Alpha – Chapter 7

I don’t need anyone

Michael’s ranch, Santa Ynez Valley – April 1989

Michael

When Lisa initially disappeared, I almost didn’t notice. It’s probably a shameful and embarrassing thing to say, but that was something – not paying attention to stuff going on, or not going on around me – that would happen to me all the time whenever I was fully absorbed in my art.

And of course, it had happened again – like clockwork. I had finished a two-year-long world tour just a few months earlier, met this stunning girl who had taken me away from the stress of my everyday life, and even promised myself I would take it easy and rest, and think about my personal life for a bit before embarking in any new adventure  – or business venture.

The latter part, taking some time off, had been a possibility seriously swirling into my mind at times. It would usually happen at night, whenever I was alone in my bed, bored, wired, unable to fall asleep, and my memory would laser-focus on Lisa and our torrid… what? Affair? Friendship with benefits? Dirty acquaintance? Yeah, maybe one of those was the only suitable term to define the thing that had been going on between us. If I ignored how hell-bent we both had refused to truly describe it while pouring our hearts out under my Giving Tree, earlier that spring. At least in the silence of my own thoughts, I had to give a name to what she and I had experienced together, ‘cause sure as hell I wasn’t the kind of guy who would screw random girls during my free time and then forget all about it. That was stuff my brothers, and even Joseph, were accustomed to. But not me. I wasn’t wired that way.

Well, Lisa had been able to do that to me. Not to make me forget about her, of course, but more like to distract me from the very core of my existence, which was my art. Not completely, but enough for me to pay attention. My antennas sticking up suddenly. Just like I would notice how the mere thought of her would instantly pitch a tent in my pants.

That couple of days we had spent together at Neverland had been the last I had seen of her. She clearly didn’t want to go, and I didn’t want her to leave either, and for a while everything had gone smoothly. We had spent hours under the oak, just chatting away or simply enjoying the silence and peace of the ranch. We had also kissed, of course, and reached second base… then third base. There on the grass, unseen, in our own little world. Not peeling her clothes off of her had been a struggle, and I knew she had felt the same, I was sure of that. But we were also happy with how things had been going. Just being there in the moment, with each other, doing something that possibly fuck buddies didn’t really do – because it was way too intimate. Or at least so I guessed, since I wasn’t an expert in…fuck-buddery.

At some point, I had also asked her if she had a boyfriend, if she was seeing someone… well, apart from me, so to speak. Lisa had looked taken aback by my question, and her eyes had widened for a moment. Then, they had gone back to being hooded and sexy. She had seemed not only surprised, but also pleased.

“Funny that you ask. Not anymore. I did have a boyfriend up until a few months ago… but right now…” She had paused and stared at the horizon. “…You’re the only guy I’ve been seeing. I mean… hanging out with. Or whatever.”

“Right.” I had tried hard not to grin like an idiot. “Or whatever. Well… that’s cool.”

Silence and smoldering gazes had followed.

“Can I ask you one more question?”

Lisa had giggled, seemingly amused at me so obviously fishing for information. And weirdly enough, at that moment I hadn’t cared one bit.

“Sure, lay it all on me, man.”

“Why did you stop seeing him? That guy.”

“Oh…” She pushed a strand of long hair behind her ear. “Because we work as friends, but not as partners. We’re like oil and water, he and I…”

“I see…”

“What about you, Mike? Are you seeing someone, apart from me? I’m sure you got plenty of girls flocking to you like bees to a flower.”

My turn to chuckle.

“I don’t know. Like I said… I’ve been so focused on my work for so long that I stopped paying attention. At least until I met you.” Shrugging, I had stared at her. Why lying? “You’re kinda impossible not to notice.”

Once again those smoldering aqua eyes bore into me, making me feel exposed and vulnerable, but not in a way that alarmed me. Not completely, at least. Man!

More silence had followed. Comfortable, easy silence despite the weight of our words, both said and unsaid.

I would have gladly stayed there with her for the entire day, just doing nothing, just being on our own and getting to know each other a little better instead of just fucking each other’s brains out. Even though fucking her again was a constant thought swirling in my mind. But then something unexpected had happened.

