A Nearly Normal Family(66)

“I’ll be back,” Blomberg says.

He turns around and raps at the pane of glass.

“You believe it too, don’t you,” I say.

“Believe what?”

“You think I did it.”





58


On Sunday after Tegnérs Amina and I met at a burger joint. The outdoor seating area was deserted, even though it was June. The sky was all gray clouds and the wind chilly. Inside, hungover college students sat crouched over their course literature, oozing trans-fats through their pores.

After we’d ordered, Amina took my arm.

“Did anything happen?”

I dropped my tray on the table with a thud.

“No, I told you.”

“Come on, something must have happened,” she nagged. “Just a little hookup?”

She sounded annoyingly curious, and not enthusiastic in the least.

“Are you jealous?”

“Quit it.”

Amina is the only person I know who eats hamburgers with a knife and fork. She stuck her fork in the burger and sawed away with her knife.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to go to his place. We were only supposed to share a cab.”

“Stop it. I’m not jealous.”

“I swear, nothing happened.”

Amina cut through her burger so hard that the knife squealed against the plate.

“You know that stalker he was talking about?” I said. “It was his ex.”

“What?”

I told her the whole story of Chris’s ex and how she refused to accept it when he fell in love with someone else. How she had followed and harassed Chris’s new girlfriend and then went to the police and accused Chris of assaulting and raping her.

“That’s sick,” Amina said, her face full of disgust. “You should seriously stay away from guys like that.”

“Guys like that? It’s hardly Chris’s fault that his ex is a freak.”

Amina didn’t seem to agree.

“Are you going to see him again?”

“Why would I?”

I sounded much more certain than I felt.



* * *



I worked all day on Monday. I found my pepper spray in a jacket pocket and put it back in my purse. I got home late and changed into sweatpants, spread peanut butter on two slices of bread, and curled up in one corner of the sofa to look through my feed on my phone. That’s when I discovered that Chris had sent me a friend request.

What did he want with me? A loaded, hot twenty-nine-year-old who ran several companies and traveled all over the world. Obviously I understood exactly what he was after. I knew I should follow Amina’s advice. There was no reason to have further contact with this guy.

I hesitated for a moment, then accepted the request. It was only Facebook, after all. It wasn’t like I was planning to marry him.

It only took thirty seconds for the first message to arrive.

I’m thinking about you, he wrote.

There was something about that. At the time I couldn’t put my finger on it, but now I know. It was the verb, the present tense. Like he was always thinking about me, like he was doing so right now.

Stella? He wrote when I didn’t respond right away. That’s a really beautiful name.

I typed a short reply, erased it, tried again, and erased it once more. At last I sent: It means star in Italian.

He sent a star emoji.

My dad loves Italy, I wrote. He’s actually kind of obsessed.

Chris sent a thumbs-up.

Italy is sweet. Cinque Terre, Tuscany, Liguria.

I sent a yawn emoji in response.

The bubble with three dots let me know he was typing again, but no text showed up. I squeezed my phone. At last it appeared.

Did you know that when people are asked on their deathbeds what their greatest regret is, they never regret the things they did but what they didn’t do?

What did he mean? Was this how twenty-nine-year-olds flirted?

I’m not planning to regret a fucking thing, I wrote.

He sent a smiley face.

I think we’re the same, he wrote. We’re the kind of people who are never at peace. People like us have to find our way to one another to survive.

He was trying to analyze me. I hate people who do that.

You don’t know a thing about me, I wrote.

He responded: I bet I know more than you think I do.

This guy was just too much.

For example, I bet you sleep naked.

What? I read it three times.

I wanted to be furious, but I couldn’t help being tickled. It was so unexpected.

Gotta go to bed now, I wrote.

He answered: Sleep tight, little star.



* * *



I called Amina right away. She sounded depressed.

“Do whatever you want,” she said.

“Forget it, I’m not interested.”

Even I could hear how much it sounded like a lie.

“I’m just so tired of how nothing ever happens,” I said. “It’s so fucking boring here.”

“You’ll be out traveling soon.”

“Soon?” Amina and I have never experienced time in the same way. “That’s months away. If I even manage to go.”

“Of course you will,” said Amina. “Time flies.”