by Suzie Carr
Sometimes though, I craved to just let loose. Which is why, when Haley’s e-mail reply alert popped up on my screen a few minutes after I sent my email, I sprinted to my desk to read it. I tried my best to take in a full breath of air, but couldn’t.
I suspected she could certainly let loose.
With my throat dry, my head spinning, my skin prickling, I clicked into her message.
“Hey Emma, dinner at your local favorite restaurant, what could be better?”
My body temperature spiked. I typed, “Well, I don’t know, Haley, what could possibly be better than that, huh?”
A second later, she wrote, “I can’t say at this moment that anything sounds more interesting than spending a night dining with a gal from Maryland. I can’t wait to hear all the fun stuff that goes on in the life of a Marylander.”
I needed to breathe. I was seriously short-circuiting. I inhaled deeply, scanning my desk for something normal, something common to focus on. I plucked up the picture of me and my dad eating king crab legs together at a company party the summer before. We each had on those plastic bib-aprons and smiled broadly for Colin, who had taken the picture.
Crabs and beer. Perfect. “Oh, you mean like how we love to have a few good laughs over a table of crabs and beer?”
“The closest I get to eating crab around here is to pay overly-inflated prices for supposed fresh crab or to take a stroll by my neighborhood grocery store freezer and fog up the windows as I try to find the crab with the most recent date on it, which of course is always the bottom box towards the back,” she wrote.
“I had a nice place in mind that I was going to take you to if you had accepted my invitation, but maybe I should dump that idea and bring you straight to a local favorite crab restaurant. But, I’d have to warn you, it’s dingy and in the basement of a banquet hall.”
“Hmm, the choices are tempting—dark restaurant crawling with crabs or a nice place. How about both?”
“How long will you be in town?”
“I’ll be free one night this time around and then I come back a month and half later for another business meeting, so I’ll be free another night at that point.”
“Well, then, it’s settled. I will take you to the nice place the first night and the dingy crab place the second time around.”
“We can do the dingy place first,” she wrote.
“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that Marylanders are savages dining without plates, bashing crabs with an actual hammer and sucking the juices from meager meat-filled legs the first time out on the town. I need to break you into that slowly so when you go back to Denver and tell all your friends about us here, you will be able to tell them we are a classy bunch.”
“I can already see that. You would make any Marylander proud.”
I leaned back against my chair and looked to the drop-ceiling tiles, trying to steady myself against the breathless spinning. I stared at the big dipper one, as I liked to call it. The unique tile rested directly above my head and when I reclined and stared at it long enough, the tiny crevices formed the big dipper.
Sitting upright again, I typed. “Well, I’m anxious to have you tell me all about how Denver gals have fun. That is when you’re not chatting with a stranger from across the country.”
“Oh, I think we’re past the stranger phase now, don’t you?”
The question spun another release of euphoria. What a tease. “I like to think so.”
“You don’t sound convinced. Let’s see. How can I fix that? Let me tell you a little more about how we have fun here. You should know that I hold the title for the longest winner in Lou’s Café’s Karaoke contest.”
“Is this the Denver karaoke spot or some fly-by-night establishment for amateurs?”
“This is the place to sing. Winners get their pictures taken and are added to the Great Wall of Winning Singers. My picture embellishes the center of the wall, with a ribbon that Lou created just for me that says Our Best Winner Yet.”
“Wow, I’m impressed. The most I ever got for winning any karaoke contest is applause and a few lingering claps from an audience member, drunk against the back wall. Wait. I take that back. I did once win twenty-five bucks! I sang ‘Anticipation.’ What’s your song?”
“Promise me you won’t judge me on my artist selection. I’m only asking because I like you. And I don’t want you to never email me back for what I’m about to reveal,” she wrote.
“I promise. Now let’s have it.”
“I am a John Denver freak. Yes, I know, I got the whole country thing going on, but I like it. Can’t deny it. His music speaks to my heart.”
“I had you pegged for more of a Dave Matthews Band fan, but I can understand the whole John Denver thing. You want to know something funny? I have John Denver’s entire collection.” I wrote.
I opened my desk drawer and John Denver was strewn on top of my other CDs. I stared at the picture of him with his guitar strung over his shoulder singing to a crowd. His Greatest Hits CD was my favorite.
“And I happen to have a few DMB CDs actually right in front of me as I type this out to you. So you were spot on with me.”
“So, which one of Denver’s songs do you enjoy to sing the most?” I asked.
“I have three. ‘Calypso’, ‘Rocky Mountain High’, and ‘Annie’s Song’.”
“Three of his absolute best. I could listen to ‘Calypso’ over and over again. When you come to town, I may have to drag you out so I can hear this winning voice first-hand.” I removed the CD from its case and placed it in the CD player. I went right to song selection twelve to hear John’s voice and the whistling rhythm of the open sea fill the room.
“I’m just warning you that I’m a ham. Once you get me up on stage, there’s little anyone can do to get me down, aside from physically throwing me. If you’re up to that challenge, I’m in,” Haley wrote.
