Dating the Devil

by Lia Romeo

  Oh, no. “In love? Jim, you just met her two days ago.”

  “That’s not true,” he says. “I met her a few years ago, when I came out to help you move.”

  “Yeah, okay, but you were with Stephanie then. You didn’t even talk to Nat.”

  “I know,” he says. “But I could tell she had a beautiful soul.”

  You could tell she had a beautiful ass, I want to tell him. “Jim. Um. If you’re moving here because of Nat . . . that isn’t a good idea.”

  “I know it seems impulsive,” he says, “but I’ve never connected with anybody this way. She’s just . . . I don’t know. She’s perfect. But it’s not just because of her. I’ve been doing tons of networking at the conference—I think I could get a job here, and there’s a lot more opportunity to move up than there is in Topeka. And you’re here. I’d get to spend more time with my sis.” He reaches out and gives my forearm an affectionate squeeze.

  “Yeah. I know. I just—I’m not—I’m not sure things with you and Nat are going to work out. She’s a great friend, but she’s . . . she’s not a very good girlfriend—if she’s ever actually been anyone’s girlfriend—which I’m pretty sure she hasn’t.”

  Jim’s face turns cold and he’s quiet for a moment. “How come I haven’t gotten to meet your boyfriend?” he asks finally. “Where’s he been?”

  “I told you,” I say. “He’s been busy with work.”

  “Yeah, well, if he’s so busy with work that he can’t spare a half hour to come and meet your brother, then I’m not sure things with you and him are going to work out either.”

  “I don’t know if they are or not,” I tell him. “But that’s not what we’re talking about.”

  “You worry about your love life, and I’ll worry about mine, okay?” Jim says. He pushes back his chair and stands, though we’re not even done with our sandwiches. “You ready to go?”

  Silently, I wrap up the other half of my tomato and mozzarella baguette and pick up my diet Coke. We walk back to the apartment mostly in silence—I try to engage Jim by asking him questions about how Mom and Dad are doing, but he just gives me one word answers. “Look, I’ll stay out of your business,” I tell him finally, as we’re waiting for the elevator in my lobby. “I was just trying to help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” he says.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Jim could never stay mad at me for long, not even the time I accidentally knocked a whole can of paint over on his science fair project—an elaborate ant farm he’d been working on for days. “It’s okay,” he says. “Hey, you want to hear a funny story about the baby?”

  “The baby” is what Jim calls Mom’s tiny toy poodle, Coco. He likes to joke that Coco is Mom’s replacement for me, since she got the dog as soon as I went away to school. Coco is barely a foot tall, even standing on her hind legs, but apparently she somehow managed to get up on the kitchen counter and eat her way through an entire pan of brownies that were cooling there . . . then vomit all over the expensive Turkish carpet in the front hall.

  “They’re lucky she didn’t die!” I tell him. “Chocolate is really poisonous for dogs.”

  “I know,” he says, “and she literally ate her body weight in brownies. Got her little snout up in that pan and licked it clean.”

  I chuckle, picturing Coco’s tiny white furry snout covered in brownie crumbs. “I think I’m going to head to the gym,” I tell him. “You want to come with? I’ve got guest passes.”

  “Sure,” he says.

  “Hey, Jim?” I ask as I’m heading into the closet to change. “Have you told Natalie anything about how you’re thinking about moving to New York?”

  “Not yet,” he says. “I think I will tonight.”

  I want to tell him not to, but I don’t want to start another fight. “Okay.”

  “Why?” he says.

  “No reason.”

  – 20 –

  THAT NIGHT, JIM, Nat, Mel and I go to a Mexican place near Union Square called La Rosarita. Mel, who’s hardly been around all week, is taken aback when Jim and Nat start making out in the cab on the way to the restaurant. Once we get there, I pull her into the bathroom with me, telling Jim and Nat that I need her to help me fix my eye makeup.

