by Alice Wasser
“Hi,” he said. Maybe it was my imagination, but his “hi” didn’t sound quite as angry as it had yesterday. Then again, it’s hard to really infer anything from the word “hi.”
“Hi,” I said back.
“How are you doing?” he asked me.
“Okay,” I said in a voice that was almost a whisper. “How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better,” he said with a weak smile. He cleared his throat. “Millie, um… I’ve been thinking…”
I was quiet.
“Maybe I overreacted,” he said. “I did notice that a lot of the text messages were one-sided, and you’ve never given me any reason not to trust you. Maybe I jumped to conclusions too quickly.”
I felt my heart pounding in my chest. He was going to forgive me. Thank God. I thought I was going to cry.
“What I’m saying is,” he said. “Is that I still…”
He stopped short, his eyes looking at something in the distance. He frowned.
I turned my head and realized that Jake had decided to make a personal trip down to my cubicle. What great timing! And of course, Jake just strode right over and put a hand on my shoulder like he freaking owned me. I felt his hand apply gentle pressure on my collarbone.
I looked back over at Sam, who was bright red and his jaw was hanging open.
“Hello, Matilda,” Jake said.
The way he said my name made my stomach turn. It was just dripping with sex. If Jake wanted Sam to believe that he was sleeping with me, he had basically done it with those two words.
Sam lowered his eyes quickly. “I, uh… I’m going to go,” he mumbled.
“Sam…” I gasped.
I shrugged off Jake’s hand and jumped out of my seat, but Sam was already wheeling down the aisle. I started to run after him, but I felt Jake grab my elbow, holding me back.
“Let the poor guy go,” Jake told me. “Don’t worry. He’ll get over it.”
I yanked my arm away from his grasp. “Get over what?”
“You dumping him for me.” Jake winked at me. “Not that anyone would actually blame you. I’m sure even he doesn’t really blame you.”
I wanted to punch Jake in his smug face. How did I ever feel attracted to this jerk? “I didn’t dump Sam for you.”
Jake shrugged. “Well, whatever the reason. So how about lunch?”
“I’m not interested,” I said.
Jake raised his eyebrows. “But you’re broken up, right? What’s wrong?”
“I’m just… not interested.”
Jake smiled lecherously. “How about lunch with a happy ending?”
I winced. “I’ll pass.”
I don’t know if I expected Jake to be upset, but I didn’t like the way he smirked when I told him no. Like he couldn’t get over the fact that someone like me was turning down someone like him. Well, screw him.
After Jake left, I walked around to the Computer Helpdesk and Sam’s office, trying to find him. I couldn’t. I thought about writing him an email, but I felt like anything I wrote would come out wrong. I needed to speak to him in person.
I searched the building for him for nearly an hour, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I came back to my desk to discover an email waiting for me:
Millie,
There’s a meeting out in NYC this week. I wasn’t planning on going, but I think maybe this is a good opportunity for both of us. I’m leaving tomorrow and I’ll be back in a week. While I’m gone, you can take your stuff out of the apartment and move wherever you want. Have a good life.
Sam
I stared at the email, feeling increasingly sick to my stomach. I dragged Donna over to my desk and made her look at it. I watched her face as she read from the screen. “Does this mean he’s dumping me?” I asked her.
“Um,” Donna said.
I looked at the email again. “He said, ‘Have a good life.’ That sounds pretty final, doesn’t it?” I looked back up at her, hoping she’d disagree.
“I think he’s really angry at you,” Donna said. (Well, duh.) “I think maybe you should give him some space.”
“But what if he meets someone in New York?”
Donna rolled her eyes. “Come on.”
Didn’t he mention that his ex-girlfriend Elisa lived in New York? Elisa was that girl he was dating in college, the one he took to his brother’s wedding. Who was now practicing law in New York, a fact that Sam mysteriously knew. If he was in New York, he would surely look her up. They would go get a drink together, Sam would tell her about his horrible, cheating fiancée, one thing would lead to another and...
Oh God.
“I really think he might hook up with this ex-girlfriend of his,” I told Donna, my voice verging on hysterical.
“Oh, stop it, Millie,” Donna snapped at me. “Sam is not going to cheat on you in New York.”
Donna was probably right. My imagination was getting the better of me. I couldn’t imagine Sam messing around with another girl behind my back. Of course, it’s not cheating if he thinks that I’m hooking up with Jake.
“Once he’s cooled down, you can talk to him about what really happened,” she said in a painfully logical voice.
The problem with this plan was that it would take superhuman restraint not to call Sam for an entire week. But clearly, he was really pissed off and probably talking to him was just going to make him angrier.
Maybe Donna had a point though. Maybe after a week apart, he’d realize how much he missed me.
That or he’d realize he was better off without me.
June 11:
Rachel had her baby today. Two weeks past her due date. I’m an aunt now. I hadn’t imagined that when this moment came, I would be all alone.
Although actually, in a way, it’s exactly what I had imagined.
June 13:
I just got home from seeing my new nephew. His name is Alex. He’s adorable and beautiful and perfect and I feel like jumping out the window.
