Bananapants: A Bonkers Romantic Comedy

“Being bipolar is like not knowing how to swim. It might be embarrassing to tell people, and it might be hard to take you certain places. But they have arm floaties. And if you just take your arm floaties, you can go wherever the hell you want.”

— Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You (2022 Netflix special)

Ava’s voice had carried to me. The accent and words were all wrong, but the voice was exactly right. At first I thought I was imagining things. I’d never hallucinated during one of my psychotic episodes, my last one being seven years ago, but that didn’t mean it was outside the realm of possibility.

But, you know, one thing at a time.

Excusing myself from the conversation I’d been having with a pretty doctor and her hedge fund manager brother under the pretense of needing another whiskey, I’d searched the crowd for Ava and spotted her easily. I wasn’t drinking whiskey. It was iced tea. I can’t drink alcohol. But lying about whether diluted decaf Earl Grey was actually Johnnie Walker was the least of my deceptions tonight.

I don’t keep count of the lies, but I’m very good at keeping my story straight.

Watching Ava Archer from my spot by the bar, not ten feet from where she spent several minutes making absurd conversation after introducing herself as Chelsea Albrecht-Walton, I listened in and evaluated her performance. Her wig was on straight, and that was the only nice thing I could say about her act tonight.

She was ridiculous.

I hadn’t seen Ava Archer in ten years and yet I’d know her anywhere, didn’t matter if she called herself Chelsea or Samantha or Olaf. Didn’t matter if it was sixty years from now and we were meeting again for the first time on a Yangtze River cruise. And it certainly didn’t matter if she wore an auburn wig, a designer cocktail dress, and a fake beauty mark.

I would know her. That’s what happens when the first fifteen years of your life are shaped by and reliant on primarily one person. And the years after are spent trying not to think about them.

“Who is that chick? She looks so familiar.” the voice in my head—meaning, the voice coming from the virtually invisible earpiece I wore—asked. Sue, my chain-smoking hacker handler, rarely commented or asked questions that weren’t related to the mission while I worked a job. She could see everything I could see through the camera inside the pin at the top of my tie.

“Just someone I know,” I mumbled loud enough so only Sue would be able to hear.

“That’s a wig,” Sue said, matter-of-fact. “And what’s that accent? Mid-Atlantic or some shit? She sounds like Mayor Quimby from The Simpsons. Or, you know, that Catherine O’Hara character from that TV show. Crappola on a cracker, what was the name of that show?”

I’d decided to let Ava be—the guy she was speaking with, William Toussaint, was harmless— when Henri Wickford sauntered up and blocked her path.

Sighing, I rubbed my forehead and cursed under my breath. Unlike Ava, I was here tonight under my real name, so I wasn’t worried about her blowing my cover. Worst-case scenario, she’d blow her own cover and⁠—

Actually. No.

I amended my previous thought. The actual worst-case scenario was that she’d genuinely catch the attention of Henri Wickford, the asshole with whom she was currently speaking and a jerkoff who—reliable intel suggested—possessed a nasty habit of becoming obsessive with women who piqued his interest. We’d been told he was like a spoiled toddler on a playground: he only wanted the toys that weren’t his, lost interest once they were, and would prefer to break them than see anyone else enjoy them. I blamed his upbringing.

Also, the dickwaffle happened to be my target.

Careful not to frown at the scene playing out in front of me, I gritted my teeth as Henri’s hand came to her elbow and he leaned forward so that she could speak directly next to his ear, like they were playing telephone or telling secrets. When he leaned back, he laughed.

Now I did frown. I couldn’t help it. In the months I’d been building a rapport with that evil bag of shit, I’d never seen Henri genuinely laugh. Five minutes with Ava and it’s like he’s watching his first Arrested Development episode.

Then again, she is ridiculous.

I didn’t like how his hand stayed put on her elbow. I didn’t like how his thumb brushed back and forth over the bare skin of her upper arm. And I really didn’t like how his eyes had flickered down to the front of her dress, cut flatteringly low and showing exactly the right amount.

