He can’t help it, I told myself. His brain doesn’t work the way it used to. He probably doesn’t even know what he’s saying.
I needed to believe that, if I was going to be able to keep living here, if I was going to be able to exist with him without getting into an argument every single time we were around each other. Every so often, the thought would push its way in: How did my life turn out like this?
“Okay, Dad,” I said, my voice tight. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
***
When I got to the address Teagan sent to me, I knocked on the door. I could hear people talking inside, and then footsteps getting closer. A tall, curly-haired woman opened the door.
“Hello!” she said. “You must be Ben. Teagan was just telling us about you. I’m Meredith. Please, come in.”
I followed her into the house, which had the ambiance of a yoga studio. We walked down a short hallway that had tapestries hanging on the wall, and into a large living room. Teagan was sitting on one of the couches, and there were several other people in the room. They all said hello and introduced themselves.
I went over and sat down next to Teagan.
“Hey,” she said. “Thanks for coming by.”
As it turned out, they were all, in some way or another, like Teagan—they had all found success via social media, and now they were all trying to decide if they needed to be concerned about the shootings of their fellow social media stars.
“You know,” the girl named Meredith said, “we were just talking about our concerns with everything that’s been going on, and Teagan mentioned that she had taken the proactive step of hiring a bodyguard. And I just think that was such a smart thing to do. I think it’d be smart if we did that ourselves. Do you have a business card?”
She looked very earnest, and then sort of batted her eyelashes, though I wasn’t sure if that was a conscious gesture or not—it might just be something she did, unaware, when she was trying to get what she wanted. I had met other women like that before. I also noticed that at least two of the three guys in the room did not look particularly psyched at the idea of having a bodyguard.
“Hold up,” one of the guys said—I think his name was James. He gave me an apologetic look. “Listen, bro, we really appreciate you coming over here like this, but I think it was a bit premature. As I’m sure you can understand, the girls are a little—”
“Wait a second,” Meredith said. “I don’t know if I appreciate your tone there. The girls? Sexist, much?”
I shot a glance at Teagan, who looked at me apologetically.
“Um, maybe we should go,” she said, as Meredith and James got into it.
Fine by me. I wasn’t too interested in sitting around with this group of people. There was this certain pretention in the air, and I wasn’t just imagining it. I was surrounded by people who did, in some way or another, think they were better than everyone else. I hadn’t gotten that vibe from Teagan, but this group of friends of hers was certainly exuding it.
“It doesn’t sound like you guys are quite sure what you want to do,” I said, trying to be diplomatic. “The good news is, none of the security companies that you might work with will be going out of business anytime soon, so you can take your time and figure out what you want to do.”
“You’re really leaving?” Meredith asked, looking at Teagan. “You should stay. The evening’s barely started.”
For a second, it looked like Teagan was going to falter, that she would resign herself to stay, but then something in her face shifted slightly and she shook her head. “We’re going to head out. I’m kind of feeling a little on edge with everything that’s been going on, too.”
“Which is why you should surround yourself by people who are in a similar situation. We’ve all got those fears, Teagan. We should talk about them. Maybe Ben can give us some tips.”
I was glad that Teagan stood her ground. The vibe in the place was weird. The guys weren’t psyched that I was there, and the girls were looking at me as if I was privy to some sort of vital information that they just had to know.
“So that’s it?” Meredith said. “You’re leaving just like that?”
“Here.” I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket, opened it, and extracted a business card. “I really do think that you guys need to talk a little more about what exactly it is you want. It doesn’t sound like you’re all on the same page. But once you have a better idea, you are more than welcome to call.”
Meredith took the business card. “We’ll talk,” she said. “And you’ll be hearing from us very soon.”
Teagan and I all but ran from the place once we actually made it out the door. “Is it wrong that I feel like I just escaped from prison?” she asked as we stepped outside. The evening was cool, with no cloud cover, and even though we were in the city with all that light pollution, if you looked up, you could see a smattering of stars across the dark night sky.
“That was quite the crew,” I said. “You might feel like you just escaped from prison, but I kind of feel like I just crashed the party.”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Hey, you don’t need to apologize. And I’m not trying to sound judgmental or anything; I don’t know any of them and I’m sure everyone’s really on edge. You have every right to be.”
“Still. I shouldn’t have texted you to come over like that.”
Her arm brushed against mine as we walked, and I felt absolutely no desire to take a step away, to put any distance between us.
“You did exactly what you were supposed to do,” I said. “In fact, you could’ve called me to take you over there.”
