I was still pondering the puzzle of Grandmother and Oliver at work the next day. I ran a statistical analysis on a hypothetical relationship between the two of them. Every way I ran it, the numbers were clear. Oliver should be dead. And if he weren’t, he would be soon. There was one variable, however, that I had no way of computing. It was possible those who lived past their life expectancies had a different standard deviation in their expected life spans than those who did not. But there was no way of knowing for sure.
I graphed the expected lengths of the rest of their lives, just out of curiosity, and then graphed my own. Imagined what it would be like to be 85 and look back on my life. What things would I be proud of? The van-rickshaw project? No, not proud. Just glad I had helped. I’d be proud of Antonio and Jorge, Nicolette and Adriana, Maria and Gloria, Carlos and Juan. But I would still be alone. I knew I couldn’t trust myself to be with someone, but I wasn’t happy with the alternative either.
“So this is where you’ve been hiding!” A feminine voice with hints of laughter startled me and made me look up from the computer. I turned toward the hall and saw a petite blonde in blues standing with a hand on her hip, grinning into Joe’s cubicle.
“Kate!”
I watched as Joe came out of his cubicle, enveloped her in a hug, and then let her go. “You working here?”
“Yep.”
“Since when?”
“Just this month. It took that long to sort out the craziness at the Personnel Center. Join Spouse assignments are never easy.”
“How are the kids?”
“Fine. Doing great. How’s Harry?”
“Not so good. Dead.”
“Harry’s dead? When? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I saw Joe shrug.
“When did he die? How did it happen?”
“Last summer. Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.” She put a hand up to his arm. “I know he meant a lot to you.”
Joe shrugged again. Crossed his arms. “So you’re teaching where?”
“Pysch. Back in the department. Seems like old times. Almost.”
“Steve here too?”
“No. He’s at Pete Field, east of town.”
“That’s right. I’d forgotten he was a space guy.”
“I was just passing through. I have to get back for office hours. E-mail me sometime. We’ll have you over for dinner.”
Joe smiled at her. “I’d like that.”
She returned the smile and then turned to leave. It seemed to occur to her then that I had watched the whole encounter. “Hi. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Joe now turned toward me too. “Kate, this is Jackie. We…work together.”
“Hi.” Her eyes swung toward Joe. Swung back toward me. “Work together, huh? Watch out for this guy.”
I glanced at Joe. “I am well aware of his coffee-drinking habits. Believe me.”
“Coffee-drinking? Well, that’s a new term for it! Anyway,” she turned away from me back toward Joe, “see you later.”
By the time she had disappeared, Joe had vanished. I heard him typing. Heard him stop. The chair squeaked and I could imagine him leaning back for a stretch.
I started typing myself, labeling my charts, but I kept having to stop and delete misspelled words. I finally gave up and pushed my chair away from the computer. Decided to do something about the piles of cable on the floor. I seized the end of a narrow cable and started looping it around my hand. That done, I tethered it with a twisty and dropped it.
Pulled at the end of another one and looped it around my elbow and palm.
Secured it.
Who was Kate?
Dropped it to the floor.
A former coworker?
Chose another.
So it would appear.
Wound it.
But that didn’t explain about her being back in her department and it seeming like old times.
Secured it.
Maybe she was in his class at the Academy.
Dropped it to the floor.
That would fit. But then, who was Harry and why would she know about him?
Chose another.
Maybe…had she been his girlfriend?
I stood there a full minute before I realized I hadn’t done anything with the cable.
Maybe she had been his girlfriend.
A girlfriend. Why should that have been so surprising? A guy like Joe with a Super Smile. And dimples. Just because I’d never had a boyfriend didn’t mean he’d never had a girlfriend. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was probably right.
But the only way to know if I was right would be to ask Joe. So I did. But I wound the cable first and dropped it onto the pile I’d made. Then I kicked the other cables into the corner.
“Joe?”
He was typing. Didn’t stop. “Hmm?”
“Who is Kate?”
“Kate?”
“Who was just here.”
“Oh.” He stopped typing. “She’s my ex-wife.”
Ex-wife.
Funny. No matter how many times I repeated those words to myself, I couldn’t quite turn them into “girlfriend.” Although, to be fair, I’m sure she once was his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Because I assume in order to become a wife, you cease to be a girlfriend.
Wife?
Joe had been married?
“Did you…do you…have kids?”
“Kids? Yeah. We had Harry.”
Harry? Harry had been their child? And Kate hadn’t even known he had died? No wonder they’d gotten divorced! What a witch!
“He was our hairy child.” Joe’s voice came from above. He was standing on his desk.
“Harry child?” Something wasn’t making sense, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
He must have seen my confusion. “Hairy. H-a-i-r-y. He was a dog.” The faintest smile urged his lips upward.
“Oh. Well. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. He was old. Fifteen. We got him the first year we were married. That’s ancient for a boxer.”
“And you called him Hairy?”
