Page 15 of Love, Lines, and Alibis
We could even go over the fact that I trusted him completely when it came to the two of us together in a dark room with only the goal of pleasure in mind, but I still couldn’t find it in me to trust him for anything else.
But we werenotgoing to talk about Victor.
10
We stared at one another for what felt like an eternity, daring the other to be the first to say whatever needed to be said between us. I was about to call a truce and ask him to leave the pool—let’s not forget we were in February and that’s technically also winter in perennially sunny SoCal—and go to my place. I was still craving a shower, a fuck, and a siesta, not necessarily in that order.
But, of course, as it was always the case with my and David’s story—and the reason why I had wanted to keep things as non-verbal as possible those last few months—he got a call. A work call.
In the past, he would have walked away from me under the pretense of not wanting to disturb me, even if I knew what he wanted was for me not to overhear his conversation. But he didn’t do it this time. He remained exactly where he’d been and answered his phone, a pained look of apology on his face.
“Hi. I’m sending it in the next hour, but it’s short and mostly speculative,” he said to who I assumed was his editor. “If we had more time, I’d prefer to wait. But I know we don’t.”
It had to be bad if David was thinking of bylining something he had qualified asspeculative.
But every local, state, and national big outlet and minor blog had been reporting nonstop about Henry’s death since that morning. So even I understood that David would want to write something about it too. He’d been the reporter who had uncovered Dashing Henry and had gotten him canceled. David had probably had something, or a lot, to do with getting Henry finally fired. And he was there when the body was found.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have used that adjective...” he continued as if trying to make a point with his editor.
Did he look tense or frustrated? He was so annoyingly calm and balanced all the time that I hadn’t learned to recognize the signs of stress in him. He didn’t appreciate that and had probably added it to our extensive list of grievances and differences.
In my defense, it’s just so difficult to tell. He doesn’t sweat, he doesn’t fidget, he doesn’t pace restlessly. He doesn’t stutter, avoid eye contact, or become irritable. You can only tell he’s not happy by the clench of his jaw. And since I happen to be partial to his sharp jawline, sometimes I find myself not recognizing that he’s not trying to be sexy but mad.
I realized something must be wrong with David that afternoon when his jawline started looking sharper than Matt Bomer’s and Henry Cavill’s combined.
“IknowI’m not impartial. Nobody expects me to be in this case. They want me to write about it precisely because I’m not impartial—and the body was found at my building.”
The blade from the fancy Japanese mandoline that my dad had gotten for me the previous Christmas looked duller than David’s mandibles at the moment, yet his voice was perfectly measured. I’d probably be screaming if I was in his situation—or simply not saying a word.
He hung up after that and I thought I perceived the slightest trace of frustration in his eyes.
“Everything okay?” I asked. For some reason, I wanted him to know I had perceived his unhappiness this time.
“My editor doesn’t think I should be writing about Dashing Henry’s death. He’s passing me for another reporter.”
“What? That’s bullshit!”
“I know. That’s why I’m going to ignore him and keep doing my job. There’s no way I’m not reporting this story.” I knew that, as a not-so-young-anymore reporter, he kept an inner checklist of grievances against past and present editors.
“What editor is that? John Diaz at theLA Gazette?”
“Michael Townsend from theLos Angeles Voice,” he said, referring to theGazette’s main competitor. “TheGazettefired me after the big Dashing Henry article, when the actor sued me and pretended he’d never coerced sexual favors from his staffers.”
“Right, I knew about theLA Gazettebeing done with you. I always thought they were a bunch of self-centered idiots,” I said.
“John Diaz is actually a nice guy. His hands were tied when they got rid of me.” I couldn’t avoid rolling my eyes. I’d never been a fan of Diaz, even though David adored him. Too many late-night deadlines, weekend assignments, and endless rounds of editions.
“So you’re working with theVoicenow?” I asked.
If we’d been talking for the last few months, I wouldn’t have to ask such basic questions. Those were the kinds of things you were supposed to know about someone you... cared about. But we hadn’t been on speaking terms, and I’d been actively avoiding him online as well. Not only his social media but all of his writing. It reminded me too much of him.
“I’m only freelancing for theVoice,” he said, and I thought he was about to tell me something else, but he didn’t because my cell phone rang.
Chances are that, if you phone me, your call will go straight to voicemail. Same happens with any other unknown number. Same with most of my friends and acquaintances, same with Victor, same with my agent even. I do pick up the phone at least half the times my dad calls because he’s threatened to write me out of the will if I don’t. My mother never calls—I’m told she’s a very busy woman—so that doesn’t count.
But there’s one person for whom I’m always telephonically available—unless I’m flying or seriously undisposed. She even gets her own personalized ringtone (Chvrches’ “The Mother We Share”): my little sister Marta.
And that was exactly the identity of the caller that wretched Thursday of February when me and David were still inexplicably by the swimming pool of the Eastern Columbia.
