Office Girl

by Joe Meno

  And Jack nods too, watching her perform her vanishing act again.

  ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON AT ONE P.M.

  Together they lock their bicycles up off of Madison, and Odile lugs two huge paper grocery bags with her, and they sneak into the parking garage, walking row by row by row until they find the professor’s car, the teal Subaru, there on the fourth level. Odile has her green hood up and Jack is in his blue hat. And they stare at the car for a moment, standing beside each other in the near dark, the smell of snow and salt melting along the concrete floor, before Odile finally opens up one of the paper bags. They are filled with bunches and bunches of bananas, some bright yellow, some green, some already gone black.

  “Bananas?” he asks.

  “Bananas. They were on sale so I got like a hundred of them. I thought, because they’re really kind of phallic, and also, pretty much the funniest fruit in the world …”

  “What are we supposed to do with them?”

  “I don’t know. Put them on his car. Like smash them into his windshield or something. Here,” and she hands him two bunches, one green and one yellow.

  Jack stares down at the bananas and frowns, looking at the second paper bag near Odile’s feet. “So what’s in the other bag?”

  “Some frozen dog shit I found in front of my apartment.”

  “You brought dog shit? Really?”

  “I don’t know. Why not?”

  “I don’t know. That seems a little harsh.”

  “It’s not harsh.”

  “Well, what about our masks?”

  “Oh. Right,” and she digs into the pocket of her parka and finds the two ski masks, handing the red one to Jack. He takes it in his hand and looks at it, but does not put it on. Odile already has the black mask over her face, and is smooshing bananas all over the rear windshield.

  “Come on,” she says. “Let’s hurry. He gets out of class at two.”

  Jack nods but doesn’t move. He stands there and watches as Odile heaps the bananas all over the roof and hood of the car. She begins unpeeling a few, smashing them against the cruddy glass of the front windshield.

  When she notices Jack still hasn’t moved, she looks over at him and frowns. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I guess I don’t feel like doing this.”

  “Come on. It’s fun. It’s funny. We’re striking a defining blow at artistic mediocrity. He’s gonna shit his pants.”

  “No,” Jack says, still holding the bananas. “I don’t think I want to do this anymore. It’s kind of mean.”

  Odile pulls the black mask off her face. “This guy, you heard him at that gallery. He’s everything you’re against. He’s just this cynical know-it-all …”

  Jack pushes his glasses up against the bridge of his nose and says, “So?”

  “So?” she shouts, getting red-faced. “What do you mean, so?”

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry but I think I’m going to go,” he says, handing her back the bunches of unripened bananas. He looks at her again, then down at the bananas, and then slowly he begins to walk away, heading down the angled concrete ramp.

  “We’re just too similar,” she calls out. “That’s the problem.”

  He stops and turns to face her. “We’re not similar at all.”

  “Either way,” she says.

  “I just don’t know why you’re moving. Actually, I think it’s pretty dumb.”

  “I told you why. If I don’t do it now, I never will. I’ll just be some office drone ten years from now, wishing I had done something interesting at least once in my life.”

  “I just don’t get what you think is going to happen there. I don’t understand it. What’s there that’s not here?”

  “You wouldn’t understand it. You don’t like taking chances. You’re kind of weak that way.”

  “What? What are you talking about? I’m not weak.”

  “You kind of are. You don’t like to do anything on your own. And you don’t ever finish anything. Like all those tapes in your apartment. I think you like the idea of being an artist more than you actually like making things.”

  “What? What are you talking about?” He steps toward her.

  “You don’t do anything interesting on your own,” she says, shrugging beneath her green hood. “I’m just stating a fact.”

  And Jack gets right in her face and says: “Well, at least I don’t think I’m something I’m not.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You think you’re some kind of genius but you work in a crummy little office just like everybody else. You’re worse than all those people. At least they don’t think they’re something special. You. You’re just some office drone and you don’t even know it.”

  Odile’s eyes go wide. “Okay. Wow. I think we’re done talking here.”

  “Good,” he says.

  “Good,” she repeats. And then: “I think I want my button back now.”

  “What?”

  “The button I made. I’d like it back right now.”

  And Jack looks down and sees the small black F button on his coat. He grabs it, unpins it, and places it in her hand a little too roughly.

  “Great,” he says, and then walks off, this time as quickly as he can.

  At the bottom of the parking garage’s steep incline, he finds his bicycle locked next to hers. They seem so happy together, and yet a few moments later, slipping the bike lock into his back pocket, they are soon parted. And then the sight of her green bicycle locked there alone seems particularly sad and ridiculous.

  AND THAT NIGHT AT WORK.

  The two of them do not talk in the break room before their shift because Odile doesn’t show up on time, and when she does arrive it’s almost an hour late and Gomez yells at her and it looks like she’s going to cry or maybe quit right there but she doesn’t. And the two of them, Odile and Jack, sit beside each other in their cubicles, answering their telephones, each waiting for the other to make the first move. But neither of them do. It’s too weird at first and neither of them knows what to say. And so they say nothing. Which is a mistake. Because then it is almost ten p.m. before Odile finally concedes. And when she does, she pokes her face into his cubicle angrily.

