by Lass Small
His friends dragged him to different places where things would be mixed up and interesting. He was bored. He wandered around with an empty glass, and even knowing he wouldn’t find her, he looked for Kayla.
There were men who mentioned, “Saw Kayla at the boxing match. She was on the first row and she was really involved.”
Unbelievingly, Tyler’s voice squeaked up as he exclaimed, “At a boxing match? She was there?”
The guy laughed. “Yeah. She’s physical.”
That froze Tyler’s heart. How...physical had she been...with who all?
So the TEXAS winter came along. That’s a whole lot like the Yankee spring. But in their winter, the thin blooded TEXANS put on jackets and complained about the cold.
It had snowed twice in Tyler’s twenty-eight years. One of those times the snow had lasted two whole days before the TEXAS winter warmed enough to melt the miracle.
The native TEXANS said, “I don’t understand those Yankees who winter down here. Those Winter TEXANS. They complain so about the northern snow! It’s such a surprise and so pretty! How come the Yankees come down here instead of staying up yonder and enjoying the miracle?”
Now, how was a Winter TEXAN supposed to reply to that?
And for Tyler, time did pass. He worked hard at his office. When he was out, he found he could catch a glimpse of Kayla now and again. Or someone who might have been she. Someone who walked like Kayla...who wasn’t. Several times in those months, he’d run after a woman and then awkwardly apologized.
One of those mistakes had grinned and waited for him to make some move to know her. But Tyler’s disappointment had been such that he couldn’t see the woman as a woman. She just wasn’t Kayla.
Tyler Fuller was a lawyer. The firm Reardon, Miller and Rodriguez had about fifty lawyers downtown. There were branches of the firm in other locations.
Tyler was in an awesome firm in which he was just a growing mushroom. He was under a woman lawyer who was only eight years older than he. She was Barbara Nelson. And she was not married. Not that marriage would have slowed her down any.
Barbara’s secretary handed out work and some was given to Tyler. A buck slip or a route slip was on the document for information.
Through her secretary, Barbara Nelson had Tyler drafting documents, writing briefs, handling the background for labor disputes, Social Security disability petitions and interviews with clients or opponents.
All the problems were run-of-the-mill except for the persons involved. The problems could be divorce, bankruptcy, or pretrial motions or interviews with prospective witnesses.
Some days, Tyler might have to go to the police station and check files, or see doctors who had pro or con evidence. Tyler was busy.
His secretary was from the firm’s pool. And he tried always to get Marian Web because she was so brilliant that she never made a mistake nor did she allow him to make any. She was his mother’s age and tolerant of Tyler. That was clear when she adjusted her commitments so that she could mostly help Tyler.
Women spoiled him rotten.
Well, some women.
His immediate boss, Barbara Nelson, was thirty-six years old. She was a single woman who had control, and she was in charge. She was confident, selective, and she was blunt. She didn’t chew tobacca. That was a plus.
Tyler had no real qualms about her until his divorce. Then, once, the Nelson woman had patted his bottom! He’d been offended.
She’d always smiled at Tyler and watched his body when he was walking toward her. His sex loved it. His brain was offended. But she hadn’t approached him until just after his divorce.
She’d say, “Let’s have a drink after work.”
He’d ask, “Is this important? There’s batting practice.” Tyler was on the legals’ baseball team. And she wouldn’t find out if what he said was true. That’s why he’d never used the excuse of a business appointment. She could check it out.
With his baseball-used rejection, Barbara had smiled and told him, “Since we work together, I just thought it would be nice...to get acquainted.”
He lied to her with great grief-stricken eyes, “I’m going to a shrink. I can’t handle this divorce.”
So Barbara had half lowered her eyelids as she said, “Let me know when you’re more...open.”
His sex bulged, his back shivered and his throat clacked as he said, “Yes.” And he got away.
Again Tyler had lied. He had no notion of ever getting involved with that woman. She terrified him. And he began to understand the slender woman in the secretary pool who wore high neck, bulky clothes and no makeup and kept her face blank and serious with her eyes downcast.
It was only then Tyler realized—what was her name? It was Martha. Martha never said one word. She had to’ve talked some time. But she had no casual or friendly chatter to share.
He went to Martha and told her, “Help me. Pretend you and I are a couple. No! I promise I’ll leave you alone. I’m just divorced. I don’t want any ties. Pretend we’re good friends.”
“Leave me alone.”
That’s what she said.
And she didn’t wait until he replied. Martha was brief and finished. She’d said it all.
Tyler was out on a raft in a dangerous sea and no one but the sharks were aware of him.
Even men have it rough. That was a revealing and startling observation. Up until then, Tyler had thought men had it all. That men controlled the world and their own lives as they chose. How the world... changes.
Tyler didn’t have a whole lot of trouble in seeming to be solemn. He simply didn’t laugh. He didn’t join the groups that stood and chatted. He kept to himself, harboring, nurturing his grief.
So John Reardon, who was the Big Gun of the Firm, called Tyler into his office. That was a shock. Tyler’s mind went over everything he’d done and wondered where he’d fouled up.
He was on time at Mr. Reardon’s appointment. He sat in the outer office, and the secretary smiled at him. She said, “We don’t see much of you anymore.”
