by Jeff Strand
"Thanks. I appreciate that."
"Don't be mad at your roommate. He was just trying to help by letting me know what happened to you. And he tried to cover for it when he realized he'd said too much. He did a terrible job, but he tried."
Had I known that I'd have a minor heart attack and that Craig would feel compelled to notify my boss, I would have given him a heads-up about the dead grandmother scheme. It's not like he would have had a moral issue with it.
Gigi continues. "This could be a great opportunity for you, Todd. Use this to pursue your dreams."
"I don't have any dreams."
"Then find some."
She explains that they'll box up my personal belongings, and that I can pick them and my final paycheck up from Human Resources when I get back to Tampa. I actually use direct deposit, but I don't correct her.
Maybe this is a good thing.
Maybe this will allow me to focus on my...laundry? Nail-clipping?
I don't have any life plans that were impeded by a day job.
Can I even collect unemployment if I was fired? I think I can if I was fired without cause, but getting fired for fraudulent bereavement time probably falls into the "justified" category.
I want to cry.
I really, really want to cry.
And then I figure, screw it, Amy won't be back for a bit, so I do.
* * *
I finish crying long before Amy returns, though not before a nurse checks on me. The nurse says "Oh, don't worry, sweetheart, you'll be fine." I think what she means is "Oh, for God's sake, man up and grow a pair!" I'm glad she doesn't say what she means.
I call my parents. They're understandably concerned, but I assure them that there's absolutely no reason for them to fly over from Vermont. I promise to keep them fully updated.
I turn on the television and watch some cartoons.
It seems like Amy has been gone longer than necessary to retrieve the rental car, but she might have had trouble getting a cab, or she might have stopped on the way back to pick up something to eat. I decide that if she's not back in another twenty minutes, I'll call her.
What if she fled?
She wouldn't flee.
Would she?
I mean, I was mentally prepared to take care of Vegetable Amy, so if she left me because of a heart attack...
She wouldn't leave me stranded in a hospital. She's just not that kind of person. In fact, me considering such a horrible thing for even that fraction of a second means that I deserve to be stranded in a hospital. I suck.
Amy wouldn't just ditch me. I know where she lives. She'd have to realize that I'd show up at her place at an inopportune moment, perhaps a dinner party, and say, "So, Amy, mind telling me why you abandoned me in the hospital after my heart attack?"
She walks into the room.
She does not look happy.
Well, that makes sense. We're in a hospital. You're not supposed to look happy, unless you're in neo-natal care or someplace where happy things happen.
My first thought is that Amy wrecked the car. And that's okay, because she doesn't seem to be injured, and we got the insurance, though I do still hope she didn't wreck the car.
She silently walks over and sits down next to the bed.
Her expression is that of somebody who is carefully controlling their seething rage, and yet wanting to burst into tears. I don't think her seething rage is because of anything I did, but until she explains her current emotional state, I won't be able to say for sure.
"So," she says, "what did your boss want?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
"At least it was a painless death."
"Drowning? Drowning's, like, one of the worst ways you can go."
"[Expletive Bleeped]"
--Exit Red, Season 2, Episode 3
"She called to fire me."
Amy's eyes widen. "She fired you?"
I nod.
"Because of me?"
"No, no--it was my fault."
"But you killed your grandmother to go on the trip with me!"
"It was my choice. I take responsibility for my own actions. If I hadn't had a heart attack, she wouldn't have caught me in the lie."
"If you hadn't thought I was hemorrhaging, you wouldn't have had a heart attack."
"We don't know that."
"If I hadn't called your roommate, he wouldn't have called your boss to let her know what had happened."
That point I cannot argue. But we won't dwell on it.
"It was time for me to start looking for a new job anyway," I tell her. "And it's good to get fired. Everybody should have that experience at least once in their life. I mean, what kind of loser makes it to thirty-five years old without ever being fired?"
Amy wipes her eyes on her sleeve. "I'm so sorry, Todd."
"Don't give it another thought," I tell her, even though my stomach cramps make it clear that I will be giving it many more thoughts. I wouldn't take back my weekend with Amy for anything. I mean sure, if I had access to a crystal ball, I would have certainly scheduled it in such a way that I didn't have to lie about bereavement time and lose my job, but I wouldn't take it back for anything.
Since Amy didn't know about my termination, I don't think that's what was bothering her when she walked into the room.
"Did you get the car?" I ask.
Amy does not immediately answer my question about whether or not she got the car.
"What happened?" I ask.
"We got the full coverage, right?"
"Yeah. What happened? Were you in an accident?"
Amy shakes her head. "When I went back to the hotel, the car was right where we'd left it, but it had been...treated poorly."
"What do you mean?"
"Somebody bashed the crap out of it! Completely trashed it! There's not a speck of glass remaining in any window! The entire lid of the trunk is gone! I'm sure they didn't actually take a chainsaw to it--that would've been too loud and attracted attention--but it sure looks like they did! It's completely destroyed!"
"So...by 'completely destroyed,' what exactly do you mean?"
