Grumpy Best Friend

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, and reached out on impulse. I took her hand and held it, and she let me pull her close, though she didn’t touch me beyond her sweaty, clammy palm in my own. “Fluke said not to talk to him again, and I’m inclined to listen.”

“Shit,” Jude whispered. “This is crazy.”

“I know,” I said. “We’ll find Nicky and tell him what’s going on. But then we’ll skip out.”

She chewed on her cheek for a second, but then nodded and let me lead her away.

Nicky thought we were playing some practical joke. He took a little convincing, but eventually accepted that shit was going down. He decided to stay behind—“I’ve still got some fucking measurements to take and shit, and fuck that guy, you know?”—and so I pulled Jude out a side door, hustled a block over, and called an Uber from next to Roosevelt Boulevard. We didn’t speak, but I saw the anxiety in Jude’s face—and when we got into the Uber, I caught sight of Zeke standing in the parking lot, staring at the car like he knew we were in the back, his arms over his chest, a massive smile on his lips, his eyes wide and wild with greed.

7

Bret

Lady Fluke looked harried. Her hair, normally pristine and slicked back or tied into an intricate braid, was a mess of fly-aways and knots. Her clothes were rumpled, like she’d slept in them, and there were thick bags beneath her eyes.

But she was still Lady Fluke, and so she walked with a straight back, her hands clasped in front of her like a headmaster patrolling her school grounds. Her chin was raised slightly, her eyes darting along the paved blacktop path that was crawling with other walkers, runners, and bikers, then out to the Schuylkill River, flowing lazily between its banks and glittering in the sun.

It was a beautiful day. The air smelled like a mix of car exhaust and flower blossoms, and every bench we passed was taken by families, young people on dates, exhausted bike riders, and more. The Kelly Drive trail was a strange, small oasis of nature, jammed in between a relatively busy and winding street and a slow-moving river that was likely too polluted to be properly called water anymore.

Jude was quiet, and she looked at Lady Fluke with this strange mixture of admiration and confusion, and I nearly felt bad for her—I got the sense that she looked up to Lady Fluke, and any sort of hint of impropriety in the Lady’s past threatened to break that pristine image.

Fortunately, I didn’t have such hang-ups. “The one thing I don’t understand, Lady Fluke, is where did this man come from?”

We’d been walking for ten minutes, and so far Fluke had given away almost nothing, except that she knew of a man named Zeke, which was so frustratingly vague that I almost wanted to dunk the reticent Lady into the river to get her talking.

“The last time I saw him, he was living in Los Angeles,” she said primly. “He had a house on the hills and— oh, for god’s sake, you don’t need to know my family history here.” She glared at the ground in front of her.

Jude winced, like she’d been hit.

“Actually, we do,” I said, trying to keep my voice gentle. Jude gave me a pleading look, like she wanted me to lay off and leave the poor Lady alone, but that wasn’t going to happen. Some creepy mafia-looking guy made threats, and Lady Fluke rushed out here as soon as she heard his name. Something was happening, and I wanted to know what if I was going to stay with this investment.

“He’s right,” Jude said, although it sounded small and choked. She seemed surprised that she spoke up at all. Lady Fluke turned and stare at her with a cool, level glare, and Jude shrank back from that gaze.

“If we’re going to be involved with this, I want to understand what we’re dealing with,” I said. “I have a lot of money invested, Lady Fluke.”

She sighed and looked forward again. A biker flew past, riding much too fast, and she made a disgusted face before straightening her shoulders.

“I married Zeke when I was nineteen years old.” She said the words like they hurt, and glared at Jude like she was ready to do battle with the first person to speak ill of her decisions. “I was young and impulsive, and Zeke was older and had a fast car. I liked his car, and his money, and I got involved in something I didn’t understand.”

I stifled a groan and shaded my eyes against the sun. So he wasn’t kidding—he truly was Fluke’s ex-husband, which made me wonder what else was true about that guy’s story. It felt farfetched for Fluke to have been divorced, and yet she admitted as much.