He looked at her...her name was Nancy. He said, “Yeah.”
“Mr. Reardon will be free in a minute. He just wants to know if you’re okay. You used to be so funny. Since your divorce, you’ve gotten so quiet that we all worry about you.”
She was kind to tell him why he was there. A whole lot of knots loosened in his body and he could relax a little. But he didn’t smile. Fortunately, he’d been so panicked that he didn’t yet smile. So he could control it.
Nancy said, “All of us are worried about you. I thought we ought to have a party for you. A freedom party, now that you’re single again. But Mr. Reardon said, ‘Not yet.’ So we’ll wait until you can enjoy it...too.” She grinned at him.
His smile was a little sick. In an office as big as theirs was, how could any one of them have the time to notice somebody like him? It was touching in a way, but it made Tyler feel as if he was on a stage, alone...without a script.
He’d never realized anyone in the firm had noticed him. Other than his boss, Barbara Nelson.
He’d lived in a secure niche of anonymity while he was married. Now, divorced, he was loose and vulnerable. He began to understand women who were in the same slot he was in then. He understood Martha’s bundled-up clothing and her lack of animation.
His meeting with Mr. Reardon was longer than necessary. Tyler had work to do. He was a little restless.
“I know how you feet,” Mr. Reardon told Tyler. “I’ve been where you are now. It’s been some years ago, but that doesn’t soften such a happening. I know just exactly what you’re going through.”
So Mr. Reardon got to go through it all again. It was too much. As empathetic as the top gun was, Tyler was busy. He had work to do. No two situations are ever the same. No one knows what another suffers. Mr. Reardon had had an affair, and his first wife had found out.
Tyler had had no affair. All that he’d done was to try to expand Kayla’s knowledge of adventures. She’d misunders
tood, been ungrateful and stubborn. Women are a great nuisance.
There is no substitute for women.
That was a very sobering realization. A man married, and that was it! He had a partner for life. To have and to hold. And she’d wiggled away from him and was gone!
Then Tyler heard that Mr. Reardon was saying with a sigh, “It happens. You’ll get through this in time. We’re all backing you. Chin up!”
And Tyler was touched. Whatever the big man had been saying, he meant to help. Tyler rose and stood tall. “Thank you, sir.”
Mr. Reardon inquired kindly, “You sure you don’t want a couple of days off?”
“No, sir.” Tyler was startled. Had the old man been trying to give him some time off? He said earnestly, “I’d like to get things done.” Then he added gently, “Mother says a man needs distraction. Law is surely that.”
“Yes, my boy. You’re a good man.” Reardon nodded in agreement with his words. “I’m glad we have you with us. If there’s ever any problem, just let us help.”
“Thank you, sir.” And Tyler was surprised to find his eyes were moist.
It got worse when Mr. Reardon stood up and came around the desk to put an arm over Tyler’s shoulders. “I’m glad we had this talk. Remember, you’re one of us.”
Really touched, Tyler almost choked on his emotions. “Thank you, sir.”
“I’m here, my boy. Anytime.”
And he escorted Tyler to the door where they shook hands.
Imagine that. Tyler walked unseeing down the corridor. Just imagine that whole place being aware of one little, wet-eared lawyer. He was brilliant, of course, but not everyone of the firm had that knowledge, as yet.
He went back to his desk and sat down in the shared office.
His office mate was Jamie Oliver. Jamie asked, “Everything go okay?”
And Tyler swung his chair around and said with the amazement he felt, “The old man wanted to know if I’m okay.”
“You foul up something? How can I help?”
And Tyler laughed. But he was again touched. Even Jamie was on his side. Not even competitive! He just asked to help. And Tyler’s eyes got wet again.
Jamie got up and came over very seriously to lean down. “What is it?”
“They wanted to help me get through this problem with Kayla. It’s been a while. They thought I needed help. I turned down a drink with Nelson.”
Jamie frowned at Tyler. “That was rash. I’d jump at any chance like that.”
Tyler laughed. “‘You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din.”’
“I know.” And Jamie walked back to his chair, sat, rolled his chair in to his desk and was immediately absorbed in the papers.
That evening with his parents, Tyler told his dad about the firm’s head honcho. “I was surprised. It never occurred to me anyone else would understand.”
“We all understand,” his dad assured his son. “Have you seen the darlin’ lately?”
Well, Tyler surely knew Kayla was the “darlin’” mentioned. And he was a little irritated to have her called a darling. She was the one who’d left him. A bit stilted, Tyler replied, “No.”
His father sighed rather too heavily and lamented, “How did you let her get away?”
And, unfortunately, Tyler snapped, “I was only trying to educate her and—” But he didn’t get to explain.
His father looked up at his own son in aghast shock! “You hurt her?”
“No! Good gravy, Dad! I took her to see what had garnered such a crowd and found out there was a dogfight! I’d never seen one and thought she would be curious, too.”
And his father’s face changed from alarm to indignation. “You took that fragile flower to a dogfight?” His voice squeaked up rather remarkably. “They’re illegal.”
