by Penny Reid
“Who puts the condom wrapper back in their pocket?” Sandra, a feisty redhead with a mostly concealed Texan drawl, pursed her lips, her brows rising expectantly as she glanced around the room. She was a psychiatry resident at Chicago General and liked to refer to herself as ‘Dr. Shrink’, “I mean, hola Señor Dumb Ass.”
“Exactly.” I nodded as did everyone else in the room, feeling slightly vindicated.
“I think you’re better off without him.” Ashley didn’t lift her blue eyes from her scarf as she offered her thoughts; her long, straight brown hair was pulled into a clever twist. She was a nurse practitioner originally from Tennessee and I loved listening to her accent; “I never trust a Jon without an ‘h’. John should be spelled J-o-h-n, not J-o-n.”
Sandra pointed at Ashley and added, “And his last name: Holesome. It should be ‘Assholesome’ or ‘Un-holesome’. He’s a turd.”
“I think we should ask Janie how she feels about the break up.” Fiona’s pragmatic assessment was met with agreement. A mechanical engineer by training, a stay at home mom by choice, Fiona was really the leader of the group; she made everyone feel valued and protected. She owned a commanding presence even at a mere five feet tall. Her small impish face, large heavily lashed eyes, paired with the practical pixie cut made her look like a fairy. Both Elizabeth and I knew her from college; she was the Resident Advisor in our freshman year dorm, ever the mother hen.
I shrugged as all eyes turned to me. “I don’t know, I don’t really feel all that mad about it, just... annoyed.”
Marie peered at me over her half knit sweater; “You seemed pretty shaken when I arrived.” I met her large blue eyes before she continued, “Between Jon and losing your job, I think you’re more upset then you want to admit.” Marie was a free-lance writer and artist; I envied how her blond curls always seemed to behave; every time I saw her it was like she’d just finished shooting a shampoo commercial.
I sighed, “It’s not that. I mean, yeah- I wish I hadn’t lost my job because now I have to find another one. But, it’s not like I was really able to do what I wanted there. I went to school to become an architect, not to become a staff accountant at an architecture firm.”
“At least it was at a firm; jobs are scarce.” Kat- the most soft spoken of the group- shook her head full of brown waves. I introduced Kat to Elizabeth when I discovered her passion for knitting. Kat also worked at my company-
Scratch that, ex-company
- as an executive administrative assistant to two of the partners; “But they are going to miss you, Janie. You were, by far, the most competent of the business group.”
“Do they always give their terminated employees limos for the afternoon?” Ashley asked Kat with plain interest.
“Not that I’ve ever heard of. But then layoffs have always happened in groups of five or more.” Kat wrinkled her nose, “It does seem extremely strange; I’ll look into it.”
I wondered at the limo as well. The whole day bordered on ridiculous so, in comparison, the limo and Vincent seemed like a minor bump on my roller-coaster of anomalies.
“Do you have any idea why they did it? Why they let her go?” Sandra reached for her red wine, directing her question at both me and Kat.
“No, but I’ll try to find out what I can.” Kat lifted her brows as she slid a gaze laced with suspicion in my direction, “Although, I heard that you were escorted out by one of the security guards from downstairs. Is that true?”
I nodded, becoming suddenly uncomfortable and pointedly studying my wine glass.
“Wait, what? Security?” Elizabeth suddenly sat forward, she placed a hand on my arm, “Who was it?”
I took a swallow of the wine and lifted my shoulders in a non-committal shrug. “Uh, just one of the guards.”
The room was quiet as I tried to sink farther into the couch. Suddenly Elizabeth started bouncing up and down, throwing her knitting to the side, “Oh. My. God. It was him, wasn't it? It was HIM!” Her blond ponytail wagged back and forth.
“Who is him?” Sandra stopped knitting at this point, her arms were crossed over her chest as she looked from me to Elizabeth to Kat, her large green eyes darting around the room like a ping pong ball.
