by David Boyle
As Erin poured two cups of coffee she couldn’t help noticing the calendar on the refrigerator: among other commitments, several work-related events and overtime days were marked in red ink. Raising the coffee mug to his lips, Raymond saw his wife gazing despondently at the calendar. He knew exactly what she was thinking: Having been trapped in the same rat-race for over twenty-five years, retirement at sixty-five seemed unattainable. “I know—when does it ever end, huh? How much more can we take?”
Erin stirred some sugar in her coffee. “Its’ absurd is what it is. We’re exhausted already. Imagine how tired we’d be if we had kids. How strapped for cash.”
Raymond rubbed his eyes. “Believe me, Erin, I’ve thought about that. Good thing we don’t have that extra strain in our life. I mean… look at Tommy and Joanne. They had kids because they thought it’s what married couples were supposed to do. Pride or something. All they do now is complain all the time. Find pleasure in nothing. They earn triple what we do, yet they argue about every-thing, especially money. The only free time they have is…”
Erin sipped her coffee as she waited for Raymond to finish his rant.
Raymond was staring ahead. “Going to the bathroom.”
Erin giggled. Then she sat down and put her feet in Raymond’s lap. “The whole barefoot and pregnant concept is grossly overrated anyway. The latter part at least. Besides, my biological clock’s never ruled my life. I’m forty-five and still have things I want to do.”
“Like?”
Erin looked up at the ceiling as if carefully considering her response. “Like finish those novels I started years ago before overtime and night-classes put the kibosh on things. Maybe we could go to the theatre more, like we used to. I wouldn’t mind sleeping in from time to time… and taking those long walks we used to take when we first met.”
Raymond recalled quite fondly some of the ways they’d spent their time together in the past, before life cramped their schedule with excessive demands. He got up from the table, walked to the sink, and put down his empty mug. Then he came up behind Erin and kissed her on the cheek.
“I like the way you think. Those ideas sound fun. And now that you mentioned it, I’ve always wanted to read those novels you started. I just don’t know where you hid the finished chapters.”
Erin playfully elbowed his leg. “Go to it, Sherlock. Dig ’em up.”
Raymond grabbed his coat from the rack and made his way to the door, where he paused and looked back at Erin. “If I find those manuscripts, they better be worth my time.”
Erin blew him a kiss. “Life comes with no guarantees, Mr. Detective.”
Doctor Pastillo had a lobby full of patients. Wednesdays were always a hectic day. People commonly got sick over the weekend and in the middle of the week, and Erin was one of only two assistants on staff. Pastillo’s sizable budget allowed for extra help but he never put forth an effort to hire anyone. Erin had frequently suggested to the doctor the option of using a temp agency, a plan which he always disregarded. The doctor had gotten used to the girls doing the work of three people. Erin’s co-worker, Annie, had been employed by Doctor Pastillo for more than ten years but could never match Erin’s diligence, resourcefulness, and intellect. Not yet 10:30 and Erin was inundated by paper-work, handling the bulk of it herself. Annie noticed Erin’s workload but, as she’d done so thoughtlessly in the past, she ignored her overwhelmed co-worker. At least twice Erin had looked over at Annie hoping to solicit her help, but her insistent glances were outright ignored. For reasons beyond
Erin’s comprehension, the doctor liked Annie’s personality and for far too long had overlooked her inadequacies. Having Erin handle the extra burden without complaint or rebellion made it convenient for him to shy away from a situation that could potentially worsen.
The phone rang and Erin picked it up. Even though she was not talking loud enough for anyone to hear what she way saying, she felt Annie, nosy and meddlesome as always, eavesdropping. She whispered into the receiver. “I can’t get out of work, Raymond. We’re swamped here. Annie’s slacking off—as usual. I might have to stay late again.”
