Total Exposure

by Huss, JA

  “Well,” the young girl finally says. “There’s a gentleman over there sitting alone. Do you want me to go ask him if he’d mind sharing with you?”

  “Oh, no… uh…” I stammer out my objections. “I don’t think—“

  “He won’t mind.” And then the hostess laughs. “In fact, he told me when he came in if anyone needed a seat, he’s happy to share.”

  She bustles off before I can answer, but I watch, in utter horror, as she approaches the man, points to me, and then they talk. About me. As they look. At me.

  I turn to flee and bump right into a man’s chest. Dark wool overcoat. Leather-gloved hands reach out to steady me. Firm grip on my shoulders. And when I raise my eyes to see who is blocking my way, I realize it’s Jordan.

  I whirl back around, and the hostess is there, grabbing a menu. “Come on,” she says. “He’s happy to help.”

  I follow her for no other reason than I cannot think of a single other thing to do. I just obey automatically. On autopilot.

  Just get me away from the man I came to see.

  The hostess stops at the table and pans her hand towards the empty chair. “Here you go. Have fun, you two!”

  She leaves and I’m stuck there. I don’t look at the man I’m supposed to be sitting with because I’m too busy looking back at Jordan. He catches my gaze, which almost sends me into a panic, so I sit down and turn my head away. Right into the direct gaze of my table stranger.

  “Uh… hi,” the guy says. “I’m Mike. And you are?”

  He extends his hand, but all I can do is stare at it. So it’s withdrawn just as fast. “Angela,” I say, reverting back to my stand-by public persona.

  “Nice to meet you, Angela. Do you work around here?”

  I look at him, thankful I still have my scarf over my face and my sunglasses covering my eyes. Just be normal. Just be normal. I chant it in my head. “Yes,” I lie. “At the courthouse. I’m new. First day.”

  There you go, I say to myself. Good job.

  “Well, you’re part of the crowd now.” He laughs. “Everyone eats here at lunch. It gets pretty busy around this time. And I always eat alone, so I offer up my table when I can.”

  “Thank you,” I say, remembering my manners.

  “So what kind of food do you like?”

  I chance a glance over at Jordan. He’s still looking at me, so I play it off like I was just scanning the room, then remember I have a menu I can pretend to study.

  “Sandwiches,” I reply to the man’s question.

  “You should definitely get the club then. It’s fantastic. They put a little avocado on there. Really, really good.”

  “What can I get you to drink?” a waitress asks.

  I look up at her, ready to die from all this very sudden, very intimate attention, and blurt, “Water and I’ll take the club sandwich.”

  “Coming right up,” she says, taking my menu away with a smile.

  “So…” My impromptu date seems to be chatty. And I think in my head, Why me? “You’ll probably have to take your scarf off if you want to eat.”

  “Right,” I say, slowly unwrapping my scarf. It would draw far more attention to keep it on than it will to take it off. At least that’s what I tell myself. But the whole time I’m sneaking glances over at Jordan, wishing I wasn’t stuck talking to this guy instead of him.

  “Do you know him?” the guy asks.

  “Who?”

  “That man you’re staring at.”

  “What?” I laugh it off as I fold my scarf up and place it in my lap. “No. I’m not looking at anyone in particular. Just… you know. People-watching.”

  “Ah,” he says. “I like to watch people too. That’s why I come in here alone. You see all types. It’s interesting.”

  I take another look at my date, intrigued by his answer. He’s probably a few years older than me. Maybe early thirties. Light brown hair. Bluish eyes. Handsome. He’s wearing a suit, but every man in here seems to be wearing a suit.

  “What did you say your name was?” I don’t even know how I get those words out, because as soon as I realize I’ve asked him a direct question, my heart races in a way that scares me.

  “Mike,” he says, smiling. He extends his hand again.

  I shake it this time, but when I withdraw, he holds on to it. Which forces me to look him in the eyes to see what the hell he’s doing.

  “You can take off the gloves too, ya know. Gonna be hard to pick up a sandwich with gloves.”

  And he… he starts pulling on the fingertips of my glove. Removing it. Sliding it down my hand in a way that makes me hold my breath.

  I pull away quickly, but the glove is off. My hand exposed. He reaches for me again, his fingertips gently squeezing as he says, “That’s better. How about the sunglasses now?”

  I jerk away, my hand unconsciously flying up to touch the lenses, as if to make sure they’re still there. “No,” I say. “I have sensitive eyes and I have to wear them when I’m in the sun.”

  He looks over to the window, is about to say something about the gray, overcast day, but then simply shrugs. “OK. Well, I’m done. And I gotta get back to work. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I say, not knowing why I say it because I don’t work at the fucking courthouse and I won’t be back tomorrow.

  “Nice meeting you, Angela.”

  I nod my head, but don’t meet his eyes as he gets up.

  “And lunch is on me. Don’t worry about it. Thanks for the company.”

  “Yeah,” I say, glancing up at him, then quickly averting my eyes. If I can’t see him, he can’t see me.

  I want to roll my eyes at myself.

  “Bye.”

