Switch and Bait

by Ricki Schultz

  They can’t stop smiling now, it seems, and Ansley leans in and holds her coffee drink in a toast. With both hands, of course. “To not making snap judgments?”

  “But I thought that’s what online dating was…”

  They both chuckle again and touch cups.

  Without spilling!

  I text her.

  Me: Ask him if that’s why he didn’t message you Saturday.

  I hear her phone go off, and I wince as I see her glance down at it. It’s not meant to be an intrusion, but it feels somewhat like that. I immediately regret messaging.

  Regardless, she does as I suggest, and Henry’s tone softens around the edges. Concern leaks its way across his chiseled cheekbones. He reaches across the table and gives a tentative brush of his fingertips across her delicate knuckles, and my mouth hangs open, as I didn’t think one passive-aggressive comment would elicit this intimate a response.

  Win?

  Something tightens in my stomach, and I realize I’m holding on to my breath so I can hear.

  “It wasn’t that, it—” He takes on a bit of a far-off look, gaze drifting out thankfully not my way but across the shop in the opposite direction. Clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I just—”

  Me: Be breezy. Tell him online dating’s hard and he doesn’t owe you anything.

  Ding!

  She obliges, and his shoulders relax once again.

  * * *

  My phones are blowing up for the rest of the evening. Between texts from Ansley thanking me for setting her up with him and messages from Henry wanting to process the date like a teenage girl, I’m about to bite off Gordon’s head when he walks through the door—he knows with just a flick of my wrist not to talk to me until I emerge from my bedroom.

  I find myself ignoring texts from Cliff too. I don’t know why. I’m just in one of those moods where I want to be let the hell alone and this is the day that everyone and their brother—or brother-in-law, as it were—has chosen to hit me up.

  In the week that follows, Ansley and Henry go on two more dates, during which I follow them around the zoo once and sit through some M. Night Shyamalan something or other.

  The movie situation had some hinky moments because I tried to multitask. I really pushed it and invited Cliff. He’d been complaining, “When are we going out again—I’m not just a piece of meat” (haha—yeah sure he’s not), but I almost lost track of both situations once the lights went down because…so did Cliff.

  He confessed afterward that he’d always wanted to hook up in a movie theater in high school, and I made him feel so young and blah blah blah.

  Good thing Ansley didn’t need help talking during the movie.

  “They’re getting along great,” I report to Gordon as we run inventory, “but he still hasn’t kissed her. I think she wants him to—I think he wants to—why are they agreeing to all these dates if they don’t? But I feel like unless I pull some serious Sebastian from The Little Mermaid stuff, it’s not going to happen.”

  “Maybe he just…doesn’t kiss,” Gordon offers as I mull it over with him.

  “What, like he’s Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman?”

  “No!” He smacks me with his clipboard. “I’m just saying. He’s not kissing her…although it seems like he’s kissed a fair amount of other women. Maybe he goes slow now.”

  “I don’t really think that’s it,” I say. “Something’s off.”

  “Well, you’d better get to the bottom of it, boo-boo. Because three dates with no action is seriously odd.”

  I think about what Gordon says for the better part of the night as I stretch out in the bath when, lo and behold, the gentleman in question messages the burner phone.

  Henry: Hey you.

  Hmm.

  Me: Hey! You!

  Nailed it.

  Henry: How do you feel about a home-cooked meal? My sister-in-law is quite the chef, and she’s having a dinner thing coming up. What do you say?

  I’m not sure if the bath salts are just effervescing or what it is, but my legs are starting to get warm and tingly.

  But not, like, sexy tingly. Like stroke tingly.

  It’s not Ansley’s fault. It’s not Ansley’s fault.

  I repeat it to myself several times as I clench my muscles trying to get the strange sensation to cease.

  I’m the one who got us into this mess. What’s the big deal if Ansley meets Isla and Graham? They will love her! She will love them! What’s not to love! This is sure to escalate things between the two of them and get me off the fricking hook.

  I take a cleansing breath and press a cool washcloth to my blazing cheeks.

