Elizabeth

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
—Hamlet

Being friends with Chelsea Abbott had landed me in some outlandish predicaments. Tonight, though, she’d promised it would be just the two of us, enjoying the total freedom of a man-free Friday night together. No flirting. No cruising. Absolutely no shenanigans.

I should have remembered Chelsea’s plans were like God’s: written in invisible ink.

It’s not that I didn’t want to meet someone—eventually, but I wasn’t into shallow hookups, and from my experience, that was the only thing on tap on the terrace of Charlottesville’s Skybar.

After a couple of beers, I’d relaxed enough to pontificate freely about a book on Foucault I was editing. “…and that’s why discourse both wields power and undermines it.” Chelsea’s eyes closed, but I went on. “Rousseau wrote, ‘There are always four sides to a story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.’”

Her head rolled back—pointedly. Oh, my God.

“Chelsea, are you awake?”

“Just slipping into a coma, E.” Rude. “What? Not everyone’s as passionate as you about post-structuralism.” One eye popped open, and she reached for her beer, swallowing the remains in one toss. With a glance at a passing frat boy, she stood. “Come on. Let’s mingle.”

Groan. “I don’t think so, Chelsea. I’ve told you. This isn’t the way I like to meet guys.” I was more content hiding in the safety of books.

I crossed my arms, ready to whine about our girls’ night out, but she just shot me a smirk. “I challenge you to check something off the list.”

Shit. Her list was a loaded weapon. “Are you serious right now?”

She mussed her vixen shoulder-length black waves and flaunted her cleavage. “What? It’ll be fun.”

This is how I ended up in such a mess.

Chelsea had a checklist, and therefore, as her co-pilot, I had a checklist. It was her therapist’s idea to help her stop running away, drinking, banging randos, or whatever avoidance techniques she’d honed like bullet time in the Matrix. I am a good friend, so I’d gone all in to create actionable experiences, ranging from benign to full-on ridiculous, and, hoping to gamify the list, I’d made the fatal suggestion to award points for every checkmark.

The prize at stake: more points, better vacation destinations.

The punishment for failure: emotional blackmail. I held a scorching letter Chelsea wrote to her shit-heel of a deadbeat dad. She had a draft of my first novel and the email address of my dream agent. Refuse a challenge: those puppies would get sent.

How was I to know she’d fuck around on my potential love life?

Because she’s Chelsea, that’s why. My bad.

The truth was, without her pushing me to get out of my shell, I’d probably never approach guys. I worked part time at a bar and watched guys operate right under my nose. Having seen their every move on other women—even with a wink to me as a complicit observer—I usually never went to a bar to pick up men. That was Chelsea’s domain.

My own personal checklist comprised a single decree: stand up for yourself. I should’ve started right away by telling Chelsea to leave me out of her machinations.

But she already had the list open on her phone, and before I could protest, she grinned mischievously. “I’ve got it. Here.”

The text she pointed to read: Have a 100% bullshit conversation with a total stranger.

“Oh, God.” Lying. To a real person. I knew her well enough to recognize a clumsy attempt to get me to break the ice with anyone at all. Still, my stomach curdled. “That’s impossible, Chelsea.”

She grimaced. “Oh, like have a deep, authentic conversation with a total stranger is so easy.”

I rolled my eyes. I’d added that one to the list, hoping she might open herself up to someone other than me—or her therapist. “It might be, if you didn’t wall yourself off from any vulnerability, pretending like you’re some heartless robot.”

She held a hand over her heart. “Shots fired.”

Chelsea could play innocent all she wanted, but unlike me, she was all in for both the hit and the quit, and she avoided romantic entanglements like I avoided STDs. And that gave me an idea to fuck with her right back. I emptied my beer for a little more liquid courage and tapped the line she’d just alluded to. “Okay, but then I am going to dare you to have a deep, authentic conversation with someone.”

She looked around, like she was afraid she might see someone she’d already shagged. “You want me to bare my soul to one of these college kids?”

“Doesn’t have to be a college kid.” A few tables over, I noticed an older guy and hoped maybe she’d agree to call the whole challenge null and void due to lack of opportunity. “What about that guy over there?”

She pressed her full lips together, making me envious of her natural voluptuous beauty. “Not in a million years. He reminds me of my dad.” She shuddered but didn’t let it go. “No. If we’re both doing this, let’s do it together.”

That’s when my eyes landed on more age-appropriate targets. How had I failed to see them before? “What about those two guys by the bar?”

