Oh God, Martin thought as he slowed the car in front of the woman. What did I do? A wave of heat rippled through his body and he felt his hands begin to shake. Though barely able to focus his thoughts, he tried to imagine what he might have done to cause this sudden encounter. Nothing came to mind, but Martin knew that he had been swimming in new waters all day long. There was no telling what kind of mistake he might have made. Less than two hours ago, he had been battling this woman’s dog in her house. What might she know?
Laura Green took a few steps over to his car and waited a moment, staring at him through the window glass. She looked even better now that she was out from behind the counter. A thin woman with an athletic build, she was wearing a pair of well-worn jeans and a green and white striped top. No more conservative business suit. But it was her hazel eyes and slightly crooked smile that Martin couldn’t help but notice.
What does this woman want? Martin wondered, staring back at her. He attempted to adopt the look of someone who was both innocent and befuddled, and waited for her to make the first move.
After a moment, Laura Green raised her hand and motioned for Martin to lower the driver’s side window. Feeling incredibly stupid, he did so.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“That’s okay. One of those days, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I just wanted to thank you. You saved my life. My friend was planning a surprise party for her husband this Saturday, but like a dolt, I confused the days. Not like me at all. When you called her about Saturday, she got worried and called me.”
Laura Green paused for a moment, but when Martin failed to fill the silence, she continued.
“You see, I had dropped off a present at their house this morning and left a message on their machine about the party. I felt so bad about missing it. But it turns out that I didn’t miss it, and if her husband had gone home and heard the message or seen the gift, the surprise wouldn’ve been ruined. And you don’t know Justine. She would’ve killed me. She’s put so much work into this thing.”
“Well,” Martin said, still looking awkwardly up from his place behind the wheel. “I’m glad that it all worked out.”
“Thanks to you,” Laura Green quickly added. “Did you find a caterer for your party yet?”
“I think I did,” Martin lied. “That’s why I’m still here. Your friend gave me a number and I gave them a call. Looks like I’m all set.”
“Great. Then it worked out for both of us.”
“It sure did,” Martin answered, exhilaration mixed with a sudden feeling of sadness. This woman would never know the lengths that he had gone to to help her.
“Hey, if you’re not busy, would you like to get a bite to eat? My treat. It’s the least I can do for you. You really saved the day.”
I’m busy.
I have plans.
I’m meeting a friend.
I have a dentist appointment.
I have a girlfriend.
I’m married.
I’m gay.
Any one of these excuses would have allowed Martin to avoid dinner with this woman, and under normal circumstances he would have used one of them immediately. Though Martin rarely attracted the attention of women, there had in the past been rare occasions when he had been asked to have coffee or drinks, and each time he had deftly avoided the situation. But Laura Green was an attractive woman, and Martin had saved her day. For the first time in a long time, he felt appreciated, so he wasn’t so surprised to hear himself say his next few words.
“That sounds great. Where would you like to go?”
With that, Martin was on the first real date of his adult life.
Martin had learned early on that people loved to talk about themselves. All his life, he had been uncomfortable around others, never sure what to say, so he quickly adopted the strategy of listening and probing rather than sharing and contributing. When trapped in a social situation that required him to speak, he would often allow his conversational partner to do most of the talking, asking questions when it seemed as if the person was running out of steam and encouraging him or her to share as much as possible.
Once he began his career, Martin found himself wanting to share less and less of his life, so he employed this strategy even more effectively. Martin rarely interacted with people, other than his few close friends, without thought and preparation. And when he did, he encouraged them to speak as much as possible.
Thus far this strategy was working well for him, but Laura Green had been doggedly persistent. Though willing to talk about her own life, she repeatedly attempted to turn the conversation back in his direction, and each time, Martin was forced to return her volley like a tennis player being chased around the court.
She had chosen the Elbow Room for their dinner, a relatively upscale restaurant within walking distance of the town hall that afforded rooftop dining, though the evening chill kept the couple indoors on this night. During their brief walk to the restaurant, conversation centered on Justine and Daniel Ashley and Martin’s fortuitous need for a caterer. She had thanked him at least half a dozen times during their five-minute stroll through the center of town, which Martin found pleasant but surprising. Laura Green should have been under the impression that fate had intervened and saved the day, using Martin as its unwitting instrument. He rightfully deserved the praise that this woman was lavishing on him, but she had no way of knowing it.
And yet she had thanked him just the same.
Dinner had begun with wine and bread while Laura shared the prescient details of her life. Single and never married, she was living in Manchester with a dog named Boxer and several house plants.
Cujo still seemed like a more appropriate name for the dog, Martin thought, but Boxer wasn’t bad.
Laura had bought her house about five years ago, and though she liked it, she was hoping to find a place with a larger yard and a bit more privacy. She had been working in the town clerk’s office for nearly a decade and found the job to be stable and boring. She had an accounting degree from the University of Connecticut but had become interested in interior design over the past few years, and was considering opening a business of her own.
