Sympathy for the Devil

by Christine Pope

  The waitress came back with some water and disappeared immediately afterward. Danny took a sip and then said, “Look, Christa, I just want — I want to apologize.”

  I felt as if he’d taken that glass of water and splashed it in my face. “Uh — what?”

  Not meeting my eyes, he continued, “I guess I — well, maybe I sort of took you for granted. And I shouldn’t have. You’re great — you’re really, well...um...great.”

  It might not have been the sort of eloquence that could turn a girl’s heart, but I felt awful all the same. Why did he have to be nice now, when all I wanted to do was end things so I could run off into the sunset with the Devil?

  Swallowing hard, I said, “Look, Danny, I — ”

  “No, really,” he interrupted. “I guess I didn’t even realize how I felt about you until you told me that you wanted to go out with somebody else, too. It just — well, it freaked me out. I don’t want to share you.”

  Three weeks ago those words would have been music to my ears. At this point, though, I was angry more than anything else. Boy, that was typical, wasn’t it? I’d just been a superfluous adjunct all those months, and then the second Danny realized someone else might be interested in me, suddenly I was the love of his life.

  I almost snapped, Hey, it’s your lucky day — you don’t have to share me, because I’m dumping you! But I managed to hold my tongue long enough to allow the impulse to pass. Hormones were so much fun.

  Instead, I helped myself to some water, then said, “I wish you could have told me that a while ago.”

  “I know,” he said. “I guess I just didn’t think about it until now. I always thought you’d, you know, be there.”

  Of course, right at that moment the waitress showed up with our food. I busied myself with pouring out the precise amount of dressing required to give my salad some taste without totally upping the fat and calorie quotient. If nothing else, the activity gave me some time to think.

  This wasn’t going to be easy. Then again, whatever was?

  Even though eating was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment, I lifted some grilled chicken to my mouth and forced myself to chew. Danny had already dug into his barbecue chicken pizza.

  “Well,” I said, “I’m glad that this has made you stop and think about things.”

  He glanced up from his food, his gray-blue eyes hopeful.

  I suddenly felt as if I were about to kick a puppy, but I had to go on before I completely lost my nerve. “But I just don’t think it’s going to work out for us.”

  The blood seemed to rush from his cheeks. He put down his half-eaten slice of pizza and said, “What?”

  Keep going, I told myself. You can’t back out now. “I’ve been thinking, too, Danny, and although I really like you as a person, I just don’t see us having much of a future together.”

  In stunned tones he asked, “I don’t — why not?”

  “Besides having nothing in common?” I retorted.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded. “We both like the same music, we — we — ” The words trailed off as apparently he stopped to think about what precisely we did have in common.

  As for the claim about liking the same music, well, that wasn’t too difficult, considering I’d listen to just about anything. Danny tended to favor esoteric heavy metal bands from Europe whose names I couldn’t even pronounce; generally, I thought they were all right, but I felt the same way about pretty much everyone from Glenn Miller to Adele. Other than that, he and I really had no common interests. I was Mac; he was PC. I liked indie films and a good romantic comedy; he liked action movies or gore-fests. I liked Thai; he liked Chinese. And so forth. That didn’t even take into account the enormous chasm separating our religious backgrounds.

  As a wise man once said, “You say potato, I say po-tah-to.” A rational person probably would have called it off months ago.

  “You see?” I asked, in gentler tones than I thought I’d be able to summon. “People need more than that to build a relationship on. It just wasn’t working, and I think deep down we both knew it.”

  Danny’s mouth grew tight. “Funny how you didn’t figure any of this out until he came along.”

  “‘He’ who?”

  “This guy you met. Whoever he is. He must really be something to make you want to throw away someone you’ve been with for six months.”

  You have no idea, I thought, but I knew better than to say anything that would reinforce Danny’s feelings of inadequacy. “I think we’re better suited,” I said carefully. “But that has just as much to do with me as it does him. This isn’t about him, anyway. It’s about you and me. And I’m telling you that I would have felt the same even if I hadn’t met someone else.”

  “You really expect me to believe that?”

  Suddenly tired, I replied, “Hey, you’re going to believe what you’re going to believe. I’m just telling you my side of things.”

  His face twisted. Again I experienced a rush of guilt; this couldn’t be easy for him. Here he thought he’d had something good going, a girlfriend who was leagues beyond anyone else he’d dated (and I wasn’t just saying that to puff myself up; I’d seen a couple of photos of his previous girlfriends), and now she was pulling the plug. That just had to suck, no matter what he might have done to deserve it.

  Maybe I was fooling myself. Maybe I wouldn’t have had the guts to break up with Danny if I didn’t have somebody else already waiting in the wings. I didn’t know for sure, and second-guessing myself wasn’t going to help the situation anyway. All I knew was that right here, right now, I had to make an end to it.

  “I’m really sorry, Danny,” I said at last. “But we’re done.” I fumbled for my purse and pulled out my wallet. “I don’t expect you to pay for my lunch, so — ” And I dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he replied mechanically. Then, as he seemed to grasp the fact that I was leaving, a spasm of panic crossed his features. “No, really. You don’t have to leave. You can’t leave.”

