Lily is saddened by the startling description she can’t see.
She can hear the other passengers saying things like, “It’s just extraordinary! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Strad guides Lily to the back of the boat.
“Wow,” he marvels, looking at the wake. “Can you see this at all?”
“No. What?”
“The wake glows.”
The boat stops to give passengers a chance to take a swim.
Many of them jump into the water, creating luminescent splashes.
Lily wishes she could see it, swim in it, marry Strad, tell him the truth, take off her mask. She would love to dive into the luminescent water like a carefree person who can experience the beauty of life even though she herself is not beautiful.
“You should go for a swim,” she says.
“Are you sure?”
She nods.
He strips down to his bathing suit and jumps into the bay.
People cheer at the glowing splash he creates. Lily sees nothing except black on black. She remains motionless, gazing down, lost in thought.
She hears a young woman in the water exclaim to her friend, “Oh, look at all the tiny sparkles trickling down my arm!”
And that’s the moment Lily makes a decision.
Strad comes out of the water, dripping. “I was doing water angels. They glowed,” he says.
Lily smiles, forgetting that her smiles are never seen behind the mask.
“Strad,” she says, with a solemnity that gets his full attention, “tomorrow I want to have a wonderful day with you. And tomorrow night, I will keep my mask on all night so that we can sleep in the same bed for the first time. And the next morning, I will tell you the truth.”
Strad lifts her up in the air and twirls her around. “That’s fantastic! Thank you!” He gently lowers her. “And after that will you agree to marry me?”
“If you still want me to.”
I SOAK IN a hot bath, trying to relax before Peter’s visit. I then slip into my fake fat and put on some attractive clothes in very large sizes. By attractive, I mean a huge pair of beige pants made of a dressier fabric than my usual sweat pants. And an extremely large turtleneck made of a silkier cotton than my everyday ones. I then put on my gray frizzy wig, my yellowish crooked teeth, my brown contacts, and my fake glasses.
When Peter arrives at eight p.m., he looks a little tired and pale. He says he has no appetite and asks if I would mind if we waited to eat. I say fine, since my stomach happens to be in knots, too.
We’re standing at the small island that separates the kitchen from the living room, and I decide to get something off my chest before we even sit down: “I’m sorry I got annoyed yesterday. The truth is, I love our friendship. So if things stay the way they are between us, I’ll be more than happy.”
He looks at me seriously, gives a brief nod, and says, “I won’t be.”
“Oh no?” I ask, genuinely surprised.
“No. At least… it wouldn’t be my preference.”
A smile escapes me. “I see,” I say, “but at the same time you shouldn’t force yourself. If you feel more comfortable with things the way they are, I understand.”
“I’m not more comfortable. I’m uncomfortable.”
I chuckle. Joy and relief unwind every muscle in my body. “What is your dark secret?” I ask.
“Telling you will be disastrous.” He pauses. “But… much as I’ve enjoyed our relationship the way it’s been, I really can’t go on like this. I have to tell you the truth.”
He goes over to the window and gazes down at Union Square. I follow him there. He moves close to me until the space between us is small and intimate. Looking at me sadly, he says, “I want you to know that this thing you don’t know about me is substantial.”
“So what? There’s something substantial you don’t know about me,” I say.
“Unfortunately, no. I don’t think so. That’s my secret, you see. My secret is that I know yours.”
The tension snaps back into my body. Barely breathing, my pulse racing, I carefully ask, “What secret is it that you think you know?”
“I know that when I touch you, like this,” he says, putting his fingertips lightly on my shoulders and running them down my arms, “you feel nothing.”
He walks behind me. “That when I bring my lips this close to your hair and whisper to you, you don’t feel my breath in your gray curls.” He puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me around. “That were I to wrap you in my arms, you would hardly feel a thing because you’ve created a partition between you and the world.”
He lets go of my shoulders.
“How long have you known?” I ask, my eyes filling with tears.
“Since I found Georgia’s laptop in a cab.”
Stunned, I listen as he explains how he allowed himself to open Georgia’s diary document and stumbled upon descriptions of me and my friends and saw photos of me without the fat suit. He says since meeting me, he fell for me like he’d never fallen for anyone, and that’s why it didn’t feel right to let our relationship progress without my being aware of everything.
I don’t respond.
“Is this problematic?” he asks.
I nod. Tears start running down my cheeks.
“You see, I knew it.”
I say nothing.
He says, “I could easily have fooled you by pretending I didn’t know the truth about your true appearance and—”
“You mean as you have done?”
“Uh… yes. Except, I could have continued and allowed things to progress. But as my feelings for you deepened, it became harder for me to choose this dishonest option.”
He pauses, waiting for me to say something, but I can’t. I’m too upset.
“My conscience was getting in the way, you understand?” he says softly.
I nod, unable to speak.
“Because you mean so much to me,” he says.
I quickly nod as tears keep spilling, and I finally manage to say, “Can we continue this another time?”
“Really?” he asks, concerned.
“I’m sorry, I have to lie down now. I don’t feel great.” I start walking out of the living room. “Please let yourself out.”
“Barb, can’t we talk about this a little more?”
“Sure, later,” I call out, going to my bedroom.
But he comes after me. “No, wait, Barb.” He takes my arm before I reach my bedroom door. Touching my gray curls, he says, “I admire the system you’ve devised to ensure that your beauty won’t be the cause of your happiness. And I know I didn’t meet you the right way, but isn’t it better to have met you the wrong way and to love you the right way than the reverse?”
I say nothing.
Not giving up, he says, “I’m sorry I found out about your real appearance. I’m sorry because it robbed me of the opportunity to prove that I could pass through your filtering system.”
After hesitating a long time, I gently say what I know to be the truth: “You wouldn’t have passed. If you had believed I really was fat, gray-haired, and the rest, you never would have become interested in me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because of my years of experience.”
“If I’d gotten to know you as I have, I would have fallen for you. As I have.”
“You wouldn’t have had the slightest interest in getting to know me in the first place. And even if you had, you wouldn’t have been able to think of me as anything but a friend.”
“My feelings for you now have nothing to do with your looks. In fact, I don’t care if I never see your physical beauty again. You could wear your disguise all the time if you wanted to.”