Anjali's Red Scarf Ch. 11

"Uh...yes. It was just easier to get into character and that was the first name I thought of."

Lucy nodded, and waited, until I remembered I'd been halfway through an explanation.

"So her profile looked okay, but she still wasn't having much luck, so I sent her a message from 'Miriam' just to cheer her up a bit. Kind of flirty. I had assumed she was straight, more fool me, so I never expected her to bite."

"Uh huh. So the best way you could think of to cheer up your friend was to make up a false identity, named for a vampire who seduces a younger woman, and pay money to send her a flirty message on the sugar-daddy website."

"I, uh—it sounds kind of stupid when you put it that way, but yeah, it made sense at the time."

"Sarah, are you being entirely honest with yourself here?"

"Am I—are you saying that I had designs on Anjali?"

"I'm not saying that. But I am asking it."

"Hmm." I bought myself some thinking time with a large bite of artery-ravaging goodness. "This is going to be hard to explain...I don't suppose you know the term 'alexithymia'?"

I was already gearing up to recite the definition, but Lucy surprised me. Without hesitation she replied, "A deficit in the ability to recognise or describe one's own emotions, often associated with autism?"

"Er, yes, that."

"I read up on a few things after you said you were autistic."

"Huh. Okay. Thank you." It took some effort to squelch the canned explanation I'd been expecting to deliver. "So, yeah. I get that sometimes. Maybe I was attracted to her and didn't recognise it, maybe that affected my choices? I can't say for sure that it didn't happen. All I can tell you is that if I was, I didn't notice it at the time. Sorry, I'm not trying to be evasive here, it's just how I work sometimes."

"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if you were. There's a lot there to like and she's an adult. And I'm giving you partial credit for coming clean with her early instead of stringing it out. I'm just worried that if you're not being honest with yourself, one of you might get hurt."

"I would never—"

"You wouldn't hurt her on purpose. But Sarah, the way she talked about you...she looks up to you, she admires you. When somebody puts that much faith in you, it's real easy to hurt them by accident if you don't know what you're doing."

"Well, yes, but I know what I'm doing now."

"Do you, though? You're a hard woman to read, Sarah. What happens after she graduates? Do you just wrap up that arrangement and find some other sugar baby? I know it's not my business, you have no obligation to answer me, but I reckon you ought to make sure at least you know the answers. I'd hate to see either of you get hurt."

"I don't really know. I don't think I'd be looking for another sugar baby, not a stranger. That would just feel weird. I have...sometimes the only way I know what I really want is to make a choice and then wait and see whether I find myself feeling miserable about it after it's too late to change my mind."

Lucy flicked a yoghurt-covered sliver of meat off to one side, and the throng chased it like iron filings to a magnet, louder and more raucous still, until one lucky bird escaped with the prize. "That doesn't sound like fun."

I tossed the soggy end of a chip into the middle of our attending throng of gulls, triggering a noisy skirmish. At least that drama was easy enough to understand and to predict. "Not really, no. And right now it's hard to concentrate on anything, with this crap with the emails hanging over us."

I filled her in on what Anjali and I had found: what her parents had, what they didn't have, what they might yet discover. She nodded slowly as I talked, then said, "So has she talked to Salwa?"

I shook my head. "She's really upset. You saw how she was."

"I get that, Sarah, but it's our job to help people with this kind of thing."

"I know, but it's just hard...will it do any good?"

"Well, she can talk to Anjali, tell her what her options are—"

"Yes, but are there good options? If we report it to the police, is there anything they can do?"

"Well, it's probably illegal under the Surveillance Devices Act, but you have to consider—" She stopped herself. "This is stuff you should be asking her."

"I get that. Just wanting to know what to expect. And worrying about what happens if our setup comes out—"

"No. Look, Sarah. I told you already, I cannot give you legal advice. Legally, ethically, I can't. I'm your friend, Sarah, I am so sorry you and Anjali have been dumped into this mess, but please. Don't take advantage of that, don't pressure me to do what I told you I can't do, and for the love of god don't tell me about anything illegal. Talk to a lawyer who can represent you and who is covered by lawyer-client privilege."

"I wasn't—" My turn to stop myself. "No, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I get kind of oblivious when I'm fixated on something."

"I've noticed."

"And I do appreciate what you have done for us both. I really am grateful—"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Lucy exploded. I looked at her in confusion. "Sarah, I'm not doing this for her!"

"I don't understand?"

"Sarah. I like Anjali. She's got a good heart, she's lovely."

"Okay?"

"I really like you."

"Okay?"

"I really, really like you."

It took me a while. "Oh!"

"Yeah. I know this isn't a great time to have that conversation, and I have to think through some things myself. I have to say I absolutely did not think of you as the type to have a mistress on payroll, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. But now you know. And that's why you can't keep pushing for more than I can give you. It's not fair on me."

"I'm sorry."

We sat together for a while, watching the gulls as they moved on to look for somebody more generous with their food. Eventually, Lucy said, "Sarah, if things were simple, without all this bullshit happening"—she waved her hand expressively—"do you think you'd be interested in me?"

"I'm bad at hypotheticals." I gave it some thought. "But if I was single, and none of this was going on, and you asked...yeah, I think I would give it a try. I really enjoy spending time with you, and I respect you, and those are the big things for me."

Her expression lightened. "Well, thanks."

