Chapter 2

The customer arrived forty-five minutes later: a middle-aged man who looked older than Adam and Jesse but was probably younger, who was wearing a green polo shirt and khaki shorts. If Adam had to guess, he was probably a father looking to impress his teenaged son, though he had no way of knowing for sure. What he paid attention to on the customer the most was how lightly he was dressed.

            “A little summery for October, isn’t it?” he wanted to say to the man, but didn’t.

            Jesse did his best to sell the guitar to the man, but regardless of his childlike enthusiasm and eager recommendations, he still seemed unimpressed.

            “It’s no Fireglo,” he said, commenting disappointedly on it being a Mapleglo.

            That silenced Jesse for a moment. Noticing that his friend and co-worker (boss? One of the two, anyway) seemed offended by the complaint, Adam did his best to take over.

            “It’s not, but this guitar is the next best thing,” he explained, even though he had no clue if that was right or not. Jesse shot him a look, and that scared him until he noticed that it was a pleased look and not a judging one.

            “It really is,” affirmed Jesse. “Believe me when I say that it’s definitely worth the price. It’s a personal favorite. Don’t let its cheaper price fool you; it’s not insuperior to the Fireglo.”

            Unable to let Jesse get away with using a made-up word, Adam corrected, “What he means is that it’s nowhere near inferior.”

            The customer raised a brow in what they initially thought to be doubt, but when he asked to try it out, they realized that it had been intrigue. After three or four minutes of strumming different melodies, he stood up and did indeed decide to take the Rickenbacker 330/12 Mapleglo off of their hands.

            “How much for it?” he asked.

            “$2,500,” answered Jesse, sounding proud. Adam looked at him with wide, perturbed eyes, but didn’t say anything. To his surprise, the customer seemed pleased with the price.

            “Only $2,500? Are you sure?”

            “Well, it is used. It’s a real bargain, isn’t it?”

            “I’ll say. You take credit cards, right?”

            “Absolutely.”

            As the customer paid, Adam had to fight off the urge to ask him to reconsider. He just couldn’t believe that he was okay with paying so much money on the spot for a guitar, much less a used one. He didn’t know a thing about guitars, but surely this was too expensive! Apparently satisfied, the customer left, and once they were alone together, Adam stared at Jesse as though he’d crossed some unspoken line.

            “$2,500?” he asked his friend, astonished. “For a guitar?”

            “Are you kidding me?” countered Jesse. “A guitar like that’s worth $3,000 at least. He might as well have stolen it from us!” Despite this, he eyed the transaction details on his computer’s screen with a satisfied, greedy grin.

            Adam shook his head. “I feel like we ripped him off. That seems like way too much money to me.”

            “You’re such a miser, Adam. If only you were in control of my bank account and stopped me from making reckless purchases. Like if when I put my card into a machine, your voice came out and said, ‘Jesse, that seems like way too much money to me. Don’t buy that mini-fridge; you really don’t need it and you’ll only end up keeping it in the corner of your garage forever.’”

            “You have a mini-fridge?”

            “Yeah, I bought it last month. I thought about adding it to the shop’s inventory yesterday, but I kind of want to keep it, even if I don’t use it.”

            Adam lowered his head and sighed. “If I’m a miser,” he muttered, “then you’re a hoarder.”

* * *

At 6:00 in the evening, they closed up shop for the day, and after changing back into his gray t-shirt, Adam headed back home. He would be alone for at least two hours; Larisa’s work ended at 8:00, but she didn’t usually make it back home until 9:30 at the earliest. One night last month, she hadn’t returned until 2:00 AM. So he wasn’t expecting her back until much later. Hence why he was so surprised to see her in the dining room when he stepped inside.

            The dining room was dimly lit by candles. He could smell cooked beef. She stood behind the table, right in his line of sight from the front door, setting plates down on the table. Her brown hair was freshly-curled, and she was wearing a slimming black dress that made him feel like he was dressed much too casually. She glanced up at him with bedroom eyes and beckoned him closer. His heart in his throat, he tried to shake confidence back into himself before stepping into the room.

            “Hi, honey,” she purred. “I made dinner.”

