans that Greer says make me look like a sexpot. My topknot is extra large and in charge as I walk down to Alchemy at 5:55. I do not feel in charge, and that is the point of Muslim Black, I suppose. Am I really doing this to get Kit back? Or am I in some sort of grieving, fascinated rebound phase? Who cares? I tell myself. Just do what you need to. Whatever that is. Before I walk in the door to Alchemy, I take a selfie, titled: Hooked.
Muslim is already sitting at the table, a drink next to his hand, the glass sweating. I’m glad I’m not the only one sweating. Wait, Kit. How long has it been since I’ve thought about Kit? When he sees me, he stands up. He’s not a city boy. That’s something my dad does, and he does it because his dad made him.
“Seems you’re never without one,” I say, slinging my purse over the back of my chair. He waits for me to sit down, and then takes his own seat.
“Says the girl who drinks whiskey at three o’clock on a weekday, while picking up sociopathic men.”
What can I even say to that?
I lick my lips and order a nice, feminine glass of wine to go with my mirth.
Muslim watches everything I do with interest. When I laugh and joke around with our server, he watches us with a small smile, his eyes traveling from her to me. When I drop a butterball on my lap, and then five minutes later almost knock my glass of wine over, he laughs and shakes his head. If he hadn’t admitted all of those things about himself earlier, I’d think he was enamored with me. It’s all part of his ruse. I respect that—in the kind of way you respect a rattlesnake. It has me on edge, biting the inside of my cheeks. I’m waiting for him to strike, poison me. But he’s surprisingly normal, natural, charismatic. Oh my God, he’s so good at this.
“I have to tell you something,” he says, when our meals arrive. “I came tonight because I wanted to have dinner with you. There’s not a thing I can show you about yourself, or teach you, that you don’t already know.”
I laugh. I’m on my third glass of wine, and everything feels funny.
“I’m a mess,” I say.
“A lovely mess.”
“What does that mean?” I eye him over my plate, wanting and not wanting. He makes me feel like someone else. Someone dangerous and sexy.
“You’re just raw, and yourself, and beautiful. You don’t need anything from anyone, unless it’s the kind of love that chooses you first, always.”
“Chooses me over who? His baby? His fiancée?” I shake my head dismissively. “He can’t do that. I need to convince him.”
Muslim reaches across the table and touches the top of my hand as I reach for my wine glass. The spot starts to tingle right away.
“You shouldn’t have to convince anyone to choose you. There is no real choice in love.”
He settles back in his seat, and I stay frozen, the stem of the glass still between my fingertips.
“It shouldn’t just be people he chooses you over. But himself as well.”
“So maybe you should be coaching me on how to move on and not give a fuck,” I say finally. “Because that’s not going to happen.”
“Have you ever tried to walk away from something you love?” he asks me.
“Kit Isley is the first thing I’ve truly loved,” I tell him. “I haven’t walked away yet.”
“There is no walking away.” He dips the bread they brought us into the oil they brought us. When he touches his mouth with it, it leaves a glistening mark on his lips. Something to kiss away. God! What is wrong with me? It’s like I’m in heat.
“Trying to walk away from something you love is like trying to drown yourself. You want to, but it’s unnatural to not crave air. Your body demands it; your mind says you need it. Eventually you break to the surface, gasping and unable to deny yourself that basic need of air. Of love. Of fierce desire.”
I am so enraptured I barely notice my water being filled in light of my soul being filled. Muslim is giving me answers.
“How many women have you slept with?” I ask.
It’s not okay to ask strangers personal questions. My mother taught me this. Do not ask them their age, or their weight, or how many people they’ve slept with. My mother never told me that, but I can imagine it’s high up on the no-no list.
“I wouldn’t be able to tell you,” he says. “How many have you slept with?”
I think about Roger in high school. Sweet, pimply-faced Roger. I liked him for five minutes before we graduated. Hey, he got my virginity.
“Two,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t ask people such personal questions, you know?”
“I know.”
