Operation Soulmate (18 page)

     “Friends....?” said Ben, trying to help him out with his apparently
dreadful
communication skills. Toby seemed relieved and grateful for the help with his vocabulary.

     “Oh! Yes. Of course! Friends... Okay!” He said politely. Danny could sense that there was much more was going on in the room than this polite little exchange was implying. And his well-honed lawyer-instincts told him there was a far more sinister layer of perception operating beneath the one which, now, innocently presented itself. He looked over at Geraldine who was now quite literally squirming, and almost fixated on the front door.

     “Oh, we’ve been, ‘friends’ for several years now,” said Danny, seamlessly picking up his cue and carefully placing the word, ‘friends’ in finger-quotations for good measure. He turned and raised his eyebrows at Ben in a way that was meant to be suggestive but which somehow just, somehow came off as being slightly menacing. “Haven’t we Benji?” Ben looked very,
very
confused. Danny winked at Geraldine. He was enjoying himself immensely. Geraldine looked away quickly, and Toby sipped his beer agonisingly slowly.

    “What time does the film start, hon?” Geraldine asked, nervously.

      “Nine-thirty” said Toby amiably. “He was enjoying showing Geraldine how sociable and evolved he could be. Then out of nowhere, he seemed to have a new thought. “Oh,” he said, looking at Ben, somewhat puzzled. “Geraldine somehow gave me the impression that you’d been single for ages Ben,” he said. Yep, there it was, splatt!!

      “Huh?” said Ben, nonplussed. Danny was grinning unbearably. He raised his eyebrows at Geraldine, and his shoulder seemed to be shaking uncontrollably, even though the rest of his face was almost expressionless.

      “Gerry, honey, why on earth would you say a thing like that?” he said, slapping her arm playfully. Geraldine summoned up every ounce of will she contained and, slowly, turning to face Toby with eyes that could have cut through steel, said,

      “Toby, I really, really would like to go now, if that’s okay.” Toby jumped slightly. He’d never seen Geraldine looking so ...
focused.

      “Okay sweetie, can I just finish off my beer?” he said, looking at Ben and rolling his eyes in a way that said... ‘women’. Ben laughed nervously. What on earth was going on? Why didn’t anything Toby said make
any
sense whatsoever? Why was Danny coming on to him?
Why
was Toby stuck to the pair of them like glue and what
was
wrong
with Geraldine?

      “Actually, Toby continued dangerously...” Geraldine thought her head was going to explode.

       “I once knew a couple of guys...in college.. who were ‘friends’ for
years
, but they had a really relaxed attitude, you know: Carried on dating other people, but still looked out for each other, you know what I mean?” Geraldine watched as Ben’s jaw hit the floor and the sound of the penny dropping added to the general stuff-hitting-the-fan cacophony to create a rousing psychic symphony of complete madness!!

      “Wait a minute,” Ben said, pulling himself up to his full height and looking directly at Toby. I think there’s been a
big
misunderstanding here,” he began. “We’re not...I’m not...we’re not gay!!”

      Toby smiled knowingly. It was so sad what these poor people
still
had to go through.

“I know, Ben” he said, warmly,“...It's cool man.” Ben was getting really irritated with Toby and his Toby-smugness now. He had no idea what was going on in this new and peculiar twist in the Geraldine/Toby, story but both his personal principles and his esteemed professional code demanded that he should operate at the highest level of (conscious) truth, at all times. And now that Geraldine had so dishonestly
outed
him, for who knew
what
reason, it seemed only fair that she should, now come clean and jolly well
in
him back again.

      “Geraldine,” He said sweetly. “Why did you tell Toby I was gay?”

       Geraldine, suddenly, felt three pairs of eyes on her. She tried not to look at Danny, just in case it made her laugh. “OH God,” She said sighing and collapsing into a chair. This was going to take some explaining.

