The Art of Swapping Secrets

“Can you keep a secret?” Tatiana asked, shoving her way through the front door of the stranger’s house and closing it quickly behind her. Raindrops dripped from her long, black braids and she wiped her forehead, staring at the man whose home she had just barged into.

“Hello!” he shouted. “What the hell? Get out of my house!”

She shook her head, holding up both hands in protest. She was quite a bit smaller than him. If the roles were reversed, alarm bells would be wildly wailing in her mind. But this was different.

“Get out!” he shouted again. “Or I’ll call the police!”

“Wait, you don’t understand,” she said, panting. “You’ve got to listen to me!”

He hesitated, if only for a fraction of a second.

“I’m in trouble.”

“Then maybe you should call for help? In what world do you live in where banging down someone’s front door and then pushing your way into their house is the acceptable solution?” 

“The police won’t help me, they’re probably in on it,” she whispered, looking the man dead in the eyes. “Jeffrey, I think you’re the only one that can help me.”

That caught his attention.

“How do you know my name?” he stopped, looking the woman up and down. Something about her felt familiar, yet simultaneously chaotic, and he wanted nothing to do with it. “Do I know you?” He hated that he had given her the courtesy of continuing the conversation. What was he doing? Get her out!

“Yes, yes you do!” Tatiana whispered, pulling her fingers close to her chin, gripping the sides of her face tightly. “You do! And, by God, you remember me!” 

Jeffrey shook his head. The diploma hanging on the wall in his extra bedroom, a token of the countless hours spent researching, writing, and presenting his masters thesis, proved he was a smart man. He didn’t remember every name and face, but this one, this one he was sure he would remember.

“Well, even if you don’t remember me now, you do remember me. I know that.”

The game had gone on long enough. The fact that he had played at all told him he needed to get a grip.

“It’s time to go,” he said certainly, pushing his arms out in front of him, looking to guide her out the front door.

Tatiana wiped a knife from the inside pocket of her soaked jacket. She flipped it back and forth, brandishing the gleaming blade proudly. “Just wait a minute. Just wait, Jeffrey.”

Now it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter how she knew his name, or that he had played her game for a minute longer than he should. Now, what mattered was the knife. He felt his teeth grinding together as he examined the magnitude of the situation. How did he let this happen? 

“You push your way into my home, talking fast and crazy, and then you pull a knife on me? If you’re here to rob me, go ahead. Take whatever you want. But just don’t hurt me, please.”

Tatiana huffed, slamming her closed fist against the back side of the closed door leading to the small porch out front. “No, no, no! You don’t understand! I’m not here to hurt you or rob you or cut you up. I’m here because I need your help!” 

“Then put the knife away,” he whispered. 

She did, as if the order came from the Queen of England, slipped it right back into her jacket. And while she was there, rummaging around in the deep, unseen pockets of her coat, she pulled an ID card.

“I’ve brought this back to you,” she said quietly. “This is yours. It’s you!” 

Slowly, Jeffrey reached out to grab the ID in her hand. He turned it over once, twice, and knew instantly it was his. His pictures, his address, his signature.

“I lost this…” he started, before trailing off. “That’s how I know you. You’re a bartender at Deez, over on the corner of 5th and Cherry?” 

“Server. I’m a server,” she corrected. “But yes, you’ve got it mostly correct. You left it at the bar one night, after you were too drunk to drive home. I overheard you calling a... cab, and you forgot to close your... tab, and you were coming back to your... lab,” she sang, emphasis on the rhyming words, as she spun in a small circle, her wet boots pitter pattering on the wet floor.

“Maybe that ‘lab’ part isn’t correct,” she said, giggling maniacally.

“I called Deez the next morning, to see if it was there.”

“And of course they told you that it wasn’t. Because the person on the phone was me. And because I had it at my house. So technically I wasn’t lying…”

“What the hell is going on,” he said slowly, frustration building inside of him like carbonation inside of a two-liter bottle. She was slowly shaking his bottle, not enough to make it explode, but just enough to make the bubbles grow.

“I wasn’t lying!” she said again. “Really. Honestly. I had it at home and I planned to get it back to you. And look, I’ve done it!” she said, throwing her arms into the air.

Jeffrey took a step toward Tatiana, officially finished with her. He wanted her out of his house, wanted her gone, wanted her forgotten.

Instinctively, her hand flew to the hidden pocket in her jacket, her head shaking slowly. “Wait now, just a minute, Mr. Sir. I came to return your ID because I need your help.”

“Are you drunk?” he asked, considering his words carefully. 

She scoffed. “Dealers don’t sample their own product, dummy. No, I don’t drink and I don’t smoke and I certainly don’t engage in anything my mother would be disappointed in me for.”

“But breaking into my house, that’s alright, yeah?”

“Stop!” she shouted. “We’ve wasted too much time as it is!” Tatiana’s face grew concerningly serious as she slumped against the door behind her, her hands coming to rest on her temples. “What am I going to do?”

Jeffrey decided on a new course of action. The woman was obviously insane, drunk or high he didn’t know. But she wasn’t responding to his hostility. And Jefrey knew that before he could call her in, report her for breaking into his house and get her where she needed to be, he had to get her off of his entryway tile. 

“What’s wrong, Tatiana?” he asked, his voice soothing and his presence calming. “What’s going on?”

She looked up, studying his face to see if she could break through a fake facade, put on for her pleasure. When she deemed the act sincere, she opened her heart just a crack.

“See, and let me finish before you start, I’ve got a secret. And no one believes me when I talk about this issue. I text my friends and my family, well - the ones I’ve got left - and they just ignore me. They think this is all make believe. But I was never good at make-believe, never got to act in the Turkey Day school play, because I laughed and I cried and I did it all at the wrong times.” Tatiana sniffled.

