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Chelsea got a case one time where the couple seemed perfect on paper. Good ambitions, great compatibility, everything was working in their favor.
But Ali took one look at them and told Chelsea something was off. You know, sometimes, people are born with a bullshit-detection radar. And he knew, straight off the bat, that the boy was bullshitting the girl.
Chelsea had almost not believed him. But she decided to have him tail the guy anyway. Turns out that saved the girl a life’s worth of trouble.
Saved the guy, too. He was as gay as a picnic basket, and Ali found him necking his bodyguard in the backseat of his Jeep.
Chelsea sat with him the day after and told him he could either come out of the closet or stay in it. But what he couldn’t do was ruin a whole person’s life just because his own was full of things he’d been forced to keep secret.
That helped him come to terms with a lot of things, and honestly, Ali was our superhero.
He’d helped bring about fifty percent of her couples together, even broken up the odd pair with the most likelihood of killing each other within ten years.
“Whenever I hear Ali’s name, I feel like I’m either going to listen to something utterly terrifying or pee-my-pants funny. There’s no in-between.”
"You know it," Chelsea said, grinning. "Ali is like a matchmaking detective. He can sense when something is off, and he's not afraid to get his hands dirty to make sure his clients find love."
I nodded, still marveling at the lengths Ali would go to in order to ensure his clients' happiness. "He's a real hero, in his own way."
Chelsea chuckled. "Yeah, if you don't mind a little collateral damage along the way. But hey, in this city, you've gotta be tough to find love."
We both laughed, knowing all too well the struggles of dating in New York.
I squared my shoulders.
“Let me have it.”
“Emma Moore used to be a student at East Harbor. This was about five or six years ago. Now. What I’m about to tell you? I need you to listen to it objectively.”
I sighed. I couldn’t promise that.
“I don’t know if I can, Chels. I kind of feel I’m expecting too much from them. Because it’s been what, a month or so? Maybe neither of them are at that place where they can share their past with me. God knows, I haven’t shared a lot of shit either.”
“And you shouldn’t have to. You haven’t been disloyal to any of them. You’re angry because some of this shit could directly involve you. And they should've told you that. But there’s more layers to this, Rors. You gotta listen.”
I nodded, drumming my fingers on the table.
“Go on, then. Tell me.”
31
Rory
For Emma Moore, East Harbor was the land of new opportunities.
She came from a very idyllic neighborhood. She had a mansion to her name, a beautiful home that overlooked the Hudson river.
There were storybook sunsets and picnic spots that could belong in fairy tales with cute illustrations.
Emma was a good student. Better than good, in fact. At the tender age of ten, she wrote a long story about a girl who liked to wear flowers in her hair and climb hills.
Once upon a time, this girl came across a hill smack dab in her living room. Try as she would, she could not cross it.
It blocked her from the gate that would allow her to leave the house.
And as the days wore on, the little girl became more and more frightened. She was a bird in a gilded cage.
You could paint that cage in the softest pastel colors and encrust it with diamonds and emeralds.
