L' approbation

“I broke up with Gwen,” Ian groaned from the entry of his dingy apartment. He hung up his jacket, slipped off his shoes, and threw himself into the soft sofa.

“This one lasted longer than the last girl,” Katie snarked from the couch adjacent to him. She closed the book she had been reading and turned her attention to him.

“There was a good reason,” Ian whined.

“You say that every time.”

“She went behind my back and paid for my meal while I was in the bathroom!”

“And?”

“It was emasculating!”

“Are you serious? You have to stop dumping girls over stupid shit.”

“I don’t do that,”

“You do. Then you come and complain to me that you’re single,” Katie grumbled as she started counting on her fingers. “You dumped Caroline because she had a weird laugh, Amber when she ordered veal, and Rachel because she chewed her food too loudly.”

“There’s nothing wrong with having high standards.”

“This is not high standards, this is looking for something unrealistic because you don’t want to confront your own fear of commitment.”

Ian opened his mouth to say something, but swallowed it. He crossed his arms and pouted.

“Just think about that when you move on to the next girl.” Katie said flatly and returned to her book.

Ian deflated further into the sofa and pulled out his phone. He looked at a board for casting calls but the only new posts since the last he checked were for a 40 year old woman, and a 10 year old girl. He closed it and tapped open a dating app. He unenthusiastically swiped through profile after profile until a gentle knock rapped at the door.

Katie jolted and put her finger to her nose without even looking up from her book. Ian groaned. He pushed himself lazily up from the sofa and sauntered to the narrow entry way. He pressed his eye to the peep hole on the door to view nothing but an empty porch.

He opened the door, to a calm and quiet night. A decorative lantern only illuminated a few feet of pavement next to the door, but nothing seemed to stir in the darkness beyond it. But placed on his worn down welcome mat was a thick manilla envelope.

He bent down, picking it up carefully and stepping back into the apartment.

He turned the envelope over, then flipped it to the front again. It was heavy and solid, but had nothing written on the outside to identify it.

He slid his fingers along the opening and pried it apart.

There between the folds of the package were several bundles - money clips. Ian adjusted the folder to reveal the top of the bundles.

Every one was made up of dozens of hundred dollar bills.

Ian quickly closed the package. His heart raced.

“Katie, were you expecting a package?” Ian asked in a dumbfounded, shaky voice.

“No, what is it?”

Ian took the package to their living room and showed the inside of the envelope to her.

“What the-“ Katie exclaimed. She abrasively grabbed the envelope and dumped it on the coffee table. She flipped through the bills, counting each one before moving to the next bundle.

As she pawed at the pile of money, Ian spotted a piece of lined paper tucked between the stacks of cash. A hand written note clearly torn from a lined notebook. It simply said: Ian, Congratulations you won a contest

“That’s shady,” Ian said and flipped the paper over but there was nothing but a small heart drawn on the other side.

“Ian, there’s $20,000 here.”

On clear days, most patrons of the Rocket Cafe sit outside. Its patio had exotic plants in ornate planters and photogenic table settings that had made their way onto many Instagram pages.

Ian had met many people in his time working for the cafe. In fact, he met the last four girls he dated here. Though, none came back after he dumped them.

On a sunny weekend day, he met the fifth girl who would give him her number here.

He brought a menu to a beautiful woman with curly black hair that brushed against her shoulder as she scanned the options. She was new in town and asked him for recommendations. They got to chatting casually. He told her about the must sees in town. The park with the beautiful lights in the night, and the restaurants where you could get good food for a good price. She listened attentively and asked questions as he rattled on. Later Ian found that she had left him a hand written note before she left.

Call me. It said. Her phone number followed then she signed it: Thea with a heart.

Ian looked in the mirror and ran his fingers through his hair. He brushed dust from his button down shirt and straightened out. He had been texting Thea for a few days now and she mentioned she had been wanting to go to Le Gabrielle, an up-scale French restaurant down town. So, they had a romantic dinner date planned tonight.

He sighed and stepped away from the mirror. He grabbed his wallet off his dresser and noted how light it felt lately. Before he slid the wallet into his pocket, his attention drifted to the bottom drawer of the dresser. Hidden there, beneath clothes he barely wore was a manilla envelope full of money.

He hadn’t touched it since the night he found it, but he was never fully able to fully pretend it wasn’t there. Now, he couldn’t pull his mind off of it. He checked the hall to see if Katie was home, and closed the curtains. He dug the envelope out of the dresser, opened it, and hesitantly slid a single hundred dollar bill from it.

He folded the bill and stuck it in his wallet before shuffling out the door.

