Sympathy for the Devil

by Christine Pope

  Today, though, luck seemed to be on my side. True, Sundays usually were the lightest days of the week in terms of sheer volume, but all it took was one person to make an error in judgment for the whole fragile construct to fall apart like a house of cards. But I got onto the 10 Freeway and cruised east at a little more than seventy miles an hour. At that rate I thought I might be able to buy myself enough time to pull into a Starbucks I knew on Arroyo Parkway and get myself some desperately needed caffeine. After all, Jennifer did have five bridesmaids, so they probably wouldn’t get to me until almost three-thirty anyway.…

  Even in the middle of the afternoon there was still a line at Starbucks. It moved quickly, though, and I only wasted about five minutes getting my grande French roast and a bagel. Normally I’m not much of a bagel person, since I have a real sweet tooth, but I didn’t want anything sugary for fear it might upset my already abused stomach. The coffee was divine, though, and just what I needed. At that point I was ready to inject it directly into my veins.

  Abbey Rose was a little designer wedding boutique on Green Street, not far from the historic Castle Green apartment building. Street parking could be a nightmare, but I seemed to have inherited some of Luke’s parking karma and found a spot only a few doors down from the actual shop. Clutching my caffeine fix and praying that I’d regained some color during the time that had elapsed since I last looked in a mirror, I opened the door and let myself into the boutique.

  Any hopes that my appearance wasn’t as bad as I feared got dashed when Micaela looked over at me above a drape of deep sea-green silk dupioni and said, “Girlfriend, you look like crap.”

  “Hi, Micaela, nice to see you, too,” I retorted.

  Jennifer paused to glance up from the two tiaras she held, one in each hand. “Seriously, Christa — are you coming down with something?”

  “Getting over it, more like,” I replied, and crossed the shop floor to take a seat next to Nina on the overstuffed pink couch that faced the display area. On Nina’s other side sat Sarah, Jennifer’s long-time friend. The last of the bridesmaids, a girl named Nicole whom I didn’t know very well, stood off to one side, flipping through what looked like a shoe catalog.

  “What happened?” Nina asked.

  I lifted my Starbucks cup and tipped some French roast down my throat. “Luke and I had a fight last night.”

  A chorus of “ohhhhhs” swirled through the room. Nicole glanced up from the catalog she was holding. The girl hardly knew me, but obviously she was more than ready to hear some dirt.

  Of course Nina went where others feared to tread. “What happened?”

  That was a tough one. I couldn’t tell them the real reason for our argument, of course. Lifting my shoulders, I replied, “Let’s just say we had a difference of opinion,” then realized I had parroted Luke’s own statement about his quarrel with God. Not that I could exactly equate a lover’s spat with the fall of angels from Heaven.

  “About…?” Nina inquired.

  I fell back on an old standby. “Well, it’s private.”

  Micaela made a huffy noise, but that could have been because the gal who was adjusting the fit of her gown had stuck a pin into her. “So is this a ‘kiss and make up’ kind of argument, or a ‘get the hell out of my life’ argument?”

  Good question, although the fact that I hadn’t heard from Luke since I’d stormed out of the Ivy was definitely a bad sign. “Um…somewhere in between, but probably more the ‘get the hell out of my life’ type.”

  She hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry.”

  Nina leaned over and gave me a quick little hug. “If he can’t see how great you are, then he’s a total jerk — even if he is completely hot.”

  “Nina!” Jennifer said, sounding completely exasperated.

  “It’s all right,” I said hastily. The last thing I needed was for the two of them to start bickering. “If it’s meant to work itself out, then it will. If not.…” I trailed off and lifted my shoulders. “Anyway, I had a bad night, but I’m doing better now.”

  “Of course you are,” Nina said, in tones of false cheer. “’Cause you’ve got all your peeps with you.”

  “Damn straight,” Micaela added. Finally the seamstress was done with her, and she was able to step down off the little dais where the fittings were performed. “Um — does this mean I don’t get a crack at Danny?”

