The Cubicle Next Door

by Siri L. Mitchell

  “I can’t.”

  “All right.”

  “I won’t.”

  He took me by the hand and pulled me onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and began to rock, forward and back. Forward and back. Forward and back.

  “I can’t see you anymore.”

  THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

  The worst that can happen

  It’s happened. The worst thing I can imagine has happened. I’ve spent my entire life trying to guarantee it wouldn’t, and it has.

  Posted on March 21 in The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink

  Comments

  Technically speaking, you don’t really know yet what the worst thing that could happen is because you haven’t lived your life in its entirety. Something worse than what happened today could happen tomorrow.

  Posted by: NozAll | March 21 at 11:03 PM

  Like that’s really going to cheer her up, you stupid fool!

  Posted by: justluvmyjob | March 21 at 11:36 PM

  Maybe it was the worst thing, but you’re still alive to talk about it, right?

  Posted by: philosophie | March 22 at 07:25 AM

  Hey—you lived to tell about it. It can only get better from here.

  Posted by: survivor | March 22 at 07:41 AM

  Thirty-Five

  I woke the next morning with a migraine. I stumbled out of my bedroom and down the hall to tell Grandmother.

  She helped me back to bed. Made sure the shades blocked as much light as they could. I felt her press her palm to my forehead.

  I grabbed it and held on.

  She pushed my hair away from my forehead with her hand. Exquisite torture for a person with a migraine.

  “I haven’t had one of these since…college.”

  “Your mother used to get migraines.”

  I let go of her hand and raced down the hall. I made it into the bathroom before I threw up.

  My mother had migraines. It figured. There was no use denying it anymore. I had become my mother. A woman given over to passionate emotions and ferocious headaches.

  I asked Grandmother to call Estelle and then gave myself over to an aura of flashing lights and zigzag lines. The worst sinus headache imaginable. And the pounding of sledgehammers in my head.

  And later, I slept.

  Right until the doorbell rang at 2:30.

  I rose from bed with a hand clamped to the side of my head, trying to keep my brains from falling out, and hobbled down the stairs.

  Opened the door.

  Squinted against the bright afternoon sun at the silhouette standing in the doorway.

  It was Oliver.

  “Hullo.”

  “Hi.”

  “May I come in?”

  I stood there for a moment, trying to find the strength to resist him. Failed. I backed away, leaving the door undefended.

  “I know a few things about pain.”

  I wasn’t in the mood. I moved past him, into the living room, and collapsed on the couch. I pulled a pillow over my head and closed my eyes.

  Sweet darkness.

  He had followed along right behind me. I heard him help himself to a chair.

  “We English are a curious people. We treat our dogs like children and our children like dogs, did you know that?”

  I didn’t. But I didn’t find it relevant—at all—to the way my head kept pounding.

  “Open the door and gesture the dogs into the house. Open that same door and push the children out into boarding school. Some children do well at that sort of thing, of course. I was not one of them. All I dreamt of while I was at school was coming home. Cried myself to sleep. Didn’t mix with the others. But when I came home, all I could do was push my parents away. I was a very nasty child.”

  “You’ve aged well.”

  “Ha. Nice of you to say.”

  There was silence for a good long while. All I heard was the anniversary clock, ticking away on the mantel. All I felt was the heat from rays of afternoon sun that had slanted through the window.

  He cleared his throat. “So you understand then, do you?”

  “No.”

  He sighed. I heard him shift in the chair. “Even though what I wanted, more than anything, was to stay with my parents, I sabotaged myself at every turn. Made myself so nasty I knew they’d never ask me to stay. And why do you think that was?”

  “Because you were nasty, Oliver.”

  “Because I was afraid, of course, that if I put the question to them quite baldly, they would have said no. That they would have said they didn’t want me.”

  “So what, exactly, are you saying?”

  “That perhaps I would have done better to just ask them at the first instance. To give them a chance to say yes.

  “You think they would have?”

  “I’ll never know, will I?”

  “I guess you won’t. Was it worth it? Staying away at school?”

  “I learned some things. Made the required connections. But I did it all alone, you see.”

  “You were lonely.”

  “Yes. I believe I was. And the danger in learning to live by yourself is that if you wait too long, it becomes much easier than the alternative.”

  “Which is?”

  “To learn how to live with someone else.”

  “I know.”

  “Ah. See there? It might be easier, but is it better? People like you and I aren’t afraid of a little work, are we?”

  “No.” We were just afraid of other people. And the possibility that they might not want us.

  “Well, just keep in mind that you don’t earn any medals for dying alone.”

  I thought about that for a while.

  “Were you in the war?”

  “Several of them.”

  “My grandfather was too. Did you earn any medals?”

  “Several.”

  “What for?”

  “Oh…well…for saving others…other people. It was so very long ago.”

  “Did you have to?”

  “Do I understand you to mean, Was it my job? No. I wasn’t a medic. No.”

  “So why did you do it?”

