“You know, pretending to be someone's friend when you're not is a really shitty thing to do.”
There was a long silence and I began to wonder if she was just going to ignore me, when finally, she spoke. “For what it's worth, it felt pretty shitty too.”
“So why did you do it?”
“Money. Why else?”
I shook my head. “Spying for money. Honourable.”
“It wasn't spying exactly, Lola. I didn't report back on you.”
“You didn't have to. Alfie was getting all the information he needed on a flat screen. You knew and you didn't say a word.”
She was silent for a minute. “I know. Money is the only excuse that I have. I’m not going to beg for your forgiveness. It was a shitty thing I did but I’d do it again if I had to.”
Now it was my turn to be silent. In all the time we lived together, she’d revealed almost nothing of herself and anything she had could just be a lie. But I hadn’t forgotten the way that she and Eli had looked at each other that night at the Never Tell Club. There was no denying the truth of that connection.
“Eli has a lot of money, seems like you could have asked him for help if you were that hard up.”
“I don't do charity,” she replied stiffly.
“You just spy on people.”
“I wasn't spying!” she snapped, exasperated. “I was just supposed to keep an eye on you.”
“Like a spy.”
“No! I was just supposed to protect you. To be there if anything happened to you, if you got groped by some guy in a bar, or if you got a new boyfriend and he didn't treat you well, or if someone broke into the house, whatever. Mr Tell wantedyou to be safe. I don't agree with his methods. I really am sorry. I wasn't expecting to actually like being your friend. That's why I withdrew so much when we were both at home, I felt guilty hanging out with you and Keira and acting like we were buddies. It felt dirty to me.”
I sat quietly, digesting her words. Whatever lies she’d told in the past, I couldn’t deny how sincere her words were now.
“How do you know Alfie anyway?” I asked finally.
“I knew Elliot first. He's well known in our industry.”
“What industry is that?”
“Elite security teams. There aren't many women who do this kind of work, that makes me valuable. There are always men like Mr Tell that want a female guard on their security team. Someone who can follow their wife, daughter, mistress, whoever, into the bathroom if they need it. Men like Mr Tell are often possessive and don't like other men, even those they employ, going into intimate spaces with their women.”
I snorted. She didn’t need to tell me that Alfie was possessive. I lived it everyday.
“How did you get into this line of work?”
“In a roundabout sort of way. I served in the military for a few years until I was medically discharged. Bounced around a few different dead-end jobs before I was finally able to get an interview with Elliot. That was four years ago. Here I am.”
I wanted to ask her why she was medically discharged but that seemed rude. So I decided to ask her another rude question instead.
“And the money you needed? Why were you so desperate for that?”
She looked annoyed that I'd asked her such a personal question.
“Hey, you spent over a year lying to me, the least you can do is answer a few questions.”
In the mirror I could see her considering her words carefully before she spoke them.
“I had some debts to pay off. They weren't my debts but I still had to pay them off.”
Her answer had just opened up even more questions. How did you become responsible for paying off someone else's debts?
