A Diamond in the Rough

by Elisa Marie Hopkins

  Since we’ve barely spoken these past few days, I can’t help but feel left out. “So that’s it? That’s all I get?”

  “Sophie, don’t make a big deal,” he says, grabbing the closest jacket he can find. “Go back to bed. It’s late.” As he walks out of the closet, his phone rings again. He sees the caller ID and doesn’t answer it.

  “Oliver, I’m lost here.” I throw up my hands. “Is it me? Did I do something? You don’t look at me. You pretend like I’m not here. Am I just a nice home bird? What is going on?”

  He turns around and faces me. “Sophia.” His voice is gentle and even, but there’s a storm in his eyes. “Listen to me. You need to calm down.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “And you need to trust me.”

  “I don’t need to calm down. I need,” I pause to breathe, “I need you to talk to me.”

  “I have to go.” He presses his lips to my forehead. “I’ll call you soon.”

  He storms out of the house. I wonder what’s so important that it’s worth waking him up at the crack of dawn; he doesn’t even take a shower. I don’t go back to sleep. He doesn’t call me.

  Early morning, as I’m slumped over a stool in the kitchen having a bowl of fruit with yogurt, my gaze drifts around. The penthouse feels too big and too cold. Thea is dicing up fruit while half-contemplating the news of the day on the kitchen TV. “A miracle cat survives a wildfire in Lake Placid,” informs the lady newscaster. Thea mutters something in German and switches the channel to CNN. We quickly get wrapped up in a breaking news story.

  “A nationwide manhunt is underway for notorious psychiatrist, John Henry Bridges, a man accused of raping and murdering at least ten woman in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York vicinity. Bridges escaped from supermax prison in the City of Elmira, New York, three days after his arrest. This morning, Bridges is still on the run. More on the story, coming up.”

  My heart is heavy after the station cuts to commercials. At seeing his picture on TV, my stomach churns with anger and disgust.

  “Everything okay, Miss Sophie?” asks Thea. The words are thick with her German accent.

  “Are you not watching the news? Of course, everything’s not okay. It’s upsetting, really.”

  “The world isn’t so bad,” she says, slicing up a pineapple into rings.

  “It’s not the world that’s messed up. It’s the people who inhabit it.”

  “You know, Mr. Oliver is a good man. Kind to everybody. Caring. Never insults me. Never burdens me with too much work.”

  I stiffen, stunned at her words. “Why do I sense there’s a ‘but’ coming up?”

  “Just keep in mind, Mr. Oliver is human.”

  “Is there a reason why you’re telling me all this?”

  “I heard you fighting with Mr. Oliver very late.” She keeps her head down, her voice low. “I hope you can work things out.”

  I smile sadly. “Yeah...me too.” I shove a spoonful of yogurt in my mouth, my eyes drifting to look out the window.

  ***

  AT JESS’S APARTMENT, I let out a long exhale as I put some of my things inside a box. Jess has already settled a glut of her things in what used to be my room, making it incredibly difficult for Stacey and me to move through it without hitting our feet or tumbling something over.

  “I can’t fucking believe you couldn’t hire someone to do this.” Stacey’s voice strains as we push a heavy box into the living room. She lets the box drop to the floor. “I can’t do this,” she wheezes. “I can’t do this.”

  “We’re almost done,” I say. “I promise.”

  I pull up my jeans by grabbing the sides and jumping at the same time. I reach down and put my arms underneath the box. “One, two, three...”

  “Seriously, it’s fucking Home Depot in here with all the do-it-yourself heavy lifting.”

  I save my breath. We go into the living room, pain in my back, pain in my arms, and drop the box beside the other family of boxes.

  Stacey pants for air. She grabs her hips. “Goddamn it. What are you carrying in there, rocks? I think I pulled a muscle.”

  “Books.”

  She looks at me like I’ve just told her the most ridiculous lie. “Books?”

  I guess I can’t blame her, or anybody else, for not believing me automatically, seeing as I constantly lie about pretty much everything concerning my life. I wouldn’t believe me either.

