[2014] Looking for Leon

by Shirley Benton

  “You should take this back,” he said. “You’re the stress bunny out of the pair of us. Here!” He held it out.

  I reached out to take it, but as soon as I did, he whipped it away. God, he was childish! I went over to him and started to wrestle it out of his hands, but lost my balance and ended up falling right into his lap.

  “Now look what you’ve done!” I said as I grabbed the desk and pulled myself back up into a standing position.

  “Good job I’m used to women throwing themselves on me,” Colm laughed.

  “Ahem.” I turned around to see Rachel standing behind us, staring and holding a bunch of letters out. “Sorry to interrupt the fun. Mail for you.” She thrust the letters into my hand, then hurried away.

  I returned to my desk. Colm followed me.

  “What do you want?” I said.

  “Go on, open it.”

  “Aren’t you very nosey today?” I was feeling pretty curious myself though.

  “I bet it’s fan mail.”

  “Are you crazy? People email me through the website.”

  “There are still some people in the world who write letters. Come on, open one up and prove me wrong.”

  I ripped the first envelope open. Colm stood behind me to read over my shoulder.

  Hi Andie,

  You don’t know me – my name is Oliver, and I live in Oklahoma. I’ve been watching you and your search on TV, and I wanted to tell you that Leon is a complete idiot if he doesn’t contact you. You are so lovely and so beautiful, and the nicest thing of all is that you have no idea how gorgeous you are.

  Just to tell you a little bit about me, well, I’m twenty-seven, five foot eleven, and I have brown eyes and black hair, just like you. I’m aware that I sound like a crazy guy who’s trying to proposition you, but I just want to give you a picture of who it is that’s writing to you. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing instead of emailing. Well, it’s for two reasons. I figure that you probably have someone else filtering your email for you, and you’ll never get to see this message if I email it to you. The other reason is because you’re so worth the effort of writing a letter. People just don’t write them any more, do they? We’re all so busy that we take the quickest option. This, to me, feels so much more personal.

  I’m not writing to you just because I want to tell you how great I think you are, even though you are great. The reason I’m writing is because I’ve noticed recently that you seem more and more weary whenever I see any footage of you. I personally believe that you have started to feel that you won’t find Leon. I even think you might be feeling a little bit lost yourself now. I hope I’m not crossing a line by saying this, but this is what I now see when I look at you. I wanted to tell you that if this guy does not (for some insane reason) want to meet up with you, then you have to understand that it is his problem and his loss. Please don’t let this experience frame your future if it doesn’t work out. I hope that it does work out, and I don’t want to be negative, but I know what it’s like to want something and not get it. I haven’t exactly been lucky in love myself. Keep the faith, and know always how fantastic you are. And are you hot or what? If Leon doesn’t show, you always have a date in me.

  I’m going to stop writing now before I ruin the entire letter by sounding like an obsessive weirdo. I promise that you don’t need to worry about me showing up on your doorstep one day (only because you’ve been smart enough to keep your address a secret – ha ha! I’m kidding). Please just know that there are people out there supporting you and thinking that you are amazing. I say people, because I know I’m not alone in thinking this way. A friend of mine has even set up a thread on an Internet forum talking about how amazingly hot you are (I won’t tell you where you can find it, though – I might not be a pervert, but my friend is a bit. . . overly descriptive sometimes. Sorry. Maybe I should have said nothing).

  Good luck with the search,

  Oliver

  “Hate to say I told you so . . .”

  “My God. This is surreal . . .”

  “As opposed to all the other completely normal things that have happened in the past few weeks?”

  “Good point. Still, though – it’s mad.”

  “Somebody loves you. I wouldn’t like to be in Leon’s shoes if this guy catches up with him and actually believes that stupid report about Leon being gay – he’ll give him such a hard time for leading his favourite woman on. I’m sure he’s probably read the report since he wrote that letter.”

  “Don’t mention the war.”

  “Yeah, about that . . . listen, I never suggested anything like that to Lindy. I know I made a joke to you about it, but –”

  I put my hand up to stop him and explained how I was the one who had inadvertently put the idea in Lindy’s head.

  He shook his head. “She really is something else.”

  I wasn’t sure if he said it in admiration or disgust. I didn’t ask. If he had any positive feelings towards her, I really didn’t want to know about them.

  Colm walked back towards his desk. “I’ll let you read the rest of those in private.”

  “That’s big of you!” I’d been so engrossed in reading Oliver’s letter that I hadn’t even thought about telling Colm off for reading the letter over my shoulder. I scanned it again before making any move towards opening the others. It was scary.

