“A year or so. Though I was in London part of the time, back and forth, before jumping back to the States more permanently. So a year, but that timeline may have been fuzzy. And to be fair, there were difficult moments, with the time zones, the distance, the long-haul flights.” Simon appeared to have no malice, which Elliot admired.
“Could you have made it work?” Elliot probed. “Even with all of that?”
Simon took a moment to consider it. “How can you know if anything could have worked?” he said finally. “With different circumstances, with different obstacles, with different personalities. The thing about Birdie is that she is quite clear in who she is.”
“And who is that?” Elliot was genuinely desperate to know.
“An enigma.” Simon smiled. “What I discovered about Birdie Robinson is that she may be unknowable. And if you can accept that, live with that, then she’s your perfect match. And if you can’t, then there’s really nothing else to be done.”
Elliot furrowed his brow and made a mental note to revisit this part of the conversation when he played it back while drafting the piece. He didn’t think Simon had her quite right. He was certain that Birdie was entirely knowable; he’d known her once back in Barton, and for snippets of their time together as adults, in her apartment that weekend; when her guard was down in the RV and she so mangled the lyrics of the Eurythmics, he knew her again. Maybe the enigma of Birdie wasn’t that she was unsolvable, it was that you had to know both the equation and the solution at the same time. What made Birdie tick and how to keep her ticking. He thought that he did.
“So I should ask you,” Elliot said, “did you write her a love letter? Either years ago or just a few days back?”
Simon paused as the sommelier crossed the room with their bottle of Malbec, then uncorked it and poured a taste that merited Simon’s approval. Both of their glasses were filled, and Simon raised a glass.
“To Birdie Robinson,” he said.
“To Birdie Robinson,” Elliot concurred, though he’d rather have toasted Birdie Maxwell.
Simon savored his sip, then set his glass down thoughtfully.
“When I think of Birdie, of the time I spent with her,” he said, “I sometimes wonder why I was never struck by that lightning bolt, if I missed something—”
“What was there to miss?”
“That’s the thing,” Simon said. “I don’t think there was. That incalculable magnetic pull is either there or it isn’t.”
Elliot wondered if Simon knew how close to the bone he was cutting. How his magnetic pull had been so strong it was nearly fatal with Birdie.
“But?” Elliot asked.
“But it wasn’t for me, for us. So no, I did not send her an unrequited, anonymous love letter. But you already knew that.”
Elliot nodded. He just needed Simon on record so no one could doubt that he’d covered his bases, interviewed the men Birdie cited, double-checked his facts.
“I did already know that,” he agreed.
“So how do we see this through?”
Elliot reached for his glass and eased back in his chair.
“First, we drink this wine, because I sure could use it,” he said. “And then, armed with a little bravery, we finally come face-to-face with the truth.”
40
BIRDIE
Birdie stared outthe dust-specked passenger window of Andie’s ten-year-old 4Runner as the lights of Las Vegas broke through the darkened sky. She wasn’t quite sure what her plan was, what she needed to say to Elliot, what she needed to say to Mona. She didn’t know how this got her any closer to finding the anonymous letter writer unless her instincts that it had been Elliot all along proved correct.
Andie cursed at another bug that splattered on the windshield, then sprayed the glass with fluid and turned on the wipers. For a moment, everything in front of them went blurry, then clear again.Wouldn’t it be nice if it were just that easy, Birdie thought.Blurry, then clear again.
She’d called Imani about an hour ago and told her what she was doing, and Imani fell silent, weighing all the ways that the situation could go wrong. Finally, she said, “I assume you know the stakes of this?”
“I do,” Birdie said.
“Well then, I’m going to give you my blessing. Be honest,be... yourself, Bird. I think this could pay more dividends than any sort of spin I worked my ass off for.”
“That’s what I needed to hear,” Birdie said. Though that was more of a platitude, something nice you say to wrap up a conversation. She didn’t actually know what she needed to hear because she hadn’t been this terrified in a long, long time. Maybe since she first moved to New York. Or maybe when she first went to Kai’s trailer and let him seduce her. Or maybe when Elliot walked out of her apartment and she wondered if she should chase him but did not. One of those things was among the best decisions of her life. Two of them were among the worst. All three were leaps of faith.
