Chapter 35 Eliana
ELIANA
apéritif /??per??tēf/: noun
You gonna hop off the Bastian train?
Or are you gonna see just how far it can take you?
I ponder that question as I take the literal train all the way home. Stay or go? On or off?
By the time Friday night rolls around, I still don’t have an answer.
What I do have is about thirty-nine outfit changes strewn across my bed, an equal number of makeup tutorials paused on my laptop, and a growing sense of panic that is doing nothing to make any of this girlhood shit any easier.
I also have the memory of Bastian’s teasing lilt in my head. Eight o’clock. Wear something nice.
I check my phone. It’s 6:41.
“Shit, shit, shit.”
I hop in the shower. If I’m going to have a mental breakdown about whatever this is with Bastian, I might as well smell good while doing it. The hot water feels amazing against my tense shoulders, and for a few blissful minutes, I let myself turn into a houseplant under the flow.
Eventually, though, duty calls. I do a stellar job shaving my left leg—honestly, this baby belongs in a museum—and I tackle my right leg with similar gusto.
But I lose focus as I get into the awkward gargoyle crouch required to properly trim the lady parts. Before I know it, I nick myself right in the crease where my thigh meets my butt.
“Ow! Fuck!”
Blood swells in the water and swirls pink down the drain. I press my thumb and hiss as the hot water amplifies the sting.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit! Stupid dull razor. Stupid leg. Stupid butt. This is all just so unbelievably stupid.”
I stumble and bumble my way out of the shower, making an additional mess as I try to dab up the blood with toilet paper that sticks to my wet skin. I eventually manage to slap a Band-Aid over the cut.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror. My hair hangs in dark, sopping ringlets around my face. I look like a drowned raccoon.
“I should cancel,” I mumble to my reflection. “‘Hey, sorry, Bastian, but I just came down with a terrible case of whooping cough. Or malaria. No, plague. Actually, my face exploded. Yeah, it’s gruesome. No, I can’t show you. Yes, it’s real.’”
I sigh and hang up the imaginary phone. I can’t cancel. More importantly, I don’t want to cancel.
I’ve been buzzing with anticipation all week long. It’s the first countdown since my diagnosis that hasn’t felt depressing. I woke up this morning grinning from ear to ear, and as the hours at work ticked away and 8 P.M. drew closer and closer, that grin found room to keep spreading even wider.
I have no clue what Bastian has planned. I just know that every single Range Rover that’s passed me in the street this week has nearly induced an orgasm.
Bastian sexually Pavlov’d me with luxury SUVs. I may never forgive him. Lord only knows what he intends to ruin next.
I towel-dry my hair and work some leave-in conditioner through the tangles, scrunching the natural waves until they form loose, copper-colored spirals that frame my face.
For makeup, I keep it simple: mascara, a swipe of blush, and a berry-tinted lip stain that makes my mouth look like I’ve been eating cherries. It’s not quite as suggestive as the girl in the YouTube tutorial, but I’m doing the best I can here.
The outfit takes longer. I try on almost every shirt I own before settling on a chocolate brown cropped cardigan with long sleeves. It has a cute little bow tie in front and performs the miraculous feat of making my boobs look like they actually exist.
With that, I pair a flowing white maxi skirt that’s giving boho chic. I’m gonna freeze my nips off, but that’s just the price of beauty these days, I suppose.
I throw an ankle-length, camel hair coat over the whole thing, fuzzy socks, and black combat boots.
When all the feminine rituals of witchcraft have been performed, I check myself in the mirror one last time.
I’m walking a perilous path between the kingdom of Not Caring At All and the dangerous wilderness of Caring Way Too Much. It’s a risky gambit, but it’s the only one I’ve got.
“You look good,” I tell my reflection. “You look like a person who has her shit together.”
My reflection doesn’t look convinced. Smart lady, but the joke’s on her.
Because I’m going on this date anyway.
Well, in seven minutes, I am. That kinda feels like an eternity, though. I’m actually ready early, against all odds, so I have nothing to do but sit on my couch and meditate on the many manifestations of my anxiety.
The main form my anxiety is taking tonight is a simple question: What the hell am I doing?
Bastian is my boss. He’s a notorious d-bag with the mouth of a sailor and the bedside manner of Hannibal Lecter. He should be utterly and completely off-limits for all things romantic and sexual.
But he’s not.
God, he’s, like, super-duper not. He’s so on-limits that it’s frankly insane.
This state of constant longing and semi-permanent arousal cannot possibly be good for my biology. I’m just jittery and giggly, like I’m high on laughing gas at the dentist. The colors of the world look bright and all roads lead to Bastian.
