“Tell you all about who?” Kimber feigned ignorance, partly to rile Ferney up and partly because she was terrified of her sister’s reaction to the truth.
Ferney raised her fork, tines toward Heaven. “Tell me or this goes right into your hand.”
“Fine, just calm down.” Kimber rolled her eyes. “But I need you to prepare yourself, because you aren’t going to like it.”
“Psh.” Ferney scoffed. “Anyone’s better than Dane. Lay it on me.”
Kimber poked the ice in her Coke with her straw, wondering how to bring it up, then decided to just get it over with. “Truth is, I don’t know his name or what he looks like, or anything about him, actually. Moquest arranged for us to meet up in his room with me blindfolded, and one thing just led to another, and I finally experienced what you said you have with Paul. Even though it’s totally weird, I think something can really happen here.” There it was, laid out and abridged.
Ferney stopped picking at her taco salad and stared at her like she was a terrorist. “Okay,” she finally said. “And the real story is…”
“That’s it. That is the real story.”
Her sister’s mouth tightened and she stabbed her salad with her fork in silence for a moment before taking a long sip of her ice water. “I really, really hope not.” She spoke around her straw in a voice quivering with rage. “Because you clearly have no idea how fucking insane and scary that sounds.”
Kimber frowned. “It-”
“It’s fucking insane and scary,” Ferney repeated, slamming her glass on the table. “What isn’t completely messed up and dangerous about fucking and falling for someone you know nothing about and couldn’t even pick out of a lineup? He could be a murderer, Kimber, or a serial rapist spreading AIDS. What if you get pregnant with this psychopath’s baby? Jesus Christ.”
“We’ve been careful, and he’s not a murderer. Or a rapist, for that matter.”
“Confirm that. Oh, wait, you totally can’t, because you have no goddamn idea who he is.”
“I can just tell, okay?” Kimber heaved an annoyed sigh, knowing her argument was weak. She could hardly fault her sister when she shared the same fears, the ones she’d ignored since Jay and Moquest knew about her situation and hadn’t been so concerned about the danger factor. “Just trust me on this. I can tell by the way he touches me, like he truly cares about me, like he instinctively knows what I want.”
“Yeah, well, I read this book once about a blind serial killer who also touched his victims with all the love in the world. Then he got bored of them, hacked them into pieces, and made sculptures out of their body parts.”
Kimber stared at her sister, agape. “What the hell were you doing reading that?” She couldn’t picture her sister reading something more intense or complex than hair coloring instructions, and even then Ferney left her highlights to the professionals.
“Paul sometimes gets me to read crazy shit. You know, Paul, my real life fiance whom I can see and whose name I know and whom I’ve had conversations with and-”
“Okay, you’ve made your point.” Kimber rolled her napkin in a tiny rope around her fingers, trying not to focus on the tears pricking her eyes and the hopelessness spreading through her like ink in water.
Ferney sighed. “Look, I’m just worried about you, okay? I’m not undermining your feelings. I’m sure they’re real. I see you’ve got that glow about you, and of course I want you to always look so happy. But think about what you’re doing, and think about why this guy hasn’t given up his anonymity yet. There’s a reason.”
“Uh huh.” Kimber nodded with reluctance and tossed her mistreated napkin atop her half-eaten lunch, but Ferney had tapped into what she felt was the biggest question of all. Why didn’t he want her to know who he was? What could he be hiding that was so bad?
Jay found Kimber on her break the next day, ordering a veggie wrap in the food court and wearing a forlorn expression that used to trigger his immediate and often correct assumption that Dane did something stupid again. However, she hadn’t had much to say on that front lately, so he could only wonder what her issue was about-or who. He had a hunch he wouldn’t feel good knowing the truth.
“Hey.” He sat opposite her in the booth she sat in and watched her morosely arrange some ridged potato chips inside the wrap’s folds. “What’s wrong?”
“What makes you think something’s wrong?” she asked, her voice flat.
“Come on. Do you really think I don’t notice when you’re not acting like Kimber?”
“That’s because I’m not Kimber.” She fixed her gaze on him, her mouth drooping into a frown. “I’m an idiot.”
“How do you figure?”
“Please.” She pushed her wrap away, granting herself the room to bury her face in her hands. “Stop being nice and pretending you don’t know what a complete fool I’ve been, getting my hopes up over some total stranger who basically told me to fuck off. Where do I get off, assuming he doesn’t really mean that? Like I said, I’m an idiot. I know it, you know it, the world knows it.” She sighed. “Too bad my stupid heart doesn’t know it.”
Jay snagged a chip from her wrap’s red plastic basket and ate it, but the effort was for show. Guilt filled his gut, obliterating his appetite. “Yesterday you were all systems go no matter what. What happened to that?”
“I actually took some time and thought about it, like a normal, logical person with morals and a brain.” Kimber looked at Jay with eyes that unnerved him; they were so full of despair. “And now-at last-I feel like the worst person in the world. Can you even imagine how that feels?”
He ate another chip but couldn’t taste it. He had no idea what he could possibly say. Here was the meltdown he’d expected yesterday, and he was still clueless how to fix it. He stole a third chip to buy time.
“Hey.” Kimber straightened and tugged the basket back toward her, a small, begrudging smile on her face. “Save some for me. I’m not so depressed I can’t eat.”
He breathed a relieved laugh. “There’s some good news.”
“There’s no such thing as good news anymore.” Moquest suddenly sank in the booth beside Kimber and hid his face in his hands as Kimber had done just moments ago. “All the goodness in the world has ceased to exist.”
Kimber took a small bite of her wrap, the potato chips she’d hidden in there popping in her mouth. “What happened?”
Moquest raised his face to the ceiling and took a deep inhale through his nose, steepling his fingers before his mouth. “My beautiful ex-stripper is now my beautiful ex-girlfriend.”
“Maybe because you keep referring to her as an ex-stripper,” Jay said. “What is her name again?”
“What’s it matter? She hates me now.”
“What’d you do?” asked Kimber. “Did one of your lame pick-up lines finally work on someone other than her?”
“Surprisingly, yes. I told one of the girls playing
“Commenting on a girl’s socks was all it took?” Kimber shook her head. “Damn.”
“I know, right?” Moquest asked. “If I’d known socks were key in the art of seduction, I’d have been noticing them years ago.” He sighed. “But because of my attention to detail, I lost Gina.”
Jay rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll meet another theme girlfriend at your next little get-together. The French maid or the pirate wench, maybe.”
Moquest narrowed his eyes at Jay. “That’s impossible, considering I’m not having any more parties. I’m too depressed to play host.”
“No more parties?” A stricken look appeared on Kimber’s already distraught face and Jay could tell what she was thinking, despite her self-defined foolish feelings. “Then you have to tell me who that guy was.”
“What guy?” Moquest groaned, rubbing his temples.
Kimber blushed. “
Moquest looked at her, then shot Jay a pointed look. “I thought he was supposed to tell you himself the other night.”
“Well, he didn’t get around to it, I guess. Maybe he got scared.”
“I’ll bet.” Moquest snorted and shook his head, still staring at Jay. “What a little bitch that guy is, pussing out