  I nod, so he just leaves, resigning himself to the fact that I’m not gonna chat him up any further.

  I stare at my one gloveless, exposed hand for a few seconds, then quickly put the glove back on. The scarf is still in my lap, so I wrap that around my face too.

  Finally, all covered up again, I let myself breathe.

  I am stupid.

  “Did you want this to go?”

  I look up at the question and find the waitress holding a plate with my sandwich.

  “Um… yes, please.”

  She leaves to wrap it up and all I can think about is getting the hell out of here when I suddenly lock eyes with Jordan again.

  He smiles at me. Gives me a little wave.

  I look away and close my eyes, forcing myself not to panic. Why the fuck did I come here? What the hell was I thinking?

  I stay like that, my head bowed, my eyes closed, until the waitress is saying, “Here you go,” as she slips a gray cardboard box in front of me. “Your check is all set. Thanks for coming!”

  I nod, take my box, and then get up, fully intending on escaping without looking at Jordan again… but—

  I can’t help it. And when I find his face, he’s already found mine.

  The doors open as a man enters, and I slip past him and out into the gray afternoon.

  A moment of pure panic passes through my body as I realize I have no way to get home. I’m not even sure where home is, but then I see a cab, and I raise my hand like I’ve seen people do in movies, and it stops for me.

  I climb in. And when the driver says, “Where to?”

  I say, “The Botanic Gardens.”

  I get dropped off at the main visitors’ center. Which happens to be close to the greenhouse I was in the other day, so finding my way back to the path that leads to the house isn’t too hard.

  When I finally get back inside, I collapse onto the grand foyer stairs and look up at the camera in the chandelier.

  “Fuck you,” I say.

  But the house seems empty for some reason. Like… I can just feel his eyes are somewhere else. Not on me.

  And even though I’ve been living with that same feeling for almost a decade, it feels lonely now.

  I go upstairs, take off my coat, my scarf, my gloves, my shoes… and I cli
mb back into bed, exhausted, and sad, and more unsure of myself than I have ever been in my life.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight - Ixion

  When I get back to the house I rewind the footage of her return. See the slump in her shoulders. The sadness and uncertainty in her expression. She is the perfect image of complete surrender.

  I wonder what she thought of Jordan. I wonder what was going through her head when she found him staring at her.

  Was it intrigue? Fear? Longing?

  Whatever it was, this was a good day for me. And the night is about to get even better.

  I remember the notebook in the kitchen and go upstairs to retrieve it and read what she wrote.

  Did you ever feel like a diamond ring?

  Just a ring on a finger, sitting pretty

  on the hand that that makes you sing?

  Preposterous child with anonymous smiles

  and weariness dancing on your strings?

  Well, I have.

  That was me.

  Invisible except for my ability.

  So I said no and threw a fit

  And yes, became a little sick

  of the music and the stage

  and all the things they made me play

  until they sucked me dry

  and left me standing there alone

  small, but tall

  and refusing to cry.

  I am just a diamond ring.

  That’s why I’m here.

  Hmmm. I have to read it like fifteen times. Not because I don’t understand her metaphors, or literary interpretation of what a diamond ring is. But because I do.

  I wasn’t going to write more of my story, but maybe she just needs to know… well, that people have fucked-up experiences and they’re OK afterward.

  Except I’m not really a good example, am I?

  Rational me pops up, taking my side for once, telling me, Could’ve been worse.

  Could’ve.

  You’re still here.

  I am.

  You’re helping her.

  Just another stand-up guy, I guess.

  Which makes me sigh. And roll my eyes. And pick up the pen and start to write.

  I could start my story with boring details about how we all met, what we all do, and how it all intertwined to make us what we are today. But no one wants the boring backstory and I’m sure you’re far more interested in what she looked like. Or what he and I saw in her, or how we ended up fucking each other just a few years later.

  She was a foul-mouthed tomboy who did her best not to look like she was modeling underwear on a catwalk while wearing wings, but failing miserably at it. But that was how it came off.

  She is that girl. The elusive dream woman who can play poker and look like she’s only there as a prop for her equally beautiful boyfriend until she kicks your ass and leaves you broke.

  We had the same passion. Filmmaking.

  Jordan was in undergrad at Stanford at the time. She and I went to UCLA. Alexander, the fourth wheel in this quasi-quad, was a consultant for the film industry. He, like Jordan, fell in love with Augustine the moment he saw her.

  It’s just a natural consequence of meeting her.

  She fell in love with me.

  But not the way they thought.

  She dated them both. Sometimes together, sometimes not. It was always a game.

  I was just her best friend. A guy she could—and would—come to, just to talk things through. Just to get a bad day off her mind. Just to have fun and not have the night end with drama or jealousy.

  Alexander and Jordan shared her regularly for a couple years. And it was fine because Jordan was up at Stanford and the rest of us were in LA, and he only came down every once in a while and Alexander didn’t mind sharing a few times a year if it meant he could have her to himself all those other nights in between.

  But then Jordan got into UCLA law school and suddenly there he was. Every day, every night, every time we turned around, there he was.