            How unusual, Adam thought, but he didn’t say this. Instead, he mumbled, “I can tell,” like an idiot. But Larisa was unfazed by her husband’s gracelessness. She paced over to his chair and pulled it out. Then she waited until he snapped out of his surprise long enough to take a seat. Once he had, she disappeared into the kitchen.

            “What’s the occasion?” Adam inquired nervously as he stared at the table cloth and listened to the sound of glasses clinking. He deduced from the sound that Larisa had bought wine, but was still taken aback when she returned and revealed that he was right. She placed down a wine glass on either side of the table and poured him a glass before pouring herself one.

            “It’s been a while since we’ve had a ‘you-and-me’ night,” was her answer. She placed down the bottle of wine on the center of the table and sat down in her chair. “You like beef steak, right? Lightly seasoned?”

            “Yeah,” he answered quickly. Larisa always had the worst timing when it came to being in the mood. Clearly, she wanted to have sex. But Adam, obsessed with his work, only wanted to disappear into his office for the rest of the night to brainstorm. It wasn’t that he didn’t want Larisa; he could feel his desire for her beneath the surface, but smothering it was his desire to do something more productive. He was in a working mood. If he allowed her to distract him, then he would lose the motivation that he’d been searching for.

            But she’s already distracted me, hasn’t she? If I deny her, she’ll get annoyed, and that will stress me out. Damn you, Larisa!

            “Is something the matter?”

            Adam looked at her. “No,” he told her, “everything’s fine.” Though he felt a spark of anger in his chest, he tried not to look too passive-aggressive as he cut off a piece of steak and speared it on his fork. As he ate, Larisa seemed to notice the change in his mood. She made a face of mild frustration, and her tongue moved up and rubbed against the outside of her top left canine. It was a subtle expression, but one that Adam recognized. Even so, she began to eat as well. Both of them were quiet until Adam picked up his wine glass and took a sip.

            Gazing up at the ceiling and still holding the wine glass in his hands, elbows on the table, Adam began, “Larisa—”

            “Yes?” She cut him off immediately, whether she meant to or not.

            He moved his jaw anxiously and realized that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be upfront about rejecting her. He had wanted to say, “Larisa, I have some work to do,” but knew that she wouldn’t take that too well. He had to find a softer way to turn her down. But he had no tact or social grace—he didn’t have a single clue how to be anything but honest without sounding forced, and he knew it. So, instead, he asked her, “Could you pass the salt?”

            “You know, you don’t have to be afraid to talk to me,” said Larisa as she handed over the salt shaker. “I’m your wife, not a stranger.”

            Oh, Larisa. If only you knew that I’d be a lot more comfortable right now if you were a stranger.

            “I know,” Adam answered meekly. He shook out some salt onto his steak, and then took another bite of it. “This is good.”

            Larisa sighed. “You want to work tonight, right?” She didn’t sound surprised. Displeased, for sure, but not surprised.

            Adam huffed and answered, “I think so.”

            Disappointed but not angry, Larisa resumed cutting her steak. “Well, at least finish dinner with me.”

            He wasn’t sure why he was so certain that she would be angry with him. He had rejected her moves three times in a row now, and each time she’d been less and less annoyed. The rest of their dinner was rather quiet. Once they were both finished, Larisa picked up their dishes and glasses with waitress-like efficiency. Adam grabbed the bottle of wine and followed her into the kitchen. After putting the bottle down onto the counter and watching her put the dishes in the sink, he leaned closer and pecked her cheek.

            “Thanks for dinner,” he told her.

            “You’re welcome.”

            He lingered in the doorway for a moment and watched her squirt dish soap onto the plates before he finally turned away and made his way upstairs. But halfway up the stairs he stopped in his tracks. Curious, he sat down on the step and listened. Sure enough, after a minute or two, he heard her start talking to someone on her cellphone.

            “Hey, it’s me,” she began. “I want to see you. Yes, tonight, when else? I’m fine. Washing dishes right now. Where can I meet you? All right . . . All right. See you in a little bit.”

            Adam stood back up and crept the rest of the way upstairs and to his office. He carefully closed the door, then sat down in his chair and turned on his computer monitor.