I wanted to say something more about how I appreciated her dependability, and the fact that she'd been willing to go read up on how to understand me instead of trying to squeeze me into a one-size-fits-all model of humanity like so many do. But those words are hard to find, so I just squeezed her hand and hoped she'd understand.

She squeezed me back, and said, "But seriously, tell her to call Salwa?"

* * * * *

I put a lot of thought into how best to encourage and support Anjali in calling Lucy's friend, but I needn't have bothered. Before I could have that talk with her, she called me—from her replacement phone—to say that she'd already done it.

"Yes, I bit the bullet," she told me. "It wasn't as scary as I'd thought. She was really nice and understanding. I told her about us and the only thing that threw her was when I told her I'd declared the money on my tax returns."

"Wait, you—well, of course you did. Never change, Anjali."

"She talked to me about things like restraining orders, not that I'd be likely to get one now, but how to know if I do. She suggested I keep a log of my interactions with them, in case I need to provide evidence of a pattern of behaviour, and told me what kind of things to record."

"Oh, that's a good idea."

"The good news is, our arrangement's not very illegal. The worst that can happen there would be some fines."

"Okay. What's the bad news?"

"I was afraid you'd ask that. The bad news is, she didn't see a good way for dealing with that data. The tracker and accessing my email, that's illegal, but it's not the kind of thing that the police are going to kick down the door and take away their hard drive. Because they're my parents and they could argue they were just concerned about their daughter, they'd probably get off lightly. Also, there's a risk..."

"Oh?"

"If they did work out we'd been sleeping together, even without the money angle...she thinks my parents might accuse you of grooming me. As revenge against you and to excuse the spying."

"What? But we were... you were twenty-three!"

"I was sixteen when you started tutoring me." She sighed. "They're not going to believe we were just friends for seven years before this happened. Not that you'd be charged with anything, but it could be very damaging if they made the accusation."

"Well, yeah. It would." The breath slid out of me as I considered all that might follow. "Fuck. Fuck."

"She says, if I do want to make a complaint, she'll help me with that, but it might do more harm than good. We agreed that what we really want is those emails deleted off their computer, assuming that's where they have them."

"If it's even them who made the copy," I said. "I think we're assuming they paid a PI or somebody else to put the spyware on the phone, maybe that person made the copy as well."

"Yes, that's a possibility. Though I don't think my parents would want somebody else looking through my emails, if they thought there was something there. Dad doesn't like airing dirty laundry. Plus, it'd need to be somebody who can read Hindi as well, and that means more risk of gossip. No, I think he'd have the copy. And Salwa said there's no legal pathway she can see that has a good chance of getting that deleted without them knowing. She said that three times."

"Crap." We shared the disappointed silence for a while, and then I said, "Hey, on a different topic. I've been thinking about Switzerland."

"Oh?"

"What I was thinking is, it's going to be really hard if you're alone in Switzerland and you don't speak the language. But P-K has an office in Zurich. And there are always operations-research jobs going in Europe. I could..."

I trailed off, not quite wanting to say it.

"You're talking about...coming with me? Overseas?"

"Only if you wanted. Maybe for a couple of years, until you're settled in? Think about it. We could share costs, I can help you with language, you wouldn't be all alone there."

"Gosh. Sarah, that's a big offer. I...I don't know what to say."

"Just an idea. You don't have to."

"Well, I'll think about it." She hesitated. "By the way, Lucy asked me some questions about us."

"Yeah, she told me. Trying to make sure I wasn't exploiting you."

"Oh yes, that too."

"That too? What else did she ask?"

"She wanted my permission to...to court you? She said she was interested in you but didn't want to be a homewrecker."

"Ah. Right. We did talk about it, but I didn't realise she'd asked you."

"She's nice. How do you feel about her?"

It was my turn to hesitate. "I don't know. I like her a lot, but it's hard to filter out everything else that's been going on. And, look. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of you going away."

"Sarah. We said this was going to be until I finished my doctorate."

"I know. It's just...feelings are complicated. It's hard to sleep with somebody over and over and not get attached."

A long silence at the other end of the phone. "I understand that. And I do care about you. But Sarah, if you're talking about moving overseas with me, would you be talking about extending our arrangement, or...?"

"Erm...I guess? If you wanted to? Or just as friends if you'd rather? I hadn't really thought about that part." Perhaps I hadn't wanted to. "We could split a place just as friends, or rent separately if you want the space, or...what would work for you?"

Another long silence. "I need to think about that. And some time I need to research rental costs around Bern, I might ask your help with that. But we need to work out this stuff with my parents first. I need to."

"Understood. Just letting you know. The offer's there."

More silence, and then more, and then: "She said it three times, with the exact same words. 'There's no legal pathway I can see that's likely to take care of those emails without your parents finding out'. That felt a bit odd."

"Hmm."

"And there was something else she repeated, too. 'The law doesn't like to get involved in family disputes'. She said that a couple of times. I don't know why. I mean, she was explaining why they wouldn't want to take drastic action against my parents, but it was still odd the way she repeated it."

It clicked for both of us at the same time. "No legal pathway." And then she said, "Sarah, I think I might have an idea..."

* * * * *

Thanks as always to my editors/beta-readers. Special mention to Vix Giovanni, who pointed out some major holes in my first draft. Also a shout-out to LesbianChickLit, who helped with earlier chapters - this one has benefited from some feedback that she gave way back in Chapter 2, and it took me this long to find the right place to use it.

Next chapter will be the finale to this story. The first draft is written, and I'll post it as soon as it's been through beta reading.