by Brea Brown
Now I’m walking away from the plotter, rolling up a set of blueprints that I need to take to the mailroom, when I hear his voice. Clearly. His voice.
“Things are brilliant here. We’re all set up; everything’s sweet as a nut. Now we merely need some accounts.” He laughs nervously. “Only kidding. That is, it’s true we need some accounts, but I’ve been told our name has already been mentioned in very promising circles, so it’s only a matter of time. I think if we focus more on restoration instead of new construction, at least to begin with, we’ll really build a reputation for ourselves.”
And there he is. He’s a little pixilated, and his mouth isn’t moving in time with his words, but he’s right there on the other side of the glass, on the big screen in the videoconference room.
I lurk out of sight as Gary asks, “What do you need from us? What resources would help you get off to a running start?”
“I have everything I need, actually. I can’t think of a single thing I’m lacking. It’s early days yet, and I’ll let you know as soon as I notice anything, but I really think it’s good. Nothing missing at all.”
“How about admin support?” Gary presses. “Seeing any gaps in that department yet? I’m not sure it was wise to send you guys off without someone to do all the day-to-day stuff that no one else wants to do, if you know what I mean.”
They laugh about that for a second or two, then Jude says, “Nah. I can always ring Leslie if something comes up that I can’t handle. Meanwhile, I think I can manage opening my own post and making my own coffee.” They laugh again.
Fuck them, I seethe, stomping away.
My blueprint has come unrolled as I’ve stood there, slack-jawed, listening to their pompous chatter. I walk and roll at the same time, giving myself a giant paper cut in the process. When I get to the mailroom, I grab a shipping tube from the rack, stuff the drawing into it, and rattle off the name of the recipient to Bruce, one of the mailroom technicians.
“It has to get there tomorrow, unfortunately,” I gripe. “Once again, someone created an emergency for the rest of us by procrastinating on a job that wasn’t that big a deal.”
“I hate that,” he commiserates. “Those guys are lucky to have you when it comes to shit like this, Libby. If it was up to them, they’d never meet deadlines.”
I snort and say sarcastically, “Oh, Bruce, don’t you know I just make the coffee?”
“Who said that?” he asks indignantly, printing the label for the tube.
Catching myself just in time, I say, “Never mind. I’m just feeling a little sorry for myself.” I touch his shoulder, barely, careful not to get any blood from my paper cut on his shirt. “Thanks for getting that out today. I know Jake won’t thank you, so I will.” I absently suck on my injured finger.
He laughs. “Oh, I’m not in it for the recognition.” The mailing label goes on the tube, which he tosses into a basket of other parcels on their way out the door. “So, uh… don’t take this the wrong way, or anything, but I was wondering… I don’t know… If you’d like to, sometime, maybe soon… have a drink after work? Or something?”
His question catches me completely off-guard. I blink at him a few times and recover. “Really? Well…”
I’ve never paid much attention to Bruce or any of my other male co-workers, but I quickly size him up during the pause before my answer. He’s always been really nice to me. And he’s pretty funny. As far as looks are concerned, he’s okay. He shaves his head, I suspect to take a proactive approach to a receding hairline, but it looks good on him. Very smooth, in any case. He wears a style of glasses that make him look smart and trendy, rather than nerdy. Kind of a younger Stanley Tucci, I suddenly realize.
But… I can’t go there. Yet.
I bite my lip.
He accurately reads my body language. “Never mind. It was just a suggestion. You know, now that he’s gone. His loss, by the way.”
I swallow loudly. “Oh.” Giving him a shaky smile, I back toward the door. “Well, maybe some other time. Just not now.”
“Sure!” he says cheerfully, but I can tell he knows it’s never going to happen.
Back at my desk, I imagine what Jude would say… and how I'd respond.
“As if! Keep dreaming, Brucie.”
“It’s not him. I just don’t feel like socializing.”
“You don’t want to snog Bruce!”
“That’s none of your business. Maybe I do.”
“You don’t. You know you don’t. He licks envelopes all day. And he looks like Uncle Fester.”
“What do you know about Uncle Fester?”
“Nothing. I’ve never even heard of the bloke until you just thought of him. So you must think he looks like him.”
“Well, you’re crazy. I happen to think his bald head is sexy.”
“Ha! You’re a hair-puller. What would you do with your hands?”
“What’s it to you? Go open your mail and make yourself a pot of coffee. Wanker.”
A little later, Jude sits on the edge of my desk, distracting me while I try to fill out a purchase order.
“I wish you’d stop allowing people to believe you’re the victim in all this. ‘His loss’? I’m well aware of that! And it wasn’t my choice!”
“You had a choice when you slept with that ho-bag Leslie.”
“I was new in town. And lonely.”
“Don’t say that word to me. It’s no excuse. She’s gross. And promiscuous. Who knows what you exposed me to by sleeping with me after her!”
“I certainly didn’t have unprotected sex with her! Or you, for that matter, so keep your hair on. Or you and Bruce will be quite the couple.”
“I’m perfectly calm. I’m just telling you the biggest reason I don’t want you back.”