My sister lives about an hour away, so today I drove out myself to see her at the hospital. She’s staying a few extra days, because she had a C-section. That baby just didn’t want to come out, and also, he was huge. I have to admit, Rachel looked really wiped. She was pale and wincing every time she moved. Apparently, she had a really rough labor. Alex weighed almost ten pounds, which is a lot considering how tiny my sister is.
If I ever have a baby, which I probably won’t, it will probably just fall right out of my big fat body.
When I got to the hospital, Rachel was sitting in bed and nursing her baby. He was so impossibly tiny and cute, wrapped up tightly in a receiving blanket. He was even wearing this ridiculously adorable hat. I wanted to grab him and make a run for it. My mother was also in the hospital room, tidying up.
(Yes, she was cleaning the hospital room. She’s unbelievable.)
“Thanks, Millie,” Rachel said as I handed her the balloons I had purchased in the lobby.
“He’s really cute,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“My nipples hurt,” Rachel said. “My milk hasn’t come in and he wants to nurse nonstop.”
“But he’s not going to get a bottle,” my mother said firmly. “Alexander is going to get nothing but fresh breast milk. Right, Rachel?”
Rachel rolled her eyes in a way to indicate this wouldn’t necessarily be the case. “So where’s Sam?” she asked me. “You could have brought him.”
I swallowed. “We’re, um… having some problems.”
Rachel looked alarmed but my mother smiled. “I knew it,” Ma said smugly.
“Millie, what happened?” Rachel asked, her brow furrowed. “Sam is so great.”
“He’s not great,” my mother snapped. “Millie could do a lot better.”
Rachel looked like she was going to start arguing with her, but I couldn’t deal with this right now. “Please,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. Okay?”
Thank God, they both dropped it. Rachel asked me if I wanted t
o hold the baby and I said yes. She handed him over to me and I held the little bundle in my arms. I looked at his tiny face and felt him wriggling in my arms. He was so unbelievably cute. I was never going to have a baby like this. I had screwed everything up for good.
And then I was crying.
At first it was just a few tears, just a normal misting over from holding my first nephew. But then I started crying really hard. Like, really hard. I felt my mother pulling the baby out of my arms and I was almost hysterical. I was sobbing and hiccuping and I couldn’t stop. I think it was the hardest I’ve ever cried in my entire life. I couldn’t look at my mother or Rachel as I ran out of the room.
I stood in the hallway outside Rachel’s room, still sobbing hysterically like a crazy person. People were giving me weird looks, but I didn’t know where to go. I figured I should try to find a bathroom and get cleaned up, but I didn’t see any signs for the bathroom.
I was still crying hard when my mother came out of Rachel’s room, looking concerned.
“Millie,” she said. “Honey, why are you crying?”
I wiped my eyes. “I miss him.”
My mother looked like she didn’t know what to say. I was glad that she didn’t say anything at all. I kept crying as she held me, stroking my hair.
June 14:
It’s awkward for me to be staying at Donna’s house. Awkward with a capital A.
I can tell that her husband Mike isn’t terribly thrilled about it, but Donna says he can go to hell. I didn’t realize how much they were squabbling since she’s been knocked up. Maybe part of it is that I’m around, but it seems like every exchange they have degenerates into an argument. I don’t remember them being like that before.
For example, Donna went to use the bathroom when we came home from work today (she uses the bathroom a million times a day), and when she came out, she was holding an empty toilet paper roll and gesturing wildly. Mike, who was watching football on TV, looked baffled.
“I don’t think in the entire time we’ve been married,” Donna said, “you have ever changed the toilet paper roll!”
“Sorry,” Mike said, not sounding terribly sorry. “I worked all day and I’m tired.”
“I worked all day too,” Donna shot back. “And I’m pregnant.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Mike mumbled under his breath.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Donna nearly screamed.
“For Christ’s sake, nothing,” Mike said. He got up off the couch and took the empty roll from her hand. “I’ll change the toilet paper roll, okay?”
“Well, it’s too late now!” Donna said. “I already changed it.”
Mike threw down the empty roll in exasperation. “Then what are you yelling about?”
Donna looked down at the toilet paper roll on the floor. “You pick that up!”
“No, you pick it up.”
(I ended up picking it up. I figured it was the least I could do.)
Tonight before bed, I ran into Mike in the kitchen. He was grabbing a beer from the fridge. Mike loves beer, which probably accounts for his significant beer belly but not the fact that he’s balding. He has a beer every night before bed, as far as I can tell. I thought about telling him that drinking alcohol before bed reduces REM sleep time, which is critical to good sleep, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate that.
“I’m sorry I’m in the way,” I said to him as I poured myself a glass of water.
Mike grunted.
“I’m going back to my apartment tomorrow night,” I offered.
He looked up at me. “You and Sam make up?”
“No,” I said. “But Sam’s going to be gone on a business trip.”
Mike grunted again. “What the hell are you fighting about this time anyway?”
I flushed a little bit at the question, but I figured that Mike deserved an answer considering I was imposing on his house. “Well, there’s this guy at work—”
“Never mind,” Mike said quickly. “I don’t want to know.”