Chelsea spun in the direction I was facing with a wicked twist to her mouth. “Oh, they’ll do nicely.”
As we crossed the rooftop, and I got a better look at the guys in question, I grabbed Chelsea’s arm. “Sweet Jesus. Let me have the blond.”

The blond wasn’t any ordinary Friday night bar hopper. With Chelsea egging me on, I’d never been totally shy about talking to strangers, but this guy, his type hit me square in the bullseye. A gray T-shirt hung a little loose, half tucked in and half out of his blue jeans. Dark bookish glasses barely concealed a beautiful face—perfect nose, pretty lips, eyelashes for days. When he looked over in my direction, I caught a glimpse of his green eyes. Pretty, pretty boy. He made me think dirty, dirty thoughts.

I glanced down at my own outfit. I’d only come out with Chelsea to blow off steam, not for a hookup, so I was dressed for a night at the library. Still my light sweater and jeans were no worse than what he had on.

It didn’t matter anyway. My only goal was to pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I’d probably never see pretty boy again. He might only be in town for the football game or here on business. But there was that faint possibility he was a local, someone I might like to get to know organically. What if he was a grad student who hung out in the library stacks?

I was playing with fate.

But I’d never seen him before. Chances were, I never would again.

Chelsea elbowed me. “You planning to wait until he leaves?”

Squaring my shoulders, I slowly moved in, but the closer I got, the more the butterflies in my stomach took flight. “He’s too beautiful, Chelsea. It’s painful.”

“He’s just an ordinary guy, E.” Her voice betrayed her own nerves, and that bolstered me a bit.

I was a writer, so making up entire worlds about strangers came second nature. What could I presume about this heady mix of nerd-meets-stud?

“Right. His name is something common like Chris or Daniel.” Chris Daniels dropped out of med school to sell pharmaceuticals. He had a ranch house in Waynesboro with a killer mortgage. At some point, he acquired a small dog named Snickerdoodle. He traveled too much to settle down, so he had a long-term girlfriend, but not a wife. He loved golf but hated pickles.

And so I built this boring cardboard cutout as a survival mechanism. I could talk—or in this case lie—to an ordinary, unavailable guy.

Chelsea nudged me. “Go on. I’m right behind you.”

Why didn’t that reassure me?

It was like standing in the open doorway of a plane at ten thousand feet, getting set to parachute. Not that I’d ever parachuted. Parachuting sounded risky as hell. I turned to Chelsea to bail, but she bit her lip and gave me that daring, shenanigans-leader grin. Fuck it. I was going to be someone else anyway, so it wasn’t me he was going to reject. “Okay, fine.”

After all, Oscar Wilde once said, “Give a man a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Perhaps it would make it easier to chat with this guy behind a facade.

“Remember: nothing but utter bullshit.” Easy for Chelsea to say.

At least we were in this together. I shot her a smug smile in return. “And you’re sworn to complete, authentic truth.”

I turned my character sketch powers inward. After all, if I could invent an entire fiction out of thin air for a total stranger, how hard could it be to cast myself as the heroine of my own story? My life’s motto was pretend, pretend, pretend.

I came up with an impromptu plan and pushed up to the bar right beside my target. As soon as I’d procured another round of drinks, I turned and casually scanned the crowd on the terrace. Fortunately, Chris Daniel’s eyes met mine, and it was go time.

I let my features move from idle curiosity to astonishment. “Hey!”

His expression shifted slightly with confusion mixed with a hint of interest. This could go south so fast.

My theatrics gained momentum. “Oh, my gosh. How long has it been?”

He squinted at me for a heartbeat, and I held my breath. Chelsea had moved to a stool at my elbow, and I prayed he’d at least have the courtesy to act like he remembered me, to nod politely, and go along while his brain tried to figure out how much of an asshole he’d be for not recognizing someone from his past.

But instead, he just stared at me, and I suddenly panicked. What if he didn’t even speak English? What if he didn’t want to talk to me? My stomach lurched.

I swallowed the paranoid thinking, replacing it with strategy. This situation required bait, but it had to be generic enough that I could be anybody, or he might shut me down, tell me I had the wrong guy.

“It’s Elizabeth,” I said, forgetting to make up a name. Hoping Chelsea would let that go, I pressed on. “I was in your class with, uh—” If I prompted him to fill in the blanks, he could take a stab, and I could go from there.

He sucked on his lower lip, and I squeezed my fists, hoping he’d fake his way through the lie to avoid looking rude. Then he double blinked, and his smile widened. “Lizzy? Lizzy Graham?”
Oh, my fuck. I died a little inside. He wasn’t supposed to believe me. Was this how it felt when a parachute failed to open?