Me for You

by Lolly Winston

  “I’m sorry,” he said, without a note of his trademark sarcasm.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she told him. How was she going to improve this kid’s demeanor? Anger. She’d encourage him to be less angry, at least in this setting. Not in her job description—she was a pharmacist, not a therapist! But he seemed competent in every other way, so she wasn’t going to report him to HR the day she inherited the kid.

  “Classmates not like your name?” she gently prodded.

  Waylan shook his head, concentrating on his blue-gloved hands, counting out capsules of Keflex.

  Managing employees was a bit like parenting. Except that she’d had an unusually confident child, who practically self-parented. How had her daughter developed such a thick skin? While CeCe was serious about everything, she wasn’t an angry person. Having such a confident daughter hadn’t prepared Bethany for this socially awkward young man. Waylan, nearing thirty Bethany guessed, was her first surly teen.

  “My friends, okay friend, called me Way.” Waylan turned the plural friends to singular friend with alarming venom. “So the stupid sports kids always said, ‘No way . . . Waaaaay,’ to each other, back and forth. Whatever that was supposed to mean. Their IQs were lower than their dirty gym socks.”

  Bethany laughed at this last part; she noticed a smile pull at the corner of Waylan’s mouth.

  “You know what that’s from, right?”

  “I could give a shit.” Smile gone. Forget the progress she’d thought they’d made.

  She turned to him. “Look at me.”

  He lifted his gaze from his work to her eyebrows. Close enough.

  “No matter what, no swearing. Not my rule, hospital rules. Not even hospital. Flat-out OSHA.”

  Bethany had a headache. She’d not been feeling her best lately. Everything about the pharmacy was too-bright white, which had never bothered her before. The buzzing lights overhead, the linoleum counters, the floors—glistening with their mirages of floor wax. She rubbed her temples.

  “Anyway, it’s from an old SNL skit.”

  Waylan nodded with disinterest, his orders filled, leaning back on the counter.

  “Saturday Night Live.”

  Waylan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, we have a TV at our house,” he mumbled.

  Bethany stopped filing the filled orders alphabetically, turned, and just raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I’m sorry.” He looked at his white sneakers.

  “Thank you. Well, you are too young to remember the skit ‘Wayne’s World,’ which became a very funny movie. My point is that the two main characters, Wayne and Garth, were the dumbest dudes on the planet.” Bethany winced at herself for using the word dudes. This was not helping.

  But now she had his full attention.

  “Okay,” she tried to maintain a light tone . . . “my point being that the joke was on those kids, because they were inhabiting two pathologically dumb characters with IQs lower than their dirty gym socks, as someone I once know said. And the point is that they were the dumb kids, and you do know who gets teased in school, right?”

  Waylan’s sideways look and shoulder scrunch to his ear said yes.

  “The smart kids. The smartest kids.”

  Again, the corners of his mouth pulling upward into the littlest bit of a smile. Almost. Maybe by next week this would be a bona fide look of friendliness, or at least not disdain, and Waylan could wait on a few more customers.

  If she’d had her daughter’s confidence, she probably would have been able to bang this kid into shape his first day. She would somehow have managed to enforce what she considered to be unenforceable—congeniality.

  Patients and their families who used the hospital pharmacy, she explained to Waylan, as they set to work filling more orders, were not very likely having a good day. Whether it be chemo, a broken leg set in the ER, or a hospital discharge with pages of instructions, they needed a bit of kindness and compassion. She hoped this didn’t sound critical of him. Angry people made her overthink everything, when you got right down to it. How grateful she was to be married to a man with equanimity. “Also,” she explained to Waylan, “patient family members, while showing no visible signs of injury or illness, might just be the ones hurting most.”

  “Like on the inside,” Waylan said, nodding to himself. Then he turned to Bethany, met her gaze, and nodded more emphatically. For the first time he seemed thoughtful, instead of just smart. There was a big difference, after all. And his full attention on her during this explanation of the importance of customer compassion was a big step forward.