“You’re threatened by Leslie?”
“No! But I don’t want her sloppy seconds. And I don’t appreciate that I had to learn from her that you two were intimate before we got together.”
“Well, that takes the biscuit.”
“English, please.”
“That beats all. I can’t reclaim my virginity and wipe out all sexual partners who came—no pun intended—before you.”
“I never expected you to be a virgin. Just honest.”
“Would you have gotten serious with me if you had known about Leslie and me?”
“No. And that’s exactly why you never told me. You tricked me.”
“Well, that’s some interesting rewriting of history.”
“What would you call it then?”
“Irrelevant. What happened with Leslie and me was nothing. It wasn’t even good.”
“As comforting as that is to know…”
“Don’t get all snarky. I’d change it if I could—”
“I would hope so.”
“—but I can’t.”
“Exactly! And that’s what I told you the night before you left. But you didn’t believe me. You can’t change what happened; and it’s a deal-breaker for me. So drop it.”
Sweet silence follows, but just when I think he’s gone, he says behind me, “So, are you going to go out with Bruce?”
“You already know I won’t, so shut up.”
He laughs. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Why, because you’re such a tough act to follow?”
“Hey, you said it, not me.”
“Get over yourself.”
“Only kidding! Why won’t you give the guy a chance? It’s the paste breath, isn’t it?”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Don’t mind me; pretend I’m not here.”
“You’re not here. That’s one of my biggest problems right now.”
“Aw, do you miss me?”
“You’re never going to leave me alone, are you?”
“That’s totally up to you.”
27
I’ve brought Dr. Marsh a present.
He opens the envelope and belly laughs. It’s one of the few pictures I had
of Jude and me. Someone took it at the company Christmas party, the day after Thanksgiving, just a week before we broke up. But I’ve replaced Jude’s head with a picture of Dr. Marsh that I got from the clinic’s website.
“Uh, my face doesn’t match the rest of my body,” he points out.
“Skin condition?” I hypothesize helpfully. “You get gradually whiter the further down your body you go?”
He looks at the picture again and laughs. “This is great. But is that Jude under there?” Carefully, he tries to peel his face away so he can see, but I have it pasted firmly on there.
“Jude who?”
“Ah. Okay. I see. Well, thank you. I’m sure we had a wonderful time that night.”
Before he sets the picture aside on his desk, I say, “I’d like you to notice the size of the picture. It’s a nice three-by-five and would fit perfectly in there.” I point to the frame that currently holds the college graduation picture.
His shoulders slump. “You really hate that picture, don’t you?”
“‘Hate’ is a strong word, Dr. Marsh. But yes. I know it’s not right, and you have a right to have pictures of happy memories, but it’s psychologically painful for me to look at it. I would think that would be counterproductive to your goal of helping me.” I cross my legs and bob my foot up and down. I’m trying to keep it light, but I’m absolutely serious.
After staring at me for a minute, he rolls his eyes, but he rises and removes the picture from the shelf. “Fine. You win.” He opens one of his desk drawers and sets the photo gently inside. “Gone.”
“Are you going to display the picture I made for you?” I ask, batting my eyelashes at him.
“We’ll see. Now, let’s talk about you.”
“Oh, that tired topic,” I mutter, sighing.
“You’re particularly sassy today,” he declares.
“Jude used to say I was ‘saucy.’”
“And did you like that?”
I shrug and make a face. “I didn’t hate it.” Honestly, I miss it.
“How are you doing?” he asks sincerely, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “How long has he been gone now?”
I look up at the ceiling, as if I need to calculate, when really I know that it’s been exactly “Forty-six days.”
“And no contact with him whatsoever?” He jots down a note in my file.
“Hmm… That’s a tricky question.”
He studies my face. “Is it? As far as I can tell, it’s ‘yes’ or ‘no.’”
I chuckle self-deprecatingly. “Yeah, for a normal person. But… Let’s put it this way: I’ve been having conversations with Jude, unbeknownst to him.”
“Oh. So you’ve been imagining these exchanges. For how long?”
I swipe a tissue from the box, feeling the tears already. “Since about a week after he left.” My face collapses. “I just feel so alone. It was bad after we broke up, but I still saw him nearly every day. I still talked to him. Now… nothing. So I started making up conversations. And they’re… weird.”
“How so?” He’s writing furiously now, which always makes me feel super-freaky. Like he’s thinking, Oh my gosh, I can’t write this down fast enough! Wait until I write my next paper! Move over, Freud!
But I have to get this off my chest. “Okay, first off, it used to drive me crazy that he used all these strange, slangy words and phrases that mean nothing over here, but I scatter them all over our imaginary conversations.”
“So you didn’t really hate when he did it; it was one of his endearing quirks.”
“I guess. And we rarely agree on anything. It’s like he’s tormenting me. But I know exactly what he’d say in these situations, so I make him say it. So, in essence, I’m arguing with myself. Like the homeless people under the overpasses.”
He ignores my self-diagnosis. “Did you argue often when you were together?”
I think about it. “No, not really. Kiddingly sometimes. I mean, we didn’t agree with each other all the time, but we didn’t fight.”
