I completed forty to fifty rooms in the morning between loads of laundry and cleaning up around the apartment. At noon I’d go for a run and then eat a Lean Pocket while watching a rerun of Rosanne. I posted the remaining rooms throughout the day, while I took breaks to write or read, making sure my messenger status was always available.
Ashley worked forty hours a week and was a full-time student. By the time she’d completed a day of work, sat through a couple of lectures, and walked the mile and half back to our apartment, I was halfway through a bottle of wine and tinkering with a poem.
“Can I read you this thing I wrote?” I asked before she even had a chance to take off her jacket.
“Can you give me a minute?”
“Of course. There’s wine on the counter if you want it.”
“Great,” she said in a tone that was neither enthusiastic nor sarcastic, but heavyhearted enough to let me know she was not pleased.
I stared at my computer and crinkled my brow to seem as though I was contemplating a word. She glared at me as she filled her glass and didn’t notice when it spilled over the side.
“Shit,” she said and pulled open the drawer with such force the rattle of the cutlery startled me. “So, you’ve just been drinking wine all night?”
“I’ve been writing too,” I said while trying to sound as though the half bottle of wine I drank was excusable because I also completed a poem. “How was your day?”
“Shitty.”
“That sucks. Have a glass of wine. Maybe you’ll feel better.”
Once she had a buzz going, she would return to the girl who liked hanging out with me. We’d sit across from each other at the dinner table typing away at our laptops, stopping every once in a while to share a line. Each of us trusted the other’s opinion and said encouraging things like, “I really like the image you used there” or “that metaphor pops off the page.” Those were the moments that reminded me why I didn’t want to be with anyone else. It was reminiscent of our first year together, before moving to Seattle. When no world existed outside ourselves.
One morning we were running along the beach, and we both started laughing as we passed a Rollerblade cop. We each had the exact same thought—all a criminal needed to do to get away was run on the sand.
It sparked an idea and we spent the night creating a comic about Ronny the Rollerblade Cop and his misadventures chasing dope smokers in Huntington Beach. Ashley did the illustrations, and we collaborated on writing situations that resulted in Ronny failing to stop a crime because his blades couldn’t go on sand. Our minds were so in sync that, when the sun came up, we had completed a whole sketchbook’s worth of comics.
Once we ate mushrooms and concluded that we shared a creative conscious that we called Quim and believed we were connected on a spiritual level that allowed us to communicate on a frequency outside of ourselves. It made all the uncertainties of the universe irrelevant because our bond was our version of god. Even after the psilocybin wore off, we continued calling our creative collaborations Quim.
All that died down when we moved to Seattle. Our responsibilities didn’t allow us to pull all-nighters just because we came up with a good idea. Most nights after dinner, we’d play a board game and then fall asleep watching a crime drama. Eventually, we stopped making art as a team and Quim just became an easy way to get rid of a “Q” in Scrabble.
I found a routine with work that provided me time to write and waste whole afternoons sitting on a bar stool next to Brian. We were planning art events, so it felt like more than just hanging out at a bar. The job allowed me to make my own schedule, as long as I met expectations, and I had the benefit of not having to waste half my day commuting. I never worried about staying out too late on weeknights because I could always work in bed if I was too tired to sit at my desk.
While Ashley was at evening classes, I was organizing literary events, collaborating on a chapbook, or scouting the city for poets to invite to my series. It was easy to understand why she would be envious of my schedule, but I never tried hard enough to understand why it angered her.
Ashley had developed a strong work ethic early in life. Her parents were young and never married. Unlike my childhood, where my biggest concern was how much candy I could get with my five-dollar allowance, she was working odd jobs to help out her single mother and three younger half-brothers. When she was fourteen she worked at the local Baskin-Robbins after school and on weekends. Her forearms were so strong from scooping ice cream, she could beat all the boys in her class at arm wrestling.
After a year in the new apartment, Ashley wanted more. She’d graduated college and found a job that she enjoyed and paid well. The graffiti on the side of our building and the shoes hanging from the telephone wire had lost their charm. She wanted a house we could call our own, with weekend projects like digging out a garden or painting a fence—a place where we could have a dog and a backyard. She wanted what she never had as a kid.
“Don’t you want something better than this?” she asked one night when the episode of Top Chef we were watching was interrupted by a couple shouting below our window.
“I think they’re arguing about drugs,” I said.
“They’re always arguing about drugs. I’m sick of it.”
“I think she’s pissed because he didn’t share his last rock.”
Ashley clicked the remote, muting the TV. She put her hand on my lap and waited for me to face her. “I want us to buy a house,” she said.
I held my eyes shut while I tried to think of a way to change the subject. We had had this conversation before, and it was becoming harder to avoid. Buying a house was a long-term contract I wasn’t prepared to sign. I was satisfied with our relationship, but I was aware that since moving to Seattle, we had slowly been drifting apart. I was content in the moment, but I couldn’t predict how I’d feel five years in the future.