“I’m not really sure why I go to those things. I guess because we’re all doing something similar. They’re not bad people, either; they’re just not really people I would be friends with if I wasn’t doing this. I know they feel the same way.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just like... it almost feels like we’re all back in high school. Except maybe the stakes are higher now, because it’s real life and none of us are living with our parents, and instead of going to class we’ve got to focus on making money and paying bills. So the responsibilities have shifted, but the dynamics really haven’t. I wasn’t popular in high school, and I’m still not popular now. But Meredith and the rest of them, they were definitely the popular kids at school, and it’s still like that now. They have their little clique that they’re allowing me to be a part of, and there is a part of me that wants that, that feels validated somehow, like their opinions matter more than someone else’s might.” She paused. “I wanted to be part of the popular crowd in high school. What girl doesn’t? Even the ones who say they don’t, I think there’s a little part of them that would jump at the chance.”
“Humans are social creatures, and social situations always have some sort of hierarchy. I was sort of with the popular crowd, but only by default. The kid I grew up next to, he was the all-star athlete, the guy all the girls had a crush on. He was a really nice guy, though, and we had always gotten along. So his friends just sort of accepted me and we’d all hang out, but I never really felt like I was one of them. Not because of something any of them had done, though.” We stopped at an intersection and waited for the light to turn. Teagan watched the cars going by, and I wondered what had happened in her life that made her feel like she wasn’t good enough. “Don’t you feel like you’ve got some of that validation now?” I asked. “With your social media account? I think it’s pretty impressive that you’re able to make your living that way. There’s got to be so many people out there who want to do something like that, but how many of them are truly successful? Probably not a lot.”
“No, you’re right.” The light changed and we stepped off the curb, our arms brushing again. It would be so easy to just reach over and take her hand, which felt like the one and only thing that I should do in that instance. “But that’s the thing. I feel like I’ve cultivated this image on Instagram, and it’s not true
to who I really am. I mean, I feel like it is, but then I meet someone in real life who follows my account and I always feel like I’ve somehow let them down. I’ve seen other posts from people where they say they met one of the people they follow and how amazing it was and how the person is even cooler in real life, but I’ve never felt like anyone thinks that about me. So it’s, like, I can be cool and someone that other people want to know if I’ve got the filter of the Internet to work through, but when that’s not there, I’m just... I’m just obviously not one of the cool kids.” She smiled as she said this, but it was a sad smile and I could see how much the whole thing really bothered her.
Would she be having these feelings if she had a regular job, if she went into an office every day, or taught fourth grade, or worked in an art gallery? Maybe. But she probably wouldn’t experience those feelings of inadequacy to the magnitude she was now, because the Internet had a way of amplifying everything, whether you wanted it to or not.
“You know what I think you need?” I said. We were a block away from Blue Cat Creamery. “I think you need an ice cream.”
I thought, for a second, that she was going to look at me in confusion, or maybe disgust, and ask why on earth she would want to go get an ice cream with me when all she was trying to do was get home. I would’ve deserved that, but I liked being around her and I wanted to cheer her up. Outside the parameters of my professional duties? Yes, maybe so, but it was easy enough to simply brush those concerns aside. It was just an ice cream, after all, and it had been so long since I’d been around someone whom I actually wanted to hang out with more, that I was willing to take a minor risk here and there, where in the past, I normally wouldn’t have.
Chapter 8
Teagan
The flea market was held every weekend over near Cesar Chavez, and it was one of my favorite places to go. I would never go with the intention of getting a ton of stuff, but would instead spend my time looking for one or two really great things that I would only identify once I had laid my eyes on them.
I did have a small collection of Virgin Mary statues, all of which I’d gotten from this flea market. I was not religious by any means—Dad had been raised Catholic but we had never gone to church during my childhood; I don’t think Mom would have tolerated such a thing—but there was something about the statues that I found comforting. I had maybe half a dozen, which I kept in various places throughout my apartment. They didn’t make things feel more holy or more religious, but they did imbue the place with a sort of serenity that I enjoyed. So I was always on the lookout for another statue, too, and when I saw a table of them, I made a beeline over.
They were lined up in rows. Some were small, could fit in the palm of your hand; others were several feet tall. They were in varying conditions; a few looked brand new, but I tended to like the more worn ones, the ones with chipped blue paint, the ones that looked like they’d spent considerable time outside.
The one that drew my attention this time was maybe a foot tall, Mary standing with her hands clasped, her blue hood covering her head. She had a serene expression on her face—not quite a smile, but almost. She cost four dollars, and I paid the vendor and was about to slip the statue into my bag when a man stepped right in front of me.
“Excuse me,” I said, moving to step around him.
His eyes widened. “You have my statue.” He held his hand out. I could see dirt caked in the lines of his palms. “Just... just give it here. You didn’t pay that much money for it and you’re way better off than I am; I can tell just by looking at you. I bet there’s plenty of other statues for you to find.”
“You need to take a step back, please,” Ben said. I looked at him, because something in his voice had changed; there was something in his tone that made both me and the guy take notice. The guy looked clearly troubled by the fact that Ben was telling him to back off; it was like he knew he should listen but there was something preventing him from doing so.
