by Suzie Carr
My best friend Colin was back again.
I had regained control over my life.
Then, my phone rang at ten o’clock that night.
“We need to talk,” Goldie said, sounding edgy.
“About what?”
“I’m driving to your apartment right now, so make sure you answer your door.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I’d say that’s putting it mildly,” she said.
And with that, she hung up, leaving my entire body numb. Had Colin found out I didn’t go shopping with her or even had plans to? No. Colin had been fine all weekend. Goldie’s intuitiveness freaked me out. She wasn’t often right with her predictions and interpretations of me, but still, I worried because she was right about other people’s lives. How could I possibly hide from her prominent gaze if she questioned me? I envisioned her studying tarot cards with incense burning and mantra-style music setting her trance, reading vibes from my euphoric night with Haley.
If she had caught on to my energy nuances, how was I going to explain to her that I was turned on by the woman? I couldn’t even look my mother in the eye the day she sat me down to explain menstruation.
If for some strange reason Goldie questioned my sexual aura, I’d deny the whole thing.
Again, the guilt reappeared, even stronger than before. Poor Colin had no clue that while he thought his humble, trustworthy fiancé was out shopping, I was allowing a woman to seduce me with a peck on the cheek and a stroll along the harbor. He was a good man; having a few innocent drinks with the guys from work as his deceitful wife-to-be indulged in witty banter with a woman. A woman, if I had been given the chance, I would’ve kissed.
Would Goldie understand? Would she hate me? Would she be weirded out?
How could I possibly keep this from her? Surely she couldn’t disown me. She would reassure me that these feelings were normal and that she and every other woman, though they wouldn’t admit it, have had them. With that validation, of course I’d find it easier to turn away from the temptation and go forward with my heterosexual life, putting aside my silly fantasies for good.
I was fully convinced I would tell her everything. That was, until she knocked, at which point my heart constricted and I swore I’d taken my last unlabored breath. As I looked through the peep hole and saw her stern face, my throat dried.
I opened the door, and she brushed right by me and straight into the living room, peeling off her white windbreaker and plopping herself into my over-sized recliner. She wore hot pink spandex pants and a black tank top looking like she just stepped out of an eighties Jane Fonda aerobics video. She twisted her frizzy hair up into a ponytail and buried her face in her hands.
“Okay talk to me. Help me to make sense of what is happening,” she said finally looking up at me.
I eased onto the couch. “Make sense of what?”
“I’m not sure what to make of it, Emma.”
She fidgeted with the strap of her quilted multi-colored pocketbook.
“Make of what?”
“I don’t know why people can’t just be satisfied with what they’re given. Why test the water when you’re already so set in your way of life?”
How the hell did she know I’d been testing the water? How dare she judge me and tell me what I should or shouldn’t be satisfied with? “Well that’s a hell of a way to open the conversation.”
“Well, it’s true. I know you’re scared that Colin will be the last person you will ever be intimate with. Am I wrong?”
She had taken her judgments too far. “Why are you asking me this?”
“He wants to marry me.”
My head sorted through the jumbles. “Are we talking about Charlie?”
“Yes, Charlie. Who the hell did you think?”
“Well, that’s wonderful, isn’t it?” I asked, back on track.
I waited for her blank face to lighten.
“So, I’m guessing you’re questioning his proposal. Why?”
“I just want to make sure I’m making the right move. I don’t want to ruin a good thing.”
She liked the freedom of single life. She was content in her little apartment with Tatiana and shied away from commitment. When she found out she was pregnant with Tatiana, she dumped her boyfriend, determined to handle the situation alone. Since then she dated, but never seriously. This was huge news.
“Goldie, there’ll always be water tempting you to touch it, you know? But, testing it together can be much more fun than alone. I like Charlie. I can’t imagine a better person to swim with.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re so melodramatic sometimes.”
“What? You’re the one who started with the whole water symbolism.”
“Do you ever get the urge to be with someone else?” she asked.
The honesty door opened. Her question dangled in front of me just waiting to be answered.
I froze. I just couldn’t form the words. Anyway, this was about Goldie’s life not my own. “I’m content with Colin.”
“Content? God, I hope Charlie never uses that lame word to describe his feelings for me.”
“Why is it lame?”
“Content is something you say about your car or your house or a job, not your mate.”
“How would you describe your feelings for Charlie, then, Miss Wordsmith?”
“Electrifying.”
My pale face must have flushed twenty shades of crimson at her dramatic delivery of the word. “Electrifying?”
“Absolutely.”
How could she not bolt down the aisle with this perfect man? “Marry that man.”
She let go of her pocketbook and leaned back in the chair. “He is a great catch and Tatiana loves him so much.”
“Then, there’s no issue. Marry him!”
She stared at me, shaking her head up and down, convincing herself that yes; this was the right thing to do.
“Tell me you’re going to marry him.”
