TANGLED WEBS

TANGLED WEBS

“Ella, you cannot be serious. This is insane!”

Maureen, Ella’s best friend, banged on the bathroom door where her boon companion had locked herself in.

“I can’t do it. I can’t. Just leave me alone”.

“Sweetheart, honey, this is it. This is everything you’d hoped for. You can’t just get cold feet now”.

Maureen could hear Ella sobbing hysterically behind the locked door and tried desperately to think of how she could resolve this stand off, deciding, after a few moments, that, probably, continuing to press Ella was the wrong thing to do, she retreated across the hotel room and exited onto the terrace of this boutique, Manhattan hotel that the pair had booked at great expense for this special occasion.

Sitting at a chair, she refilled her glass from the bottle of Veuve Cliquot that they had ordered with their breakfast.  

“Cheers for nothing, Ella”, she toasted, raising her glass in the direction of the bathroom. Taking a large gulp of her drink, Maureen turned her face towards the warm September sun and breathed deeply. They had planned this trip for two years. Two frigging years! Ever since Ella had started corresponding with Brad, her pen pal, and found the connection that she had longed for in a man, the two of them sharing an almost uncannily similar outlook on life, Maureen had had to listen to hours and hours of her friend waxing lyrical about this dream man of her letters. She felt that she knew this mystical letter writer just as intimately as Ella herself.

It had been Maureen who, early on, had encouraged her friend to propose an actual face to face meeting and, in fact, had continued to urge Ella to suggest it to Brad but, always, just when it seemed that Ella might finally take the plunge, she had always found an excuse to postpone asking Brad and it had become Maureen’s role to help her friend overcome the reasons for her reluctance.

At first, it had been weight; Ella thought that she was too fat and would prove unattractive to Brad in the flesh. So the two friends had enrolled in a gym in their home town of Birmingham. Alabama. Though the weight had melted from their frames and, after twelve months of gruelling workouts, the two had never been so fit, Ella had continued to devise ever more eccentric reasons as to why she wasn’t yet ready to ask Brad to take their friendship to the next level. Her teeth were too crooked, she had no decent clothes, she wasn’t intelligent enough; the list was endless.

Like any best friend would do, Maureen had devoted herself to overcoming each obstacle as they arose. She had even given Ella a chunk of her savings so that she could fix her, already fine, front teeth. Throughout this time, Ella and Brad had continued to write to each other, never less than one letter per week, and had grown emotionally closer and closer.

Brad, himself, was from Albuquerque, New Mexico and, according to everything that Ella confided to her friend, shared her same taste in absolutely everything. They truly did seem perfectly matched but, as the months had rolled by, Maureen had come to believe that this was one courtship that would stay firmly on the written page. So when, just two weeks prior, Ella had informed her, excitedly, that she had actually, finally, thrown caution to the wind and suggested to Brad that they, literally, though not in the written sense, meet, Maureen had been stunned.

Ella had been overcome when Brad had agreed but only on his terms: they had to meet, as per the two protagonists in one of their favourite movies, atop the Empire State Building. For Ella, this was further proof of Brad’s romantic side and it had melted her heart. For a more down to earth, Maureen, however, this meant an expensive trip to the Big Apple and, as Ella had never been on a plane or ever, previously been outside of Alabama, all the attendant problems but Ella had been persistent.

“You have to come with me, girl, you hear? Let’s do it in style. Book a great hotel. Live it up for a weekend. I need you, Mo. This could be the last time I ever get a chance to see New York. If all goes to plan, I could be living in New Mexico”.

Against her better judgement, Maureen had been coerced into agreeing and here they were, the day of the great, romantic coming together and Ella had suddenly developed blocks of ice for feet. If she had only allowed her feet to freeze in Alabama, they would both be a few thousand dollars better off right now. It was just too much, she mused. Suddenly, she heard the lock on the bathroom door click, then the padding of bare feet on carpet as Ella crossed the room. Turning, she saw Ella, in the plush, white bathrobe of the hotel, step out onto the terrace, her eyes bloodshot from all the tears.

“I lied to him”. Ella offered by reason of her change of heart.

“You lied to him? You mean you don’t love Sleepless in Seattle?”