I stood there awkwardly with my glass of water. I thought about taking it to my room (i.e. the baby’s room) to drink, but then I’d just have to come back out when I finished it.
“Why don’t you just tell him you’re sorry or something?” Mike said, breaking the silence.
“I did,” I said. “He’s still angry.”
Mike shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”
“I’m not so sure.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Millie. Of course he’ll forgive you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, who else is he going to get?”
Mike met Sam once when the four of us double-dated. The two of them got along pretty well, actually. They both have very laid-back personalities, something that I like in Sam but that sometimes irks Donna about Mike. Especially when it comes to changing the toilet paper roll.
(And I suspect pretty soon it will also apply to diaper-changing. Hopefully, I will have moved out by that point.)
Anyway, I was guessing Mike was referring to the fact that Sam is in a wheelchair and therefore couldn’t possibly replace me. I wasn’t surprised to hear that coming from Mike.
“Sam actually is really good at getting women,” I said.
Mike shook his head. “Yeah, but you’re the only one who would marry him.”
My face burned. “That’s not true.”
He snorted. “Whatever you say, Millie. Honestly, sometimes I think I have a better understanding of women than you and Donna do. Clearly, the guy wants to get married and he knows there’s nobody else out there who’d be interested. Women are picky. If he’s been out with a lot of other women, that’s all the more reason that he realizes that I’m right.”
“That’s really…” I searched for the right word. “Insulting. To people with disabilities. And to women.”
And especially to me.
Mike shrugged. “Believe whatever you want. I don’t care.”
I washed out my glass in the sink and went back to my sleeping bag. Even though I was fuming at Mike, I couldn’t help but wonder if he might actually be right. Was Sam only settling for me because I was the only girl desperate enough to marry him? And would he come back to me just because I was the only one who would have him?
I fell asleep wondering.
June 15:
I went back to our apartment today. I guess I’ll stay here while Sam is gone, then figure out my next move.
As soon as I got into the apartment, I was hit with the familiar smells. Like the cleaning fluid that his cleaning woman Lucy uses and the vanilla air freshener she spritzes around the apartment a little too liberally. And then there was the faint lingering smell of Sam’s aftershave.
I confess that I went straight to Sam’s closet and looked at the rows of his clothing, then ran my hand along his shirts. The aftershave smell was stronger there and I inhaled deeply. Someone watching me probably would have thought I was nuts or something.
(It probably would’ve made more sense to sniff his bottle of aftershave instead. But that would’ve been really weird.)
It was nice to be back in my own apartment, even if my place in the apartment was threatened. I lay down on the bed and curled up with a book, trying to forget everything that was going on. I pretended to myself that Sam was just coming home late from work and not across the country, trying to forget me.
I was reading for close to an hour when I heard a loud sound. It sounded like someone at the front door. I was immediately terrified. Sam lives in a good neighborhood with a doorman, but I have to say, Nick just waves pretty much everyone inside. He is the most useless doorman ever.
With that in mind, I looked around the bedroom for a weapon. I found a pair of my tweezers. I could either stab the intruder or give him really well-shaped eyebrows.
I crept toward the front door, the tweezers thrust forward in my hand. I peeked my head out and my shoulders sagged when I saw Sam’s brother Eric at the door.
I put the tweezers in my pocket before he could see them. “Hi, Eric,” I said.
He jumped about a foot in the air. “Oh, hi, Millie,” he said. I like Eric’s voice, mostly because he sounds a lot like Sam. His voice is maybe a hair deeper. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“Well, I am,” I said.
We stared at each other awkwardly. Eric was holding his laptop. “Um, my internet isn’t set up yet, so Sam said I could…” He trailed off. “But, um, maybe I’ll just go to Starbucks.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said quickly. “Stay.”
Eric looked really uncomfortable, but he took his laptop to the living room and got it set up, glancing up at me every few seconds. My ulterior motive for asking him to stay was so that I could ask him about Sam and maybe convince him to put in a good word for me, but right now, I couldn’t work up the nerve. I was sure that Sam had confided in his brother though. The two of them are incredibly close.
“Have you spoken to Alicia recently?” I asked Eric, in an attempt to break the ice.
Eric gave me a withering look, which let me know that the answer was no and also that it was absolutely none of my business. Probably not the best question to break the ice.
“I’m sure things will work out between the two of you,” I blurted out, before I could stop myself.
“I’m not,” he retorted. “Alicia is spoiled and always expects to get what she wants. That’s what I get for marrying someone so gorgeous.”
Eric wasn’t just bragging about his wife. Alicia really is incredibly beautiful.
“Of course,” Eric added, “you can marry an ugly girl and she can end up screwing you over just as bad.”
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t entirely my imagination that Eric was giving me a pointed look when he said that. Great. Nice to know that the brother of the guy I had been planning to marry thought I was a total dog.
Not that I was entirely surprised.
Eric went back to looking at his computer screen. I tried not to let his words bother me, but they did. I kept hearing the words “ugly girl” over and over and over in my head. And then I remembered Mike telling me last night that Sam was marrying me because I was the only one who would have him, and how his stupid comments kept me awake half the night.