by Anne Wagener
I get out of my car, rereading the text she sent me yesterday about addressing invitations. Right day, right time. Well, I’m thirty-seven minutes late, but normally, I’d hear from her about that.
I knock softly on the door. Silence.
I knock again, trying to peer through the blinds, to no avail.
On my third knock, I exhale as I hear her shuffling toward the door. Something’s off about that, too. Alex doesn’t shuffle. She strides.
When the door opens, my jaw nearly hits my collarbone.
Twelve
Alex looks like an eighties music video gone bad. Her mascara has escaped from her eyelashes to everywhere around her eyes. Her hair is sticking up wildly, her eyes are red-rimmed and bulging, and she clutches a wine bottle in one hand.
She waves me in and we sit together on her purple couch, which is so soft you feel like you’re sitting in a cloud. She drains the last drops of wine, then hands me the empty bottle. I set it on her oak side table and switch on the lamp. She winces and squints but says nothing.
I take in her splotchy face, her disheveled appearance, which frankly alarms me more than the blatant imbibing. One little hair clip clings for life on several strands that, earlier today, must have been iron-straight and glossy. And her elegant apartment looks like it’s been raided by bride zombies. Invitations are strewn across the floor, but not in the sense that she’s been industriously addressing them. Some invitations and envelopes are crumpled, others ripped in half. The wine bottle on the side table has relatives, also empty, on top of the television and kitchen counter.
“What’s going on?”
“We broke up.” She hiccups.
“What happened?” When she doesn’t answer right away, I wrap my arm around her shoulders.
“I’m not even sure.” A bitter, drunken laugh. “That’s the funny part. I have no idea what is going on in that man’s prune-sized brain.”
Not sure how to respond, I give her back a little pat.
“I think we argued about the wedding a lot.”
“What about the wedding?”
“He thinks I’m making too big a deal of it. Of our wedding! He says I’m inviting too many people, spending too much money. He says he doesn’t trust me to spend money when we’re married. He thinks I’m going to spend it all on random kitchen gadgets and daily manicures or something. Never mind that I make more money than he does. But you can’t bring that up to a man.”
I smooth her hair and watch the weather change on her face. A nimbus of sadness replaces thunderheads of anger.
“But you know, if I’m honest with myself, I think he was looking for a reason. He’s been so distant over the past few months. I think maybe he didn’t want to get married after all. I think he might even be back with his ex. She’s down in Tampa, too—his hometown. I wonder if his going down there for work was just—” She pulls her knees to her chest and tips her head onto them.
I tilt my head against hers, wishing with all my might that Lin were here. He’d know what to say.
She cries for a long time, maybe half an hour or so, pulling her head up every few minutes to hiccup and take another drink from a fresh wine bottle that seems to have been summoned out of nowhere. She must have stashed it in a couch cushion. After a while I slip into the kitchen and return with a bag of pretzels and a glass of water. “Here. I don’t want you to get sick.”
She nods, shoveling a few pretzels into her mouth. It seems like she wouldn’t have something as pedestrian as pretzels in her apartment; the fact that she does gives me a strange sense of relief.
I sit next to her. “You know what?”
She looks up at me with sunken eyes. Current forecast: rain.
“You can get manicures every day if you want. And buy kitchen gadgets. Get yourself a banana slicer! Maybe this is for the best. If he wasn’t willing to pull his weight with the wedding, maybe he’s not someone you want to be married to anyway.” I’m grasping for words, fishing for crumbs in the limited expanse of my own relationship experience. “Not that it doesn’t hurt any less right now.”
She nods, propping her chin on her arm and munching. “I know I’ll feel that way eventually.” I can see a glimmer of Practical Alex returning.
I grab some pretzels, too—my last meal was a candy bar from the vending machine—and we munch in silence for a bit.
She turns toward me, seeming to have sobered up a little. “I’m still going to pay you.”
“What? No, that— That’s not right.”