  Or so she thought. The next day, Waylan was more courteous to the customers, to be sure, even if he couldn’t yet look them in the eye. He was more courteous to Bethany. Yet when she complimented him on his improving skills, or said anything to him for that matter, his face flushed brighter than her red Sharpie pen. Instead of sulking and skulking, he stammered and stuttered. Waylan’s new habit of blushing when Bethany spoke to him made her worry that instead of fostering his outgoingness and customer congeniality she’d managed to encourage a crush. She seemed to be the only person he didn’t hate. Was that possible? That a twenty-six-year-old would be interested in a woman thirty years his senior? She made a mental note to share this dilemma with her best hospital friend, Bernadette from PT, when they met for lunch at their usual bench in the garden behind the medical library. Their short lunch breaks allowed them just enough time to sun, take in the flowers, and gab. An excellent manager, Bern would know what to do with this Waylan.

  It occurred to Bethany now that pharmacy school should have included some management skills for her and her peers to draw upon. But all the math and science and pharmacology included nothing along those lines. Customers’ well-being—even their lives—were at stake. You had to put their minds at ease. Remind them not to take sedatives with antihistamines and drive. Loratadine and lorazepam were not to be confused. Hone a knack for giving flu shots gently. But what if you inherited from HR a surly cashier and tech to work your counter? A somewhat peculiar and seemingly angry young man?

  8

  Every morning Sasha opened the newspaper half-hoping to find her husband’s obituary. She should have known that Gabor couldn’t be responsible for a new family and a mortgage. So apparently he’d chosen to disappear, ignoring her calls and refusing to sign the divorce paperwork. Or! Maybe Gabor had perished, and the girlfriend had gone home to Hungary with their baby.

  Between the mortgage and Gabor’s illegitimate family, Sasha felt an increasing urgency to become legally unlinked from this man, who sparked nothing but trouble. Again, always taking Sasha crashing down with him. Maybe that’s why she didn’t feel a twinge of jealousy for this new girlfriend. She felt bad for her. This woman’s life would not be easy.

  Sasha was surprised by a welling in her chest for the coming baby, however—a boy, she imagined, perhaps with Stefi’s eyes. A wistfulness to hold him. Maybe she’d buy him an outfit with her store discount.

  Sasha could not help but contrast Gabor with Rudy, who was still grief-stricken so many months after his wife’s death. He’d shown Sasha a photograph of Bethany at their last wedding anniversary party, her mouth wide open with laughter, a twinkle in her eye. She was pretty, their life clearly happy. Rudy was married to a dead woman, and Sasha had a dead daughter and was married to a deadbeat husband. There was a sort of kinship in that—in both living with ghosts. It was a deep, unspoken thing to have in common. An experience that both defied description and didn’t need to be described to understand. Sasha also liked Rudy because he was kind and funny. She always looked forward to seeing him at work now. A store friendship that had grown into a romantic giddiness. But would it be difficult dating a widower who still loved his late wife so?

  As Sasha pored over both the San Francisco and San Jose newspaper obituaries, she wished she were a widow. It became easy to nurse a non-gory movie version of Gabor’s painless death.

  Perhaps she should report him missing. Bu
t she didn’t want to find him; she wanted to erase him from her life. Stefi was gone, she was losing their home, and she wanted a real divorce. She wasn’t crazy about the idea of calling the police, though. In Hungary you didn’t call the police so often. She was between the generation who had no trust for the government, police, authorities, and the generation that celebrated democracy. Freedom. Except for the lack of jobs. There was no freedom in being poor.

  Two years ago, a neighbor had called the police to their house during an argument when Gabor, drunk, had thrown hot oil at the wall—not at her, but close enough. She’d screamed so loudly she frightened even herself. The shame of that memory made Sasha’s skin heat up and tingle. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. She blinked quickly and covered her face with a kerchief from her pocket, pretending to need it for her nose and then her forehead. However, the policeman had been respectful and kind. Adhering to an apparent protocol. His very presence put Gabor in check immediately. Then the officer spoke to Sasha in private, asking her personal questions that oddly did not shame her—questions she wished her family back home had asked, questions that telegraphed concern for her safety. She surprised herself as she answered candidly, explaining that Gabor was an (unfaithful) alcoholic prone to flying into rages. It had gotten worse since Stefi had died three years earlier, and he’d recently lost yet another job due to his drinking. The bitterness was back, as unpredictable and unruly as a bad storm. The officer suggested she come down to the station, file a report, and get counseling. See if maybe she needed to obtain a restraining order.

