Welcome to Envy Park

by Mina V. Esguerra

  In any case, building security found him banging on my door and they had to haul him out to get him to follow proper evacuation procedures.

  "That’s intense," was my understated reaction to the whole thing.

  "You gave me a fucking heart attack," was Ethan’s more, well, intense response. "You couldn’t have left a message? Or brought your phone? What exactly did you do?"

  "I...ran." In which I had like an existential breakthrough, although it seemed inappropriate to mention just then.

  "Was it important?"

  I smiled sheepishly. "Yeah it seemed important at the time."

  We were having this conversation in the Zen garden over in Tower 1, surrounded by trees. We hadn’t gotten the clearance yet to return to our building, so the residents of Tower 3 were wandering refugees in "safe zones" within NV Park. So we were in the garden, on a wooden bench painted to look like stone, him in the shorts he wore to bed and some shirt he threw on, me sweaty and sticky in my running outfit.

  "Is Matilda okay?" I asked. Because it had to have been Matilda, and the likely source of her income, the possible reason for her recent visit to the clinic. Later I would find out that she was fine, but had to move because she had broken up with this guy. She got in touch sometimes, but was typically mum about the rest of her life.

  "They said no one was inside when the alarms went off."

  "I hope she’s okay."

  "Fuck. I’m just glad you are." He kissed me again, and I had lost count of how many times he had randomly done that already since I got back. This one was soft on the approach, and I was pleased to note that it was still enjoyable, despite it being outside, in the daylight, in some Zen garden, even though I was hungry, and thirsty, and sweaty, and sticky. "What was so important that you had to go out so early?"

  "I was thinking about what I was going to do next."

  "And?" There was an impatience to this single word, like he was daring me to come up with something to trump his morning of drama.

  "Ethan, I’m fine. Don’t be Angry Guy."

  "I know you are but for a few minutes there—"

  "The building didn’t burn down."

  "But I had no idea where you were."

  Oh, I got it. In those few minutes he had allowed himself to imagine the worst. Unfounded and freakier than any real danger, but I wasn’t going to be able to shake that off him.

  "Did you break down my door or something?"

  He smiled sheepishly. "I don’t know. It’s a strong door."

  "I was saying," I continued, "I’ve decided to stay here. I won’t take the Thailand job."

  "What are you talking about?"

  I was hoping to have more time to think about this, or practice the speech, or at least deliver it without other Tower 3 refugees on the other side of the garden, but well.

  "I’m going to stay. I don’t need to be somewhere else just for the sake of being away," I said.

  "But your plan."

  "I was thinking about that. What exactly was that about? What was it for? Because when I think about other people and what they have, I don’t wish I were where they were. I usually wish I could’ve done what they’ve done, or already have what they’ve built. And that takes time. That requires a commitment to something. I think it means I have to choose a place, or choose a career, and stick with it. I think it has to be this place, for now."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I have some options. I just spoke to someone who might actually be able to help."

  "Where do I fit into this?" Ethan asked.

  "You," I said, poking the sleeve of his ratty shirt, "are technically not part of it. This is going to happen with or without you."

  It was a bit difficult to talk to him right then, to be honest. He was somewhere else, kept looking out toward the business park, to the shiny cluster of tall buildings that he would eventually be leaving behind, and wasn’t in the best state of mind to be accepting of my Big Decision.

  "So what happens to us in this plan of yours?" he said, his brow furrowed. At best it seemed like he was distracted, at worst skeptical. His mood was probably somewhere in the middle.

  "I’ll keep seeing you while you’re here," I said. "And then we’ll have a nice going-away dinner before you leave. And then you leave."

  That didn’t sound like me at all, but I knew that it was something he’d understand. This wasn’t for me to change or control. His deadline was real, and I didn’t intend to mess with it.

  I was just going to let it happen.

  Good luck to me.

  Chapter 23

  LUCILLE

  I. CAREER AND FINANCES

  + Upwardly mobile and stable career

  + Frequent work-related travel

  + Can afford NV Park

  II. FAMILY AND FRIENDSHIPS

  - Would like more time with family and friends

  III. LOVE AND RELATIONSHIPS

  + "Exclusively dating" someone, happily, but ambivalent about the "future"

  IV. PERSONAL FULFILLMENT

  + Makes time for her indie film mini obsession

  + Actually likes her life

  So Lucille, she was awesome.

  I caught up with her when she got back, and we met at a tea place across the street. I discovered that she was a little older than I was, and also did the "work abroad" thing for a while until deciding to be closer to her family.

  "It’s different for everyone," Lucille said. "I really don’t like telling someone not to go for it, because I did. But I had to change my priorities a bit."

  "I’m kind of at that point," I admitted. "I just feel that I should realign the priorities a bit too. I had this plan, but I forgot why I was doing it."

  "You got stuck on the steps, and lost sight of the purpose." Lucille brightened up at this. "Classic case of strategy realignment. So this is actually what I do for a living."