“I’ll tell you that under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell me what you’re keeping secret from me right now.”
The blood drained from my face. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a secret.” I jumped up, walked over to Spitfire and picked him up in my arms. Then the kitty wrestled his way out of my grip, leaving me without a barrier to protect me from her stare.
A smile crept on her round face. “I know you had that dinner Friday night with that lesbian. I want to hear about it.”
“Did Colin call you? Because I told him I was out shopping with you.”
She wrinkled her forehead. “No he didn’t. I was just kidding around about wanting to hear the details, but now I’m seriously curious.” She scrunched up her face. “Why did you have to lie to Colin about going?”
Some things were just better left unsaid, even between best friends. “We’re talking about Colin. Mister Control Freak. I couldn’t tell him I was dining with a stranger in Baltimore. You know how he is.”
She shrugged. “And I know you. I can tell you’re keeping something from me.”
“Really, there’s nothing.” I did everything to keep my face straight as a nervous smile threatened to surface.
“That’s not what I see?”
I avoided my friend’s smirk. “What you see is a woman glowing about our upcoming weddings.”
“I know you better than that. Whatever it is, the sun is shining all around it.”
“Who is getting melodramatic now?”
“I’m just calling it as I see it.”
Chapter 7
One of my nightmares came true the next day when I entered my fiche room.
A plus-sized, middle-aged woman greeted me. Her hair, a brassy mess, had been teased into submission and flattened to her head with super stronghold hairspray, economy-priced. It smelled pungent and alcoholic and a lot like the crap my grandmother had used.
“Hi, I’m Sharon, the new temp.” A big, goofy s
mile danced on her face. “I just started today.”
“Are you sure you’re in the right place?”
“Yup, your dad told me you’d be a bit surprised.”
“I bet he did.” I rounded past her to my computer.
“What should we tackle first?”
I plopped my bag down on my chair. “I’ve got to o tackle something upstairs. Feel free to go get yourself a cup of coffee.”
****
When I went upstairs to confront my dad, he acted surprised. “You don’t like her?”
“This isn’t about whether I like her or not, and we both know that.”
He tucked his hands in his pockets and turned his back to me. “Give it a few days. It’ll go fine.”
“It’s fine to you because you’re not going to be stuck with her all day.”
“You don’t have to be stuck down there with her. I told you, you have an office up here waiting for you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Oh, I get it now.”
“She’s well-qualified. She used to be a librarian’s assistant, you know.”
“Did Colin put you up to this?”
“I make my own decisions.”
“You two didn’t scheme this plan together to drive me out of the fiche room?”
“I don’t scheme, Emma. I made a business decision. And no, Colin had nothing to do with this. In fact, in his defense, he told me you were going to be upset with me if I hired her.”
“So, he met her too?”
“We both interviewed her. He didn’t think you’d like her so he recommended I not hire her.”
“But you did anyway?”
“She’s got a fun side to her. She’ll bring light into that room.”
“Just so you know, whatever you had planned with this little Sharon act, isn’t going to work. I’m staying in the fiche room.”
“I was hoping you would until she’s trained enough to be on her own, should you decide to come aboard upstairs.”
I squeezed the door handle as I turned to leave, “I can’t believe you.” Then, I slammed the door, sending a loud bang echoing through Hill Financial’s conservative, over-stuffy environment, alerting everyone that Emma Hill wasn’t happy with her dad.
****
Sharon brought light all right. Bright, blaring, stadium-style light, the kind that if you stared at it too long, a migraine soon followed. When Sharon Collier first barged into my world that morning, I immediately wanted nothing more than to run upstairs and work from atop the center table in the center aisle, rather than spend five minutes alone in the fiche room with her.
Within ten minutes, I had received the woman’s entire work and family history, including the reason she preferred eating spaghetti on Tuesday nights rather than Wednesday because she liked to follow the traditions of her grandparents. And how if, on any given Saturday, winter or summer, she didn’t share a cup of hot chocolate with her five year old son, they had to double their intake the next day to wash any superstitious mishaps. And, worst of all, she went into how she almost missed the interview because of a gynecologist appointment.
My fiche room turned into hell.
My dad was a smart man. He knew how to get just what he wanted.
This lady smashed into my peaceful world and threatened to starve it of tranquility with that piercing voice and over-bearing personality. If I had anything remotely resembling a rope, I would’ve tied the woman, with her flowery, potato sack of a shirt and dog-barking laugh, to the fiche machine to calm her down.
How would I ever be able to draw or email with Haley or simply enjoy solitude? On the drive in that morning, while dodging bumpers, I could think of nothing more than getting to work as fast as possible so I could concentrate on the email I planned to type to Haley as I sipped my morning cup of coffee. Now though, under the scrutiny of Sharon’s impatient stare, eager to learn as much about microfiche as she could, I couldn’t focus.