  “I want a divorce,” she told the officer, buttoning the top button of her cardigan and crossing her arms over her chest. She had recently gotten an outstanding employee review and a small raise at the gymnasium. Her boss at Nordstrom had complimented her on her knowledge of the Swiss Army Watches.

  “You can serve him with papers,” the policeman offered. “You may not even need a lawyer. Call the county clerk’s office.” There was empathy in his tone now. “It’s in the very front of the white pages.” She thanked the officer, and started the divorce in motion. But, in a moment of weakness, the anniversary of Stefi’s death, she had given Gabor time to get his life in order before insisting he sign the papers. Then he was gone.

  When last she’d spoken to Gabor, he said he and the then-pregnant girlfriend, Oksana, were moving to San Francisco. (She was so young! So excited by Gabor’s promises of city living!) Yet Gabor did not answer his cell phone these days, despite Sasha’s increasingly desperate messages. Now she probably really needed a lawyer. The last thing she could afford. She would ask Rudy. She knew this much: Rudy was a true friend.

  As she turned from the obituaries to the police report (bar brawl? public disturbance?), a burning in her stomach worked its way up into the back of her throat. She added more milk and sugar to her tea, hoping it would help.

  “How do you stay so thin?” the women at the fitness club always asked Sasha with envy. The members ranged in age from their thirties to their late forties, fifties, and even sixties. It seemed that those approaching menopause asked this most often. Sasha didn’t have visible paunches or droops. Yet she felt them coming on, gravity and stress from working two jobs tugging at her youth.

  The girls in their twenties came to the gym after school or work, with earplugs already in, and got ready so quickly they didn’t speak to anyone. The women in their thirties were exhilarated by being away from their children. The middle-aged group, now troubled by teens and cellulite—well, Sasha felt warmth toward them.

  “You work too hard,” they’d comment, smiling admiringly at Sasha as she moved briskly from one makeup and blow-dry station to the next, wiping, sanitizing, emptying trash baskets, clearing wet towels.

  “I’m all the time working.” Sasha shrugged and laughed, not wanting to seem unfriendly, hating her English, her accent. “Two jobs,” Sasha would add, trying not to sound self-pitying. She was grateful for both jobs; at least at this one there were always people around and she was always moving, so it never got boring. Not like the glass case of watches that mocked how slowly the afternoons ticked by.

  “She works at Nordstrom, too,” a woman named Marcie told her friend, who wore thong underwear that Sasha tried not to notice. (Still, Sasha was curious about the mechanics of this underwear. After all, she might be properly dating soon. Surely this meant upgrading from her graying married drawers.)

  “Oh, I worked there in high school,” the woman said conspiratorially. “How ’bout that discount, hunh?”

  Sasha smiled. But there was no shopping for her, except for Stefi’s clothes, and a few gifts the one time she and Stefi went back home. The money left over after her living expenses was sent to her parents. Before moving to America, she had been in accounting at a china-packaging company. She could barely live off her salary, let alone help her parents. There was democracy now, freedom. But without a degree, with her uneven English, opportunity did not come too easily. That would take a few generations, it seemed. Certainly there was no thong underwear yet!

  Working two jobs wore her out, but it distracted Sasha into thinking she was fine, until she was home alone. At night she sometimes fell into crying jags that filled her with shame the next morning. Her mother had survived many hardships. Yet she was a stalwart woman who rarely cried. Sasha had been like that, too. In America, where she expected to gain strength, she did feel happier in many ways—she had a job, a paycheck, and a nice enough place to live. She had been better able to provide for Stefi. But then Stefi died. Ever since, Sasha had spent all her free time at home, where she could abandon customer service and perfecting her English and curl up like a sow bug in Stefi’s bed, pulling the Aladdin quilt over her head.