  God, he was making this awkward. “I think it’s better if I go. I can just catch a cab or something back to work — ”

  “No!” he burst out, so loudly that a few heads at neighboring tables swiveled in our direction. “I mean, that’s silly. We’re civilized people — we can at least finish our lunch, right?”

  His urgency seemed really out of line with my actions, but whatever. I settled back in my seat, wondering how on earth I was going to get through the next half-hour or so.

  Calmly I said, “All right, Danny. If you feel so strongly about it.”

  A look of relief passed over his face. “Great, um — thanks, Christa. I’m sorry — I just — well, you know, this is tough.”

  You’ve got that right, I thought, then sighed and picked up my fork. This was definitely going to be one of the longest meals of my life.

  Several centuries — all right, approximately half an hour — later, Danny dropped me back off at work. He cast a nervous glance around, and said, “Uh — good-bye, I guess.”

  “Good-bye,” I said, then added, so the farewell wouldn’t sound so harsh, “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  He managed a smile. “You, too.”

  I shut the door to his truck, then turned and walked back into the building. It had to be done, but I still felt like crap.

  My feelings of guilt evaporated, however, when I entered my office and saw Victor Nguyen, one of Danny’s roommates, hastily backing away from the keyboard to my Mac.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” I demanded.

  He blinked. “Upgrading your Norton Antivirus. Didn’t you get the email?”

  “No,” I said, shooting him a wary look.

  Victor also worked for IT Solutions — in fact, I was pretty sure Victor had gotten Danny his job in the first place — but I hadn’t received any emails about an upgrade. Besides, Danny usually got the assignments at my magazine. Since we’d had lunch pl
ans anyway, why hadn’t he just asked to perform the upgrades?

  “I’ll have to check on what happened to your notification email,” Victor said, dark eyes expressionless behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Anyway, you’re good to go. Just let us know if it stalls or causes any problems.”

  “Oh, I’ll definitely let you know if there are any…problems.” I didn’t bother to keep the suspicion out of my voice. How convenient that Victor should be snooping around my computer while I was out to lunch with Danny. No wonder he’d panicked at the thought of me leaving early — he’d probably known I’d walk in and catch Victor in the middle of…what?

  I couldn’t tell for sure, and Victor had the poker face I so woefully lacked, so there was no point in questioning him further. Instead, I just crossed my arms and waited as he gathered up his briefcase and brushed past me.

  I caught the faintest gleam of triumph in his eyes. Or maybe it was just a reflection off his glasses.

  At any rate, I waited until he was safely gone and then plunked myself down at the keyboard. Heart racing, I went through my emails to see if I could find anything incriminating there, but the only contact with Luke on this computer was that one innocuous email in my “Sent Items” folder. There wasn’t much they could glean from that — except of course Luke’s email address. And what could they do with his email account, really? Bombard him with pleas for financial help from nonexistent Nigerian bankers and send him penis-enlargement advertising?

  The only other personal things on the computer were a few abandoned to-do lists and my various Internet bookmarks, none of which could possibly be of much use. So why bother at all? Or had Danny been driven so distracted he was just reaching out blindly for anything that might explain my sudden defection?

  I went a little cold then at the thought of my private blog, but it was locked down with a very long, very random password, one that wouldn’t be easy to hack. Even my online banking password wasn’t as complicated. I should be safe enough.

  Still, it had been a complete invasion of my privacy, and one that might possibly get both Danny and Victor fired if I could prove they’d really been snooping. I picked up the phone and started to dial Jacqui’s extension — I figured I could at least verify whether the antivirus install was completely bogus or not — then slowly placed the handset back in the cradle. As irritated as I was, I really didn’t want to get Danny fired. He had enough to deal with already. Besides, as far as I could tell, they’d just found a dead end. Okay, ten points for original thinking, but five for actual execution.

  All the same, from now on I was locking my office door when I left for lunch.

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. We were approaching the final deadline for getting this issue out the door, so naturally that was when all our freelancers roused themselves and started to send in their material. I ended up working almost an hour over. Of course, I probably could have gotten out on time if I hadn’t told Jacqui the happy news about my breakup with Danny. I lost more than an hour of my life listening to her alternately congratulate me, talk about the uselessness of men in general, and try to worm more information out of me about Luke. Somehow I finally managed to extricate myself, but the delay put me behind the curve, especially considering that I still had to go to the gym and try to work off that cheeseburger.

  It was past seven o’clock by the time I made it back to my apartment. I had a slight feeling of anticipation as I turned the corner onto my street, but tonight there was no Luke waiting for me on the bottom step. Not that I could blame him; a spattery half-hearted rain was falling, and it wouldn’t have been very comfortable.

  When I opened my laptop, though, at least I had an email from him. Business takes me away tonight, it said. I’ve left you something to pamper yourself with, though. Check the refrigerator.

  Eyebrows lifting, I pushed myself away from the dining room table where my laptop sat and went on into the kitchen. Upon opening the refrigerator door, I found a takeout container filled with my favorite corn chowder, as well as an elegantly packaged salad. A little split of sauvignon blanc sat there as well.