“I just don’t think I’m ready,” I said.
“Why?”
I wasn’t brave enough to tell her the truth and instead chose a different excuse as to why I couldn’t commit. “What happens if my job ends and I can’t pay the mortgage?”
“Have you ever thought of looking for another job?”
“But I like my job.”
“You like worrying every six months? You’re always a wreck the days leading up to your contract extension date.”
“Thankfully, it always gets renewed,” I said.
A frustrated wrinkle split her forehead. “What’s your plan then? You’re just going to continue working this job until one day they don’t extend you? Then what?”
“I guess I’ll look for another job. But the time off will be great for writing. I could finally start my novel.”
“That’s it then?”
“What’s it?”
“You don’t want to buy a house with me?”
“I do.” Her eyes were locked with mine, and I knew if I looked away she’d close herself in the bedroom and I’d be sleeping on the couch. It was a look I’d become more accustomed to than that smile I first saw in my Beatles T-shirt. “Just not right now.”
“When?”
“Aren’t you happy?” I motioned with my arms to display the fruits of our apartment as if I was a Price Is Right model and Ashley was bidding on our life.
I broke eye contact for a second to see who would be named winner of the Quick Fire Challenge. A pebble-size puddle formed in the corner of her eye. She blinked, and a tear dripped down her cheek.
“So, you’re just going to be like this forever?”
She waited for an answer and when it didn’t come she went into the bedroom and closed the door. I heard her sobbing into a pillow.
Once every six months I was called into the office for a training session. A person I only knew as an email address would teach me a new program or show me a change to the style guide. It was usually something simple that I could have learned over the phone, but I assumed they brought me in to make sure I was still aliv
e.
I became so comfortable with the digital relationship I shared with my coworkers that I almost forgot each email address was attached to an actual human. I was brought in for a meeting by my supervisor, who I knew by the email handle “Phitten,” and I half expected to spend the day with an adorable little cat.
“Good morning, Steven,” she said when we met in the lobby. She was tall and confident and didn’t possess any feline features.
I was dressed in my most professional-looking work shirt, which Ashley had ironed the night before after I found it in the back of the closet, flattened under a suitcase.
“We’re on the tenth floor,” she said as the elevator doors closed behind us.
“That’s nice,” I said while looking down at the dress shoes that my mom insisted on buying me the week before I graduated college, when I told her I planned on walking in sneakers. I was trying to calculate if I’d worn them enough to justify the $150 price tag while I waited for Phitten to fill the silence. I anticipated a conversational quip about the weather or the traffic, but the silence lingered and hovered above us, until she reached across me and pressed ten on the keypad.
“Sorry,” I said and realized she’d been waiting for me to hit the button.
“It’s okay,” she said and looked down at the ground. I wondered if she was looking at my shoes and if they looked as she expected. My randomly generated handle was “Stbark,” which I verbalized as “Saint Bark.” Had she been expecting some sort of saint-like dog? Or maybe a Saint Bernard named “Bark”?
For the next three hours she demonstrated a program that searched hotel amenity content. I took notes I knew I’d never look at because I wanted her to think our time was worthwhile. I was already familiar with the tool, but revealing that I didn’t require training would force her to find another way to validate the time, which meant teaching me a new skill. Temping taught me to keep watch for responsibilities outside of the job description. Unless it came with a pay raise or a full-time position, it wasn’t worth my time.
We were reviewing different types of spreadsheet formatting when “Sytana” stopped by. I was disappointed he wasn’t a seventy-year-old psychedelic guitar hero like I’d imagined every time I received an email from him.
“Hey, Steve,” he said. “You decided to put pants on and come to the office, did ya?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m just kidding with you. How ya been?”
“Good,” I said.
“All right, see ya around, bud.” He slapped the door frame and continued down the hall.
When Phitten walked me out of the office at the end of the day, we passed a whiteboard that said, “Margarita cupcake happy hour at 5:00!”
“You can stick around,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said. “But I’ve got my buddy’s kid tonight.”
Ashley left for a week to visit her family back east, and for the first time in a while it was easier to breathe. The walls of the apartment had been closing in on us. The only place we found comfort was on opposite sides of the couch, facing the TV. Hours went by without so much as a glance in the other’s direction, and the silence only broke when one asked the other what to watch next.
Having stocked up on food and beer the day she left, I savored the solitude. By day three, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken out loud. “Woo,” I said under my breath, testing to see if I could still speak. “Woo, woo,” I said again. “Heeey, Macarena.” Once I established that my voice still worked, I started talking to myself as I moved around the apartment. “How about a beer?” I said as I reached into the fridge. “Don’t mind if I do.”
I spent the night sitting on the carpet flipping through a journal Ashley and I used to share. I read poems we’d written together back when buying a house was not a concern and we never disagreed.
Ashley’s trip home reminded her how much she missed her family. Her brothers loved when she visited because she took them out to dinner and bought them new clothes. They had grown up depending on her, and when she moved across the country, they felt abandoned.
