A Clean Slate

by Laura Caldwell

  I had assumed, though, or maybe I’d just decided, that becoming an adult and slowing down my lifestyle were synonymous with a certain loss of passion. So when my job became more routine than challenging, I made partnership the ring to attain. And I’d all but demanded a ring of a different sort from Ben. My reasoning there was somewhat convoluted. First, there was my self-imposed goal of marriage and a kid by thirty-five, a deadline fast approaching. There seemed to be no reason not to get a jump start on that. I did love Ben dearly. I loved having sex with him, loved talking to him about work, loved traveling with him and just generally having him around. And yet there was the fact that last year, long after that night at Ben’s cousin’s wedding, things had staled slightly. We had fewer items to talk about at the end of the day, and we had sex less and less often. The usual, I supposed. That’s what I told myself—that it was common. But then on Christmas, Ben gave me a raincoat and a set of Kohler sink handles I’d wanted for my master bathroom.

  I flipped through the album until I found those pictures. In them, I’m sitting with Ben’s parents, his brothers and their wives, all of us wearing red flannel pajamas in keeping with the Thomas family tradition, and I have, on my lap, an orange goddamn raincoat and a pair of faucet handles. They seemed the kind of gifts a husband would give his wife of forty years. And I was no better. In the picture, Ben is holding up the gifts I’d bestowed on him—a charger for his Palm Pilot and a juicer. After that day, I convinced myself that the complacency was okay, it was natural somehow since we were together for the long haul.

  I stuck with that rationalization until Dee died, and the ground seemed to crack and split under my feet. Suddenly I felt the need to make sure I was right—that Ben and I would be together forever, that I would reach the safety of my goal by thirty-five. I decided that it was time. Time to get married, to think about having kids, to grow up. It was a certain sense of duty, a squaring of my shoulders to the world, and that’s when I gave him the ultimatum.

  I really did want to get married, and I truly did want to marry Ben, but as I gazed at those Christmas pictures now, I wondered if it was for all the wrong reasons.

  I turned the pages of the album and made myself work quickly through the rest of it, as well as the other albums by my side. Nothing surprising there. No photos from the last five months at all. Certainly no pictures of that man who flashed in my memory.

  By the time I put the albums back in the closet, I’d started to doubt whether he really was a memory, and instead I started wondering, not for the first time that week, whether I was just plain crazy.

  Cole had been asking me to come to work anywhere between ten o’clock and twelve, and although I loved sleeping in and not having to rush around like crazy while still groggy and stupid, I also missed the early mornings in Chicago. I used to be at Bartley Brothers by seven-thirty without fail, and I loved my morning routine. Walking the four blocks to Starbucks, taking in the orange glow that rose over the lake and the city’s east side, hearing the call of birds, even in the winter, and just breathing in the fresh scents of a new day. People think you don’t get these things in the city, but you do. You just have to look for them.

  So on Friday morning, even though I didn’t need to be at Cole’s until ten-thirty, I was up and out by seven, loving the crisp feel of the morning, smiling at the commuters I passed. It amazed me how much better I felt from the night before. Sometimes all it took was a solid eight hours in the sack.

  An alarming thought dawned on me after two blocks, though—I didn’t know where the nearest Starbucks was in this neighborhood. After circling around a five-block perimeter I began to get alarmed again. No Starbucks. By then my brain was fighting against the early hour and screaming for caffeine.

  Just then I spotted a little place up the street with thick maroon curtains in the two front windows and a small maroon sign above the door that said Katie’s Coffee, with an actual coffee mug hanging from the letter C. A little too cutesy for me, but it would have to do.

  Inside, the place was even cuter. It was full of old wood tables and fat velvet couches, the rust-colored walls making it feel cozy and warm. At one end was an old decorative fireplace, the kind you see often in the city, but there was actually a fire in this one—at seven-fifteen on a Thursday morning. Amazing. I ordered a latte, tucked myself into a table by the front window and happily whiled away a few hours with the morning papers, thinking that Katie’s might give the mother ship a run for its money.

  “You’re all right then?” Cole said when I walked into his loft.

  “I’m fine.” I’d had a terrible headache since I’d left Katie’s, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

  “Good.” He resumed his typical demeanor—rude, short and impatient—giving me rapid-fire instructions.

  After making me spend half the day rearranging his props closet, Cole introduced me to the darkroom. Developing film was the phase of photography I’d had the least experience with, but every time I’d done it, it never failed to awe me—that magic moment when an image appears.

  I asked a number of questions because the whole point of working with him and putting up with his high and mighty attitude was to learn, after all, and I didn’t want to botch the shots. Unfortunately, my questions only seemed to irritate him further.

  “Jesus bloody Christ,” he said at one point, exhaling pointedly. “These shots I’m having you develop are personal to me. You can’t muck them up!”

  “The shots of William are personal to you?” And what self-respecting man said “muck”?

  “These are not from yesterday’s shoot. I send out most of the commercial work. It would take too much time otherwise. Look, maybe I should just do this myself.”

