“You,” I whisper to the genie. “Go to invisible mode. She can’t see you here or she’ll get suspicious.”
I’ve just finished saying this when a light knock comes from the door. I open it and let Brooke in. She’s carrying a gazillion little plastic bags.
“Uh, comfy clothes!” she exclaims, giving me the once over. “I am in serious trouble, then.”
“Let’s eat,” I say vaguely. I want her to bring up the subject this time.
I lay the table while she opens all the mini sushi boxes and places their contents on different platters. She knows her way around my kitchen better than I do. I admire all the serving plates covered in mini colored rolls, my favorite nigiri, and a vast selection of sashimi. She must have spent a fortune on this. I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.
We start eating in silence. The only noise is Sugar purring under the table. It’s one of his techniques to get food; he purrs in advance to make you feel obliged to share. He’s brushing against Brooke’s legs insistently.
“Don’t be nice to her,” I tell Sugar only half-jokingly. “She’s been bad.”
“Listen, Ally, I’m sorry.” Brooke finally cracks. “I know I should have told you right away, but I thought there was no point in telling you over the phone and completely ruining your weekend when you were here alone.”
“You could have said something today,” I retort icily. “What if I hadn’t texted you—would you have called me?”
The harshness in my voice takes even me by surprise. The genie, who’s been leaning against the fridge listening intently to every word we say, gives me a reproachful scowl.
“I…I…” She squirms guiltily on her chair, not able to look me in the eyes. “I don’t know,” she finally confesses.
I just raise my eyebrows, surprised.
“I know I should have called you first thing this morning, but I kept putting it off with one excuse or the other,” she continues. “I’ve been fidgeting with my phone all day long, picking it up and putting it down.”
“But why? Is it so difficult to talk to me?”
“No, honey, I simply couldn’t just call you and break your heart,” she admits. “I know how you feel about James, even if we never talk about it. I know that deep down you still think of him as the love of your life. I wanted to spare you the pain—you’re my best friend!”
The genie is giving me a smug I-told-you-so look.
“Didn’t you think I’d find out anyway?”
“Ally, I’m sorry. I wasn’t being rational. I just wanted to protect you.”
“Well, I can assure you that having Vanessa Van Horn flaunt it in my face this morning wasn’t the best of protections.”
“Vanessa? He’s engaged to Vanessa?” She’s as shocked as I was. I’ve been bitching with her about Vanessa since we started working together.
“Yep.” I feel a familiar choking sensation in my throat.
“I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know he was engaged to her. I can only apologize again. I wanted to protect you, and instead I ended up hurting you even more.”
She’s on the verge of tears. Her sincere apology moves me, so I get up, go around the table, and hug her tightly.
“I am forgiving you only because you brought sushi,” I whisper, near tears myself.
She looks at me, relief spreading all over her face.
“Just promise to tell me everything from now on, no matter how bad it is,” I add, to mark my point.
“No more secrets, I promise,” she agrees.
The word “secrets” makes me flinch a little bit, considering that right now I am the one keeping a huge, invisible one. But hey, I have no say in the matter.
Once the sushi is devoured, I grab two huge bowls, fill them with ice cream, and bring them to the living room where Brooke and Sugar are already sitting on the couch.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks tentatively.
I open up and tell her everything: my casual encounter with the happy couple on Friday night, my weekend passed in tribulation, and the final stroke of this morning. I carefully leave any reference to the genie out of my tale.
“Vanessa, huh? I wouldn’t have thought of her as James’s type,” Brooke comments. “I mean, of course she’s beautiful, but James didn’t strike me as the superficial kind.”
“That’s what I thought—this whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” I say passionately. “He can’t love someone like her; not after loving me! I know you think I’m crazy, but I still hope that he will come back to me one day.”
“Ally,” she says in a tone that you would use to explain to a three-year-old why he has to brush his teeth every night, “it’s been over a year and he’s engaged to another woman.”
“I know, but even that doesn’t make sense,” I insist. “Remember how he always said he wanted to move in with somebody before getting married?”
“Yeah—”
“I know what you’re about to say,” I interrupt her.
“No, you don’t.”
“So you’re not about to tell me that it could have been a way to avoid getting serious with me?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
“I was going to tell you that even John was surprised by the news. He said the same about the living-together-before-getting-married thing.”
“Do you think they live together?” I ask, alarmed.