Leaving her alone wasn’t an option anymore, not as long as she was talking to Henri. The question was, how pissed off would Ava be if I walked over there and outed her? I hoped it was a lot.

Finishing the last of my decaf tea, I set the rocks glass on the bar, did a hand check of my tie, collar, and cuffs, and then pasted on a real pretty smile.

“Oh my God. Is that you? Celeste?!” I decided to use her middle name, not her first name, since I didn’t want Henri to know anything about her.

I was the only one who’d ever called Ava by her middle name, and only when we were kids. We’d used our middle names as code names, thinking we were brilliant at the time.

From my earpiece, Sue gasped. “You’re blowing her cover? My dude. That’s cold.”

A professional faux pas, but Ava Archer wasn’t in the business. She was a tax attorney last time I heard, nice and safe and nerdy.

Ava’s head whipped toward me and she blinked. Her lips parted. Her eyes blew wide. Then she blanched.

Henri glanced between us as I approached. I ignored him.

I didn’t hesitate to step into her space and manhandle her into a hug. My plan was to force Henri to drop his hand from her elbow. It worked. I also didn’t hold her for very long, but I did give her a tight, punishing squeeze, allowing some of my aggravation to show. She was so smart. Why would she put herself in this kind of situation?

Leaning back but not releasing her shoulders, I smiled. “It’s been, what? Ten years? How are your parents? And what are you doing here? Is your mom still with the CIA? Also, what’s with this wig?” Her mom hadn’t worked for the CIA for thirty years or more. Fiona Archer was the chief operating officer of my father’s billion-dollar security empire and had been since we were kids.

“Wait. Fuck. CIA?” Sue choked out, infinitely chattier tonight than usual while I was in the field.

Ignoring Sue, I kept my eyes on Ava. The CIA question should send Henri running in the other direction. He didn’t much like attention from the worker-bee, waterboarding branches of the US government.

Ava’s face went through a number of fascinating contortions as I’d tossed my rapid-fire questions at her, finally settling on irritation and something resembling embarrassment when I tugged on the end of the wig. Her eyes flashed and she opened her mouth, likely to shout at me.

Also, Ava Archer was still goddamn gorgeous, something I noticed against my will. She’d been beautiful as a teenager and she was equally—if not more so—stunning now. Like she had a spotlight on her and she glittered like a diamond kind of beautiful. An epically frustrating development.

Betraying nothing of my thoughts, I rubbed the strands of auburn between my thumb and forefinger, not giving Ava a chance to voice a reprimand. “Wow. Is this real hair? Do they make wigs out of real hair? I thought it was always plastic. Hey, this color looks like mine.” I pointed to my own head, grinning like an idiot.

Luckily, Henri already thought I was an idiot, so my asinine behavior tracked with the himbo character I’d been cultivating for his benefit.

“What are you doing here?” she seethed, her cheeks hot and pink, yanking the tips of the wig from my grip and throwing ninja stars with her eyes. Beautiful and still cute. A lethal combination.

I told myself not to laugh at her expression. I told myself that, as much as I enjoyed this and as angry as it made her, I was blowing her cover for her benefit. The last person any decent human wanted to get tangled up with was Henri Wickford. Unless Ava had magically morphed into a completely different person over the last ten years, she was the best human I’d ever met.

“I was invited,” I said, still grinning at her. “What are you doing here? Did someone die and leave you a billion dollars?” This wasn’t a lie. I had been invited. As the oldest child of Quinn and Janie Sullivan, theoretically I was due to inherit the privately held family business and therefore $2.3 billion.

“I was also invited.” Her tone sounded cool and the fake accent was gone. Good.

Stuffing my hands in my pants pockets, I rocked back on my heels, making a show of looking her down and then up. “You look different.”

She did look different. More tits and hips and ass. Her cheeks had lost their roundness, and age had matured her features nicely. Very nicely. The makeup she wore made her already large eyes look huge. Her lips, however, were exactly the same.