  And he said to me one night, “Ixion…” I can remember that night like it’s happening right now. What we were wearing, what we had for dinner, what we were drinking. How he almost whispered the words in the bar that night. He said, “Ixion, why haven’t you ever…”

  He never finished because just then Alexander and Augustine joined us, and drinks were flowing, and we were all talking, and laughing, and you know how it goes.

  Why haven’t I fucked her? That’s what he wanted to know.

  He asked me again a few days later, but looking back it all started that night. When they took her home and I didn’t join them.

  And my answer was, and still would be—if we were still friends, that is—“Because I have the relationship with her that I want.”

  I should’ve stuck with that.

  Should never’ve let him talk me into it.

  Should’ve just walked away.

  But of course… I didn’t walk away.

  When I’m done writing I leave the book on the countertop for Evangeline to find when she wakes up.

  She’s stuck in her own privileged childhood.

  I have decided that’s her problem. Her mind didn’t mature with her body. She never developed coping mechanisms as a teenager.

  Why?

  It’s easy to assume. I mean, she was a child prodigy. Literally born a genius. Celebrated for her talent. Paraded all over the world to perform, applauded by the most important people imaginable.

  Maybe never even told no.

  That’s the assumption, anyway.

  But I’ve learned a thing or two about assumptions over the years. And it’s almost never that simple.

  I hold myself up as Exhibit A.

  If you were looking at me from a distance, like… say… that sheriff back up in Wyoming, you’d see what everyone sees. Scruffy-faced, thirty-something man with no direction or purpose, who spies on people to make money.

  If you were a little closer you might see the trust fund. The exile from the wealthy family. The aimless wandering. The loss.

  But you’d have to be really intimate with me to see who I really am. What really happens inside my head. You’d have to be Jordan, for example. Because he’s the only one who knows me.

  It’s a secret he’ll keep, I have no doubt. It’s not in his best interest for people to see the real me. Because then they might see the real him.

  I ran into Augustine once. About four years ago. Few years after all that other shit happened, so she hated me at the time. She didn’t even know I was there, probably. I had been erased, for lack of a more literal term.

  I didn’t say anything to her. Didn’t offer up an explanation. Didn’t defend myself or my actions. Because she wasn’t interested. She threw me back the day we sat in that conference room with our respective lawyers and dissolved our business partnership.

  Over.

  I was the glue. That was the only thought that swept through my mind that day she pretended I didn’t exist.

  I was the fucking glue.

  She just never knew it.

  Jordan was there too. Smiling in that fucking suit of his.

  The only thing that kept me from walking over to him and kicking his ass was the fact that he and Augustine weren’t together. She didn’t even look at him. I mean, she didn’t look at me, either, and he wasn’t the one she hated. That was me.

  But it was clear, whatever they had was over. Long time ago.

  They were on opposite ends of the party. It was her wedding. And why Alexander invited us… I can only guess because he never said. I just showed up, and I’m pretty sure that was what Jordan was doing as well.

  Augustine never even looked at me.

  “I’m not going back tomorrow,” Evangeline says, obviously awake and walking down the stairs to the main floor.

  I’d forgotten where I was for a moment. Lost in my last secret memory of Augustine. What’s her last memory of me, I wonder? Not her wedding, that’s for sure.

  That day at the tab
le? With the lawyers?

  Or did she sneak in somewhere I was and see me from afar once?

  I hope she did. And I hope it was a good memory. Maybe her wedding day? Maybe she did see me that day? Maybe Alexander told her I was there and she walked around, looking for me in the gardens?

  Is it fate? Or irony? Or was it planned? The fact that Augustine got married at the Denver Botanic Gardens? The fact that Jordan put me here? Brought me into this new game of his. If all the world’s a stage, then how do you ever know what’s real?

  “Did you hear me?” Evangeline yells as she reaches the kitchen. I watch for a moment as she spies the waiting book.

  She looks down—hiding a smile, I’m sure of it, even though I don’t have a good view in here anymore—and then she takes the book and walks away to read it.

  I let her go and press Jordan’s contact on my phone.

  He doesn’t pick up. But I leave a message, so who cares. And the message is this: “Did you get what you wanted out of her? And that’s not sarcasm or cynicism. It’s an honest question. Was it worth it? Because it wasn’t for me.”

  I wait, like he’s there or something. Like in the old days you could leave a message on the machine and wonder if the person just didn’t pick up and was standing right there listening as you poured your heart out.

  But this isn’t those days. And no one has a machine anymore. So it’s just voicemail. Just some digital cloud that hears your desperate message and gives no shits whatsoever.

  I end the call and look back at Evangeline, who is sitting on the couch in the ballroom, facing the windows that open to the backyard. She’s very absorbed in my story. It’s only a few paragraphs, so maybe she’s reading it twice?

  I wonder if Augustine is happy with Alexander.

  I heard they had a serious separation a few years ago, but got back together. Nothing since that.

  Evangeline is talking again. “Where’s the rest of it?” she asks, holding up the book. “I want the rest of it.”

  I press the button on the intercom and say, “Where’s the rest of your story? I want the rest of that too.”