  “I’m not going to play these games with you!” she shouts, though careful of the volume of her voice.

  “Okay,” he says. “Neither am I. I mean, I don’t want to play any games.”

  “Great. Wonderful,” and her head disappears back behind the cubicle wall again.

  And he really wants to know what Odile is thinking and so, after a half hour, he leans over and says: “Listen. I’m sorry about what I said. But I really like you and I think it’s kind of stupid that you’re leaving. I mean … can we … I mean … will you just talk to me?”

  But Odile doesn’t answer. All he can see is the back of her head, the shape of her dark hair, the ridge of her left ear.

  “Because right now it’s really weird,” he continues. “Maybe we should … I mean, maybe you think it was all a mistake. Is that what you think?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No. But I don’t know why you’re being so weird.”

  “I’m not being weird,” she says.

  “No, it’s like you’re purposefully trying to be mean or something.”

  “I’m not. It’s just … It’s just really complicated. I really like you, but—” and then she doesn’t finish her sentence. “Shit. Gomez is watching.”

  And Jack looks up and Gomez is standing in the conference room with a half-eaten enchilada, some of it dotting his white shirt, staring at them with a suspicious look.

  “If it’s that big of a problem … we can just forget it. It’s like no big deal. I mean … we were just having fun. It’s not like it has to mean anything. We can just totally forget it,” Jack says, hoping she will immediately, definitively say no. No. No.

  But she doesn’t.

  And he can’t see her face; it’s obscur
ed by the gray cubicle wall and she’s saying in a soft, hurt tone, “Okay. Whatever. If that’s what you want.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll just, you know, forget all about it. That’s great.”

  And she won’t look at him.

  And Jack is nodding, not believing what either of them is saying. And his face feels hot and he coughs a little and says, “Okay. Great.”

  “Great. Your problem is my problem,” she says, still not looking at him.

  “Okay. Cool.”

  “I don’t think I’m special. I want you to know that,” Odile says sharply. “I don’t think I’m better than everybody else.”

  And he nods and his face is really red. He does not know what to say and so he keeps nodding his head and then he watches her face disappear behind the cubicle wall one more time. And then it’s like that the rest of the night. Moment after moment, hour after hour, absolutely quiet, even in the elevator going down.

  ON HIS BICYCLE THEN.

  And then they are unlocking their bicycles and still not talking. And she is taking off into the snow without saying a word. And Jack does not know what to do and so he follows her at a distance. And she is in her gray skirt and black tights riding her bike toward her apartment and he is thinking of what he can say to her now. And a few moments later her bicycle slips in the snow and she crashes into a parked car and so she begins shouting. He feels embarrassed seeing her shout like that and also guilty having seen it and he knows he is somehow to blame for the way she is standing there in the street screaming. And so he pauses. And then turns away as quickly as he can.

  AND SO RETURNING TO HIS APARTMENT THAT NIGHT AT TWO A.M.

  Jack sits on the bed, staring at the dirty sheets, at the subtle indentation of Odile’s body, the shape her face once made on the pillow, taking in the scent of her hair, the odor of her body, her toothpaste, her sweat, the particular smell of her clothes still on everything—the sofa cushions, in his mouth, on his face, his fingers, his hands. And he gets up and then stands in the short hall that leads to the parlor and stares at the boxes and boxes of cassette tapes, shoe boxes everywhere stacked tall, filling every corner, placed along every wall, from the front door to the bathroom, and then he pulls his shoes on and begins carrying them out in stacks as high as eight or nine, balancing them against his arms, carrying them out of the apartment and down the hall right over to the trash chute. And he opens the grimy trash chute door, and one by one he slides them through. He does it without thinking, not mad or sad or angry, only feeling like something is finally over, because something is over, and Odile has already heard it, and there is no one else in the world he can imagine wanting to share this with, and so it is finally finished, and after he has shoved each box down the chute, all four hundred and some odd minicassettes disappearing through the black square opening, he walks back inside his apartment, opens the bedroom closet, and finds the three gift-wrapped boxes, Elise’s Christmas presents, sitting there on the top shelf. He scratches his nose and then grabs the three red and silver boxes, each tied with a bow, and marches down the hallway again. He opens the trash chute one more time and feeds each of them in—a hair dryer, a box set of CDs, a book by a German writer she loves—and then closes the metal door with a bang. And then he rubs his hands on the knees of his pants and walks back inside his place. He stands there for a full minute, looking at the walls, the floors, the doorways, now uncrowded, now completely bare, years of sunlight on the south-facing wall having etched the outlines of some of the stacks of boxes along the north-facing wall, so that there’s still a silhouette, a shadow of an imaginary skyline, and he stands there and looks around and sighs, feeling happy with himself for the moment. And then Jack stares at his answering machine sitting there on the small card table and thinks about recording over Elise’s voice message. But he doesn’t do that just yet. He will, but not yet. And after that he walks over to his desk and picks up the pencil and goes to work on his screenplay.