Russell, one of the gardeners, had appeared in the distance, driving in our direction on one of the golf carts. I couldn’t tell how long the poor man had been looking for us, but I imagined it must have been quite a bit, given how flustered and distressed he looked when he finally reached us.

He had been sent out on a mission to retrieve Lisa and me because no one other than Priscilla Presley had called, and it hadn’t been a pleasurable call. The phone had rung in the main mansion. I was stunned when Russell told me, since I barely knew the lady and I certainly had never given her my phone number. Of course, Priscilla hadn’t called looking for me, but for her daughter, asking to be called back immediately. And the moment Lisa had known this, I had seen the sudden shift in her demeanor.

“I am sorry, I have no idea how in the world she knows I am here, of all places.”

“Me neither. I’m also surprised that she has my number.”

“Well… you two share the same lawyer…”

Oh, right. We did, indeed.

“…Maybe she called John and pestered him until he told her how she could get in touch with you. Well, me. You get what I mean.”

I did. And I wasn’t sure I liked it. After all, Lisa was a grown woman, and unless something egregiously severe had happened, she had the right to spend her time wherever she pleased, with whomever she wanted and for how long she wanted it, without being bothered by her very controlling mother. It was funny how, just a few hours earlier, Priscilla’s true nature had come up in our conversation.

But that wasn’t the point. Lisa started to panic just by learning about the call, and she looked stressed out and tense. Far from the chill girl I had come to know. In fact, her mood had changed dramatically and I could tell she felt trapped, as if all of sudden reality had been dropped onto her head like a ton of bricks.

“I don’t wanna call her back, you know…” She quietly told me as we slowly rode our horses back to the stables. I had seen her bite the inside of her cheek and lower lip nervously, everything in her body language screaming discomfort. “But I know I will have to do just that, and quick. I have no choice but to call her back, otherwise, knowing her she will pop up at your gates or, even worse, she will send one of her flunkies from Clearwater out to retrieve me like a lost dog. And I can’t stand it. I can’t stand feeling this way… And it’s not even about her. I hate that she still has the power to make me feel like this… small. Insignificant. Like a fucking child who needs constant supervision because she can’t take care of herself.”

“Then don’t. Don’t feel like that, ‘cause you’re not a child anymore. You get to make your own decisions, regardless of what she thinks or wants.” Memories of Joseph trying to control me had crept in, sending shivers down my spine, even though I kind of felt Priscilla’s manipulations were much more subtle, although not less dangerous, than my father’s uncouth behavior. I had turned to look at Lisa, but she hadn’t met my eyes. “…And don’t call her just now if you don’t wanna do it. I know you feel like you gotta do it, but it’s still your choice, Lisa. If you wanna keep using the ranch to hide from her… well, you can stay here as long as you please. If you need shelter, my house is always open for you.”

That had made her laugh, yet her eyes had remained shiny – as if she was on the verge of crying.

“Thanks, Michael. But I do have an apartment where I can live on my own, not far away from your Hideout, in fact. So that’s not really the point of it all, is it?”

No, it wasn’t. And I knew it, of course. I could relate to the uneasiness and subjugation she so obviously felt toward her mother because Joseph made me feel just the same. It was so hard to snap out of such old, rusty mechanisms. It didn’t matter how much of a grown-up you were, or how strong of a personality you had come to shape for yourself… in some cases, you still could feel nothing but a leaf in the wind.

And so, eventually, Lisa had called her mother. I had escorted her to the library and then closed the door behind my back quietly, feeling her eyes on me as she clutched to the telephone. Her discomfort was contagious and my chirpy mood had utterly vanished. Crap.

The burden we both carried… it was possibly the first time it appeared in all its glory. In all its irreparable bitterness. And I hated that it had raised its head, that brokenness she and I shared. Most of all, and without any reason given the randomness of our relationship, I hated that I couldn’t help her, not just because I simply couldn’t, but also because her unresolved family issues mirrored my own hang-ups. They hit a little too close to home for me to really do something about it.