“If you start singing John Denver, you may find that people will throw you off the stage, but I promise that I’ll try my best to catch you. Though, I wouldn’t take too much comfort in that. I mean, I practically fainted when you bumped into my car. I can’t imagine what I’d do if you came flying through the air at me.”
“Hopefully, you’d just step out of the way so that I don’t mess with that pretty face of yours.”
My face flushed. I played with my springy curls, imagining her sitting in front of my watching me with those big, playful eyes.
“That was very sweet of you to say. But, I couldn’t just stand there and watch your pretty face crash into the floor either. What kind of a host would I be?”
“I’d still come back for another visit.”
I opened my briefcase and removed my sketchbook, opening to the picture I drew of her. I smoothed my hand over the drawing. What was it about her that piqued my interest so much? She certainly was a fun character to draw with that bouncy hair and long, sleek neck. Imagine her up on stage singing, getting the crowd going? What a blast that would be. “Maybe I should take you there after we have our crab fest, the second time you come. We’ll have had a few beers by then so you’ll be loosened up to sing your heart out.”
“So you mean just in case I get thrown to the floor, I won’t feel a thing.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” I wrote. “Yes, that too. But more so, I just want to hear you sing without limits.”
“Even if I had the worst voice in the world, which of course my picture hanging at Lou’s proves to me I am far from that, I’d sing freely even without the help of beer.”
“Ah, a bold one, I see,” I wrote.
“Totally.”
Just then, the door opened. I minimized my email screen in one quick move, then swiveled in my seat to face the mailroom guy.
He flung the interoffice envelope on the counter before leaning his body up against it in his usual swaggering stance. “Hey Emma, what’s going on?”
I nodded at him. “Hey, John.”
The guy could talk
if I let him. Most days I enjoyed his visits, but at that moment, I wished he’d go plop mail on someone else’s desk. So I averted his eyes, rising and walking to the counter at the far end of the room. I pretended to rummage through some paperwork. “I’ve got so much work today that it’s crazy.”
He tipped his hat off and wiped his forehead clear of sweat. “It’s slow for me. Want to go grab a coffee?”
“You know I’d love to, but,” I opened my arms to show him the pile of work I pretended I had to plow through. “I’ve got all this to deal with.”
He didn’t move. Instead he picked up the Wall Street Journal that remained folded in its original form on the counter. My dad had subscribed every employee at the firm to it, including me. Of course I never read it. John did though. He turned each page with curiosity, tearing one page by accident. The crinkling noise drove me batty as I waited for him to leave. He enjoyed it that morning.
“Wow, did you know that this recession is forecasted to last even longer than expected?”
Why of all days did he suddenly go from average mail guy who used to give me hack guitar lessons in the mailroom after work to economy buff? Couldn’t he see more important things occupied my mind?
I turned my back to him and looked out the wall-length window to watch the cars roll by into the parking garage, pretending to read the documents in front of me. After ten grueling minutes, he finally stopped flapping the pages. “Sorry I couldn’t visit longer, Emma, but I need to get going. Maybe tomorrow you’ll have more time for that cup of coffee.”
Usually I looked forward to our spontaneous coffee runs and frivolous chats about how he mastered the opening riff to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were There” or how his difficult girlfriend objected to his goatee. So when he let the door slam behind him, a pang of guilt traveled through me. Usually, I longed for someone to talk with as much as him. But for once, I had something more exciting happening than a stroll down to the cafeteria.
His leaving usually signaled only six more hours to get through in the workday, but that day, it meant so much more than that. It meant one glorious thing, more emailing. I walked back to my desk and maximized my screen again.
“Sorry, I was MIA. The mailroom guy likes to come in here and stay a while every morning. But, getting back to our conversation. Thanks for preparing me on your uninhibited personality style. I can see we’re going to have a great time.”
As I waited for her response, I glanced around my work area, trying to figure out how I would motivate myself to start on the pile of research requests blanketing the once empty slot. Research was the last thing on my mind.
Finally, the little slender envelope icon appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of my computer screen.
“I suspect we will have a great time. Can we just email like this all day?” Haley asked.
“I could easily, but then I’d have a bunch of angry accountants to deal with.”
“I could see the potential for hazard there. And with me, if I don’t get these dresses out to the public, well, I’d hate to see what would happen to fashion trends. I guess we have responsibilities to face, huh? But, hey, don’t be shy. If you ever need an extra break, I’m here.”
“This was a great way to spend my break.”
“I’m just a few key strokes away,” she wrote.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I hope so.”
Her charisma amused me.
“So, I guess that means we’ll chat more before your visit?” I asked.
“I’m counting on it. Who else is going to listen to me brag about my singing ways or teach me the finer points of dining over crab legs?”
“You got a point there.”
“Well, until our next break then.”
I didn’t want to stop.
“Until then,” I wrote.
