Trust Me, I’m Lying

‘The woman sitting in front of the store looked offended , as if I had just offered her sex.’

A friend of mine says that on the scale of zero to ten of trustworthiness she sees people as plus eight unless they give her serious reasons to believe otherwise. A good way to look at life, but not practical, in my opinion.

In 2018, Angelina and I were returning from an event when she discovered her phone had disappeared.

“Let’s go back and look for it,” I suggested — a futile attempt in a big city like Moscow, but worth a try. We walked all the way back to the event venue through the snow-covered streets of Kitay-Gorod, but, of course, we didn’t find anything.

“C’est la vie,” I said to Angelina afterwards, taking a bite of shawarma.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” she replied, holding her head in her hands.

The next morning, I woke up to a call. The time on my phone said 6:54 AM.

“Hello?” I said, my eyes still shut, my mind caught somewhere in a space between sleep and awakening.

“I have your phone,” the male voice on the other end said blankly.

I prepared myself for ransom demands. Now alert, I felt like in a Liam Neeson movie.

Where’s my daughter? Who are you?

“What do you want?” I said.

“I want to return the phone to you,” said the voice, as if this was evident from the beginning. “But first, I need to verify that you’re the real…