“I had my eye on Hamm too, way back when. God, that was a long time ago. The guy’s still hot. In fact, he looks exactly the same as he did when he hired me.” She slapped her ample midriff and pouted. “I got bigger, but Hamm stayed young and zesty.”
“Zesty?” Bob sneered. “Ugh. You’ve made me lose my appetite.” He pushed what was left of his salad aside, but then he picked up the dessert menu.
I wasn’t sad to learn the news about Hamm. In fact, I didn’t say this to my coworkers, but I was thrilled. If Hamm was a bad boy, maybe there was a chance I could get him to look my way. Before we all lost our jobs and he went to jail for whatever it was he was up to while posing as Charlton Hamm.
We discussed the possibilities while Bob scarfed down a giant brownie with peppermint ice cream. But of course, we had no idea what was really going on with Hamm. And none of us could have guessed the truth.
***
When we returned to the office, I forgot about Hamm and buried myself in the details of a report for an upcoming PR launch. My office phone rang, and I picked it up.
“I need you for a test-drive,” Hamm said. “Meet me on the roof. Bring your suit and goggles, all that.”
Finally, I would see what those swimming supplies were for. The uncertainty of what the test would entail jazzed me. My heart raced as I brushed my hair up into a ponytail and checked my teeth in a hand mirror for salad remnants.
I grabbed my bag of supplies from the desk drawer and took the elevator up to the top floor. Then I followed the signs to the stairwell. I ran up the final two flights to the roof.
On the way, I remembered that the man I was meeting was not Charlton Hamm. Who was he? And was he single? I had to laugh at the warped way my mind handled the mystery of my boss’s identity.
I was still laughing at myself when I shoved open the heavy metal door to the roof. I’d forgotten my sunglasses, and I needed them. Light streamed through the high glass walls onto the white marble floor of the enclosed rooftop. The midday sunlight bounced off everything, and I was temporarily blinded. I had to stand in the shade of the doorway until my eyes adjusted.
Through the lightly tinted glass enclosure, the view was stupendous. Big blue sky fell down upon me, puffy chunks of white cloud close enough to touch. I wanted to reach up through the roof and grab some sky for myself.
There was no rooftop swimming pool, however. In fact, there wasn’t much up there at all. I tread carefully on the smooth flooring, which was so polished it was like ice, and groped my way toward the center of the room. The stark emptiness of the sky-high enclosure felt dreamlike. The humid air reminded me of a greenhouse.
Hamm was stretched out on one of three turquoise striped chaise lounges. He had on a pair of neon orange bathing shorts like lifeguards wear. His body was muscled, his abs ripped, just like in my dreams.
I didn’t try to sneak up on my mysterious boss, but I didn’t call out his name either. His eyes were closed and he seemed relaxed, maybe a bit too relaxed. He was lying beside what looked like a futuristic version of a hot tub. The tub was tall, dark and technologically handsome. It had shiny metallic sides and, when I peered in, appeared oddly deep, like a sunken bath.
Hamm did not open his eyes or turn to look at me. I stared at his fingers splayed across his hard flat belly: no wedding band.
“You did sign the nondisclosure agreement, did you not?” he asked.
I jumped back, then laughed at myself.
“Yes, of course.”
I held up my bag of supplies and shook it so that the contents rustled the plastic.
Hamm opened his eyes and stared up at me. I saw nothing resembling recognition of our intimacy in his eyes. But he smiled at me. My legs wobbled a little. He waved his hand over his head, pointing to a small wooden structure behind us.
“Go put on your suit. There’s a changing room over there.”
I did exactly what Hamm told me to do. Like I was in some kind of trance. I hustled into my black one-piece and rejoined my boss. He was in the tub and indicated that I should climb in. The water was body temperature and felt smooth on my skin.
“Sensory deprivation is an important part of the process, which is why we use the pool and goggles. The alpha rhythms of the sounds you are going to listen to will align your brain waves so that you can more easily leave your body behind,” he explained.
