Nobody, Somebody, Anybody

by Kelly McClorey

  I told myself that if this hour ended without a confrontation, no confrontation would ever come, and the same for the next hour, and the next. When the last hour finally passed, I wondered if all my worrying had been unfounded. Maybe Roula hadn’t cared that much about her plants after all; maybe she’d pitched the empty pots into the trash without a second thought. On the other hand, that might be just what she wanted me to think.

  Gary had a date that night with Irina, an online video chat, but we were still having dinner, just one hour late. Yes, it would be one hour late, but we were having dinner, Gary and I—this was a fact and I cherished it. We didn’t have to discuss anything about Roula or Valerie, simply sharing a meal would be more than enough. I spent the extra hour tiptoeing around my apartment, wishing their conversation would somehow find its way to me, through an air duct or a fracture in the wall. Before the hour was up, I heard a knock. I saw Gary through the peephole and threw open the door. “Sorry,” I said. “Did I get mixed up? I thought it was seven tonight.”

  “I think I need the night off.” I noticed a set of keys in his hand. “Too much on my mind. All the stuff I need to do before Irina comes. I was thinking I should use the time to go shopping instead, get some of that done. Sorry to go changing plans last minute.”

  “Oh. That’s all right.”

  “You wouldn’t want to come along, would you? I was thinking, since you helped me with the kitchen table and all that . . . I could really use your opinion. And it might be kind of fun. But no pressure. We can stop on the way if you’re hungry.”

  “Sure, I’ll come along.”

  My arm wobbled as I tugged on the passenger-side door. I’d never been inside his car, or any other place with him besides the living room and kitchen. The car seemed expensive and newish, except for the center console, overflowing with balled-up napkins and receipts and wrinkly straw wrappers. He tried to stuff it down with his fist. “Sometimes I eat lunch in here. Bad habit, I know.”

  I thought of saying something about Irina, how she might appreciate him tidying up, but I was getting tired of revolving my life around someone else. I got enough of that at work with Roula.

  He pinned his phone into a dock suctioned to the inside of the windshield and tapped it to play music. I squirmed to see the screen: “They Say I’m Different” by Betty Davis.

  “So are you? Hungry?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Me neither.”

  We were in Gary’s car, and we were going shopping. We were no longer friends who just ate dinner together, we were friends who drove together and shopped together, which meant we could do almost anything else together and it wouldn’t be strange or uncomfortable or even out of the ordinary. We hurtled through town, music filling the car. The road rippled under us and disappeared behind, and all that swift forward momentum became a symbol: we were never turning back.

  We parked outside a tremendous home goods store. As the automatic doors slid open and we stepped into the cold processed air, I felt invigorated. Gary, on the other hand, appeared to wilt. Once we were inside, something shifted, and the trip turned into a grave and dreary business in which there seemed no chance for a bit of fun. He stalked up and down the aisles, seeming antagonized by the very existence of bed skirts and mixing bowls and compulsively blotting his head with an old tissue.

  “You don’t need to get everything tonight,” I said as he fondled a woven doormat that read HOME, with a heart for the O.

  “No. Just so it’s good enough.” He dropped his hand. “But what if it’s not?”

  “Remember what I taught you for when you have those thoughts? You visualize. You turn each one into a banana and then pile them all up.”

  “Right, I know. And then the monkey comes along, and he’s hungry. Et cetera.” He closed his eyes. “Come on, Gary,” he whispered, pressing his forehead. “I don’t have any patience today. I’m sorry.” He leaned against the side of the cart, and it took all my strength to keep it from skating away.

  “Did something happen when you talked to Irina?”

  “Something always happens.”

  “Do you think she might be a little . . . demanding or something? I mean, maybe that could be why you’re feeling so stressed out?”

  “She has certain expectations, sure. She likes things a certain way. But a lot of women can be like that. It’s just, she always dreamed of coming to the US, like she always had this idea in her head of how great it would be, and I really want it to live up to that. Make it even better if I can. I’d just hate if she ended up disappointed by the real thing. It would kill me.”

  Over the past few years, I’d grown used to being with only me. I’d learned how to talk to myself, and apart from the occasional breakdown, I was generally receptive to my ideas and at ease in my company. But with Gary, I didn’t have as much history and couldn’t predict how he would react. It seemed safer to veer away from the topic altogether. “They say the best way to cure a toothache is to walk by a dentist’s office,” I said.

  Gary skimmed his hand along a row of single-serve coffee makers. “I’m not sure I get it.”

  “It means we make problems worse in our head.” I cornered him with the cart. “Now, what we need to do here is prioritize.”

  “Good. Yes. Prioritize.” He folded his arms, thinking. “Well, what do you think is most important?”

  “How about we start with curtains. Right over here. Then you can get rid of that old sheet thing you’ve been using. It will change the whole atmosphere of the living room.”

  He flipped through panels of fabric hanging from a bar. “Why do they have to have so many options?”

  “This would be nice,” I said, stretching a gauzy white fabric to the light. “It’ll let in the sun.”

  “Might not give us much privacy, though.”

