Speculation, fantasy about showing up with him at the next Christmas party, about being naked together in a brass bed with white sheets frothing with lace, distracted her so she forgot to call Owen.
The next day Allison insisted on taking her team to the bistro that was a few blocks from the office. This lunch would be a team-building exercise, a chance to get to know the others and to really listen to their ideas. She reasoned that if the man worked in or owned the Italian place they usually went to she would have seen him by now, besides there was something French about him. The hostess at the bistro was a skinny blonde wearing a cheap dress from Le Château. Allison nonchalantly asked while they were being seated about the evening maître d’, who apparently was not a maître d’ but yet another underdressed first-year university bimbo named Kimber.
All through lunch Allison looked around the restaurant as surreptitiously as possible, checking every waiter and busboy and bartender, every man seated in every banquette and at every table.
Frustrated, on her way to the ladies’ room she wandered into the kitchen as if by mistake, but everyone was yelling in Spanish and looked at her like she was Immigration so she backed out after a quick glance told her he wasn’t there.
Someone on her team asked her if she had lost something and she looked at them astounded, she had forgotten they were there.
That night she and Owen went out to eat and then sat around her place watching The Full Monty. Later, with the cat sitting on the end of the bed batting at their bare feet occasionally, they had sex. Allison closed her eyes and imagined the man. He was there whispering in her ear, smelling of spice and sweat, knowing all her favourite places and touches. It was so real that when she opened her eyes and saw Owen’s love-filled face as he laboured stolidly above her she had to bite her tongue from screaming in dismay.
As Owen snored beside her she dreamt about being in Starbucks again. The man was there, waiting for her at a table in the back corner. The fact that Starbucks had red velvet-flocked wallpaper and low lighting provided by crystal chandeliers made no difference, she still knew it was Starbucks. The man was wearing his white shirt and black suspenders, he handed her a latte and a slice of lemon-poppyseed cake, something she loved but rarely ate because it had so many calories. He winked at her and in the dream she felt his hand on her thigh. She asked him what he did and he said he was an executive and she had known it all along.
Afterwards they made love for hours and although the bed was not brass with white lace-edged sheets it was just as good because it was his in a shadowy manly apartment with a gorgeous view and the bedding smelt of him, dark, meaty and that crisp chlorine smell of sperm. Allison woke up with a smile on her face, sore between her legs, and turned over to see Owen with his mouth open and sleep in his eyes. She wanted to cry. Maybe her dream was telling her something. Where was it the man had said he worked? He was an executive, right, but where, where?
She prodded Owen. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Owen, get up and brush your teeth, your breath stinks.”
For a month and a half Allison spent every lunch hour and most of her after work time looking for the man. She went to all the restaurants within a twenty-block radius of her office, but she seldom actually ate lunch, because if she did not see him in one restaurant, she would back out pretending that she had mistaken the place she was supposed to be meeting her co-workers. Even though he had said he was an executive in her dream, her rational mind said it was more likely first thought right thought and the man worked at an upscale bar or bistro. She took fifteen-minute breaks and would ride the elevator up and down hoping he might get on at one floor or another. Every time the door opened her stomach dropped at the possibility he might be there. She went to the Starbucks so often they knew her order by heart and never tried to offer her the day’s special blend.
Sometimes instead of restaurants, on the off chance her dream was right she would pick a random floor and walk into offices pretending she was looking for someone whose business card she had lost. She would describe the man. Occasionally someone would be called out, and she would wait in anticipation, thinking of what she would say, how she would explain, but it was never the man she was looking for.
She widened her search to the office buildings beside her own, then two or three over. She sat at her desk and strategized, fantasized, sometimes going to the bathroom next to the maintenance room in the basement of the building and masturbating, using her latest dream to excite her. Because every night he was there, in her dreams. At Starbucks, sometimes decorated with red-flocked wall paper, sometimes with the standard Starbucks tables and chairs, but always the glass cases that usually held biscotti and muffins instead held beautiful shoes and jewelry and red velvet hearts that oozed droplets of blood down the glass fronts. He would touch her arm and tell her to choose whatever she liked. Then they would go back to his place.
Sometimes his house was all Corbusier glass and chrome, sometimes it was an arts-and-crafts dream with warm woods, a Stickley grandfather clock chiming the hours as they made love on a kilim in front of his stone fireplace. She could feel the rough fibres of the rug on her back and thighs and it excited her, though she knew she would be red and raw in the morning. Night after night they would have perfect sex. He would run his tongue along her arm to her armpit, kiss the nape of her neck; bring her to orgasm after orgasm. With her tongue she would trace the veed muscles that ran from either side of his navel to his groin, the long hollow in the muscle of the side of his thigh, licking, desperate to make him real, to make him materialize in the waking world, but every morning she was alone in her bed.
She kicked Owen to the curb over sushi. They were seated in one of those private booths with curtains and rice paper and wood walls.
“I’m just not ready for the type of commitment our relationship needs at this point, Owen.”
“What do you mean? We only see each other once or twice a week.”
