Mr. Nice Guy

by Jennifer Miller

  The KAT president was a senior named Jamie, a woman whose smile had the force of a battering ram. She introduced Lucas to the room and said he’d come all the way from New York City to answer their questions about magazines.

  “Do you know Anna Wintour?” one of the girls asked.

  “Um, no, sorry,” Lucas said.

  He watched the collective sisters go from disinterested to actively annoyed. He tried to impress them with tales of booze events—all the free alcohol and no commitment to coverage! But this didn’t register; the girls in this room were living a nonstop booze event already. Finally, somebody asked Lucas what he made. His answer more or less shut down the conversation.

  Afterward, Jamie led Lucas into a library at the back of the house where another sorority sister was waiting. “This is Amber. She used to be friends with Sara.”

  “Was?” Lucas asked.

  Amber glanced at Jamie, clearly uncomfortable. Jamie nodded. Let’s just get this over with.

  “I’ve got a class with her this year,” Amber said. “But we don’t really talk anymore. It’s awkward. Because I was with her the night the whole thing happened with Nicholas.”

  Lucas took out his recorder and asked Amber to start from the beginning.

  “The first thing you should know,” she said, “is that Sara was always really nice to Nicholas. Significantly nicer than the rest of the house.”

  “The whole house knew him?”

  Amber and Jamie exchanged looks. Jamie stood up. “I’d rather pretend this conversation wasn’t happening,” she said, and left the room.

  “When Sara and I were freshmen,” Amber resumed, “Nicholas started hanging around. He dated like a quarter of the house. Or tried to.”

  “Tried?”

  “Oh, you know, wooing them. He’d take girls out to fancy dinners, buy them things, send them flowers. He became a total joke, but nobody wanted it to stop exactly. He once hired a fancy spa in town to come out and give free manicures and blowouts. It was insane.”

  “But why?”

  “He wanted a girlfriend. But he was, like, trying to buy one. It didn’t seem to matter much who the girl was. People said he was a virgin—at twenty-two! I mean Jesus, just hire a Pretty Woman. It’s not like he didn’t have the money.”

  “Do you know if he tried paying anyone for sex?”

  “That’s not what Nicholas was about. He’d often tell Sara that he was a total romantic. He wanted to sweep women off their feet. Be their Prince Charming. It felt desperate, not sleazy.”

  “And nobody obliged?”

  “Lord no.”

  “But you all encouraged him.”

  “Sara in particular thought we were stringing him along. I still don’t understand why she sympathized. These girls aren’t poor and it’s not like a boy had never sent them flowers or fancy jewelry before. But Sara was one of the few who came from, I guess, more modest circumstances. She had loans. That set her apart. And I remember one of the girls, a senior at the time, saying that if Sara really felt bad for Nicholas, then she should go out with him. Stop complaining about how everybody else was taking advantage of the guy and actually help him.”

  “So Sara went?” Lucas asked.

  “Well, she agreed to a date on the condition that Nicholas not give her anything. They went out a few times. Ultimately, Sara decided what the rest of us had known all along: Half of what Nicholas said was blown out of his ass and the other half was pompous as hell. And on top of that, he lacked basic interpersonal skills.”

  “I’m assuming she broke it off?”

  Amber nodded. “It was spring fling weekend and we were having a big party. Nicholas was totally coked up. He’s disgustingly nice until he gets high. Then all that ingratiating bullshit flies out the window. Anyway, they went to her room to talk. She wanted to dump him in a dignified fashion. But her rejection really hurt him, I think because she’d actually gotten to know him.”

  “So he…?” Lucas couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought aloud.

  “All I know is, the next morning Sara banged on my door. She said Nicholas had assaulted her the night before and we needed to go to the police. I took her to the station and she filed a report. But then she called the cops later and said she didn’t want to press charges. I tried to find out more, but she just clammed up. Everything was different after that. She quit the house, stopped talking to us. It was like she blamed us for what had happened. I kept trying to check up on her, but she ghosted me.”