Anyway, after several minutes Lisa walked out of the library looking shaken and pale. And angry.

I tilted my head, just staring at her, without really knowing what to say, and she raked her hand through her hair.

“I know I am frowning. I am sorry. I am not mad at her. And I’m not mad at you, of course. Just at myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I wish I could stay, but I won’t.”

And that had been pretty much it. It was obvious that she needed to leave and go back to Priscilla, for whatever reason. Her mother had managed to lasso her back in, and it was as if Lisa hadn’t put up any struggle. It was like she had simply allowed herself to be dragged away.

I had accompanied her to the car that, right out of the main mansion, was ready to escort her back to Los Angeles, and we both had stayed quiet. Pushing my hands into my pockets, I had closed my fists, wishing the right thing to say would suddenly pop into my mind. But it didn’t.

I felt her eyes on me as she stood by the car’s back door, already opened for her. Then she was in my arms, holding me. Her lips seeking mine – kissing me hard. Her hands framing my face for a moment, while I realized that I already missed her. Her grey, blue, green eyes pierced me for just a moment.

“You drive me absolutely crazy, you know that? And I didn’t want this to happen.”

Another kiss, and then she was gone.

I hadn’t seen her since. Not in person, at least. However, we had spoken over the phone a few times, usually late at night – when we were both at our most open and vulnerable. If at first our conversations had been nothing but light banters, both of us making sure we kept things as superficial and trivial as possible, eventually they became something more. Over the phone, Lisa and I seemed even more capable of being each other’s confessional than when we were face-to-face. And it wasn’t the kind of confidence I had built with other female friends of mine, such as Liz – there was obviously something different going on, simmering beneath the surface. Lisa and I both knew what it was. We didn’t need to name it.

One night, after I had bored myself to tears spending interminable hours locked in a conference room to talk about business with people I wouldn’t have given the time of day on any other occasion, I had called her just to have her cheer me up a bit.

This was about a month after her stay at the ranch. The moment she had picked up the phone, I had immediately realized that her voice sounded weak, and way hoarser than usual.

“Hey… are you OK, girl? You sound sick.”

She had chuckled.

“I probably am. Maybe I caught a flu or something. I surely did have better days. But I’m in bed and I just had some hot tea. I’ll be fine tomorrow morning.”

“You promise?”

“I promise!”

Talking to her was so easy. And it had been easy even that night. There was almost no subject that was off-limits, nothing we couldn’t share with each other. Yet, the last thing I would have expected from that umpteenth late-night conversation was that we would have ended up sexing each other up and having the hottest phone sex I could ever imagine. Who was I kidding? That was also my very first experience of that sort and man… It had burned me straight to the ground, giving me even more reasons to like Lisa. It had been torrid, and forbidden, and unexpected, and the fact that it had happened so naturally was, of course, an added plus.

After that impromptu event – which, in my humble opinion, had also shaken her to the core – we had kind of pretended it had never happened. During our subsequent phone calls, we had kept things strictly on a friendly level, both ignoring that undercurrent of tension we had come to know so well at that point.

And then, before I knew what was what, Lisa had vanished from my radar. She had in fact disappeared completely, but it had happened in kind of a subtle way – subtle enough for me to notice when it was already a done deal. On a couple of occasions, she simply wasn’t home when I called. Another time, she was busy and I was told by her maid that she would call me back.

That phone call had never come. Meanwhile, I had started to become absorbed in my new album, my creativity flowing freely when it came so music, lyrics, and dance. I couldn’t tell if Lisa was the reason for that, or at least one of the reasons, but I did know that the exhaustion I had felt at the end of my tour, that mental fatigue that had plagued me, was no longer there. I was bursting with inspiration… and she was one of my muses.

So much so that I had locked myself into my own mind, like it would usually happen when my art took all the space within me and all around me. Having Lisa in the comfort of my memories, of my imagination, had been enough for weeks as I created.

Once the bubble had finally burst, once the desire to physically see her, hear her voice, touch her, hold her became too impetuous, almost physically painful, and impossible for me to ignore, I had realized that she had vanished into thin air and I could no longer get a hold of her.