“No, I know for a fact that they don’t.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Well, this morning while avoiding calling you I did some digging,” she replies shyly. “Remember when James was looking for a cleaning lady, and he asked me if I knew someone available since we live in the same neighborhood?”
“Yes, but what does this have to do with—”
She halts me with a raised hand.
“I gave him Linda’s reference,” she continues, excited. “I called her this morning and, well, it turns out she’s still working for him. So I questioned her—I asked her if James had moved out and she said no. Then I asked her if someone else had moved in, a female someone, and she said no again. She assured me that in his apartment there’s no trace of a female roommate.”
“Brooke, you’re the best!” I exclaim, excited. “You’re totally forgiven.”
“At least I helped somehow. Again, I’m sorry for not telling you right aw—”
“Stop, you don’t have to apologize again,” I reassure her. “You just made my day! I needed a piece of good news, and that proves something is definitely off.”
“Ally, I don’t know what to say,” she says pensively. “It’s true that when James left you it came as a shock. We all thought he was in love with you.” It’s the first time she’s admitted as much to me.
“See…see? I am not crazy,” I cry.
“I know. This engagement thing seems too quick,” she continues.
I sense a “but” coming.
“But, baby—” Here it is. “I think it happens all the time…people meet their missing half and throw any previous belief out the window.”
“Don’t say that,” I wail. “She’s not his missing half. I am.”
“I’m sorry, babe, but I’m not very naïve about luurve,” she says matter-of-factly. “I always try to see things for what they are. If a boyfriend leaves you, or cheats on you, or gets engaged to somebody else, I surely don’t think he did it because of a cosmic conspiracy. I just think people do what they want to do.”
“No exceptions?” I ask, hopeful.
“I haven’t seen one yet.”
“I know it seems absurd,” I admit. “But I’m telling you, there’s something wrong here. I simply can’t put my finger on what it is—yet.”
We keep obsessing about James for another hour or so. We don’t reach any conclusion except for the one that it’s time to go to bed.
“Are you planning on being a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” Brooke asks me as she gets up to leave.
“Why?” I ask, puzzled.
“Why else would you read all of this?” she asks, pointing at the scattered array of manuals adorning my living room.
“Oh, these, you mean,” I stutter, trying to find a plausible excuse for their presence in my apartment. “No, they’re, um…just some old books, um…my mom gave me to fill the cabinet. You know how she always complains this place still looks as if I’d just moved in.”
“Really?” she asks, perplexed. “They all look brand new to me.” She picks up Submarines Explained.
“You know how my mom always keeps everything in a perfect state.”
“Why was she reading about submarines, anyway?”
“That, uh…” Will the third degree ever be over? “It must have been my dad’s. You know how he loves war stuff.” I take the book from her and gently shoving her toward the door.
Meanwhile the genie is eyeing me from his comfortable position on my armchair, his facial expression growing increasingly amused by the second.
“Good night, babe,.” she says, hugging me.
“Night.”
“Have you lost weight?” She detaches herself from me to check me out.
“Just a few pounds. It must have been the stress…”
“By the way, you look fantastic. I’ve never seen you this, well—your hair, your skin…did you do something?”
“Um, yes. Actually, um, I gave myself a spa day Saturday. Mani-pedi, haircut, and a Brazilian hair reconstruction. I didn’t want to go to work looking too scruffy today. You know, give the bitch too much satisfaction.” Lie upon lie. I’ll need to prepare my excuses in advance next time. I’m not very good at deceiving.
“Well, you’re fabulous, girl. Speaking of good looks, what about that Arthur friend of yours?”
“What about him?” I ask, taken aback, worrying she might have found our story unbelievable.
“He seemed pretty handsome to me. Is he single?”
“Uh, oh. Yes, he’s single, I think.” This is even worse. I know where she’s going…
“So have you two ever…?”
“Shh, Brooke.” My face is burning scarlet. “We’re just friends.”
“Why are you shushing me? It’s not like he’s around,” she mocks me. If only she knew. “You should give it a thought. Besides being gorgeous, he behaved like a true gentleman.”
“Please, Brooke, don’t be absurd! We are just friends, and he lives in England. Plus, my heart is already taken.”
“Okay, okay. I’m just saying,” she says teasingly. “But we’re going out Friday. Ask him along, will you? Good night.”
“Okay, I will,” I confirm, rolling my eyes. “Night.”
She finally leaves, shutting the door behind her with a loud thud. I lean my forehead against it for a few seconds, relieved. I thought the questions would never end. I eventually turn around to the sight of the genie beaming with self-satisfaction.