“I know, but even when we are together I’m thinking about work. My new role has been such a challenge, I never understood the responsibility that being a team leader brought with it.”
“Are you sure there isn’t someone else? We haven’t had sex much lately.”
“Christ, Owen, that’s always the way with men, isn’t it? If I don’t want to jump into bed with you every friggin’ minute it has to be because I’m seeing someone else. Well let me tell you, mister, you had better move into the twenty-first century. Women are no longer just blow-up dolls waiting at home to pleasure you. I’m tired after a hard day at the office, get it? I work hard, and most nights sex is honestly the last thing on my mind.”
“Sorry, I’m sorry, Allison.” Owen looked down at the limp hand roll on his plate, “I do understand. A single mom who worked two jobs raised me, I know about the challenges.” He looked up at her again; a tear glittered in the corner of his eye. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
They ate the rest of their sushi in silence and when they left the restaurant, Allison gave Owen a kiss on the cheek and said, “I’ll call you when things slow down, I mean it.”
Owen nodded and walked towards the subway, Allison hailed a cab.
The truth was Owen cut into her time. While asleep she needed a full eight hours every night to spend with the man, and Owen always wanted to snuggle or something. Weekends she wandered the city hoping to run into the man in some neighbourhood, or sitting in a park, she couldn’t go kite flying or on a picnic or some stupid thing Owen thought was romantic, but was really just a big bore.
Of course she had visited as many Starbucks as she could find in the city. She took long naps hoping the man would come to her as he did at night, but he never did. Every morning when she woke up from her time with him she wished she was still asleep, but then her mind would kick back into strategy mode, where could she look today, where had she missed?
“God, Allison, you’ve lost so much weight.” Janey was in line ahead of her in Starbucks. “But you look good.” Janey didn’
t sound convinced.
Allison knew she had lost weight; it was all the walking, all the skipped lunches. Every morning she put on a belt pulling it tighter, until today she had reached the final notch. But that was all right, men loved skinny women. Some women would kill to lose three dress sizes without really trying, Janey was just jealous.
“Thanks.”
“So how are things on digital?”
Oh God, was Janey angling for a position on her team? Really wanted out of Depends, huh. Well, Allison was not in a mood for office politics in line at Starbucks. She couldn’t be distracted, not even for a minute.
“Great. And Depends?”
“Well, I might be moving.”
Allison nodded, then the barista called out Janey’s order. Janey waved to Allison as she walked away, Allison ignored her. The barista punched in Allison’s order, and then looking at her said, “Oh, have you been sick?”
Allison snapped back to attention. “What?”
The barista became confused. “Oh, um, it’s just you’re a little pale, and you’ve gotten a lot thinner, that’s all. I thought maybe you’d had the flu.”
“I’m fine,” Allison said, fixing the girl with a steely stare. She kept her change and didn’t put it in the tip jar the way she usually did.
That night was the first time her dreams of the man turned ugly. He pinned her down, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t scream. She tried as hard as she could, but it was as if her jaw was wired shut and she struggled to pull it apart, her heart hammering, her cries coming out like faraway puffs of breath.
She woke up trembling. It was that damn Janey and the barista, saying she was too thin, that she looked sick. Women were so jealous when other women lost the weight they couldn’t, improved themselves, were in love. She hated women.
Finally she fell back to sleep. This time she dreamt that she was in a pink and black tiled bathroom, like something out of a nineteen-fifties bungalow. There was even a cotton-candy-coloured fluffy bath mat under her feet. Allison sat on the toilet and looked down. She held a pregnancy test with a blue cross in the little paper window. She was pregnant after all, she had known it all along. No wonder she looked so strange, so pale and had dark circles under her eyes. Sometimes women lost weight in the first trimester—that was why she was so thin. It came to her that this was the man’s child and she had no idea where he was. How could she raise a baby on her own? She had to find the father. She wouldn’t be able to work, everyone knew that you had to be at home with your baby or else they would be neurotic, or serial killers. Allison started to cry, she had to find the baby’s father, she had to make him see that this was his responsibility, that there was no pleasure without responsibility.
The morning light hit Allison full in the face. She was going to be late again. Her pre-work lingerings at Starbucks had made her late more days than she liked to think about. What a strange dream, about being pregnant. Allison snorted, it had to be because Owen had been giving her his sob story about his single mother the other night. She dressed, giving up on a belt and using the silk sash from her bathrobe. She put on more rouge than usual, trying to make herself less pale. Before she left the bathroom she glanced into her waste-paper basket—there, sticking up from the tissues, what was that white thing? But it was only a Q-tip, nothing more. Finally she put on her red shoes. They had been resoled twice now. And the suede was due for another cleaning, but that was for tomorrow, today she had to get into the office. Hopefully no one had noticed.
After lunch which Allison spent riding the elevators in the building next door, she had a meeting with her boss, Sarah. She supposed it was to do with her being late yet again. Allison quickly came up with a family-crisis story, mother, sick, lonely, calling and keeping her on the phone much too long, they were putting her in a home, etc. Of course Allison’s mother lived in Boca Raton, and had married her senior center’s golf pro, but no one knew that.