Elizabeth stood up abruptly and ran to her kitchen, “Wait! I have a picture!”
My eyes widened as I watched her go; I called after her: “What do you mean you have a picture?”
All knitting abruptly ceased. The last time they all stopped knitting mid-row was because a good looking pizza guy arrived and they all wanted to give him the tip. Everyone started talking at once, their chatter trailed off as Elizabeth reentered the room with her phone and flopped down on the sofa next to me.
“I Kinneared him a couple times.” Elizabeth volunteered as she thumbed through photos on her phone. She looked up to our silent blank faces and lifted a single brow, “You know, ‘to Kinnear’, to stealthily take a clandestine picture of someone without them knowing. Hello? Don’t any of you read the Yarn Harlot’s blog?”
“Oh yeah, I heard about that. Didn’t the Yarn Harlot do that to Greg Kinnear at the airport or something?” Ashley placed her knitting on her lap, pointing at Elizabeth.
“Yes, yes. She wrote about it on her blog then it was put in Urban Dictionary and the New York Times yearly review thing or something-er-other.” Elizabeth turned to me and looked from my open mouth to my eyes, “Oh, don’t look so shocked about it.”
“I still want to know who him is.” Sandra stood up and leaned over Elizabeth’s shoulder as she paused on the first in a series of pictures of Sir Handsome McHotpants. I drank another swallow of my wine. All the ladies stood, except for Fiona, and clustered around the couch as Elizabeth drew her thumb over the touch screen of the phone. The group let out an audible gasp.
“Holy hotness, Batman. Who is that?” Ashley’s blue eyes were round as saucers.
“That’s Sir Handsome McHotpants.” Elizabeth sounded almost proud, “He’s a security guard at Kat and Janie’s building. Janie’s been lusting after him since he started a few weeks ago. I don’t know is real name but Janie might.”
Kat nodded, a small smile curving over her lips, “I recognize him. Janie isn’t the only one who has noticed.”
Marie started to laugh as she straightened and moved back to her discarded yarn, “No wonder you’re like: Jon who?”
“Damn, Janie, did he cuff you?” Sandra punched me on my shoulder, “Did you have hot elevator eye sex? Is that why you’re the shade of my red sweater right now?”
I didn’t realize that I was blushing until that moment. I put my wine glass aside and pressed my hands to my cheeks. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed by their comments, quite the opposite; I enjoyed their good natured teasing. I knew I was blushing due to the memory of his gaze, the intensity of his blue eyes as they moved over my body, the warm, charged strength of his hand on my back and arm. I felt more affected by him than all the other events which proceeded his presence, even all these hours later, after my day from hell. I moved my hands to cover my face and shook my head.
“Janie, did something happen?” I felt Elizabeth shift her weight on the couch as she addressed me, her voice contrarily laced with excitement and concern.
“No, nothing, except I talked to him and you all know how well that always goes over.” I left my hands on my face and sighed.
“What did you talk about?” Fiona’s soft voice made me feel a little calmer.
“I- I talked about the days of the week and the international standard for assigning numbers to days of the week.” My hands dropped from my face as I met their stares.
“Oh, geeze, Janie! What brought that up?” Ashley snorted as she laughed, moving her attention back to the soft mass of stitched yarn on her lap.
“No, wait, tell me everything.” Elizabeth said as she passed the phone to Fiona so she could see the pictures; Elizabeth grabbed my hands in hers and forced me to meet her pale blue eyes, “Leave nothing out. Start at the beginnin
g and repeat what happened word for word- especially everything he said.”
So I did. I tried to stay focused as I repeated the story without allowing my mind to wander and expand on some meaningless tangent. When I repeated the part about ISO 8601 and how he’d asked me to expand on the ‘seamless intercourse’ between government bodies they all gasped.
“Ah! What did you say?” Sandra was leaning forward in her seat, “I can’t believe he flirted with you! Did you flirt with him back?”
“What? No- no, he wasn’t flirting with me!” I shook my head emphatically.
