4 Tall, Dark and Handsome

I live by a certain set of rules. They are quite simple: I try to stay out of trouble and avoid notice at all costs. With notice comes heightened attention from the PA, and I don't need any of that. The public is a problem too. Even though Protectors are very careful about defending our secrets, wraiths themselves are not always so cautious. If you act strange, if you throw around your Ability, people will find out. And when they do, life becomes hard at best, and unpredictably dangerous at worst. More often than not wraiths who blew their invisibility veil end up being relocated to another country. I don't want to be uprooted: first of all, I love my city. And, secondly, relocation would mean a new Protector and full reevaluation, things I have reasons to be cautious of.

But even if you're careful and tactful about your Ability, people who are close to you might eventually put two and two together. That's why I avoid close contact with humans. It doesn't mean that I'm lonely: I have plenty of buddies. We drink beer, watch hockey, hang out in bars and do other things young people do. It's just that I always maintain a safe distance. I've never had a best friend, and don't plan to. I tend to switch jobs every six or so months. And, of course, any long-term romantic relationships are out of the question. The risk is too high.

My rules are simple, but it doesn't mean that following them is always easy. Keeping secrets is hard. Being different hurts, especially when no one can know how you feel. Sometimes the abyss that separates me from everybody else feels especially dark and menacing. During such days, in a strange and perverse way, I'm actually looking forward to the tests. Because the Protector is the only person on Earth who truly knows me.

With Claire, I felt the temptation to break the rules for the first time in a long, long while.

#

We met in a diner near the campus the next day. I came a bit early and spent half an hour sipping tea and wondering what the hell were I doing here. It was stupid no matter how hard I tried to come up with a reasonable excuse. I liked Claire, and that was the problem. Being attracted to someone physically I could deal with: there was no danger in a fleeting connection. Being drawn to someone, on the other hand... that was dangerous and foolish. There was no future in which I could fulfill these wishes and not pay a heavy price.

It's just that she was so completely unimpressed with the future, unlike me, who obsessed other the future every minute of every day. Claire was happy and alive here and now, and the warmth of that happiness was infectious. It made things brighter. And my world, as it turns out, was in desperate need of color.

'Hey, Matt! You came!'

She landed on the seat opposite of me with a thud. There was another logo on her t-shirt, and she was carrying a grey backpack with school books on her shoulder. Other than that, Claire looked just like yesterday: punk-rock and magnetic.

I shrugged.

'There's food here.'

'I wasn't sure you'll show up, you know, because of your tall, dark and handsome thing.'

I wasn't really that tall, or handsome. Or dark, for that matter.

'What thing?'

'Come on, Matt. You emanate this super intense 'I've seen some shit, man' field. It's practically material. I bet campus girls just drop their panties when you give them that tortured look of yours.'

I choked on my tea.

'You okay there, buddy?'

'Yeah. Tortured look, huh? That's a bartender thing. Helps with tips.'

'I bet it does!'

She winked at me.

We ordered some food. I asked for another cup of tea, and Claire decided on a strawberry milkshake.

'How's the university?'

'Awesome. I'm really learning a ton of practical skills for my future as a responsible and well-adjusted adult member of society'.

'Really?'

'God, no! It's a university, for pity's sake. I'll be jobless and broke as soon as I graduate.'

She was smiling through the whole tirade, eyeing me with mischievous glee.

'Why go then?'

Claire was silent for a few moments.

'Not everyone is as good in not giving a damn as you are, Matt. If you don't go to a university, you don't get a bright and successful future. At least that's what my dad says. And he should know, being a dull uneducated wannabe that he is.'

'Who says I don't give a damn?'

'I don't know. Do you?'

Her milkshake arrived, and she tasted it, which gave me a few seconds to think about the answer.

'I care about things that I care about.'

Claire gave me a long look.

'That's actually a great answer. I do too.'

She sobered up a little.

'To tell the truth, I go to the university... well. You know, when I was growing up, every adult in my life was a miserable, depressed loser. Like, really. So I didn't want to grow up for a long, long time.'

She shrugged.

