Jessica Z

by Shawn Klomparens

  “Do you need something?” I ask.

  He holds the pad out toward me. “I need help drawing hands. Can you draw hands?”

  “Sure, I can try.” I slide off my chair and kneel down next to him to take the pad. “Wow, Jimmy,” I say. “You did these?” He smiles and nods as I look at the line of smiley faces he’s drawn. They’re crude circles with scribble-dot eyes and crooked mouths and big loops for ears, but I’m impressed, and not just because it’s my employer’s child, either.

  I hold out my hand for a crayon. “What color do you want them to be?”

  “Brown,” he says. “No, green. This green. They can be stick hands.” I draw a pair of green hands on one of the circles, and he signals approval by shaking his head up and down.

  “Who are these people?” I ask.

  He points to the leftmost face. “That’s Mommy. With the hair. That’s Walter. That’s Walter again. He’s happy Walter, and that one, this one is mean Walter. That’s Daddy. That’s Danielle. She’s got hair too.”

  I’m finishing the last set of broomstick hands as I’m about to ask James who Danielle is, but I remember, suddenly, that Danielle was the girl who rented the apartment over Mike’s garage and didn’t come home a week ago. And in that instant my face feels cold and my palms go wet and my stomach seems to drop away, and I feel like I need to get to the bathroom immediately.

  “Here, James,” I say, handing him the pad. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Thank you.”

  I get to the rear of our office as fast as I can without breaking into a full run, and thankfully no one is in the bathroom. I click on the fan but not the light and lock myself in, and sit on the toilet and put my head down between my knees and close my eyes and breathe. She was at Mike’s Christmas party, she was plain and sweet and she had a little acne on her chin that she tried to hide with cracking makeup. She was taking a year off from school to figure things out. Mike’s kids and Carol’s daughter followed her around all night, and James sat in her lap when we had dinner. She read them books and brought them down in their pajamas to say good night to everyone at the party.

  Don’t think about this. Stop. Breathe.

  I open my eyes after a bit and stare at my gray-stockinged feet on the tile floor and the shadows from the light coming under the door. My eyes have adjusted enough that I don’t need to turn on the light as I rinse off my face in the sink, and I flush the toilet to throw off Grant, who is probably listening at this very moment and wondering what I’m doing in here.

  Mike is returning to his office from the front as I exit the bathroom, and he points over toward my cube.

  “Is he bugging you in there?” Mike asks.

  “What? Oh, James? No, Mike, he’s fine. He’s a sweetheart.”

  “Well, if he does, just tell him to come back here.”

  “He’s fine, really.”

  “Just tell him if you need to.”

  “I will. Hey, Mike?” I ask, and he raises his eyebrows. “What happened to your…that girl? Your tenant?”

  Mike shakes his head. “She was on the crosstown. Bad. Bad. Her uncle is staying with us to pack up her stuff.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s terrible. She was…God, the kids loved her. We loved her. Sherry wanted to hire her as a nanny, but she needed to get back to school. That’s where she needed to be.” Mike sighs and leans against the wall, and looks toward the lobby. “And James can’t…he doesn’t understand what’s going on. Walt does, he realized it even before we let ourselves believe it. He’s been sleeping with us all week.”

  “Poor guy,” I say, and something about the idea of tough little Walter jumping into his parents’ bed makes me feel like I’m going to start bawling, but I hold it off.

  “Her mom and dad got in yesterday. Meeting her father was maybe the most difficult experience of my life. He’s wrecked. We’re going with them to that memorial in the park today, that’s why this is making an appearance.” He grabs the tie and flaps it against his chest. “It’s just terrible.”

  “It is” is all I can say.

  Mike straightens up. “I want to talk about that Cippoletti stuff this afternoon when I’m back. You have anything going on?”

  “I’m free,” I say.

  Back in my cube, James is still working away. He’s flipped to a new page and seems eager for me to see his latest piece.