  “Yes. Books. Reading books.”

  She almost chokes on her laugh. “Since when do you read?”

  I pretend to move stuff around so I don’t have to look at her reaction. “Oliver gave me some books to read, and music to listen to. It’s not the most outrageous thing in the world.”

  “Ah, Oliver...I see. I get it now. Does poor Oliver know you don’t read them?”

  From the way she says it, she makes me feel absolutely incompetent. “I do read them,” I say a little too loud. “I’ve been reading classics and philosophy and business management...I don’t know...I’ve been thinking of going back to school for quite some time.”

  Silence hangs in the air for a second. Then, she cracks up laughing, bringing her hands to her stomach as though she can’t control herself.

  I cross my arms over my chest and glare at her. “Are you done?”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. Did you say go back to school?”

  “Yeah,” I shrug. “I never went to college. Modeling was always first. But I think now I could make it. Maybe even get a business degree.”

  She turns and sits on the armchair like it’s her throne, arms spread wide to the sides, legs crossed. “Business degree? And do what with it? Sell your name? Sell drugs? What are you going to sell?”

  “Business isn’t only about sales, Stacey.”

  “Oh, okay, excuse me, business lady.” She emphasizes the word “okay” with her blue almond eyes wide open. “The way I see it, you have no idea because this idea clearly has Oliver written all over it.”

  “This is my idea!”

  “Dude, come on. You’re too pretty to be smart. You can’t be both, Soph. And guess what? You don’t fucking have to! It’s why you’re out there flaunting your looks to the world and getting paid for it.”

  “Is that really how you see me?”

  “I’m just trying to be an honest friend here. You’re almost thirty, so if you’re not getting any younger, where do you think you’re going with all of this?”

  “I’m twenty-five, Stacey. Twenty-five! And what? I’m too old to do anything significant with my life? I should just sit back and do nothing but count the days until I’m dead?”

  “Okay, don’t be a drama queen. All I’m saying is maybe you should be doing something like getting married. Although, kudos to you for already playing house with your boyfriend. You’ve got your foot in the door already, use that to your advantage, Soph. Stop wasting your time.”

  I’m not old. I’m still young. That’s what I tell myself. I slide my ringing phone out of my back pocket. It’s a strange number.

  “Sophie, how’s your day coming along?”

  I chafe inwardly at hearing Oliver’s voice. I want to shout at him, tell him I’ve been waiting for his call all day. “Everything’s good,” I say instead. “Stacey and I are finishing up with packing my stuff at Jess’s apartment. Where are you calling me from? I don’t—”

  Stacey snatches the phone right out of my hand. In no time, she begins gushing words out of her mouth. Her sentences running on, her thoughts overflowing too fast, and occasionally she stops talking long enough to laugh and run a finger across her collarbone, which I know she does when she’s flirting. What she doesn’t know is that she sounds like a dying donkey.

  I stand there with my hands on my hips, degraded, or annoyed, or both. Not that anyone can tell.

  “Yeah, I know,” she goes on. “Saturday? Hell yeah!” She twirls the ends of her strawberry-blonde hair. “Later!”

  I claim my phone back. Stacey says he hung up already.

&nbs
p; My phone rings again. This time I shout in exasperation. “What?”

  Hearing nothing on the other end, I pull the phone away from my ear and notice a different number on the screen.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “Sophie,” speaks the voice of a man using a voice disguiser. I can’t tell who it is, but I figure it’s just a prank.

  I chuckle. “Yeah?”

  “Sophie Cavall.”

  I feel a chill pass over my body. I take a moment to answer. There is something in his voice that warns me and makes me think I’m being watched. My eyes dart around the living room. “Who is this?”

  “Someone who’s not done with you yet.”

  Immediately I hang up and toss the phone on the couch.

  Stacey eagerly asks, “Who was it?”

  I shrug. “Beats the hell out of me.”

  Seconds later the phone rings again. Stacey and I stare at it as it rings and vibrates on the sofa. I tell her not to move a muscle, but Stacey—hardheaded that she is—quickly scoops it up, speaks into it, and listens for a moment.

