Page 39 of Blade
“Water?” Manny looked at the bottle as if it were poison. “Where’s the beer?”
“I’m eating pizza with pepperoni and sausage, and I got hammered at your Halloween party. That’s it for me. I can’t drink anymore until the season’s over.”
“I can.” Manny pointed to the refrigerator. “Get me a brew.”
Robert handed his friend a beer and resisted the temptation to get one for himself. He also grabbed a stack of paper plates and plopped them on the center island.
“Where’s your girl tonight?” Manny asked, digging into a slice of pepperoni. “I’d thought you’d be spending your first night back with her.”
“She had a conference. Something about a new machine or technique.” A pang of longing hit him in the chest once again. “I miss her so much when I’m away. This is the first time in my life I hate leaving for a game.”
Manny put down his slice, took a swig of beer, and stared at Robert.
Something must be weighing heavily on his friend’s mind to make him stop eating and drinking, and it made Robert do the same. “What?” he asked, cautiously.
“Don’t get mad. OK?”
“Why would I get mad?”
“Because I was searching for Amber on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, and I couldn’t find her.”
“So?”
“You don’t think it’s a little odd that she has zero social media profiles? Everybody has something.”
“She likes to keep her private life separate from her professional life.”
“Yeah. Dr. A.C. Morgan has a website and a Facebook page, but that’s it. Amber Morgan doesn’t exist.”
“What do you mean, Amber doesn’t exist?” A nerve twitched in Robert’s temple as he wondered why the hell Manny was looking into Amber’s background.
“I Googled her.” Manny raised his arms and shrugged. “Nada. Not one thing.”
“What are you talking about? And why are you Googling my girlfriend?”
“I’m sorry. It was harmless, at first. I was telling my mom about Amber, and I just wanted to show her a photo but got stumped when I couldn’t find a personal profile. And then it just exploded from there. Her website said she went to Columbia and Princeton and she got her degree at Northwestern, just like she said. I started Googling schools and shit, but I couldn’t find a damn thing. It just struck me as weird.”
Robert sat back in his chair and glared at his friend. Manny had no right to invade Amber’s privacy or butt into their relationship. What was Manny trying to prove? Robert was happy, and he resented his friend trying to fuck it all up. “Bro, that’s really fucked up.”
“I know.” Manny raised his hands, guiltily. “I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry. But think about it. What do you know about her personal life? Have you met any of her friends or family?”
Robert took a minute to answer the question. He knew everything about Amber—her work ethic; her drive and dedication to helping people; her charity work; her commitment to her education; her likes and dislikes; even her habits, good and bad. He had to really think about how much Amber told him about her friends and family. He knew she wasn’t close with her father and that her best friend’s name was Hope. But that was it. “No,” Robert admitted. “But she hasn’t met my family yet and only met you guys a few nights ago.”
“Didn’t you notice she was being evasive last week when I asked about where she went to high school and stuff?”
Robert was quiet while he absorbed everything Manny said. At first, it sounded ridiculous, but once Robert started reading into it, he realized Manny had a point.
“Exactly,” Manny said, obviously seeing the doubt in Robert’s eyes. “She was being vague on purpose.”
For the first time in their longtime friendship, Robert was angry with his best friend. Partly because Manny had no right to insinuate that Amber was hiding something, and mostly because it made Robert doubt Amber’s authenticity, and it pissed him off. “Can we just drop it?”
Manny sat back. “Sure. It probably means nothing, bro, but I just thought you should know.”
They didn’t talk about Amber for the rest of the night, but as the hours ticked by, curiosity festered in Robert’s head, and it birthed ridiculous scenarios that could be possible backstories for Amber’s life. He knew he shouldn’t do it and kept telling himself not to, but as soon as Manny left, he pulled out his laptop and searched for Amber on social media.
Manny was right. There was nothing. Anywhere. He searched for different variations of her name. There were hundreds of hits, and once he started searching through them, he got sucked into a black hole and couldn’t escape. He spent hours looking at possible profiles and hated himself for doing it, but he couldn’t stop. And, still, nothing panned out to be his girl. Dr. A.C. Morgan had a strictly professional web presence, but not a mention of her personal life or past anywhere.
Now he understood what Manny meant. Something didn’t feel right. Nausea sickened him as he questioned her medical achievements. How could someone as young as Amber have so many degrees and accomplishments? If she was so accredited in sports medicine, why hadn’t the team’s orthopedic surgeon referred them to her before? Could she be a fraud?