“Gorgeous and a true gentleman,” he repeats contentedly, standing in the center of the living room. “Not bad for an old fossil like me. Not bad at all.”
“Come here, Mr. Attractive,” I call sarcastically, moving to my room. “We have to give you a Facebook profile. She’ll search you as soon as she gets home.”
“Whatever you wish, milady,” he replies complacently.
“Pick up a chair from the kitchen,” I say, sitting at my desk and turning on my laptop.
“I will be fine standing.”
“Okay. Let’s see what we have to do first…sign in with an email. I guess we need to give you an email first. Ah yes, and a cell phone. Remind me of that tomorrow—if you meet people they will ask for this kind of stuff.”
“Life was easier in the eighteenth century,” he observes dryly.
“Let’s start.” I ignore his comment. “Name: Arthur. Family name?”
“I would rather not say.”
“Still being secretive, huh? Can you at least tell me the first letter?”
“P.”
“You’ll have to invent a surname if you don’t want to say your real one,” I clarify. “P. Let me see what I can do with that.”
After some trials with different email providers, I finally find one with a free username coming only from the combination of Arthur and P.
“Date of birth?”
“Twenty-ninth of March.”
“How old were you when you were, uh…” I hesitate a little. “Imprisoned in the box?”
“I was twenty,” he answers in an indecipherable tone.
“But you look way older than that!”
“And I am indeed. However, I am afraid aging occurred more hastily in my time.” He doesn’t seem offended by my age remark. Good thing the genie is not a woman.
“I can’t put twenty. You have to be at least twenty-six or seven. Better twenty-eight, my age.”
“You are twenty-eight and you are not married?” he asks, genuinely surprised.
“Rub it in, won’t you?”
“Is it difficult to find potential good suitors at your age?”
I don’t like the inflection he puts on the word “age”.
“Don’t worry. Nowadays the official spinsterhood age is thirty-something, or even forty.”
“How interesting,” he comments, genuinely perplexed.
“Back to your profile.” I decide to drop the subject of age-appropriate singleness. “You are twenty-eight—remember this.”
“Indeed, it feels good to drop several hundreds of years at once.”
“Gender is male…password?”
“What do you mean?”
“A unique combination of letters and numbers only you know, so that only you can access your profile. Tell it to me, I’ll type it in.”
********** appears on the screen as I push the different keyboard buttons.
“It asks for a backup address. I’m putting in mine and…” I pause for suspense. “Congratulations, you have an email. Now Facebook.”
I input all the basic information again and click the sign in button.
“Now we have to add some pictures and some basic information to make it believable,” I say, grabbing my phone. “Stay against that wall. I am going to take a picture of you. Cheese.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Smile.” I roll my eyes.
He smiles charmingly as I take a couple of shots of him. I quickly email myself the photos so that I can open them on the laptop.
“Wait a minute!” I exclaim, opening the attachments. “You’re not in the pictures—you’re completely invisible!”
“I am afraid I cannot help you, milady—photography was not properly invented when I was last returned to the coffer.”
“Let me try again.” I touch the screen hopefully and check the result. “Nope, completely invisible. You’ll have to be one of those snobs without personal pictures.”
“Suits me perfectly.” He smirks.
“Apparently.”
I open some pictures from my London gallery for him to choose some.
“Is this London?” he asks, astonished.
“Yep.”
“I do not recognize it in the least.” Longing surfaces in his voice, along with wonderment.
“It has changed a lot in two hundred years, what did you expect?”
“Not this.” I don’t know if he’s more scandalized or sorry.
“Some of the old parts are still there, though,” I say, searching for some historical buildings. “This is the Parliament.”
“This?” He sounds even more baffled.
“Wasn’t this how it looked like in your time?”
“No.”
“Hm, the Tower Bridge?” I ask hopefully.
“I am pretty sure it was not there,” he comments, disdained.
“Ok, um…” I search desperately for something old-looking. “How about St. Paul’s Cathedral. Was it there?”
“Yes, it was,” he whispers, losing himself in the picture.
After that, I hit two other successes: the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace. But mostly modern London appears foreign to him.
At last, he selects a photo of the lion’s statues in Trafalgar Square with Big Ben in the background as his profile picture. Talk about a snob! As a cover pic, we put a nice night shot of the Tower Bridge that I took from a rooftop bar. We then add some plausible personal information, make everything as private as possible, and his profile is complete.