Emily’s Diary – Entry 29

Gut Feelings

Mark says there's no such thing as intuition. According to him, the only people who constantly get bad feelings are the ones who are already "miserable about everything anyway." From that point on, it's no longer some ominous thought tied to a specific event — it's just the usual "self-flagellating nonsense" the person's gotten hooked on. The person, meaning the woman. Men don't complicate their lives like that.

Well, he's right that I'm a woman. He's also right that there's a croaking voice that's a regular guest in my head. Still, every time that throat-tightening, chest-crushing, shoulder-clenching fear has hit me, it's turned out afterward that there was a reason for it.

I could finally just listen to it and say, "Okay, thanks for the heads-up. I won't send it / I won't go there / I won't say it / I won't sleep with him."

Instead, it seems I still want proof of whether Mark is right, or whether I am — I, who have lived with myself for twenty-eight years. I'd love to say I deserved what happened, for still doubting my own warning signs after all this time. But I won't, because nobody deserves that.

Friday morning I went through my closet and decided there was nothing I could wear to a barbecue at a castle. I called Adele, who — despite being fully focused on her September exam these days — happily agreed to come shopping with me.

By the time I got to the mall, she was already deep into browsing the selection at the store that sells formal wear. She greeted me with sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks.

"I already set aside two dresses for you!" she squeaked.

The saleswoman — chewing gum with her mouth half open, squeezed into a snow-white suit, apparently under the impression she worked somewhere far more upscale — looked Adele up and down. Then me.

"Lower your voice," I whispered.

I can't stand situations like that. Adele shrugged. That kind of thing doesn't faze her at all. She pulled me into the fitting room, where two cocktail dresses were waiting — one grass-green, one black. I froze at the sight of them, they were so elegant.

"Are you serious? You think I should wear one of these?"

"To a castle?" Adele snapped. "What did you have in mind? Sweats?"

I buried my face in my hands. My nails dug into my forehead.

The saleswoman appeared behind us with an impatient sigh.

"Need help?" she asked, unenthused.

At least she'd asked. As unpleasant as I found her, right then she was our only hope.

"Yes, please!" I groaned. "It's for a barbecue."

She raised her eyebrows, pinching her worn-out blue gum between her teeth.

"A barbecue... a cocktail dress... Pff."

She rolled her eyes so hard her head followed the motion.

Adele's face hardened, her nostrils flaring.

"Exactly," she said. "A barbecue at a castle."

Her words came out dry and clipped.

The saleswoman pursed her lips. I couldn't tell if she was thinking about the right outfit or about how to tell us to go fuck ourselves. She turned on her heel and walked to the rack by the display window at the far end of the store, flipping impatiently through the white and cream-colored dresses.

She went through the last third of the rack two or three times, then pulled out a pair of cream-colored shorts with a silky sheen and a sleeveless blouse in a slightly lighter shade, marred by a bow with long tails at the front. I didn't dare react. The contrast between the dresses Adele had picked and the outfit in the saleswoman's hands was pretty stark. I just nodded and went into the fitting room. Before Adele could catch on, I pulled the curtain shut. I wanted to see it on myself first.

I'd never owned anything like it, and it never would have occurred to me to wear something like it. But I had to admit it looked incredibly elegant, even if that bow, in my opinion, belonged on some old lady. Like, over-fifty old lady territory.

Adele clapped her hands together when she saw me.

"Holy shit!" Then she spun toward our cud-chewing helper. "You've got a serious eye!"

One corner of the girl's mouth twitched, unimpressed.

"I'll go get the matching shoes."

I don't want to talk about the prices. I made a deal with myself to immediately erase them from my memory. It's an investment in my future, end of story.

So, Saturday...

We had to be there by noon. Luckily, the castle — while genuinely breathtaking — turned out to be only a quarter the size I'd pictured. You could just as easily call it a villa. As it turned out, it was a building over a hundred years old that had been renovated and expanded. The old part had kept its original shape; only the inside had been modernized. The castle stood far from the city, out in the countryside. There wasn't another house for miles.

They'd clearly spent a fortune on the renovation, but by the time it came to landscaping the grounds, they must have run out of imagination. The lawn and the plants were kept immaculately, but there wasn't a single flower with any color to it. Just green shrubs and ornamental trees ringing the castle. The parking lot, on the other hand, was the size of a small shopping center's. I'd guess fifty cars could fit in there easily.