“Do you ever think about moving back east?” she asked one night when we were lying in bed.
“No.”
“I do. My brothers need me.”
“That’s why it’s good to visit.”
“I worry about them sometimes.”
I rolled over and faced the wall.
By my third year at Expedia I’d stopped feeling like a temp. As far as I knew I had a full-time job and stopped concerning myself whenever I was up for an extension. I assumed as long as I continued doing what I’d been doing, my job was secure, which was a similar approach I applied to the relationship, though with less success.
Outside of work I focused on writing and various projects I was putting together with Brian, while Ashley found a renewed passion for dance. She’d done it her whole life, until we got together and it took a backseat to writing. Her interest returned after taking a hip-hop class with a coworker. She joined a team that competed locally and spent her nights working on routines. The more she became involved in the lifestyle, the less interest she had in drinking, which made it difficult for her to live with someone who was constantly coming home drunk.
“Why do you need another beer?” she asked when I returned home from a reading and pulled a beer from the back of the fridge.
“Why not?” I responded.
“Because you’re already drunk.”
“What’s the problem with one more?”
“Whatever, I’m going to bed,” she said.
She closed the door to the bedroom, and I drank the last three beers in the fridge and wrote a poem that I never looked at again.
A few nights later I came home after spending four hours with Brian and a few writer friends in a bar. We were planning the fourth season of our reading series called “Cheap Wine & Poetry.” We sold wine for five bucks a bottle and featured the hottest readers in Seattle. The place was packed every night. Ashley had come in the beginning, but grew tired of waking up the next day with a cheap wine hangover.
The apartment was hot, and Ashley wasn’t sitting in front of an episode of Law & Order as was her routine.
The sliding door to the balcony was open, and I heard the types of sniffs that are brought on by heavy crying. I thought someone had died.
“What’s wrong?” I asked while putting my hand on her shoulder. I sat down in the chair beside her and saw the sadness swimming around her pupils.
We had stopped subscribing to the idea that we shared a conscience known as Quim and were even embarrassed that we’d once believed we found god in each other, but we never lost the ability to communicate on a higher level. Before she said a word, I knew it was over.
“You’re never going to change,” she said. The sleeve of her shirt was damp with tears.
“What do you mean?”
“I want more than this.” She opened her mouth, but stopped herself and put her hand on my knee.
“Me too,” I said.
She squinted her eyes, unleashing a flood of tears. The tangled damp strands of hair that hung across her face were evidence that this had been going on long before I returned home from pouring pitchers and shooting the shit.
“I’m moving back east.”
We had started dating as college kids who thought nothing was wrong with taking acid and night swimming, and then became domestic partners who shared a health care plan. We grew into adulthood together. We knew each other’s every story, annoying habit, and quirk. We hadn’t gone a day in the previous seven years without talking or texting.
When I found out my dad had to have surgery to remove a potentially cancerous lymph node from his neck, she held me for an hour without saying a word.
When she didn’t make the Seattle Seagals after passing the first two auditions, I made her mac and cheese to help her look on the bright side. “At least you can give up your cheerleader diet,” I said.
I knew I could alwa
ys make her laugh when we were leaving the house, and I’d speak in poor Spanish, saying “Donde esta los sacapuntas,” when I meant “Where are my keys?”
She knew I hated dancing at weddings and never tried to drag me on the floor for “YMCA.” During a slow one she would seductively walk toward me with her hand out, then escort me to the least crowded section of the dance floor and rest her head on my neck. As I tried my best to move my feet in sync with hers, she’d make a smart remark about another guest. “Did you see Pants McGhee?”
We traveled to Europe, Australia, Mexico, and Canada together. I met everyone in her family, and her mom even had a pet name for me, “Stupid Steven.” We were in love when we boarded a cross-country flight that had been delayed five hours. We kept our spirits up in the terminal knowing we’d at least get a movie on the plane. When it turned out to be The Lake House, she made me cry with laughter as she commented on the absurdity of the plot. “Let me get this straight—Keanu can send magic letters in a mailbox, but can’t make magical dinner reservations?”
One time at a party we lost track of each other, and I got caught in a conversation with a drunk guy who was trying to convince me that Dave Matthews was the great musician of our generation.
“I’ve seen him live fifty-seven times,” he said as he held on to the wall for support. “Dude can play guitar.”
“He doesn’t totally suck,” I said.
“Fuck no.” He pushed himself off the wall and, as he struggled to stand up straight, fell back against it. “He doesn’t suck.” He put his beer bottle to his lips and continued speaking, causing him to spray my face with foam when he shouted, “He’s the best in the world!”
I was trying to think how to respond when I felt Ashley behind me. She slipped a hand in my front pocket and then bit down on my earlobe. “Meet me at the car in five minutes. I want to fuck.”
When we returned to the party and people questioned our silly grins, we told them we went out to smoke a joint—keeping it a secret that we just fogged up the windows of my car for the third time that day.
Now for the Disappointing Part Page 5