  “Because I was in a position to. I had information that they didn’t. Saw things they couldn’t see. Of course, had I been able to, I might have just dashed off a note and left them to maneuver themselves. But sometimes, there is no time. And when you see someone in peril…and you know that you can help them, well, one does what one must.”

  “I see.”

  “I hope you do.”

  We sat there, together, for a long time. Our silence measured by the ticking of the clock.

  And then the doorbell rang again.

  I started. Began to remove the pillow from my head. A few small particles of light convinced me I shouldn’t.

  I heard Oliver clamber to his feet. Walk to the door. Heard him talking to someone. Heard him return to me.

  There was a pressure on the couch beside me. I lifted the pillow enough to see he had sat down. He patted the hand that was clutching the pillow to my head. “Joe’s come to call and I’ll be off.”

  “But—”

  “Remember, no medals. There’s a good girl.”

  “Oliver?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  I heard his footsteps take him away from the living room. Heard the front door shut. Heard Joe cough.

  “Um. Can I come in?”

  I lifted the pillow. Sat up. Slowly. Squinted. “Sure.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Migraine.”

  “Maybe I could—should I close the curtains?” He was already on his way toward the windows. As he pulled them shut, the violence of the pounding in my head diminished. Instant relief.

  “Thanks. How did you know?”

  “I get…used to get migraines, remember? It’s the only reason I’m here.”

  He chose to sit in the chair Oliver had just vacated.

  “About last night…”

 
; “I can’t kiss you anymore.”

  He held up his hands. “I know. I know that’s what you said. I’d just like to know why.”

  “Because I can’t…” No medals. “I just can’t handle it.”

  “Can’t handle what? Is there something I can do to help?”

  “I can’t handle what this is. I don’t have any kind of role model for relationships. I have a disaster model. I figure all I have to do is the opposite of what my mother did. So I’m not planning on…falling in love…with anyone.”

  “I’m not anyone.”

  “I know…” My glance dipped down to the pillow at my side. I just wanted to clamp it over my head and dissolve into sleep. I didn’t want to be accountable anymore for the things I felt. “Why can’t we just go back to the way things were?”

  “You mean why can’t you have it all? The dating without dating?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “You can’t have it all. Sacrifices must be made. Isn’t that what you told me once?”

  “About cross-country skis. And sidecuts.”

  “Well, those sidecuts have been making furrows across my heart. I’m tired of skiing oblique turns. I want to ski straight and fast.”

  I did too. But I was afraid.

  “I want more. And there can be more. Last night had to have convinced you of that.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know how.”

  “Because you’re afraid?”

  I nodded.

  “Of becoming your mother.”

  I nodded again.

  “And what if that did happen? Would that really be so bad?”

  I felt my mouth drop open.

  “I mean—” He sighed. Got up from the chair and walked over to me. Eyed the space beside me. I didn’t do anything to keep him from sitting, so he sat down.

  “I’m not asking you to sleep with me or anything.”

  I felt a blush creep up my face.

  “I’m not asking you to marry me. Or have a child with me. Or anything at all. I’d just like to be more…serious…about getting to know you. That’s it.” He gathered me into his arms and shifted me over onto his lap.

  I sat there, head against his chest, basking in his warmth. In the luxury of being in what I’d just discovered was my favorite place.

  “I’m not Superman, Jackie. You can’t ask me to be near you without touching you or kissing you or thinking about the future.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I know what I told you just now. But I lied. And I knew I was lying to you when I said it. I don’t want to lie to you anymore. I think about a future with you all the time. I want to be more serious. I already am more serious. Can you meet me halfway here? So I can stop torturing myself.”

  His nose was nuzzling through my hair. It was making my stomach do handsprings. And the longing I had to kiss him was almost over-whelming. Almost unbearable. I could practically feel his lips on mine. And that’s when I knew what I had to tell him.

  “I can’t.”

  He went still. Absolutely still. And then he rested his cheek on top of my head. “Are you sure? Are you positive it isn’t the migraine speaking? I know how it feels afterward…like everything in your head has been disconnected.”

  I nodded.

  “If I walk out that door, I’m not coming back.”

  “I know.”

  “Is this really what you want? Because I don’t think it is. I love you. I think you know that…hope you know that…but I have to say it anyway. Even if you don’t want to hear it.”

  I did want to hear it. Longed to hear it.

  “That’s it, then?”

  I nodded because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.

  Joe kissed the top of my head and then slid me off his lap.

  The problem was I loved him too, even though I knew he deserved someone far better than me. As he walked out the door, I even said it. “I love you too.”

  But he didn’t hear it because he’d already gone.

  THE CUBICLE NEXT DOOR BLOG

  Help me

  Help me say yes.

  Posted on March 22 in The Cubicle Next Door | Permalink

  Comments

  Sometimes, when I have something important to say, I practice saying it in front of a mirror.

  Posted by: NozAll | March 22 at 07:19 PM

  Visualize yourself saying yes and then imagine it changing your entire destiny.

  Posted by: philosophie | March 22 at 09:37 PM

  Just do it. Say yes. You can always say no later.

