The Art of Flattery

*The story contains references to arson and death.*

Jason was the perfect man, with teeth like a pearl necklace and a body so muscular, and manly that he looked like he was cut straight out of a fitness magazine. He was skillful in the art of flattery and adoration - which would have seemed ridiculous coming from anyone else, but from him it was charming and captivating - and somehow seemed unusual. His vocabulary and his phrases were filled with cliches, so worn out that if anyone else had uttered them, they would have seemed tattered. But not him. He made cliches seem as new and fresh as a newly baked loaf of bread.

I was smitten.

We met at the auto repair shop where he worked, when I was there getting my car fixed. He was standing behind the desk and I was waiting for him to tell me what was wrong with my car - a 1998 Saab - that kept stalling.

The smell of oil was intoxicating. Or maybe he was intoxicating. His presence threw me off balance, and yet he wasn’t doing anything, besides looking at a piece of paper that listed everything that was wrong with my vehicle. His coveralls were dirty and so were his hands, and his fingernails. I kept staring at him and I think he noticed because he said in an amused tone:

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

I laughed a little while twirling a lock of my hair, a nervous habit I had adopted for when someone or something made me uncomfortable.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

He looked up and caught my eye. The color of his eyes were the shade of olivine.

“Yes,” he said. “Isabelle. 5th grade.”

I laughed again. Nervously.

“No,” I said. “I’m not from here.”

“So where are you from?”

“Uhm, Portland. Portland, Maine.”

“Then what are you doing here? In Cleveland?”

“Getting my car fixed,” I said in a snooty tone. “I mean, what else would I be doing here?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Waiting for me to ask you out on a date.”

I gasped, looking around to see if anyone was behind me. Nope. The shop was empty.

“You don’t even know my name,” I said in a hushed tone.

“I do too!” He waved the paper around. “It’s Isabelle. Isabelle Winter.”

Fast forward one year.

I have been inundated with compliments since that very first date, when Jason took me out to a dingy bar that looked like it had teleported from the 1980s. I didn’t care that the bar was run down and lacked any charm whatsoever, because his company made up for it. Ever since that date he has made me feel like the maraschino cherry on top of his brownie Sunday. “The best part,” he says in reference to me, meaning that I am the best part of his life. I’ve been soaking up all the flattery, and all the compliments as if I’m a sponge cake and he’s the rum. Very delicious rum by the way. Incredibly delicious. In fact so delicious that I don’t think I could ever live without that rum again.

Except for a few things.

We are getting married in a few months and I’m in denial about everything that could possibly be wrong with this relationship, but even in my state of denial, I am seeing things. It’s not like I’m seeing ghosts exactly. It’s something else. He said he grew up in Cleveland, but then one day he let it slip that he had actually grown up on a farm in Iowa.

“Yes, but the farm burnt down,” he said. “It wasn’t making any money so my family burnt it to the ground.”

We were at his house sitting at the breakfast table, drinking coffee and eating Belgian waffles topped with strawberries and too much whipped cream, and the conversation took me right out of my romantic Sunday morning moment. I looked at him and saw something flickering in his eyes as if the fire was burning right there, behind the retina, as if the memory of that fire charged something in his mind that I wasn’t used to seeing. I shivered a little and took another bite of my waffle.

I had so many questions. What do you mean your family burnt it to the ground? What about the animals? Did you have animals? Or was it just the house? Did you move to Ohio after that? When was that?

I wanted to know more, but I was stuck on the fact that something wasn’t clicking. He had shown me the neighborhood he grew up in and the elementary school he used to go to - in Tremont on the west side of Cleveland.

Either Tremont was a lie, or Iowa was a lie. Or maybe both.

The large diamond ring on my left finger, all of a sudden didn’t look so pretty anymore. It looked like a shard of glass.

I figured that maybe I had misunderstood. After all, I was so enamored with him that maybe I had missed something he had said. Maybe he had mentioned Iowa. Maybe he had moved to Tremont from Iowa before he was old enough to be done with elementary school. Yes, that was it. But that look. The look in his eyes when he had told me about the fire, was something I couldn’t quite shake.

I decided to do some research and when I got home that night, I sat down at my desk, and turned on my laptop. Digging up information regarding a fire that burnt down a whole farm shouldn’t be that hard. I pegged the timeframe as 20-25 years ago. I found a few newspaper articles about barns that had caught fire. One family lost their dog. I keep looking. After searching for a while I found one article that piqued my interest.

In 2006 a farmhouse outside a small town in Iowa had burnt down to the ground, killing everyone inside. Well…that didn’t fit with Jason’s story. He had said that his family had set the fire. In this case the cause of the fire was unknown, but it was possible arson. No one had survived though. Not only that, but the surname in this tragic story was Matthews, not Smith like Jason’s last name. It couldn’t be his family. Or could it?