“A joke. Like calling a bald guy Curly. You know.”
“Oh. Yeah.” But I didn’t. Not really. I didn’t know what to think about a Joe who had been married, who was still on speaking terms with his ex-wife, who had once owned a dog—a boxer—named Hairy. I didn’t know what to think at all. “So will you go?”
“Where?”
“To dinner. At Kate’s house.”
“Probably. Maybe. She’s a great cook.”
“And her husband won’t mind?”
“Why would he?”
“Wouldn’t he think it’s a little strange to have his wife invite her ex-husband over for dinner?”
“We were only married for two years. Kate and Steve have been married for…at least ten.”
“And possession is nine-tenths of the law?”
He scowled down at me. “It isn’t like that. Kate and I never should have gotten married in the first place. The wedding was during June Week, right after we graduated, and eighty percent of June Week weddings don’t survive. Real life was nothing like the Academy. I was in pilot training at Williams near Phoenix. She was doing intelligence training at Goodfellow in Texas. We saw each other for about four weeks, total, during our first year of marriage. And we realized we got along better when we were apart. That we were better friends than we were lovers. And even then, we weren’t great friends. We had shared an experience: The Academy. But we had never really shared our lives.”
My cheeks flamed. I glanced down at my computer. Poised my hands above the keyboard.
“She and Steve are a perfect match. Why shouldn’t she be happy? She’s still a great person. Always has been.” His head disappeared behind the cubicle wall. I heard the thump of him jumping from his desk.
Later that evening, I found myself staring at my blank blog screen, not knowing what to write.
My whole idea of Joe had been
turned upside down. And inside out. He’d been married. He had an ex-wife. With whom he was still friends. He’d owned a dog.
There was nothing inherently wrong with any of those facts. The only problem I had with them is that they didn’t fit the image of Joe I’d constructed in my head.
I already knew he was kind. I already knew he was gracious. I knew he was forgiving and loyal. I just didn’t like to think someone else had benefited from his finer traits.
Someone else who had shared a part of his life I hadn’t.
But that wasn’t quite the entire truth. I had nothing against Todd and all of the other pilots who’d flown with him. Nothing against his academy roommates, for instance. Or against his high school friends.
But I had everything against a woman named Kate.
Why? Because I envied her.
I was jealous.
I could never remember being jealous before.
Seeing the world through green-colored glasses?
Sure. Especially when other kids had liverwurst sandwiches in their lunch boxes and I had beef tongue salad.
But turning into a green monster?
No.
I never thought I’d break one of the Ten Commandments. Not one of the major ones. But I found myself, that evening, coveting a neighbor’s husband. Ex-husband.
And it was not a redemptive experience.
I hadn’t realized before just how dangerous jealousy was. But as I thought about Kate, a person I didn’t even know, jealousy began to grow and wrap green stalks of greed and anger and malice around my heart.
I didn’t know her, but I hated her.
Without reason. Without provocation.
I hated her in the worst way. I hated her on principle.
She had everything I was discovering I wanted: Joe’s respect, Joe’s friendship, Joe’s loyalty, Joe’s life. That was the main thing. She had life in common with Joe.
I just had life beside him.
And it didn’t look as if that would change.
The saddest, most tragic part about my feelings was that they were completely irrational. I didn’t own Joe. Didn’t even hold his heart.
And how could I blame him?
My heart wasn’t worth holding.
I’d have to be some kind of a moron not to think the past hadn’t left marks on my life. I’d like to think if my father had known about me, and if he hadn’t have been killed, he would have come back for me. My father is my favorite parent. And I never even got to meet him.
My mother, on the other hand? What can you say about someone who abandons a baby?
Too much.
I’ve had so many thoughts on the topic, ranging from empathy to self-pity, that I decided several years ago to disassociate myself from her. It might not be healthy, but it’s stopped me from picking my scabs. I was in danger of becoming an emotional self-mutilator. Like Robbie, the creepy guy I sat next to in second grade. People assumed we were friends. Not because we ever talked to each other, but because we didn’t talk to anybody else.
Those scabs I picked just kept bleeding. Kept getting deeper. Besides, if you leave them alone for long enough, don’t scabs eventually heal on their own?
I do have Grandmother. I take care of her and she takes care of me, in her own way. She was never touchy-feely, and I realized long ago that words are not the only way to say “I love you.” But that’s never stopped me from dreaming and wishing for a pair of arms that belonged just to me. And for a voice that would, as many times as I wanted to hear it, say, I love you, Jackie.
Which doesn’t mean I’m emotionally impaired. I’m still functional.
There’s just always been this question for which I’ll never have an answer: What if my mother had stayed around long enough to get to know me? Would she still have left? I know it has everything to do with her and nothing to do with me, but I have always been afraid the answer would have been yes.
Any sane person might wonder whether I even acknowledged the parallels between my life and my mother’s. She, having been the epitome of all things liberal. Me, being the epitome of all things environmental. Which people assumed meant liberal, even though it didn’t.