Annie opened the blinds behind her desk. Sunlight poured through the office, forcing Erin to shield her eyes. A patient came up to the desk and logged in. Annie, whose job it was to attend to the duties of the front desk, couldn’t take her eyes off her own newly manicured nails. Erin put Raymond on hold and greeted the patient herself. Then she finished her phone call. Cupping the receiver, she mumbled, “I understand, Ray. I’m sorry. I’ll see what I can do.”
Peeking over her shoulder into the doctor’s office, Erin wondered if he had been watching her because, when they made eye contact, he glanced at his watch. Annie, meantime, hadn’t stopped watching what Erin was doing. Her complexion stained with concern, Erin got up from her desk, went to the doctor’s office and knocked on his door.
“Please, come in, Erin,” he said. Erin opened the door and stood in the doorway.
The doctor leaned back in his chair, removed his glasses, and pushed his large high-back leather chair about six inches away from his desk. In a friendly voice he said, “You don’t have to knock, Erin. I’ve told you that countless times.”
Erin nodded her head, forced a smile. “Sorry, Doctor Pastillo. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Something’s troubling me.”
The doctor reclined in his chair. “Oh?” He held up his open hand at her. “By all means, speak.”
“Well…it’s my husband. There’s a delicate matter at home. It’s urgent, you see.”
The doctor appraised her body language—she seemed restless. This behavior was unlike Erin, who had always been more in control, relaxed. “Are you all right, Erin? If there’s anything I can do, you know I’d be happy to help, you or your husband.”
Erin scratched her forehead. “It’s nothing like that at all, doctor. Thank you for the gesture, though. It’s just…kind of personal. And I’d like to go home and figure things out, if that’s okay with you?”
The doctor, his hands resting against his face, his eyeglasses dangling from his fingers, mulled over her request for a few moments. “I realize you have accrued unused leave. But your request leaves me no time to get a replacement for today. It is quite busy, you know.”
Erin wanted to remind him of her often-suggested idea of using a temp agency or taking on extra help. She wanted to shout these thoughts at him. But doing so would be a severe lapse in judgment, in conduct. Nothing would change either. She kept her emotions, her instincts, in check. “It’s always busy here, Doctor Pastillo. Besides, Annie has been here longer than I have. She can handle a day without me.” Erin’s lie came out smoothly and convincingly—Annie’s work ethic was abominable—but she wanted the doctor to discover that reality firsthand. She also wanted him to face the error of his ways. She watched the doctor open his pay-roll book. “If you must leave, I will mark you down as using a vacation day. Since I don’t know the circumstances, you leave me no choice. You clearly aren’t ill so I can’t deduct sick time.” The doctor said this sententiously.
Erin cringed. She normally would have argued the point to have him use her sick time or personal time, she had ample of each. But that would not have been appropriate; she would have risked losing her job. Instead she composed herself. “Thank you. I appreciate your understanding, doctor.”
“Very well,” he said, putting on his glasses. He got back to work.
As Erin gathered her belongings to leave, Annie watched her like a hawk. She just couldn’t mind her own business. But with Erin leaving for the rest of the day she would have to do some work for once. Jacket and purse in hand, Erin started on her way out. “Take care, Annie. Have a nice day.” See how it feels to work without any help, Annie, she thought.
Erin arrived home. The front door was ajar. Raymond had apparently left it open; his car was parked along the curb. When she got inside she saw him standing at the kitchen counter drying his hands; he had already changed into jeans and a sweatshir
t. Hearing her come in, he turned around, smiling. “We pulled it off! We’ve never done this before. Not since high school.”
“What are we doing, Ray? You didn’t really tell me over the phone what was going on. You just said to get off work…that it was urgent. That I wouldn’t regret it.”
“Do you regret playing hooky from work? We’re going to live it up, be like kids again.”
Erin shifted her weight to one leg. “I’m a little nervous. What if we get caught? We can’t afford to be careless. We’re not kids anymore, Ray. We don’t need to make our lives even more problematic.”
Raymond laughed. “This isn’t high school, babe. We won’t get detention. And we can’t get canned just because we skipped out of work. We’ve been putting aside time for days like this, right? But we never took advantage. Until now.”
