by Darien Gee
She’s stunned.
Madeline returns to the table, a fresh pot of hot tea in hand. They are the only ones remaining in the tea salon, and Julia notices Madeline has turned the sign on the door to CLOSED after bidding farewell to the last customer.
Julia doesn’t argue with her, doesn’t protest. These women don’t know her, they don’t know Josh, and yet she feels like they know her grief.
The three women sit there, in comfortable and uncomfortable silence, giving themselves a little time before eventually talking in low voices about matters of the heart that can never be forgotten.
Dr. Norma Meehan, 37
Therapist
“Just let it out,” Norma Meehan coaxes. “How did it make you feel?” She leans back in her chair, her eyes glancing surreptitiously at the small clock behind her client’s head. Forty minutes to go.
“Terrible, Dr. Meehan!” Phyllis Watts sniffs, clutching a tissue. “I told him I didn’t want the extended warranty, but he didn’t listen. He told me I needed it and wrote it up anyway. He was such a bully!”
Dr. Meehan makes a clicking sound with her tongue. The sound is supposed to reassure Phyllis that she’s listening and being hugely sympathetic, yet at the same time not passing judgment on what has happened. “So then what?”
“I told him I wasn’t going to pay for the extended warranty, because Consumer Reports says that extended warranties aren’t necessary. And then he … he …” Phyllis starts to get agitated again, her breath coming in short, angry puffs.
“What did he do, Phyllis?”
“HE LAUGHED! I ended up walking out of the store, thinking that I would show him, but the thing is, I really like that new Hoover and nobody else in town is selling it. Now I have to go back there if I want to get it, and he’s just going to laugh at me again!”
Dr. Meehan suppresses a yawn. Early afternoon is a hard time for her, right after lunch. She’s always a bit sleepy.
Phyllis is thunderous now. “I mean, he shouldn’t be allowed to treat a customer like that! I AM A PERSON! He made me feel so little, like I didn’t know anything. But I did my research, Dr. Meehan. That Hoover got the highest rating and was a Best Value pick! I’m so angry I just want to punch something!”
Upon hearing this, Dr. Meehan straightens up. “You want to punch something?”
“Yes! A pillow or maybe that foam bat you have …”
Dr. Meehan stands up and hurries to the little kitchenette that’s attached to her office. She returns a few seconds later, handing Phyllis a baggie of the Amish Friendship Bread starter. “There you go. Give it a good squeeze! Let out your frustrations! Be careful not to pop it, though. It’ll be an awful mess.”
Phyllis looks at the bag in her hands, not comprehending. “You want me to squeeze the bag?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m writing you a prescription.” Dr. Meehan scribbles something on the back of a piece of paper.
“I don’t really want to go on any medication, Dr. Meehan.” Phyllis looks worried.
“This is a different kind of prescription,” Dr. Meehan assures her, handing Phyllis the instructions for Amish Friendship Bread with a few extra pointers on the back. “Squeeze it, pound it, or wring it, once a day for ten days. Oh, you’ll have to add some things on Day Six, but it will only take you a minute.”
Phyllis looks confused. “That’s it?”
“That’s it! Oh, and on the tenth day, if you want, you can bake two loaves of the bread. It’s quite delicious.”
“But how is this going to help me, Dr. Meehan?”
Dr. Meehan doesn’t know, but at least she has one less bag of starter. One of her clients had given her several slices of the bread and she’d made the mistake of saying how good it was. An hour later, a bag of starter bread and the instructions were sitting in her mailbox. There was a hint of burned rubber in the air, evidence of her client’s quick getaway.
Dr. Meehan doesn’t know why she didn’t think of this earlier. It’s the perfect way to manage these extra bags of starter while still leaving some for her. Genius.
“I can’t explain my process,” she tells Phyllis briskly. She has two more appointments today, and this time she’ll have the starters sitting on the couch, waiting for them. “Let’s just go with it, shall we?”
CHAPTER 9
There’s a small gift on his desk, a pale blue box tied with a generous white ribbon. Mark slips off his jacket and hangs it on the hook on the back of his office door, wondering who it’s from even though he has a pretty good idea.