She, falling in love with an Air Force officer who instructed at the Air Force Academy. Me, having feelings for an Air Force officer who instructed at the Air Force Academy.
I used to despise her because she didn’t “just say no.” But now I know better. I understand now that she couldn’t. Not if my father were anything like Joe. Not if he refused to leave her alone. Kept enticing her, entangling her, throwing up a giant detour sign that kept all her thoughts turning in his direction.
Acknowledge the parallels?
Of course I did.
I felt as if I were being drawn into her past. Felt her presence wrapping its fingers around my neck. As if she were trying to pull me back in order to gain a second chance at her own life.
I felt as if I were a hiker, scrambling for a foothold on a steep slope filled with scree. No matter how hard I tried to progress up and out, with every step I was drawn back, doomed to have to recover territory I thought I’d already gained. With every step, I hoped for a progression, but instead was rewarded with regression. To remain still was to be trapped forever on a barren slope. But to take a step, to try to leave, was to risk a slide.
What if it wasn’t her?
What if it was me?
What if I was just like her?
You’re supposed to learn about history to stop it from repeating itself. But I don’t know the first thing about her. Don’t know. Don’t want to know.
I’m exactly the sort of person I always make fun of.
But it’s not really that funny, is it?
THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG
A plea
Help me.
Posted on January 17 in The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink
Comments
A two-word entry? This is weird. Do you think she’s all right?
Posted by: survivor | January 17 at 08:23 PM
I don’t know. TCND, if you’re there, can you let us know if you’re okay?
Posted by: philosophie | January 17 at 08:24 PM
Where is NozAll when we need him?
Posted by: justluvmyjob | January 17 at 08:25 PM
What do you want me to do? I’m only 15 years old!
Posted by: NozAll | January 17 at 08:26 PM
Maybe she got called away from the computer before she could finish?
Posted by: theshrink | January 17 at 08:27 PM
I heard about this guy once in China who was chatting with someone online when he started to have a heart attack or something. The other guy ended up calling all the way to China to get an ambulance for him.
Posted by: thatsmrtoyou | January 17 at 08:28 PM
I doubt she’s having a heart attack “or something.” Wild speculation doesn’t help. It will only cause panic. Everybody just stay calm.
Posted by: theshrink | January 17 at 08:29 PM
How do you know? Does anyone know who she is? Do you think the blogging company does?
Posted by: justluvmyjob | January 17 at 08:30 PM
Thirty
I didn’t post a blog for the next three days. An eternity for someone who normally posts daily.
Joe talked to me about the blog, just the way he talked to me about every blog entry.
“So what do you think she needs help with?”
“Who knows. Printer problems? Laundry? Opening a new jar of jam?”
“Think there’s something wrong?”
“With her?” With me? Definitely.
“Who else?”
“Maybe there’s something wrong with John Smith. Maybe he just won’t leave her alone.”
“Why would there be anything wrong with that? She obviously likes him.”
“Obviously.”
“So why should he leave her alone? That seems counterintuitive.”
“Maybe love just isn’t something she’s
prepared to do.”
“You don’t prepare for love. It’s not brain surgery. That’s why they call it ‘falling.’ Falling in love.”
“Maybe she has osteoporosis. Maybe a fall isn’t just a fall. Break a hip and you end up spending the rest of your life in a nursing home regretting it.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I was speaking symbolically.”
“I know. But she’s not eighty-seven years old and I don’t understand the symbols.”
“I practically failed English in high school.”
“So explain it to me using computers or math or something.”
“Okay…maybe it’s the difference between multiplying something by three and cubing it.”
“Still not getting it.”
“What’s twenty times three?”
“Sixty.”
“Now what’s twenty cubed?”
“Twenty times twenty times twenty.”
“Exactly.”
“You’re killing me here.”
“It’s eight thousand.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Sixty is manageable. Eight thousand is totally out of control. Get it?”
“No.”
Of course he didn’t. That was the whole entire problem. He didn’t get it. And I couldn’t think of any way to be more plain.
Except, of course, to tell the truth.
But I was not prepared to do that.
“Jackie?”
“What?”
“Help me out.”
Help him out? I was the one who needed help.
Joe’s head appeared above the cubicle wall. He looked frustrated. “She likes him, but half the time it sounds like she hates him. Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she doesn’t know. Why do you care?”
“Because I don’t get it. And she has to know. She’s stopping herself from doing something she wants to do. She’s holding herself back from him. There must be a reason.”
“Maybe she’s in control of her life right now and she’s afraid if she lets herself like him, she won’t be anymore.”
“She’s afraid of being out of control?”
“Maybe.”
“She’s afraid? But he seems like a nice guy. A normal guy. People fall in love all the time. It doesn’t have to be the end of the world.”
“But maybe it is. Love doesn’t make everyone’s world go around. Maybe love destroyed hers once.”
The Cubicle Next Door Page 24