  "I thought I knew all of this. I have matrices. I’m a bit of a planner myself."

  Lucille tilted her head and her long and lush ponytail bounced lightly off one shoulder. "I’m sure you’re great at it, and this hiccup has nothing to do with a lack of planning. But you know, things happen. People change. You shouldn’t force yourself to stick to something if your circumstances change, and maybe you need someone else to remind you of it."

  My green tea felt like it was still too hot, but I sipped anyway, and the heat spread across my tongue in a weirdly invigorating way. "Maybe," I managed to say.

  "So do you want me to say it? Moira, you can change your plan. It’s okay."

  "I wanted to ask you about what you do," I said. "Related to the change of plans."

  Her smile turned sly, and the idea I had been nurturing in my mind leaped into hers. "I get it. You want to try working for us? There could be a lot of travel, but once you get used to it I can at least scale down on mine."

  "You think I can do it?" I asked, not expecting this to be a job interview. But I did want to try it. It involved travel, and people, and everything I was good at.

  "I’ll have you work with someone else in the team, because I already know too much about you," Lucille said. "But yes, go through the process and see if you want it. I’ve told you how much work it can be, travel and all, and you know now how much you can make if you stick with it. Do you want it, though?"

  I exhaled my relief, and actually laughed. "It’s planning. You plan things all day. For other people. I’m perfect for this, trust me."

  And I felt good about that promise.

  -///-

  At least I could afford to rent an apartment on that salary at Lucille’s firm. Maybe not NV Park because it would take a few years for me to catch up with Lucille’s rate, unless I find a smaller place within the budget. Or I could just find a cheaper one somewhere else entirely. If my apartment was to be sold, I’d want to keep the windfall from that as savings.

  Not that I was going to thank my mother for that.

  I was still avoiding her call
s. She kept sending text messages, sometimes using my dad’s phone, about "finally having that housewarming party" at the condo but I never replied. Now that was a joke, her kind of joke, organizing a long-delayed "housewarming" right before she sold the place to someone else.

  What it was really was an excuse to come over and see me, because I sure wasn’t going to her anytime soon.

  I replied to the text from my dad’s phone, knowing that she would see it. She can come over once she apologizes and tells me that I can do whatever the hell I want with my own property.

  A few messages were sent after that, but once I quickly scanned and saw no "sorry," I ignored each one.

  This wasn’t enough for me though, so I looked up my cousin Megan’s number and actually called her too.

  "I don’t know what your mom and my mom talked about," she told me, and I tried my hardest not to freak her out. She was, after all, only a daughter trapped in the web that our respective mothers were spinning.

  "Megan," I said with as much cheer as I could muster. "I’m so looking forward to seeing you when you’re here. But tell your mom that she doesn’t need to buy the condo from me right now. How about you stay here a semester or so first, and then we can talk about selling? You might actually see something else that you like."

  "That makes sense," Megan said. "I mean, I’m sure your place is great and all, but yeah, we should shop around first."

  "Exactly," I agreed. "Just in case your mom needs to know. I’m in no rush to sell this. Relax, and enjoy the rest of your break and I’ll see you in June."

  And yes that did make sense. My mom had stepped over the line with that move, and I wasn’t going to let her just take this, my only "plus," from me.

  -///-

  So Lucille’s firm asked me to provide a transcript of my college grades, and I asked Ethan if he wanted to come along with me to get them from my school. I almost didn’t, because it was a Friday morning and he had work, but I figured that I could be a little greedy with his time and asked anyway. And he said he’d skip work to go with me.

  I also had the guts to ask because he was so okay with it. We saw each other every day since the fire incident, without fail, even if it was just to sit on his couch or mine and watch the news. It didn’t take long for me to get used to the dent his body left on one side of my couch, the specific setting he preferred on my shower heater, the lonely sock of his that I would have to fish out from underneath something because when he slipped them off he didn’t care for where they ended up. We stopped working out at the gym entirely, which we both found hilarious. It felt like we had skipped several relationship stages and went straight to a domesticated middle, because we knew we didn’t have the time for what usually happened at the beginning.

  At least that was how I thought of it.

  I talked nonstop about the upcoming job as a corporate planning trainer and how excited I was about it. He hadn’t said anything for almost a week now about when he would be leaving. I had learned more about him, from the stories he had shared and the things we had done, because he would rather do that than talk about leaving. It wasn’t my lack of trying, though. I asked him more than once when the flight would be, and he just said he didn’t know yet. It then became a truth or dare of sorts—I would ask in another way when, and it was as if he would choose "dare" instead and change the topic, like admit too many details about a previous sexual experience (an ex before Rin, condom mishap, cramping), throw Ashley under the bus (her weight in pounds as a kid), anything rather than talk about that thing he wasn’t sure about. Because God forbid he reveal anything and have it not happen.

  Personally I didn’t want to know the date either, but if I was going to plan a wicked last night for him and with him, then I needed to know when it would be.