“And you’d describe these imaginary exchanges as ‘fights’?”
“Borderline. Sometimes. Most of the time, he’s just mercilessly teasing me.”
“Tell me some of the subjects of these discussions.”
“Sex, mostly.” When Dr. Marsh raises his eyebrows, I clarify, “A guy asked me on a date recently. A guy from work. I talked to Jude about why I turned him down, but at the same time, I was trying to make him jealous.”
“Did it work?”
“No. He acted like he couldn’t care less. He pretty much joked the whole time.”
“Is that how he typically reacted to things that made him uncomfortable, though?”
“Actually… yes.”
He nods, so I continue, “And I confronted him about Leslie. That’s about the only venue where I’m willing to confront him about it. I kind of got his side of the story.”
“Which was?”
“He was new in town and lonely, blah, blah, blah.” I open and close my hand like a flapping mouth.
“Anything else you guys talk about regularly?”
Wincing, I answer, “Everything?” When he bites his lip, I say, “I mean, I don’t have anyone else to talk to, except Sandberg. I don’t know which one is more pathetic, talking to a cat or talking to a person who’s not really there. At least my conversations with Jude are silent. I’d have to talk out loud to Sandberg.”
Dr. Marsh precisely clips his pen to my folder and takes a deep breath. “Do you want to hear my professional opinion about what you’re doing?”
“Let me guess: driving myself insane?”
He smiles gently. “Perhaps. That may be the ultimate conclusion to this, but no. You’re allowing yourself to be told what you want or need to hear. From him. And some of it is combative, because you feel a need to be punished for breaking up with him. You know him well enough to know that he would treat most serious things irreverently, which also serves to relieve the tension and stress for you. And because you left so many questions unanswered—on both sides of things—you’re fabricating his side of the story. So you can sort through it and bring yourself some closure. But I have a question.”
“Just one? Really?”
“Why didn’t you talk to him about it—the real him—when you had a chance? From what you’ve told me, he was willing. You weren’t. Why not?”
Holding the tissue to my mouth, I say, “I’m weak. I would have taken him back.”
“And this is a bad thing?”
I nod, trapping my tears as they slide down my cheeks.
“Forgiveness is weakness?”
Coldly, I assert, “Sometimes we do unforgiveable things. There are consequences.”
His brow furrowed, he tries to understand. “And Jude did what to you that was so unforgiveable? Slept with someone before you were dating?”
“Didn’t tell me! Things happen. Even with her. She was convenient; she was crap. Like fast food. But why didn’t he tell me?”
“Have you, historically, been an easy person to break difficult news to?” he asks, then defends his question when I give him a dirty look. “I’m not excusing it; I’m just trying to understand the circumstances and his motivations for keeping it a secret. Do you think he’s ashamed?”
“He should be!” I’m sobbing and hiccupping and snotting everywhere, like a child throwing a massive temper tantrum.
Dr. Marsh sits next to me on the couch. It’s the closest he’s ever been to me during a session. “Libby,” he says softly, handing me a fresh tissue. “I want you to take a minute to calm down.”
I nod and work hard to do just that.
After several minutes, when it seems like I’m breathing normally again, with only the occasional hiccup-sob, he asks, “Now, have you ever done something that you’re so ashamed of, so disgusted with yourself about, that you’ve gone to great lengths to conceal it from everyone, even someone you know you can trust?”
I freeze mid
-hiccup. It hurts.
“Have you?” he prods. “What was it?”
“This isn’t about me; it’s about him. And what he did.”
“If this were about him, he’d be here, not you. This is all about you.” He sighs. “You and I, we don’t have secrets. I already know the answer to my question.”
“Then why are you harassing me about it?” I snap. “You know everything.”
“But I want to know what you tell yourself; why you can’t forgive yourself. And I want you to say it out loud.”
Now he waits patiently. It’s clear after several minutes of silence that he’s not going to say another word.
Twisting the soggy tissues in my hands, I take a deep, shuddering breath. “I—” I begin only to choke on the next three words. He hands me the glass of water from the table in front of us, but without taking so much as a sip from it, I blurt it out: “I killed my parents!”
28
It was extremely difficult to go back to work after that session. I was late, because I had to do a lot of repair work to my makeup. And then I had to find a way to make myself concentrate on work when all I could think about were the things Dr. Marsh had brought to my attention. But I’ve already burned enough sick and vacation days running away from my feelings. It’s a bad habit I’ve developed recently, and it’s time to break it.
So here I am. I sit at my desk. I type and proofread and format. I answer my phone. And when I get hungry, I open my snack drawer to see if I have anything in there to save me a trip to the vending machine and possible interaction with my co-workers. I’m not hopeful, because I haven’t stocked it in months and haven’t looked in here in at least several weeks. My appetite hasn’t been what it used to be. But I seem to remember putting a can of peanuts in here. Peanuts don’t go bad, do they?
As the drawer slides out, I see something strange. Sitting on top of the peanuts is a square gift of some sort, wrapped in a piece of old blueprint. When I turn it over, I see there’s a yellow sticky note on the back of it.