I consider tearing the card into tiny pieces and throwing it in the trash, just in case he should somehow ever figure out I stole it, but I don’t. Something in the back of my brain is niggling unhappily, trying to make its way to the forefront.
I make my tea and take the card and the mug to my desk and sit. More out of habit than interest I call up the Fantasy Friends website, but immediately close it. My eyes keep sliding over to the business card. Emerald Isle. A green diamond logo.
On impulse I do a search for Emerald Isle, expecting a slew of Ireland listings to pop up. But that’s not what happens. Apparently, Emerald Isle is a common name, and there are many places around the world that carry it, including locations in Canada, India and...the United States. North Carolina, to be exact.
If more time had passed between my failed date with Doug and this moment, I might never have thought of his North Carolina accent as he told his sweetly rehearsed first-date stories. I never would have thought of him at all, again, ever. When I communicate with people through the Fantasy Friends website, I use only the email account generated by the site. It’s smarter that way, and easier. It means they see only the things I want them to see, no clues about my actual life. And in our first days of writing, Doug did the same. Until he started replying from his work email. I remember specifically the email signature automatically included with his response, the green diamond I’d otherwise ignored beyond noting Doug’s slip up. He should be more careful, I’d thought. You never know who you’re going to meet online.
The business card is a generic one for the whole firm, no specific investor name given. But it does have a website, and I call up Emerald Isle Investors and skim the description, learning they’re a three-generation brokerage originally based out of North Carolina, though their main headquarters is now here, in Holden City. I try to ignore the anxious thudding of my heart. It’s one thing for Chris to have this business card; it’s quite another for him to sit three feet away from Doug on our first date.
I click the link for the brokerage staff profiles. It’s a small company, only fifteen employees, and Doug is right in the middle of the list. Perfectly average. Doug Winters. I click his bio, doing a double-take when I read about his wife and triplet daughters. I thought I was a decent judge of character, but clearly not. I file away that information and move on.
There are six other Winters on staff. Just to be sure, I click on each name and scrutinize the accompanying headshot, but Chris is not among them. And why would he be? He works at an agricultural college. He’s a gardener. With no plants in his home.
I reach for my tea, but it’s cold and bitter and I feel worse after I drink it. I think of the twinges of the well-used muscles in my thighs and the scratchy patches on my chest where Chris’s stubble had rubbed. I feel him, everywhere. Too much, now. And not in a good way.
The thing about betrayal is that if you’re smart, it only blindsides you once. Then you learn. My father betrayed me. He blew up our entire life. My friends abandoned me, the world reviled me, the newspapers egged them on. Even now, three years later, there are people who refuse to let it go. They think I killed my brother. They think I’m hiding the money. They think I knew.
What they don’t know is that three years ago I was a superficial bleached blonde with a black Amex she barely knew how to check the balance on. Three years ago I was stunned and unprepared. Three years ago I’d never fought for anything, so I didn’t know how. Three years ago, I was someone very, very different.
This is not a coincidence. My father’s deception happened right in front of me and I was blind to it. So now I notice things. And instead of seeing red flames of rage, I’m seeing Chris pick up that old paperback when I asked about it while we ate our sandwiches. I’m picturing him using his thumb to push the business card down between the pages and out of sight, like it