CHAPTER 6
Sybil
“You should march across the street and say hi,” Dr. Cat urged, acting the friend and less the therapist.
“Listen, Cat, I only told you about him because—I’m not even sure why. I’m regretting it.” I tried to backtrack, cursing myself for telling her about Nash.
We were on FaceTime, reviewing the construction plan that Daniel, our contractor, had just put together the following morning.
I could feel her burning glare through the screen. I was too tired for this.
“My dear, this is the first time you’ve experienced an opportunity of this nature. Sybil, this is your chance to make a friend, and I’m going to insist that you pursue the possibility.” She’d put on her therapist-mom hat now. “If not with this Nash gentleman—”
I snorted. “He’s not a gentleman,” I muttered, bringing my hand to my still tender cheek. Then again, he had offered to get me ice.
She went on, not hearing me, “—then with someone else. I think it’s high time we tried to make a friend.”
My eyes rolled, and I let out a deep, childish grumble.
Friend was not even close to what first came to mind when I saw Nash, but that was the romance novels talking. I was a geriatric-virgin, for heaven’s sake. I’d thought about being with a man a lot. However, it often concerned book characters—and book men were perfect.
Real men? Not likely.
My vibrator and my imagination, plenty.
No man could live up to the charm, stamina, and outrageous good looks of a fictional man-cannon.
They were flawless.
They were feminine and yet masculine at the same time.
They went above and beyond for the heroine in ways no real man could.
The time alone that it took for a man to be that perfect would negate their ability to maintain the eight-pack abs required for such characters.
Given that was the only romance I’d ever experienced, I was going to be let down.
I would live and die in this spinster life, and that was a choice I’d long accepted.
Sharing a life with someone else wasn’t something I could see myself doing.
Everything I did was singular. Finding someone willing to be patient with me in the way I needed would not be possible.
Nash would, I was certain, run away the minute he stepped a toe into the swamp of baggage I carried. My home was my entire world, and I didn’t like leaving it, and I didn’t like changing it.
I could not put that kind of pressure on anyone. My breakdowns, dark days and inability to walk out the front door in daylight like a vampire—I could not allow myself to be someone else’s burden in the way I was already a burden on myself.
Inviting a man into this darkness was cruel.
Case in point: Last night when I got home, I had indeed crawled in the back door of my house like a criminal.
I’d army-crawled to the front door, cracked it open, and reached an arm out to grab our pizza from the stoop as though Nash would be standing there—waiting to pounce at the slightest movement from any townhouse on the street.
It was close to four AM by this time—no one was out there; even the rats were sleeping. I doubted he would be so dedicated. But because it was me, I didn’t want to take chances, and that’s just it.
If I couldn’t risk him seeing me reach for a slice, how was I ever going to get to know him? He’d seemed eager enough to know me, but I couldn’t just let that happen—people like me didn’t just let anything happen. Control was key.
Unequivocally, it was a terrible idea.
The effort required to understand my situation was too great. Then what? I’d be stuck with an awkward neighbor who would—with much joy—tell everyone he knew how weird I was. I no longer needed judgment, and he would ruin my safe space.
So, no.
I’d decided, and rewarded myself with too many glasses of sparkling wine and too many slices of pizza, which Bill shared a few bites of before I forced him back to his overpriced dog food.
I managed two restless hours of couch sleeping, sweating, face unwashed and bra on—which never made for good sleep—and here I was in all my glory, face melting with a film of dried sweat, trying to plan an art show.
Sunlight sliced through my kitchen behind the iPad screen, a harsh spotlight on the remnants of my celebratory feast that Mr. Beans, my very food-motivated yet somehow skinny calico cat, was now also partaking in.
I didn’t have the energy to stop him. There was no parting Mr. Beans from a feast of greasy cheese, especially when I’d failed to trim his nails.
I’d be clawed to death.
A dull ache throbbed behind my eyes, mirroring the sluggishness in my limbs. The image of last night’s ravaged pizza box would haunt me, a tangible symbol of my yet fragile social and emotional state.
A shrill shriek sounded from the other end of the FaceTime call, Cat having been quiet for sometime as I assumed she was reviewing the contractor plan.
She shrieked again.
I winced at the sound, my sore muscles jerking as I turned back to the screen. Her office ceiling displayed a swirl of moving shadows. She was flailing offscreen—maybe there was a bug?
“Cat?” I ventured, “What—are…”
“Stolen!” she screamed, and it echoed in her space. I heard chair wheels whizzing across a floor. The screen shifted, Cat picking up the iPad on her end and spinning before her forehead reappeared. “Stolen, Sybil!”
