Ordinary Obsessions

by Tom Corbett

  “Okay,” Karen said firmly. “Let’s talk more about how we can make this happen.”

  That evening, Karen, Kay, and Carlotta sat around in Karen’s hotel room. “I must be a favored guest in this fine hotel now,” Karen said. “They upgraded me to a suite. That always makes me feel a bit guilty. You know, someone fighting want and desperation staying first class. I didn’t even ask. They just assigned me this top floor suite.”

  “Hmmm,” Carlotta murmured with a smile. “I see you didn’t turn them down.”

  “Hah, don’t get cheeky, lass. Your next assignment will be doing an inventory of the office paper clips. But I have a remedy to deal with my guilt.” She went over, opened a drawer, and pulled out a bottle of top-shelf scotch. “Now, this won’t be as refreshing as the warm Guinness at the Hairy Hare, but we will make do.”

  Kay laughed. “You didn’t get this at the local liquor store. Did you sneak it past customs?”

  “Do I look daft? Don’t answer that. No, I have friends over at the British Embassy.”

  “I know why you got the suite,” Kay chimed in as if she just made a great discovery. “My first guess was that they wanted to keep you as far away from the decent people as possible, but now I have a different theory.”

  “Pray tell,” Karen said, “enlighten us.”

  “Simple,” Kay enthused. “You have that to-the-manor-born look. You know, as if you belong to the aristocracy or on some PBS mini-series. It’s written all over you.”

  “Bollocks. Scotch for Carlotta and me, local polluted water for you.”

  After the drinks were poured, they clinked glasses as Karen pronounced, “To saving the world.”

  Kay was still smiling. “Friends at the embassy. Really? You know, Chris told me you had friends. I never would have believed it.”

  “And you, my dear, will be helping Carlotta with the paper clips. Why is it that every Crawford thinks of themselves as a stand-up comic? Must be the Irish part of you all. By the way, did I ever tell you the story about why your brother hired me?” Karen looked at Kay.

  “I don’t recall. I suspect it wasn’t because you slept with him though, and I hate to admit this now, I did assume that at the time.”

  “Hah, hah. But I did worry that another candidate might have. I saw this girl leaving as I was waiting for the interview, short skirt and legs that never quit. She had that snobbish upper crust look of the entitled, probably a graduate of an elite, public school. I should have smacked her, or maybe I should have given her my number. She was hot. Anyways, at that moment I desperately wished I had worn a tighter blouse, to show off my assets such as they were.”

  “Would not have helped. My brother surely was a pig in those days, but he never let it cloud his professional judgment. Well, that is not quite true. He was deathly afraid of entanglements. If he slept with women he worked closely with, it would be harder to dump them when he got bored. He was always looking for an escape route.”

  “Hmm, I never thought about that. Now that you mention it, he seldom asked me to pimp for him to meet women, but he always tried to get my help in dumping them. Oh, sorry Alice or Olivia or Gretchen, Mr. Crawford has left town for the month…to Borneo where he cannot be reached. Why did I do that for him? Oh, for the raises it got me I suppose.” Karen smiled to herself. “Anyways, back to my hiring story. I could tell it was not going well at first. I was considering just ripping my blouse off when he asked one of those hypotheticals to which you know there is probably not a correct answer. It was something like what I would do if I saw him making a big mistake in a meeting.”

  “I know what I would do.” Kay guffawed.

  “Great minds run in the same gutter, I guess. I am not sure of my exact words, but my response involved politely taking him outside the room and ripping his balls off. This look came over his face and I was just sure he was about to have me chucked out on my rear. In fact, I was just about to get up, apologize for wasting his time, and just leave. Instead, he kind of leaned forward and peppered me with more questions. Not sure why, but I relaxed and started answering them honestly and stopped trying to figure out some textbook correct response. It kept going and I lost track of time. Sometime later, he shocked the shit out of me by calling and asking me back. At the end of that talk, he offered me the job. I was bloggers. Much later, he confirmed that he had dismissed me until that response. Imagine, one flip remark was the difference between my life now and being the barmaid at the Hairy Hare.”

  “Oh, come on, you really think you could have gotten hired at the Hairy Hare?” Carlotta said as she and Kay roared with delight and poured more drinks.

  “You know, if Chris figured out that you preferred women that would have helped you.”

  “How?” Karen seemed genuinely puzzled.

  “Even a horny numb nut like my twin would realize that the temptation to bed his assistant, at the time, would be a burden, and he did not like inconveniences.”

  As Karen pondered that theory, Carlotta leaned back, clearly feeling the early effects of the scotch. “You know, those stories about opening up worlds for kids from that reservation reminded me of my youth.”

  “What?” Karen could not resist. “You really were raised on an American Indian reservation? Okay, I see a bit of Native American in you. Holy shit, though. All this time I had been convinced that you were a pampered brat from the Costa del Sol.”