Right. I wanted to keep my job, so I just smiled at him while he turned on my mp3 player and set it on one of the chairs, then he attached a set of earbuds for me. The cords were longer than any I had ever seen, but the sound system was fantastic.
At first I could only hear what sounded like my own heartbeat, but that was replaced by a loud watery pulsing. The oscillation was all-encompassing, making me reflect on how a fetus must feel in its mother’s womb. Every cell in my body buzzed, enlivened by the thrum.
I slid farther down in the warm water, Hamm guiding me carefully, holding me by the shoulders so I didn’t sink below my neck. His hands were strong, tender, and familiar. I wanted to touch him back, reach for him, but I was busy trying to keep my head above water. I couldn’t touch bottom, even when I stretched my legs and pointed my toes.
“Let go of the sides of the pool,” he said.
I shook my head. I felt sleepy, and my mind kept drifting. Then somehow I was dreaming, or doing something that resembled dreaming. Hamm was there and we were sitting together in a huge, sunny room full of high-tech equipment. He was instructing me, then his soft lips were on mine.
I opened my eyes. I was alone, and it was dark up on the roof.
My mind was fuzzy, but I knew I had been in the water for a long time. My body felt clammy, my skin wrinkled from hours in the tub.
I tried to stand up but I couldn’t touch bottom. I clung to the slick sides until I was able to pull myself up and out. Then I lay on my back on the cold floor, my body quaking, my bones clattering on the marble. Matta had been right, a robe was a handy item to have around after a test-drive.
The sky overhead was filled with stars. The pinprick lights calmed me. Everything important was so far away; what did any of it matter? I stumbled to the dressing room in a daze. I couldn’t recall when Hamm had left the roof. How long had I been in the pool? My mind fogged over, dreamy and confused.
I dressed quickly and returned to my office. The AC felt like ice cubes blasting my skin. The floor was wet around my desk, and I wondered if Hamm had been in my cubicle while I was conked out in the pool. I grabbed my purse and left for home. All I could think about was climbing into a piping-hot shower.
On the drive home, I decided to wait until Monday to ask Hamm to explain what had happened. If I called him over the weekend, I might end up losing my job. He seemed like the private type who might resent any intrusion outside office hours.
Besides, I was freaked out. I didn’t want to think about what had happened in the pool. The situation was too weird. I spent the weekend riding my bike and reading a really bad novel.
Chapter Three
On Monday afternoon I skipped lunch to continue working on a media packet. Matta had told me Hamm needed the project done and on his desk by five. I had hoped to find time to grill Matta and Bob about their test experiences upstairs in the rooftop pool, but I was swamped. My questions would have to wait.
My cubicle is fluorescent-lit and small, like everyone else’s on the eleventh floor. The peons all work on my floor, where there are no windows to funnel glare onto your computer screen. To see the world outside, however, you have to go upstairs to the twelfth floor and step into one of the VIP offices or the conference rooms reserved for meetings with clients and job applicants. Whenever Hamm needed something from me, he usually sent someone down to my floor to pick it up. So unless I went upstairs for a meeting, I didn’t get to see much beyond my corkboard walls during most workdays.
I missed the scent of the sea, the sear of tropical sun on my bare skin. Locked away in my office for ten or twelve straight hours, I would be
gin to feel unbalanced and remote. Sometimes it felt like the real me was somewhere else while a pseudo-version of me floated along the corridors of DCI in a fluorescent bubble.
***
I was so tired that if the storm hadn’t been so loud, I would have fallen asleep in front of my computer screen.
The night before, I had been running away from Davis along a deserted beach. His hair was long now, and his ponytail flapped behind him as he drove an open Jeep across the sand toward the low dune I had hidden behind. I tried to run but kept stumbling over thatches of tall, sharp grasses. At one point, he lay on top of me, crushing me with his bony body.