Maybe I’m just using this as a very complex and risky form of denial. After all, if I’m obsessed with Bastian, I can’t obsess over Mom, right? Or Rapey Rick? Or Dr. Haggerty? Or any of the problems that each of those specters represents in my life?
If I’m doodling Mrs. Bastian Hale in the margins of all my notebooks, I can’t keep panicking every time I see a black sedan with tinted windows.
But so what if it is denial? Who cares? Even if this all ends with him breaking my heart, that’s not the only bad ending I have in store. So it’s easy to just say Screw it, toss all caution to the wind, and let myself buy the train ticket for A Very Bad Idea.
Right then, I hear the choo-choo of that train, in the form of a knock at my door.
I clear my throat. “Who is it?” I call out, already half-smiling.
“Your worst nightmare” is the rumbled response.
“Self-aware nightmare, too,” I mutter. I get up to answer it.
But when I open the door, the circuits of my brain start smoking and fritzing out.
Bastian stands there in black jeans and an ash-colored sweater that hugs his shoulders. His blond hair is damp and curling just behind his ears. He’s emanating wintergreen aromas and his fuck-me eyes are already dialed up to the extreme.
“Hi,” I manage to squeak out.
His eyes float down my body before coming back up to meet mine again. “Eliana. You look…”
“Nice?” I supply, remembering his instructions.
“I was going to say ‘dangerous,’” he murmurs. “But ‘nice’ works, too.”
I blush. “You clean up okay yourself.”
One eyebrow arches. “Just ‘okay’?”
“Don’t fish for compliments, Hale. It’s unbecoming.”
“I would never,” he laughs. “Ready to go?”
I grab my purse and lock the door behind me. As we walk toward the stairs, his hand finds the small of my back. It’s frightening how quickly I’ve come to rely on that touch to steady me.
“So,” I say as we step outside into the February cold, “are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope.”
“Not even a hint?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
“This is how every true crime documentary starts,” I muse sadly. “With a silly girl who doesn’t ask enough questions, following a handsome man who doesn’t give enough answers.”
“So now, I’m handsome?” he teases. “I thought I was just ‘okay.’”
I sigh and shake my head. “Completely missing the point.”
He opens the door to the car and helps me in, then walks around to his side.
When he starts the engine, the heaters kick on immediately, blasting warm air that tickles my exposed skin. “Comfortable?” he asks.
“For now. Ask me again when I’m stuffed in your trunk.”
“I’d never do that,” he promises solemnly. We pull out and start driving before he adds, “… All that blood would ruin the upholstery.”
The conversation flows easily between us while we drive. Like the night at the oyster bar, I think again to myself that it’s beyond strange how natural this feels, how comfortable. Almost like we’ve been doing this our whole lives.
Or, no, wait—it’s like we’ve been waiting to do this our whole lives.
As if every moment that preceded this, every good or bad thing either of us has ever experienced, was just to set the stage for this conversation.
To give us the stories we’re sharing and the jokes we’re making.
To shape us into the kind of people we’d need to be to inhabit this moment, this space, this feeling.
It feels fated.
Twenty minutes breeze by. Suddenly, Bastian looks at me. “Close your eyes,” he orders.
“What?”
“Close your eyes. I don’t want you to see where we’re going yet.”
I hesitate. Given the pre-existing serial killer accusations, Bastian is really pushing his luck here. But then, against my better judgment, I close my eyes.
A moment later, I feel his palm cover them gently. His fingers are warm against my skin. “Keep them closed,” he murmurs as the car turns left, turns right, and then cruises to a gentle stop. “Alright. Open.”
I open my eyes.
The Music Box Theatre stands before me. It’s an Art Deco wet dream. Beautifully vintage, gorgeously neon. It looks like it stepped straight out of the 1930s and decided to stay.
But it’s the signage that really makes me swoon.
TONIGHT ONLY:
A PRIVATE VIEWING OF CASABLANCA
FOR ELIANA HUNTER
“Bastian…” I whisper. I’m not sure what else to say besides that.
He’s watching me, not the theater. “Number two on your list, if I remember correctly.”
My throat closes up and tears stud my eyes. “How did you—”
“I know a guy,” he says simply. Then, softer: “Come on. Movie starts in ten minutes.”
He gets out and comes around to open my door. When I step onto the sidewalk, my legs feel unsteady. Bastian’s hand finds mine.
“You okay?” he asks.
I can only nod again. I’m not quite ready to speak just yet.
Together, we walk toward the entrance, toward Bogart and Bergman.
Toward a very good date and a very bad idea.
Toward one more item I can check off my list.