The office is quiet. Everyone is busy on projects and Victor is at an AIA conference in Istanbul. The annual meeting is in Miami in a couple of months, but Mark didn’t think Victor would make it to June. Victor has given up vacations and even sick days to cover for Mark, to make sure it’s business as usual for Gunther & Evarts. It’s been like this for the past five years and now, by some miracle, Mark finally feels he’s ready to come back. So he sent Victor and his wife to Europe for two weeks, and in the meantime, Mark is the one in charge again.
He didn’t see Vivian this morning at the gym, not that he was looking for her. It’s just that it’s become something of a routine, this informal meeting up in the mornings. They’ll see each other and chat briefly before moving on to their respective workouts. He’s aware of her, of wherever she may be in the gym, but tries not to look her way. They’ll run into each other again on the way out, and then bump into each other twenty minutes later at the coffee shop outside the office. It’s not unusual for them to walk through the doors of Gunther & Evarts Architects at the same time, already caught up on whatever it is they need to discuss, laughing and at ease with one another.
He knows it’s a fine line between friendship and something else, but he appreciates her energy and vivaciousness. She has a brilliant mind, and she’s driven to succeed. He knows at some point they’ll lose her to someone else or she might even go out on her own, but until then he’s grateful to have her talent in the firm.
Mark feels a funny twinge inside and instantly turns his thoughts to Julia, his wife. Not that he needed any reminding. Why should he? He’s lived and breathed her for almost twenty-two years. He loves Julia, has loved her ever since they met at the University of Illinois at Chicago, in the dining hall at Student Center West. He fell for her instantly—her laugh, her wild, untamable hair, her love for organizing and reorganizing things.
“Ta-da!” she’d proclaimed one day. He’d come back to his dorm room after class and found his entire closet rearranged. There were clothes he hadn’t seen in months, cleaned and pressed, hanging side by side. Julia had replaced his ratty wire hangers with white plastic ones. There was some kind of order to the clothing—casual shirts to pants to jackets. A scented girly sachet dangled from the closet bar.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” Mark protested, secretly pleased.
Julia raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I did,” she confessed. “It’s been driving me crazy ever since we met. This place is a pigsty.”
Oh. “It’s not that bad,” he had said defensively.
“You think?” Julia seemed to be waiting for that moment, because she pointed to something on his desk. Upon closer inspection, Mark saw that it was a half-eaten fast-food burrito, still crumpled in its wrapper, sprouting mold like a Chia Pet. “I found that in the pocket of your barn jacket. But I’m happy to put it back. This stuff, too.” She nodded at his cheap garbage can, which was filled with all sorts of disgusting trash.
It was enough to make Mark grimace, and he had a pretty tough constitution. Julia had laughed, tossing the burrito into the trash. She collapsed onto the bed, which, he noticed, was perfectly made. He flopped down next to her and slipped his hand under her shirt, feeling her flat stomach warm beneath his palm. “I’d like to find a way to repay you, but it might require messing up these nice hospital corners that you did.”
Julia had giggled, then stretched herself out on the bed, beckoning him. “Go for it,” she said. So he did.
Mark loves Julia’s body, the smattering of freckles across her nose, her fair skin that burns no matter how much sunblock she slathers on. He loves how she’s up for almost anything, how can she do whatever she sets her mind to. He remembers the year she wanted to go camping, when Josh was eight. She bought all the gear—the tent, the sleeping bags, air mattresses, a camping stove, folding table and chairs, a portable toilet, rain gear, fishing gear, a hammock. She had a full-on medical kit for any potential camping-related mishap for Josh or anyone else at the campsite. They had new backpacks, fancy waterproof flashlights, a crank radio.