  We shared a cab to my college campus together. It was on the other side of the city as far as NV Park was concerned, in a busier and crazier part of town. It occurred to me that I had been spending my time with him in a sanitized bubble version of my hometown, and it was another reason why we had skipped parts of the relationship process.

  "Fantasy," I said, out of the blue, right after he paid the cab driver and shut the car door.

  "What?"

  "This. You and me. We’re doing this because we’re probably getting off on a fantasy we have. You want to know what mine is?"

  "Of course."

  We went through the security checks (stricter than before) and wound up under a covered walkway that I went through every day for four years. He and I were dressed in jeans and shirts, and were actually more casual than the students that streamed past us in their teen versions of business wear.

  "I wanted to meet someone new. I didn’t want to end up with anyone from college, or my past, nobody who knew me back then. I knew I’d probably have to move somewhere to find him. He’d be mature, and driven, and would appreciate that I get things done. I’d tell him about the places I’ve lived in, and he’d be curious and interested, and impressed to know that I’ve built my career and wealth from the ground up without any handout or parental intervention. And he’d fall for me just from knowing all of that."

  Ethan ducked to avoid a particularly low streamer congratulating a student council election winner. "What does this guy look like?" he asked.

  "I don’t know. He could be like, this tall. Dark brown eyes. Bike scar on the right knee. Possibly. Not that choosy yet." My hand grazed exactly the knee I was referring to, playfully. "That’s the fantasy. What’s yours?"

  He hesitated at a turn, and I steered him toward the right. "Me? I thought I didn’t have one."

  I pouted. "That’s not how this conversation is supposed to go."

  "Wait. I said I thought. I told you about the times that I tried to make it work with someone, only to have things not fall into place."

  "Yes, you had some vivid stories."

  "Right. It makes a guy want to give up, just not to be disappointed. Aim low. But I do have a fantasy." He lowered his voice because a group of young girls had passed. "Stranger roleplay."

  "What?" Not what I was expecting to hear.

  Ethan smiled, and inched closer, so he could keep his voice that level. "Hey you asked. I like the idea of meeting someone at a random place or time, and being so attracted to her that I can’t bear to be without her, and then giving her the best night or weekend of her life."

  "That’s a noble fantasy right there."

  "It’s not over. So we have this mind-blowing weekend, and yet I don’t leave immediately after. Because she and I, we’re actually together. She’s not a stranger. Hence the roleplay. "

  It was a little shocking and yet it made sense to me, and explained exactly what he got out of this. "What does she look like?" I squeaked out.

  He turned his head forward, away from me. "You know what she looks like."

  The document I needed was waiting for me at the registrar’s office. He took my hand as we walked down the rest of the hallway, and held it throughout my mundane transaction at a grilled window, and still as I dropped the envelope with my official transcript in my bag.

  It felt like something so normal, this handholding, and hundreds of college kids probably did this exact same thing, walking down this exact same hallway, thinking that their love was going to be forever. And I was walking toward a departure date that I insisted on letting happen.

  Who was more pathetic, the college kids or me?

  "Can we have a nice dinner at my place tomorrow night?" I said, as we stepped off the hallway and into the busy college quad.

  "We have dinner every night," he said.

  "No." I licked my lips and swung his hand a little. "Your despedida. Can we have it tomorrow evening? I’ll prepare something special. And you...just make sure that your family doesn’t plan the same thing for tomorrow."

  He bristled at this. "Moira, you know how I feel about despedidas..."

  "Then don’t think of it as one. But it’s dinner, and it’s special, and don�
��t make any other plans tomorrow."

  I felt his sigh against my forehead. "All right," he said.

  And then he kissed me there in the middle of the busy quad, which probably wasn’t allowed, but it did make me feel less pathetic.

  -///-

  I was glad I brought up the fantasy conversation because it was extremely helpful in my planning the next day. I didn’t have much time but good thing he had chores to do anyway so I didn’t get to see him before dinner. And I lived across the street from a mall that had the essentials.

  A wide selection of takeout-friendly cuisines. Wine. I skipped the candles because of recent events, but was able to get tiny table lamps that would work just as well.

  A new red dress, a steal because it was on sale, neckline dangerously low. And lingerie.

  Yeah, this was happening.

  I got the salad, main course, and dessert from three different places and spent an insane amount of time arranging food I didn’t cook onto square plates. I wasn’t sure if Ethan would like the food but I took a chance that he would enjoy the fact that I chose them, avoiding that curry he didn’t like, and he’d see it as me playing the girlfriend role. Since he was so into that.

  And yes I was aware that I was going about his fantasy backwards (still semi-stranger playing girlfriend) but he would have to be okay with it because this was all we had time for.

  At a few minutes after eight, as expected, the doorbell to 10J rang and I strategically shut half the lights in the room. Lamps on the dining table, check. Food warmed, check. Lacy red bra tucked into dress, check.

  I opened the door.

  "I’m sorry," my stranger/boyfriend said.

  My mother, my father, and Roxie were right behind him.

  Chapter 24