He had even started to really enjoy his nights home by himself. Again, baseball was a contributing factor as he now had something to keep his mind occupied other than beer, but beyond that he had decided that he should enjoy his last couple months living the bachelor life. Soon he would be in a serious relationship, and who knows where it might lead from there. While he wouldn’t trade a life with Jordan for anything, he assumed there would occasionally be times when he would miss his nights alone as a bachelor, so he vowed to appreciate and make the most of every one he had left.
He had received a text a couple days ago from Jordan, explaining that she would be in town again that Thursday. She would be driving in this time, but unfortunately she wouldn’t have time to see him. That was fine by Daniel because that meant she wouldn’t have any time to see Gordon either. She was taking the day off of work to come and visit the new school where she would be teaching the following school year. The principal had asked her to come so that he might give her a tour of the school while in session, so that she could have some sort of idea of what to expect before settling in next fall. Jordan had agreed to the visit, but afterward she would have to turn around and head right back to Indianapolis because she needed to be back at work on Friday morning. She still wanted to let Daniel know she was coming because she said it would have felt wrong for her to go to Chicago and not let him know.
Daniel however, had an idea of his own.
He took one last swig of his beer just as the Cubs’ closer wound up to throw the final strike of the game, securing a 3-1 win for the Cubbies. He shut the TV off, and got up to put his bottle in the bag of recyclables he had in the corner of his kitchenette. As he stretched out his arms above his head he went over his mental checklist of things he needed to do for Thursday.
He had organized his workload and worked it out with his bosses so that he would be able to get out of work early on Thursday afternoon. Jordan would be getting to the school around two and he figured he could be out of work by 2:30. Jordan had told him school let out at three, at which point the principal was going to give her a few minutes to become acquainted with what was to be her new classroom come next fall.
There was a bodega on the same block as the radio station. Daniel guessed it would take him about ten minutes to run into the bodega and buy a bouquet of flowers for Jordan. From there he would hop into a cab and take what would probably be a fifteen minute cab ride to the school, which would put him there right around three. By the time he went into the office, checked in, and found his way to her classroom, the timing would be perfect to walk in and surprise Jordan with the flowers and give her a big hug and kiss. With any luck, she might even be willing to grab an early dinner before driving back to Indy.
Daniel smiled to himself. He was such a romantic, and proud of it. It had landed him a girl like Jordan after all.
He walked over to his bed and shut off the lights as he climbed under the sheets, a smile still on his face. This was going to be perfect.
It was 2:45 Thursday afternoon when Daniel jumped into a cab and instructed the driver to take him to the Fox Harmon Academy. As the driver acknowledged and set the cab in motion Daniel checked his watch. He was right on schedule. The line at the bodega was longer than he had expected and he spent a few minutes debating with himself over which flowers to get, but fortunately he had been able to escape from work ten minutes sooner than he had originally planned. If there were no unforeseen issues resulting in the cab ride taking any longer than expected, he should arrive at the school right on time.
The cab pulled up to the school at 3:01 and the kids were already scurrying out of the school as quickly as they possibly could, dying to get to the sanctity of their homes and away from this place that bored them to tears 35 hours a week.
As he approached the steps leading up to the front doors, children began flooding around him on all sides, anxious to get to the vehicles parked waiting out in front of the school to pick them up and take them home. Once he was a few steps away from the bottom step, Daniel began to realize that he wasn’t going to be able to get much further without bowling a few kids over or vice-versa, so he quickly made his way over to the left side of the steps to move out of the way and wait for the rush to slow down. It was like a raging waterfall of little maniacs, surging over top the concrete steps and leading away from the school.
As he waited at the side of the steps for the avalanche to clear, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. A black limousine was parked right out in front of the school.
These private school kids really have it all, he thought to himself. You wouldn’t see a public school student getting a ride home in a limo.
Daniel turned back to the steps and noticed that the raging river of little ones had pretty much run dry. He climbed up the stairs and made his way through the front entrance.
As he walked through the propped doors he found himself standing in one of the grandest school lobbies he had ever seen.
So this is why you pay tuition for elementary school.
The floor of the room was made of shiny grey tile, and the ceilings extended up three stories high. There were windows on each side of the back wall which peaked into the hallways on each floor. Daniel assumed the hallways extended the length of the building. In the back left corner on the lower level was a stairwell leading to the upper levels on the west side of the building, and in the back right corner an identical stairwell lead to the upper levels on the east side. He assumed the hallways had to connect somewhere in the building, otherwise it would be exhausting to travel from one end to the other.
Directly in front of Daniel was a giant set of double doors which had been propped open. The doorway was carved into a massive stone wall, which had on it a mural of the earth. Near each geographical region was a painting of a child that fit the stereotypical profile of a person from that region.
He saw that beyond the doorway was a wide hallway, with a tile flooring that was a few shades darker than the floor in the lobby, but equally as shiny. At the very end of the hall he saw another staircase which appeared to lead straight up, and just to the right of it, an elevator.