“I can’t imagine myself trapped in that office for the rest of my life. I’ll go crazy. The problem is that the job pays well and is so damn secure. The pension is terrific and the benefits can’t be beat. But the job is as boring as you can get. I just can’t spend my life in that room, you know?” She paused and took a sip of her wine, as if considering what she had just said. “So how about you? Do you think you’ll still be writing in fifteen years?”
Martin had told her that he was a writer of technical manuals but hoped to one day write more creatively. This last part was actually the truth. She had been impressed to hear that he was a professional writer, but Martin was working hard to temper her enthusiasm.
“Technical manuals,” he insisted. “I write instruction booklets. That’s all.”
Despite Martin’s attempt to avoid the question, Laura asked again. “Seriously … where do you see yourself in fifteen years?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. “Maybe still writing instruction booklets. I don’t know. Writing creatively takes more bravery than I think I have.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I write an instruction booklet for a blender, I’m not really doing anything that you couldn’t do. Be clear, precise, and specific. Write in complete sentences. But if I were to start writing a novel, let’s say—well, that would be coming straight from me. It would be all me. And if it wasn’t any good, that would be a tough thing to face.”
“That sounds like a terrible reason to dodge a dream.”
“Yeah, but it’s true,” Martin replied, once again finding remarkable truth in what he was saying. “Rejection is an ugly thing.”
Laura leaned across the table and looked Martin directly in the eyes. “Look, Martin. I’m going
to be honest. I could tell you not to worry. I could tell you that whatever you put on the page will be great. But you’re right. It might not be very good. I don’t know you and don’t know if you have any talent. But you don’t strike me as a coward. So do me a favor, even if we never speak again after tonight, which I hope isn’t the case. Go home tonight and start your novel. Write the first page and see where it takes you. Okay?”
“All right,” Martin answered, not meaning it. Though he dreamed of being a novelist one day, he couldn’t imagine it happening anytime soon.
“I’m serious, Martin. Don’t just say it. Do it. Start it tonight. Just one page. Okay?”
“Okay” he answered, trying to sound more sincere. Surprisingly, he was. No one had ever been so direct with Martin before about his writing, and he was surprised to find that he appreciated it. Just listening to this woman call him by his first name sent his heart racing a little faster.
“I’m sorry. I must sound a little crazy. It’s just that I’ve been stuck in a dead-end job for longer than I care to remember, and I can’t stand watching other people spin their wheels like me. You know?”
The next sentence shocked Martin, even though it came from his own mouth.
“Then you need to do something too, Laura.” It was the first time he had referred to her by name, and it felt both delicious and dangerous at the same time. “You want to design homes. The insides, I mean, right? So do it. I’ll go home tonight and write my first page, but you need to go home tonight and do something too. Whatever interior designers do. What could you do tonight to get your business moving?”
Laura smiled. “You’re sweet.”
“I’m serious,” Martin countered, both because it felt right and because it gave him something to talk about. No need to grapple for the next sentence when you can badger the woman and still be perceived as sweet. “When you get home tonight, what could you do?”
“Fine,” she said. “I could get online and find a degree program? How’s that?”
“It’s a start,” Martin answered. “I’ll write my first page, and you’ll choose a degree program.” And just like that, Martin sensed that this line of conversation was coming to an end. He could already feel the pressure returning.
“A toast to beginnings,” Laura said, raising her glass.
“To beginnings,” Martin repeated and tapped her glass. He suddenly felt more like an adult than ever before in his life.
Salads came as Laura finished her wine and ordered another. Martin still had more than half a glass of wine left and suddenly felt an inexplicable need to catch up. By the time he had finished his own salad, a Caesar with dressing on the side, he was in need of another glass as well. Though he occasionally drank beer or wine at home with dinner, it was never more than a single glass. He reminded himself to be careful as he took the first sip from the new glass.
“So tell me about your parents’ party. It’s an anniversary party, right?”
“Yeah, it’s their anniversary,” Martin said, suddenly wishing that he didn’t have to lie to this woman. Something remarkable and unexpected was happening to him. The longer he spent with Laura, the more relaxed he became in conversation, but the more anxious he became in wanting to impress her. He couldn’t remember the last time that he had felt either way, and now he was experiencing both feelings simultaneously. He wished he could just be honest with Laura. Not completely honest, of course, but more than he was being right now.
“So tell me about it,” she persisted. “How many years? Where’s the party? Give me the details.”
“Well, they turn fifty this year. I mean, they are celebrating their fiftieth anniversary this year. This month. My sister made the plans for the party, but she lives out of state, so I’m stuck handling the details. The problems with the caterer and all.”
“So where’s the party going to be?”
“My sister’s house,” Martin blurted out, grasping at the first thought that entered his head. He didn’t want to name a restaurant or banquet hall in case Laura chose to follow up on his statement, send a gift, or whatever. So he went with the only option floating around in his brain.
