Cyberspace Cyrano

           "You've got to do it!" Sheridan insisted, spewing saliva several feet in his intense effort to speak clearly.

           Charles squirmed and looked away. Sheddy was his best friend, and his powers of persuasion were considerable -- but this? It was just too wild.

           "What if we fall in love?" he asked.

           "You read too many Harlequin romances. What can happen in two days?"

           Charles shook his head dubiously. "God knows I'm not a great believer in telling women the truth, but in this case it might be the best plan."

           The twitching in Sheridan's legs intensified with emotion. "Look at me! How long do you think she'd hang around if she knew that you are really me?"

Charles paced across the room and turned around. He tried to look at Sheddy objectively, as a newcomer would see him, and he had to admit his appearance might be a shock to the unprepared. He had so little control of his body that he had to be strapped in his wheel chair. His face and and wrists were twisted by cerebral palsy, his left leg had a perpetual twitch, and he drooled. 

Charles had met Sheddy when he was four, and after a few curious questions, he had accepted him. Since then he had not thought much about what Sheddy looked like. Sheddy was just Sheddy--passionate, humorous, perceptive. A friend who could see deeply into people and never condemned them for their failure to see him the same way. Usually, he had an unerring sense of what was important. But this time, he seemed to have lost his sense of balance.

           "You must like this chick a lot," Charles marveled. Sheddy was not the kind of person who usually engaged in deception.

           "She is the most beautiful person I know," Sheddy said simply.

Sheddy had met Ada Perkins by chance on a message board. They started commenting on each other's comments, and decided to continue their discussion by e-mail. Now, seven months later, they were writing each other almost every day.

           Charles had spent long minutes contemplating the sketch Ada had scanned and sent via e-mail, wondering if this was really her, or a fantasy. There was something mysteriously seductive about her, although Charles would never have called her beautiful. Her hair was reddish-gold, her bone-structure so delicate that it seemed possible that she might be an earth spirit rather than a human being. The folds of her light green dress flowed gently around her. The huge brown blotch on her left cheek somehow complemented the total effect. It had taken some deliberation to decide that this was not a tattoo or fantasy make-up, but a birth-mark.
           
"You and I are very different," Charles protested feebly. "She'll know."
           
"What's to know?" Sheddy demanded airily. "I gave her your name and picture. All you have to do is read our letters, and you’ll know everything I do." He pulled a flash drive out of his computer and held it out.. "You have a photographic memory. You can do it."
           
"I'll have to skip psych again."

           Sheddy's whole body twitched with laughter. They both knew he was grasping at straws. Charles had not attended a psych class for two months. 

           "As long as you realize that this is against my better judgement," he growled, picking up the disc. “Next time, use a pseudonym, and leave me out of it.”        

Charles read and re-read the letters until three o'clock in the morning, feeling like a voyeur. The messages between Ada and Sheddy were intensely personal. In less than a year, Ada had managed to reach into Sheddy's most secret heart, places that he had never revealed to Charles in their nineteen years of friendship. It was obvious that the two of them were deeply in love. 

Charles couldn't blame Sheddy for wanting to hold onto Ada. When he closed his eyes and let his imagination run, he could visualize himself in love with her. He wished for the thousandth time that Sheddy had consulted him before taking on the identity of Charles Ellis Marshall, and sending his picture to Ada. If he had remained anonymous, she would not have had the option of deciding that she was going to meet her new cyberfriend in the flesh. 

           She had so openly and ingenuously revealed everything about herself that Sheddy had felt the need to reciprocate, even if that involved using Charles as his double. It seemed safe enough. She lived in Prince George, British Columbia, and Sheddy was in London, Ontario--who could ever imagine that she would travel that distance? But her affluent aunt in Halifax had sent her money for a visit during her vacation, and she calmly informed "Charles" that she was using her savings to add a stopover in London to her itinerary, and she was expecting him to meet her at the airport. She had booked a hotel room near the airport, so she would be making no extra trouble.
 
          No extra trouble! That's what she thinks. Here I am, the original macho man and ladykiller, having to impersonate someone brilliant and tender and sensitive, all in the name of friendship.

            When he arrived at the airport, he was simmering with mixed feelings. He dreaded the meeting, and yet he would not have missed it for the world.

           Ada looked like her picture, only better. She came to him smiling trustingly, and he took her in his arms. Some latent sense of decency kept him from kissing her passionately. She was Sheddy's girl, after all.

           "Hello, Lotus Flower," he said, using her e-mail username. It seemed more appropriate than her real-life name.

           "Hi, Hero Sandwich," she said. She seemed a little tense.

           "Hey--the handle's 'Herosub'," he corrected her.

           She said nothing.

           Is she testing me? Does she suspect something is wrong? Or was it a slip because she's nervous? Or is it a private joke? But I don't remember anything like that--and I've read all the letters, haven't I? Or did I miss something?

           "I guess we'd better go claim your baggage," he said. He was glad there was something practical to take charge of.

           On the way to the hotel, he told her about the party at Sheddy's. "Just a small gathering. You can meet some of my friends. Seven o'clock."   This was Sheddy's idea, so that he could see Ada and talk to her. He wondered if he should warn Ada about Sheddy's unusual appearance.  