Sarah had Allison sit down in a chair across from her desk and closed the door behind her. Sarah was a new hire, so Allison wasn’t sure about her, but she knew no one could resist a mother crisis story.
Allison looked up at the kitten poster with the little white cat hanging from a branch behind Sarah’s desk. Pink letters spelled out Hang in There in a bubble above the cat’s head. Allison wondered if it was hipster ironic, or if Sarah just had excruciatingly bad taste. There were bobble heads lined up along the front of her desk, and a standee of Justin Bieber in the corner. Bad taste, Allison decided.
“Allison,” Sarah said warmly, “how are you?”
“Sarah, just let me start by saying that I am so sorry that I was late this morning. It’s my … ” but Sarah cut her off.
“I didn’t even know you were late today, no need to apologize.”
Allison relaxed, sat back in her chair. Already her mind started racing to her after work plans, she wanted to start in the suburbs. Olive Garden? Too plebeian for The Man?
“Allison, we’ve been a bit worried about you.”
Allison looked at Sarah and smiled, she had no idea what this woman was talking about.
“You are just not bringing your usual energy to the table these days, not generating the kind of excitement we like to pride ourselves on offering our clients.”
Allison was speechless, she shifted in her chair.
“Now, we really value your contributions, your team spirit has always been part of what makes our company great. However, the thinking is that we need someone who has a fresh perspective as our digital leader. Janey Joon has some really innovative ideas … ”
“Excuse me?” Allison said sitting forward. “Janey?”
Sarah put on a pair of reading glasses and shuffled through some papers on her desk. “Yes, Janey Joon. She has some wonderful ideas about building advertising opportunities through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.” Sarah looked up at Allison and smiled.
“What? That’s all social media is, one big advertisement. Leveraging advertising possibilities is such bullshit, the sites are all saturated, everyone knows that. No one even notices the stupid ads on those sites anymore.”
Sarah took her glasses off, the smile was gone. “Allison, I’m sorry, but Janey … ”
Allison stood up. “You just think it’s some fresh, innovative idea because she’s Chinese!”
There was silence for a minute. Sarah looked up at Allison.
“Please sit down, Allison. Janey is Korean, not Chinese.”
Allison sat, she was crying now.
“Allison, we have an opening on the Cup o’ Noodles team, a little less pressure, a little … ”
Allison just shook her head no, she reached blindly for a Kleenex off of Sarah’s desk and ended up knocking over a few bobble heads.
“Maybe you should take the rest of the day off, Allison.” Sarah was standing up, coming around the desk. Oh God, was she going to hug her? “In fact, why don’t you take the rest of the week off, think about it? We can talk on Monday.”
Without saying a word Allison stood up and headed blindly for the door, as she flung it open the toe of her shoe caught in the rug and she stumbled. Sarah reached out to help her, but Allison fled, grabbing her purse off her desk and heading for the elevators.
In the elevator, Allison patted her face dry with tissues dug from deep in her bag.
Well, if they thought they were going to demote her or something they were fucking wrong. She would sue their ass for mental cruelty. It was obvious that Allison was not doing well, she was thin and pale. She wondered briefly if she could get a psychiatrist to write her a note. And after she sued them, she would get a better job and they could suck it.
It was this stupid obsession with a guy she had seen once. Okay, the dreams were compelling, they were very real, but they were dreams. Her career was real, especially if she was going to have a baby.
When the elevator got to the ground floor she turned automatically towards the Starbucks. No, she wouldn’t go in. He wasn’
t there, he wasn’t anywhere. He probably lived in a different province, a different country. She stopped just outside Starbucks’ glass doors and took off the red shoes. She stuffed them in the garbage can placed there for disposal of coffee cups and plastic wrap. Those shoes weren’t sexy anymore, they were a disaster. Barefoot she straightened up and turned towards the subway, she’d buy some shoes at Nine West or something before she got on.
Someone brushed against her arm. She looked up, it was the man, she knew those eyes. Night after night they had looked into hers while they made love. He winked at her and smiled. Before she could move, he was weaving his way through the crowd, his white shirt and black suspenders standing out like a beacon. She began to run after him, but it seemed as if he was always just ahead, leading her on. She screamed Stop, and people turned to look, but he didn’t, he just kept walking away.
She made it home somehow, still barefoot. She had never caught up with him, at the subway entrance he had seemed to vanish.
In the kitchen she put the last half cup of kibble in the cat’s dish. I’ll have to get more tomorrow, she thought.
She closed the door of her bedroom behind her. Carefully she took off her clothes, folded them into a neat pile on the chair and lay down naked on the bed. He’ll come to me, he must. She lay there and waited for him.
She was still waiting for him three weeks later when they broke down the door of her apartment. They had to step over the emaciated body of a dead cat to get in the apartment, but the real smell was coming from the bedroom.
Handsome Devil: Stories of Sin and Seduction Page 16