I hadn’t liked it one bit.

Lisa

I had just recently discovered that Michael and I had a common acquaintance. It was Alfie. I had known him since we were both teenagers, even though he was three or four years older than me. In my rare free days at Clearwater, years after my mother had decided to drop me at the Center because I was too much of an inconvenience for her to handle, Alfie had been a safe haven where I knew I could find refuge and just be myself.

After all, we both feel like pariahs, in a way. I was a young girl whose sun had suddenly been turned off, and trapped in a situation, in a context, that was supposed to make me feel better but against which I struggled with everything I had, knowing that people at the Church were mostly required to keep me under control.

It’s for your own good, my mother had told me. One day you will understand, Lisa. All I do for you is an act of selfless love.

Then why did I feel like she was simply shunning me because of my grief, my bad temper, my sadness? The more time went by, the more I realized that my mother and I were two different galaxies, never bound to truly meet or blend. It made me angry to think about that, and even though I knew mine was, deep down, nothing but intense despair and loneliness, anger was still my only way to deal with it.

Alfie, on the other hand, was always cheerful and happy. His disposition was naturally positive and optimistic. I admired that in him, especially since his parents had disowned him after discovering that he was gay, and thrown him out of their home like trash. What absolute, undiluted bullshit! I couldn’t imagine smiling every single day and having a word of comfort for everyone around me if someone dared to treat me the same way. But of course, Alfie was different. He had forged ahead, stubborn and determined, his sweet personality hiding a steel core, and eventually he had managed to work as a dancer, which was what he had always wanted to do. He was a good dancer, too, to the point that he became progressively more in demand in Los Angeles.

And eventually, he had ended up being in two of Michael’s videos as a backup dancer. Or, as Michael liked to call them, ‘short films’.

That detail had come up way before Michael and I met – and fucked – by the way. But it became progressively more useful after I found out that our little sexcapades had caused a big, huge, unexpected consequence that would reach its apex in about seven or eight months.

By absolute chance – or maybe out of sheer luck – Alfie happened to appear at my doorstep when I had already withdrawn from everything and everyone, Michael included. I was the only one knowing about the pregnancy and I was still trying to figure out what to do with it, and how. I thought I didn’t want anyone around me until Alfie popped up like a lucky charm. I would still see him every now and then, mostly in Los Angeles where he now worked steadily, and much less in Clearwater since he had broken up with the boyfriend he used to live with there.

When Abigail, my maid, told me that he was downstairs and was looking for me, I realized that I needed to see him and talk to him more than I could ever thought possible. So I summoned him to my room, and we had some tea.

For the following two hours, I poured my heart out knowing that my secret would be safe with him. Alfie definitely was one of the very few people I trusted.

“….Wow.”

He let out the word almost breathlessly, and I just stayed quiet.

I was sitting in my bed, holding my knees with both arms and staring at Alfie who, instead, was sitting on the plush carpet as usual. Blushing, I hid my face.

“Lisa… Come on, don’t do that. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

Sighing, I managed to find his eyes again.

“No, I know. I mean… obviously it wasn’t planned or something I wanted. But here it is. It happened. And now I’ll have to deal with it. I just need to understand how.”

Alfie shook his head and leaned back on his hands, crossing his ankles. He seemed genuinely shocked. And he had all the reasons to be.

“I am still wrapping my head around the fact that the man we’re talking about… your baby daddy is…”

God… was it necessary to go there?

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand your shock. I just can’t imagine his.”

“Look, it’s not that I’m surprised it is Michael, per se. I’ve been around the man long enough to know that he’s a kind, generous individual. He genuinely is a nice guy. It’s just…” He shrugged and sighed. “I don’t even know how to explain it. Of all people, he found you. Of all people, you found him. It almost seems predestined in a way.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Alfie, please. Don’t make it out like it’s some grand, romantic love story, OK. Michael and I aren’t in a relationship… we aren’t exclusive, we aren’t in love. We barely know each other. We fucked a few times, that’s all. And I made a mess… as usual. Only, this time is much worse.”