  I winced at the word. Here was an opportunity for a smart paraphrase of Florence Nightingale: “Sunlight not only improves a person’s mood but has real, tangible effects on the body.”

  Gary shrugged and loaded a box of the gauzy white curtains into the cart. “You always have the answer. I’d have stood there all night. What next?”

  We passed dining room sets, and with the word privacy still banging around in my head, I found the guts to say, “It might be a good time to get another chair or two for the kitchen table.” Immediately I wished I could take it back, it was such a transparent and pathetic kind of move.

  But Gary, my merciful and true friend Gary, chose to protect my ego and not exploit the opportunity. “Why not,” he said. We found a chair that looked like it belonged to the same family as the other two, and he scooted the box onto the shelf under the cart. I strode ahead now, pointing out various products and offering commentary while he relaxed, slumped over the handle of the cart, wheeling it along slowly.

  At one point I turned, and he was gone. I found him standing at the foot of an extravagant canopy bed, complete with ornate engravings, a ruffle skirt, and four lacy veils gathered at each corner with large satin bows. “It’s very glamorous,” I said.

  He flipped the placard over to read the price and gagged. “Well. Like you said, smart investments aren’t always the most romantic. And I suppose it works the other way too. Sometimes the most romantic investments just aren’t smart.” His hand brushed behind me, leaving a trace of heat on my shoulder blade.

  As we resumed shopping, his face had a faraway expression that made me think he was salivating over the idea of sharing a bed with Irina, any bed, glamorous or not. After a few awkward minutes, he seemed to snap out of it. “The best way to cure a toothache is to walk by a dentist’s office,” he said. “I’m going to borrow that.” He chuckled and swung his head. “I’m normally a pretty laid-back guy, if you can believe it. Man. You must think I’m crazy. But like they say, nothing worth having comes easy, right? If it’s a struggle, that’s how you know it will be worth it in the end.”

  I wanted to argue that that didn’t apply to every ca
se, but I could tell he wasn’t in the right frame of mind for a discourse. We came across a game at the foot of the next aisle, guns loaded with foam balls that you could shoot into two bears’ mouths, and I seized the opportunity to distract him. He turned enthusiastic as soon as he pulled the trigger yelling “Oh yeah!” and “Take that!” The balls plunked one by one into the glass stomachs and then rolled forward so you could reload. We threw ourselves into the competition, losing all sense of time and becoming so rowdy that an employee in khaki pants came over and made a motion with his hand. We looked at each other and laughed, then started the game up again, hushing each other with aggressive whispers.

  Gary’s chest pumped from the physical exertion. “Thank you,” he whispered. His breath had a touch of sourness, but I let it wash over me anyway.

  We’d worked up an appetite, so we lugged our purchases to the car and walked to the pizza place at the other end of the shopping center. Gary insisted on paying for his two slices and my single slice, plus two large sodas that we filled from the machine. Before our pizza was out of the oven, he’d already finished his soda and was staring into the empty cup, one hand over his mouth to shield a burp. “Excuse me.”

  “Let me,” I said, and went to get him a refill.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “It’s only fair, seeing as you’re always the one waiting on me.”

  “Hey, I guess that’s true.” After a long swallow, he smacked his lips. “Ahh! Everything tastes better when it’s been served to you.” He swirled the ice around. “So maybe tonight we should switch places. You spend the whole time complaining about . . . well, whatever you want, your choice. And serve my dinner. And I’ll sit here and listen patiently, just like you always have to. And then I’ll give you advice and tell you what I think of the food.”

  The pimply cashier called out our order. “I got off easy,” I said, setting down our paper plates. “Compared with all the work you put into a meal. Plus you paid. Doesn’t seem like a very fair trade.”

  “Well, you had to put up with shopping with me, so you deserve a lot more than a slice of pizza.” He folded a slice in half and drove it into his mouth. “Anyway, you’re not getting out of it. I want to hear your best complaining. No holds barred.”

  “Hmm.” I took a bite, the cheese stretching like a rubber band through my teeth, and washed it down with ginger ale.

  “Come on. There’s gotta be something.”

  I pushed a finger through a bubble in my crust. My grievances against Roula, which had lain dormant all evening, now snapped back to life and began clamoring to get out. Why not divulge them to Gary? He would understand, and it might be therapeutic to have him listen and console me, it might be just what I needed. But I had to select the right words, to avoid coming across as too strange or odious.

  “See,” he said. “That’s what’s so amazing about you. You really can’t complain. Probably the only person in the world. They should study you or something. Make a documentary.”

  If only he could have peered inside my brain and recognized me for the vile person I was! He might find out eventually, like if Roula showed the empty pots to Doug and Doug called Gary, thinking he should be made aware of the kind of immature, vindictive behavior I was capable of, seeing as he’d recommended me for the job. Still, I didn’t pipe up. I let him go on believing I was this saintly person when in fact I was the opposite, even worse now for sitting by as he praised me, yes, I was lower than low.

  “You’ve got to teach me your ways,” he said. “Although I might be a hopeless case. You might have to use some kind of conditioning thing. Like every time I complain, you punch me in the arm, or I have to give you a dollar or something.”