For the rest the day, I continued to convince myself that emailing with Haley was harmless. She was a female after all. A harmless female, who just happened to intrigue me a bit.
No harm at all.
Chapter 4
When I returned from work that afternoon, I didn’t stop to cuddle my cat, Snickers, or bother to check my answering machine as I usually did. I went straight to the tub and filled it with warm soapy lavender bubbles and spent my first hour home replaying the email exchanges I shared with Haley.
The reverie was short-lived.
As I swept a razor up my lathered calf, my cell rang. I glared at it, annoyed that I’d left it sitting on the vanity halfway across the room. By the fourth ring, I had managed to climb out of my soapy haven and slither over to it. Iridescent bubbles gathered at my feet.
“I’m starved,” Colin said. “Will you will be ready in half an hour?”
When hunger pangs erupted in him, all hell broke loose. If he didn’t get food fast, his head would begin to spin. “I’ll manage it.”
In less than twenty minutes, I sat beside him in his Jaguar and we headed to Blue Lagoon’s Seafood Restaurant outside of Baltimore. Bits of my emails with Haley played like a great summer read in my mind. Just the mere thought of seeing her again sent me reeling.
“So, your dad invited me to go on this golfing trip with him Saturday,” he said as we drove.
“Oh, really?” I mumbled, staring out the window at the cars whizzing by, clinging to the tail end of my daydream as though my life depended on it.
“Are you even listening?”
I heard something about golf, about dad, and not a word more. “Yup, I heard you.” He could’ve just told me he had won the lottery and was buying me a studio and I couldn’t have cared any less. I loved the emotional concert playing inside me too much to care about anything else.
****
Once we entered the restaurant and the sizzling, mouth-watering smell of steak hit me, my stomach began growling. The Sous Chef worked his magic in the open kitchen area, flipping, sprinkling, sautéing hunks of prime meat. Plumes of smoke sailed up from the grill, releasing great vats of garlic and onion and cilantro into the air. The Maitre’d sat us alongside the window, treating us to a great view of the center hearth.
While waiting for our waiter, Colin reached across the table for my hand. “What’s going on with you tonight?”
I pulled back to the present, brightening my eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a thousand miles away.”
How I wanted to be. Seventeen hundred miles to be exact. “I guess I’m just not really in the mood for this kind of fanfare tonight.”
He laughed. “You never are.”
I pulled my hands from him and crossed my arms over my chest. “Please don’t judge me.”
He sighed and pulled back. “Here we go.” He shook his head.
“Here we go?” I asked. I scoffed then rummaged through my pocketbook to find my lipstick. I hated that he could so easily piss me off.
“Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to come here?”
“You’re always rushing me, making me feel like I have no say in what goes on with us.”
He pushed back against the chair, pressing his hands into the table. “Are you getting your period?”
This time I scoffed. I glared at him, threw my lipstick back into my pocketbook without using it, then crossed my arms over my chest again. “Everything’s about my period, isn’t it?” He had no clue.
His steel eyes blazed over me. “I think you need to see a doctor and get on some medicine. We have to go through this every month it seems. I don’t know how to talk to you when you get like this.”
Time to fight.
“You can just ignore me. You’re good at that. You seemed to catch on to that just fine yesterday.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You work one floor above me. Maybe thirty steps separate us, yet you decided to ignore me all day and wait to call me when it was convenient for you.” The words spewed out of me like lava shooting from a volcano, completely unpredicted and unstoppable.<
br />
“I worked yesterday. You can’t expect me to drop everything I do.”
I wanted this fight. “How silly of me to expect that, right?”
He rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think you’re being a bit touchy?”
He’d never empathize with me. He simply couldn’t. “You just don’t understand.”
“I don’t. You’re absolutely right. You want me to guess your mood from now on and then guess how I’m supposed to react to it? How can I possibly do that with any precision?”
“Why does everything have to be so black and white for you? So clearly defined?”
“Because that’s how I think,” he said. “If there’s an issue I address it head on. I don’t like to guess. I like to take the facts and create a solution. What the hell is wrong with that?”
I just wanted to be home curled up on my couch with a cup of tea and big hunk of chocolate.
We sat in silence watching the world go on around us. A couple to my right cuddled together on the same side of the table. A family of four stuffed their faces with calamari. A table of business execs laughed too loudly in the corner by the bussing station. I fiddled with my napkin, placing it on my lap, then rearranging it until all four of its corners had a chance to cover my left knee. Poisonous energy swarmed between us.
I couldn’t take another second.
“I don’t want to fight anymore,” I said.
He exhaled for what seemed like ten minutes.
I countered with a deep one myself.
Finally, he looked me in the eye. “How am I supposed to deal with you when you’re like this? Especially this insecurity issue you’re dealing with. It’s such a turn-off.”
“A turn-off?”
“A complete turn-off.”
If I were such a turn-off, why would he want to be with me then? If I repulsed him that much, why did he bother pushing forward with planning our future? What did he see in me that kept him hanging on if I was so difficult to be around? I couldn’t even speak.