Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
I n retrospect, it was a terrible idea to schedule a Saturday date immediately after the Friday date, but in Eli’s defense he had no idea the guinea pig date, as he would forever think of it, would turn out to be so awful. And he certainly couldn’t have foreseen that he would wake up to find his landlord rifling his cupboards. This morning he had fully expected Darby to show up on his doorstep with a sheepish excuse, maybe she was drunk, maybe she sleepwalked, something to explain the odd midnight visit. But she had been noticeably absent. Worse, Eli was certain his door had been locked. Locking and double checking the door was part of his nightly routine, which meant Darby had either broken in or used a key. Which of those was a worse option? Neither was good, and the longer he went without an explanation, the more his mind began to think the worst. Was his landlord a criminal or crazy? Or maybe both?
For tonight he tried to push those thoughts aside and power through another date. Tonight’s contestant, Layla, arrived ahead of him at the restaurant and had already procured a table, her phone pressed to her ear as she talked. When she glanced up and saw him, her eyes crinkled pleasantly with a smile.
“He’s here, I have to go. Love you, too, bye.” She set the phone aside, still smiling. “Sorry about that.”
“Your mom?” he guessed, taking the seat opposite her.
“My therapist.”
He blinked. “You…you tell your therapist you love her?”
“Him, and we’ve been together a long time, years.”
“Oh,” Eli drawled, not certain how to continue.
Layla gave a dismissive little laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m not crazy or anything. I just needed to work through some issues and it felt so nice, that connection, that I kept going, you know?”
Eli nodded, but he wasn’t certain he meant it. While he had no problem with therapists or those who sought therapy, he’d also never known anyone who spoke about it so freely.
“When I was seven, I accidentally got locked in a closet for twenty four hours,” Layla said, pausing to take a sip of her water.
“Oh, no. How?”
“As soon as I arrived at school, I wandered into the janitor’s closet, and it closed and locked behind me. No one knew I was in there, and no one knew I was at school. They tried to call my parents to inform them of my absence, but they were at work and my mom’s phone got left somewhere. Anyway, then I didn’t come home, but it took them a while to realize because of my sister’s dance class and, long story short, I wasn’t found until the next morning, when someone puked and the janitor unlocked the closet to get the mop.”
“That sounds horrible, I’m so sorry,” Eli said.
Layla chuckled lightly and used her hand to wave away his concern. “It’s fine. I mean, I sort of blacked out and dissociated for a while whenever anyone turned the lights off or closed a door in a room, but my therapist helped me make good progress, and I don’t really have that problem anymore.”
“Good,” Eli said. He reached for a menu.
“Then someone tried to kidnap me in Walmart, and I sort of developed agoraphobia,” Layla said, not looking up as she scanned her menu.
Eli stared at the top of her head. “Someone tried to kidnap you?”
She nodded.
“After you got locked in a closet?”
She chuckled again. “I know, right? What are the chances? Anyway, the agoraphobia didn’t last too long.”
“Good,” Eli said again, a little more uncertain this time.
“But then I was in an abusive relationship in high school and, well, you know how that goes.”
“Um, not really,” Eli said.
“I don’t have any relationship issues because of it,” she assured him. “We hardly dated.” Before he could congratulate her on that, she continued. “It was more the anorexia because of it that was a problem.”
“Oh,” Eli said slowly, his eyes automatically scanning her frame. She wasn’t overweight, but neither was she skeletal.
“That led to bulimia. My therapist started an overeater’s anonymous group for me. I’ve been doing really great with my eating since then, really great, totally back to normal.” She tossed him a smile and resumed scanning the menu.
“Um…” Eli said softly, not sure where to go next.
“Now we’re down to, you know, normal stuff. Anxiety, depression, the occasional hallucination and psychotic episode. But that’s what meds are for, am I right?”
“I…” Eli’s words ran out. He had no idea, none whatsoever, what to say next.
“Mushrooms,” Layla said. She pressed both palms on her menu and gave him a look he couldn’t interpret.
He hadn’t noticed a mushroom dish on the menu, and it didn’t seem like she was talking about the food anyway. “What?”
“Magic mushrooms, that’s the way to go. My therapist is really into it. He does them with me because he says it’s not the sort of thing a patient should do alone, mostly because you can have a psychotic episode that will break your brain and you’ll never recover.” She gasped and leaned forward. “You should totally do them with us sometime. It will really open you up, fix everything that’s wrong.”
“I’m not really comfortable taking things,” Eli said as he surreptitiously reached for his phone beneath the table.
Layla rolled her eyes. “It’s not like it’s drugs; it’s all natural, an actual plant. And you will feel so good, I promise. Like you won’t even need sleep. I haven’t slept in three days, and look at me.” She beamed a smile at him, showing all her teeth.
His phone rang. “Excuse me, I have to take this.” He turned away from her slightly as Josie spoke.
“What’s going on? I got your SOS.” They had prearranged an out for him, in case any of the dates became too crazy or intense, and Eli was glad for that, almost as glad that Josie had answered and called him back, exactly as they planned.