  “Hilarious,” she retorted. “True, I was a pampered brat but let me explain. It would have been easy to stay where I was as a girl, lounging on the beach in my bikini, or less than that. I could have snagged some guy with money and just continued lounging. But we had a lot of kids coming through from northern Europe, Scandinavia and such. I started talking with them about new stuff, ideas and struggles and issues that had never entered my head before. Hard to believe but I was a flighty girl back then, mostly interested in teasing boys.”

  “Not surprising to me.” Karen chuckled. “What about you, Kay, surprised?”

  “She hasn’t changed a bit, still chasing poor Atle, teasing the hell out of him.”

  “Oh, bite me. See, I have picked up your vernacular, I think that phrase has become the office motto. I never even knew that phrase until I met you two, now I use it all the time. We all do. I think it has become the program’s motto, but I digress.” Carlotta scowled, taking another big sip of scotch while grimacing. “Couldn’t you have friends at the Spanish Embassy and get some good wine from Spain? Anyways, to continue after I was once again rudely interrupted, these tourist-types changed my world. Well, they were not exactly tourists in the sense that they had big cars and money. A lot of them were students escaping the cold for a while or artists and kids searching for themselves and their futures. Sometimes, we would talk on the beach until almost dawn since many could not afford a room. We drank good Spanish wine, or at least what we could afford. My mind kept exploding with new thoughts. At school, I switched from thinking about becoming an architect, the next Gaudi you know, to the study of revolution. But even I figured out that there was not such a big market for majors in revolution so drifted toward social work and nursing. That felt comfortable and here I am, saving the world with you two.”

  “Thank God for horny, young male tourists trying to score with the local beauties on the Costa del Sol.” Karen raised her glass. “They brought you to us.”

  “Wait,” Carlotta sputtered, she was not used to scotch and was feeling very relaxed already. “You guys are the last ones to be making fun of my sex life.” Suddenly, the room became silent. Carlotta let out a breath along with the word “shit”. When no one spoke, she started to stand. “Maybe I should go? I am not used to this scotch and you two…”

  “No, don’t,” Kay snapped while looking into her glass. “At least I need to know. Is it obvious? Karen and I, that is, are we obvious?”

  Carlotta looked as if she would rather be anywhere else. “Well, I watch people. It is something I do well. I mean, I knew you two had been an ite
m at some point and then I wondered why Deena was not with us. After all, she is fine now. So, maybe my antenna was up. But hey, it is none of my business. I am in no position to question anyone else’s romantic choices. Here I am lusting after a guy who is in a relationship. I don’t judge.” She took another sip while deciding what to say next. “Okay, I noticed small things. I doubt others would though.” Then she stopped, not sure where to go next.

  Kay rose and walked to the window. She stared out over a city with twinkling lights. “Quiet out there tonight. I don’t think I have heard any sound of violence, not a single emergency vehicle. Isn’t it funny? Silence can be louder than noise. When you expect to hear something and don’t, that can be the most deafening. Why is that, I wonder? Maybe that is what first attracted me to Kabul. It reminded me of Chicago in a way. Way too much violence. Funny, from here we go to Syria and Yemen, way more violence there now but this country will always have a special place in my heart. Here is where I changed.”

  Karen leaned back in her overstuffed chair, looking up at the ceiling. She fixed on a spot up there, a blemish. Had it moved, was it some insect? Bugs should not be permitted in a luxury suite, she said only to herself. “Deena really wanted to come. I tried to argue with her that she needed more time to heal. That was bullshit and she knew it. So, I went with the story that Afghanistan might raise too many issues for her, psychologically. Wait for a field trip where it wasn’t on the itinerary, I argued. She scoffed at that. The girls, I said, my mom cannot take care of the girls this time, she needs a knee replaced. Hell, her knee is bad, that is true. But no surgery is scheduled, my mother could have looked after the girls. But Deena bought that story and it was a lie. That one will catch up to me.”

  Carlotta rose again. “Listen, I probably should go.”

  “Please,” Kay spoke abruptly. “Stay, please. It is so good to have someone who knows. Isn’t that weird? Here we are in this clandestine affair and it is such a fucking relief that someone knows. What is with that?”

  “I know. It is easier to talk about things with another, things that you cannot express to your lover.” Karen added softly, as if suggesting the thought to herself.

  Carlotta looked at Karen with a perplexed expression but sat back down. “I…okay, I’ll sit.” She looked back and forth between Karen and Kay but neither of them uttered a word at first.

