Borrow-A-Bridesmaid

by Anne Wagener

  “About that.” Charlie’s voice has gone flat.

  The elevator is plummeting. I brace for what I can already tell is going to be a crash landing. On the way down, I try coddling my optimism. It’s so fragile, like a baby monkey. Doesn’t he want to make the baby monkey coo and smile? He wouldn’t kick a little baby monkey, would he?

  Would he?

  “I thought we could meet up at Jammin’ Java,” I continue. “They have this wicked drink called Java the Hutt.”

  “Piper.”

  And that’s when I hear it. The sound of an announcement: “Never leave your baggage unattended.”

  He’s at the airport.

  “I’m so sorry,” he’s saying. “I can’t meet you.” He sounds distressed.

  “What’s wrong?” I want to wrap my arms around him.

  “I have to go back to L.A.”

  I should have expected this. I ignored the airport announcements I hear daily—I left my baggage unattended. I forgot about Scott and how much it hurts when you let yourself care for someone.

  Lin’s eyes are wide. I try to pantomime a plane flying to the West Coast with one hand, but he’s not getting it. His eyebrows tip toward each other in confusion, but he seems to get the gist that this is Not Good. He reaches over to hold my hand. Tears wait in their ducts, at the ready.

  Might as well face the music. The Mighty Bassoon waits to play me a fugue.

  “But—why?” is all I can think to say.

  “It’s a long story. One that I do want to tell you—”

  “So tell me.” I sit up in my chair, letting go of Lin’s hand. “I’ll meet you there. I’ll buy you a bestseller for the flight. I get a thirty percent discount at the Book Nook.” I let out a pathetic-sounding laugh. The dying breath of the baby monkey.

  “My flight leaves in five minutes.”

  Neither of us says anything. On his end of the line, a tired-sounding woman announces, “Passengers of United Flight 3897 to Los Angeles, please report to the boarding area. Now boarding all rows, all zones.”

  “I’ll call you when I get out there.” He sounds choked up, too, but that makes zero sense. If he wanted to stay, he’d stay. “I really want to talk to you, about writing, about everything. But I have to go now.”

  Out on the Beltway, I watch a man in a black Civic flail his arms, the light of a Bluetooth device lodged in his ear. I feel like flailing along. Though I’m still hurtling downward, I haven’t hit bottom yet. Lin reaches out to me, but even he can’t stop gravity. I know what’s coming.

  “Last call for United Flight 3897 to Los Angeles. Passengers, please report to the boarding area for immediate departure.”

  “Piper?”

  “So go, then.” I say it like I’m five years old, petulant, but I’m disappointed and sad, and he’s the reason.

  “I’ll call you soon, okay?”

  “Sure.” My voice softens, but only slightly. “Safe travels.”

  “Thanks. Bye, Piper.”

  The line goes silent. And I hit the ground.

  Eleven

  He’s there—of course he’s there. Today wouldn’t be the day he pulled a trapezius muscle doing P90X or got E. coli from a prewashed pack of Super Spinach. No such luck. He’s waiting for me out front, hands on his hips. A pair of wire-rimmed glasses rests on the bridge of his oily nose. He looks like a hybrid of used car salesman and chemistry teacher; his favorite element would be boron.

  Even before I enter the place, I’ve got claustrophobia. My shoulders shrink in anticipation of the bookshelves on either side of me, trapping me, trapping my thoughts. Thoughts of Charlie that will, no matter how much I try to shelve them with the paperbacks, pop back onto my mental book cart.

  And I shrink in anticipation of being near Sal, who sometimes feels like he’s on all sides of me. I’m even early today, but I know it doesn’t make up for Saturday. His expression confirms that thought. One of his scraggly eyebrows is cocked at a 45-degree angle.

  “I seem to recall you promising that you’d be here at noon Saturday. On the damn dot,” he starts off ominously.

  Times like this, I revisit my fantasy of dumping a plate of spaghetti and meatballs on his bald head. This fantasy originated my first night here, when he reamed me out for giving a customer the wrong change. Since then, I’ve sporadically pictured the splat—watching the meatballs roll down and the noodles curl around his ears, sauce dripping into his eyelids. Oh, the satisfaction.