  “No, I can do it.” I wasn’t sure why I was so keen to prove myself to him. Probably some corporate gunner part of myself that had stuck around even after I’d gotten the ax from Bartley Brothers. “Just a few more questions.”

  “It’s not rocket science, is it?”

  After a silent showdown, Cole exhaled again, then said, “Let me explain one more time.”

  I tried to act like Rainman and make speedy mental notes on his explanation of the englarger, the fixer, the agitating process and the stop bath. I wasn’t sure I understood it all, but when he finally left me alone, I was relieved.

  As I sifted the heavy paper in the developer solution, waiting for the images of God-knows-what to appear—maybe Cole decked out in S&M gear, or a photo of a vodka bottle—I let my mind sift, too. There was something so calming about the process, something so soothing about the golden-red gloom and solitude of the darkroom, that I found I could relax and let my brain roam. I found myself thinking first of Bartley Brothers, how I missed the luxury of that job. The private office, the free snacks, the two-hour, wine-laden lunches with brokers, the self-esteem shot in the arm I got when I told people I was an analyst for one of the most venerable banking institutions in the country.

  Inevitably, when I thought of Bartley Brothers, I thought of Ben, and I realized that I missed the camaraderie I had with him. We used to leave work together nearly every night and rehash our triumphs and failures over dinner or cab rides to the gym. I loved having someone who implicitly understood my job and my co-workers.

  Now, of course, I was completely on my own as Cole’s slave du jour. There was no one who could truly understand my passion for photography alongside my disdain for my boss.

  I tried to focus on what I did like about my new job. Hmm. Well, I was wearing faded jeans, a black turtleneck and my new high-heeled black boots, an outfit that would have been way too funky for Bartley Brothers.

  Was that the only thing I enjoyed about this job? The clothing? There had to be something else. Otherwise, what was I doing here besides pissing away my early thirties?

  I glanced at the tray and saw that something had started to appear. I felt a quickening of excitement in my stomach, which reminded me that this was what I liked about my new gig—the fact that
I was doing something with photography every day. Despite the tickle of anticipation in my belly, I made myself keep the paper moving as Cole had ordered—twist, turn, twist, turn. Something pale appeared first. Someone’s pinkish skin. The expanse of paleness grew. Then there were two eyes. A tickle in my belly again. It was so amazing the way this picture of someone was growing right before me.

  I leaned over and saw, emerging under the left eye, two freckles side by side.

  I stood up and gulped at the air, which seemed stifling now. Was it him? The man from my memory? Did Cole know him somehow?

  I kept my hands moving, kept agitating the paper, since I didn’t want to ruin the shot, but I couldn’t look at it anymore. It scared me, the image of this guy. On one hand, I wanted to know who he was and what he knew, if anything, about why I couldn’t remember. At the same time, I was afraid that by giving me answers, he might bring with him all the memories of this summer, and I could lose myself again.

  Finally, I had to remove the photo or risk overdeveloping it. Without looking into the tray, I lifted out the dripping shot and dropped it in the stop bath. Later, I transferred it into the fixer and finally clipped it to a line hanging over my head, all the while managing to not look directly at it. When it was secure, I couldn’t avoid it any longer. With another deep breath, I raised my eyes and stared directly at the photo.

  I laughed.

  It wasn’t the man with two freckles. It was a close-up of a little girl maybe three years old. She had dark, shiny hair that hung to her chin, big round eyes and a sprinkling of freckles over her nose and both cheeks. I laughed again. I’d let my imagination get the best of me.

  There were other photos of the little girl, a number of them taken from a distance with a large lens, shots of her playing by herself in a sandbox, crouched on her little legs over a bucket.

  When I was done, I took a few out to Cole, who was sitting at a kitchen table that doubled as a desk, judging from the notes and papers he had spread over it.

  “Did you want to see these now?” I asked, blinking rapidly in the light of the studio, which was blazingly bright after the darkroom.

  He took them from my hand without a word and studied them.

  “Who is she?” I said.

  “My niece.” He didn’t look up.

  “Does she live around here?”

  “Outside of London.”

  “She’s adorable.”

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at my watch. I’d given up on a thank-you or a comment about how well I’d developed them. “I’ll be heading out then, unless there’s something else you want me to do.”

  “No, no. You can go.”

  I left him there, sitting at that table, still staring at the little girl.

  12

  “The two-freckled man?” Laney said. “That’s what you’re calling him?”

  I nodded and sipped my margarita, thinking back to that image I thought I’d seen in the tray. I must have been in the darkroom too long, the dim, eerie lighting affecting my thinking or my vision.

  “You know,” Laney said, “you’re making him, whoever he is, sound like a circus freak with that name.”

  “I know, I know, but it makes it more amusing than scary.”

  We were at Uncle Julio’s Hacienda, our favorite spot for dinner and margs. The place was packed that night. The crowd spilled into the bar area, where everyone jostled for a spot at the long rectangular tables or at least a handful of chips from the baskets on them.

