Beloved Evangeline (9 page)

Eventually I heard some of Steve’s friends sniggering. Several people laughed nervously in response. I brushed at my clothing before willing myself off the ground and catching sight of Gavin, Simon, Nicky, Lyle. Each had a look of extreme disgust I had never seen before.

As I stood up slowly, I saw myself reflected in an enormous mirror on the patio wall.

My hair was completely disheveled. I had lipstick smeared across my face. My shirt was torn, and I had gigantic red marks all over my neck. It occurred to me it must’ve looked to them like I was trying to sneak out the back door, unaware that everyone was now at the back of the house. I was also trembling uncontrollably, though I’m not sure anyone else could see that. Everyone seemed to freeze in place, staring.

“
Please stop begging, baby, it’s not ladylike,” Steve called suddenly from the French doors. He was now wearing only his boxer shorts and speaking much louder than necessary. “I mean, only a total loser wouldn’t be able to take a hint.” He shook his head and made a patronizingly disapproving face. “And, besides, I already told you, one ride per customer, and you already had your turn. You remember
the rules
, don’t you, girl?” He raised his eyebrows and tossed my purse at me before closing the doors.

Crying at a moment like this is a really pathetic thing to do. Everyone knows that. So I refused to do it. I sniffed deeply, just once, to steel myself, and grabbed my purse. Walking slowly past the onlookers determinedly, I focused straight ahead to avoid eye contact. No one spoke. I slung my purse over my shoulder as I walked past, in defiance of their judgment. I wouldn’t give them the show they were hoping for. I’m not sure of the best way to maintain dignity in such a situation, but I did my best. No extreme humiliation clichés here. I’d just keep going with my life, as though this entire horrifically humiliating incident had never even happened.

5.

Seven or eight days later...

I don’t know how long I stayed on the couch, how many days had passed by the time I started getting messages on the answering machine, or when I had last taken a shower, for that matter. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was a week or a month, the way the time drug on. So much for dignity maintenance. I know I was torturing myself, but the thought of
him
thinking I’d been with Steve, even for a moment, wherever
he
was, was literally killing me.

By the time I had summoned the energy to look at the machine, I had 26 messages waiting. I didn’t really care to hear what they had to say, however. What’s the worst that could happen now? I was probably leaving, so what difference did it make now if I lost my job? I vaguely remembered hearing a message about missing a deadline at work, but I had no idea how many days had actually passed since then. I had almost certainly been fired by now. None of this behavior was like me, but I found I didn’t really care.

I deleted all of them without even listening.

I was still sort of drowsing, soaking in my melancholy haze, when I heard a strange noise, something like a low chiming sound. There it went again. I heard it several more times before recognition kicked in: the doorbell. I hadn’t planned on answering it until the arm connected to the person ringing it started pounding. Then came shouting and yelling something about calling the police. That seemed to wake me up a bit. As I neared the door, I thought I recognized the voice, but it seemed oddly out of place, like it was a voice I had heard in a dream and was now hearing in real life.

I unlatched the deadbolt and opened the door just in time to see Simon readying himself to pound on the door again. He froze midway and seemed to just stand there for a moment, staring at me. After several long moments, I realized he was actually saying something. An unearthly silence seemed to have settled on me, and I found I had to focus with all my energy to hear what he was saying.

“
... alright? Well, are you?
Answer me, Evangeline
.” Simon looked almost hysterical.

“
Alright...” My voice sounded strange, like I hadn’t spoken a word in seven or eight days.

“
What the hell is going on? You don’t show up for work, you don’t answer anyone’s calls—what the hell’s the matter with you?”

The sharp tone in his voice seemed to awaken something in me. “Simon,” I said before pausing to clear my throat. “You’ve actually been kind of a dick lately, and all of a sudden you just show up at my house? Maybe you should first tell me what
the hell
you’re doing here?”

He was stunned for a moment before answering, this time in a softer tone, “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just... everyone at work has been really,
really
worried. After what happened at the party... and then you didn’t answer anyone’s calls...” He looked away, “Just worried, that’s all.”

As he was talking, I noticed that the front of my robe was covered in some sort of crumbs (I probably should have thought to get dressed before answering the door). I tried brushing them off, but there seemed to be too many of them. The more I brushed at the silk, the more the crumbs just multiplied into smaller and smaller pieces. Soon there were just too many of them, and so I gave up with a small sigh. Like so many other things in my life at that moment, it seemed hopeless.

Simon was looking at me strangely. “Please, I need to know what happened. Everyone at work has been talking... I mean...”

Of course they have. Why is it that some people seem to like nothing better than enjoying another person’s misery and then recounting it to one another over and over again? Might this explain some of the messages on my machine?

“
Talking about me...” I finally said aloud, more to myself than to Simon, really. It’s an ugly feeling, being the source of malicious gossip, but of course, I’ve faced worse than this before.

Suddenly, realization slapped me in the face. “You’re here to find out if I slept with Steve? Is that what you
mean
?”

Simon said nothing.