Erin hugged Raymond. “I know, I know. It’s just that ... well… you have more flexibility than I do, working in a big office and all, having reliable people to cover for you. I had to convince the doctor to let me cut out early. It was awkward, touchy.”
Raymond held her at an arm’s length. “But you did it, right? You won’t regret it. I promise.”
Erin hugged him again, squeezed harder. “This is one of the rewards of cutting work—seeing you, holding you, at this time of day.”
Raymond kissed her head. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
At the Waverly Inn, their favorite restaurant, they sat in a booth by a large window overlooking the woods. Late autumn, only a few tremulous leaves on the trees, the air crisp and cool, the wind gathering strength. Erin had just finished her omelet. “I had forgotten how good that dish is. It’s one of my favorites.”
Erin’s look of contentment pleased Raymond. “That’s what I want today to be about—having fun. Living as if we had no worries, no place to be…no jobs.”
“I see what you’re trying to do, Ray. Really. I’m just nervous about what’s going to happen tomorrow. When I go back to the office. The doctor’s going to want a damn good excuse for cutting out early. Some day, when I least expect it, he’s gonna ask what I did. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him I wanted to leave—and wouldn’t explain why.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’re not there now. You’re not in his hands now. You’re in mine. My boss may be chagrined by my early exit too, but I don’t care. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up over such small stuff. Besides, when is it our time? To be care-free? To do what we want to do with…with what little time we have?” Raymond took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Without answering to someone.”
Erin finished her juice. “I’ve never seen you so worked-up before, Ray. How long have you had this planned?”
Raymond fidgeted with his fork. “Five, ten minutes tops. Going from the parking lot to my office. By the time I sat down at my desk I had already convinced myself to shirk the day. I told Sally Edwards (my supervisor) that you had cramps or something. I may have used a few other lies too.”
Erin laughed through her nose. “Smooth. As always.”
The people eating next to them had gotten up and left the restaurant. Raymond immediately rose from his chair, grabbed one of the empty chairs, and sat next to Erin, putting his arm around her. “Look. To tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit if you or I don’t get paid for the day. Or if we get fired, for that matter. We’re survivors.”
Erin tried to say something but Raymond put his finger over her lips. “Not so fast.”
Erin kissed his finger.
“Today is about us. About rewarding ourselves for a job well done. About doing the simple things we rarely get time for. About learning that being a kid is not exclusively for kids.”
Erin’s eyes became misty. She grabbed Raymond’s hand. “What do you have up your sleeve?”
“Nothing. Just a day’s sabbatical.”
Raymond nodded toward the woods. “Follow me?”
Erin’s eyes widened. “I’m right behind you.”
Off they went into the woods. When Erin was just a little girl growing up in the suburbs of New Jersey, some of her favorite times were spent roaming around the woods. Frequently, when their family visited relatives or friends in Pennsylvania and New York State, she explored the wood-lands. She and her friends would venture deep into the forest and see what kinds of treasures they could find. In Erin’s mind the woods were another world, ignored by countless passers-by. Her generation rejected the television and flourished outdoors, building forts and tree-houses, having barbecues and camping trips, playing games like Kick the Can and Tag, kissing boys in clandestine hideaways (her first kiss with Raymond took place in the woods behind Willow’s Peak Drive-In). “The woods are loaded with rewards,” she used to say to her friends. “Wanderers never come out of the forest empty-handed.” She hadn’t been in the woods for a good many years. Now forty-five years old, Erin was elated to once again be amongst the trees, the brush, the cliffs, the sleepy streams.
Raymond relished watching his wife frolic about the forest. She was like a dog freed from its leash, or a prisoner no longer bound by shackles. She picked up rocks and threw them; trees and massive boulders became targets. She heaved stones as far as she could just to see if she could hear them land. As a little girl she made a habit of collecting spare pennies no one wanted. At Lake Brentwood she would toss the pennies into the water, making a wish with each throw. This memory fresh in her mind, she reached into her pocket for change, and found a quarter, which she kissed and then whipped into the distance.