Directly past the doors, on the left side of the hall, he noticed a sign hanging out of the wall that read, “Main Office.” He considered making his way to the office until he noticed a marble desk about ten feet to the left of the doorway. At the table sat an African-American woman with short hair who looked to be near the age of forty. She was wearing a black polo shirt that said “Fox Harmon Academy” in white lettering over her heart. He felt it might be rude to bypass her and go directly to the office. Clearly she was put at this desk for a purpose, probably to act as gatekeeper given the proximity of the desk to the doors. So he decided to check in with her before entering the vast hallway.
“Hello,” he said, trying to sound cheerful as he approached the desk. At first he thought this might be an odd sight for her – a strange young man entering the school just after class let out with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Then again, teachers had social lives too, and this probably wasn’t the first time a boyfriend or husband has shown up at the school to surprise them.
“Hi, welcome to Fox Harmon Academy, how may I help you?” She asked in a rehearsed manner.
“I’m here to see a Jordan Hill,” he said, letting the words trail off, hoping that for some reason the name of a woman that wasn’t even a staff member here yet would resonate with her.
Once it was painfully obvious that the name wasn’t ringing any bells he continued, “She just got hired here for the upcoming fall semester. Anyway she came in today so that the principal could give her a tour of the school and then show her her new classroom. I was hoping I could surprise her.”
He held up the flowers after he finished his explanation, hoping it would validate his story and help the nice gatekeeper to put the final pieces together.
She glanced at him a second longer then said, “One moment please, let me call the offi
ce and see if they know where she is.”
Daniel thought she probably wanted to say “who” she is, rather than “where.” Regardless, he hoped the people in the office knew who and where she was and were willing to let him see her.
She picked up the phone and punched a few keys and waited. Finally she took a deep breath and began, “Yes, I have a gentleman here who says he is here to see a Jordan Hill.” She paused a moment so that the person on the other end of the line could tell her that she didn’t know a “Jordan Hill.”
“Yes,” she continued, “apparently she was hired for next year and had a tour scheduled with Mister Forester this afternoon…Okay.” She looked up at Daniel and forced a polite smile. “One moment sir, she’s checking with the principal right now.”
“No problem,” Daniel said, trying to be as polite as possible in order to remain on the gatekeeper’s good side. It was clear now that if he was going to get in he was going to need her help.
After a moment of rocking back on his heels in awkward silence the woman began speaking again, “Yes…one-forty-two…okay I’ll let him know. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and reached forward.
“Okay sir, here is your guest pass,” she said while handing him a laminated piece of paper that had the word ‘GUEST’ typed on it with an alligator clip hanging off the end. “Put that on and go right through these doors, she should be in room one-forty-two, right at the end of this hallway.”
She pointed back toward the large double doors behind her.
“Thank you very much ma’am,” he said with a smile as he headed toward the doors.
Success! He thought to himself as he made his way down the hall, his guest pass firmly clipped to his breast pocket.
He glanced at the room numbers as he walked down the hallway, counting up to 142.
Evens on the right. Most of the classrooms were abandoned, but in some he saw teachers at their desks, hard at work grading papers or whatever it is teachers do after school.
As he passed room 138 he could hear laughter coming from a room up ahead. By 140 he could tell the laughter was coming from Jordan’s room, and that it was her laughter. He wondered if the principal was still with her, or if another faculty member had come by to introduce themselves.
Then he heard a voice.
“So this is the new office, is it?”
He knew that voice. He hadn’t heard it in quite a long time, but it was vaguely familiar.
“This is it,” he heard Jordan say with slight excitement in her voice.
As he got to the doorway to the classroom, he peered in. There, sitting in a swivel chair in the middle of the room, was the source of the voice he had heard.
It was Gordon Demérs. He had beaten Daniel to the punch. Jordan was slowly wandering around the room getting to know it a little better. As she neared Demérs, he grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto his lap.
Daniels heart sank into his stomach.
Demérs grabbed her head and pulled her in for a kiss. Jordan didn’t resist.
Clearly they had been too distracted to notice Daniel standing just outside the door.
After a few tender kisses, she finally pulled back. “We can’t do this,” she told Demérs, “I told you we were done with this. No more.”
“Oh come on,” Demérs retorted. He started rubbing the inside of her thigh as he spoke.
He put his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her head back towards him. It did not take much for her to give in. He moved his mouth down from hers, leaving a trail of kisses down the side of her face as he made the journey down to her neck and began caressing it with his lips.
She let out a small moan and threw her head back over his shoulder, the tip of her tongue sneaking out the side of her mouth.
Daniel quickly jerked his head to the side, closing his eyes. He couldn’t watch anymore of this. His stomach was churning and he felt a burning deep inside of him as he quickly started back down the hall. His feelings were a mixture of sadness, nausea, and fury. His eyes began to gloss over as he hung his head and scurried down the long hallway.