  “I’m this close to firing you.” He holds his pointer finger and thumb two inches from my face. “Why shouldn’t I? You know that as senior bookseller and a key holder, you’re the manager when I’m not here. How can you justify being an hour late?”

  “Sal,” I start, trying to hold my ground. “A friend really needed me.”

  “For what, picking out votive candles? You need to get your priorities straight.”

  “She’s going through something—look, I couldn’t leave her. I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again.”

  “You can’t just skip out on your responsibilities to have a cry-fest with your girlfriends!” His face is eggplant purple. “And sales were fucking pathetic!”

  My lips part in astonishment. “Sal, it’s not like I left a body on the operating table. No one died. I was late. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you implying this store isn’t important to you? Maybe I should do you a favor and fire your ass!”

  I will not make an obscene gesture. I will not thumb my nose at him. I need this job. I take an ocean breath. Namaste. “I’ll work C shift tomorrow, and I’ll be here early. Promise.”

  He crosses his arms, considering my plea, and pushes the glasses farther down on his nose, the better to inspect me with. As if they’re bifocals. More likely, they’re the $1.99 kind from CVS that he got to make himself look more intelligent. An upgrade from boron to einsteinium. “Consider this your second strike, Ms. Brody. If you screw up in any way from here on out, you’re fired.”

  “Okay. Thanks for giving me another chance.”

  He takes a step closer. A bookshelf behind me blocks my retreat as he reaches out to flip my name tag around. His hand lingers on the plastic badge before creeping north, close but not quite touching me. I can feel stomach acid moving up my esophagus in parallel motion to his hand. I swallow and hold my breath as he takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s merciful as Jesus, and don’t you forget it.”

  He spins on his heels and racewalks toward the tram, brushing past Kelly, who has just arrived for her shift. She peers at me through cat’s-eye glasses, brushing away shaggy fuchsia bangs. “Are you okay?”

  “Sal’s a jerk,” I say by way of explanation. “Do you mind if I head down to the stockroom for a bit?”

  “Sure, whatever you need to do.” I can tell she wants to talk about it, but if I talk about it, I’ll cry. So I leave, pushing the squeaky cart past a mocking gauntlet of appealing destinations: Miami, San Juan, Paris, Seattle.

  As I reach the door by gate C-29 that leads to our stockroom, I swipe my green badge through the reader and enter the six-digit password, relieved to disappear from a busy gate full of people. Before I push the door open, I take a reflexive glance at C-29’s destination: Los Angeles. It’s the United terminal. Yesterday Charlie was probably at this very gate, holding his cell phone to his ear while he collected his bags. I stare at the LED screen, imagining that the little points of light forming “Los Angeles” are rearranging themselves into a heart, then cracking in two. The attendant behind the desk gives me a suspicious look. Hovering by a security door—what am I up to? I flash my badge to her and move through the secured door, letting it slam behind me.

  To get to the stockroom, I have to walk down a dark passageway that smells vaguely like feet and take a rickety elevator down to the tarmac, where I roll the cart three doors down to our stockro
om. It feels good to escape the eyes of the customers, passengers, and yellow-reflector-vested ground control.

  The stockroom is my safe place. Down here, I get to be surrounded by books. No customers, no Sal, no United guy punctuating any quiet moment with “twenty thousand free miles and a bonus gift!” I flip on the stereo to a classical station and let Beethoven’s Ninth into the stockroom. I prop open the door so the evening summer air can meander in, too.

  After a few rounds of piling Shopper Girl onto the cart, I settle on the floor, tip my head forward onto my arms, and pull my knees to my chest. Inhaling a deep breath of the evening breeze, I try to exhale the last two days. The last two years.