  “It’s you,” he says with a big smile, and the red crayon tangle encircling the smiley face to represent my hair is proof.

  “That’s great,” I say, holding the pad. “May I hang it up in here?” James smiles and nods his head furiously, apparently so thrilled at the thought he can’t speak.

  James is silent for the next half hour, drawing away as I respond to some actual work e-mails. Patrick sends me the word of the day—“perambulate” (duh, strolling, is this on every word of the day calendar?)—as I’m composing, and I promptly delete it. There’s no need to hunt for hidden meaning in the daily word anymore; he forwards them every morning and usually I delete them immediately. I’d tell him to stop, but I like seeing his name in my in-box.

  Mike peeks in at about nine-thirty, wearing a sport coat, and raps on the metal frame of the cubicle. James doesn’t look up. “Come on, bud,” Mike says. “Let’s get going.”

  “Okay.” He slides off the chair and walks to his dad.

  “Anything you need to tell Jessica? About spending time in here?”

  “Thank-you-for-letting-me-spend-time-in-here-Jessica,” James says in a sad monotone, staring down at his feet. I give Mike one of those “aw” looks.

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “And you are always welcome to come visit me when you’re here.” He looks up at me and smiles, and he grabs Mike’s hand and they go.

  I am so glad I’m not going with them to the memorial.

  A few minutes later my phone double rings, and Carol tells me there’s a Gretchen calling on line one. I punch the extension without thanking Carol.

  “Gretchen. How are you? And what’s up with that new post?”

  “Lame, lame, lame, lame,” she says. “Company sells destination golf vacation packages. I’m trying to hit the friendly competition note. You know, old college buddies, wealthy now, throwing down for a week of cutthroat action on the links by day, fucked up in the bar by night. I’m flailing, Jessica. I’m lost. But this account is so huge.”

  I feel better now. “So, ‘enemy of my enemy’?”

  “I told you, I’m flailing. And you should see the photos. The models look like they should just be back in the hotel room sucking each other off, not anywhere near a golf course. It’s like it should be the leather golf vacation or something. Biker dudes golfing? Maybe I could pitch that. But the account, I can’t even tell you. So huge. How were you feeling Saturday?”

  “A little rough. You?”

  “Not so bad. Tired mostly. Hey, do you want to meet for lunch somewhere?”

  “Today? Sure?”

  “Gram Bistro? I’ll buy. I want to ask you something. About something we talked about.”

  Oh really? Now I’m really wishing I could remember more of Saturday night. I do want to see Gretchen, though, and I’m very curious. And I can walk to the Gram from my office, so I’m in. “Sure,” I say. “You don’t have to buy, though. What do you want to ask me?”

  “Come on, think about it, you know. We’ll talk there. Are you watching the memorial?”

  “I cannot handle any kind of memorial,” I say, rubbing my eyes.

  “Ditto. Putting this shit on television is like, ugh.” She pauses. “How about one-thirty for lunch. Everything can settle down in the city.”

  “I’ll see you then,” I say, and we say good-bye and hang up. I do some more actual work, and am so successful at putting the memorial out of my head for this little bit that I don’t look at the small atomic clock on my desk until it’s fourteen minutes after ten. Nothing changes when the minute flips to fifteen; the fan in my compu
ter continues its perpetual sigh and I still feel the subliminal hum of the fluorescent lights above me.

  What are Walter and James doing right now?

  I’m staring at the clock now, watching the seconds accumulate, and my palms are flat on the desktop. Sixteen after. Seconds and more seconds, they hit fifty, fifty-eight, and a new sound starts: I hear a car horn outside, then another and another; church bells start ringing and car alarms howl and the mess of rising sound positively invades my cubicle. Apparently I wasn’t the only one wishing for noise. I drum my hands on the desk, not hard, in line with the racket, and Grant walks by and gives me a very confused look.

  “What’s going on?” he asks, and in the time he takes to say it, the sound goes away.