'I don't usually tell this to people, but somehow I'm okay telling it to you, Matt. Must be your tip inducing bartender training, I guess. The thing is, when the time has come to grow up, I tried to imagine what I want to do. And the only thing I knew for sure was that I don't want to be like them. So that's what I'm concentrating on right now: on learning how to not be miserable. That's the goal.'

She leaned in.

'And do you know what's the only way to not be miserable? Some will say that it's money, or love, or ambition, or something like that. But it's all bullshit. The best way to feel good is this: you need to surround yourself with good people. And the best people, the really interesting ones, all tend to have a good education. So that's why I'm in the university.'

I was listening, taking every word in. There was a strange intensity in her, a passion behind what she was saying. It hit me.

'So what are you doing hanging out here with an uneducated loser like me?'

Claire stabbed me with another one of her incandescent smiles.

'You're good people, Matt. I knew it as soon as I saw you.'

'You don't know me. I might be a complete asshole.'

'No, you're not. You're the kind of guy who can sit on a bench and play with a Rubik's cube, just for the fun of it. I literally don't know anyone else who's capable of such a wonderful thing. You're awesome!'

Oh, what irony. I hesitated between telling her that she was wrong about me and maintaining the status of an awesome person. I lie to people all the time, but I really didn't want to lie to her.

'That wasn't just for fun.'

Claire shrugged:

'Maybe not. Really it was what you said in the bar. Remember? About that wraith... that genetically altered person on TV. Most people hate them, like they're some elemental force of evil. But they're not, right? They didn't choose to be like they are. And then there are wraith groupies, those morons. They're even worse. And of course, there are fuckers on the news that try to push their political agendas when something like this happens. But no one actually does what you do, you know. No one just thinks about them as people.'

I didn't expect how much what she said would affect me, but it did. It was... nice. But also very, very bad for me. It would be better if she thought that I despise wraiths. There's one leap of thought from thinking about someone as a wraith sympathizer to thinking about them as a potential wraith.

I should have opened my mouth and said something crude and xenophobic, but I kept it shut.

'Anyway. So what about you, Matt? What's your life's ambition? Are you going to still be a bartender in twenty years?'

I wasn't sure that I'll be alive in twenty years. But, of course, I couldn't tell her that. So, instead, I thought about something I never really thought about before: what did I want to do during an unknown number of years I had left? Being honest with someone was a new feeling to me.

It felt great.

'The truth is, I don't know what I want. I'm trying things. I only started bartending a few months ago, you know? Before that, I worked in a book store. And before that, in an industrial laundry. Imagine any low-paying shitty job you can, and I probably tried it.'

I searched my memory for anything I really enjoyed. There wasn't a lot. I was always so preoccupied with lying to the PA and staying away from people -- in order to stay alive -- that I never paid any attention to the process of actually being alive.

'A few years back I cleaned the floors in a home for the elderly. Just for a couple of months. You would think that it would be depressing, but it wasn't that bad, actually. Their kids and grandkids would visit, and all the doctors and nurses were really great. But there was this one girl. She came in on the weekends and played the piano for the old folks.

I remembered and smiled.

'I liked that. Maybe one day I'll do something like that, too.'

Claire put her milkshake away.

'You play the piano?'

'I used to. But it was a while now'.

Suddenly she lit up like a Christmas tree. The metamorphosis was so complete that I almost coughed on my tea for a second time.

'Dude! That's awesome! I'm in a band myself!'

She was grinning like a madman now.

'This is fate, Matt! I was telling my friend Dylan just two days ago how I'm willing to kill someone for a good keyboardist!'

People started looking at us, but Claire didn't care. She was on a mission now.

'Listen. There's this small concert tomorrow, our friends got a gig in a club. We're all be there. You have to come, get to know the guys!'

Things were moving a bit too fast for me.

'Wait. I haven't played for years, Claire.'

'Nonsense! You're a natural, I can see it! You have to come! Will you come?'

I should have said no and be done with this nonsense. But thinking about ending it was painful. So instead I said:

'Sure. Just tell me where and when.'