I could barely get out of the car. By the time we arrived, my legs felt like lead. My fingers had gone stiff, and breathing genuinely hurt. The air I pulled in stung not just my nose but my lungs too. Like I'd sucked in ice instead of oxygen.

We hadn’t even reached the front door when a woman with her hair in two braids appeared out of nowhere. She ran toward us with her arms wide open.

"Sweetheart!" she shrieked.

The sight of her denim shorts, barely covering her backside, and her sleeveless black top gave me a small flicker of relief, but I didn't get to enjoy it for long. She threw herself into Ben's arms and practically leapt onto him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

I felt dizzy just watching.

"How many bottles of champagne have you gone through since this morning, Cecilia?" Ben laughed.

She hopped down off him with mock offense.

"You're such an asshole," she rasped.

My stomach clenched at the strong smell of alcohol hitting me. The puffy red bags under her eyes and the veins mapped out around her nose spoke for themselves. Growing up with an alcoholic father, I can spot an addict from a mile away. That sharp smell only confirmed she'd already gotten thoroughly acquainted with the bottom of a glass that day.

Ben cleared his throat.

"This is Emily."

The woman held out her hand but didn't look me in the eye. Her gaze slid past my head instead. I chalked it up to the drinking. Ben suddenly hurried off, leaving me alone with Cecilia.

"Back when you were still playing with dolls, I was already riding your boyfriend's dick," she giggled shrilly. "If you ever want a tip or two on how to satisfy him, just ask."

With that, she slapped me on the back and ran off after Ben. If I'd had the car keys on me, I swear I would have disappeared right then. Instead, all I could do was follow them. Thankfully, Ben stopped at the entrance and waited for me. I wanted so badly to tell him what had just happened, but he was already scanning the crowd, buzzing with excitement. Because there were a shitload of people. At the sight of that many people, on top of wanting to cry, I felt nauseous too.

The "guy," Cecilia's husband, was a wrinkled-necked, smiling man in his fifties. Ben, it seemed, was the youngest one in the whole crowd. Off by the grill, a cluster of women — clearly aging despite some help from plastic surgery — were laughing loudly. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was the one they were gossiping about. Especially when Cecilia, balancing a tray, stumbled toward them and screeched:

"Come get a look at Ben's current girl! I don't think we even need to bother learning her name."

Her husband ran a hand through his thick, dyed hair with an embarrassed smile.

"Don't take it too seriously... Cecilia teases everyone," he said, waving it off.

I think I nodded. Meanwhile my whole body had gone stiff as a post, and I felt like I couldn't move at all. And this was barely a few minutes after we'd arrived.

"Relax," Ben whispered in my ear. "Cecilia doesn't mean any of it. I brought her red champagne — it's her favorite. You should be the one to give it to her. Trust me, that'll win you points with her."

I honestly don't know how I survived it. The whole thing was excruciating. At some point, mercifully, I slipped into a kind of numbness. From the next few hours, all I remember are blurred faces, fragments of laughter, and a few brief, polite conversations. And the moment I caught myself chewing on the rim of my glass. I can only hope nobody filmed it to pass around later.

When Ben drove me home and pulled up outside my place, it just came out of me:

"Did you sleep with that woman?"

Ben's fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

"Does it matter what happened before?"

"Because she welcomed me by offering tips on how to satisfy you, since she was already sleeping with you back when I was still playing with dolls," I shot back, my voice thick with tears.

Ben shook his head.

"Sorry, but I don't buy that. Maybe she was just joking about something and you misread it..."

My face burned, and I could barely breathe.

"Are you saying I'm lying?"

"No," he said coldly. "But that's just Cecilia. You have to take her as she is. A little loud, a little sharp-tongued. You two will end up friends. Should I come up?" he asked, as if none of what had happened meant anything at all.

I stared at him, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. I dug my hand under my thigh and pressed my nails into my skin to pull myself together.

"I still have work to do," I whispered.

He leaned over and gave me a light kiss on the lips.

"Okay. I'll call you tomorrow. And don't take any of that too seriously. They loved you, trust me."

We talked on the phone for a long time this morning. I think I've calmed down some. After all, it's bound to happen that I run into someone Ben used to be involved with. Women have come and gone in his life, and he's never hidden that. He could have told me about Cecilia beforehand, but then I definitely wouldn't have gone with him to the party. Still, since she's part of his friend group, I would have had to face this anxiety sooner or later, one way or another. At least it's behind us now. Besides, Mark and I stayed friends too.

So yeah. I guess I don't get to say a word.