Amy holds up a cell phone picture of the mangled car. I flinch and recoil.
"Jesus Christ!"
"I know!"
"What kind of sociopath would do that?"
"I have no idea. They were gone by the time I got there."
"Those are incredible anger issues!"
"I know."
I am so glad we paid extra for the full coverage, though it's still going to be awkward when we have to return what's left of the vehicle.
"And now I have to ask you a question," Amy says.
"What?"
"Did you leave the money in the car?"
I consider this. One would have to be quite the fool to leave a thousand dollars in the trunk of one's car when one is parked at a hotel. I, for one, am not a fool. I would never, ever be so unintelligent as to leave cash in the trunk of a car. That would be silly. I simply wouldn't do that.
Unless, of course, my mind was preoccupied with thoughts of the sex I'd be having in that hotel room.
I use many of the words that Amy used during our lovemaking session, though in a much different context.
"The police have filed a report," Amy tells me. "And they're going to review the hotel's surveillance footage. They might catch whoever did it and get your money back."
"Good. That's good. All's well that ends well, then."
"Are you going to be okay?"
"Not right away."
"You're trembling."
"That's fine. That's the proper reaction."
"I'm going to get a nurse."
"No, no, I'm--" Amy has already hurried out of the room. She returns a moment later with the nurse who wanted me to man up and grow a pair. She takes my blood pressure, and I'm not surprised to learn that it is quite high.
The nurse gives me a pill, and I do a bunch of breathing exercises as the nurse and Amy coach me. Eventually, I stop fee
ling like I'm going to have a complete nervous breakdown and the nurse leaves.
Amy gently strokes my arm. "I'm not going to leave you," she says.
"Thank you. I appreciate that."
"That's not how I meant it."
"I'm confused."
"I'm going to dictate the note that I'd leave next to your pillow if I left you."
"Uh...okay."
"'Dear Todd, you don't deserve this. It can't end well, and all I'm going to do is destroy everything you've worked for.'"
"I haven't worked for all that much," I clarify.
"Let me finish. 'I will always treasure our weekend together, but you're a wonderful guy, and you belong with somebody who has a longer shelf life. I'll never forget you. Sincerely, Amy.'" She lowers the imaginary note, then raises it again. "'P.S. That one thing you did with your tongue was amazing.'"
"So...that was the note you were going to leave...?"
"It's the note I would leave if I were the kind of person who could break up with somebody by leaving them a note. Which I'm not. At all. Even if you weren't in the hospital I couldn't do it." She bites her lip. "I just wanted to put the message out there."
I'm extremely pleased that our relationship has progressed to the point where us parting ways would constitute an actual breakup, but I'm still hopelessly baffled. "So...you want us to break up...but you don't want to deliver the news with a note...so you're reading a fake note?"
Amy shakes her head. "I don't want to leave you behind. I think you should leave me behind."
"So...you're making me leave you...?"
"No."
"I think our communication skills are faltering right now."
"It's my fault. I'm not good at this kind of thing."
"Okay, if I'm understanding your hypothetical letter correctly, what you're saying is that you won't hold it against me if we go back to Florida separately and don't see each other again."
"Yes."
"So it's basically a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card."
"Yes."
I feel like the proper response here is to take her in my arms, hold her tight, and say, "Oh, no, sweetheart, that's the last thing in the world I'd ever do!" Yet I can't help but find her whole speech a little insulting.
"Then what you mean is, you're giving me permission to be the complete bastard that you think I am."
"No! That's not it at all."
"Then why are you trying to get me to walk out on this?"
"I'm not! I'm saying that I'd understand if you did."
"Well, that's stupid. I don't need you to ease my conscience. I knew what I was getting into."
"You knew you'd have to sell your car?"
"No."
"You knew you'd lose your job?"
"No."
"You knew the rental car would be destroyed?"
"No."
"You knew you'd have a heart attack?"
"No."
"So all you knew was that I have a defective brain. I'm not letting you off the hook for that. I'm letting you off the hook for everything else."
"I don't want to be off the hook." I still feel kind of insulted. I'm not sure why. "I'm not looking for something easy. Sure, easier would be nice right now, but not easy. I've done easy for too long. If you want out of this, that's fine, I totally get it, but don't push the breakup on me."
"That was the exact opposite of my intention," Amy says.
"Good. We're still together, then."
"Good."
"Please don't ever give me another 'Get Out of Jail Free' card," I say.
"I won't."
We kiss.
"We'll be okay," I say. "I've still got credit cards. No way to pay them off, but I've got them. Credit solves everything. We'll buy a couple of plane tickets and fly home. No problem."
Amy doesn't say anything.
"Bad idea?" I ask.
"No. It's a good idea. Technically."
"Technically?"
"I've never flown before."
"Seriously?"
Amy nods.
I grin. "You were giving me a hard time about my lack of worldly BBQ experience, and you've never been on a plane? This is awesome. It'll be a whole new adventure for you."
Amy goes silent again.