“You’re going to let me, and here’s why. The best thing I’ve gotten out of this whole engagement disaster is you as my friend.”
I flush. “Thank you,” I whisper. And then I have an evil, evil thought: I’m relieved to have a single friend after finding out how serious things are getting between Lin and Steve. I try to push the thought away, but it flashes relentlessly, strobe-light style. I’m a horrible person, wishing heartbreak on people. The anti-Cupid. “I’m still not going to take your money. You can’t convince me otherwise, so that’s that.”
“I’d like to do something for you,” she says. Hiccup. “How about you come work at my firm? I could get you set up as a temp, at least get you out of that airport job you hate.” She surveys my wrinkled polo and khakis. “Business casual could do a lot for your look.”
“That’s very kind, but—” But what? It’s not like I’ve had any other job offers, and the City Paper position is a long shot. “I might take you up on that. Let’s talk about it when you’re feeling better. Why don’t you get some sleep?”
She nods numbly. I follow her into her room, and she crawls into bed. I set a fresh glass of water on her bedside table and give her a hug, promising to check in on her soon. I turn off the light and walk back into her living room. The place is a mess. I don’t want her to wake up to this disaster in the morning—the heartbreak and the hangover will be bad enough.
Sighing, I begin picking up invitations, all those envelopes unaddressed, the calligraphy pen forgotten on the coffee table. Looking at the pen, I think for a split second of that blue notebook with the music notes dancing across it. I should go home and write something. Maybe, pen to paper, I could soothe the little pulsating question mark that’s asking: If strong-headed Alex can’t keep a relationship together, how in the world did I think I could?
I’m sure what I’ll be writing instead is an ad for a new bride client.
The clock on my dashboard is unforgiving, reminding me that unless I can click my heels together three times and appear in C Terminal within the next ten minutes, I’m going to be in big trouble. Grabbing my bag, I hop out of the car and dash to the bus stop. Other employees are queueing up in the late afternoon heat. A woman in a navy flight attendant uniform and an immaculate French twist nods hi, and I nod back, trying to stay calm.
As I board the bus, I’m doing quick calculations. It will take me at least fifteen more minutes to get to the main terminal, go through security, and catch a tram to CT. I’m so busted. I already have two strikes, according to Mr. Meatball. I tap my fingers on my knee and listen to my fellow airport employees talk in five different languages as the bus moves colossally slow through the employee lot. Time is moving slower than it does in a gynecologist’s waiting room.
Despite the verbal bludgeoning I received from Sal mere days ago, here I am, running late again.
I blame Charlie.
Sipping my coffee this morning, I decided to check my e-mail for responses to my latest ad. And there, sitting in my inbox between e-mails with obscene subject lines involving donkeys and diapers, was an e-mail from Charlie. I pretended like I wasn’t going to read it, but my fingers had a mind of their own. They couldn’t help but click on that little envelope icon. I read it once, then read it again and again until I had it memorized.
Piper,
I skipped town. I know this
makes me either number three asshole on your list—I’m not self-important enough to think I’m number one—or already forgotten.
Me leaving had nothing to do with you. I didn’t want you to think I’m the sort of person who makes someone read his entire screenplay and then bails. A literary ring-and-run.
And I didn’t want you to think that our time together didn’t mean anything to me. Because it did. I can’t stop thinking about you.
I still can’t quite explain what’s going on (to you or even to myself, really). Trust me on this—my life is a total and complete mess. I don’t know which end is up. Or if there is an up.
I’ll be hoping life is kind to you and that you find inspiration again, somewhere between shelving paperbacks and bustling wedding gowns.
Your friend,
Charlie
P.S. I read the “Melting Girl” stories . . . keep writing, no matter what.
The bus seems to jostle all my disjointed thoughts, bringing Angry Achilles back into my mind. Cymbals of confusion: What’s going on with him? Is he going to be okay? A thumping bass line of desire: I miss him. And unless I’m crazy, it sounds like he misses me, too. So why did he bug out on me?