“It’s worse than that”.

“Honey, you need to get straight to the point because, right now, I am facing the prospect of eating corn chips for my supper for the next month on account of what this trip cost, you hear me? Jeez, girl, I cannot imagine ever lying to a guy.”

Ella took a seat next to her friend, her unhappiness so apparent that Maureen’s hard edge melted and she poured her a glass of champagne.

“Hit me, girl”.

“I told him I was white!”

Maureen was so stunned that she almost dropped her champagne flute.

“You told him you was white? Hell, girl, you black as the Ace of Spades! How in hell, you ever think you gonna pull that one off? You Houdini or somet’ing?”

Ella crouched over, convulsed in tears. 

“Jeez, two years of bullshit? Anything else you lied about?”

Ella looked up coyly, no point in lying any longer.

“He thinks I’m a stockbroker…”

Maureen stood, aghast.

“We’re waitresses at Taco Bell! How you figure to be a goddamned stockbroker? Only stock you knows is what’s in the kitchen of our restaurant.”

“I don’t knoooow”, Ella wailed.

“Well, I figure you and me best hightail it outa here, girl; fast!”

“No. He has to be told the truth. It’s the least I owe him”.

“Well, good luck with that. He might just throw you off the Empire State Building when you come clean. Oh no. I know that look. No! No way I’m doing your dirty work”.

At that moment, in another hotel across town, Robert stared incredulously at his brother, Clarence.

“Brad?”

“Well, it sounds more attractive”, Clarence offered limply.

“As in Brad Pitt, you mean?”

“Brad Cooper, actually”.

“You’ve been lying to this girl for two years?”

“Once I started, it just kinda escalated, you know? Plus, her being a stockbroker, I…well I didn’t want her to think I was just a nobody”.

“You are a nobody, Clarence! Only, now, you’re a lying nobody. Anything else you’ve forgotten to tell me?’

“I told her I was a steeplejack”.

“What the hell is a steeplejack?”

“You know, those guys that build skyscrapers, climb out on a scaffold, high up in the sky. Fearless”.

“In Albuquerque?”

“Ella loves adrenaline sports. I didn’t want her to think I was a wuss”.

“Clarence, I love you but, man, you are a wuss; a lying nobody of a wuss”.

“Bobby, if you had been in my position, you’d have done the same”.

“Don’t even go there, bro. I would never, ever lie like that. If a girl can’t accept me for what I am then she can go to hell”.

“It’s alright for you, Bobby; you got pop’s looks. I got grandpop’s. The looks always skip a child or two”.

Robert, staring at his brother’s gangly, six foot three frame, pale, freckled skin and thick lensed spectacles, found it hard to argue this point but he loved his brother and, having accompanied him on this pathetic journey, just wanted to offer his continued support now that they were in New York.

“So, what now?”

Two hours later, Robert stepped out of the elevator and onto the viewing deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, the cool wind hitting him slap in the face. For a moment, he thought about stepping back into the elevator and going back down to terra firma; he had a deadly dread of heights. But the elevator doors closing behind him forced him to step forwards and face his fears. Silently, he cursed his brother for forcing him into the position of owning up for his lies. There were a number of people staring out over the metropolis below, the protective fencing somewhat calming Robert’s nerves. Right, let’s find this stockbroker chick from Alabama and get this over with, he thought. He walked around the deck but couldn’t see anybody that matched the description Clarence had given him.  

Despite her nerves at the thought of lying for her friend, Maureen could not resist taking a look at the city via a mounted telescope. It was really something. Looking up, she noticed a handsome dude scanning the observation deck obviously searching for somebody. Wow! He has the most gorgeous eyes, she thought.

On Robert’s second circuit, he noticed an attractive, black woman looking around as if she had lost someone. She locked eyes with him and he felt a thrill of excitement course through his body. Damn, she is hot, he thought, and couldn’t help but smile. Great figure, too. The girl smiled back at him displaying a beautiful set of white teeth. Hell, she’s coming over; his heart began to flutter wildly. She was even more beautiful close up.

“Excuse me, are you, by any chance, Brad?”

Robert gulped. Ah, what the hell.

“Yes, I am. And you must be Ella. I’d recognise you anywhere”.