  I saw Jennifer roll her eyes.

  “He’s yours,” I said wearily. “Even if Luke and I aren’t together, at least this whole thing has made me realize that Danny is definitely out.”

  “How long were you going out with this guy?” Nicole asked out of nowhere. Maybe she wanted to feel as if she were a part of the conversation.

  “Just a couple of weeks,” I replied, and Nicole looked a little puzzled.

  “He drives a Bentley,” said Jennifer in tones of heavy significance.

  I figured I’d better not mention the Aston Martin. Jennifer liked to pretend she was above the whole material-wealth thing, but I knew better. There was no way she would have gotten engaged to Phil if she hadn’t been assured of having a husband who was guaranteed to make in the mid-six figures. No doubt if she’d been dating someone with Luke’s kind of money, she would have chained herself to the steering wheel of the Aston Martin before letting him get away.

  “Oh,” breathed Nicole, who looked even more confused. Obviously she and Jennifer were cut from the same cloth.

  Part of me managed to be amused, but I also felt myself growing a little angry, too. To someone looking in from the outside, I supposed that losing a guy who’d only been around a few weeks certainly wasn’t the end of the world. A little disheartening, maybe, but the sort of thing you were supposed to recover from without sustaining any permanent damage. The problem was that I’d let myself fall for Luke, and hard. I guessed I only had myself to blame; I should have been more careful, not allowed him to somehow worm his way past my defenses.

  He’s the Devil. What did you expect? I thought. That he was going to sweep you off into the sunset on a white horse and that you were going to live happily ever after?

  “Earth to Christa,” Micaela said, and I snapped my head around to look at her.

  “What?”

  “Boy, that guy really does have your brain twisted inside-out, doesn’t he? I asked you if you wanted to go over to Crown City Brewery after this for some drinks and a nosh. You look like you could use it.”

  My first instinct was to say no. After all, I’d had enough to drink last night to last me for weeks. On the other hand, some solid food wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe I’d just skip the beer and go straight to the munchies.

  I guess I hesitated too long, because Nina chimed in, “Come on, Christa. It’s Saturday…well, okay, it’s not Saturday night yet, but there’s no reason we can’t go have some fun. How about you guys?” she added, looking over at Jennifer, Nicole, and Sarah.

  Nicole and Sarah both appeared a little startled to have been included in the invitation. Jennifer said immediately, “I can’t — I’m meeting Phil for dinner, so late afternoon snacking is out. Besides, I need to watch what I eat for the next few months. The last thing I need is to be too fat to get into my gown.”

  I doubted that would happen; Jennifer was the sort of person who weighed her food portions.

  As if taking their cue from Jennifer, both Sarah and Nicole shook their heads. “I need to watch it, too,” Sarah said, and since she tended to be a little plump, I could see why she’d beg off. Nicole probably just didn’t want to come because she didn’t know us very well. She was another high school friend of Jennifer’s who also went to the same church.

  “Sounds good to me,” I said firmly, since both Micaela and Nina had faintly disgusted expressions on their faces. I just hoped Nina wouldn’t trot out some remark about uptight white girls, or this could get ugly.

  But apparently my olive branch worked, because Micaela grinned and said, “Food therapy. Maybe some shopping, too, on the way ov
er. I haven’t had a chance to get out and do anything for weeks, and my debit card’s burning a hole in my wallet.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, and for some reason Nina and Micaela and I all burst out laughing.

  I loved them all in that moment, for their energy, their concern over me, and their attempts, however clumsy, to turn the conversation away from Luke. Hey, it even worked — for a whole fifteen seconds there I didn’t even think about him.

  It was almost eight o’clock by the time I got home. By then I felt unbelievably tired, but also oddly relaxed, as if spending those few hours in the company of my friends had started me down the first steps to healing. I hadn’t written off Luke, but I knew if things really were over between us, I still had other people in the world who cared about me. As I came around to the front of the building from the garage, I saw someone waiting on the bottom step. My heart gave a single wild throb before I realized it wasn’t Luke but probably the last person in the world I wanted to see — Danny.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said, before I could even open my mouth to demand why the hell he was loitering there.