“What? Oh, no. Of course I can come, I’ll be there right away,” Eli said.
“Oh, it’s like that,” Josie said. “Hey, you should actually be here right away. Tristan and I are having dinner with Jordan and Gaines. We’re at Paddy’s on eighth street. Say yep if you’ll come or nope if you need Tristan to show up with his gun and rescue you.”
“Yep,” Eli said and set aside his phone. “So sorry, Layla, but I have to go. This has been…this has been so informative. Good luck with the mushrooms and everything.” He stood.
Layla stood, too. “Wait, I didn’t get your number so we can reschedule. I’m pretty much available whenever because I can’t work and I don’t sleep.”
“Wow, that’s…okay, but my schedule is really tight, so….” He backstepped a few paces, then turned and darted out of the restaurant, jogging a little as he reached the street. He supposed it would have been more gentlemanly to tell her the truth, but how could you reasonably tell someone that she was too crazy to possess your number, much less see a second time? She tried to get him to drop acid on a first date; next time she would probably try to get him to sell his possessions and join a cult.
Not until he was locked in his car did he take a deep breath and unclench his fists. The few minutes it took him to drive to the next restaurant and find parking eased enough tension so that he was able to laugh about it as he approached.
“Not a love match?” Josie guessed, using her foot to push out the chair they had obviously added to the table for him.
“Hopefully not even a plasma match, should the need arise,” Eli said. He sat. “Hi, thanks for inviting me.”
“No problem, good to see you,” Gaines answered cheerfully. Eli met Gaines and Jordan at the July Fourth party Josie and Tristan hosted. Or rather, Josie hosted and made Tristan suffer. He had manned the grill all day with predictable precision and attention, talking mostly to Gaines, his only contribution to the guest list. Gaines had seemed all too happy to stand watch with him, tossing out unheeded suggestions for better grilling techniques. He had paused teasing Tristan to talk to Eli, entering into a chatty discussion about goats, of all things. His daughter wanted a pet goat and Josie had told him that Eli’s uncle owned them on his farm. After that they’d set up a date for everyone to visit the farm, much to the delight of Gaines and Jordan’s children. Now Jordan was hugely pregnant, ready to deliver their third. Or rather, as Josie had told him later, Gaines’s first and Jordan’s third; Gaines was her second husband.
The fourth of July party was also the first time Eli began to suspect that he didn’t actually have feelings for Josie, much to his relief. It hadn’t pained him to watch her with Tristan, to see all the little looks and touches they traded. Instead it made him feel happy for Josie that she had found someone, especially after so many years of enduring Gabe’s ill treatment. For all his stoicism, Tristan clearly adored her, as witnessed by the fact that he lit everyone’s sparklers that night without complaint, saving Josie’s for last and presenting her with a special box of colored sparklers, much to her obvious delight. It’s not Josie I want, Eli had realized as he watched Josie toss her arms around Tristan and Tristan receive her like she was a box of priceless gold. It’s what they have together. Josie was known and comfortable and wouldn’t have required him to leave his safety zone and venture into the unknown. He realized, after that party, that he would need to take more steps, if he ever wanted to find anyone. But his current path didn’t seem to be the one, if the crazies he’d been presented were any indication.
“Tell us a story, Grandpa,” Josie said, clapping her hands in delight as she waited for Eli to unload the latest round of insanity. Even Tristan sat entranced as he told them about guinea pig girl and magic mushroom lady.
“Whoa, that is…wow,” Jordan said.
“See, this is what I tried to tell you,” Gaines said to her. “What the dating world was like, and why I didn’t do it.”
“I had no idea,” Jordan replied.
“That’s why when you find a good one, you latch on and don’t let go,” Gaines said, resting his hand on her arm.
Tristan didn’t say anything, but he also reached out and touched Josie’s arm, as if confirming to himself that she was real and still there.
How nice for them, Eli thought with uncharacteristic sarcasm. He was genuinely happy that his friends had found love, but it also made him sad for himself because he was still in the cycle of loneliness to insanity and back to loneliness again. Maybe this is all there is for me, he thought suddenly. And maybe that’s okay. He had a good job, a nice family, kind and inclusive friends. Was it wrong to want more? Maybe I should travel. What if he didn’t want a relationship so much as he wanted adventure and some sort of change? He had settled into a nice, safe, ordinary life. For a while he enjoyed the peace and satisfaction of that. But now… Something inside him stirred restlessly, and he didn’t know how to make it settle down and go away again.
“Anything else?” Josie asked, studying him a bit too keenly. Over the last year he and Josie had spent a lot of time together and become close enough to read each other’s moods. Fleetingly he thought about his landlord, but something stopped him from bringing it up.
“Nope,” he said, and tried to believe it was true, that there was a reasonable explanation for Darby’s behavior, that someday he would get his life together and have everything figured out. Josie looked like she wanted to press him further, but his food arrived then, saving him in more ways than one.