When the bus finally pulls up to MT, I dash past the check-in counters toward the employee security line. A TSA guy with huge glasses and a sweet smile sees my panicked look and waves me over to his line.
I bolt through the metal detectors, grab my purse, and make for the tram port. But when I get there, the departure time to C Terminal reads nine minutes.
“Shit!”
A family standing nearby looks at me warily, the son peering at me with wide eyes under the brim of a Mickey Mouse hat. I try to remain calm, but my heart is pounding. I could call the store, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m late. Right about now, Sal is pacing back and forth across the store entrance. He’s smiling because he knows he’s got me.
By the time I make it to the store entrance, that’s exactly where he is—waiting out front, shaking his head. As I approach him, all the days spent working this shitty job pile up behind my eyelids: shelving, crying in the stockroom, people in stupid Hawaiian shirts, Sal’s Mountain Dew breath and roving eyes, the mindless repetition of the airport.
My mind flashes back to Alex’s half-drunken offer to take me on at her accounting firm. Another flash: the City Paper opportunity. A line from Charlie’s screenplay seals my resolve. So quit. Be who you are.
I stop in front of Sal. In the movie version of this moment, the camera pulls a Hitchcock-vertigo zoom on Sal, whose grimace remains unflinching even as the bookshelves spin forward behind him.
In the vertigo, I find clarity. I pull my badge off the front of my polo and extend it toward him.
He raises an eyebrow. “Well, well, well.” Hands still on his hips, he isn’t reaching out to take my badge yet. Kelly looks on helplessly from behind the counter, a line of customers blocking her in. “Strike three,” he says, eyeing me up and down.
I’ve run out of apologies, and the relief is starting to creep in, knowing I’ll never again wear this polo. Never again see his simpering face. Never again sweep crumbs from the floor or spit-clean the display cases.
“Brody,” he starts, but I hold my hand up. Talk to the wrist. I’m hacking down a blasted tree here.
I take a good look at his face. The pronounced crease between his eyebrows looks like a frozen streak of lightning. That’s what this store will be for me if I beg for my job, if Sal relents and lets me stay: frozen in time, never moving forward. A bump on the proverbial log. A wrinkle on Sal’s forehead.
I push the badge against his chest so that his hands reflexively reach up to grab it. “You know what?” I start to say. “You’re— ”
In the movie version of this moment, I’d have some acerbic and lacerating comments for Mr. Meatball. But my mind is blank.
“There are no words for you,” I say instead. “I’m done.”
I spin on my heel and walk away, resignation and relief in each footstep.
As I hop back on the tram, I stand on tiptoe, hoping to see Kalil at the front. Instead, I see Marcus, another tram driver, a middle-aged and grumpy one at that. I sigh, plopping into a seat. It’s beginning to sink in: This is my last tram ride. I’m escaping limbo—but does that mean I’m headed further into the inferno?
An automated voice comes on over the loudspeaker. “You are traveling in a mobile lounge. We hope you enjoy the brief ride today. As you look out the windows, you’ll be able to see a variety of aircraft and the main terminal of the airport, which was designed in 1958 by the Finnish architect Eero Saarinen . . .”
And then the doors to MT are sliding open and a smile is greeting me on the other side.
It takes me a second to register that it’s Kalil, hands on his hips. Having seen him only behind the wheel, I’ve never seen the full effect before. It doesn’t disappoint. He’s crazy tall, but more muscular than gangly. A twinkle in his eyes, he blinks at me with absurdly long eyelashes. I could philosophize about his eyelashes.
Without thinking, I run toward him and pull him into a hug, jubilant with my newfound freedom. My arms loop around his waist, soaking up his warmth with my head on his chest and his arms loop-and-a-halfing me.
We finally pull apart. Kalil takes in the exhausted look on my face. “Bad day?”
“I quit!”
He grins broadly and offers me his arm, and we walk past the security line, empty now, though the robot lady is still giving her tireless lecture about the 3-1-1 rule. As she launches into the part about sharp objects, Kalil inclines his head toward mine. “That’s definitely cause for celebration. How about that drink?”