“So do you,” she said, and something about her voice had my attention cutting back to hers.

Ava no longer looked adorably irritated or flustered. Her eyes had grown impossibly round and seemed glassy, like a puppy’s when they realize you’re going for a walk and you’re not taking them. She’d always been bad at hiding her emotions, bad at acting, which is why she’d always lost at poker.

I stilled, caught off guard by the raw quality of her expression, and my chest suddenly hurt. Was she still mad at me about leaving a decade ago? Impossible. Why would she care enough to be mad at me?

“What’s going on?” Henri interrupted the moment, drawing both our gazes. I was surprised by the lack of dead behind his eyes. Apparently, he did have expressions in his repertoire other than bored, stoic, and jaded.

Ava huffed, her eyes briefly closing. A second later, she straightened her shoulders and held out her right hand for Henri to shake. “Hi, I’m Ava Archer. Nice to meet you.”

My hands in my pockets balled into fists. No, no, no! Don’t tell him your name!

Henri accepted her hand for a shake. “Nice to meet you . . . ?”

“I would apologize for giving you the wrong name earlier, but I won’t, because I’m not sorry. I’m doing a favor for a friend. She asked me to show up for a short while, pretend to be her tonight, and so here I am.” She administered a firm handshake, then dropped his hand just to lift hers a second later and point at his face. “And I would appreciate it if you both”—she paused here to swing her finger toward me along with her glare—“would go along with everything and call me Chelsea. This is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me outside of finding a fifty-dollar winning lottery ticket, and I don’t want to get my friend in trouble.”

“Lottery tic—wait. What? This is the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to you?” Henri inclined his head, as though he doubted he’d heard her right.

“Yes. By far.”

“May I ask, what do you do for a living?” he pressed, and I couldn’t believe my ears. Didn’t he hear what I said about her mother being in the CIA?

“She does other people’s taxes,” I answered for her, and she sent me an extremely dirty look.

It was also cute, but I didn’t know how to translate it. Was she mad because I’d told him a slight lie about her job? Or was she mad I’d blown her cover? Or was she still upset about me leaving years ago? Or maybe it was all three? And again, why would she care enough about me to still be mad?

“Whoa. Whadya do to this lady? Does she hate you or something?” Sue’s voice in my ear reminded me that my handler was still watching and listening.

Apparently undeterred, Henri drifted closer to Ava, watching her like she was something new. “You’re an accountant? Really? Now see, I find that so interesting.”

I schooled my features before they disclosed my surprise. Henri never found anything interesting. What the hell was happening here?

Ava wrinkled her nose at him, her pretty lips curving at the corners, no dirty look in sight. “I don’t do taxes, I’m a tax attorney. And no, you don’t. No one ever finds my job interesting.”

“I do,” he said warmly, his grin looking entirely genuine.

Stomach tensing, my attention bounced between them. This was not good. I needed to get her out of here ASAP. I also needed her to promise to never accept calls or other contact from Henri Wickford. The guy looked like a movie star but lacked a soul.

“Well, I don’t think it’s right, you lying about being someone else.” I rocked my weight back and forth on my feet again, giving them both my best empty-headed-pretty-boy frown.

Slipping her dirty look back on with lightning speed, Ava glared at me once more. “Can I talk to you? Over there? Alone for a minute?”

I nodded brightly and my fingers circled her wrist firmly but gently, tugging her along. “Good idea. Follow me.”

Not giving her or Henri a single second to react, I pulled Ava from the ballroom toward the entry doors, saying for Sue’s benefit, “We’ll go to a place where we can talk, no bystander traffic, easy access to an exit on a side street or an alley where no cars are parked.”

“Got it.” Sue’s voice responded immediately in my ear. “Hang a left, go down the big hallway past the kitchens, second hallway after, make a right.” Sue paused a moment before giving me the rest of the directions. “I’ve unlocked the third door on the right, an emergency exit, and disabled the fire alarm. It’s an exit to the alley between Bollister and Cacture Avenues, no parking, deliveries only.”