Though it was a bright, clear day, the sunlight struggled to breach the treetops. The few scattered fingers of sunbeam penetrating the pines and oaks shed warmth and light on the forest’s undergrowth—enough sun for visitors to find their way; enough for two curious people, Raymond and Erin Andrews, to wander aimlessly. Raymond sat on a boulder and watched Erin savoring her surroundings. She was like a teenager all over again, enamored with the munificence of color and nature around her, more species of groundcover and plant life than she could fully take in. But here, in this one patch of woods outside their favorite eatery, she had a smorgasbord of vegetation to behold and admire. The restaurant out of sight, they were able to enjoy a sense of seclusion, privacy. Erin stood atop a mossy outcropping. Above her, a wider, more gargantuan tier of jagged rocks holding back a stand of trees and brush. “Isn’t this breath-taking? Invigorating?” she said, her voice loud, crisp, buoyant. All her worries had been left behind, and the little girl within her was emerging.
“Sure is,” Raymond said. “Until I met you, I didn’t know what this city boy had been missing.”
Erin couldn’t resist teasing him. “An awful lot apparently. That breakfast we just ate would have cost triple the price in Manhattan.”
Raymond conceded her point. “True. True.”
Erin shuffled her feet on the boulder, as if about to break into a dance.
“Hey,” Raymond said. “You know what else would have cost a fortune in the city?”
“What?”
“Movies! Something I’d like to do today. Since we have all day.”
Erin drummed on her thighs. “Let’s make this the perfect day. Like what we would do if every day was just for us. Kinda like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off…only for grownups. You know?”
“Yup. That’s the idea.”
Erin jumped off the rock. With her hands she neatened her hair. “Walk with me some more?”
Raymond placed his hand on her shoulder and guided her onward. As they walked through the woods they chatted, joked, groped. Their peregrination had thus far exceeded her expectations—the woods all to themselves, the scenery alive and tangible and odoriferous, a scene of autumnal splendor as lifelike as the pictures she had seen in National Geographic. Distant traffic sounds—honking horns, screeching tires—hardly registered. They walked about ten minutes more, arriving at a steep drop off, where Erin could hear the wispy gurgling of a running river not far below. “Do you he
ar that? That’s water trickling into a ravine somewhere. It can’t be far off.”
Raymond grabbed her by her fingertips. “Want to go check it out?”
“No, that’s okay. I’m perfectly content here. I’m just thinking out loud is all, paying extra attention to all the sounds. There are always little sounds in the woods, noises that hint at something unexplained.”
Raymond listened intently to what Erin had heard. Erin gazed overhead. “Some people go to the beach to clear their head, to find peace. I’d rather come here, rain or shine.”
Raymond crouched down on one knee and began snapping twigs. He stared at Erin pensively, finding humor in her inability to notice—or care about—the leaves stuck in her blonde hair, the dirt on her clothes, her smirched work shoes. These reasons—these carefree, down-to-earth qualities among others—were what had first attracted him to Erin. She had always been easy to please, unpretentious. Over the years she had helped him shed some of his “city attitude.” She encouraged him to appreciate the little things he’d taken for granted: small-town life, quiet nights around the house reading a book or watching television, dining out at noiseless restaurants, walks in the park or in the center of town—living a more simple, non-competitive life. They had been inseparable friends for many years before realizing their deeper feelings for each other. That’s what made their marriage so strong and long-lasting.
Erin faced Raymond. “You know what? The woods hold treasures. You always get a reward for visiting.”
“What’re you talking about? There’s nothing here.”
“Must I educate you?”
“You can give it a try.” Raymond held his arms out wide, turned from side to side. “I think you’ll be wasting your time though. Place’s got nothing in it.”
“I can’t wait to prove you wrong, schmuck.” Erin scouted the vicinity. She inspected the ground, behind big rocks, stumps, underneath brush, kicking aside leaves and branches.”
