Scenes from the Hallway

by Penny Reid

  “Mmmm. . .” A pleased sound rumbled from her chest. If I hadn’t been holding her I wouldn’t have heard it.

  “The water helped?”

  She shook her head weakly. “No. What you’re doing.”

  I frowned. What am I doing?

  I looked at my hands. One was resting on her hip, the other was in her hair. I’d been brushing her hair with my fingers without realizing it, caressing her cheeks and temples.

  “Don’t stop. Feels good.” Her words were slurred—but sleepy slurred, not drunk slurred—and she pressed back against my arm and chest where I cradled her.

  “Okay,” I said, reinitiating the movement. I drew the strands away from her neck, barely resisting the urge to press a kiss against the beauty mark under her ear.

  Because only freaks make the moves on a drunk woman.

  You hear that, girls? Only. Freaks.

  “Mmmmm,” she rumbled again, which made me laugh.

  I was laughing for two reasons: first, oddly enough, I was having a good time; and second, I was an idiot. I should have asked her out before now.

  Kat didn’t talk much during the knitting group meet ups, but her velvet voice had me hoping she would. Plus she was sweet. Kind. Always looking out for others. She was patient with her friends, wise in unexpected ways, and loyal.

  So goddamn loyal.

  I know, I know, women hate it when they’re called loyal, it irks them. Like I’m inferring she’s a dog.

  But people need to understand, until recently, loyalty has been the major commodity in my life. So loyalty, being able to trust that a person isn’t a devious sneak, is a big fucking turn on.

  But her shyness—and inheritance—made things tricky. So I waited. I had a plan: ask her to dance at Quinn’s wedding. Dance with her. Kiss the hell out of her. Ask her out while she was breathless and turned on.

  Bing-bang-boom, coupledom. Who cares if she’s worth billions? Billionaires need to get laid, right? They like movies, right? Who doesn’t like movies?

  I bit my bottom lip, pulling it into my mouth, and tasted her from earlier. I’d already kissed the hell out of her, just a few moments ago. I wondered if she’d remember tomorrow, or if she remembered now . . .

  “Hey, Kat?” I craned my neck to see her expression better and stopped short.

  She was asleep. She’d fallen asleep in my arms.

  On the bathroom floor. After puking her guts out. And you’re the guy who held her hair, like a friendzoned shithead.

  Fuck a duck.

  Scene Three

  Søren Kierkegaard Is Wise. . . in Vegas.

  **Kat**

  The next morning

  Okayokayokayokay . . . DON’T PANIC!

  Oh God!

  It was on repeat between my ears, over and over in my brain, the only words that would form.

  Oh God!

  “Kat?” Dan was staring at me, his mouth parted slightly with surprise. His eyebrows were hovering above dark brown eyes, presently wide and confused.

  I flinched, but could not move because my entire body was so engrossed with the Oh God chant, I was paralyzed by it.

  “Kat,” he tried again. I felt the brush of his fingers on the back of my hand where I touched him. “What are you doing?”

  I gasped, yanked my hand back, rolled away, and fell to the floor.

  “Ow!”

  Oh God.

  I heard the sheets rustle and I stiffened, closing my eyes and bracing for . . . whatever came next.

  Please. Please let him leave. Pleaseohpleaseohplease.

  If he didn’t leave then I would likely have to make eye contact. I wasn’t ready for eye contact with Dan the Security Man. I might never be ready for eye contact with him ever again. I might live my life with the darkest of sunglasses at the ready, prepared to shield my eyes from his for the rest of my life.

  Maybe I’ll move to New Mexico and live in the desert.

  Wait. Sorry.

  I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Let me back up.

  Three minutes ago, or thereabouts, I’d been mostly asleep. I say mostly because I was sorta awake, at least I was awake enough to realize I had my hand on a man’s bare stomach and his bare stomach felt nice under my fingers. Really, really nice. Epically nice.

  But I was also mostly asleep because I thought I was dreaming.

  And since I thought I was dreaming—stay with me here—I lowered my hand into the waistband of the dream-man’s boxers and grabbed his penis.

  NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO JUDGE ME!

  There isn’t a twenty-three year-old woman alive who wouldn’t have done the same thing within the privacy of her own dreams. Especially when that twenty-three year-old woman was going on month fifty-two of a dry spell.

  Fifty-two months. Let that sink in.

  I moaned, caressing the dream man, because he felt uh-maze-zing, with emphasis on the zing, and thought, We are so going to have dream sex.

  But then he also moaned. That moan penetrated (no pun intended) my subconscious and alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t dreaming. My eyes flew open. I gasped.

  I found a very real Dan the Security Man lounging next to me looking at me with confusion.

  Oh God chant.

  He said my name.

  I rolled out of the bed.

  And that brings us to now.

  “Kat?” His voice was above and behind me.

  “Uh, yeah. I’m here,” I responded, like a moron. I turned my face into the carpet and winced. If course he knew I was there. I’d just rolled out of the bed. The bed where I’d given him half of a hand job.

  Mortification burned a path from my throat, down my esophagus, to my stomach. I held very still, hoping . . . I don’t even know. Apparently my instinct here was to become one with the carpet.

  “What are you doing? Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Good. Fine. The carpet is really lovely. Very . . . plush.”

  My wince intensified because, really? The carpet is lovely? Plush?

  Ah, Kat. You sly vixen. Way to not make things awkward. Maybe next you can do the robot dance while quoting Søren Kierkegaard.

  Nothing like a little existential philosophy after a night of drunk sex.

  Oh shit. . .

  The air left my lungs and my heart seized. Reality slapped me in the face, leaving only the sting of anguish and the burden of remorse.

  We’d had sex. I’d slept with Dan. Why else would Dan be sharing a bed with me? And now he was destined to be just another guy I’d screwed while being too intoxicated to remember and crapcrapcrap I never wanted him to be one of those guys.

  I liked him. He was, or least he’d appeared to be, honorable.

  “Hey. Stop thinking so loud down there. They can hear you in the casino.” His hand brushed the bare skin of my back between my shoulder blades, just above my bra, then slid to my hip.

  His touch was familiar and possessive. My stomach plummeted. I shrunk from him. He withdrew his hand.

  He was silent. I was silent. The room was silent.

  “Kat-”

  I cleared my throat, pushing myself away from the carpet to a sitting position. I rested my back against the mattress and pulled my knees to my chest. He was still behind me on the bed. He didn’t try to touch me again.

  “Did we use a condom?” I asked.

  “Did we . . .?” he echoed, leading me to the conclusion that he didn’t know.

  “That’s always the first question I ask,” I blurted by way of explanation. “I never remember. If you don’t remember, we’ll have to do a search for it. It’s usually on the floor or in the sheets.”

  Crap, why does this hurt so much? It usually hurts, but not this much.

  He was silent. I was silent. The room was silent. But this time silence might as well have been a scream.

  He broke it, his voice sounding funny, faraway. “What’s the second question?”

  “Uh, let’s see . . .” I studied my hands, they were shaking. I
balled them into fists and tried to think about when I could schedule a new manicure before Janie and Quinn’s wedding. “Either I ask where I can find a decent cup of coffee on my way out, or I ask about transportation, like—what’s the closest bus or el stop.”

  “So you can leave.” It was a question phrased as a statement. It didn’t require a response, so I gave none.

  I heard him shift on the bed and clear his throat before he asked, “You do this often?”

  “Often enough.” I shrugged, the numbness not quite taking hold like I would’ve preferred. But his questions helped. They made me feel cheap and trashy.

  “You have a lot of boyfriends?” His voice lowered with this question, as though he were trying to keep it even.

  “No,” I shook my head unnecessarily, smiling because the situation was morbidly ironic. “I have no boyfriends.”

  I’d hoped Dan would be my first boyfriend. Ever since we’d met in the hallway outside of Sandra’s apartment all those months ago, I’d been thinking about him. I’d tried to push him from my mind—believe me, I’d tried—but nothing worked. I blamed his lips and crooked smile.