  Me: Sounds great! Yay!

  I curl a lip at the extra “yay” I add—I loathe myself—but it’s so Ansley, and I’ve got to be true to her character.

  I need to be done with this for tonight.

  Me: Not to cut you off, but I’m super sleepy tonight for some reason. Catch up with you tomorrow?

  And he answers without a hitch:

  No problem. Nighto!

  It’s so dorky it makes me smile and also stare into space for a while. For how long, I’m not quite sure. Until the tiles on the wall are completely beaded over with sweat. Until the mirror is opaque with fog. Until I realize my eyes—the good one and the bad one—are almost completely crossed.

  Until Gordon starts banging on the door and asking if I’m cutting myself in here or what.

  “Not yet.” I snort.

  Chapter 13

  Gordon and Renée and Damon spend the morning of what promises to be the Sean Riker “alt-right debacle” probably more so than “ultra-cool book event” spiffing up L&L. Either way, we’re expecting a huge turnout. Book event of the year so far.

  “I know, I know,” Gordon says into the phone, rattling off his now-memorized little spiel for about the hundredth time today. He holds his hand over the receiver and feigns a gag. “Here at Literature & Legislature, we’re committed to political discussion and excellence.” He hangs up. “But don’t worry—we think he’s a world-class douche bag too,” he says for the store to hear.

  But their spiffing efforts are nothing to shake a stick at. Love him or hate him, we take the high road (I mean, mostly), and this is evident by the way we’ve classed up the joint with a catering service.

  By the time the evening rolls around, the whole store feels like it’s undergone a transformation. Even we keep walking around doing wind-up crazy fingers by our heads and giving eye-rolls because we don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. The vibe is totally different. Like when you meet your boyfriend’s family and he’s totally different around them and around you in front of them and you kinda want to punch him in the throat for it.

  I know we set it up—hell, I did most of the planning—but it’s odd, now that it’s come together like this!

  Waiters in tuxes with tails meander through the crowd that’s begun to gather near the folding chairs. Bright pink shrimps curl like fingers beckoning our patrons from silver trays. Pops of champagne corks startle middle-aged women wearing pearls—each time it happens, they gasp then press milky white hands to milky white sternums and chuckle along with their milky white male counterparts wearing seersucker and bow ties.

  Not my favorite crowd indeed, but it’s not all conservative stereotypes. There’s a nice little band of protesters gathered outside and even more nondescript folks who mill about wearing T-shirts and jeans and looks of interest? Derision? Disgust?

  Oh, what a time to be alive.

  The hum of the patrons is already loud before Sean Riker has even arrived. And I’m glad, because we’ve pulled out all the stops for this one. Based on the numbers for his debut tell-all alone, we made an anticipatory order of five hundred copies this time, just in case. Plus, with the recent publicity surrounding his being fired from US Newsday and the camera crews lined up around the block, it promises to be a pretty exciting night.

  Cliff was especially into the idea of hearing Sean Rik
er speak, “even though Sean Riker is a first-rate asshole,” as he’d put it the other night when we’d met for another episode of Friends (with Bennies). And although things like this—us getting together before it’s dark out; us being in a public setting where I actually know people—tend to go against typical friends with benefits protocol, it’s nice to have a shared interest (or in this case, a shared disdain for someone), and so I don’t mind that he wanted to come and support the store.

  That’s what I keep telling myself. He’s not getting attached; he’s supporting a cause.

  At long last, it’s show time. When I take to the mic to introduce the man, the myth, the monocle, Cliff toasts me from his spot by the table we’ve converted into a bar just for the occasion. His eyes sparkle up at me as a hush begins to fall over the crowd.

  It shouldn’t, but his look catches me off guard.

  Like he’s my boyfriend now and I didn’t even realize it.

  I called him that—well, kind of—to Henry the other night, but that was just a means to an end. To put some distance between Henry and me and stop the swoony feelings that were swirling so I couldn’t further complicate this already complicated situation and make things even worse.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  He’s not getting attached; he’s supporting a cause.