“Hey, don’t say that! You didn’t make a mess. If anything, you both did.” He smirked, even though his eyes looked still genuinely concerned. “But still, at least I know he’s a good guy. Which means that maybe, just maybe, you two will be able to sort things out in a way.”

I had never thought about that up until that point. That somehow, someway, Michael being the man that he was – just and generous, honest – would mean that we would be able to navigate this entire situation as smoothly as possible. Together or apart, and whatever my decision would be. Yet, there was still a piece of the puzzle that was missing on the table – and Alfie seemed to read my mind.

“Are you planning to tell him?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know. I’m paralyzed with fear.”

“What about your mother?”

“She hasn’t even noticed I’m paralyzed. We haven’t spoken in a while. I guess she’s too distracted by… whatever is going on in her life at the moment.”

“Right. I thought so. I’m so sorry, Lisa.”

Silence followed.

“In the past weeks, I’ve avoided Michael like the plague… Doing my best for him to think that I never existed in the first place.”

Alfie’s eyes sweetened as he stared at me.

“But that will never happen, my love. Because you’re you, and you’re simply impossible to forget… and because, well, he is Michael. The way I see it, he’s not the kind of guy who discards girls like used tissues.”

I bit my bottom lip.

“You think you know him well?”

I didn’t like how insecure my voice sounded. Needy, almost.

“Well, I wouldn’t say we are friends… but like I told you, I’ve been around him long enough to know him quite a bit.”

Bracing myself, I dared to ask what I knew I wanted to know.

“And how is he? As a man…”

Alfie’s eyebrows sprung up in honest surprise.

“Are you asking me?”

“Yeah! I told you… Michael and I…. We barely know each other. We’re basically strangers. Strangers who happened to enjoy a good fuck a few times.”

“Alright…” He sat up and leaned forward. “Well, for starters, this is new for me. To hear that Michael has a fuck buddy.”

“Maybe you don’t know him that well, then.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he’s just not that kind of guy.” He tilted his head. “Have you ever thought about that?”

I hadn’t. So I stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue. And he did.

“He’s very focused on his work. Extremely, extraordinarily talented… more than the press gives him credit for. His work ethic is something I aspire to and wish I will reach one day. Because Lisa… he could do much less than he does… yet he’s the one doing the most. Sweating his ass off and always at everyone’s disposal. Committed to the core.” He shrugged. “And that’s just at a professional level. But I wanted to point it out because, in my opinion, on a personal level he’s just the same, if not better. He gives the most. He’s a motivator, a teacher, and he’s an inspiration… Quite honestly, he’s a fucking genius.”

“Yeah, well… I don’t need a genius. I need a father for my baby. If I decide to keep him… or her… that is.”

Once again, Alfie looked at me with those sympathetic green eyes of him.

“I’m sorry I interrupted you…” I cleared my throat. “Do go on…”

He smiled.

“When I said Mike is a good guy, I meant it. He’s not someone who pretends to be thoughtful, or humble, and to care about other people. He really is that way. I’ve never seen him be anything but what I’m describing. And he helped my career, big time – all while treating me with absolute respect, wanting to hear my ideas, truly listening to me. That’s not something you bump into often in my profession… especially in this filthy city. But with Michael… you really feel safe as a professional and as a person.” He stared at me for a moment, still. “That’s why I am not sure why he still doesn’t know about the pregnancy. I mean… of course, it is your body we’re talking about and all… and the decision of what to do with this baby would be up to you anyway… but there’s part of him too, in there… and maybe he has the right to know.”

I lowered my gaze, not really knowing what to say. Alfie, of course, had checked all the boxes and nothing in what he had said was wrong – quite the opposite. The truth was that I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told Michael yet. Possibly, part of me feared he would stop wanting to talk to me, see me, if only he knew. Or that he would look at me differently, with betrayal in his eyes. That he would feel trapped in a situation he clearly was not ready for. Our conversation under the ancient tree had made that very clear.

The man was on top of the world, he had bled to be where it was and… all of a sudden, here I came. Pregnant and all, just because we both had been careless and too wrapped up in that damned attraction we shared to truly pay attention to what we were doing.