“The door is open!” He heard Jordan exclaim while still trying to keep her voice down. “The principal is waiting for me, what if we get caught? I could be fired before I even start!”
“Just close it,” said Demérs.
Daniel heard Jordan’s footsteps making their way to the classroom door along the hard tile. He was already a few doors down but he turned to see if Jordan would notice him when she got to the doorway.
“And I give enough support to this place that I can do whatever I want in it,” he heard Demérs say as she got to the door.
Jordan did not see Daniel. All he saw was the top half of her body as her arm extended to reach for the door knob, her head turned the other way.
As she grabbed the doorknob he heard her say, “I swear, this is the absolute last time.”
She closed the door and pulled the window shade down. Following that Daniel heard the sound of the door being locked behind her. He turned and continued his march of self-pity.
He could have stopped it, he knew. But that would have only led to an awkward confrontation and conversation that he preferred not to have at that moment. Besides, she obviously wanted it, and who was he to stop her? She was still a single woman with no commitment to Daniel, and she could do as she pleased. Gordon Demérs clearly gave her something he never could, and he shouldn’t take that away from her.
By the same logic, Daniel didn’t have to deal with it anymore either. If that was the life Jordan wanted, she could have it. He wasn’t going to stand in her way, but he also wasn’t going to be a part of it. He could no longer feel the way he had in that moment. It brought him too much pain. It was one thing to hear about what she had done in the past, but to actually see it happening right in front of him – it was too much.
In some ways he was glad that he now knew for sure. He now knew there were certain situations in which he couldn’t count on Jordan to do what he expected of her.
He didn’t blame her, although he did put a lot of blame on Gordon Demérs. She couldn’t control herself. She had these intense urges when it came to Gordon Demérs that made him too hard to resist.
The thought made him want to vomit.
Nonetheless it was true, and Daniel could relate. He knew that if he had ever been involved anyone else and put in that situation with Jordan, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Fortunately for him, he had also felt true love for Jordan and for that reason would never have gotten involved with anyone else but her. He knew that for Jordan those feelings were divided. She loved Daniel but her physical attraction was strongest for Demérs. It was a hopeless situation.
And so Daniel had decided to step away from it. He had to find a way to let Jordan go.
Almost an hour later Daniel trudged into his apartment and set the twelve pack of beer he had just bought on the counter. He originally intended on only buying a six pack, but then decided that this occasion called for more and he didn’t want to have to leave the apartment again for the rest of the night.
He threw the case in the fridge and pulled one out. He shut the fridge door and reached for the bottle opener. As he opened the bottle, he looked around his apartment as the feeling that his life was shit began to resurface.
What a pathetic living space, he thought to himself. Although in the back of his head he knew that no more could be expected of a 25 year-old living on his own in downtown Chicago. Not unless you were Gordon Demérs.
It was indeed a small living space. When walking through the door one entered what Daniel defined as a small hallway. After three paces the hallway opened up to the main room of the apartment. Given that it was a studio apartment, it was actually the only room. Down two steps and to the left was a kitchenette, equipped with a fridge, a relatively small amount of counter space, a sink, and a small oven and range. Across from the kitchenette was an old navy loveseat facing the 26-inch flatscreen TV in the cor
ner, which Daniel had bought on sale during a Christmas sale. In the corner opposite the TV set was the bathroom. The only window in the apartment was on the wall across from the kitchenette, and the view beyond it was an alleyway.
There was an empty space between the kitchenette and the loveseat where there should have been a dining room table. Daniel didn’t have one as there was really no point. He was usually the only one who ate any meals he prepared at his place, and he always at them on the coffee table in front of the television.
If you were to climb down the two steps after exiting the hallway, take a right and peek around the other side of the wall and walk up the two steps on that side you’d be in what Daniel considered the ‘bedroom.’ There was just enough floor space there for his double bed and a nightstand to set his alarm clock on.
The entire apartment had wood flooring, which he had to admit was in pretty good shape. Plain white walls bordered the room and were decorated with posters that were either sports themed, sci-fi, or superheroes. Jordan said posters were how college kids decorated their walls, but it was about all the decoration he could afford. Besides, he liked his posters. They conveyed his personality better than any other wall décor he’d ever seen.
Jordan…
He took his beer and went over to his bed. He took a big pull and set the beer down on his nightstand before flopping down onto his bed. It was time to sulk.
He locked his hands behind his head and rested it on the pillow. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift.
More beer was the first thought that came up. He leaned over to reach for his beer, noticing the white business card sitting on his nightstand. He picked it up and read it. It was the card the strange man in the fedora had given him the last time Jordan was in town.
The pain came surging back. It had been two visits in a row now that Jordan had crushed him by choosing Gordon Demérs over him. She may have never actually known he would be coming to meet her today, but by hooking up with Demérs in her new classroom she had symbolically chosen not to respect Daniel’s feelings.
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