  * * *

  The next morning Lucas went to the local precinct and requested a copy of Sara’s report. He didn’t have high hopes for it turning up, but to his surprise, it was still there. Getting rid of such a document apparently required more effort than simply forgetting about it. And there, in plain English, was a detailed description of what had purportedly happened between Sara Porter and Nicholas Spragg. He’d shoved her on a bed, grabbed her breasts, and tried taking her pants off. She kicked him away and bolted to the door.

  Lucas took a deep breath. That report was pretty clear.

  After the police department, Lucas went to the seminar room where Amber said Sara Porter had class. Amber came out first. She and Lucas exchanged glances and then she quickly disappeared into the crowd of exiting students. Sara emerged and Lucas followed her into the quad. She was smaller than he’d expected and dressed in sneakers and a parka. It was obvious that she’d left the sorority fold.

  Lucas had never done any reporting like this. Hell, he’d barely ever approached someone and introduced himself as a reporter, let alone a possible sexual assault victim. He was nervous; his hands shook. Was this even ethical? He wasn’t sure. But other magazine stories revealed sexual assaults, so what did those reporters do? “Hello, I’m a reporter,” he said to himself. “I’m a reporter I’m a reporter I’m a reporter.”

  He walked a little faster and caught up with Sara. “Hello, I’m a reporter,” he said, and immediately realized this could not be what real reporters said. It just sounded so stupid.

  Sara stopped walking. “Um, OK,” she said.

  Lucas plowed ahead, explaining that he worked for Empire and was writing a story about Nicholas Spragg. She stiffened visibly at the name.

  “What do you want?” she said, now clearly more nervous than him.

  He told her about the profile, about the police report. He wanted to verify the facts, get more of her story.

  “You’re going to mention me?” She looked frightened.

  Lucas felt bad, but it was too late to turn back. He wondered if he could appeal to her on the basis of kinship. They’d both belonged to Greek houses where they didn’t quite fit. Surely, like him, Sara was financially strapped. And why should the rich and powerful get to dictate everything? He felt himself channeling Jays’ indignation—which was quickly becoming his own. It wasn’t fair.

  “Why’d you let some rich kid get away with it?” he asked. “Why not press charges?”

  Sara looked through the trees on the quad. A light rain was starting to fall. “Don’t write that I talked to you,” she said. “You will fuck me up so hard if you do.”

  She waited for Lucas to nod. Reluctantly, he did.

  “The irony,” she continued, “is that if he’d actually managed to rape me—if I hadn’t gotten away—I could have been tested. Instead, it was his word against mine. And he has money and lawyers.”

  “But people need to know, Sara. What if he tries this again? Maybe he already has.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Is there … some other reason you didn’t press charges?” Lucas asked as gently as he could, remembering the architect’s email. “Is it because he paid you?”

  Her face went white. “Who told you that?”

  “It’s what I heard. Look, I get it. I have a lot of loans. I know how it is.”

  “A check arrived, OK? But there was no threatening letter, no bribe. The money basically dropped from the sky.”

/>   Lucas thought of the cake exploding hundred-dollar bills.

  “And if you really ‘get it,’” she scoffed, “then you get what it means to be debt-free. Now leave me the fuck alone.”

  CHAPTER 26

  That night, Sofia finally called. “Sorry I’ve been MIA,” she said.

  “Oh, it’s OK. Work. I totally understand.” He tried to sound nonchalant. If he pretended that everything was fine, then maybe it would be. “Sof, you won’t believe what I’ve found out about Nicholas,” he pressed on. “I’m in Wisconsin right now, flying home tomorrow. I can’t believe how gullible I’ve been, thinking that he was just misunderstood, thinking that he—”

  “Luke, we need to talk.”

  “OK.”

  “This is getting to be too much.”