Then Julia sprained her ankle. They’d been at the Johnson-Sauk Trail State Park for all of five minutes when Julia tripped over a tree root in the parking lot and went down. They went to the ER, got her ankle X-rayed and wrapped, then drove home. Mark went to the pharmacy for some prescription Tylenol and when he got back, Julia and Josh had somehow managed to pitch the tent in the backyard along with the rest of the gear. Julia stood over the cookstove cracking eggs into the cast-iron skillet while Josh swung in the hammock, happily reading a comic book.
He loves Julia, he loves Julia, he loves Julia. Even with everything that’s happened—the closing off, the withdrawal, the distance—he loves Julia. But he’s coming to realize that he loves his life, too, and he’s ready to move forward, even if Julia is not.
The box sits in the center of his desk, a silent beacon.
Mark busies himself checking his voice mail, taking more time than is necessary to jot down the details of each message, listening to a couple of them twice even though they’re of no consequence. He powers on his computer, waits to see if there are any important emails. There aren’t. When he finishes straightening his desk and shuffling plans around in his vertical filing cabinet, he finally turns his attention to the light blue box in front of him.
His name is written on the envelope in Vivian’s precise script. The notepaper is thick and crisp, embossed with her initials. A light fragrance tickles his nose and he recognizes her perfume.
Mark,
Just a little something to congratulate you on getting the Lemelin deal—I knew you could do it. Thanks for letting me be a part of the G&E family.
Best,
Vivian
Victor, Mark, and Vivian met with Bruno Lemelin shortly after the dinner at Roux, and then worked around the clock to get a proposal to him for his new restaurant concept in the city. He awarded them the project two days ago, and Mark has been on a high ever since. A frenzied high, because Lemelin is every bit the demanding client that Mark has heard about, with no sense of boundaries or office hours, calling Mark at any time during the day or night to add a comment or change his mind. Mark knows the next few months will be all late nights and caffeine, but he doesn’t mind—in fact, he welcomes it. It’s worth it. It could change a lot of things. It could change everything.
Despite his elation, he hasn’t said anything to Julia. She’s been out of the loop with the business since Josh’s death. Understandably so, of course—look how long it’s taken Mark to get back into the swing of things. Julia hasn’t lost her capability, but considers everything overwhelming or unnecessary. Julia will do the bare minimum if she can get away with it.
One of the grief counselors, a woman who wore Birkenstocks and flowing dresses, had gently suggested that maybe Julia wasn’t doing more because she didn’t have to—Mark was stepping up before Julia had the chance. “If someone loses an arm, they feel helpless until they realize they can use their other arm,” the counselor had told him. Mark had just stared at her—he hated metaphors. “If left to her own devices, Julia might help herself,” the woman clarified.
Maybe, but “might” is not a powerful enough word for Mark. Julia might—but she also might not. It seemed like a small thing at first, something any loving husband would do to help his wife. Pick up the slack wherever he can, to try and make it all better.
But now Mark is wondering if maybe that hippie counselor was right, that he’s painted himself into a corner with no way out. It’s become their routine, their dynamic, and he wants to change it. But how?
Strangely enough it isn’t Julia’s reaction that Mark fears, but her lack of it. He can’t bear her possible apathy about the Lemelin news. He doesn’t want to think of what he might feel—or do—in the face of this indifference.
The box sits there, patient. Mark decides to open it.
The white satin ribbon falls away easily. He lifts the lid off the box and sees a soft pouch inside. He reaches inside the pouch and his fingers touch something cool, hard. He pulls out a stately sterling silver compass.
His initials are engraved on the inner lid. The rim of the compass is stamped with 925 T&CO 1837. He doesn’t know the cost but it has to be worth a few hundred dollars. Either way it’s by far one of the most elegant and expensive gifts he’s ever received in his life. He wonders how Vivian had time to do this for him with everything else they have going on.
There’s a knock on his door and he gives a start. His secretary, fifty-four-year-old Dorothy Clements, sails in.
“Good morning,” she says briskly, her eyes trained on her notebook, not bothering to give him any eye contact. Dorothy is fixed in that way, always with her checklists, always wanting to make sure she doesn’t overlook a single thing. She makes it her business to know everyone else’s business, which was invaluable when Mark was here in body but not spirit. She kept him in the loop, the real loop, of what was going on while he did little more than show up and sign paychecks.