“The person you are in your mind is not the person you are in real life,” he said. “There are two of you, two of everyone in this world. Why can’t one of you love me?”
When I woke up, my skin felt damp and sticky. My hands smelled like salt cod.
It was 3:00 a.m., but I got up and washed my hands in the kitchen sink. Then I made a pot of coffee. I sat at the snack bar by the kitchen window and watched the parking lot in front of my building. The sky was navy with a light-blue rim around the edges. The night is never black here in South Florida, not like it is in Woolcox.
I sipped my coffee and watched the faint twinkle of stars in the eastern sky. Eventually, my neighbors began to filter out of their condos. In the semidarkness, the shadow people drifted across the asphalt and slid into their cars. I knew none of them by name, only a couple by sight. They were like extras on a movie set, playing small nonspeaking roles in the film of my life.
When the sky began to lighten, I took a shower and headed for the parking lot.
***
I’d been at work since 7:00 a.m. and I needed to stretch my legs. Thunder roared directly overhead. I decided to take a break, get some coffee, and try to peek out at the weather. I had planned to ride my bike along A1A after work and I wanted to see if the storm was part of the summer pattern, meaning a quick dump of rain followed by bright blue sky, or something more long-term that might ruin my plans.
The floor was empty. Everyone was somewhere else. Most people were probably at lunch in the ground-floor cafeteria or at the mall next door. Matta and Bob had gone to an upscale restaurant for a pitch session. I knew Hamm was at the meeting, too. I rode up to his floor and walked down the silent hallway, then ducked into his office. I wanted to check on the weather through his floor-to-ceiling windows. In Hamm’s office, I liked the feeling of drifting in the clouds.
Hamm’s desk was bare except for a silver laptop and a gold clock the size of a small television. No family photos; no personal items. I skirted the white leather couches and matching armchairs, and bypassed the blue velveteen loveseat that faced the ocean. I could see the waves best from the east wall.
The surf was high and choppy, and a huge black thundercloud sat over the deserted beach. I raised my arms above my head and imagined diving through the swirling air mass and down, down, down to the wild, black sea.
“You look ready for a swim.”
I felt my face flush. Hamm was smiling as he made his way around the furniture toward where I stood, my cheeks flaming. I’m sure I looked as red as a Key West sunset.
He stood beside me, staring out at the darkening sky.
“Maybe we should go up to the roof, if you’re done with that project I need for tomorrow,” he said after a moment. “Are you here to deliver the media package, or for something else, Adrianna?”
Hamm had on a tight pair of black jeans with a dark sports coat over a white T-shirt. Our arms almost touched as we stood looking out at the blustery storm clouds and the crash of ocean waves. I could feel the heat from his body, and it reminded me of my dreams about him. It was impossible to focus on what he was saying. Finally I blurted something vague and headed for the door.
“So, when will it be on my desk?”
His tone was even, casually authoritarian.
“An hour or two,” I promised.
“Please bring it to me when you’re done. And plan to stay after that so we can finish upstairs.”
He smiled at me. Was I imagining things, or were his eyes full of amusement? At my expense?
I nodded and hurried out of his office.
***
As flustered as I was in Hamm’s office, I felt worse when I got back to my cubicle. Because when I checked my office in-box for the first time that day, there was something strange waiting for me. Under a stack of unimportant mail, I found a plain manila envelope with a note and a photo inside.
The man in the photo was Davis. He had long hair, pulled back in a ponytail. He was grinning and sitting behind the wheel of a Jeep. Davis had his arm around someone, a woman with pale, freckled arms. The photo had been cropped, and you couldn’t see her face.
Like I needed to see her face to recognize her. I knew instantly that the woman in the photo was me.
And the note? The note made my knees knock together. In fact, I had to bend over and put my head down for a minute because the room started to spin. If I’d had more than a cup of coffee for lunch, I might have hurled.
The note said:
Dreamers exist in the ultimate state of limitlessness unless they are Fallers into this world. Want to return? Then remember, and get on with the mission. Before he makes his dream of you into your reality, trapping you there.