There were pictures of them in the newspaper. A mom and dad in their forties. Three children. A girl and two younger boys. I looked at the youngest boy who must have been around twelve at the time. Could that be him?

Was there a chance that a child had escaped the fire and ended up on the run?

Was there a chance that the same child was actually the one who had started the fire?

The name of the child was not Jason Smith though. It was Brandon. Brandon Matthews.

I am now wondering if my soon to be husband, a man who I adore, isn’t who he says he is. Could it be that his name is actually Brandon, not Jason? Sometimes when I say his name he acts like he doesn’t hear me, but I have always thought it was because he was distracted, or maybe a little hard of hearing after all that work in the shop.

I am in bed, staring into the darkness, my mind rumbling like a mile-long freight train, wondering if Jason has some dark skeletons in his closet. Could it be that the discomfort I sometimes feel around him has nothing to do with his attractiveness, but everything to do with something else? Could it be that he is hiding a whole persona behind the mask of another person? Is his rapid firing of external flattery, the outward expression of someone, who in reality, feels nothing at all.

Could it be that my boyfriend is a psychopath?

I can’t sleep. It’s impossible to sleep. The sheets are sticking to me like an unwanted date who won’t stop texting. It’s been a while since I had one of those. The engagement ring on my left hand tends to scare people off. But the sheets. They feel rough against my skin and I throw them aside. I decide to give up on sleep, and I get out of bed and go back to the computer. The harsh light from the computer screen lights up my face as I start looking for something related to Jason Smith, in Cleveland. I am not sure what I’m looking for exactly. Some clue that Jason isn’t who he says he is.

Missing boy found safe, reunited with his grandmother.

I zoom in on the picture and squint my eyes a little. Damn. It’s a bit blurry, but the boy in the picture kind of looks like Brandon from the other news article. Maybe. I place the articles side by side on the screen. Yes. It’s the same kid. Well…Maybe.

I start reading. Twelve year old Jason Smith had been missing for three days before he miraculously appeared on his grandmother’s doorstep…

Was it possible that the wrong kid had appeared on the doorstep? If, so how come the grandmother hadn’t noticed? Maybe she was hard of hearing? Maybe she couldn’t see very well? I keep reading…and I wonder…If this kid is actually Brandon and not Jason, what happened to the real Jason?

The lack of sleep makes my brain feel like cotton candy, but I have to talk to Jason or Brandon, or whomever the hell he is. I text him in the morning and ask him if he has time to get together today. He says he’s busy, but should get off work at 5. We can go out to eat. Grab some food.

“Sure,” I say.

I need to not make him suspicious. This is just another date, just like all the other dates we have already had up until this point. We’re going to eat. He’s going to tell me I look beautiful, just like always. I need to slip into this conversation sort of smoothly. Inconspicously.

It’s impossible to act in an inconspicuous way when your throat is as dry as sandpaper and your mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls, but between the appetizer - mozzarella sticks with marinara sauce - and the main course - Chicken Piccata with Gnocchi- I bring it up.

“So when did you leave Iowa?” I ask. “How old were you?”

He looks at me surprised, those olivine green eyes growing large and confused.

“I never lived in Iowa,” he says. “I was born in Cleveland.”

“But you said,” I say. “About your family.”

He smiles.

“Yes, my family. I was talking about my grandparents. They burnt down their farm when my mom was little. They wanted the insurance money or something.”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought it was your family. When you were little”

He shakes his head.

“Nope,” he said. “Born and raised here.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. I had misunderstood the whole thing. Phew. I am so relieved, I eat my whole dinner and order dessert, and I still feel hungry. I had been so stressed, I hadn’t been able to eat all day.

I am married now and Jason and I have moved in together. His house is much nicer than my old apartment. He’s sleeping next to me, but I’m still awake. I'm so happy that it’s hard to sleep. I feel so blissfully in love that my mind just wants to revel in the joy. My eyes are open, sort of darting around the room. They track from the window to the door, and back again. Something is missing in the room, but I cannot figure out what it is. My eyes go back to the door again. The door that opens into the hallway. I sit up in bed and I keep my eyes open, so I don’t miss it. I wait. But what I’m waiting for doesn’t come.

I tiptoe out of bed and into the hallway. I look up at the ceiling, but I don’t see it in the hallway either.

The red little flickering lights from the fire alarms.

They aren’t there.

The batteries have been removed from all of them.

I tiptoe downstairs, and I grab my purse.

I quietly slip out of the house, and into my car.

I start the car and I back out of the driveway, while Brandon is still sleeping upstairs.