  Yeah, I guess it’s not working.

  Throwing caution to the fuck buddy rules aside, thank baby Jesus he’s leaving on Saturday so I don’t have to delve into that little nugget of if I could actually entertain, like, Feelings and stuff.

  I shake off the thought. Step up to the podium. “Good evening, everyone. I’d like to welcome you all to—”

  And as I’m speaking, a familiar cascade of silken blond hair yanks my focus from the back. Next to her, a walking G.I. Joe doll. They’re both weaving in and out of clusters of customers giving me their rapt attention, and suddenly my insides go numb.

  Ansley grins up at me and waggles the fingers of her free hand, her others threaded between Henry’s as they sashay their way closer.

  What is she doing here? Why didn’t she tell me?

  But of course I know why she’s here. Sean Riker is probably Henry’s frickin’ hero.

  I clear my throat and continue the intro, but I’m not even listening to what I’m saying. I can only hope I’m not reciting the lyrics to some Dead Kennedys song or something. I focus my gaze on middle space, but I feel everyone’s eyes scorching me.

  It must be okay, though—I must be making some kind of sense—because the audience responds with appropriate applause when I’m done; and although I’m racking my brain for any way that I won’t get caught in the shitstorm I’m about to endure, I swallow hard and resign myself to the fact that there’s no stopping it.

  “Without further ado, Sean Riker!” I gesture and the ex-journalist ascends to the stage, a wobble to his gait that makes me wonder if he didn’t get into some of the good stuff we’re keeping in the back.

  There’s more clapping. A few jeers, but everyone’s being pretty respectful so far.

  Actually, seeing Henry here reminds me that—holy hell—someone could actually start launching tomatoes at us. When I’d agreed to this event, I hadn’t imagined that could be a possibility. Sean Riker is pret-ty unpopular, and the fact that he got a book deal in the first place? And this second one? Didn’t exactly go over very well with most of the liberally minded individuals I know.

  Not a lot of conservatives either.

  “Thank you for being here,” I say, saccharine. Trying to hide the fact that I’m about to grind my molars into dust.

  “Thank you for having me,” he responds, too chipper for my tastes.

  But I rein it in. I have to.

  I look down at the note cards I’ve prepared, and I purposely made the questions tame. I figured he’d be taking enough heat from the audience once we got to that point of the Q&A.

  For the next thirty minutes, we do our little back and forth, him throwing in a few sexist comments to invoke a spirit of light flirting, and me fighting the urge to vomit all over my lap, since apparently that’s my thing now, by addressing the crowd.

  “Now let’s hear from you. Do you have any questions for Mr. Riker?”

  Dozens of hands fly to the ceiling, and I’m fielding them all. Pew! Pew! (That’s the sound of a kid making fakey gunshot noises, right?) I’m knocking them left and right, out of the park. And when we get to the end and the buzzing’s died down, one voice calls out like a trumpet over the hubbub.

  “I have a question.”

  My mouth parts.

  Henry.

  The couple of stoner-looking twenty-somethings around him take a step back and the crowd separates as if he were in spotlight.

  I hook an eyebrow at him. Cock my head. “Yes, sir?”

  “I’d like to know how it is that Mr. Riker can consider himself anything but a Neo-Nazi white supremacist buffoon.”

  Oh snap.

  Uproar.

  “That’s not really a question,” I say. Do a shitty job of stifling a snort. “And I think—”

  Riker puts up a hand. “Look, buddy—”

  “I’m not your buddy, pal.”

  Henry’s dropped Ansley’s hand, and he’s left her in his wake. He takes a step forward. A firm stance. She’s a bit crumpled behind him, but she hasn’t knocked anything over yet, so I consider that to be a win.

  “I’m serious. I’m tired of people like you giving all white conservative males a bad name. I’m not a bigot like you are. I work to get things done for those who are less fortunate than I, to keep people like you from becoming too powerful. But loudmouths like you, corrupt, feckless, scums of the earth who sit around finding ways to make things worse for everybody else, make it impossible for me to get anything done. To make any progress. To—” Henry’s face has taken on an all-over red, fists balled at his sides as he’s sputtering.