  I can’t stop thinking about Charlie. Since graduation, I’ve been in a tunnel, a sewer, maybe, and I can’t see my way out. In the claustrophobic darkness, a barrage of images rushes at me: I’m on Willy Wonka’s hallucinogenic ferry, only it’s college memories splayed on the walls. All of us wearing Krispy Kreme crowns. Naps, glorious naps. Pizza and beer night at Ledo’s. Reading medieval poetry on the lawn while Lin sketches beside me. Dr. Quillen lifting a book in the air while saying, “What do you think the author meant by that?” Unselfconsciously using words like Americana, transcendentalism, existentialism, postmodernism. Charlie could have been, if not the light at the end of the tunnel, at the very least an industrial-size flashlight of hope.

  Charlie. The way his lips tasted. Kissing him, there were moments when my entire body was reduced to lips, and all that mattered was that his kept moving with mine.

  If reduced to lips right now, I’d be chapped, dry, unkissed.

  A few tears sneak their way out from under closed eyelids. As soon as I’ve let those go, more follow: the tide of a long-restrained release.

  What would Lin say? Something wise about soul-searching and finding out what will make me feel fulfilled. The answer to that question seems as if it could be written on one line of one page in one of the thousands of books in the stockroom. I might find it in my lifetime, I might not. It might be on the cart, or it might be buried under five hundred copies of LOWLs: Birds of Yay! I don’t have the energy to crack a single spine. I consider retrieving the small blue notebook, but it’s under the register, tucked in a pocket of my messenger bag.

  The roar of the planes outside reminds me how small I am, how small my words are. I close my eyes and wait for a word or phrase to illuminate the sewer darkness. But the only points of light I can conjure keep scrolling L-o-s A-n-g-e-l-e-s.

  When I emerge from the stockroom with a red nose and puffy eyes, I give Kelly a look that says, Don’t ask. She immediately comes over to hug me but then, to my great relief, returns to shelving. After a few minutes, she strikes up a benign conversation about the latest Tudor-era novel and how she’s going to dress up as Anne Boleyn next Halloween in a dress that will conceal her head and allow her to peek through a buttonhole. Despite my sour frame of mind, she has me smiling a few times.

  After locking up, we head in silence toward the tram dock, our saunter turning to a sprint as we see the tram doors closing. By the time we reach the dock, there’s only an inch of space between the doors. They fly back open just in time: The driver tonight is feeling generous, thank God.

  It’s packed. Travelers arriving home from an international flight clutch their passports and carry-ons, folded-up Sudoku books in their pants pockets. “I’m going to sit up front,” I tell Kelly, and she nods absently, already pulling a fantasy paperback from her purse.

  At the front of the tram, a flash of dark hair is a white flag waving on the battlefield of my day.

  “Hey, you.” A familiar deep voice rings out as Kalil motions for me to sit on the floor across from his spot at the controls.

  I collapse. “You’re a lifesaver.”

  He shrugs. “No big deal. I know you didn’t want to sit in there another twenty minutes.” He starts up the tram and begins the slow trek to the main terminal, sleepy planes waking up for their night journeys, their lights winking across the tarmac.

  Over the partition, I can see only a silhouette of his face and the tops of his shoulders. Portrait of a Tram Driver.

  He sneaks a glance at me, smiles. “Huh. You look like your day’s been about as fun as mine.”

  I look up at his profile and imagine he’s got the same dark circles under his eyes that I have under mine. “Most likely.”

  Thing is, my day isn’t even over. I’m headed to Alex’s condo for an invitation-addressing extravaganza that could easily become an all-nighter. I should have paused my mental breakdown to get a red-eye coffee.

  He takes another look at me. His eyes are kind, his lingering gaze an invitation. “What happened?”

  “Pissed Sal off again today.” I can’t bear to share the part where Sal touched my face with those long fingers. There aren’t words to describe the way that made me feel. I swallow the memory back down with another lurch of stomach acid and focus on Kalil’s profile. A few defiant strands of jet-black hair curl across his forehead.

  He’s shaking his head, braking as a food cart speeds past. “What doesn’t piss Sal off? Is there a customer’s asscheek you didn’t kiss? Did you run out of copies of the LOWL book again?”

  “I wish. I was late on Saturday, taking care of some personal stuff.”

  “What, you think you have a life or something outside this place?”