  Something warm and wonderful filled my chest. The only other time I’d really experienced anything similar was back in my sophomore year of college, when I fell hard for Brad McAllister, who’d been in my abnormal psych class. We had what felt like a perfect romance for most of that year — right up until the point when he decided to transfer to Stanford. Despite that, though, he’d really been a great boyfriend, always coming up with thoughtful little things to do for me, coping with my hormonal mood swings, even remembering to get me flowers for my birthday and Valentine’s Day. I’d been a wreck at the end of that year after we broke up, but he’d still become the unconscious yardstick against which I measured all my other love interests. So far, no one else had really come even close…until now.

  It seemed petty to even wonder what “business” could have called Luke away. After all, it wasn’t as if he gave me the third degree over how I spent every single second of my day. Besides, it probably wasn’t healthy for me to expect to see him every night. I didn’t want him to think I was a complete clinging vine, after all.

  So I emptied the container of soup into a bowl and put it in the microwave, then pulled out one of the glasses he’d left behind several nights ago and poured myself the wine. I was feeling a little crampy, but between the wine and the warm soup I thought I could manage without the help of any painkillers. From the top of the refrigerator I retrieved an old serving tray and then put my meal on it. I figured if I were really going to be decadent I’d put my feet up on the couch and eat while watching TV. That position would help the slight ache in my lower back as well.

  Only about five minutes had gone by, though, before my phone rang. At least I’d left my cell out on the coffee table, but I still gave it an exasperated glance before deciding I’d better answer it.

  The caller ID said it was Nina. Good thing, because otherwise I wasn’t sure I would have recognized the frantic voice on the other end of the line.

  “Ch-christa?”

  I asked, “Nina?”

  “Thank God you’re home — I tried earlier, and you weren’t answering your cell — ”

  “Sorry — I was really bogged down at work today, and I had to stay late.” Maneuvering myself into an upright position, I wedged the phone under my ear while I transferred the dinner tray to the coffee table. “What’s the matter?”

  “She — she dumped me!”

  “Who — what?”

  “G-Gina! She said she could tell I wasn’t serious about ‘the lifestyle’ or I would have told my parents about her. She said she refused to be with someone who couldn’t get out of the closet!” The last word came out mostly as a strangled sob.

  Damn. It must be something in the air. I said, “Oh, wow, Nina — I’m really sorry.”

  “I mean, you’d think she’d be a little more understanding. This was the first time I’d ever, well, you know — ”

  “Yes,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t go into graphic detail. Of course I’d support Nina in whatever choices she made, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear all the inside info, so to speak.

  “But no! That wasn’t good enough for Miss Lesbianation! She said I was a coward and a hypocrite and — ”

  I broke in. “Well, you know that’s not true. I mean, you never told her you were a lesbian, right? You told me you were bi.”

  A long silence on the other end of the line.

  “Nina,” I began, in warning tones.

  “Oh, don’t give me any crap, Christa! Like I knew what I was doing!”

  Actually, I thought she did. Rather, she probably thought she knew what she was doing. Nina had always been a player. In that she had always seemed a lot more like a guy to me. Lots of different relationships, no deep emotional attachments. She’d always been in it for the thrill. And at that stage in our lives, her behavior hadn’t exactly been off-putting to men. I didn’t know a lot of
guys who would say no to a gorgeous woman who just wanted to have some fun and who wasn’t looking for anything lasting.

  So when Gina came along, and Nina thought it was time to try something new, she didn’t stop to think that of course Gina would react very differently from the men Nina had been with previously. Why not another fling? What was the harm?

  Obviously Gina hadn’t seen it that way.

  I’d known Nina for ten years. I loved her — she was fun and bright and outrageous. But I also knew she had a really difficult time whenever someone wanted to get serious. That was always the signal for her to move on. Whether she’d been hurt at some point before I met her and therefore kept things light so she couldn’t be wounded again, or whether she simply didn’t have it in her emotional makeup to form deep attachments, I still wasn’t sure. However, if Gina had been expecting Nina to confront her parents, proclaim herself to be gay, and go off to live in lesbian bliss forever, Gina had definitely picked the wrong gal. I guess she’d just discovered that for herself and broke it off before things could go any further.

  Nina didn’t get dumped. Nina was always the dumper, not the dumpee. I had the uncharitable thought that a good deal of her current outrage was probably due to that fact, not because she’d been all that attached to Gina.

  I also knew, however, that I didn’t dare point out what seemed pretty clear to me. Part of being friends with someone is knowing when to speak your mind and when to shut the hell up.

  So instead of uttering some of the home truths that had bubbled up to the front of my brain, I made sympathetic noises and told her that was terrible and did she want me to come over so I could take her out for a drink or something?

  I really didn’t want to. I’d just gotten comfortable, and all I wanted to do was keep my feet up, finish my wine, watch some mindless TV, and then go to bed, where I would (I hoped) dream of Luke. Being a friend means putting yourself out there when necessary, though, so I just waited to hear what Nina wanted.