  In the bright light of the ladies’ room, Mel produces a tiny bottle of black liquid liner from her purse and begins rimming my eyes with it while I explain the situation. She seems distracted, and a couple of times she asks me to repeat what I just said, but eventually I make it through the story of the past two nights. “That doesn’t sound good,” she says when I’ve finished.

  “No, and it gets even worse,” I tell her. “Jim wants to move to New York, and he’s going to tell her so. Tonight.”

  Mel shakes her head.

  “I don’t know what she’ll do,” I continue as Mel re-caps the liner and slips it into her purse. “But I know what she won’t do, which is tell him she wants to be in a committed relationship. I’m just hoping she doesn’t freak out and decide to show him he shouldn’t move here by making out with somebody else in front of him, or something.”

  I look over at Mel. She’s staring vaguely at her reflection in one of the tooled silver Mexican mirrors above the sinks. “Mel? You don’t think she’ll do anything like that . . . do you?”

  “Huh?” Mel says.

  “Are you okay? You seem really out of it.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’m—I’ve just been—yeah. I’m fine. It’s just been a really busy week.” She pulls herself together, turning away from the mirror, smiling at me, and linking her arm through mine. “Let’s go start drinking, ’kay?”

  When we sit down at the table, there’s a round of margaritas on it, and Natalie, with a frozen smile on her face, is draining hers. She puts down her empty glass and signals to the waiter for another.

  “Make it two,” Jim calls over to the waiter. “We’ve got a lot to celebrate tonight.” He smiles at Mel and me. “Just told Nat the good news.”

  “That you’re—?”

  “Yup,” he says. “That I’m moving. Soon as I can get my place rented out back home.”

  I take a giant gulp of my margarita. From the corner of my eye, I see that Mel is doing the same thing. The waiter brings over a tray with two more margaritas for Jim and Nat on it.

  “Well, um . . . cheers!” I say, raising my glass to the table.

  “Cheers!” they chorus in return, Mel and Nat half-heartedly, though Jim’s voice is hearty enough to make up for it.

  After we’ve had some guacamole and tacos and flautas, and talked about work and the weather and the upcoming election and how the Kansas State football team is doing and everything but Jim’s move, Jim says: “So where are we heading after this?”

  “I’m actually going to go see this band play in the East Village,” Nat says. “I’m friends with the drummer. But you guys don’t have to come.”

  “I’ll come,” Jim says quickly.

  “No, you should—you should spend some time with Lucy,” Nat says.

  “Lucy’ll come too. Won’t she?” he asks, turning to me.

  “Lucy, um—Lucy doesn’t like this band very much,” Nat says. I have no idea what band she’s talking about, of course.

  “Come on, Luce,” Jim says. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Natalie gives me a pleading look—but I’m not letting her off the hook so easily. She got herself into this situation, and she’ll have to get herself out of it. “Sure,” I say. “I’ll come.”

  “Great!” Jim says, and the next thing I know, the four of us are in a cab heading towards the East Village. The cab lets us off in front of a plain black door on First Avenue. There’s no sign on the door, but Nat punches in a key code and we go down a flight of stairs to a small, dark basement, covered with graffiti, where a crowd of hipsters press against each other while trying to make their way up to the bar. In the front of the room is a stage where a band is tuning up.

  “I’ll go get us dri
nks,” Jim says, and as he attempts to fight his way through the crowd, I see Nat blowing a kiss to the pale, tattooed, lank-haired drummer. He blows her one back. I look at Mel, trying to catch her eye, but she’s staring off into space again.

  When Jim returns with our drinks, the band has started playing, if “playing” is the word. The lead singer is howling like a wounded dog, the guitarist is playing something that bears no resemblance to harmony, and the drummer seems to be striking his drums completely at random. But Nat has migrated up to the front of the crowd, next to the stage, and started dancing enthusiastically. Jim hands off two of the drinks—a beer for me, and a vodka soda for Mel—and then starts pushing his way between the hipsters to get to her.