By the time they left for the movie, Toby was far from satisfied. Everyone else, it seemed had gained a satisfactory outcome to Geraldine’s little disclosure, except him. Geraldine had finally managed to get the whole tortuous deception off her chest, Ben was reassured that Danny
didn’t
fancy him and Danny got to watch the match in relative peace. Toby, on the other hand, was left wondering
why,
if there was absolutely nothing for him to worry about, had Geraldine felt the need to concoct this devious lie. He was suddenly not so sure about his connection with her anymore. Geraldine was deeply ashamed. Toby was deeply disappointed. Ben was deeply confused, and was wondering exactly the same thing as Toby:
if
there was absolutely nothing between them, why, on earth, had Geraldine felt the need to lie? It was all just so out of character and ...odd.

       At the end of the evening, Toby said nothing about arranging to meet up again; he just "left things loose". When they said goodnight, there were no attempted kisses, no awkward clinches, just a polite peck on the cheek and a very defeated-looking Toby.

      Geraldine was in no mood to see anyone when she walked in through the door. She turned her key in the lock and closed it behind her as silently as possible. There were football-ish sounds coming from the living room and she could hear Ben and Danny making sporadic football noises. She tried to tiptoe quietly past the living room and dart straight into her room, but someone must have heard her, somehow, above all the noise. 

       Danny flung the door open, “Hey Benji, look who’s home.” He said, barely containing his mirth. “Hey, G, how’s it going chicka?”

      “Hi Danny,” she said, trying desperately hard not to make any unnecessary eye-contact with Ben.

       “Don’t stand out there in the hallway G!!! Come in and join us. We were just about to do our nails and listen to some Barbara Streisand, weren’t we Benji?” Ben was sitting on the edge of the sofa with his arms folded when she finally stepped into the room.

       “We need to talk,” He said. Geraldine was too tired to talk. When were all these talks going to stop
happening?!
She looked at him calmly.

       “Okay, before you say anything, I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry, Ben. But I’m not even going to
start
discussing this now.” she said, casting a furtive glance over in Danny’s direction. “I just need to get some sleep. But I just want to say, quickly, in my defence, that I didn’t actually
tell
him you were gay, it was just a series of misunderstandings and fortuitous omissions, all lead
by
him, by the way, that just seemed to make him happy at the time....and a bit more comfortable with the idea of me flat-sharing with a guy. He was just so
jealous
...I had to do
something
to throw him off the scent. Ugh. I said I wasn’t going to talk about it now, and I’m not. Okay. So, I’m
so
sorry Ben, but we’ll talk tomorrow...K?” She said looking meaningfully over at Danny who had secreted himself away to a quiet corner of the room, supposedly in the name of discretion, and was flicking through an old issue of
SMART MAGAZINE
, but she could still see his huge shoulders shaking.    

     “Night Danny,” she said, without waiting for a response. As she was leaving, she could have sworn that Ben was trying really hard to suppress a smile, and she could easily see that Danny’s shoulders were shaking even harder. He was probably crying by now.

     “Oh, yeah, yeah, night Gerry,” he called after her, through the tears. This one was obviously going to run and run.

      When she left the room, Ben briefly ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head, violently. He looked across at Danny, who was, now, also shaking his head and grinning incredulously, his eyes looking very watery.

      “See what I mean, man...totally in denial...”

       “Hang on in there, man. Hang on
in
there. Stay. In. The
game
.”

       Suddenly, Geraldine was back in the room, glaring at them both with overblown indignation. “By the way” She said, curtly, “You two should, both, be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves! Danny, your behaviour this evening has been just shocking. All that mincing and posturing and the antediluvian attitude you seem to have towards gay people, it’s appalling! I have
never,
in my life, in all my time giving readings to a
huge
cross-section of people, from all walks of life,
ever
seen a gay man wearing nail-polish. And as, for you Ben, you claim to be someone who understands
all
about relationships, but how can you
really
call yourself a well-rounded custodian of hearts and minds when you’re such a roaring homophobe!! You’d be
lucky
to have a guy like Danny interested in you! Look at him, he’s smart, successful, funny...look at his body for goodness sake...he’s a complete catch.”

