about. Anyway, stoned or not I possess the soul of a clown, a schlimazel, and inevitably my poor luck impels me to blow it at the most opportune moments.
“Let’s go, then,” she says, pulling a watch from her gaudy purse. “My dad locks me out at midnight.”
I engage the clutch, start the engine and put the floor shift into neutral. Liz grasps my hand firmly. “Daniel,” she says, “I know this might not be the right time, but before we go I have to tell you
my
secret. It’s going to hurt you, a lot. Please don’t hate me.”
“I could never hate you,” I say, thinking about how I still close my eyes at night and dream of marrying Liz. I’ve given my entire being to loving her, assured that our life together is pre-ordained. Fate led to my meeting her, at The Blues Studio one amazing night, when I played piano in the house band and Liz declared to the world that she was my sweetheart.
Now she closes her eyes, bites her lip and says, sort of prosaically, “My secret is ... that I slept with David.”
My first reaction is an incredulous inward repetition of my best friend’s name:
David
? As his name bounces around on the inside of my skull, I stare fixedly at the eucalyptus trees as they sway slowly back and forth in the moon’s cold blue light. I am wondering what my next life-changing strategy might be. If I have even a shadow of self-knowledge, I can use it now. But I’ll still be me, and that, it seems, is the basic problem.
“How the hell did it happen?” I ask Liz, after a long silence.
She casts down her eyes prettily and doesn’t speak for a minute or two. Finally, she says, “My parents were gone. David was waiting for Devon. We were stoned, and I know that’s not an excuse. It was a one-time thing. I’m so sorry.”
I try to gather my thoughts, and then I say, “Does Devon know?” I’m concerned about Liz’s sister, who is turning sixteen soon. She’s been my close friend and confidante since my relationship with Liz began almost two years ago. There’s something about Devon that comforts me. She and David have been a thing for some time.
“No,” says Liz. “Nobody else knows.”
“Why are you telling me?”
Her eyes meet mine. “Maybe I was afraid David would tell you, or tell Devon. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“David is getting high? You’re responsible for that, too? What the hell, are you in love with him or something?”
She flashes a rueful smile. “Of course not.”
I can feel the wrath beginning to grow in my heart-hurt ego, and I ask myself, What would a man like Ernesto Che Guevara, whom I had lately begun to read (may peace be upon him), do in this situation? What would he say? Why can’t I be like Che, whose women never got in the way of his personal goals? Why can’t I just let Liz go and be done?
In some dark way I begin to envy David for having gotten Liz into bed without becoming her prisoner. I am bound to her like Prometheus to his rock.
But I can’t think like Che, or like David, and I don’t have a clear idea of what I really want, here and now. There is only Liz, and my mother’s honor, and vague notions about discovering life on other planets, solving the big bang theory and developing a unified theory of everything. These days I’m just the freak on the playground, a victim of uglification who’s fallen on his laughable face.
My sentiments ricochet back and forth between despair and rage. “What about the professor?” I ask bitingly. “Did you tell him, too?”
“Peter is open minded,” Liz answers quickly. “He’s independent, and he gave me my independence. We had a connection that allowed us to thrive, individually.”
“Why David?!” I shout in frustration. “Were you able to seduce him because Devon is a virgin?! Why my best friend?!”
“Please forgive me,” Liz answers uncertainly, and she begins to cry. “Maybe I—”
“Forgive you my ass! Get the hell out of my car!”
Liz freezes, and then slowly