  “What the fuck?” she says gripped with panic after the call ends.

  “What happened? Was it a man? What did he say?”

  She takes a second to answer, sounding confused. “He said...he said my name.” Her tone of voice leaves no doubt in my mind that she’s as weirded out as I am.

  I blink rapidly. “And?”

  “And that I don’t want to get involved. What the fuck does that mean?”

  I take deep breaths and run my fingers through my hair, debating on what to do next. I stare off in the distance as I say, “Stacey, who knows you’re here?”

  “What?” She looks at me, abashed. “No one.”

  “Clearly, someone knows you’re with me!” I rub a hand over my face, feeling tired and pissed off. “Think, Stacey! Who did you tell?”

  “Shit, I don’t know! It’s not like I went out and put an ad on the damn Internet. He recognized my voice, I guess.”

  “That’s insane, Stacey! Did you tell your roommate?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No. I hate that hippie.”

  “What about Jonathan? Did you tell him?”

  “Fuck no.” She scowls. “I don’t talk to that scumbag anymore. I told you. What the hell is going on?”

  I can feel a lump forming in my throat. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I need to think.” I dash for the windows and shut the curtains. I grab the phone again and click on the last number that called my line.

  “What are you doing?” shrieks Stacey.

  I hit the call button. “Calling him back.”

  The operator says, “The number you are trying to reach does not exist.”

  ***

  JESS AND ERIC walk in the front door of the apartment as Stacey and I are going back and forth on whether or not the call was a joke and who it could’ve been while we struggle to move a heavy box across the hallway.

  “Let me help you with that.” Eric quickly puts his arms around the box.

  “No, Eric. We don’t need help,” I reply. The words come out more strained than harsh as my scraggy arms are carrying half the weight of the box.

  Stacey raises an eyebrow and looks at me like I’ve gone off the deep end. “As if! Here,” she tells Eric, “hold my end. I’m fucking tired.”

  The truth is I’m close to fainting. Not only am I tired of moving and lifting boxes, but I’m also becoming paranoid. While I’m in my Sophie daze, Eric manages to put the box near the door.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Jess asks me all of a sudden.

  She catches me off guard. “What?”

  “About the boxes, you weirdo. You clearly need a hand. It was a half-day at school for me, and Eric’s shift is not until midnight. We’ll be glad to help, right?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Eric looks at his watch. “What do you want me to do?”

  “You don’t have to do anything. It’s okay,” I say. “There aren’t many boxes left anymore.”

  Stacey chimes in. “What?” she shouts in outrage. “Are you insane? There’s a shitload of boxes in the living room. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Eric and Stacey vanish around the corner and Jess catches up to me in the kitchen.

  “Hey,” she says to my back as I’m grabbing my Homer Simpson mug out of the cupboard. “I just wanted to say that, I don’t know, I feel so...weird...with you leaving. You’ve been my roommate for the past three years. I don’t think it’s going to be the same without you here.”

  I wrap the mug in bubble wrap. “It’s okay, Jess. I’m still going to be around. We’ll see each other every other day.”

  She gives me a sad smile. “Yes. I would really like that.”

  “Besides...you’ll be living with Eric now. Isn’t that something you want?”

  She slowly bobs her head up and down. “Yeah...I just hope my parents don’t find out.” She scratches at the back of her neck. “Well, you can always come back if you need to, or want to, or whatever. You know that, right?”

  I nod. “And you can always talk to me if you need to, or want to, or whatever.”

  We slink back into the living room. Stacey sits on the sofa’s armrest, her feet up on the coffee table as she paints her toenails a bright orange. Eric is sprawled next to her, moving his fingers around on his cellphone.

  “For crying out loud, do you have to paint your nails now?” Jess pouts.

  Stacey slides the nailbrush into its flask and informs us it’s almost Halloween. All three get to talking about parties, costumes, and wigs. Arms crossed over my chest, I walk back into what used to be my room, feeling a pang of exasperation. It’s better to be here, alone, in silence, than in the living room with those three. As I’m putting the bubble-wrapped mug in a box with the rest of my kitchen things, Eric creeps inside and asks me if I need any help.

