The Imposter
A short story
“Speaking of depression,” Joy, the CNBC anchor, said with a twinkle, “your stockholders must be depressed with how your stock has performed lately. Down eighty-three percent since the failed clinical trial for your depression drug.”
Brad yawned and asked the bartender for another beer. It was his week off, but he wasn’t in the mood for any trip farther than the Lucky Times Tavern, the bar across the street from his Wall Street apartment.
What is vacation for, Brad thought, if not day drinking on a Monday.
Outside the bar, the sun fought the clouds and lost, as a few office workers scurried about, dodging tourists snapping selfies.
He had no plans more ambitious than keeping his mind off the figures and equations and spreadsheets that normally occupied him on a workweek.
But even that goal was elusive today, as one of the television sets at Lucky Times Tavern was tuned to CNBC.
“Since the drug SyTech Pharmaceuticals was developing, a seemingly promising cure for depression, failed in trials, analysts are saying the outlook is dire,” Joy said to Randy Nile, SyTech’s CEO. “And there is nothing promising on the horizon. What’s your message to stockholders, Randy? Will the stock rebound?”
“Well, Joy, our motto at SyTech is, believe in the future,” Randy said. He had a bald spot that seemed to expand as he spoke and wore a brown tie that looked uncomfortably tight around his neck. “So I still believe in this company, because we’re building a better future, a better world, one with less suffering and pain. Any smart investor would want to be a part of that.”
“So should investors double down on SyTech? Seems risky, Randy.”
“Well, I don’t have to tell your viewers, there is no reward without risk. Take the risk, get the reward. Investing 101.”
Joy smirked. “Sounds like easy money. Is it really that simple, Randy?”
Brad’s attention was diverted by the sight of an attractive young woman milling outside the bar. He could see her face clearly; the sun seemed to seek her out, eager to display her beauty, even as it shunned the harried office workers around her, their faces blurry, nearly invisible.
She was easy to look at, and he liked easy.
He soon forgot about Randy Nile and the world’s incurable depression and unalleviated pain.
He was surprised when the woman entered the bar and sat down beside him.
“Hi! How do you pronounce your name? Is it —,” she said, adding a strange name he had never heard before and couldn’t make out.
That’s a name? He thought.
He started to tell her she had mistaken him for someone else.
But she was so easy to look at.
“Yes,” he said instead. “Yes, that’s me.”
Just don’t ask me to pronounce his name, he thought.
She ordered an Old Fashioned and said to him, “So, you must be excited about finishing your book.”
“My book?” He gulped the rest of his beer and looked for the bartender to order another one.
“Yeah, remember? You said it’s almost done. Your magnum opus. You said for the first time, you felt you wrote something truly meaningful. Big and Important. Capital B, capital I, that’s how you put it. I think that’s great. I’ve always wanted to be with someone artistic, someone creative. It seems like I only meet tech bros and finance guys. It’s like they took over the city, and kicked out all the interesting people. I’m so over that.”
“Why’s that?” He said. “What’s wrong with finance guys?”
“So boring. And what have they ever contributed? What have they ever created?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Well, maybe a spreadsheet.”
She laughed. “Right? I wish I could be creative. But I’m just an actress. Well, actress and a bartender. I guess that means I won’t be in any of your stories. I know how you hate clichés.”
“Isn’t acting creative?” He said, ignoring the last part of her statement.
“I’m just saying someone else’s words.”
“Is that all there is to it?”
“Sometimes that’s how I feel. Like I’m just a pretty face for someone else’s pretty words.”
“Maybe you haven’t found the right role yet,” he said. “Something you connect with. Something that feels true. Something that feels real.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what I need. A director said something like that to me once. He said, ‘Rose, you’re beautiful. So when you speak, everything you say sounds beautiful. But it doesn’t sound real. And art is nothing if it doesn’t make you feel. You need to make it feel real. That’s when you know you’re acting.’”
The day was winding down, and a few office workers, freed from their desks, had made their way to the Lucky Times Tavern.
“Ugh. Suits,” Rose said. Though no one at the bar was wearing one. “What do they all even do? I mean, besides spreadsheets, I guess. Can you imagine spending your days like that? Well, you’re a writer. You can imagine anything.”
She looked at him, and maybe it was something in her eyes.
Maybe it was the alcohol.
Or maybe there was no reason for it at all.
But, finally, he said to her, “You know, don’t you? You know I’m not … him.”
“Maybe I thought you could be.”
“But I can’t. I’m not an artist or a writer or anything like that. I don’t have any pretty words.”
“No, you can’t be him. You … whoever you are, just this … imposter.”
“There is something I’ve been thinking about, though. Something you said. Well, something I said, except it wasn’t really me. It was … him. About this new book he’s writing. How it’s so important and deep and meaningful. But it’s just a story he made up, right? And why does a story have to mean something? Why can’t it be just some random thing that happened for no reason. Some pretty words someone thought of and put on a page. Pretty but vacant. Isn’t that enough?”
But she wasn’t listening to him. Her attention was on the television where Randy Nile was speaking to Joy on CNBC.
“Randy, just today, SyTech fell another thirty percent,” Joy said. “Some analysts are saying a bankruptcy filing could be next. What’s your response? Is the end near?”
“Not at all, Joy, not at all,” Randy said. “We’ll be back, just watch. Just watch!”
But Rose soon lost interest in Randy Nile and his company’s failed depression cures, and she got up and left the Lucky Times Tavern. The sun had started to set, but it still followed her, still loyal.
Brad watched her walk away. She seemed prettier, somehow, than she did when she arrived.
But it wasn’t easy anymore, and he looked away.