  “Now really isn’t a good time,” I replied curtly.

  “Please,” he said, and there was such a look of puppy-dog pleading in his eyes that I felt forced to relent.

  “All right,” I said, dragging out the words with some reluctance. “But I’m really tired, so I hope this isn’t going to take too long.”

  His face sort of lit up then, and I felt like even more of a heel. If he thought that by talking to me he could change things between us, he was sorely mistaken, but maybe it would be better to let him have his say and be done with it. At least I could try to get a little closure with this relationship, since Luke’s and my split still felt like a raw, gaping wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

  Trying to repress a sigh, I mounted the stairs, with Danny following close behind. After I had let us both in, I asked, since I wanted to sound halfway civil, “Do you want something to drink? I think I just have some bottled water, but there might be a beer hiding somewhere in the back of the fridge.”

  “Water’s fine,” he said. Danny never had been much of a drinker.

  I went into the kitchen to get the water and figured I could use some as well. The food at Crown City was good, but I was still dehydrated, even though I had waved off any and all offers of beer. Frankly, right then the idea of drinking anything alcoholic made me feel a little sick.

  When I went back out to the living room I saw that Danny had sat down in the armchair. It had been his usual seat when he used to come over and we’d hang out in the living room, but it still felt strange to look at him sitting there when the last man to occupy that seat was Luke.

  That thought made me want to cry. Instead, I swallowed hard and thrust one of the glasses at Danny. “Here,” I said, trying to keep any betraying huskiness out of my voice.

  He shot me sort of an odd look, but accepted the glass and took a drink. I sat down on the couch and stared back at him with what I hoped was a slightly quizzical but also impatient expression.

  “Look, Christa,” he began, “I know you’re still pissed off at me, but don’t you understand that I’m trying to help you? Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into?”

  A whole lot of lonely nights, was my first thought, and again that awful ache welled up inside me. God, I wanted it to be Luke sitting here in my apartment with me, not Danny, who kept giving me that anxious schoolboy look. I had the random thought that maybe I should just tell Danny that Luke and I had broken up. Maybe then he’d finally drop the whole thing. On the other hand, he might get the wrong idea and believe I was having second thoughts about ending our relationship, and that I absolutely did not want.

  “What have I gotten myself into?” I asked after a brief pause.

  “You’re acting as if this only involves your social life or something, but you’re endangering your immortal soul by trafficking with this person!”

  At first I wanted to burst out laughing. Then I wondered if Danny had quoted that line directly from his priest or whether he’d at least paraphrased a bit. “Don’t worry about that,” I remarked, after I felt I could keep a straight face. “Luke already told me I wasn’t going to Hell.”

  “Of course he’d tell you that,” Danny retorted. “He has sort of a reputation for making things seem all great at first and then boom! Eternal damnation.”

  “Spare me the fire and brimstone,” I said wearily. “If I even believed in any of that, I would never have taken up with Luke in the first place.”

  Eyes blazing, Danny leaned forward, the water glass clenched in his right hand. He looked like one of those people who get up and testify on what my father used to derisively refer to as “Jesus shows.”

  “How can you not believe it, when the existence of this person you call Luke proves that Hell is real?”

  “Okay, let me rephrase that,” I replied. “Maybe Hell exists, but even Luke told me that it’s different things for different people. It’s not some one-size-fits-all torture park.”

  “He told you that?” Danny asked, and the light in his eyes altered suddenly. He went from looking like someone possessed by missionary fervor to a geek who had just gotten to test-drive the latest game console. “What else?”

  “Not all that much,” I said, and immediately Danny’s face fell. Maybe he’d been hoping that I’d gotten a topographical map of Hell or some other nifty artifact. “He also compared himself to a prison warden rather than the most senior inmate. Makes sense, I guess, since God doesn’t seem to have too much trouble with him running around up here and driving expensive cars.”