  ON THAT WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

  He wakes up and feels his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth because he must have taken too many Xanax and as he’s trying to climb out of his bed in a fog, he hears the phone ringing, and he squints and cannot remember where he has left it, and it keeps ringing and ringing and he finally finds it under a pillow and he holds it upside down to the side of his face and says “Hello” a few times before he realizes his mistake, and it’s Magdalena, his stepfather David’s wife, his stepfather’s ex-wife now, and she says, “David wants to see you. He’s not feeling so good. He had the operation but now he has an infection and he’s not doing so good,” and Jack takes down the name of the hospital and his stepfather’s room number, then puts the phone back under the pillow again.

  And later he washes his face. And tries to comb his hair. And polishes his glasses on the corner of his shirt. And he goes outside and rides through the snow on his bicycle, all the way down Ashland Avenue to the medical district off of Harrison, and there he finds St. Luke’s and locks his bicycle up out front, and then enters the lobby, and signs his name, and gets a pass, and then takes the elevator to the fourth floor. And there is his stepfather’s room, and there is his stepdad, David, huddled beneath some blue sheets, and it’s obvious he has been heavily medicated. His face looks saggy, as if it’s made out of wax. There is a morphine drip and the little button to control it is wedged in his stepfather’s right hand. And his stepfather’s grayblue eyes are open but he’s staring at nothing, just the pink wall really. The left corner of his lip is white with some drool. And so Jack takes a seat beside him and puts a hand on his stepfather’s rounded shoulder.

  “David?”

  “Ugh.”

  “David?”

  “Hm.”

  “David? David Goldberg?”

  “Ughhh.”

  “It’s Jack. How are you doing?”

  “Ughhhhhhhhhhh.”

  “What happened, David? Are you okay?”

  “I’m all fouled up, Jack. They fouled me up.”

  “Are you resting? Do you want me to come back later?

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

  “Yes. They gave me morphine but it doesn’t seem to help too much. I’ve got an infection. MRSA. It’s a staph infection. I got it after they opened it up. Now I got a pretty bad fever and they don’t know how long I’ll be in here for. I feel like I’m dying.”

  “Do you want me to leave? I can come back later. Or tomorrow even.”

  “No.”

  “Okay, well, I’m just gonna sit here. How’s that?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay. Do you need anything? Do you want some water?”

  “Yes.”

  Jack pours a glass of water and hands it to his stepfather, who is unable to keep his hands still so Jack holds it for him and gives him a small sip. The water runs down his stepfather’s chin and wets the front of his blue hospital gown.

  “You’re not doing so good.”

  “No. Look at me. Look what they did to me.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They opened me up. And now I’m sick. I’ve had it. Close the shutters. Good night, Irene.”

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  “No. They ruined me. I’m all ruined. Magdalena came by and said I look terrible. That’s what she said.”

  “You don’t look so bad.”

  “I’m not going to be alive next New Year’s. I know it.”

  “What? You’ll be fine.”

  “No. This is it. I can tell.”

  “It’s just an infection.”

  “No. It’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of the end.”

  “You’ll be out of here in a few days. You got to tough it out.”

  “No. No, I know it now. Nothing lasts. Nothing lasts.”

  “Come on, don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true.”


  “Because. You’re going to be fine. I know it.”

  “No, I’m not. You’ve got to help me, Jack.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Help me.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. Just help me.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. I think I want to pray.”

  “You want to pray?” Jack says, smiling, surprised, having never known his stepdad to be even remotely religious.

  “I think so. Can you help me?”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Turn off the lights maybe.”

  “What lights?”

  “The lights. The lights,” his stepdad mutters anxiously, pointing at the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

  “Okay, okay, I’m turning off the lights.” And Jack stands and yanks the switch down, and then the room folds itself into darkness. “Now what?”

  “I don’t know. Can you help me pray?”

  “What? I don’t think I know any prayers. We never went to church. Or temple or anything.”

  “You have to try to help me. Please. I want to pray.”

  “Okay. What prayer do you want to do?”

  “Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Pray,” his stepfather says, taking Jack’s hand.

  David’s fingers are warm, much too warm. Jack feels them in his own and he nods quietly and says: “Okay.”

  “Okay. Close your eyes.”

  Jack closes his eyes. His stepfather does so as well. There is silence, or an approximation of silence, in the room for a moment, and then David begins whispering something. It is very quiet at first and then it gets a little louder. And then it’s a little louder again. He is humming something but Jack does not recognize it at first.

  “David, what are you saying?”

  “I’m singing.”

  “What are you singing?”

  “‘Sitting by My Window.’”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “By the Tinos. It was the first forty-five I ever bought. Sing it with me.”

  “I don’t know it.”