It hasn’t escaped Mark’s attention that Dorothy has failed to comment on the gift on his desk, that she doesn’t show the least bit of interest in wanting to know more. “Victor called early this morning to say that things are going well and he sends his best. He also wants to know if you’ve had a chance to talk to Ted Morrow who’s heading up the development of that new housing project over in Edison. Says Ted gave a well-received presentation on green modular architecture that was posted on YouTube.”
Modular architecture? Please. Mark isn’t a snob, but at the same time he’s always craved to be a bit more cutting edge and modular/prefabricated housing somehow doesn’t fit the bill. But Bruno Lemelin’s project does.
Mark notices a smudge on the sterling silver surface of the compass. He uses the felted pouch to buff it clean, careful not to press too hard. “Okay, I’ll give him a call.”
“Victor says he’d talk to him but Ted wants to get in touch with you, hear your ideas.” Dorothy pretends to be writing something in her notebook as Mark admires the compass. “If you’re not going to follow up with Ted, you should tell Victor.”
“Uh-huh.” He gives a slight nod.
She clears her throat. “Because if you’re not going to, a courtesy heads-up would be nice.”
Mark looks up, annoyed. “Dorothy, I am going to follow up with Ted.”
She gives him a pointed look. “When? It’s been two weeks.”
“Well, it’s been a busy two weeks, in case you haven’t noticed.” He gives her a pointed look back, enjoying the banter. It used to be like this, didn’t it? He’s missed it. “Anyway, I want to talk to Victor first but I can’t get the whole time difference thing figured out.”
“Turkey is seven hours ahead.”
“Got it.”
Dorothy goes on to tell him a few more things, and suggests a simple office party tomorrow to celebrate the Lemelin deal—champagne, cake, movie tickets, that sort of thing. Mark agrees. It’s a great idea.
Dorothy lingers by the door. “Oh, and Vivian went home sick today. Stomach flu.” The look on her face is inscrutable. Or is Mark just reading into things?
She leaves and Mark is immediately on the phone, dialing Vivian’s number. She was a key team member in landing the Lemelin project, and it doesn’t make sense to have a party if she can’t be there to celebrate with them.
She answers her phone on the third ring, her voice drawn. “Hi,” she says weakly.
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“Hi.” Mark clears his throat, his mind emptying of whatever it was he was supposed to say. “How are you feeling?”
“Honestly? Like hell. I must have caught a bug.”
“I’m sorry.” He’s genuinely sympathetic. Vivian seems so tough, it’s strange to hear her so down.
“It happens. I’ll get over it.”
She’s tough, just like he said.
“Can I get you anything?” The offer comes out before he has a chance to think twice and he’s relieved when she says no.
Then she asks, “Did you get my gift? I dropped it off late last night.”
Mark’s eyes fall on the compass. The red-tipped orienting needle is over the E so Mark turns the compass until the needle lines up with the N. He tries to ignore the niggling memory of Julia learning to read a compass before that camping attempt a few years back. He couldn’t get her to stop saying “left” or “right,” which of course always changed depending on your location. Cardinal points, however—north, south, east, and west—are constant no matter what direction you face. “I did, and you shouldn’t have. It wasn’t necessary.”
“I know it wasn’t necessary, but I saw it and I instantly thought of you. It suits you, I think.”
He tries for a joke. “You mean in case I ever get lost in the wilderness?”
Vivian’s voice is strained but serious. “In case you ever need any direction.”
There’s an awkward silence. Mark hurries to fill the empty space. “So Dorothy and I were thinking about finding a good time to have a little champagne and cake with the team, hand out some movie tickets or something. But I want to wait until you’re feeling up to it and back at work.”
“That’s so sweet,” she says.
“Well, it’s true. I couldn’t have done it without you.” He needs to stop talking. Why did he say that?
“I’m hoping this is just a twenty-four-hour thing,” Vivian says. “Maybe plan it for the day after tomorrow, just in case?”