           Charles insisted on carrying Ada's suitcase to her room, even though two bell-hops vied for the privilege. "Are you tired?" he asked. "I can come back at suppertime, or I can stay and get to know you better." He was disappointed when she said she had been up all night and needed a nap. Despite the risk of saying the wrong thing, he wanted to talk to her. There was something sweet and gentle about her, like chamber music.          
           By the time they had finished dinner, he was hopelessly infatuated. She had a way of digging deep and drawing out the best in him. Even the waiter seemed to be under her spell. Charles dragged out the dinner as long as he could, and they arrived at the party late.

           She looked curiously around Sheddy's rec room, like a child. The others crowded around to be introduced. She did not seem to notice that Sheddy was on wheels and drooled. She talked to everyone, but seemed to be particularly involved with Sheddy. Charles was happy for him, but he was jealous of every minute she spent away from his side.

           Charles did not sleep much that night. All he could think about was Ada. It would be so easy to take Sheddy's place, to make love to her, phone her, maybe even move to B.C.... But there was the problem of e-mail--"herosub" was Sheddy's handle, not his. Sooner or later, she would find out the truth. If he levelled with Sheddy, maybe they could work something out. Sheddy was used to getting the short end of the stick.

           But Sheddy trusts me. I can't let him down. 

           Charles was used to taking what he wanted. But in this case, it was not enough to possess Ada; he had to be worthy of her.

           He waited in front of the hotel for an hour, counting the seconds until it was time for meet her for breakfast. She was quiet. He wondered if she had been sleepless too.

           After breakfast, he carried her suitcase to his car while she checked out. He drove her around the city, pointing out highlights. Then he took her to Storybook Gardens. The park was designed for children, but somehow it seemed to fit her. She knew all the nursery rhymes, and smiled her elfin smile as she recited them. They floated down the river on the canvas-covered tourist boat, and he held her hand and watched her profile and wondered what to do. Her plane left at seven o'clock that night.

           They bought hotdogs at a stand and sat on a park bench together. Ada fed bits of her bun to chipmunks that seemed to appear magically. Charles' head was swimming. She was wearing the same green dress as in the sketch. He asked why she had not sent a photo instead. She said that the sketch had been drawn by a friend who loved and understood her, so it contained more of her real self than a photo could. He wondered jealously if the artist was a former boyfriend, or maybe even a current one. 

           When they had finished eating, he took both her hands in his. He didn't know what to say, but he knew he would burst if he kept quiet.

           "Ada," he choked. "Ada, I--"

           He wanted to tell her he had loved her from the moment he saw her and would always love her, but then he thought of Sheddy and his teeth clamped shut.

           She looked at him sadly.

           "Please take me to him," she said.

           Charles' heart felt as if it were pulling apart. He knew what she meant, but he hoped against hope that he was wrong. "Sorry? Take you to whom?"

           "Take me to Herosub. Please. There isn't much time left."

           He wanted to protest, to say that he was Herosub, but the clarity of her gaze stopped him. Only the truth would do now.

           "He asked me not to."

           "But why would he want to hide from me?"

            Charles tried to think of some diplomatic way of explaining.

           "He's a shy guy," he said awkwardly.

           "It's Sheddy, isn't it?" she asked.

           "Yes," Charles admitted. He felt a tear in the corner of his eye. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that he would find the perfect woman and lose her to Sheddy.

"How did you know?" he asked.

           "You're shallow," she said gently. "Sheddy has suffered. He understands things."

           Charles could think of no rebuttal. "He's my best friend."

           "Yes. You're lucky."

           "Sheddy has never had a girlfriend, you know. I felt sorry for him. But now he's found someone who could see him from the inside out. Girls chase me all the time, but all they see is the outside. My social assets."

           She reached up and stroked his cheek. "How sad for you. Maybe you need a girl who is blind."

           He took her hand and held it against his cheek for a moment. "Maybe e-mail is better after all. Fewer distractions."

           She did not answer. Finally Charles asked,

           "How come you can see people from the inside like that?"

           She smiled. "My mother was very wise. She wouldn't let them remove this birthmark."

           Charles had stopped noticing the birthmark, just the way he no longer saw Sheddy's contorted features. "It makes you special," he said.

           She smiled. "I didn't realize that, of course. I begged and pleaded and came home crying when the kids teased me. I couldn't wait to turn eighteen, so I could cash in my inheritance from my grandmother and do what I wanted. The appointment with the plastic surgeon was on my birthday. I was so excited...."

           She smiled indulgently at the memory. 

           "What happened?" he asked.

           "They took a picture and put it on the computer and the surgeon took the birth mark away and showed me how I would look. Then he got carried away and changed my hair a bit, and the shape of my eyebrows. And suddenly I was looking at a stranger on the computer screen."

           "I’m glad you didn’t change a thing," Charles said.

           She smiled. "After I knew that the birthmark is part of who I am, nobody seemed to notice it anymore."

           Charles stood up. "I'll take you to Sheddy's now. I'm sure his mother or his sister will take you to the airport."

           "Thank you," she said.

           "I want you to know you've changed my life," he said humbly. "Thank you."

           "Thank Sheddy," she said. "He is the one who has always loved you as you are."

           Charles bit his lip. "I've never learned to do that."

           "But you will," she said. "The first time you really fall in love, you will."