“
It’s obvious, isn’t it, after what happened at the party? I’ve actually been hot for Steve for a long,
long
time. Avoiding him all these years was just a lark. I’ve really just been waiting for the right time to hook up with him to, you know, fit him into my… hook-up schedule?” I’d given wit a shot, even though I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, and now I was just sounding like an idiot. Of course I was being more sarcastic than necessary, too, but I felt it was deserved on this occasion.

I turned away to keep from ranting any further, and maybe in an effort to prevent embarrassing myself any further, and just like that, just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, of course, they did.
Ugh
. I’d caught sight of my wild, now crazy-looking hair in the window. I hadn’t looked in the mirror very closely for the past few days, looking disheveled is possibly a natural consequence of that. I shook my head and automatically began pulling my hair back with the ponytail holder I often keep on my wrist.

“
Oh my god, Vangie,” Simon gasped, his eyes wide.

He hadn’t called me Vangie in forever. It must be really bad.

“
I know,
I know,
I’m hideous. And dripping in crumbs.” Simon had managed to really embarrass me, and I began gesturing with my hands and couldn’t stop. “I was
really
hoping you wouldn’t notice. Or at least, have the
decency
not to say anything if you did.”

“
No, not that. I’m mean you don’t look...
hideous
.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“
No, I mean, you have scratches and marks all over your neck and an enormous bruise on your arm.” He reached out for me, but I flinched him away. “What did you….?” There was a glint of something in his tone.
Anger? Disgust? Was he really going to start caring now, of all times, about my sex life?

The tone of the conversation stirred something in me—not in a good way—and I lashed out. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed,” said I, glancing casually at the sizeable black and green knot on my forearm. “Didn’t you hear I’m
into
this kind of thing? Can’t you tell how much I
enjoy
it?” I continued, again too sarcastically.

He clenched his jaw. “Look, I don’t care if you...
slept
... with... him... or not...” he seemed to choke on the words. “You’re right about everyone talking about that, but we’re your friends and we’re just worried about you. None of this is like you, I can tell. Whatever is making you act this way, we can help, we can...”

“
No
, you can’t.
No one can
. And why would anyone care if I did sleep with him—hasn’t everyone else? Does it really make any difference?”

Simon looked extremely pained and then sighed. “No, I guess it doesn’t matter. Whatever is going on, it’s okay, Evangeline. That’s all I’m trying to say.” He tilted his head to look in the house. “Can I come in for a minute?”

I looked around at the mess my house had become over the last several days or however long it’d been. Again, in a previous life, I might’ve been embarrassed to have pizza boxes and wineglasses all over the coffee table and whatever other mess was lying about, but again, I found, to my surprise, I didn’t care at all.

Wait
. On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t have and was just being too hard on myself at the moment. My natural disposition is quite a Bohemian one. I often go through slovenly phases and am quite unapologetic about it, so no, I haven’t completely lost it yet. Apparently, my inner monologue is becoming something of a drama queen lately. At this revelation I was suddenly afraid to say anything to Simon. I shrugged instead and gestured for him to come in. Simon maneuvered himself awkwardly through the living room before moving books, a nightgown and blanket—and for some reason a sock—off the arm of a chair to clear a place to sit down.

“
Would you, I dunno, like some tea or something?” I asked automatically, just because it seemed like the sort of thing one should say.

“
Sure, I’ll take some of that.”

When I returned from putting the kettle on, Simon was wandering around looking at the things on my shelves.

“
You’ve got some really interesting things here. Did you put all this together yourself?”

“
No. This used to be my mom’s house.”

“
Why do you keep all of this up, if you don’t mind me asking? Some of this stuff is a little…
unusual
. What is this, like a snake skeleton?” Simon was making a disapproving face and pointing to a delicate collection of bones on one of the shelves.

Lie.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my life it’s this: Never disclose your true interests or tastes to anyone.

“
These were my mother’s things. I keep them up to remind me of her. I don’t know, I guess they’ve never seemed weird to me.” Benign enough.

“
Oh. Well, it
’s interesting
, in a… Tim Burton sort of way.” He forced a smile.

See?
I adore Tim Burton. Simon would be repulsed if he knew how much I loved every single artifact in this house.

The kettle whistled. I pulled a face and gestured toward the kitchen. Simon nodded in comprehension.

After settling at the sofa with our tea, I felt a little better, a little more like myself. Hot tea always has that effect on me.

“
You have to come back to work, Evangeline,” Simon finally said with absolutely no segue. He had apparently been dying to say this since I opened the door.

I just made a face and shook my head. I didn’t want to be mean to him anymore.

“
Look, it’s obvious that’s something’s wrong... something, I mean, from before, not, you know, from, at Steve’s...” He paused and cleared his throat in apparent embarrassment for me.

“
We all catch glimpses of it sometimes. I’m sorry to be bringing this up, and you can stop me at any time if I’m out of line, but normally you seem so detached and aloof. But then, occasionally, at lunch, when we’re all laughing and talking—or when you used to come with us to happy hours, after you’d had a drink or two—you just sort of lit up inside and came out of your shell. It was amazing. You’d be so funny and radiant and...
alive
. Gavin said you probably act the way you normally do as some sort of a defense mechanism, but that sometimes, you let your guard down when you’d had a drink or two or were really enjoying yourself. Anyway, that’s his theory.