  But by the time he’s at the front of the room, she’s already got a beer in each hand . . . two other guys have bought them for her. Jim holds up the beer he’s bought and she shrugs and laughs, tossing her hair. He tries to take her by the waist and dance with her, but Nat jumps up onstage and starts dancing there instead. The drummer abandons his drums entirely, stands up, and starts grinding with her as the crowd cheers, and I see Jim chugging first his beer, then the one he bought for Nat as he watches them.

  I tap Mel on the arm and yell: “I’ll be right back!” and she nods vaguely. I push my way in between hips, shoulders, elbows until I get to the front of the room and grab Jim’s shoulder. “Hey!” I yell at him over the noise of the band.

  “What is she doing?” Jim yells back, gesturing at Nat dancing onstage.

  “She’s just . . . being Natalie,” I tell him. “Do you want to go? Let’s go.”

  “Only if she comes with us!” he yells.

  I try to catch Nat’s eye, but she’s wholly absorbed in grinding her ass against the drummer’s crotch. I reach up and grab her foot. She looks down.

  “Hey! Nat! Let’s go!”

  “I don’t want to go!” she yells. “I’m having fun!”

  “Then I don’t want to go either,” Jim tells me.

  “Come on, Jim. It’s only going to get worse!” But he doesn’t hear me. Which doesn’t much matter, because Nat, still dancing, spins around so she’s face to face with the drummer, and a moment later his tongue is halfway down her throat. The crowd cheers even louder as they make out, and Jim slams his fist down on the bar.

  “Damn it, Luce! What is she—why is she—”

  I can’t stand to see the hurt in his eyes. “Come on,” I say firmly, grabbing his arm this time. “We’re going to go.”

  – 21 –

  JIM HAS TO LEAVE for the airport early the next morning, and I get up to make him coffee and see him off. I don’t know if Natalie ever came home, but if she did, she certainly doesn’t emerge from her room to say goodbye. Which is just as well, because if she did I’d probably throw my coffee in her face.

  I know Jim was up late, because I heard the TV playing in the living room from inside my closet the night before. “Did you get any sleep?” I ask him.

  “No,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “Not really.” He’s stuffing his clothes into his duffel bag.

  “Well. I’m—I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time.”

  “Not your fault,” he says, and gives my shoulder a squeeze. “It was great to see you.”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “You too.” And it was. I’d forgotten how nice it was having him around. For a moment I let myself think about what it would be like if things were different . . . if Natalie weren’t such a tease . . . if Jim actually moved to the city and the two of them actually dated. It would be so much fun.

  “And I still want to meet this mysterious boyfriend of yours,” Jim says.

  “Yeah. Well, if we . . . if it works out, I’m sure you will eventually.”

  Just then the intercom buzzes. “Ms. O’Neill? Your cab is here,” the doorman says, and Jim enfolds me in a hug.

  “Good luck with everything,” he says.

  “Yeah. You too. Are you—are you okay?”

  Jim gives me a smile and a shrug, and then heads out the door.

  After he leaves, I want to go back to bed, but I’ve had coffee, and I’m wired. I think about calling Lewis to see if he wants to have brunch, but it’s only eight a.m. and I’m not sure he’ll be up yet. I turn on the TV and watch old reruns of Rachael Ray for an hour while painting my nails red. Just as I’ve finished my right hand and am about to start on my left, Nat breezes through the door, still dressed in the skintight jeans, black tank top, brown leather jacket and boots she was wearing last night.

  “Hey, Luce!” she says cheerfully. I say nothing. “You guys just, like, disappeared last night,” she continues. “Where’d you go?”

  I look up. “Home,” I tell her, and look back down at my nails.

  “Oh. How come?” she asks.

  It takes a Herculean effort, but once again I say nothing.

  “I mean, I thought we were all having fun,” Nat says.

  And now it’s impossible—I can’t keep quiet any longer. “You thought Jim was having fun?” I ask her.

  “Well, maybe not him,” she says. “But all us girls.”

  “He’s not just a guy, Nat!” I tell her. “He’s my brother!”

  “Yeah, I know,” she says innocently.

  “And even if he weren’t . . . he’s a really good person and he doesn’t deserve to have you treat him like that. I mean you can’t just—you can’t just go around treating people like shit and get away with it forever!”