  “What do you mean?” The prickling sensation was coming on full force, the top of his scalp hijacked by bees.

  “I told you at the outset that I wasn’t looking for a relationship. But I think your feelings have changed.”

  “OK?”

  “Mine haven’t.”

  “OK.”

  “Say something more than ‘OK.’”

  But Lucas couldn’t speak.

  “It’s been amazing spending all of this time with you. But we’re not on the same page.…”

  “If being together is amazing, why stop?”

  “Because it’s not real.”

  Lucas felt everything spin. Not real? He had a vision of Sofia in the abandoned casket factory, shivering and smiling as she posed for him. You’re my muse, Lucas. “How can you possibly say that, after everything we’ve shared?”

  “Lucas—”

  Yes, they’d been playacting at first. But over time, that had changed. If only he’d kept his mouth shut at Nicholas’s party, they could have gone on as before. And then one day, Sofia would realize that there was no distinguishing the fantasy from the reality. Instead, in the spirit of open communication, he’d been honest with her. And that honesty had forced Sofia to make a real-world—as opposed to a pretend-world—decision.

  “You’re deluding yourself,” he said now. “You’re scared to admit the truth.”

  “That’s extremely patronizing,” she replied. “Telling me I don’t know myself. However this feels to you, Lucas, it’s not like that for me. I’m sorry. I thought you understood. I thought you could handle this kind of relationship. But you haven’t been single for very long. It makes sense that you’d grow attached.”

  “And you call me patronizing?”

  There was a pause. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t nice.”

  Lucas snorted. Nice. Like they were kids on the playground.

  “Look,” she said. “You don’t need me anymore. Your columns have been great. You’ve got Carmen on the defensive.”

  “I don’t care about the fucking columns!”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, but meekly as though shrinking from his outburst.

  Something occurred to him. “How long have you known I had feelings for you?”

  She said nothing. His head was buzzing so badly, he wanted to scratch his scalp off.

  “How long, Sofia!”

  Silence.

  So it had been weeks, if not months. “You knew how I felt and you strung me along, letting me hope? Why would you do that? You want to talk about nice? That wasn’t nice.”

  “We were having fun,” she said. She sounded defensive. “You were having fun.”

  “I was falling in love with you and you let it happen!” Lucas heard her start to protest, but he quickly ended the call and threw his phone on the bed. All along he thought he’d been competing with Carmen. But she was not his adversary. She wasn’t some formidable foe he needed to vanquish. Sofia was right. He was handicapped by his own vulnerability. He’d learned how to have great sex—so what? What was the point, if that’s all it was? That knowledge didn’t seem so important up against his emotional shortcomings, especially the lack of armor around his heart.

  CHAPTER 27

  A week later, Lucas was back on an airplane and flying to North Carolina for Christmas. He’d made the decision to return weeks ago, when life was splendid and he was eager to showcase his success. Now he was too depressed to gloat. In the past week, he’d lost his not-quite-girlfriend, Carmen had called him “a frozen toaster strudel with a penis” in the magazine, and his big story seemed to be falling apart. The moment Lucas broached the subject of Nicholas’s college career, Spragg had suddenly, suspiciously disappeared. It was only now that Lucas realized how much he’d wanted to believe in Nicholas (if not exactly believe him). He’d admired the guy’s determination, his romantic Gatsby-esque notions as contrasted with his cynical, churlish peers. But Lucas had it backward. Nicholas wasn’t Gatsby. He was Daisy and Tom. Careless and selfish, shielded by his money.

  Lucas’s older brother picked him up from the airport. Sam was a louder, larger, blonder version of Lucas and invariably southern. During the week, he ran marketing for their father’s car dealership. On the weekends, he participated in “man club,” in which he and his friends drank cheap beer and messed around with power tools. Lucas had always considered his brother remarkable. He was so content with his abilities, his prospects. It wasn’t a good life that led to Sam’s happiness but the other way around. Around Sam, Lucas couldn’t help but wonder if his ambition was a sickness. If only he’d inoculated himself—married Mel and become a tax lawyer—maybe he’d be content, too.