            Larisa’s suspicious phone call did not hurt him in the slightest. In fact, he was rather apathetic to it: she had been making such calls since the first time he rejected her. It was as if she had a backup plan. She always used the excuse that something work-related had come up last minute—that she’d forgotten to document some payment in her records, or something along those lines. But while he was apathetic to it, something deep within him told him that he shouldn’t be. The only thing that hurt him was the degree of his own indifference when faced with the idea that his wife might be cheating.

            After five minutes of staring at the empty video project on his screen, he heard Larisa coming up the stairs. Ten minutes later, she knocked on the door, and then poked her head into his office. When he glanced at her, he noticed that she now had more makeup on than before.

            “Adam, something came up at work. I’ll be back in a little while, all right?”

            “Sure,” he answered in a flat, terse voice. She smiled at him worriedly, then left. He waited until he heard her heading back downstairs—now wearing high heels, by the sound of it—before he let out a heavy sigh.

            To get his mind off of Larisa, he decided to check his social media. He checked Twitter first and, having forgotten about the notifications from earlier, was startled to see an overflow of notifications and one direct message. By force of habit, he checked the notifications first. Almost all of them were from one person, who had followed him and not only liked every single one of his tweets, but had also retweeted them and left a comment on each one.

            His immediate thought was that she was liking and retweeting them ironically, and that her comments were backhanded. But as he read them, he began to think instead that they were genuine.

            “I love this!” said one, and “This is amazing!” said another, and another read “Super freaky, but in a great way! Keep it up!”

            He was so confused. Was she a bot of some sort? Checking the message, which was of course from her, didn’t help to dispel his qualm.

            “Hiya! I discovered your videos today, and OMG, I am OBSESSED! It’s so cool to discover someone so awesome and handsome who lives in the same city as me! I wanted to let you know that you’ve got a new biggest fan! I would just die if you replied, but I know you must be busy. I’ll be watching you from now on! I love you!”

            “What?” escaped his lips. Surely, he thought, he was missing something. Some sort of URL that she’d linked to—perhaps a bit.ly link—or something. But there was nothing of the sort. So, still perplexed, he decided to examine her profile.

            Her account name was Evangeline Thompson, which he assumed to be her real name—assuming that she was in fact a real person at all. She was 19 years old, apparently. In her profile picture, it was revealed that she had light blonde hair, almost platinum. Her eyes were a ghostly shade of blue, or perhaps they only looked so due to the blue lighting in the picture. Her smile was gorgeous, and Adam had to admit that he thought she was pretty cute—assuming that this was really her picture, and not just something snatched off of the internet. Were he not about to turn 35 at the end of the month, and instead about to turn something more like 22, he might have been more interested in her than he told himself he currently was. Was it the lack of sleep that was causing him to have to scold himself out of finding her attractive, when he shouldn’t have thought that to begin with? Must be, he thought.

            Overall, her profile seemed legitimate. She didn’t have any weird links, and her tweets before retweeting all of his were typical of a teenaged girl. Her account’s description was a casual sort of “welcome” message with a winking emoji at the end.

            Despite his better judgment, Adam decided to reply to her message. She had gone to the trouble of liking, commenting on, and retweeting every single one of his tweets, after all. The least he could do was thank her.

            “Thank you for your support, Evangeline!” he wrote. “I’m glad to hear that you enjoy my content, and I hope that you will continue to support me in the future. – Adam”.

            He was about to move on when he got a reply.

            Wow, that was fast . . . Was she waiting?

            “OMG!! I’m so happy you replied! Thank you! Of course I’ll continue to support you!” She ended her reply with a blushing, heart-eyed emoji.

            Feeling like it would be rude to not reply to this, he concluded, “Glad to hear it. Take care. – Adam”.

            “You too! Love you!”

            Her seemingly-casual usage of the phrase “I love you” unnerved him. He did not reply to this message, assuming that it signaled the end of their brief conversation. After checking his other social media accounts (discovering that Evangeline had done the same thing everywhere else, and not just on Twitter), he determined that he was too tired to work on anything. Would Larisa be upset to come home and find him asleep? Maybe, but he was about to pass out he was so tired. So he got up from his chair and prepared for bed, all the while trying to push the thought of Evangeline Thompson to the back of his mind and leave it there to be forgotten later.