“So I have this secret, and you’re the only one I can come to about it.”

You don’t even know me, Jeffrey thought.

“I’m coming to you after I heard what you said to that girl at the bar a few weeks ago. She was drinking alone, and all sad-like, and what you said made me realize you’re a genuine person. And so when my problem got so big I couldn’t bear it anymore, I knew I had to come to you.”

He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know. What could he have said at that dump of a bar to elicit this response?

You could have said anything, anything at all, because she’s crazy. She probably hears what she wants and thinks her own special thoughts and now she’s going to murder me if I don’t make her feel right.

“What did I say at the bar?” he asked slowly.

“You said: ‘Don’t worry, babe. Come back to my place and I’ll help you fix that,’” Tatiana said, he mouth hanging open, pretending to be a drunken Jeffrey.

Ahh.

“So I heard you say that to the poor sad lady and then I realized, I’ve got a problem! A problem I can’t tell anyone about. But then I heard you whisperin’ and I realized… you can help me!”

What else did I expect?

“So Tatiana, what’s the secret?”

The rain came harder, sheeting against the door and drowning the newly planted tree in the front yard.

“You have to hear me all the way out before you speak. Deal?”

Jeffrey nodded.

“Thing is, I’ve got people looking for me. Not normal people; I’m not playing a game of hide and seek or somethin’. Real people. Important people.”

She couldn’t be… could she?

“Like the police?” Jeffrey asked slowly. 

Tatiana shook her head. “No, people above the police. The police’s bosses. They’re looking for me, and they want to find me bad. Because they think I’m… ya know,” she trailed off, whirling her finger in circles beside her ear. “They want to take me back, back, back, back to the bad place!” 

Goddammit, she is.

“The bad place?” he asked, casting a net with his words, trying to reel her closer to the truth.

Tatiana sighed. “It’s not jail. It’s not like that. It’s more… well, it’s kind of like jail,” she admitted, her words swimming circles through her brain as she tried to make sense of it all.

“But not normal jail. Special jail for a different kind of folks, I suppose. I was there once, for a long time, after they decided I was dangerous. But then I left!”

“You left… or you escaped?” Jeffrey asked, inching closer to the woman. The open door leading to the dark mid-level bathroom creaked as he put his hand on the door frame.

The bathroom cabinet, just behind the rolls of toilet paper.

“I ran. I won’t lie to you. It was a pretty daring escape, if I do say so myself. And I won’t lie to you because I know you’re going to help me fix this! Here we get to my secret: they’re following me, Jeffrey. They are! And I need your help to fix this. To make them go away.”

“Who is ‘they?’” he asked.

“Those bastards from the PTD! Those Terror squad fools that think they know more about the public than the people do! I’m not a danger! I’m not a terrorist! I’m just… unique! Eccentric!” she laughed again, before slamming her head between her knees.

Bingo.

Jeffrey raised a hand to his forehead, running it through his hair as he huffed, putting on a true act of surprise. “This is a lot to take in,” he mumbled, staring down at his feet and wobbling back and forth, as he pretended to search for solid ground. “Would you mind if I grab a quick drink from the faucet, in here?” he asked, pointing to the bathroom. He didn’t wait for a response, but instead, ducked inside and turned the water on. He paused, only for a moment, in case she decided to follow. When he heard her muttering to herself in the hallway, he quietly cracked open the drawer under the faucet and began pawing around for the piece. 

Cold, smooth steel in his palm, he found the weight of the gun heavy and the weight of the situation more manageable. Slowly, he turned, cocking the gun back every-so-slightly, making sure there was a round in the chamber, before turning the faucet off. Then, without hesitation, he wheeled around the corner, pointing the gun at the front door. 

“Don’t move!” he shouted. The barrel of the gun darted back and forth across the entryway, but she was gone. The sound of Jeffrey’s methodical breathing was the only thing to cut the silence enveloping the house. He looked left, then right, and back to the left again, before noticing the bolt on the door was still closed. If she couldn’t lock it from the outside, that meant she was still insid…

She jumped on him from behind, knocking the weapon from his hand and drawing her knife close to his neck, her earthy, flowery scent falling across his shoulders. She clicked her tongue as he froze, knowing a jerky, off-beat movement could be his last.

“You’re quiet,” he said.

“What are the odds!” she shouted into his ear. “What are the odds that I show up here, looking for help, and I run right into one of the Public Terror Defense agents I’m trying to escape from! Your friends are the ones after me!” she wailed. “How could you, Jeffrey?” 

“I have a feeling this was no accident,” he whispered. “Was your plan always to try and get a jump on me?”

“Get a jump on you? No plan at all, my friend. No plan at all. We’ve just had a hunch about you, and today, it was my turn to come sniff out the agent! But now that I’ve shared my secret, I guess I’ve learned a little something about you as well. Haven’t I?”

She pushed the tip of the knife against his neck, digging the tip around until a drop of blood oozed out. Then, she swung him around, still holding him tightly, so her back was to the front door. She inched them closer, stepping over the loaded pistol on the floor. With a kick, she sent it sailing into the kitchen.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Jeffrey. But now that we’ve swapped secrets, I think it’s time to go.”

With her free hand, she opened the door. The rain was coming now in buckets, covering the street and casting a hazy, gray hue over the evening sky.

“I’m glad you got your ID back, bud,” she whispered sweetly into his ear. “I’ll see you at the bar real soon. Just remember: you know my secret, but now I know yours also.”

“Can you keep a secret?” she asked again, before drawing the blade away from his neck and darting away.