Ava must’ve been surprised by my decisive action. She didn’t say a word, allowing me to guide her past the kitchens and to the second hallway before jerking her wrist away.

I turned and saw she’d opened her mouth again, likely to tell me off. Ignoring this, I gently grabbed her elbow and pulled her toward the third door leading to the alley. “I’ll take you home.”

“I’m not going home,” she said, but she didn’t attempt to halt our forward momentum, which was smart. The shoes she wore were three inches high, at least. She’d likely end up with a twisted ankle if she dug her heels into the carpet. “And I can’t leave until I grab my jacket.”

“You can wear my jacket. Do I need to call your parents?” I ground out, pushing through the emergency exit and into the Chicago spring night.

“Sure. Call my parents. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you,” she spat. “Hey, you know who else would love to get a call? Your parents.”

“Oh. Sick buuurn!” Sue’s obvious enjoyment via my earpiece didn’t improve my mood.

“I talk to my mom every week,” I said, shrugging out of my jacket as the large door closed behind us. “But I’ll be sure to call her tonight once I drop you home.”

“What about your dad?” Ava placed her hands on her hips while I hung my suit jacket on her shoulders, careful not to touch the bare skin of her neck.

“Do I need to get popcorn for this?” Sue asked unhelpfully.

I fought a growl. “Let’s go.”

“Des—”

“Ava. Let’s. Go.” I reached for her hand again.

She twisted away. “I’m not⁠—”

Advancing on her, I backed her into the door of the building we’d exited, shoved my face into hers, and pointed toward the ballroom we’d left. “That guy is very bad news. Very bad. Worse than anyone you’ve met. In fact, many of the people here are bad news.”

Inspecting me for several long seconds, the fury behind her gaze seemed to wane the longer she stared at me, until her eyes looked almost soft. Fuck.

I hadn’t wanted to look at her directly again, not up close like this, and wasn’t precisely prepared to do so now. Again, I comprehended how beautiful she was, but this time I unwillingly cataloged her features.

The doe-like brown eyes, the dark thick lashes, the high cheekbones, the pointed chin, and the big bottom lip I’d stared at and thought about more times than I could count. Her top lip was also distracting, but it wasn’t as big as her bottom one. This meant when she wasn’t smiling or wearing an active expression, when she was lost in thought or listening intently or reading, she looked like she was pouting. I used to catch myself smiling stupidly because of it.

But now, right now, this wasn’t a passive pout. The searching softness in her expression wasn’t passive at all, and it dug its claws into me, making my chest tight.

I stepped back, gaining essential distance, and softened my voice to match her look. “Please, Ava. Let me take you home. You’ve done what you needed to do. You showed up for your friend. It’s time to go.”

Her shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath, and I narrowed my eyes to keep them from straying down to her chest. Ava had been pretty as a teenager, and looking at her used to be one of my favorite things to do. I’d drawn so many portraits of her, the memory of my infatuated foolishness was embarrassing.

Now she was all grown-up. And looked grown-up. And sounded grown-up. She was obviously still smart and strange, and far out of my reach, light-years away from any wishful thinking I’d given up on years ago. Incredibly frustrating that one single exposure impacted me this way. Where was my pride?

“She looks good in that dress,” Sue said suddenly, reminding me that her camera’s view was exactly at the level of Ava’s chest.

Ripping the camera pin from my tie, I placed it in my pocket. Then, for good measure, I tugged the lapels of the jacket I’d placed on Ava’s shoulders closed, hiding the front of her dress.

“Fine. How about this.” Ava batted my fingers away. She then put her hands through the arms of my suit jacket, angling her chin as she spoke. “I’ll leave now and never contact either of those guys, especially that Henri guy, if you promise to come this weekend to my parents’ barbecue. Almost everyone will be there, including your dad, even the O’Malleys and Runouses are coming from out of town. You spend fifteen minutes—at least—talking to your dad and two hours at the party with everyone else. You promise to do that, and I’ll leave now.”