  I ate more pizza and drank more ginger ale, trying to push forward, reengage in the present conversation. “If only we could put you in your own Skinner box,” I said.

  “Skinner whatta?”

  “B. F. Skinner. He was like the father of operant conditioning.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Actually he didn’t like that term. It should be ‘operant conditioning chamber.’ Basically a cage that no light or sound can penetrate, so you can control all the stimuli.”

  “That’s just what I need. A coffin, basically. Ha.” He wiped the grease from his mouth and gazed off, mulling things over. “Then again, if you can’t complain, what’s there to even talk about?”

  “I think that counts,” I said, and held up a fist as though threatening to punch him.

  He tipped his cup, like touché. “Damn. Maybe we should start tomorrow. What’s the saying? Never put off till tomorrow, what you can put off until the day after tomorrow.” He smirked.

  “Very wise.”

  He laughed, and the warm, simmery sound reminded me of the evening we’d spent with his mother, how easygoing he’d been then. “Let’s practice. How about you try to tell me a story that involves zero complaining,” I said.

  “I’m boring, through and through.”

  “What about something from growing up? Or about your mom?”

  His face brightened. “Actually, okay. Remember that joke you asked me about, about the gravy lady? That one’s kind of a good story, definitely one of the most exciting things that ever happened to us.” He sat up straighter, pushed aside his empty plate and dirty napkins. “So I was in high school, and she was working at this random office, my mom, as the receptionist or whatever. And a guy got shot right outside her building. It was pretty crazy since it wasn’t like it was a bad part of town or anything. Drug-related, I assume. But anyway, she was there when it happened and she ran out and called nine-one-one. The local news came, since it was such an unusual thing around there. And one of them interviewed her about what happened, so she told them she heard the shot and ran outside and saw blood coming out of his bullet hole. She said it just like that: blood coming out of his bullet hole. So then the next morning she was driving me to school and we were listening to one of those stupid morning shows on the radio, you know, where they pull stupid pranks on people and have people call in and stuff like that. She always liked those shows for some reason. And anyway, they played the clip of her interview and the radio hosts were cracking up over it, like it was the funniest thing they ever heard. One of them goes: ‘What did you think would be coming out his bullet hole, lady? Gravy?’” He caught his breath. “Huh. So anyway, that’s how it started. Probably not as good secondhand.”

  “No, it’s a great story. I can’t believe that really happened.”

  “I guess you’ll be the one showing up to nine-one-one calls like that pretty soon. You’ll have all kinds of stories. And you better remember the good ones, so you can tell me.”

  “Definitely, I will.”

  * * *

  As we bumped back into our driveway, I noticed Gary’s mailbox for the first time in months. I felt shy and sentimental, as though seeing an old friend I’d neglected. It looked lonesome but accepting, like it was proud of me for outgrowing the need for it.

  “Back to reality.” Gary sighed as he popped the trunk.

  “I can help,” I said, trying to grab the handle of a bag.

  “I’ve got it.” He sounded tired.

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

  “That’s all right, Amy.” He hauled the bags up the steps and then eased them down to fish for his keys. I stood on the walkway behind him. “Good night,” he said.

  I watched him wrestle the bags inside and close the door. I was still standing there when he switched off the porch light. The word reality crackled in my head, and that other word, privacy, came back to join it. Of course life would change when Irina arrived—I wasn’t that naive—but how exactly? If things went smoothly, he would have me to thank for it, but then he also wouldn’t need me anymore. Would we still be the kind of friends who could eat dinner or go shopping without it being strange or uncomfortable or out of the ordinary? Would it still be okay if, say, I knocked one evening to use the printer,
or would they close the new curtains I’d helped him pick out and pretend not to be home?

  I rapped lightly on the door. Like a gift, it opened. Gary didn’t smile or say anything.

  “Um. Did I drop my keys in one of the bags?”

  “They’re right there. In your hand.”

  A honking laugh flew out of my mouth and was carried off by the air. “I must be more tired than I thought,” I said. “Oh, also, I just remembered. I don’t think I can come for dinner tomorrow like we usually do. Could you do Friday instead?” I held my breath.

  “Sure, okay. See you Friday,” he said, and closed the door again.

  I entered my apartment feeling relieved. There was no reason I couldn’t come for dinner the next day, but now I had proof that Gary wasn’t the only one who could change plans at the last minute; in fact, he was happy to accommodate me, even on a Friday night, which was much more significant than a Thursday, without demanding any explanation. So it followed that even if one day he no longer needed me, he would still want me around; he would never close his new curtains and pretend not to be home. If it ever did work out and Irina actually showed up here—and I was beginning to doubt she would—they would quickly realize that they were better with a third party.

  At the refrigerator, I read my letter slowly—congratulations, congratulations, congratulations—swallowing each word and letting it absorb into my bloodstream. I couldn’t be bothered to open my exam book or track the status of my package for Phase III. I’d already made extensive progress, I was more confident than ever before, and after such a full day, it felt wonderful to let exhaustion rise up and consume me. I slept in my clothes without worries or visions.