  “You should know,” Sam said as they drove home, “that Mom is freaking out about you. Those sex columns where the people review each other have her up in arms.”

  “I’m aware of them, obviously.”

  “Right. Well, she’s worried that your association with that magazine might affect your future job prospects. Even your next law-school application.”

  “The depths of her delusion are astounding.”

  “So you won’t give up the magazine and come home?” he asked.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, Bro. I promised her I’d ask.”

  * * *

  Theirs was a tony suburb, though the Callahans had barely managed to squeeze themselves into the zip code. A portion of their backyard actually fell over the town line. This didn’t affect their school district or their bragging rights. And yet Lucas had long wondered whether this part of the yard—overgrown with ivy, the fence starting to rot—was left untended due to negligence or protest. Either way, he saw that corner as a symbol: Despite his parents’ ceaseless efforts to cultivate a perfect picture of Charlotte society, no amount of horticultural finesse could pull up those thick middle-class roots. His parents—his mother especially—were constantly on edge about their finances, the mortgage, the property taxes. In short, their place in the world.

  Entering the house, Lucas was struck by the polished floors, grime-free windows, and dustless corners. His parents might be on financially precarious footing, but their kitchen had cabinets for miles, filled with all manner of foodstuffs purchased at a membership grocery store and carried home in the trunk of an SUV. Lucas thought of Carmen carrying her grandmother’s shopping bags. How far he was from New York.

  And yet here his mother’s drapery sconces and headache-inducing paisley wallpapers passed for style. Here charm was an overabundance of Christmas decorations and the cloying scent of synthetic cinnamon. Lucas had always enjoyed Christmas, never caring that people decorated their lawns with fake snow. Now this seemed a poor imitation of what Christmas should be. In Manhattan, everything looked exactly like the movies: the pine-scented stands of fir trees, the outdoor gift markets, the opulent window displays. Over the past week, as he wallowed in his disappointment, Lucas had walked for hours after work each night, imagining himself in the center of a romantic comedy. He kept to the wide boulevards where everything looked so bright and beautiful.

  * * *

  Patricia Callahan was pulling a tray of homemade p
igs in blankets out of the oven when Lucas and Sam walked in. She wore the typical uniform of pleated slacks, a fitted Talbots button-down and oxfords. Her hair was flipped under and sprayed into her signature brown helmet. Like the house, she was ornamented in red, gold, and green. “Lucas!” she exclaimed, and, still in oven mitts, rushed toward him. She drew him into a hug, rocking him back and forth. “You look good!”

  Lucas bristled at the surprise in her voice but then caught Sam’s eye. Not worth it. Lucas took a deep breath. “I’m happy to be home.”

  “Do you really mean that?” She looked elated. “I told your father it was high time we put the whole thing behind us.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  Patricia’s face tightened. “At the dealership. It’s been a slow month. But I’m sure there are still some Christmas shoppers out there.”

  Feeling surly, Lucas said, “I never understood how anyone could buy a car as a Christmas gift. What if you take it home and your husband or wife doesn’t like it?”

  Sam shot Lucas a look: Shut up, idiot.

  Patricia put her oven mitts on the island and began to arrange the appetizers on the plate. “So you know who I ran into at Starbucks yesterday?”

  “Mom, don’t you want to give Luke a minute to settle in first?” Sam said, his tone putting Lucas on alert.

  “I’d just ordered a Pumpkin Spice Latte,” Patricia continued, “when I heard the woman behind me place the same order! It was Lucille Woodward. I mean what are the chances of Lucille and me ordering the same drink?”

  Exceedingly high, Lucas thought.

  “Lucille was tickled by the coincidence, and of course we got to talking. And you won’t believe it, but Mel’s engaged!”