She stuffed a piece of an egg bagel, overloaded with cream cheese, into her mouth, and with it still full, talked to me. “The spread of bagels in the cafeteria, did you see they even have strawberry seasoned ones? And the cream cheese—”
“Sharon.” I had to stop this woman. Her voice cut right through me.
She paused, then said “What is it, honey?”
I had nothing. I just needed her to shut up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Okay, I’ll just wait here for you.”
And when I came back, I found her with her finger pressed against the window, examining it like she’d never seen a window before.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She lifted her finger from the glass and brought it close to her face. “I’m playing with this daffy ladybug.”
“Well, I’ll just be a few minutes getting settled in so feel free to continue playing.”
As I logged into my terminal, she walked over to the chair next to me and sat down, with ladybug in hand. “Don’t mind me. Pretend like I’m not even here.”
I turned to my computer and waited for my inbox to load. In my peripheral view, the woman’s eyes bore down on me like a red-hot poker branding a cow. And, just when the morning couldn’t possibly get any worse, the woman started humming show tunes.
I typed Haley’s email to Sharon’s rendition of “I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right out of My Hair” from South Pacific.
“How was your flight back to Denver?” I wrote.
I pretended to read the daily reporting charts on the company’s intranet site while waiting to see if Haley would respond. When Sharon squirmed in her seat, I squinted to look deeper in thought.
“Do you wear glasses?” she asked.
“Why?”
“You’re going to ruin your eyes staring at that machine all day. Look at me for a minute.”
I looked at her.
“Honey, your eyes are already red and irritated and the day has only just begun. You need to take better care of them.”
I touched the skin under my eye. “Really, they’re red?”
“Tiny little red lines running all over them. Hang on.” She eased the ladybug on the counter and picked her pocketbook off the floor and stuck her hand in it. “I know I have some eye drops in here somewhere. A little dab’ll do ya some good.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “They’ll be fine. They’ve lasted twenty-seven years already.”
“Are you afraid of a little drop in your eye?”
“I’m not good with sticking those in my eye.”
She rose, eye drops in hand. “Tilt your head back, hon.”
“Sharon, I—”
She grabbed a hunk of my hair and pulled my head back. “Open your eye.”
I attempted to keep my fluttering eye open long enough for her to get the drop in it. And just as the squirt splashed my eye, my computer chimed to alert me that a new message had arrived. I sprung up in my seat and knocked the bottle out of her hand and under the desk. “Sorry. I’m waiting for sort of an important email.”
She got on her hands and knees to reach the bottle. From under the counter she yelled out, “Don’t go opening that left eye now. Keep it shut so the drop stays.”
“It’s shut.”
She backed out from under the counter and crawled to her feet with the dusty eye drop bottle. “I better go wash this while you tend to your email then.”
Once the door closed and I was alone, I opened the new email.
“I spent the entire flight competing with the guy next to me in back-to-back games of Solitaire. Turns out he’s one of those slackers who plays the game all day at the office while he lets his work pile up. And he was proud of that fact.”
“So I gather you lost to him?” I asked.
“I had to buy him a drink at the airport bar once we landed in Denver.”
“Lucky guy. I gather he was at least decent for you to follow through with the payback. Was he at least cute?”
“The girl tending bar was cuter.�
�
A twitch of jealousy pinched me. “I hope you got her number then.”
“I don’t kiss and tell, baby.”
Her privacy intensified the jealousy. “Of course you don’t.”
“So, have you thought about my question?” she asked.
How was it that this woman could grab hold of my heart and wring it in a million different positions? The question dominated my mind since she had asked it. How could I confess that I was completely attracted to her without being untrue to Colin? She probably waited in hunger for my answer. How could I not tell her?
“Which question?”
“I don’t remember leaving more than one question open for thought.”
I drew in a shuddering breath, playing with the bait. “Give me a hint.”
“Am I the first woman you’ve ever found attractive?” she asked.
I welcomed the writhing warmness between my legs. “You’re the first woman who’s ever been so bold to come out and ask me to verbalize that I am.”
“You’re not verbalizing. You’re writing.”
I laughed into the empty fiche room. “Bold and technical.”
“I tend to be bold.”
“I see that. I like that actually,” I wrote.
“You like that I’m bold? Then, hopefully you won’t mind if I tell you something.”
This piqued my interest. “Tell me.”
“I wanted to kiss you.”
I swallowed hard at the sudden change in blood pressure. “Why didn’t you?”
“Would have you let me?”
My breathing stopped mid draw. Where was she taking this? How far should I take it?
I couldn’t turn back now with some petty rhetorical answer. “I honestly couldn’t think of too much else when we sat on the bench.”
“Then why didn’t you kiss me?” she asked.
“Because I’m not as bold as you. Now why didn’t you kiss me?”
“Because you’re engaged.”
Her three words served as a harsh reminder of the dangerous trap I was climbing into each time I flirted with her.