“But I thought you said that your sister lives out of state.”
“She does,” Martin answered. “But she has a house on the shore, too. A summer house, I mean. The party is going to be there.”
“How nice. What town?”
“Westbrook,” Martin answered.
“What a coincidence,” Laura said. “Did you know that Daniel’s party is in Westbrook too? At the Water’s Edge Resort. Right on the shore. This is a day full of coincidences, huh?”
Martin was sure that he had said Westbrook because the town had been on his mind earlier that day when recalling the Ashley invitation. He would have to be more careful with what he told this woman. Fabricating stories had become part of Martin’s daily existence, but he had always had time to prepare. Not only was he creating family history on the spot, but he would need to remember this history or risk being caught in a lie. So far he had a fictional set of married parents celebrating fifty years of marriage, and a fictional sister who owned a second home along the Connecticut shoreline.
At the moment he felt like a skydiver without a parachute.
“It’s a day full of good luck,” Martin added.
“I agree,” Laura said with a smile. “So what’s the party going to be like?”
“To be honest, I’m really not sure. My sister is taking care of everything. Except the caterer, I mean. She’s always been the planner. I’m just along for the ride.”
“She’s older than you?”
“Yup. By half a dozen years.” Martin had always believed that it was easier to recall a concept like “half a dozen years” rather than the number 6, so his fabrications tended to be full of these types of expressions.
“What’s her name?” Laura asked.
Thankfully Martin had just placed a slice of bread into his mouth, so he had a moment to consider the question before answering. The first name to enter his mind was Jillian, but it didn’t seem right to give his fictional sister that name. He took an extra moment to chew before deciding.
“Wendy,” he answered, placing the image of the character from the Peter Pan stories into his mind. Associating the thought with a mental image would help to keep the idea fixed in his mind. “How about you?” he asked, looking to redirect the conversation away from himself. “Any siblings?”
“Nope. Just me. My father died when I was ten, and my mom lives in Coventry. Same house I grew up in.”
“I’m sorry about your father.”
“Thanks. But it was a long time ago.”
Once again Martin desperately wished that he could be more honest with this woman. Having lost his own mother, he knew how much it could still hurt from time to time, and he wanted to tell Laura that he understood how difficult it was to lose a parent. But his fictional parents were alive and well, still married, and preparing to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary together. The empathy that he felt for this woman, who had brushed off his condolence with a timeworn expression and a touch of sadness in her eyes, was useless to him.
It had never hurt Martin so much to lie.
This time Laura turned the conversation away from thoughts of her father and onto travel. Martin had never traveled outside New England, so he was able to turn the question back toward Laura rather quickly. Thankfully, she had seen much of the United States as a child and had recently been skiing in Cortina, Italy. Without much prompting, Laura was happy to spend more than fifteen minutes extolling the virtues of the Italian Alps.
As their entrees arrived, Martin excused himself to use the restroom. He had needed to urinate for some time and had hoped to avoid using the public restroom, but the discomfort finally became too much.
Martin despised public restrooms and avoided them whenever possible. Even in the finest establishments, he thought of them as germ-infested closets. As he approached the me
n’s room, just past the kitchen, he was pleased to see that the door opened out, necessitating a pull on the handle in order to gain entry. This meant that after washing his hands, he would be able to push the door with his foot or elbow in order to exit, allowing him to avoid the skin-to-handle contact that made him want to retch.
Not that the washing of his hands appealed to him, either. Though Martin wanted every other human being in the world to wash his or her hands after using the bathroom, this was because of a lack of trust in the personal hygiene of others. His own, he knew, was impeccable. As a result, Martin never understood the need to wash his hands after touching his penis. After all, his penis was clean, probably cleaner than his hands or any other part of his body that had been exposed to the world. He had washed it, dried it, and then covered it by underwear and pants. Two layers of protection that remained firmly in place throughout the day. This was the same penis that women would theoretically come into contact with during sex (Martin hadn’t had sex since high school, and even that had been a poor effort at best). A woman might touch it with her fingers, place it in her mouth, or allow it inside her vagina. Yet it wasn’t clean enough for Martin to touch it without immediately needing to wash his hands? In fact, Martin thought, his penis might well be the cleanest part of his body. Yet after urinating, he was expected to wash his hands thoroughly. This meant that he would need to touch faucet knobs and soap dispensers that had previously been touched by men who had just spent ten minutes sitting on a toilet touching their own disgusting penises.
Surely his penis was more germ-free than these bacteria farms.
But if Martin was able to avoid the restroom door entirely, by trailing behind another man or pulling it open with a napkin, he found that he could often enter, sidle up to a urinal, and complete his business without coming into contact with anything save the his pants buttons and his penis. On these occasions, if the restroom was empty, he would exit without washing his hands.
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