  I almost want to tell him about the whole selling-my-body thing, but I’m too tired. It’s too much for one tram ride. “I wish I had a life outside this place.”

  Kalil brakes again and turns to look at me. He brushes the wayward strands back toward his ear, giving me a clearer glimpse of his wide brown eyes. He smiles at me, and my bad day, which was latched on to the back of my neck, begins to release.

  As we wait for an express jet to pass in front of the tram, he ducks his head to peer up at the night sky, which is unusually clear. I peer up, too.

  “Is that the North Star?” I ask.

  “I don’t know much about stars. Is it the really bright one?”

  “I think so. Jeez, I hope we’re never lost in the woods.”

  A bemused smile appears on his face. “We’re all lost in the woods.”

  “You’re being deep, aren’t you? I don’t follow.”

  “Philosophically speaking. Human existence is irrational, absurd, and we have no objective guidelines. No life manual. We’re all lost in a deep, tangled wood where there’s no clear path.”

  “Yeah. This isn’t helping.”

  He lifts a finger. “There is hope, my bookselling friend. We can blaze our own path through the trees. Embrace the absurdity. Do your best to live a life of meaning in an uncaring, absurd universe.”

  “Ha! I’ll work on that.”

  “For me, that’s driving this tram and not joining the rat race.” He nods at the rearview mirror. The entire population of the tram is portrayed, distorted, on its oblong surface. “Finding little moments of happiness where I can. People watching. Star watching. Reading the great philosophers.”

  We exchange smiles before he begins accelerating again.

  “So, speaking of creating meaning,” he continues, “and if I may be so bold, what made you late on Saturday?”

  “I was at a bridal gown sale. If you ever start to think the universe is rational, attend one of those.”

  He frowns. “You’re getting married?”

  Caught off guard, I begin to laugh. “Who, me? Hell no. I’m just a bridesmaid.”

  He laughs a little, too. “Hey, I dunno. You could be engaged to some rich dude who’s going to save you from this place.”

  I roll my eyes. “Right. Don’t I wish.”

  “Well, if you ever need a break, we could get a drink—”

  He’s interrupted by static from his walkie-talkie. His boss’s voice comes across the static. “MT to Tram 205.” />
  Kalil picks up the receiver and presses a green button, holding the device to his lips. “Tram 205 here.”

  As they exchange messages over the static, I return my gaze to the night sky, my heart rate faster than normal. Between beats, I realize I haven’t thought about Charlie in at least five minutes. That very realization sends thoughts of him spiraling across my mind, along with a fresh jolt of pain to the chest. Damn the irrational universe for taking him away from me. I squeeze my eyes shut until I hear Kalil set down the receiver. We’re pulling up to the main terminal.

  “You want to walk me to the bus stop?” I ask, eager to dispel the pain in my chest and not a little bit curious to see more than just his torso.

  “Wish I could. I’m headed to BT in five.”

  “Is that tram lingo?”

  “Mmm-hmm. You know, the BT, the B Terminal. You got MT for Main Terminal, AT, BT, CT, and DT.”

  With the push of a round metal button, he swings open the doors, and passengers begin to file out around me. I reach over the partition and touch his shoulder. “Thanks,” I say, trying to communicate that this five-minute interaction, plus being saved from waiting twenty minutes in CT, has been a blip of starlight on an otherwise pitch-black day. One shrubbery hacked down toward a new path.

  He seems to understand, because he puts a warm hand over mine. “Let’s talk again soon.” He looks like he wants to say more, but another static-filled message is coming through his receiver.

  Half an hour later, Wulfie is making embarrassingly loud noises that seem to echo off the well-groomed buildings of Alex’s neighborhood.

  Her condo is across from the Vienna Metro: prime real estate. This is one of those areas of D.C. you just drive past and wonder, What do they do for a living? A condo in these parts might go for half a million, easy, quite possibly more.

  I pull up to the visitor spot outside Alex’s unit, turning off the engine and feeling Wulfie’s relief as the shaking beneath me stills. The windows of 160D are dark, and something feels off. Alex hasn’t called me to tell me our invitation party is canceled. And she doesn’t seem like the type to ever forget anything.