“Agreed.” I was lying. There was no way I’d show up if Ava was there. And there was no way in hell I’d go if my dad was there.

Ava pulled back the sleeve of my jacket and stuck out her hand. I accepted her shake. Before I could remove my fingers from hers, she tightened her grip and added, “And if you don’t show up, I’ll look up Henri Wick-something and send him an edible bouquet with my full name, address, and driver’s license number.”

“Fine,” I gritted out, giving her hand another shake, then dropping it. “Fine. I’ll be there.” Fuck a fucking duck.

“It starts at two. Try not to be late.”

“Fine.”

“And bring something, like a side dish. Don’t show up empty-handed.” She wagged a finger at me. Again.

“I wasn’t planning on showing up empty-handed.” I didn’t fight the growl.

“Well, how should I know if you’re familiar with basic etiquette?” Ava tossed her hands up. “I haven’t seen you in ten years and the last time we spoke on the phone you were a real shithead.”

“What happened the last time you two spoke on the phone?” Sue asked. I heard the telltale sound of a microwave beeping paired with pops and hisses. That asshole had really made popcorn.

Tugging the earpiece from my ear, I stealthily put it in the same pants pocket as the camera. “I’ll bring potato salad. Happy?”

“Ecstatic! Can’t you tell?” She couldn’t have sounded less happy.

“Come on. I’m taking you home.” Steeling myself, I reached for her hand.

She flinched away before I made contact. “I can get home myself.”

“I’d feel better if you let me take you.”

“Well, I don’t really care what makes you feel better anymore. See you this weekend. Don’t be late.” With that, she turned on her heel and took off down the alley at an impressive pace, especially given the height of her shoes. Naturally, I gave her a ten-foot head start, then followed, making no attempt to mask my footfalls.

After a block, she stopped, turned, and scowled. “Why are you following me?”

“To make sure no one else is following you.” Obviously. What other reason could there be? I didn’t let myself dwell on it. Best not to. No good could come of dwelling on matters relating to Ava Archer.

“Go away.” She waved her fingers in the universal symbol for shoo. “Don’t follow me.”

I wasn’t going to argue with her. I don’t argue with people. Why argue when I was going to do what I wanted anyway?

So I said, “Fine,” and took a step back. I tossed a thumb over my shoulder, feigning disinterest and pretending to give up. “My hotel is back there anyway.”

Her gaze moved over me. “You’re not staying with your parents?”

I gave her a flat look.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Whatever. Not my business. Go to your hotel. And for the record, I don’t like you right now and I don’t want to see you again until Sunday.”

“You won’t see me until Sunday,” I said, holding up three fingers like I was still a Boy Scout. This time it wasn’t a lie.

Her eyes widened and her lips parted, giving me the sense I’d inadvertently done something good or surprising. But then her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together, as though she’d remembered something bad and unsurprising. Clearly, she didn’t trust me. Not a bad thing.

Harrumphing, she turned and continued. Away.

Walking backward to the last alley we’d passed, I removed my tie, unbuttoned the first two buttons of my dress shirt, ducked into the alley, and jumped up to the fire escape. I followed her on the rooftops until she made it to the “L” station. I followed her through the station to the train, taking a seat at the back of the car and behind a big dude carrying groceries. I followed her to her apartment, watched her go inside, watched the front of the building until lights came on in a previously darkened unit. She never saw me, as I’d promised.

Third floor, likely a walk-up based on how long it had taken her.

I didn’t like the way her windows looked. I didn’t like how the fire escape on the alley was easily accessible to someone with my skill set. I didn’t like that it had stairs and no elevator with key card or thumbprint access. I didn’t like the lack of a doorperson. Did she have a security system? Cameras? How many bolts on her door? A thumbpad would be better than keylocks.

At the barbecue on Sunday, maybe I’d talk to her dad about finding her a new place to live, somewhere with an elevator and a door greeter. Someplace where I wouldn’t obsess about her safety after I left. I didn’t need any new reasons to think about Ava Archer.