A vein in my temple throbbed. “Stolen what? Cat, Jesus.” My fingers were between my eyes, squeezing, trying not to feel nauseated with the erratic movement on her end.
“Blue, Sybil! Someone stole your Blue!”
“What the fuck?” I murmured, struggling to process. “You mean my painting, Blue? What do you mean stolen?”
I was hearing this wrong. My artwork lacked merit for robbery. My life wasn’t a Nancy Drew novel.
Cat drew in a dramatic breath, her face filling the frame. Her brows were impossibly high, her hand clasped over her mouth. It looked as if she were typing something.
“Sybil! Do you know what this means?” She shrieked again.
“I still don’t even know what you’re talking about, Cat.” I was shaking my head. “Can you please stop shrieking? You’re killing me here.”
A message from Cat came through with a link.
I opened up messages, catching the headline first as my finger hovered. ‘West Village Museum Broken Into, Priceless PERL Stolen,’ it read.
Cat, on her end, shook the screen, as if hopping up and down.
Why did she look so happy?
“You made it, Sybbie, girl!” She let out yet another unwelcome shriek. “You are officially infamous.” I’d never seen this woman of sixty-seven possess this much energy, not in years.
My gut reacted, lurching with a sharp pang of too much sparkling wine attempting to make a comeback, all over the iPad.
I looked at who published the article; maybe it was a joke? ‘The New York Times’, shit. That wasn’t a joke.
The New York Freakin’ Times? This felt heavy. The weight was dropping too fast for me to stop it.
Cat caught on. “Sybbie, breathe.”
I heard the clicking of Bill’s nails on the kitchen floor as he ran toward me, sensing the episode of anxiety that was ramming into me like a bus. He nudged the back of my knees, telling me to sit.
I plopped down with a distinct lack of ceremony, facing the center island and leaning my forehead against it. This wasn’t happening.
“Sybbie,” I heard Cat say in a softer, calmer voice.
“This is a good thing, honey. This frightens you, but it’s so significant.
I hope you pause, feel it, permit this. Remember that anxiety feels a lot like excitement, too.
Not all anxiety is scary. Some anxiety happens during wonderful moments as well. ”
Vomiting was going to happen, that’s what.
I was shaking. “What does this mean for the show tomorrow?” I wheezed out, hoping she could hear me from down here on the floor.
“It’s perfect timing. In a perfect world, Sybil, this would be an artist’s dream. I know this is a lot, but I believe this is another great opportunity for healing,” she urged.
I did not want to do this.
My brain was coming up with escape plans. “What if I sat this one out, monitored from a distance?”
“No, we can’t do that,” Cat urged. “If we do that, we’ll backslide. Just remember that you’re anonymous. You’re just another part of the show, hired to be there. I don’t care if you do nothing but stand in the corner and blend in with the wall, but you have to be there and ride this out.”
She was right. I didn’t want to backslide again.
Rubbing my eyes, I pulled my forehead away from the island. I exhaled, holding onto Cat’s words, repeating them in my mind. No one knew who I was; I could blend in with the wall behind the deli counter.
That was safe.
I could do this.
“Okay, Cat,” I conceded.
“Great,” she replied. “Now, how about you get some rest while I look into this heist situation? Let me take care of gathering more details, and I’ll report back.
Just remember this is exciting. Be excited, Sybbie!
You are amazing. All that we’ve built together, you’ve surpassed anything your parents ever did.
You are becoming your own little force of nature—a little storm cloud to be reckoned with.
Now sleep and relax. Focus on what it’ll take for you to make a friend instead.
The heist doesn’t affect us other than the added excitement surrounding it. ”
I huffed at that. This had affected me plenty.
“I’ll check in a little later, okay?” she finished, leaving a gap of silence in which I had no energy to reply.
I heard the video call hang up.
Falling back on the floor with a thump and spreading out, Bill curled up against my middle, wiggling and pawing at me until I laid a hand on his belly. He let out a series of happy yips, teeth snapping together and sneezing for added effect.
He could sense my cooling emotions and was feeling his own sense of relief.
I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling, seeing Mr. Beans now perched on the edge of the counter near my feet, looking down on me with unamused half-hooded eyes. He was still working the pizza grease from his whiskers with his tongue.
“What am I going to do with myself, boys?” I admitted out loud.
It was some time before I peeled myself off the floor, deciding that curling up in a chair in my library with a book was the best way to blank this out.
I begrudgingly climbed the stairs from the parlor floor to the third floor and fell into one of the two oversized chairs.
Mr. Beans and Bill followed, taking up their usual places in the room.
I reached for my book on the coffee table. It took 15 minutes before I could stop rereading the same line, and before long, everything else fell away into a romantic world I ached to live in.