  A scowl etched itself into Danny’s forehead. I guessed he was chewing over what I had just told him and deciding which element to attack first. Finally he said, “Well, of course he’d tell you something that would make him sound better.”

  “And how does that make Luke different from any other man on the planet?” I asked nastily, then wished I hadn’t. Danny looked as if I had struck him. I couldn’t take it back, so instead I added, “All I’m saying is that he hasn’t done anything to cause me — or anyone else, as far as I know — any harm. Does that sound like the source of all evil to you?”

  No harm except misjudging me so badly he thought I’d happily take a job I hadn’t earned. No harm except breaking my heart.

  A little melodrama, Christa? I thought, and gave myself the mental equivalent of a slap across the face. One pity party per week per customer.

  “No,” Danny said at last, sounding reluctant in the extreme. “But that still doesn’t mean anything. Of course he’d be on his best behavior with you.”

  And he was, I thought, remembering the sound of his laugh, the look on his face when I opened the door and he saw me in all my opera finery. And the feel of his arms around me, and the warm, spicy scent of his skin. I clenched my hands into fists and felt my nails dig into my palms. At least the immediate pain helped to drive away thoughts of Luke.

  “Look, Danny,” I said, facing him squarely and praying that he’d actually listen to me for once, “you and I are never going to agree on this, so let me just tell you a couple of things so you can get them through your head once and for all. First off, Luke knows all about your amateur-hour Hardy Boys impersonations. He knows Zach was watching the house and spying on him. Luckily, Luke thought it was more amusing than anything else, so I expect Zach doesn’t have to worry about retaliation.”

  I let that hang in the air for a minute. I’d purposely left off mentioning that Danny didn’t need to worry about retaliation, either.

  My ploy seemed to work; Danny stared at me for a minute, obviously trying to work it out, and then he paled visibly. Good.

  “Second of all,” I went on, not giving him a chance to say anything, “even if by some amazing stroke of luck you got someone with any real authority to believe that Luke is the Devil, there’s no way to prove it. None. He’s got bank accounts, a credit file, a
nd any other sort of identification a legal adult would have in this country.”

  “But he’s not even human!” Danny burst out.

  “Physically, he is,” I replied. “He assured me of that. Do a blood test — you won’t find anything strange. Put him through an MRI, CAT scan, whatever — that body is as human as yours and mine.”

  “Oh, really?” Danny sneered. “How would you know?”

  I crossed my arms and stared back at him for a long moment. If possible, he went even paler.

  “You — you didn’t,” he stammered at last.

  Maybe I was being cruel. I certainly hadn’t planned to rub in the fact that Luke had made love to me and it was fabulous, but I also didn’t intend to lie, either. I could have made a crack about not being the one who had taken a vow of celibacy. I didn’t, though. I said simply, “You might not want to ask any more questions if you don’t want to hear the answers.”

  Danny looked away. I could see the muscles working in his jaw and felt a sudden rush of pity for him. He wasn’t a bad guy — he just wasn’t the right guy for me. That didn’t mean I should rub his face in the fact that I’d jumped into bed with Luke less than two weeks after meeting him.

  “Third,” I said, and I made my tone as gentle as I could, “we both know that it really wasn’t working out between us. We just kept limping along because we couldn’t think of anything else to do. So even if Luke and I stopped seeing each other, it wouldn’t mean that you and I had any sort of future together. Isn’t it time we stopped kidding ourselves?”

  For a long moment he said nothing but just sat there, looking down at the glass of water he still held as if he’d suddenly forgotten what it was. Finally he replied, “I guess so.”

  A sense of cautious relief filled me after those words. I supposed that sometimes you just had to beat people over the head with things before they finally got the point. And Danny, for all his cleverness with computers and numbers, could be remarkably obtuse when it came to human interactions.