  Kay was back looking out of the window. “When I was young, when Chris was out playing ball, I often was home, studying or staring out the window. I loved watching the lake during the day and the city lights at night. You could watch the stream of headlights below as darkness fell, it would mesmerize me. The other girls got into boys, endless discussions about them. I tried to seem interested, but it all seemed so tedious to me. I preferred chemistry and biology or even listening to Chris talk politics. The worst was listening to some of the girls at school talk about Chris, what they would like to do with him if only he would pay attention to them. I know that eighty percent of my popularity was based on my gal pals getting invites to our palatial suite on the off-chance that Chris would be there. Oh God, it was awful. I was too much of a nerd to get friends on my own.”

  “Really, you were not popular?” Carlotta seemed genuinely surprised.

  “Oh, I had been too isolated early on. I was a hermit while Chris was the one that explored the world. By my teens, I was a bookworm and awkward. As I said, a total nerd. Everything I learned about people and the world was through him. Some teacher, huh?” She looked wistfully at the city out of the window. “Maybe that is why I became an ER doctor. You don’t have to talk to people, just sop up the blood and gore.”

  “I never thought I would feel sorry for any rich kids. You Crawfords, though, did have it rough.” Karen stayed away from any hint of sarcasm. “I’m serious about that.”

  Kay merely chuckled. “Nice try Karen. I know I sound pathetic. But when you are that age, and have never experienced anything else, your world is the world. Your passions have never been felt by anyone else, at least that is how you see it. Your pain is unique. That is the irony of it all. I was not feeling much of anything. I could not stand the girls at school, they were so spoiled and vapid. I tried a bit to get involved with boys, it was expected. So, I went out with a few of them, dates arranged for me mostly. These guys would paw at me and my skin would crawl, they were pigs. Eventually, I gave in, out of weariness and maybe a bit of curiosity. But the sex left me cold. So, I stopped. I loved it when Chris brought Ricky and Jules around. I fell in love with her I think, but she clearly preferred my brother. That seemed weird at the time. Maybe it still does. I wonder if she ever figured that out?” Then she stopped as if trying to answer her own question.

  After some moments, Carlotta spoke in a low, uncertain voice. “I feel this is not my place and that I will say the wrong thing but…”

  “Go ahead.”

  Carlotta heaved a big sigh. “Oh, I thought no one was listening to me.” She took another quick sip and looked at Kay. “Do you love Jamie at all?”

  At this, Kay turned from the window and returned to her seat, splashing down onto the cushion with conviction. “Do I love the nicest, sweetest man I have ever met? Other than Chris and he does not count. Yes, dearly. The question is whether I am in love with him.”

  Karen had seemed fixated on the ceiling but now turned to the others. “What is wrong with us? I mean, really. Carlotta, you are a sexy Mediterranean lass who is now long-in-the tooth and without any serious boyfriends that I can recall. When is the last time you got laid? Don’t answer that. Kay is married to Dr. Wonderful, with two beautiful kids, and comes back to me. Really, what can be more stupid than that? Wait, don’t answer that one either. I got it. How about a gal from a working-class family who achieves far more in life than she could ever imagine, mostly by luck, and then finds the most beautiful partner she ever imagined finding that all my lesbian gal pals would drool over, and she is still not satisfied. What the fuck is wrong with me? Definitely don’t answer that one.”

  Kay cracked a grim smile. “Karen, my dear, you had more than luck going for you in life. Luck just got you in the door. You did the rest on your own. Regarding all that is wrong with you, though, I don’t believe we have enough scotch to cover that one.”

  “Not to worry, I got more.”

  Carlotta suddenly jumped up and went to the bottle. She poured another drink. “I may be incapacitated tomorrow but I suddenly need this.” She took a big sip. “God almighty, that is awful. I think it is scarring my insides. But anyways, you know what we are? - adolescents. We have never grown up. Sure, we are educated and sophisticated, even Karen can fake that…”

  “Hey,” Karen protested.

  “That’s a compliment.” Carlotta shot back. “But we never did the one thing that all kids must do. Really, you have only one task back then and we fucked it up.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Carlotta sighed. “As kids, all you have to do is figure out what you want when you grow up. That’s it. And we messed that up. When I sat with those kids on the beach and my mind seemed to be expanding with new ideas and possibilities, I thought that a total blessing. Our universities are into rote learning, not places to think like many in America and even some British schools. So, I reveled in my new intellectual journey. It was a blessing and it also was a total curse. Possibilities make choices that much more difficult. Now, here we are sitting around a hotel in Kabul, getting blasted, still trying to figure things out that should have been resolved decades ago. How sad is that?”

  “Do you know what is really sad?” Kay asked no one in particular.

  “No,” Karen answered, “but I will bet my last euro that you are about to tell us.”

  “We are out of scotch.” She waived an empty bottle in the air. “No, no, no. I told you I have more. However, I am in charge and we do have to work tomorrow so everyone to bed. Besides, I don’t want to go back to the embassy too soon for refills, they will thin
k I am a lush.”

  They looked at one another for several moments and then suddenly began to laugh. Once started, they could not stop. The giggling went on for some time.