Le Gabrielle was extravagantly decorated with a Belle Époque aesthetic. The two were seated at a table under an crystal chandelier near a large window with a view of the city lights. They easily rolled into casual chatter. Thea’s cadence was lithe and she spoke with genuine curiosity and astute observations. It felt as though she was an old friend with how naturally they moved from one subject to the next.

After dinner, they walked around the park Ian had suggested to her when they met. He told her about the Shakespeare performance he saw at the amphitheater in the center of the park when he was young. He wanted to be just like those performers. He felt vulnerable opening up about his dreams to a woman he just met, but she beamed at the confession and assured him he’d be there someday. She hooked her arm around his and they ended the night with a kiss between the shadowy trees.

“How was your date last night?” Katie asked at breakfast.

“It went really well, actually.” Ian said.

“That’s great. You seem like you really like her.”

Ian paused and looked at the floor, a frown forming on his face.

“No,” Katie put up a finger. “Don’t do it.”

“It’s a good reason this time,” Ian said. “I think she Googled me.”

“And?” Katie scoffed. “Women have to be safe before a date.”

“She mentioned that Salome was her favorite book, she started talking about how she wished she had seen the stage play when it was at the MetroArts Center,” Ian said. “I hadn’t said anything about how I was in it before. She just brought it up.”

“Coincidence? Or maybe she did Google you. The playbook for that show is probably the first thing that comes up when you search your name,” Katie responded. “That hardly means she was digging into you.”

“It’s not just that. I... I think she lied to me.”

Ian tugged at his collar and Katie leaned in.

“She told me her dad died in 2016, but then said she watched Le Chant du Loup with him.”

“And?”

“That movie came out in 2019.”

“Maybe she’s misremembering?”

“Maybe,” Ian said.

“Well, you should talk to her about it. This isn't something to outright dump her over.”

“I don’t know,” Ian scratched the back of his neck. “I’ll think about it.”

Ian returned to his room and sat at his desk. He picked the note Thea had left him in the cafe from between the pages of the book he put it in. He spun slowly in his chair while he looked at the note somberly.

His mind was blank as he stared at the note. But as his gaze traced the flourishes of Thea’s handwriting, a worrying thought occurred to him.

He stood from his chair, threw open the bottom drawer of his dresser, and grabbed the envelope of money. He opened it and reached in, but this time his fingertips reached for the note that had been packed in with the money. When he found it, he put the torn paper on the top of the dresser, then placed Thea’s note next to it.

The handwriting on both was elegant yet playful. They both drew the letter ‘a’ with a dainty flair. And they both were signed with a little heart.

He shook his head and took a step back from the dresser. He wanted to take off running, to never have to question or confront this. He put his hand to rub his reddening forehead.

“You should talk to her about it.” Katie’s voice rang in his head. It was time for him to stop running from woman to woman.

He put both pieces of paper in his wallet and texted Thea to meet up.

“So,” Katie said. “How’s it going with Thea?”

“Good,” Ian said nonchalantly.

“Did you talk to her about the Google thing?”

“Kind of,”

“And?”

“Katie, you trust me right?”

“Sometimes.”

“Well, you’ll have to trust me when I tell you this,” Ian said. He took a deep breath, looked Katie in the eye, and said: “She’s a shapeshifter.”

“What?”

“I went to her place last night and while I was sitting in her living room, I saw that there was a little black notebook open on her table. There was a page missing,” Ian took the piece of lined paper from the money envelope from his wallet and put it on the table between him and Katie. “The tear lined up perfectly with this note.”

“It was Thea that sent you that money?”

“It was. I confronted her about it and she got really nervous.” Ian said. He put his hands together and started fidgeting his fingers. “She said she could explain, and then her face started... distorting. Her skin got lighter, her hair straightened by itself, her nose got more pointed. Before I knew what was happening, it wasn’t Thea in front of me anymore. It was Gwen,”

“Your ex, Gwen?”

“Then she shifted again and she was Racheal, then again and she was Amber, then Caroline,”

“I don’t understand.”

“She told me that when I broke up with her - with Racheal, she wanted a second chance. She said she liked me too much to let something silly drive us apart. She morphed into Amber, started chewing her food more quietly, and introduced herself to me at the cafe for a second time.” Ian rested his head on his forehead. “Then I dumped her again. So she kept trying to change herself and I kept breaking up with her.”

“That is stalker behavior,” Katie said. “What about the money?”

“She wanted me to be able to afford to take her on dates, but knew I wouldn’t let her pay for them. I guess when you can look like anything there’s a lot of ways to get a lot of money.”

“That’s all insane,” Katie said. “So you broke up with her?”

“Why would I break up with her for that?” Ian said. “I told her that I was ready to accept her for who she is. She asked if we could start over again.”

“And you said yes?”

“No, I said we could continue.”