The Little Black Book

“Every man has a little black book!” said my best friend Todd of over 12 years.

Those words began to ring in my head as I stared my fiancé Jacob in his eyes over dinner. Todd’s a guy, so surely he would know I thought.

As my mind began to race, I asked myself - does Jacob have a little black book? He’s never given me any reason to believe he would own one. Perhaps he may have had one in college, but we’re almost thirty now and soon to be married. He doesn’t need one, right?

Oh, what the heck?! Snap out of it Britt! You are about to marry the man of your dreams and Jacob absolutely adores you. He doesn’t need a silly little black book.

I was assuring myself in my thoughts as I watched my fiancé eat the last piece of salmon off his plate. My sweetie has been so busy with work since his promotion that I decided to cook dinner for him at his apartment as a celebratory love gesture. He isn’t necessarily what you would call a neat freak, but since his promotion, he hasn’t had the time nor the energy to clean his place. I’m caught up at work and decided to take the day off to be the wonderful fiancé that I am to help him get things reorganized at his place.

After a passionate night, I kiss my love bug goodbye before he goes to work. As I watch him back out of the driveway, I look around and see the mess that I have on my hands to clean up. I exhale a long breath because there are dirty clothes everywhere. But, anything for my sweetie right? I start off with the laundry. I’m gathering clothes in the bathroom, hallway, bedroom and even the closet.

As I pick up the last dirty article of clothing, a pair of faded blue jeans on the floor in his closet, my eyes shift to the corner of the closet floor. My heart sinks and I freeze. To my surprise, I see a little black book on the floor almost hidden in the shadows of his hanging suits in between his dress shoes.

“Don’t open it Britt! Leave it on the floor and pretend you never saw it. Was Todd right? Who I am kidding? I’m about to open it. I need to know!” anxiously thinking to myself.

I pick the book up in a rapid fashion and immediately become overwhelmed with confusion because there is no list of babes with slutty nicknames and phone numbers like Todd mentioned there would be. Instead, there’s a list of full names like Michael Walters, Derek Wellington, Joseph Davidson, Sally Richards, Rachel Abelman and Zach Donnelly with their full bank account information next to their names. There is even a pin code and the amount of money in their account next to their individual names. Derek has a total of $482,639.52 in his account. Rachel has a whopping $1,000,356,29 in her account. Each name listed has a massive amount of money in their account.

“Why does Jacob have this information? How did he get this information? Why is it in a little black book? Is my fiancé involved in something illegal?”

A whirlwind of questions begin to plague my mind at once. I can’t ask Jacob about it because then he will think I was snooping through his things and won’t trust me. This could make him call off the whole engagement. I have to talk to somebody though because this is too much and if I’m being completely honest with myself, I’m a little scared.

I call Todd and tell him what I found and he offers to come over to take a look. My fiancé and Todd get along pretty well and he has had dinner with us on a few occasions at my fiancé’s apartment, so he’s been here before. I let him come over with no hesitation and when he arrives, I show him the little black book in tears because I am completely oblivious to what’s going on. Todd comforts me and in all of the 12 years that I’ve known him, the most shocking words came out of his mouth.

“Britt, I’ve been madly in love with you since eleventh grade. I never said anything because I always thought you deserved the world and I didn’t think I would ever be able to give it to you. Now, I know you have your fancy fiancé, but it’s very clear that he is involved in something illegal here. Now you can go about things two ways. You can put the book back in the closet and pretend like you never found it wrecking your brain to figure out what the hell he’s hiding from you. Or you can give me the little black book for me to take with me so I can investigate and get back to you with more information. I want to protect you and make sure this doesn’t come back on you”.

I bust out crying because I truly don’t know what to do. I am overwhelmed with emotion and I think to myself, “If Jacob is involved in something illegal in relation to this book, surely he would notice if it’s missing.”

I tell Todd that he can’t take it and he assents to my request.

Oddly enough, he begins to write down a few names from the book and their bank account information and tells me that he is going to look into it. I don’t think this is a good idea and am highly unsure of his methods of investigation. Nonetheless, he doesn’t take the book so I’m less worried and more concerned with how I’m gonna pretend like I didn’t find it. Lucky for me, I think to myself, I have a girls’ getaway trip this weekend coming up in a few days and maybe that will get my mind off all of this confusion.

The weekend approaches and I break away from my girls to give Todd a call and to my surprise, no answer. I get back from my trip, and I proceed to call Todd multiple times in a row - and still no answer. I decide to drive to Todd’s house to see what’s going on and as I ring the door bell over and over again, no one ever comes to the door. Todd had been having car problems and his car is at the shop, so I’m not entirely sure if he is even home or not. However, he gave me a key just in case of an emergency and this surely is an emergency. I open his door with my key and my jaw dropped because to my surprise, his house was completely empty.

It didn’t take long to figure out what might be going on here. The information he wrote down from the little black book, the unanswered phone calls, the vacant house.

“Am I trippin? Or did he do some sort of identity theft with one of those people listed in the book and disappeared,” I thought to myself.

It all started making sense. Nothing else would explain why he is no where to be found and his house is empty.

As I’m driving home distraught in confusion, I get a call that displayed No Caller ID. I hesitate to answer and to my surprise it’s Todd. He tells me that he just put $20,000 down on a place in Mexico and that he will be settling there. He states that he loves me and that he is sorry. He begs me to join him and I decline. I hang up and I feel my whole world crumbling down because in this moment I feel like I don’t know my fiancé and I’ve lost my best friend. All because of the little black book!