  During knit nights, during the rare instances when he’d be guarding Janie, our eyes would meet across one of my friends’ apartments, hold, and I’d lose my breath. Then I’d go home feeling hot and flustered, scattered. Also, I’d been fantasizing about this man. This funny, sweet, gorgeous man.

  I’d never fantasized about anyone.

  And now . . .

  Now would’ve been a perfect time to quote Søren Kierkegaard.

  “Just guys you—you sleep with and don’t remember sleeping with?” Astonishingly, he didn’t sound judgmental. He sounded . . .

  Wounded? Hurt maybe?

  Deciding it was best to ignore the instinct to decode his tone, I admitted, “I’ve never been one for monogamy.”

  I didn’t add, Because—years ago, when I was engaging in this behavior—I didn’t think I was worthy of monogamy. No good could come of confessing that truth or offering that as an explanation. He didn’t want to hear about my demons, and I didn’t want to talk about them.

  And it didn’t matter, because I’d just engaged in the same behavior last night. It hadn’t been years, it had been twelve hours.

  Nothing had changed. Despite all my good intentions and hard work, I hadn’t changed.

  I swallowed against the acute aching of my heart and sighed, turning my head and lowering my cheek so it rested on my knees. I pushed all chaotic thoughts from my mind, staring without seeing, present yet absent. No good could come of being present.

  I am one with the lovely, plush carpet.

  It would be over soon. He would leave. I would take a shower, hunt down that condom, and then grab a huge breakfast. Food was my friend. It never required prophylaxis. Well, not unless a person is allergic to dairy. But I’m not allergic to dairy, and cheese loves me a lot.

  Cheese and I were in a relationship.

  The sound of Dan’s zipper tugged me out of my thoughts, effecting me like nails on a chalkboard. I shivered and closed my eyes just as he came into my peripheral vision. I listened to him walk around the room, presumably getting dressed, and hugged my knees tighter.

  Think of cheese, I told myself.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t. Instead I thought of tears, buckets of them, mostly because I was doing everything possible to keep from crying. Despite my desire for numbness, blistering heat ballooned in my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I concentrated on breathing.

  The air shifted. I thought maybe he’d left. I opened my eyes. I was wrong. He hadn’t left. Instead Dan stood directly in front of me, tucking a t-shirt into combat fatigues.

  “You don’t have to look for a condom,” he said flatly, his eyes scanning the room as though checking to see if he’d left anything behind. I took the moment to study him and the great distance between us. He was so far away now.

  I had to clear my throat of emotion before asking, “Oh. Did you find it?”

  He shook his head, his brown eyes lifting to mine and bringing with them the powerful force of indifference.

  “No. We didn’t have sex. I was sober. You were not. I held your hair while you puked. Then you fell asleep. That’s all that happened.”

  I gaped at him, dumbstruck. He didn’t wait for me to respond. Smoothly removing his cool gaze from mine, Dan turned and left, closing the door with a subdued click, though it rang like a gunshot between my ears.

  I stared at the door for a long time after he left, just stared at it. I didn’t know how long I stared, maybe minutes, maybe an hour.

  When I was finally capable of thought, wouldn’t you know it, that sassy and irrepressible Søren Kierkegaard’s words were the first in my mind, The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.

  And then I cried.

  Scene Four

  EVERYTHINGISFINETHANKSFORASKING

  **Kat**

  Some weeks later

  I’d decided to switch things up.

  Instead of my usual Thursday outfit, I wore a black dress with a little line of red running along the fabric about two inches from the hem. My coat was dark gray with big wooden buttons (I’m a sucker for big wooden buttons). The coat was currently draped over the back of my chair at my desk. While I inspected myself in the mirror this morning I’d thought I looked nice.

  But if I had to relive my morning all over again, I would’ve worn a tan colored sheet to work instead.