"No?" I ask.
"I'm not completely sure that I can fly."
"As in, the TSA will arrest you if you set foot in an airport?"
"Nothing like that," says Amy, apparently unaware that I was kidding. "It's just that my family hasn't had good experiences with air travel."
I immediately envision a horrific plane crash with dozens of severed heads rolling down the evacuation slide.
Wow. My thoughts aren't usually quite that macabre. Having a heart attack does dark shit to you.
"What kind of experiences?" I ask.
"Have you seen the movie Snakes on a Plane?"
"Of course."
"Well, imagine Snakes on a Plane, but with only one snake, and it's not a poisonous one, but, still, it bit you on the ankle. That's what happened to my mom. Bit by a snake on a plane."
"That's messed up."
"She never flew again."
"I get why she would be traumatized, but you have to understand that people aren't bit by snakes on airplanes very often. Hell, when we walked up that hill I'm sure there were more snakes around us than there would be on any plane. In fact, I don't make a lot of guarantees, but I can absolutely with complete certainty one hundred percent guarantee you that you will not get bit by a snake if we fly back to Tampa."
"I'm not scared of snakes on planes, Todd."
"Okay. Good. You were sort of implying that you were."
"That's just one example. You know how they warn you that items in the overhead compartments may have shifted during the flight?"
"Yes."
"I don't, because I've never been on a plane, but apparently that's what they say. Well, my Uncle Gary didn't listen to the warning. Opened the compartment. Got hit in the head by his own suitcase. Broke his neck. Spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair."
"Holy crap."
"Yeah."
"Well, that's definitely more likely than getting bit by a snake, but I'm happy to open the luggage compartment for you, and we'll make sure your head is nowhere near it."
"My dad almost choked on a piece of chicken from the in-flight meal. The man sitting next to him did the Heimlich Maneuver and broke two of his ribs."
"Ow."
"And my Aunt Ruth told me about that episode of The Twilight Zone with William Shatner and the gremlin sabotaging the wing of the plane."
"I guess that one scared me, too. Not the original episode, but the remake in Twilight Zone: The Movie with John Lithgow."
"I'm not saying that I'm scared of snakes, breaking my neck, choking, or a gremlin. I'm saying that my entire childhood was spent in a household of people who hated and feared air travel. And also, there was 9/11."
"I can respect that."
"I'll fly for you, though."
"You don't have to."
"I know I don't have to, but I will. I should. It's dumb to be this old and never have been on a plane. You can't drive to Paris."
The truth is that I don't really have anything to go back to, except for some possessions that are probably being rummaged through by three hyperactive children. (I've never met Margaret's children and I don't know if they're hyperactive, so I guess that was unfair. I just naturally assume that all children are hyperactive.)
"We could stay here," I tell her.
"In the hospital?"
"In Connecticut. Or someplace else. I'm unemployed, your customer service skills are marketable elsewhere--we could live anyplace we wanted! We could go anywhere! We could run away together!"
As soon as I say this, I realize that it's something I'll quickly try to blame on painkillers. Consummated relationship or not, it's far too early to invite her to run away with me. I can't believe I didn't veto that before I said it. I
sound like an insane whack-nut crazy person.
Amy just stares at me. I have no idea what she's thinking, though Crap, he's an insane whack-nut crazy person, I'd better get the fuck out of here is a possibility.
Should I apologize? Take it back? Neither of those options are likely to work out in my favor. I think the only thing I can do is let my words hang in the air and be thankful that if Amy elects to jump out of the window, there's plenty of medical personnel in the immediate vicinity.
A tear trickles down Amy's cheek and she gives me a huge smile. "We could," she says. "We really could."
Wait a minute...she's saying yes?
I'm elated, but that's nuts. Why the hell would she say yes? It was a completely deranged thing for me to have suggested, and if she's cool with it, she must also be completely deranged. If two people have both lost their minds, does that make them perfect for each other? Is this going to turn into a cross-country crime spree? Is it going to end in a suicide pact?
I guess that's unlikely. Still, if I begin to sense that we're veering into suicide pact territory, I will adjust our behavior accordingly.
"I'd still give my two weeks notice at work," says Amy. "I don't want to burn any bridges there; I'll need my supervisor to give me a good reference. And it's the right thing to do. I don't want my co-workers to be stressed out because I left without notice."
"I agree."
"And I want to make sure I get my security deposit back, because we'll need that for our next place, so I'll need to work with my apartment complex to get out of my lease. I think I've only got three or four months left, so that shouldn't be a problem, but I'll need to make sure that it's all clean and everything. I accidentally knocked a hole in the wall in the hallway when I was moving a desk chair, and I should get that repaired before I move out. Are you good at repairing holes in walls?"
"It's not my strongest skill," I admit.
"That's fine. I'll call a repairman. Or maybe it's fine to just have it deducted from my security deposit. I'm not sure which option is cheaper. I'll look it up online. Am I babbling? I feel like maybe I'm babbling."
"If you are, it's wonderful babbling."