       Ben tried
not
to look at Danny’s body. Geraldine was being absurd and she knew it. And how
dare
she question his professional acuity in this way! But it wasn’t this that really struck at the heart of him. It was something
far
more personal.

      “Oh!
He’s
the catch, is he?
He’s
the catch, in this situation. What about me... how am I
not
the
catch? Danny, back me up, here. ..I’m a catch...”

      Danny shrugged and smiled smugly. Geraldine placed her hands, firmly, on her hips and almost laughed. They were both, so, ridiculous sometimes. “Guys, that’s hardly the point! Anyway, I think you both need to take a good, long, look at yourselves, after the way you’ve behaved tonight. I’m going to bed.” And with that, she turned on her heels and left them, both, to ponder.

      Ben stared hard at the floor for a minute or two. “Wow, I did not see
that
coming. What just happened?”

      Danny laughed and shook his head. “Man,” he said, looking bemused and bewildered. “That was truly, truly cold. I had no
idea
Gerry could be such a handful! Did you see what she did there? She just, totally turned ...the whole thing around, made
us
the villains! Antediluvian... She’s calling
us
dinosaurs, but that little stunt she just pulled, came out of the Ark, man! That is one
tricky
chick, you’ve got there, bro.”

      Ben shook his head, solemnly, “Tell me about it. She’s great, though, isn’t she?”

     “Yeah, man...she’s alright... She’s angry with you though, bro... What did you
do
to that woman?”

     “Huh?”

     “Oh, come on man. Everything that comes out of her mouth is practically spitting out some kind of implied smear against you. All that stuff about you not being a good custodian of hearts... and how you’d be lucky to have a boyfriend like me. Sounded to me, a bit more like... ‘You’d be lucky to have
me
...Geraldine... Ben... Oh, come on man, read between the lines. She’s wrestling with you...
wrestling
... She’s fighting you
all
the way.”

     Ben looked, genuinely, puzzled, for a second and shook his head in sheer, mortally-wounded, disbelief. Suddenly, it was as clear as day. On some level, Geraldine actually
loathed
him. Buy
why
? It didn’t make any sense... She was his best friend!!! Danny smiled, knowingly. “Stay in the game man. I’m telling you... Fine line between love and hate bro.”

     “It’s okay, man,” said Ben, enigmatically, “I’m over it; I’ve moved on. That ship has
sailed
. I might even have a little something of my own going on...”

     “Cool man, cool,” said Danny, still infuriatingly unconvinced. “Listen, dude, if it makes you feel any better...About that whole ‘
catch’
thing...” He said, leaning forward in his chair, and eying Ben, sympathetically, “
If.
..just supposing...worst, case scenario, every woman on the planet, suddenly disappeared overnight, and I honestly thought celibacy might,
actually
, kill me, I would
definitely
... think about letting you have my number. Ah-ight, man?”

     “Ahhh...man.... Thanks,” said Ben, sarcastically... “Why!!!
Why
did you have to take it there?!”

     “I’m just saying, man. Don’t get all uptight. I’m the catch here, remember...Just trying to make you feel good.” He said, trying hard, to suppress a smirk.

      “Well I
don’t
. Now I just feel....weird.” Danny laughed, uproariously, but Ben was, just, too exhausted and preoccupied to join in the fun. “Dan, don’t you have to be up early in the morning?”

      “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, man...sure, sure. S’alright, I can take a hint.” He said, still smirking irritatingly, as he reached for his phone and keys on the coffee table. Ben stood by the living room door, still wondering why Geraldine could possibly be so angry with him. What had he
done
to make her so vitriolic about his unsuitability as a love-match? Surely this was worse than the neutral, BFF status to which he’d recently re-adjusted. Or
was
it? Was it, just, possible that her feelings for him really
did
run far deeper than she was prepared to admit, even to herself? So what was stopping her from letting him in? Was it the race thing. No, that wasn’t Gerry’s style. Whatever was going on, there were certainly a lot of very strong feelings flying around.