“Oh, Janie, au contraire mon frère, he was most certainly flirting with you.” Ashley wagged her eyebrows at me, her teeth sliding to the side in an impish grin, her thick Tennessee accent applied to the French colloquialism causing everyone to giggle, “Although he sounds like the strong and silent type. You must have made an impression. Kinda weird, though, him flirting with you right after you’re fired.”
Kat nodded, “I agree his timing could have been better but you must have obviously made an impression.”
“Of course you did, look at you- you’re stunning.” Fiona’s tone and expression was matter of fact as she gestured to me with one hand.
I stared at her wide eyed, “You call this big bottom of mine stunning?”
Marie started to giggle, “One man’s big bottom is another man’s idea of stunning; don’t hold it against this guy if he likes curves on his girl- on second thought, do hold it against him.”
The room roared with laughter and I couldn’t help the small, breathless chuckle which abdicated my lungs. I couldn’t fathom that he would have been attracted to me let alone flirted with me; it all seemed too strange. I interrupted their merriment to finish the story and everyone frowned when I explained that I left with the female guard and hadn’t talked to him or said goodbye.
“But he told you to wait.” Kat said, “Why didn’t you wait for him?”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way, he meant ‘wait here’ or ‘wait for the papers’” I explained.
Ashley shook her head, “No, didn’t he say,” she lowered her voice to a manly tone which actually sounded a little like Batman, “‘Don’t move. Wait for me.’?”
“I think you’re reading too much into that.” I stood and began collecting empty wine glasses, stretching as I did so. The weight of the day made my shoulders feel heavy; I was tired.
“I wonder.” Fiona gave me a sideways glance as she continued, “You’ve always been clueless with guys.”
“Oh really?” I countered.
“Yes, really.” Elizabeth chimed in, “You are beautiful, even if you don’t believe us. A lot of guys- and, I mean, a lot of guys- like the big boobs, small waist, big butt, long legs, amazon woman thing you have going on. Pair that package with your curly auburn hair and big green-hazel eyes and some people, myself included, would call you gorgeous.”
I tried, with various levels of success, to change the subject as the evening came to an end. These were all women who loved me just as I was; of course they believed I was beautiful. The truth was I just didn’t especially like dwelling on my looks. So, I didn’t.
As I lay on Elizabeth’s couch that night I was surprised by the nature of my thoughts: I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I played the mostly one-sided elevator conversation over and over in my head trying to discern if he had actually been flirting. Not that it mattered as I would likely never see him again. I felt almost normal as I obsessed about something as mundane as whether a guy I liked, albeit based on physical attractiveness alone, thought I was attractive enough with which to flirt. However, before I let myself believe I was behaving completely rationally, I reminded myself that I just ended a long term relationship with someone I thought I was going to marry and lost my job in the same day.
A normal person would have been obsessing about one or both of those life-altering situations.
My last thought before I succumbed to sleep was to check the definition of ‘to Kinnear’ on Wikipedia.
CHAPTER 3
It was announced to me Friday morning, one and a half weeks after the worst day ever, that Friday night was going to be outrageous. And, by outrageous, Elizabeth meant that she’d secured VIP passes to a much sought after ‘club experience’ which I think was the trendy way of saying: we’re going to a new bar.
I was very motivated to find a new job and new apartment, although Elizabeth hadn’t made any complaints against my presence. In fact, she’d gone so far as to mention her lease was almost up and suggest we find something larger and continue to room together.
The idea appealed to me. Living with Elizabeth would be excellent prophylaxis against my natural reclusive, agoraphobic tendencies.
Even in my relationship with Jon we’d both recognized that I required a generous amount of space and alone time in order to behave with appropriate affection when we were together.
Maybe that was why he felt the need to cheat.
The idea struck me as one with merit. I tucked it away as a data point.
Over the last several days I did a fair amount of practiced focusing on the present: my present “lessness”- homelessness, joblessness, and relationshiplessness. Less was not more. Less was an unstable, uncomfortable place to be.