  “It’s the—” My hands are flat on the desk again. “It’s nothing.” He stares at me for a moment and walks away. Clueless.

  I grab my bag and fish around inside for my cell phone to prepare for the coming-any-minute call from Mom. I consider turning it off to vex her, but she’d just call the office anyway, so I switch it to vibrate and set it next to my keyboard.

  Sure enough, at exactly ten-thirty the phone begins to buzz and shimmy on the desktop.

  “Mom, I’m not moving,” is the first thing I say after flipping it open.

  “I’m not asking you to move, Jessica.”

  “Oh.”

  “Did you watch any of the—”

  “No, Mom. None of it.”

  “You don’t need to be short with me. It was very tastefully done.”

  “I’m not being short,” I say, and I switch the phone to my left ear so I can click my e-mail in-box button. Nothing there. “It’s just been a weird morning.”

  “I know, honey. Maybe, maybe you’d just like to come stay with me for a while.”

  “You said you weren’t asking me to move.”

  “I’m not, Jessica, I’m saying, just a visit.”

  “How long?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, but of course she does know. “You can stay as long as you like. A month?”

  “Uh, hello, Mom? I have a job? An apartment? Bills?”

  “I’m sure we could handle all that.”

  “Mom. I’ll come up.” I hear her draw a surprised breath, but I stomp it right out of her. “For a weekend. I could manage that. When were you thinking?” She doesn’t say anything. “Mom?”

  “Well. That isn’t exactly what I was envisioning. But.” She pauses again. “I’m sure your sister told you about her program at sea—”

  “Of course she did. It’s very exciting.”

  “Well, I was thinking we should have a going-away party for her. Here. You could help me plan. It would be a nice surprise for her.”

  This intrigues me. I’m not so interested in the party thing, but I’d love to see Katie before she goes. And if Mom is willing to pay for me to get up to Seattle, what’s not to like?

  “Let me think about this, Mom.”

  “Maybe you could stay for a week?”

  A week with Katie? “Maybe I could do a week. Depends on work.”

  “You know I love you, angel.” Her tone is a little different now, not condescending or desperate like it can seem sometimes. “Please be safe. Please.”

  “I will, Mom.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I will.”

  The Gram Bistro is maybe a little trendier than I’d normally choose for lunch, but the midday rush is just about over by the time I get there and I’m hardly concerned with looking great or being seen, so no big deal. Gretchen isn’t worried, either, apparently; she’s seated in a booth with her back to me, and I can see as I come up behind her she’s wearing a plain dark knit pullover and her hair has been sloppily pulled back. Sloppily perfect, I guess. She’s pretty in a way that seems unfair, and it’s hard not to feel a little twinge of envy when she looks up and smiles at me.

  “Hey,” she says, still smiling as I unshoulder my bag and slip into the booth. “Did you walk?”

  “I did. Fortunately it’s mostly downhill on the way back.” Gretchen is leaning forward drizzling honey into a cup of tea, and she’s so tiny it seems like her chin is barely above the edge of the table. I think for a moment about suggesting we get a booster seat, but I don’t know her so well and it is a pretty stupid joke so I bite my lip and try not to laugh.

  “What?” she asks as she shakes the spoon over her teacup. “Oh right. I know. You’re thinking booster.”

  “Oh God,” I say, and I laugh and cover my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry.”

  I’m relieved when she laughs too. “Don’t worry, I’ve heard it more than once. If a girl says it, it’s kind of cute. If a guy says it, there’s no second date.”

  “Patrick has never said it?” I feel weird asking, but Gretchen gets the conspiratorial smirk and everything is okay.

  “Patrick has never once commented on my stature,” she says. “I do hear some lame stuff sometimes, though. From other guys.”

  “Like?”

  “Like how about, ‘Bet you don’t have to kneel to give a blow job, huh huh.’ That one doesn’t earn points. Or blow jobs, for that matter.”

  “That’s so—”

  “Yeah. I know.” She takes a sip of her tea and licks her upper lip. “Mmm, but, speaking of such things, did Mr. Artist come over?”