“You think he will push you away if he knows, don’t you…”

Alfie murmured the words very softly, in such a sweet way that it forced me to look up at him. Making me feel like crying. He understood. He knew that fear very well, and what it meant to be terrified that someone you cared for would renege you, pretend you never existed in the first place.

“Maybe… And also… I never wanted this to get this serious. I know what having this baby would entail for him. It would disrupt his entire world, deviate the course of his existence, his future. And his present, of course.”

“If you told him, Lisa… would you expect him to be there for you and the baby?”

“Hell, no. I can take care of myself. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.”

I bit down on my bottom lip, hoping Alfie would believe something even I wasn’t entirely sure of.

“Well, then… Maybe you can do both things. Have him know what is going on and decide for yourself what you’re gonna do with this pregnancy, regardless of what Michael thinks or wants.” He squinted his eyes. “You said you’ve been ignoring him, right?”

“Right.” And it wasn’t as easy as I made it look.

“Right. Let me tell you something, then. I doubt he would have slept with you more than once if he didn’t care about you, even just a little bit. I mean… I saw countless girls throwing themselves at him, and he never took advantage of them. Not once. And not because he doesn’t like women, but because he seems to be the kind of guy who has to truly like someone to be with them in a sexual way. Don’t get me wrong, maybe he does have some one-night stands every now and then… he’s human, after all. But this is slightly different. Because with you, it wasn’t really like that, was it?”

“No, not really a single one-night stand. It started like that, and then it happened again.”

“OK. But it wasn’t just sex either, or so you told me. You and Mike spoke regularly over the phone, did charity work together… he even invited you to his new ranch, where you stayed way longer than a one-night stand would entail. Correct?”

I didn’t reply. After all, Alfie’s was a rhetorical question.

“In that case… He ain’t gonna like that you disappeared from his radar without any warning.”

“Well, he will have to suck it up, then. I am not gonna rush because the man is hurt or pissed.”

“Sure. Take all the time you need, my love. And remember that you’re not alone in this.”

Los Angeles, one week later

Michael

The Essence. I would have never imagined I would find myself in the same place where Lisa and I had started our little… thing. Yet I was about to walk in because I knew she was there. It was the only reason.

After evading me for an entire month, not answering my calls and not calling me back even when I had sent her a bouquet of flowers and a little note asking her if everything was alright, she had finally lowered her guard enough for me to find her.

I didn’t like that I had to resort to this, it felt weird and selfish somehow, and I was ready to turn on my heels and leave if that was what she wanted, but I could not accept being left in the dark. Especially if I took into consideration what Lisa had told me about her mother – and the nasty grip Priscilla had on her. I was worried.

I understood that whatever had happened between the two of us had run its course and it was time for me to move on, yet I needed to make sure that Lisa was in a good, safe place, and that she hadn’t been forced to do something she didn’t want. I also needed to make sure that she hadn’t withdrawn from me because I had hurt her. And if I had hurt her, I had to know exactly how – because it was something that I would have never wanted.

At first, her behavior had pissed me off to no end, to the point that I had decided to treat the little Ice Princess the same way she was treating me. So I had stopped calling her and trying to get a hold of her. Then I had realized that my reaction was childish, immature and silly. And I had become worried.

Eventually, I had called John and told him, very vaguely, that I needed to know where I could find Lisa. He had sounded surprised, and had pointed out that I had her number. Yeah, of course. Hating to having to lie, I had made up a story on the spot, telling John I had a surprise in store for her and I simply needed to know where it could be delivered – preferably not Priscilla’s house, where Lisa lived.

“She doesn’t like you, huh? Priscilla, I mean.”

“I don’t know. And I don’t really care.”

It had taken John a couple of days to finally discover that, lately, Lisa would go to the Essence pretty much every Friday night.

And that night, I knew she was in the club with a male friend because my staff had told me. I ignored the feeling that imagining her there with a guy arose within me and I entered the wardrobe area unseen. I made small talk with the girl behind the counter who, like everyone else working at the Essence, knew how to be discreet and finally walked into the club.