  “I didn’t treat him like shit,” she says. “We had some fun, and then I had some fun with someone else.”

  “You didn’t just have some fun, Nat. He was falling in love with you.”

  “Okay,” she says, “maybe, but it’s not like that’s my fault.”

  “It is, though, because you do this all the time! You make men fall in love with you, and then you stomp all over their hearts, and you enjoy it! And I think it’s just because you’re scared . . . maybe it’s because your dad died, I don’t know, but you’re too scared to let yourself get close to anybody!”

  I’ve thought this before, but I’ve never said it aloud. In every friendship there are probably certain things that are true but should never be spoken. Nat goes white.

  “I don’t know how you could say something like that,” she says in a small, tight voice. “You’re just jealous because I can get any guy I want, and the only guy who’s been interested in you in the last four years is Satan.”

  She picks up her bag, which she’s thrown down on the kitchen counter, and leaves the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

  – 22 –

  I DON’T KNOW where Nat’s gone or when she’ll come back, but I certainly don’t feel like seeing her when she does, so I take a shower and pack some clothes into a bag for work tomorrow, planning to stay overnight at Lewis’ place. Mel’s in the kitchen when I come out of the shower, drinking the remaining cup of coffee from the pot I made for Jim. I tell her about what just happened.

  “Mmmm,” she says distractedly when I’ve finished the story.

  “So what do you think? I mean I probably shouldn’t have said that. But I think I had a right to say it—didn’t I?” Mel is twirling a piece of her blonde hair and staring out the window at the skyscrapers outside. The sky is gray and a slow drizzle is falling. She doesn’t say anything. “Mel? Are you okay?”

  “Huh?” she says.

  “You’ve been totally out of it every time I’ve seen you all—well, I haven’t seen you all week, until last night, and then last night and this morning you’ve been totally out of it. Is there something going on?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she says. “I’m just tired. Sorry.”

  “Cause you know, if something was wrong, you could tell me . . .” I press her.

  “Yeah, I know,” she says. She takes the last sip of her coffee, puts the cup in the dishwasher, and twists her hair up in a businesslike knot with the hair tie around her wrist. “What are you up to today?” she asks me with a b
right smile. “Heading down to see Lewis?”

  “Yeah . . . what about you?”

  “I think I’m going to go for a long run,” she says. “Down along the river.”

  “Do you think maybe you’re training too hard?” I ask her. “I mean, if you’re tired all the time . . . ?”

  “Training too hard? No such thing,” she says cheerfully, and heads into her room to change into her running gear.

  I’m still concerned about her, but I’m not sure what I can do about it, since she’s obviously not in a mood to confide. And besides, it wasn’t like she was particularly concerned about me . . . which you’d think she would be, given that Nat and I are her two best friends—and roommates—and I’m not sure when we’ll be back on speaking terms.

  Feeling disappointed in both my friends, I trudge through the drizzle to catch the subway downtown to Lewis’ place. Maybe some steamy sex will cheer me up. Lewis and I have recently begun using handcuffs, and it’s been a revelation. “Sometimes it’s good to be a little bit bad,” he’d said with a wicked smile the night he first produced them from his dresser drawer.

  And it does cheer me up . . . for a while. After I spend a couple of hours handcuffed to his headboard, Lewis suggests venturing out into the rain for dinner. There’s a wood-fired pizza place nearby that we’ve been to a couple of times, and on this cold, rainy night, pizza sounds perfect. We walk down the street together, arm in arm, sharing a single umbrella, to the restaurant.

  But once we’re there, waiting for our pizza with buffalo mozzarella, sausage, and black olives to appear, I find myself uncharacteristically quiet. Lewis is a great listener, and I’m usually able to talk to him about whatever’s on my mind . . . but explaining what’s on my mind tonight would mean explaining that my brother was in town all weekend, which would mean explaining that I’d been lying to Lewis about being at work instead of introducing the two of them. Which is not an explanation I’m willing to get into just yet.