  Before I can answer, he’s already folding the box top and putting tape over it to seal it like he’s a professional. Waves of dark caramel hair protrude from his cap. He’s wearing the same backward ball cap and tennis shoes, like he’s a teenager, but his usual lewd smile is nowhere to be found. These days, I haven’t seen it at all.

  “Do I really have to tell you again?” My voice comes out unforgiving. “I can do it on my own.”

  “Don’t be stupid. That box weighs more than you, Sophie,” he says pointedly.

  “Go away, Eric.”

  “Why are you being like this? Damn it. I just want to help. All I want for us is to have what we had before I kissed you.”

  “Eric!” My eyes flutter open. “Care to raise your voice a bit more? I don’t think Jess heard you.” I grab a marker and write KITCHEN on top of the cardboard box. “I don’t want to talk about this. I want to forget about it...erase it from my mind. Pretend it never happened. Don’t you understand? I just want—”

  He interrupts. “But it did happen. See that’s the problem with you, Sophie. Always pretending, always changing the subject, always saying I’m fine—well you know what? I don’t think you’re fine. Stop pretending. Stop denying it. I kissed you. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you will move on.”

  “I am fine. I have moved on.”

  “Oh yeah, but strangely, every time you and me are in the same room, you’re back to dissing me and wishing a train would hit me.”

  I give him the fakest, most real grin I can come up with—not willing to let him get to me—and act like what he just said isn’t true.

  “Look, it’s all cool that you want to forget about the kiss. I get it. It disgusted you. But you gotta let that shit go and move on. And before you can do that, we have to talk about it. If you’re not going to talk, then just listen.”

  I look at him blankly, then mumble, “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “I never meant to hurt you. Or Jess. Like it or not, believe it or not, I think of you as someone I can actually talk to. You’re down-to-earth and you don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re a cool gir
l. I admire that.”

  “Stop with the compliments.”

  “I know what I did was out of line. You don’t have to look at me like I’m a fucking crook. It’s just...you were there, and I was there, and you were looking all pretty with your hair down and you smelled so good...I just wanted to get a taste—”

  “Eric.”

  “I’m sorry, Sophie. I really am. I don’t know what more to say.” He comes within inches of my face, and I am forced to look into his blue cellophane eyes. Guilt and shame reside in them. “Can you let it go?”

  “Why did you tell the press someone tried to kidnap me? It was supposed to be a secret.”

  “Why do you think?” He takes off his cap and resettles it over his head. “Don’t ask questions you already know the answers to. It insults us both.”

  “Oh really? Then let me ask another question.” I’m relentless today. “Why did you do that to Jess?”

  “Do what?”

  “I know what you did to her. I saw her in the bathroom.”

  He looks confused and lost. “What the hell are you talking about? I haven’t done anything.”

  “I’m not going to let this slide.” I whisper angrily. “You are never going to touch her again. I swear if you—”

  “Soph, are you ready to—”

  I back off from Eric quickly at hearing Stacey’s mannish voice. “What, what is it?” I breathe in and breathe out, trying to get rid of the nervousness swelling inside me. Had Jess walked in, she wouldn’t have liked it.

  Stacey, little by little, comes inside the room, like she just interrupted something. She pours some M&Ms into her mouth as she asks, “Can we fucking get out of here, like right fucking now? I need go to shopping.”

  “Yeah,” I answer rapidly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  ***

  “WE ARE NOT going to be boring lumps this year, Soph,” Stacey informs as we stroll inside Patricia Field.

  The sun is bright, beaming, and hanging in the sky like a perfect egg yolk. Whereas I, am dull, uninterested, and frowning as I follow Stacey around the boutique.

  “So, anyway, what are you going to get?”

  “Anything that screams sexy and wild,” she replies, going through the costumes on the racks. “I want to make men get down on their knees and beg.”