  Maybe I was completely transparent, or maybe Oliver just noticed this because he’d been watching me very closely (which I tried hard not to get too freaked out about – he seemed like a decent enough guy), but either way, he’d hit the nail on the head about my feelings recently on this whole thing. I hadn’t even admitted it to myself, but I’d started to feel like I was going through the motions. The excitement of the prospect of finding Leon had faded. Whenever I saw appeals for missing people on the news, I always thought to myself that if they weren’t found within the first few days, they probably wouldn’t be. Those stories usually ended in tragedy. My situation obviously wasn’t anything near as serious or as awful as a missing-person scenario, but I couldn’t help seeing some parallels all the same – if Leon hadn’t come forward at the start, what could we do that would make him come forward now? The only information I could see us getting from here on was more of the same – people reporting that they knew who he was, when really they knew no more than I did. We had nothing to go on to suss out whether these people were genuine, or just looking for cheap thrills by taking the mick out of the crazy Irishwoman, and we’d had some so-called leads into the Looking for Leon email account before that had amounted to nothing. And Oliver was right – I was feeling lost. Lindy’s insistence on charging ahead and doing whatever she wanted with this whole thing was making everything so much worse. I didn’t know what my role was any more, and I certainly didn’t feel like I was driving the situation. And yet, if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have got anywhere with this search, and would possibly have been out of a job when I had nothing to put on the table for Isolde. I had no doubt that she would have fired me in a heartbeat if this story hadn’t been a runner – she was only looking for an excuse.

  Problem was, I wasn’t sure if I could do this for much longer.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  As Colm and I were leaving the office that evening, we met Rachel. She smiled a sweet smile and gave us a big hi. Although she seemed to be well in with Lindy, Rachel had always been friendly with me too since the minute I gave Dave a bit of lip – so to speak.

  “Any plans for the evening?” I asked her as the three of us got into the elevator.

  She snorted. “Not now, I don’t. I was supposed to be meeting Lindy in Billabong – you know, that new bar that’s opened up in the Golden Chip hotel on the Strip – but now Dave is coming in too, so I’m not going to bother.”

  “Yeah, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to spend your free time in the same bar as him.”

  “Oh, it’s not that so much as I don’t want to spend my free time as a thir
d wheel. Those two are unbearable around each other. They need to get a room.”

  Colm and I gave each other a look.

  “Are you saying that Lindy and Dave are . . . ?”

  “Making out like rabbits? You bet they are. Don’t tell me you didn’t know? Everyone does, except Dave’s wife.”

  I threw a look at Colm. If there was anything going on between him and Lindy and he was upset at this news, he hid it well. If anything, he had the look of the village gossip about him, thrilled to have found out some dirt on Lindy.

  “He’ll get away with it too, though,” Rachel continued. “Lindy isn’t his first LVTV conquest, and she won’t be his last. Not that she cares – she’s only jumping into bed with him to try to further her career. It’s not as if she has any feelings for him. But that’s Lindy all over – she doesn’t care about anyone but herself. I’ve lost count now of how many times I’ve made an arrangement with her, only to hear at the last minute that Dave’s coming along too.”

  “Maybe you should reconsider whether or not she’s really your friend,” Colm said.

  “I have,” Rachel said, “and she’s not. Why do you think I’m even saying all of this? I’d never have badmouthed her to anyone before, but now I just don’t care. I’m sick of being used by her when she doesn’t have anyone else to spend her time with.”

  The elevator reached the ground floor, and we walked through the revolving doors of the lobby.

  “By the way, Andie,” Rachel went on, “don’t think for one second that Lindy is a friend of yours either. You should hear the things she says about you behind your back.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, ‘basket case’ is one of her nicer descriptions of you, put it that way. She thinks you’re nuts to be on this search. It might suit her career purposes to work with you, but she’s having a good laugh at you when you’re not around.”

  “Tell me some of her less nice descriptions of me,” I said in a low voice.

  “Leave it, Andie,” Colm said. “You’re probably better off not knowing.”

  “No. Go on, Rachel. Tell me. I need to know what I’m up against here.”

  Rachel cringed. She looked sorry she’d opened her mouth. “Her nickname for you is Saddo Scarecrow because she thinks you always look so unkempt –” She paused as she saw my face go beetroot and then hurried on. “It’s only because she’s jealous that you can get away without wearing make-up every day and she can’t. The Saddo bit is because she thinks you’re a loser for needing to find a man this way. She’s also called you a social reject a few times when she’s been really annoyed at you, again in relation to you being on this kind of search for a man. Then there’s spinster, shelf-girl and . . . you know what? I’m going to miss my bus if I don’t run.”

  “Yes, I think we’ve heard enough,” Colm said.

  “Sorry – I didn’t mean to upset you,” Rachel said to me. “I just thought you should know.”

  “I’m not upset,” I said. It was true. I was angry as hell, not upset.

  “Anyway! Hope your evening is more fun than mine will be,” Rachel said as she crossed the road to catch her bus home. She looked like she couldn’t get away fast enough and was regretting having said anything.

  “Oh, it will be,” I said under my breath as I waved to her.

  “Let’s just forget we heard that. Where do you fancy going for dinner tonight? It’s your turn to pick,” Colm said as we started to walk up the Strip.

  “I’m sure the Billabong serve bar food.”

  “Oh no, Andie. Just leave it.”

  “No. Don’t even try to talk me out of it. I’m going there.”

  “She’s not worth it –”

  “I just want to have a calm chat with her, and point out the error of her ways. That’s all.”