He pushes his glass around with his fingertips. Furtive, little pushes like he just needs something to do with his hands. His incisors, I notice, are longer than the rest of his teeth. When he’s thinking, he rubs the tip of his tongue across their points.
“You remind me of a vampire,” I say. “In more than one way.”
Muslim laughs for the first time. It’s a quiet laugh. It reaches his eyes more than it reaches my ears.
“I like you,” he says.
“I can tell.”
“Do you like me?”
“I don’t know.”
I could be mistaken, but this seems to make him happier.
“Maybe I do like you,” I say. “I wouldn’t really know because I’m not sure if you’re showing me who you really are.”
“My, my, my Helena Conway. You certainly say whatever you’re thinking.”
“If only we could both be so lucky,” I shoot back. Muslim laughs, looks away, laughs some more. When he turns back to me, he’s licking his lips.
“Want to get out of here, Helena?”
I have a moment of hesitation before I nod.
“How are you going to do this?” Greer asks. She has a notepad and a stack of purple permanent markers. Her hand is poised over the paper as she waits. I glance at her as I wash dishes. The minute I told her my thoughts on telling Kit how I felt, she was on board.
“I sort of thought honesty was the best approach.”
Greer writes HONESTY on her notepad, and then looks up at me expectantly.
“I don’t have a plan.”
She tears out the page and hands it to me. “Don’t deviate from the plan,” she says, patting me on the head. After that, she retreats to her bedroom. I still haven’t seen her damn bedroom. I’m suddenly upset about this. What is she hiding in there anyway? I march over to her door and knock. Probably harder than I should. When she answers, she’s wearing a towel like she was just about to get in the shower.
“Sorry,” I say, embarrassed. “I … just … I—”
Greer stands aside, and I reluctantly look into her bedroom.
br /> “Whoa,” I say.
“Yeah…”
I blink at the nothingness. An empty white room, with scratched wood floors, and a couple of blankets piled in the corner.
“What the hell?” I say. Greer is looking at the floor.
“I just haven’t gotten around to doing anything with it yet.”
“Okay, no. You don’t even have a bed.”
I look around, hoping to see something that can explain Greer’s lack of … anything.
“The furniture in your room,” she says, “belonged to Kit and me. I didn’t want to use it. I couldn’t. And then I just never got around to replacing it.”
“Okay,” I say. “But you’re sleeping on the floor.”
Her face screws up like she doesn’t know what to say.
“You want me to fight to be with him, but you aren’t over him,” I say.
“I am over him,” she says quickly. “It was just such a hard time, it all still affects me. It was a really messy break up, Helena.”
I nod. I don’t remember Kit telling me it was messy. He played it off like it wasn’t a big deal. He played off a lot of stuff like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Okay. I have to go,” I tell her. “But let’s order a bed tonight, okay?”
She nods. I can feel her watching me as I walk away. Also, I am sleeping in their former bed. I make a face. I’ll be ordering a new bed too.
Della has a wedding date. She knows I’m watching her Instagram. She wants me to see it. June sends me a screenshot after the first wedding countdown post.
J: Are you seeing this?
Yup.
J: She asked me to be a bridesmaid.
I’m not surprised. Della has like three girlfriends, two of them borrowed from me, and my attempt at being social in college. I wonder who Kit’s groomsmen will be—if I see them here around town?
J: You should come. Do something about this.
I’m surprised; it doesn’t feel like June to say something like that. I think about telling her that I plan on doing just that, but in the end, I put my phone away, try not to think about it. But, I do. I think about it plenty. I think about the way he looked with the collar of his coat pulled up around his neck, his shoulders dusted with raindrops as he waited for me with a bottle of wine. I think about the way he smiled when he saw me walking toward him, the corners of his lips tugging up into a smirk. I think about the way we lingered for a few minutes longer after saying goodbye to each other, neither of us wanting to leave. I think about the way his lips yielded against mine, the rhythm of our kissing. The way I would have to wrap my hand around the back of his head, and lean against him to keep from toppling over. I’m at work, and I have to go to the bathroom to splash water on my face.