And with seriousness, Tyler went on. “I know that. I’ve contacted the state police. I’ve offered to be a witness.” He was deadly. “She was not frightened. She bought four of the dogs and put them in the car. I had to walk home!”
His father stared for the count of three, then his closed mouth stretched out, his body began to jiggle and after that the laughter rolled.
Tyler stood trying to get in some logical, adult information. But with the hilarity of his father’s misguided sense of humor, Tyler finally gave up. He left his parents’ house, slammed the door, shaking the entire, bulky structure, and went to his own apartment.
Then he went back for his car and drove it to the apartment. He turned off the phone bell and in spite of his lengthy walk to retrieve his car, he had one hell of a time trying to calm down and sleep that night.
Now, how and why was it that everyone in the sprawled-out city of the diversified San Antonio learned what that Fuller family conversation had been? Guess.
Even the whisperings and giggles and guffaws at the office were to be endured. In just a couple of days, look at the turnaround of the whole layout of his life...from compassion to hilarity.
Tyler was sober, businesslike and he ignored the snorts of laughter. The only one who showed any sympathy, at all, was his office mate, Jamie.
Jamie said, “Sometime, when you can handle it, I’ll tell you what happened to me. But from my own experience, I can give you this—you’ll live. Ignore the pack. They have little sunlight in their lives. You’ve given them this magic moment.” Jamie never looked up from his computer. His voice was moderate. He did not laugh.
Oddly, the joke on Tyler eased all the firm people’s acquired facade. What had happened to Tyler was worse than most of what had happened to them. Such a public put-down as he’d had made Tyler vulnerable. And they all understood vulnerability.
But it made his boss, Barbara Nelson, eager to soothe Tyler.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
He complained to Jamie.
Jamie said, “She can soothe me.”
Distracted, irritated, Tyler said, “I’ll tell her.”
“Get my name right. She calls me Johnny.”
So Tyler explained her mistake. “People in control of many others have some difficulty with names.”
“She sure as hell knows yours.”
“I’m divorced, so I’m not a wet-nosed kid. She expects me to know the ropes?”
Jamie smiled. He licked his lips and put his lower lip under his teeth but he didn’t reply or embellish anything.
He made Tyler laugh.
What a time it was. His longing for Kayla. His adjustment at the office. The adjustment of the coworkers to him. Their now knowing who he was because of all the problems he was having. And it was all because of one woman. Kayla. Kayla Davie who chose to discard Tyler’s name.
That Kayla Davie Fuller was due a set down. Any woman her age ought to be more pliant than she was. She acted as if she had all her life to find a good man. One better than Tyler.
What man was better than he?
Two
Especially in big cities, there are little sections or groups of people who are isolated by their jobs or interests or kinship. Each segment believes they are The City. They’re the important ones. It’s mental territory.
It is solely for them that the city puts on the park festivals, the food tastings, the bands playing and the marching parades. It is all done only for their segment’s own entertainment.
The other people who are there are just phantom people.
The actual citizens who live among friends hardly ever even see the phantoms who are busily involved in their own lives and their own groups. Well, they don’t see them unless some hungry eyes are looking for someone of the opposite sex. Then they see everybody!
But mostly a group sees only those in their own group, and they ignore the many others who are all unseen shadows. The phantom ones drive cars and walk streets and go to grocery stores and to their cleaners.
The phantoms are like elevator background music. They are there to fill in the edges of lives so that no one believes he’s alone. The phantoms are busy with things to be don
e.
So are those busy people who think they are so special that the world is really just theirs. To those who believe they are the ones in control, the world is for them. Simple. That is true. But all the segments of people think that way. It is their own group that is the important, vibrant, needed one.
For those isolated, self-contained groups, the strangers’ houses might just as well be empty. The unknowns’ offices are blank. The other people in the restaurants don’t county. Not unless you’re looking and then those strange ones are real but unknown others.
Few people think about all those unknown others who live in the city and move about. They don’t really matter unless they get into some kind of trouble. Then everybody helps. Helping isn’t thought out, it is reaction.
Such thinking was just so, for those who were involved with Tyler and Kayla.
Their friends and kinfolk talked to each other about the divorced pair. At a remote family wake, one cousin of Tyler’s mother said of the divorced pair, “I do declare I’ve never seen any couple so hostile to each other. Even Cousin Douthet didn’t carry on this badly. I’ve no patience with the two of them.”
“Hush! Tyler is right over there, and he can hear you!”
The cousin pinched her mouth as she lifted her eyebrows and looked down without moving her head. “Listening to me just might do him some good.”
And at her side, a male voice inquired softly, “What would you say to him?”
It was Tyler himself who spoke. So his mother’s Cousin Maren replied, “You ought to’ve been talking to that child, all along. She’s a Davie, and you let her get away from you!”
“I wasn’t there when she left.” Well, he was asleep...on the sofa in the living room. But he had the audacity to add, “I had no choice.”
And Cousin Maren replied, “Once I left Hebert!” She raised staying hands and turned her head aside. Although no one said anything, Cousin Maren held up her hands as if they’d all gasped and protested such an act. She went on: “And Hebert came to Daddy’s house and said, ‘You get her out here as quick as you can!”’