  Riker turns to me and gives me a side-eye. Says out of one side of his mouth, “Can you get this guy out of here?”

  I press my lips into a thin line. “I can’t, Mr. Riker. He’s not doing anything wrong. He’s not inciting violence. He’s calling you out. Do you have a response?”

  There’s a bit of a snarl, a growl, and then almost a yawn: “Yes. Let’s sign some books.”

  My stomach churns—burns—as the crowd redistributes themselves into a line and I have to handle them like I don’t hate this wank to my left. Like I don’t feel the exact same way as half the people here.

  As Henry apparently.

  After a time, I direct my attention to the rest of the store, and as I do so, I catch Henry’s stare from across the room. I don’t know how long he’s been looking up here. Probably seething. There’s a swell of something familiar, but also something new as he holds my gaze. A pang that keeps me still. Keeps me staring.

  I have underestimated him. I have been an asshole, yet again. Surprise!

  Once the line has dwindled to a mere smattering of folks looking to get photos and whatnot, I remember what Henry’s little outburst almost made me forget—WE ARE ABOUT TO INTERACT IN FRONT OF ANSLEY I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS WHAT IS LIFE EVEN—and I take a deep breath. Say my good-byes to our guest speaker. Brace myself for what’s to come.

  Ansley trips her way over to me, and Henry gives her a chortle. He seems pretty okay with the whole accident-prone thing, and I guess that’s why she’s starting to feel so comfortable with him. I guess that’s why she’s with him now without my help.

  I guess my work is done?

  Thank God.

  “That was intense!” She throws her arms around me, and I watch as Henry’s eyes narrow.

  “You two know each other?”

  I cough. “Yes. Well, I mean, she’s been in the store.”

  “I have. Love it! Why?”

  This is the story we’d agreed to go with.

  He snorts. “Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just that me and Captain Hook over here have some mutual acquaintan
ces.”

  The way he puts it, clinical, the way he downplays it, grates on my nerves. I guess I understand why he does it, but meh.

  Thankfully, at that precise moment, Cliff comes over like a beacon of Canadian bacon and makes things awkward in a whole different way. Even more awkward than that simile. He rushes up behind me and wraps his arms around me, plants a kiss on the side of my neck in a way that’s much more intimate than I’d like to convey in front of strangers. In front of Henry and Ansley, for some reason. But it takes some of the heat off me and this awkward situation, so I roll with it.

  I stick my arm around his middle and lean into it, and when I do, I feel Henry’s eyes burn the back of my head.

  “Great job up there, peanut,” Cliff says.

  Peanut?

  I try not to pull back—I told Henry I have a boyfriend—I can’t appear to hate him.

  “Oh, is this your little boy toy you’ve been telling me about?” Ansley sticks out her hand, a bubbly collection of big eyes and smiles like this is the greatest night ever.

  Cliff turns to me, scoops me close. His words tickle the inside of my ear and induce an all-over squirm out of me. His eyes sparkle. “You’ve been telling people about me?”

  “Um” is all I can come up with, and I offer a shrug. Beg some kind of vortex to open up and suck me into, well, anywhere but here.

  The air is so stagnant—stifling—thick—in a way that it wasn’t, even when all eyes were on me during the conversation with Riker. It’s just the four of us, but my lungs threaten to explode if something doesn’t give soon. I don’t know what it is, just standing here, but I’m desperate to break away—get some air—light up a cigarette—anything to alleviate the Awkward.

  “Hey, you guys want to take this party somewhere else?” Maybe Cliff knows me better than I thought—although if he did, he’d realize I want to get away from our counterparts altogether, not hang with them more.

  But I can’t say any of this, so we decide on alcohol. The swanky little wine bar next door. It’s not exactly the change of pace I want—but at least it takes some of the edge off the moment the rosé hits my lips.