  I’d never wished for a bed sheet more in my entire life than I did in this moment. That said, hiding under a sheet while at work wasn’t explicitly prohibited in the Human Resources Employee Handbook—I knew this because I’d written the Human Resources Employee Handbook—I was fairly certain Ms. Opal would not approve.

  However, presently, I wasn’t thinking about Ms. Opal. I was thinking about becoming one with the hallway’s beige walls and the tan floor as Dan O’Malley strolled toward me.

  He wasn’t looking at me. Yet.

  He was reading something on his phone.

  I hadn’t seen Dan O’Malley since Janie and Quinn’s wedding back in June, and we hadn’t traded words since that awful, mortifying, disastrous morning in Vegas. If I had my way, I’d never be in Dan’s presence ever again. It’s not that I didn’t want to see him. Rather, I didn’t want him to see me.

  So I did a jazz-square of indecision.

  I stepped forward, wondering for a split second if I could walk past him undetected and deciding immediately I couldn’t.

  I stepped to the right, bumping into the barrier at my side and thinking I could escape the way I came, but then remembered the door I’d passed through locked as soon as it was closed. I hadn’t brought the key.

  I stepped back, wondering if I could turn and outrun him. That wouldn’t be weird at all, right? Running away worked for Monty Python’s Sir Robin, didn’t it? That guy even had his own minstrel.

  Unconsciously, I sang the words under my breath, “Sir Robin ran away . . .”

  But it would be weird if he saw, and with my luck he would definitely see me fleeing down the hall. Plus, I was wearing high heels. He was walking faster than I could run in these heels. An image of him passing me as I jogged in pitiful slow motion flashed through my mind. I laughed a little at the thought even as I cringed with embarrassment.

  Even my own imaginary scenarios embarrassed me sometimes. That’s right, I gave myself second-hand embarrassment about . . . myself.

  Please don’t ask me to explain why I did this, I had no idea. My father had always called my imagination over active. He’d said this with a concerned frown, like it—like I—was a ticking time bomb.

  But back to right this minute and my square dance of indecision.

  I stepped to the left, having reached no resolution about what to do, just as he glanced up. His eyes focused beyond me at first, frowning down the hallway and then moving back to h
is phone. For a singular moment, my heart didn’t know whether to lift with relief or crash and burn with disappointment.

  But then he did a double-take. His eyes collided with mine, his steps slowed, and the arm holding his phone drifted to his side.

  I straightened, meeting his stare while I gulped in a quantity of air as though courage could be gained from oxygen. For the record, courage doesn’t come from gulping oxygen. But hiccups do.

  My hand came to my stomach and I held my breath, forcing my mouth to curve into a smile and hoping he would return it, maybe pair it with a head nod of some sort, and continue on his way.

  This is not what he did.

  “Hi,” he said, stopping in front of me, his eyes conducting a quick sweep of my person. When they landed on mine they felt remarkably dispassionate.

  “Hi,” I said, no longer able to hold my breath now that speaking was required.

  We stood there, stiffly looking at each other as seconds ticked by. The tension was unbearable. I had a sudden urge to clap once, loudly, just to break the moment. I couldn’t hear anything beyond the beating of my heart.

  “How are you?” he asked softly, “I haven’t seen you since—”

  “Janie and Quinn’s wedding on June 14,” I said, then cringed. I sounded like I was responding to a game show prompt.

  “That’s right.” He nodded, his eyebrows pulling together slightly. “So, how are things?”

  “Good. Things are good. I’ve been good.” I swallowed. “How have you been? Did you have a nice New Year’s?” It was almost Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t want to ask him if he had plans—for obvious reasons—so New Year’s seemed like a benign topic.

  He tilted his head back and forth in a considering motion. “Not terrible. I went to the Fairbanks party.” Dan studied me before saying, “I didn’t see you there.”

  “Oh, I didn’t go.”

  “Janie said you usually go.”

  “I didn’t this year. I had . . . family stuff.” The truth was, my father—who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s some years ago—had an episode at his compound in Duxbury the week before New Year’s. I’d flown out to Boston to move him into a home. But I wasn’t going to tell Dan that. My problems weren’t his problems.