When I read this, my head began to pound and I couldn’t breathe. The air whooshed from my lungs, and I felt faint. While I stood there, bent over, head down, I flashed back on what had happened on the roof on Friday afternoon. I could recall some of what I’d experienced, and it scared the heck out of me.
There was something essential going on. Something transcendent with me, Hamm, DCI, and Davis. We were part of something big, something beyond the normal realm.
***
I don’t know how I completed the media project Hamm needed. After seeing the photo of Davis, I was completely out of it. Superfreaked. How could it be that the real Davis had grown out his hair and was driving a Jeep just like I’d dreamed about? Or was the photo taken from one of my dreams? How could that be? I couldn’t even think about the note from Davis. Dreamers and Fallers? He was crazier than ever, and now he knew where I worked.
At five o’clock I stood up and headed for the elevator. I was in shock, I guess, my head full of unanswered questions. Matta called out to me when I passed her desk.
“Hey, biker chick. I think your bike ride will have to wait. It’s still pouring out. Do you want to go out for coffee with me?”
“I can’t. Hamm wants me to continue the test-drive I started on Friday.”
I held up my swimsuit bag. Matta nodded, then pinched her nose with two fingers.
“You need to leave your suit on the rack upstairs so it dries out. I can smell it from here. Phew.” She smiled. “Have fun putting it on.”
She turned away and began to clear off her desk.
“Do you have a robe? You’ll be cold when you get out. When it’s overcast, there’s no way to warm up.”
“I left a terry cloth bathrobe up there in the changing room. But I may invest in something warmer, like a full-length sweater coat or something.”
Matta laughed. “I don’t think you’ll ever get that cold. Unless he forgets about you and leaves you there overnight.”
She was still laughing as she grabbed her purple suede purse. Laughing like someone who believed being left up on the roof of DCI until three in the morning was implausible.
“Let me ask you something, Matta. How long do your test-drives usually last?”
“Oh, I don’t know. They vary. Last time I went for a dunk, I must have been under for almost a half hour. Why? Don’t you like the hot tub?”
We were standing by the elevator doors. They opened, and Bob was leaning against the back wall with a strange expression on his face.
“I almost got shit-canned,” he said. “Come with. I’m headed straight for the bar at Harvey’s and I require company.”
Matta joined him in the elevator and waved to me as the doors closed.
“We’ll send the elevator back up. You know where to find us when Hamm is done with you.”
***
I took the stairs up to Hamm’s floor and walked quickly past the deserted glass-walled conference rooms. The recessed lighting cast long shadows on the hallway, dark, creepy fingers that reached for the abstract oil paintings lining the corridor walls. My heels echoed on the Italian tile floors as I approached Hamm’s office.
If Matta thought she could save me a seat at the bar or a beer from the pitcher or some happy hour cheese, all of her test-drives must have been briefer than mine had been on Friday. Harvey’s closed at midnight on Mondays, and I doubted my friends would be there past eight. None of us wage-slaves could afford to stay out all night. Unlike some of the elite clientele, we had work in the morning.
As I entered Hamm’s office, I could see the blue flicker of his screen saver. The storm had darkened the sky outside to a thick gray, and thunder ripped through it every few minutes. I was hoping today’s dip would be quick. How safe were these test-drives anyway? Couldn’t a person get electrocuted up there?
My curiosity about the rooftop experiments had been replaced by dread.
Hamm was looking out the east window when I walked in. It was like he hadn’t moved since I’d left him standing there earlier in the day. Without turning around, he said, “Just drop it on my desk and come here.”
I set the report on his empty desk and plopped the bag with my damp bathing suit on the Oriental rug. I stood for a few seconds and admired Hamm’s broad back, wide shoulders, and tousled gold hair. I could imagine removing his jacket and shirt, running my hands along his long backbone, caressing his smooth, naked flesh.
Dream Job Page 3