  “Well, it is scary, this memory thing,” Laney said. “You really should see Dr. Markup or someone.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” I said, slightly irritated that she was bringing up the doctor bit again. “What I mean is, who the hell is this guy? It freaked me out last night when his face just came to me like that. Maybe he’s a serial killer. Maybe I witnessed a heinous crime, and that’s why I can’t remember. Maybe he’s looking for me right now!” Through my tequila buzz, I noticed my voice had gotten rather shrill.

  “Let’s not be melodramatic.”

  I shot her a look.

  “Seriously,” she said. “It could be someone you saw on TV or in the paper. He might be a model you saw in an ad, and for some reason you’re getting this flash of him like you do in dreams sometimes. You might not know him at all.”

  It was possible, but what Laney was saying didn’t seem right. I had the feeling I’d known this guy somewhere, at some time.

  “Why didn’t you call me about this last night?” she asked. She put her glass down on the table, her eyes down, her dark bangs falling over her face.

  “I did. I tried you at all of your numbers. Where were you?”

  “Out with Gear.” She gave that nervous chuckle of hers.

  “Everything all right with him?”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, sure.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Well, you didn’t even call me today to talk about it.”

  “I was at work, if you can call it that. You were at work, too.”

  Laney ran a finger around the wide mouth of her glass.

  “What? What is it?”

  She shrugged again. “Normally, you’d call me right away about the slightest thing.”

  “I did call you right away.”

  “But you didn’t leave a message.”

  “No. I’ve put you through enough over the last year. You don’t need to deal with me all the time. I just figured I’d fill you in when I saw you, and that’s what I’m doing.”

  “You’re not bugging me, you know. You can call me anytime.”

  “I know that.”

  “Okay.” She picked up her glass again. “Well, let’s consider the possibilities then for Mr. Two Freckles. Was he cute?”

  I thought about his rippled dark hair, those kind blue eyes. “Oh, yeah.”

  “So maybe he was a model you saw in an ad.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not convinced.”

  “Well, I’m not convinced that the serial killer possibility has legs, so what could it be?”

  I thought of how, in my first flash of him, the man’s face was close to mine and his mouth was moving, saying something to me. It seemed intimate somehow, and that gave me a great idea. “A one-night stand!”

  “What?” She looked at me skeptically.

  “Seriously. Maybe I was sleeping with him.”

  “Honey, you were in that apartment all the time.”

  “But you don’t know that for sure. You weren’t there the entire time, were you?”

  “No, but—”

  “And you don’t know who I had visiting. So maybe I was sleeping with him. Maybe he was my first one-night stand!”

  I’m not sure why I felt so sophomorically pleased with this possibility, but I didn’t have the opportunity to think about it anymore, because two guys angled themselves into our space, probably drawn by my loud ramblings about one-night stands.

  “Could we share your end of the table?” one of them said. He was cute enough, with brown hair cut short, wearing khakis and a yellow sweater. His friend wore black pants and a black shirt, making me think of Johnny Cash.

  Laney shot me a look that said, Just say the word and I’ll get rid of them.

  But if I hadn’t slept with the two-freckled guy that meant I probably hadn’t had sex for about six months. Here were two nice, reasonably attractive guys flirting with us. Why not talk with them? Who knew what could happen?

  So I gave them a smile and made a little space on the table for their drinks, and started chatting with the Johnny Cash character. There was no doubt about it. He was flirting with me. He gave a toothy, knowing smile while he shook my hand and introduced himself. He leaned forward and spoke in my ear, asking if he could buy me a drink.

  And with that, I promptly got cold feet. I struggled to remember what I used to talk about all those nights, before Ben, when I trawled the bars, trying to meet guys. What moves did I make? Did I have lines that worked like
a charm? It all seemed so long ago.

  I gave Johnny Cash another smile, but I could feel it come out bitter and frozen. The giggle I attempted sounded more like gunfire. My confidence evaporated. I couldn’t believe I’d ever liked flirting. Meanwhile, Johnny seemed less and less interested, his eyes reaching over my head to scan the room while he took a tiny step back to create distance between us. Within five minutes, I was giving Laney the big-eyed nod-of-the-head signal that said, Get me the hell out of here.

  She did. And shortly thereafter, we were at Laney’s place, having a quiet little girls’ dinner of Subway sandwiches and Amstel Light.

  A headache woke me at six the next morning, and by seven-thirty I was at Katie’s Coffee, hoping to chase it away with caffeine. I dumped my stuff in the window seat and ordered a mug of hazelnut latte from the Rastafarian dude working the counter. So far, I hadn’t met anyone named Katie, but everyone she had working there was unbelievably nice, always coming by your table to give you a refill or to see if you wanted a muffin. As much as I loved the mother ship, I could get used to this kind of service.

  As I sat in the window, under the velvety curtains, I watched the commuters passing by on their way to the El or the bus. The early ones were usually slower moving, rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, their chins tucked down into their scarfs, but by the time the nine o’clock hour came closer, they were ramrod straight and rushing, rushing, rushing forward with expressions bordering on panic.