  “Andie, you don’t do calm. You’re shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to finding Leon if you burn your bridges with Lindy.”

  “Well, maybe I don’t want to find him any more. My face has been plastered all over the country and he still hasn’t come out of hiding. What does that tell me? Right now, I’ve nothing to lose.”

  “Except maybe your job . . .”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  Sweat trickled down my back from the heat as we walked to the hotel – it seemed that no matter how long I spent in Vegas, my body still refused to get used to the desert climate. By the time we arrived, I was feeling narky and fractious.

  Colm was still on my heels when I located the bar inside the hotel.

  “Don’t follow me in here. I mean it. Don’t.”

  He opened his mouth to argue with me, but something in my demeanour warned him off. He nodded, then turned away. I walked into the bar. Sure enough, Lindy was sitting in a booth with Dave, flashing a bit of immaculately waxed, tanned leg and looking ridiculously smug. I was such a whirlwind in my approach that they didn’t see me until I was within touching distance of them. I didn’t even need to stop to think about what I was going to do – sometimes, the old ways are the most satisfying. So I picked up her drink and threw it into her face, and I didn’t even feel remotely guilty when an ice-cube hit her full force in the eye. Dave made a grab for his, but he was too late – whatever cocktail he was drinking looked like great chucking material, so chuck it I did.

  “Andie! What the hell are you playing at?” Dave stood up and started fussing uselessly over Lindy while looking daggers at me.

  “Don’t even start, Dave.” I turned to Lindy. “There is no way I’m working with you ever again!”

  “Andie, calm down!” said Dave. Lindy was too busy with her eye to even look up as I spoke. “Why in a million years say that after the great job Lindy’s done in getting you publicity for your search?”

  “A great job? By making me look like a lovesick fool who has no chance with the gay man she’s been stalking?”

  Dave chuckled. “Oh, come on, Andie! Surely you can see the funny side of it. I thought it was an ingenious idea on Lindy’s part –”

  “In that case, you obviously don’t have a clue what you’re doing either.”

  Dave’s face mutated into one gigantic snarl. “If this is your attitude, then LVTV won’t be doing any further coverage of your search – so if I were you I would think very carefully before I opened that pretty little mouth one more time. You need us, Andie.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Oh, look. There’s my mouth open. So what are you going to do about it, Dave?”

  His face turned purple with rage. “That’s it. You’ve talked yourself out of your relationship with us.”

  Lindy suddenly came back to life. “Did you think I ever actually imagined for one second that Leon was going to show up, you pathetic freak? I don’t blame him for running a mile from you. He’s clearly not interested.”

  I shrugged. “I suppose you’d know the signs after being dumped by Colm. Oh wait. You couldn’t even get him in the first place.” I didn’t know if I was right about that or not when I said it, but her crushed face instantly told me that I was. “Does Dave know about your little crush? Sad, really. I almost feel sorry for you, Dave, being used by this career-hungry parasite.”

  “You little –” Lindy started.

  “Despite that, though, you make a lovely couple. You’re both as desperate for glory and as shallow as each other. Have a nice life together.”

  “You’ll be sorry you did this! I’ll make sure nobody in Vegas has anything to do with you again!” Lindy shouted after me as I walked away.

  I stuck a finger up over my shoulder and walked straight on, ignoring her threats. They couldn’t hurt me. I didn’t care enough any more for them to have any power over me.

  When I left the bar, I saw Colm sitting on a stool in front of a slot machine. He jumped off it when he saw me and made his way towards me.

  “How did it go?”

  “Well, I’d certainly give myself full marks. In fact, I think the whole thing couldn’t possibly h
ave gone any better.”

  Colm and I were in the middle of dinner that night when something hit me.

  “Maybe Lindy wrote the letters!”

  I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it before. It would make complete sense that Lindy was the person behind the poison-pen letters! She was just biding her time, waiting to build up a history of communication, and then she had a story to go to the media with.

  I explained my reasoning to Colm and pulled out my phone.

  “No, don’t call her,” Colm said. “You’ve no evidence at all that she was involved.”

  “Were you listening to me at all earlier?” I’d recapped what had happened between Lindy, Dave and me line-by-line to Colm on our walk back to the MGM from the Billabong. “She never believed Leon was going to show up, so she had to come up with whatever she could to keep legs in this story for as long as she was tasked to do so by Dave.”

  He shook his head. “But that’s no proof of anything. You haven’t discovered anything new about Lindy today really, have you? You always knew she was out for herself and potentially capable of anything, but you can’t pin this letter-business on her now just because you’ve had a row with her and it suits you to believe she was behind it.”

  “So if it’s not her, who is it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, and maybe you never will either. But if you’ve really had enough of looking for Leon, then there’s no point in stressing yourself out over it any more. Walking away from the search means walking away from all that comes with it.”

  “I still think I should at least question her about it . . .”

  “What’s the point? This confrontation will just be an exact replica of the last one and the one before that. Even if it is her, it’s her word against yours. My advice is to just let it go.”