Thirteen
Onstage at Ned Devine’s Irish pub, two guys with popped collars and guitars are playing acoustic versions of rap songs. They’re starting on “It’s Getting Hot in Here” when we arrive. I followed Kalil the couple miles here, his taillights winking at me. I rolled down the window, imagining exhaling the whole airport experience and letting the warm breeze take it away.
We settle into a corner booth under a blinking Guinness sign with our drinks as I tell Kalil about shoving my badge at Sal. He relaxes against the back of the booth and surveys me. “I’m going to punch Sal in the face the next time I see him.”
I tell him my fantasy about dumping a plate of spaghetti on Sal’s head. He cracks up laughing, trying not to spit beer all over the table.
“Shit.” He manages to swallow in time to avoid spraying me. “What I wouldn’t give to see that.”
I sense him watching me as I sip my gin and tonic. Normally, I’m a beer girl all the way, but oh yeah, tonight’s a night for harder liquor.
“Hey.” He sets down his glass and pats the space next to him in the round booth. “Come over here.”
I hesitate, aware of crossing into new territory. You are now leaving Charlie-land. Entering Kalil-town. I worry that Kalil’s touch, however sweet, will erase my sense memories of Charlie. As if my memories of Charlie are as fragile as an Etch A Sketch drawing, and Kalil’s touch will gently shake them away into oblivion.
But there won’t be any more Charlie touches, will there? My passport no longer works in Charlie-land.
I grab my glass, filled with the sweet clear liquid of oblivion, and slide over until my right shoulder is nestled against Kalil.
He puts an arm around me. “That’s better.” I lean in to him and he tips his head over onto mine like Lin does when I’m sad.
“I’m so glad I ran into you tonight,” I say.
“Me, too.” He tightens his grip around me, a surprisingly strong grip. He smells like cologne, some manly scent I can’t name, but it sends a flicker of nervousness through my stomach despite the alcohol.
“Want to know something hilarious?” I ask.
“Of course.”
“Rem
ember that wedding I was telling you about? Well, I’m not just any bridesmaid. I’m a hired bridesmaid.”
At first he’s quiet, looking at me quizzically, one dark eyebrow cocked, and then he bursts out laughing. “You’re going to have to explain that one.”
I tell him the story, starting from the night when my cash-hungry fingers clicked their way onto Craigslist to the current saga with Alex.
“Wow,” he says as I finish. “Maybe you could add a few more wedding jobs now that you’ve chucked the Book Nook.” He leans forward, his elbows on the table, pushing back his now-empty glass.
“I’ve thought about that. But I don’t know if that’s what I really want. I actually have no idea, you know, about—well, anything. I’m not on the ball about any aspect of my life. In fact, the ball is an Indiana Jones boulder rolling behind me.” My words come out in a rush. I should be embarrassed about all this whiny disclosure, only a) the alcohol makes my lips looser and b) he’s a good listener. I like the way he listens with his eyes, those long eyelashes a delicate net to catch every little fluttering word.
When I close my eyes, my mind Etch A Sketches an image of Charlie and me waltzing at the Portrait Gallery. As we danced, I felt like a sliding tile puzzle inside me was slowly maneuvering itself into place, piece by piece, moment by moment. I try not to think of Charlie’s screenplay, of ancient looks. I try to dispel thoughts of him and his e-mail. Kalil is right here, and Charlie is on the other side of the continent. Cornfields and national parks and miles of interstate in between.
“Well, it could be worse,” Kalil is saying. “You could have been completely smushed by said boulder. Instead, you can get smashed.” He nods toward our empty glasses as he sits up and puts a hand on my thigh. With his fingers spread out, his hand breaches the entire width of my thigh, as if he’s playing an octave. I feel like I’ve lit up where he touched me, tentacles of light and warmth spreading out as nerves fire north-south and east-west. “Another G and T?”