I took my afternoon break at the bar across the street. Just a quick shot to even me out from all the coffee I’d needed just to wake myself up. I was sure that must be the cause of my anxiousness. After work I stopped by the bar again. I had two drinks this time. And I didn’t stay for more because if I did I’d be late to her office.
I got there as I did yesterday, when everyone else was leaving. Sat pretending to read magazines and trying not to catch anyone’s eye. Trying especially not to catch her eye because she was standing there, too. Was saying goodbye to people. And I watched her the same way she seemed to be watching me – around the corners of things.
After they’d all cleared out, we went into her office, with her following me and closing the door. I did my walkabout thing while she sat down and began asking me stuff, same as yesterday, same as yesterday’s small talk.
I could feel her eyeing me and I kept from looking back at her. I did this for as long as I could because it seemed if I met her eyes I’d be embarrassed for standing and then I’d sit down before I was ready to. So I put my eyes to the things on her shelves, the books and small objects. Ran my fingers along some of them but didn’t really touch anything.
I did all this so intently it took me time to see she wasn’t saying much anymore, not asking me stuff. The silence made everything heavy, especially my limbs. I headed for the chair, following my legs as if they remembered the way by themselves and I was just watching.
Once I sat down she kept quiet for a time, finally saying, “You look tired.”
I didn’t say anything back, not right off. Instead I looked at her for the first time that day. She didn’t look tired and I wondered why not. I wondered why she should’ve gotten anymore rest than I did. I had to work to keep from turning this into something between us, something annoying to me.
“I’m okay,” I finally said.
“Your job’s all right?”
Here I sharpened because I remembered she’d asked about this already. “I just said so, didn’t I?” I didn’t say this meanly, just flat, nearly a question.
She said, “I didn’t know if you meant it.”
I looked away, trying to understand what about her was making me so mad. And I was trying to hide this anger while I tried to fathom it. I sank farther into the chair. My legs ached terribly. Even my hands hurt, and I tried to explain this as the demands of my job. That I wasn’t used to being on my feet all day. I tried to believe this but didn’t even come close.
This didn’t feel like that kind of tired – not something coming from within. This felt imposed from outside and pressing down, and so it made me want to struggle against it. But all the time I knew I’d lose. And I wanted to lose. Because though I was trying to tell myself it wasn’t true, the pull had something very sweet to it, something pretending safety.
I looked up at her, though this took some effort because my head had grown as burdensome as the rest of me. I had to shift myself down, let the back of the chair support it.
She said, “Do you want to tell me some more about Ingrid?”
I looked at her wondering if I had missed something, because feeling the way I did I might have. “Were we talking about her?” I asked.
“Yesterday,” Beth said.
I remembered nothing so I didn’t know where to begin. I got hung up because I didn’t want her to know I’d lost this ground. And I didn’t know how to cover myself. I sat there marooned and she kept at me.
“What was she to you?”
“Nothing,” I said in a way that made the opposite obvious. Still I kept on this line and said, “A client. She got him to buy me, okay? Is that what you want to know? How it worked?”
“I want to know what she meant.”
“I told you. Nothing.”
“That’s not how it looked the day she came to see you.”
“Oh, and how did that look?” I felt clearer getting hot at her, not so sleepy. For this reason I wanted to keep it going, to needle her some, so I said, “What was it made you run out?”
“I didn’t like watching it.”
She said this very quietly. And I saw her say it, though she wasn’t looking at me anymore.
I hadn’t expected her to admit even this much. Off base in this way, I felt myself loosening. And so when she held her hand out to me, I took it. Then we were standing and had our arms around each other. I wanted badly to kiss her. And this wanting and not being able seemed so familiar.
She’d tucked her head beneath mine and I could feel her cheek along my neck and her mouth on my shoulder, her hand pulling my collar away. Her dress was the kind that showed a lot of her shoulders and some of her back and I slid my hand underneath it. Believed this could seem accidental.
What she did was lean into me very lax and so I held her tighter. I felt myself going that same way – taut and slack all at once. This made it very hard to stay on my feet. With both of us so heavy there was this tremendous drag toward the floor. I wanted at least to be on my knees.
I staggered away from her and back into my chair. The door seemed where I should go, but just too far away. She stayed standing a while longer. She looked like she was trying hard to remember something, but then her face colored and she sat down. I found myself wondering about the night before. Wondering until it grew flimsier instead of more solid. And then I wondered how much anyone can know of the things they desire too much, these being the most frightening of all and sometimes with good reason.
This thinking led me easily back to Ingrid. And out of something I didn’t recognize in myself, but still knew to be mine, I said, “I thought I loved her. She’d say these things to me. I knew better than that. I shouldn’t’ve…”
“What did she say?”
Beth’s voice coming the way it did, completely flat and protected and trailing off – was enough to stop me from where I was going. Kept me from being stupid a second time. At least for now. I stopped talking and started fidgeting, not in any evident way but inside myself.
To look at her, she’d done the opposite. Gone so lost and still she seemed not even to notice the quiet. What we did for a long time was just sit there. She’d fixed on some point out the window. And I’d fixed on her. Not restless now, but caught in the same place she was. This brought me to a point of wanting to offer her something. But I was unable to think what that should be.
Like last night, what she finally asked of me was to leave. I felt stung by this, by her. I got up wanting to lash back but swallowed it. And when I did, I found my throat already crowded with other things. I comforted myself with a plan of how to get back. Not at her, but at myself.
And so that’s how I left – knowing exactly what I’d do, just not knowing when.
Fifteen
The next day Beth called me at work. She told me she wanted me to show up fifteen minutes later. I said, sure, that it’d be fine, thinking how this would give me time for an extra drink after work.
She stayed on the line like she had more to say. I had customers waiting, so I said, “Was there something else?”
She said, no, she guessed not. Then we hung up, and I went back to work with my hands shaking a little, and the rest of me limp and asleep and expectant.
When I got to her place that evening, no one was there. No one but her and I was glad. I even imagined she’d realized my discomfort and had done this rescheduling for me. I’d had four drinks in rapid succession, standing at the bar – the corner of it by the door. And now, in her office, I found it easier to sit down. I still couldn’t manage it right off the way I suspected you were supposed to, but at least I didn’t drag it out too long.