  “What?”

  “To your place? To see those paintings, or what was it?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Are you kidding me? It was about the only thing you talked about Saturday night. Every time you saw me.”

  I feel my cheeks getting hot and know my face must be deep red. “Really?”

  “You seriously don’t remember? You hardly seemed drunk.”

  “It doesn’t seem to take that much anymore,” I say.

  “I know what you mean,” Gretchen says.

  But I don’t think she does.

  The waitress comes and Gretchen and I both order the mountainous Bistro house salad, half of which I’ll most likely box up and lug home for dinner tonight.

  “To answer your question,” I say after the server walks away, “he did stop by on Sunday.”

  “And?”

  “And…it was weird.”

  Gretchen tilts her head. “Weird how?”

  “He was a little bit intimidating.”

  “I can see that. He’s got that alpha thing going on. The way he was looking at you at Patrick’s, it was kind of whoa.”

  “Yeah,” I say, but I’m not really recalling it.

  “So what happened?”

  “Nothing, really, he was only there for about twenty minutes.” Gretchen almost looks disappointed when I say it. “He just kind of walked around and looked at my stuff, he looked at my friend’s prints, which he loved, and then he left. Oh, and he invited me to some class he’s teaching tomorrow night.”

  Gretchen raises her eyebrows. “And? You’re going?”

  “I don’t know. It was just weird when he was there.”

  “Weird. Define weird.”

  “He was walking all around. Looking at my stuff?”

  “Maybe he was interested.”

  “Like looking at my life. Into my life.”

  “Isn’t that the way artists are? You should go to his thing.”

  “I’m just, I don’t know.”

  She smiles. “You should.”

  “I’ll consider it,” I say. “So what is the big question?”

  “Okay,” she says, squeezing her hands together. “There are actually two questions. When we were talking about how fun it would be to work together—” I must look blank, because Gretchen cocks her head and stares at me. “You don’t remember.”

  I shake my head, and I can feel my cheeks going warm again. “I remember really laughing about something,” I say, and for an instant I feel very frightened about blanking, and then the feeling passes.

  “We were laughing at Patrick,” Gretchen says. “That dance
he was doing. You really don’t remember? It wasn’t like you had any more than I did.”

  “Should I be worried about this?” I feel so stupid, but Gretchen’s shaking her head and I can tell by the look on her face that she’s been there too.

  “No, come on, it’s been a weird week, I’d try to forget most of it too if I could. You were probably just emotional with everything going on.”

  True. And she doesn’t even know about my little fight with Patrick before the party. I almost tell her, but I stop myself.

  “Anyway,” I say. “Working together. Would be fun, yes.”

  “So fun. What if we did it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve got this golf thing. It’s more work than I can handle by myself. I’m already saying no to other clients on stuff. Would you want to help?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious. You already do the outdoorsy stuff, it would be perfect, you know? And their budget, oh my God, Jessica, they want to do a six-month full-page run in all the in-flight magazines. Do you have any idea how much a full-page in a seatback goes for?”

  I do, actually; it isn’t cheap. I think about this as the salads show up, and Gretchen and I look at each other over two heaps of lettuce, avocado, and seared tuna and start to laugh.

  “I’ll be working on this for days,” Gretchen says. “So. Interested?”

  I am, but it’s scary. Consulting on my own? “I don’t know,” I say. “Things are pretty good with Mike. I need to think about it.”

  “Okay. Good. Do.”

  “What’s the other thing?”

  “The other thing,” she says between bites, “involves my alter ego. Do you want to do some guest posts on the PitchBitch? Anonymously, of course.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “Gretchen, I don’t think I’m quite that…caliber?”

  “Come on, you don’t give yourself enough credit. That story you told me about the bike shorts, I was dying. That would be so perfect—”

  “I told you about the bike shorts?”

  “Ha ha, you’re kidding, I know.”