  For Sasha the loneliness was worst in the evenings, which meant it was worst in the winter, when the nights were relentlessly long. But this was California! Compared to Hungary, the summer lasted twice as long. In October and November there were bright warm sunny days, the roses still in bloom. Still, this malaise. She missed her baby. The desire to envelop her girl in her arms. Press her cheek against that impossibly soft corn silk hair, breathe in the sweet baby shampoo smell. Stefi had been built more like her father, like an ox or elk. Sturdy and strong. A ten-pound baby, who became a solid toddler, then a lean little girl, but with the muscular legs of a ballerina. Stefi had white hair like Sasha’s had been when she was a baby. It turned golden-white on her arms and legs during the summer. Stefi’s only less-than-sturdy characteristic was her poor eyesight. It broke Sasha’s heart to send her off to school in thick, cumbersome glasses, reminding each teacher not to let her daughter hide the specs in her schoolbag. Still, Stefi never stumbled clumsily or tripped on carpet edges. And despite her thick glasses and foreign accent she made friends. Friends! “Practically everyone in Silicon Valley is from somewhere else,” Stefi’s second grade teacher explained. “We’re all outsiders, whether foreigners or nerds. Your daughter is as bright as a new penny!”

  The elementary school teachers were so young, kind, optimistic. Stefi enjoyed two years of doing well in school. At this point, Gabor was still a functioning drunk, at least until after her homework was done. Friends, and playdates. “Playdates” were uniquely American. It was strange to Sasha that these words described the way in which her daughter had died. It had been a terrible accident. Certainly not the other mother’s fault. Sasha had made sure the mother knew how she believed this, hoped it might make carrying the burden of a playmate’s death a little bit lighter. Whose fault was it? No one’s fault. Everyone report to the Department of No One’s Fault. The Offices of Grief will open shortly.

  The pain of missing Stefi was dulled a bit during the working day. Soothed by listening to Rudy play the piano. His music made Sasha feel suspended in time, as though at a party, or floating in a dream, as though everything might be all right. The warmth of the glass jewelry case against her hips, the tiny electrical shocks it gave off, the din of the department store’s ambient noise
—it was all a salve to Sasha. She had a place to be—work—and a time to be there and people who had specific questions, who needed her to unlock the display case, set out the velveteen tray, and spread a watch glimmering in the lights from above. She knew the pros and cons of every watch. The women in Cosmetics were outgoing and playful. Judy, from MAC, always hooked her arm into Sasha’s and led her through the handbags to the Men’s Department to feign interest in neckties while giggling and flirting with the well-coiffed guys. All the guys’ teeth were so white, their shirts so spotless and wrinkle-free, manicured hands, perfect hair. Sasha appreciated their friendliness, but felt a little intimidated by their starched personalities. But Rudy seemed—if not from her country—from her planet.

  Recently, the department store had begun to make Sasha feel more optimistic. The piano singing sweetly, the watch case buzzing, spotlights from above making sequined evening dresses sparkle, the whir and click of the endless stream of shopping register tape. This most American place she’d been in America filled her with the hope that she could do this: She could divorce her husband and start over. Not that she knew exactly every step of the way, nor what would follow a divorce. She was afraid to long for happiness. How could she achieve happiness without Stefi? But peace. What she yearned for was peace.

  That afternoon at work in the gym, Sasha closed her eyes and breathed in the smells of chlorine and melon body wash in the club locker room, repeating the word peace, feeling her lips move. Back when she was first married, Sasha had found solace—security and comfort—just in knowing she wasn’t alone. Solace in knowing that she was loved by her husband. (Before he became an unpredictable drunk.) That he was there for her. Solace in knowing that he’d come home at night. Knowing that he’d wonder and worry if she wasn’t there. That it would occur to him if she was gone for too long or didn’t show up for work that something might be wrong. Knowing that he’d come looking for her. When she was first married, it felt necessary to know that she was loved, desired, and needed. But things got simpler as she aged—just knowing someone would worry that she might be in a ditch if they hadn’t heard from her was a relief. Just seeing Gabor’s boots and Stefi’s tiny sneakers by the door brought comfort. This is what people who didn’t live alone probably didn’t realize: the solace of another person’s shoes by the door. Just that.