“I can’t do that, man,” he said. “Not until you give me that statue—”
“It’s not your statue.”
“But it is! You don’t understand—”
Ben stepped in front of me, gently pushing me back a bit. “There’s nothing here we need to understand, other than you are invading our personal space here and you need to back off.” He took another step closer to the guy and said something in such a low voice that I couldn’t quite make out the words. The guy was trying to look over Ben’s shoulder at me, or at the statue, but every time he did, Ben would shift so his view was obstructed.
Finally, the guy slunk off, disappearing into the crowd, though not before tossing an angry glare in my direction.
“That’s my statue!” I heard him shout, though I could no longer see him.
“What the hell was that about?” I said. My hands were shaking. Why was I all of a sudden having these ridiculous encounters with complete strangers? Normally, I could go out and do my own thing and not be bothered, at least not by people who seemed openly hostile to me.
“Just some crazy guy,” Ben said. He was clearly on high alert as he scanned the crowd, which did make me feel safer. He looked down at me and smiled. “Guess he really likes that statue.”
“Should I have given it to him?”
“Only if you wanted to. But judging from how excited you were when you found it, I’m going to go out on a limb here and wager that you don’t really want to do that.”
“I don’t. But he seemed so... insistent.”
“He most likely has some sort of undiagnosed mental condition. He’s probably going to try to find someone else to harass now. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”
But that’s because you are so good at what you do, I thought. I knew for a fact that if it had just been me by myself, things probably would not have turned out that way. The guy would not have just tucked tail and run because I told him to; Ben had a certain authority, an air of confidence that I did not possess. Not in real life, anyway. I knew on Instagram I came across as reassured, the sort of person who had good self-esteem. The reality of that, though, was a completely different story.
“Still...” My hands were shaking slightly as I gripped the statue. If that had happened and I’d been alone, I don’t know what I would’ve done—I probably would’ve ended up giving him the statue. It was something small, after all, not worth potentially getting into some physical altercation over. “That was...” I let my voice trail off because I couldn’t quite pinpoint how I felt. Similar to when that guy in the Mercedes had been harassing me—and I didn’t like feeling that way at all.
“I’ll keep an eye out for him,” Ben said, looking around. “But he seems to have gone on his way.”
“You’re so calm about this.” It almost came out sounding accusatory, though all I really meant was how was it possible for him to keep his cool this way after a confrontation like that? “I don’t mean that you should be more worked up or anything; I just...”
“It’s okay,” Ben said, and I got the feeling he was referring to not just this specific instance but things in general. “I’ve dealt with much worse, trust me. And I’m usually pretty good about picking up on people’s intentions. I know that might sound a little New-Agey and out there, so it’s not something I really advertise, but that intuition has never done me wrong before. He wants that statue, for sure, but he’s not going to be a threat.”
He sounded so sure of himself when he said it that I had to believe he meant it, that he wasn’t just saying it to try to make me feel better. But Ben didn’t seem like that sort of person anyway, and that was one of the things I liked about him.
I didn’t have anything else I needed to do after the flea market, and had actually been planning on going home, but now that the time had come, I found myself trying to think of somewhere else I wanted to go, because I didn’t like the thought of having to part ways with Ben yet.
Which was not how I was supposed to feel, I knew. This was a strictly professional re
lationship, and I planned to keep it that way. But what was the harm in a little innocent daydreaming? I knew he didn’t feel the same way toward me, so did it really matter if I fostered this little crush I was (maybe) developing? It was nice, I realized, to be around a guy and not have any expectation of some sort of romantic hookup, even though that was kind of the direction my thoughts were heading. Or not really—I wasn’t thinking about kissing him or anything like that; I was just realizing how much I liked to be around him.
Had I ever felt like this about anyone before? The answer was a resounding no, but I was trying not to think like that. It was hard, though, to ignore these feelings, precisely because I’d never really experienced them. Not this strong. Yes, with Elliott there had been fun times and a physical attraction, but something had been missing, which I hadn’t been able to put my finger on at the time. I still couldn’t name it now, other than I was able to recognize it when I was feeling it. It was a sort of magnetism, an invisible current—something I couldn’t give a title to, but that didn’t mean it didn’t exist. It was exactly what my mother hadn’t been able to understand when I told her I was breaking up with Elliott. We got along, we seemed to like each other—what was the problem?
The problem was that even I, with my limited knowledge regarding all things romantic, knew the feeling I had with Ben needed to be present in order for any sort of long-term, intimate relationship to work.
The problem now, of course, was that Ben was someone who was strictly off limits.
Maybe that was better, though. Because chances were, even if something did start between us, it probably wouldn’t end well. That’s just how my luck usually was. And perhaps this was better, even. I could have the butterflies and the good feelings that come with liking someone, but because things would never progress on a physical level, then I would run no risk of being hurt or any of that other stuff that comes along with being in a romantic relationship.
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