Jon was my first boyfriend. I went on dates with guys in high school and college but always first dates. Jon was the first guy who didn’t seem put off by my rampant randomness, he seemed to bask in it. I wondered if he would be the only one.
The thought didn’t trouble me as much as it should. In fact, it bothered me far less than the thought of never experiencing something like the smoldering warmth of awareness I experienced during my seven to twelve minutes with the blue-eyed security guard.
I spoke only briefly to Jon since the break up and I still needed to evaluate what I actually felt during our conversation. He was mad at me; in fact, he was outraged and he’d yelled at me for the first few minutes of our conversation. He said he’d found out about my job loss from his dad, a man I couldn’t ever bring myself to call by his first name, and wanted to know why I didn’t asked him for help.
I couldn’t believe my ears; it took me a few seconds to respond, “Jon, is that an actual question? And how did Mr. Holesome- I mean, how did your dad know?”
“Yes. It is an actual question. You need me, you are my girlfriend-”
“No-” I shook my head as if convincing myself.
“Nothing is decided. I want to take care of you. I still love you. We belong together.” He sounded resolute and a little sullen.
“You cheated on me. We are not together. ” I was starting to become aggravated, which was the closest I came to anger.
I heard him sigh on the other end, his tone softening, “Janie, don’t you know that changes nothing for me? It was one time. It meant nothing. I was drunk.”
“You were sober enough to put the condom wrapper back in your pocket.”
He half growled, half laughed, “I still want to take care of you, let me take care of you.”
“That’s not your role-”
“Can we be friends?” he cut me off, his voice somewhat gentler.
“Yes.” I meant it. I didn’t want to lose him as a friend, “Yes. We should be friends.”
“Will you let me take care of you?” His voice was pleading, “Will you let me help you?”
I thought about what he was asking; I knew he meant financial support. “You can help me by being a good friend.”
“What if I can’t be just friends?” I could sense his renewed annoyance with me as he spoke, “I can’t think about anything but you.”
It was my turn to sigh; I couldn’t think of anything to say. Well, more accurately, I couldn’t think of anything to say related to our topic of conversation but I could think of plenty of things to say about the climate of New Guinea or the prehistoric ancestors of the African secretary bird.
After a moment of silence he cleared his throat,
his voice sounded firm, “Nothing is decided.” he said again, “When can I see you?”
We arranged a time to meet on Saturday morning, at a neutral spot, then said our goodbyes, during which he told me he loved me again. I didn’t respond.
I reflected on all that had happened. I didn’t feel an acute need to grieve the loss of him or the five years of our life together. In order to be confident in my feelings I made sure the invisible closet door in my head was open, the light was on, the box was unlocked- but detachment remained.
I knew that my preoccupation with the trivial was a direct result of my mother’s death as well as, what my therapist called, an already natural propensity to observe life rather than live it. He called it self-preservation.
My parental grandmother, ever a fangirl of pharmaceutical products, insisted that I needed therapy when my mother died. And, so, I started therapy at the ripe age of thirteen. I thought therapy meant I would be sitting on a couch as a man showed me inkblots shaped suspiciously like blobs of ink and told me I was angry with my mother for her affairs, for running off with her latest lover, for getting herself killed in a motorcycle accident, for leaving me with my somewhat dimwitted- albeit well meaning- father and my two criminal prone siblings, and for cooking veggie tacos on the Tuesdays of my childhood instead of the hot dogs and potato chips I craved.
The therapist did all those things even though I hadn’t felt particularly angry; I just felt sad, enormously sad. It was why, the therapist said, my brain always took a hard U-turn when I was faced with difficult or uncomfortable emotional situations. Nevertheless, during that year, I also reluctantly learned strategies that worked; I learned that overwrought with emotional distress, small things could be a trigger, like finding a bathroom stall bereft of toilet paper. The mundane became as insurmountable as moving Mt. Fuji.