Scanning the main salon, I spotted Lisa almost immediately. She was sitting in a corner of the room, her back to me, her long dark hair loosely tied in a ponytail. Across from her sat her male friend and, squinting, I realized that I knew him.

It was Alfie!

He, too, noticed me and his eyes widened. He craned his neck to get a better view of me and then leaned forward, whispering something to Lisa. She turned, and our eyes met. Hers widened in absolute surprise, and I felt a weird feeling inside. A strange mixture of sadness and relief, noticing that she looked alright. Maybe a little paler than usual, maybe a little tired, but not sick or anything.

My heart was thundering in my chest, and my feet stayed rooted in the ground for what felt like forever as Lisa and I kept staring at each other. Me, wondering if she would talk to me. She, likely wondering what the heck I was doing there and why it looked like I was ambushing her.

I swallowed hard and started to make my way toward the table.

I was just a few steps away from her when Alfie rose from the chair and came in my direction, smiling sheepishly, his palms up and to me in a pacifying gesture – effectively positioning himself between Lisa and me.

“Michael!”

“Hey, Alfie.”

I stopped right in front of him and tried to gauge his intentions. He looked slightly taken aback, but I was willing to bet it wasn’t because he was starstruck. He and I had worked together on a few occasions and, even though I wouldn’t have called him my friend, our relationship was cordial, informal and warm. Alfie was a nice person, and it didn’t surprise me that he gravitated around someone like Lisa. In a way, it made all the sense in the world – she was soft-hearted, and the darkness around her needed someone else’s light to dissipate.

“Are you here to talk to Lisa?”

“Yeah. Why are you asking?” I tilted my head to a side, noticing him blush slightly. What the heck was going on, here?

“Alright. Look, can you give her… like… a minute? She gotta go to the bathroom, anyway.”

Right on cue, out of the corner of my eye I noticed her dart to the restroom as if a fire had been lit under her cute little ass. My eyebrows sprung up.

“Is she hiding from me or something?”

Alfie chuckled, seemingly relaxing a bit.

“No, man. She just has to pee.”

“So I don’t have to expect her to escape from the window or anything…”

“No, not at all.” He touched my arm slightly. “Can I get you something to drink? At the bar, I mean.”

I looked over at the table where he had been sitting with Lisa.

“Sure. Whatever she’s having.”

“Yeah? Apple juice be it, then.”

Apple juice? This whole thing was getting weirder by the second!

Gently, Alfie started pulling me toward the bar counter and I looked over at him.

“What are you doing? Chaperoning me to the bar? I know where it is.”

Another chuckle. This time sounding way more nervous.

“No, I’m just… Ah… I’m just trying to make sure this whole situation remains as peaceful and comfortable as possible.”

It was right then and there that I realized that Alfie, very likely, knew way more about Lisa’s disappearance than I did. And that they were very good friends, something I had just discovered and that had taken me off-guard a bit.

Sitting on the stools at the bar, we made small talk for a few minutes as we waited for Lisa to finally come out of the bathroom. For a moment, I truly believed she would pull some trick on me and disappear from some invisible back door, but she didn’t. Eventually, the restroom door did open and she appeared, looking gorgeous just like I remembered – her eyes shiny as if she had just cried or was about to.

Looking over, she started walking in our direction and, once she reached us, she rested her hand on Alfie’s shoulder. Her turn to whisper something in his ear. I didn’t hear anything – the jazz music playing in the background drowned everything else.

Alfie stood up.

“It was nice to see you, man. Hopefully we’ll have the chance to work together on some more short films in the future.”

We shook hands and I watched him as if I was seeing him for the first time.

“Yeah. Likewise.”

A second later, he was gone. And Lisa was standing right in front of me with an odd look in her eyes.

“Hey…”

My heart was up in my throat.

“Hey, Michael… I know we need to talk. But here isn’t the right place.”

“OK… where do you wanna go?”

“I have a small apartment just a few blocks away from here, I told you. What do you think?”

There was nothing flirtatious about her tone or the way she looked at me. She sounded as serious as I had never heard her before.

“I think it’s perfect. Let’s go. I got a car outside waiting for me.”