  Posted by: justluvmyjob | March 22 at 10:05 PM

  If you need help saying it, then you probably aren’t ready to say it.

  Posted by: survivor | March 22 at 10:51 PM

  Thirty-Six

  You’d think God would have approved of what I’d told Joe. Approved I’d chosen deliberate, clearheaded decision making over passion. But I kept feeling incredible guilt. Incredible remorse. As if I’d made the wrong decision. Said the wrong thing. As if I’d broken Joe’s heart for no good reason.

  But God knew how awful I would have made life for him…so why wasn’t God making me feel any better about it?

  Mercifully, spring break was the next week. And Joe was off escorting cadets to Russia. I didn’t have to see him or hear him for a whole week.

  But it didn’t stop me from thinking about him.

  All the time.

  He was torturing me from afar. Stretching me on a rack or pulling out my fingernails or whatever the KGB used to do at Dzerzhinsky Square would have been kinder.

  All I could do was tell myself I’d made the right decision. That I would never find myself abandoning a child and running away to someplace like India. That I would never give myself a chance to be unrespectable. But a voice inside kept shrieking maybe it wanted to make that decision all by itself. And couldn’t I leave well enough alone!

  On Tuesday, I walked down to Estelle’s area to check out the department’s printers. I wanted to make sure we had enough print cartridges in stock for the cadet projects that would be due in mid-April.

  When I rounded the corner and Estelle’s desk came into view, I saw her dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. Dab again. And again. Saw her finally give up, fold her hands in her lap, and let tears cascade down her cheeks.

  “Estelle?”

  She looked up toward me, not bothering to wipe the tears away.

  “Is there something I can do?”

  She shook her head.

  “Something I can say?”

  She shook her head again.

  I stood there for a moment, knowing that now was not the time to test the printers or count the cartridges, but not knowing what I should do. What are you supposed to do when someone cries?

  What did I want when I felt like crying?

  The firm grip of Grandmother’s hand. Company as I listened to the ticktock of the anniversary clock in the living room. I had wanted to know I wasn’t alone. I had wanted to know somebody had cared enough about me to stay when I needed them.

  So I took a chair from its place by the wall and dragged it around Estelle’s desk. I set it right next to hers and sat down on it. And I stayed there for a long while.

  “My son just died.”

  I’m sorry didn’t sound quite sorry enough, so I didn’t say anything at all.

  “He was supposed to have another two months. I was supposed to fly up next week. I was getting everything ready while everyone here was gone. Getting everything in order.”

  I handed her another tissue.

  “We knew he was going to die. There wasn’t anything they could do anymore. I just didn’t think he’d die without me there.” She turned toward me, her chin trembling. “I was his mother and I wasn’t there.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “But he needed me. And for the hardest thing in his life I wasn’t there.”

  “All he had to d
o to die was wake up this morning. That wasn’t hard. Death is easy. Living is the hard part. And you were there for that.”

  “I just…wanted to say goodbye. One more time. I didn’t want him to go off without knowing I loved him.”

  “He knows. Because you spent your whole life telling him, right?”

  She looked at me then, mute with tears. But she nodded. Then she grimaced. Swallowed. “Right.” She took an unsteady breath. Then another. Dabbed at her eyes and cheeks. “Right.” Took another breath and stood up. “I have to leave now. I don’t know how the colonel will survive…”

  “I’ll take care of him. I can do it.”

  She smiled beneath watery eyes and then laughed. “But you can’t even write a memo to the dean.”

  I reached down to the tissue box and plucked another from the top. “One more for the road.”

  She took it and pressed it to her nose. And then she disappeared down the hall.

  I called the colonel’s cell number and left a message.

  He called back later in the afternoon and asked me to send flowers for the funeral.

  I spent the next two days at Estelle’s desk, answering phones, answering e-mails, and trying to make sense of her filing system. Both electronic and hard copy. But shifting in and out of my consciousness, like sunbeams through the ocean’s waves, were thoughts of Joe.

  I tried not to think about him, but that didn’t stop me from feeling things about him and my mind from questioning me about him.

  What if?

  The fact remained that 15 minutes in a movie theater had left me clutching at his clothing and running my fingers through his hair. I shuddered to think what would happen if I actually started dating him on the record. Became serious about getting to know him.

  Maybe the whole episode had been good. Maybe I did need someone in my life. But if that were true, then what I needed was someone with decorum. Someone with restraint. Someone with whom I would have no fear of losing my head. I needed…an Indian-style relationship. A relationship in which I could still keep my virtue.

  I did not need a relationship with Joe.

  But everything in me longed for him. I harbored longings for him in places I didn’t even know had feelings. I wasn’t used to feelings, outside of impatience, exasperation, and irritation. The spectrum of myself was growing exponentially. And it was so tightly strung, so wire thin, I could feel my heart begin to pound at the thought of Joe, my palms begin to sweat at the memory of his eyes. His hair. His lips. I was becoming completely unlike my normal self. And I didn’t know if I could ever find that original person again.