Office Girl

by Joe Meno

  And so he will sit on the floor with all these tapes, ignoring the phone, ignoring the gray cat, and play cassette after cassette, searching through the stacks of shoe boxes for the perfect combination of sounds. And he will hold the silver tape player in his hand and hit rewind and then press play and there will be the sound of the pink balloon drifting through the air, the alluring distance of its soft flight, resounding from the single silver speaker. And he will smile and rewind the tape again and then turn, seeking out a white shoe box which once held a pair of beige loafers, and find it shoved in the corner, sixth from the bottom of the stack. Along its lid, the box says SNOW. He will lift off the white lid, remove a cassette labeled Snowstorm 12.29.1998, and place this new tape inside a second tape player, a rectangular black one, from the 1970s. And he will adjust the volume and then press play on this second recorder. And the sound of the snow—like a pause, like a musical caesura, almost silent—will echo from its small black speakers. And he will play the two tapes together—the sound of the balloon and the noise of the drifting snow—and then decide something is still missing. And he will search among the towers of tapes for one more box—ELECTRICITY—and finding it, he will select a third cassette. And this third tape will be placed inside an old answering machine. And then he’ll hit play again. And the third tape will fill the air with a hollow buzz, the sound of streetlights vibrating in the morning, and for a moment it will be perfect, the sound of all three tapes playing at the same time, and a city—a city of sound will surround him—and he will be among its quiet avenues and soft-lit boulevards. And the idea is that all these tapes, all these separate noises, are actually a city, a single town he has invented made of nothing but sound.

  And it’s what he’s been working on for almost four years now, this invisible city, built one sound at a time, each noise a different place on an imaginary map, a different spot or intersection or park or corner or window in an imaginary town, where language is unnecessary, where nothing bad ever happens. It is the only part of his life that seems the least bit remarkable, this imaginary city, and nobody knows about it except Elise. And now she’s gone. And he doesn’t know when it will be done, if ever. And tonight as he’s pedaling around, tape recorder in hand, it begins to get cold and so he decides to call his friend Birdie because he’s always had a friendly crush on her, and she says hi and asks if he wants to come over and listen to some records and so he momentarily forgets about the imaginary city and says he can be at her apartment in ten minutes. How does that sound? Okay, she says, and off he pedals again.

  LISTENING TO RECORDS.

  And so he sits on the floor of Birdie’s apartment and she is listening to the Talking Heads and she asks how he is doing and her voice sounds concerned and he says okay and he says he doesn’t want to talk about Elise or anything and so he takes out his tape recorder and hits record and then asks her: “Have you ever done anything remarkable?”

  And she looks at him and then at the tape recorder and says, “What? No. Once, in high school. On the swim team. I won this meet. I was the last—you know—on the relay team, and I usually was the weakest, but this one time, I don’t know. It all came together. I never swam that hard in my life. I think I actually pooped a little in my swimsuit if you can believe it. And that was the only time I did anything the least bit exciting.”

  And he says, “I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. And I think I realized that I’m average, that there’s nothing remarkable about me. And I wanted to know if this is something other people think about.”

  “Not really. You can ask me another question if you like.”

  “Okay. Do you think I’ll ever do anything remarkable?”

  “I don’t know. All signs point toward no right now.”

  And then they both laugh sadly.

  “Okay,” he says, thinking. “I have all these Christmas presents I bought for Elise. Like three of them. Do you think I should just throw them out?”

  “Yes, I really do.”

  “You don’t want a new hair dryer, do you?”

  And here Birdie laughs again and says no thanks. She is cute—with her black hair cut in a kind of bob and cat’s-eye glasses and the small buttons she makes for local bands in her spare time, which dot the collar of her various cardigan sweaters—but she has a boyfriend, Gus, who lives in New York, who might be a nimrod, because Jack only met him once and did not think much of him.

  “What other questions do you have about life?” she asks.

  And he asks, “Do you think I have a big nose?” holding out the tape recorder again.

  “What?”

  “Do you think my nose is funny-looking?”

  “What? No. It’s totally normal.”

  “I think it’s a little too triangular.”

  “You’re crazy.” And then she asks, “What about me? Do you think my head is too small for my body?”

  “No. It’s totally proportionate. I always said that about you. She’s very proportionate.”

  And Birdie laughs again. “What about my glasses? Do you think they’re dorky?”

  “No. What about mine?”

  “No. What about my hams?” she asks.

  “Your what?”

  “My hams.” And here she stands and points to her backside.

  “My hams.”

  “No. I think your hams are pretty okay.” And then he knows it is his turn and says, “What about my forehead?”

  But she doesn’t answer because someone begins kissing someone else. And then Jack switches off the tape recorder and sets it down and goes on kissing. And he lifts her shirt and gets his hand down her pants and looks and sees she has written, in black magic marker, the word GUS’S with an arrow that points down to her lap, disappearing beneath the top hem of her pink underwear.

  “I thought this was going to happen,” she explains.

  “Nice,” Jack says, and Birdie laughs but they continue kissing. And Birdie is slipping off Jack’s belt and has her small hand down the front of his pants and so he decides to try and reciprocate, and puts his fingers down the front of her underwear, and she shifts her weight so he can get his hand underneath, and the Talking Heads are still playing and Birdie says, “Gus doesn’t care as long as I don’t fall in love,” but who’s to say how a thing like that happens?

  APPROXIMATELY EIGHT MINUTES LATER.

  Both of their heads appear above a white sheet. That’s all. It’s as if their bodies have disappeared. A pile of their clothes has been assembled at the foot of the bed. And Jack’s mouth tastes furry. And the girl, Birdie, turns her face, with its frame of dark hair, to stare at him.

  “Was that a little weird?” Birdie asks.

  “What? No way. It was nice. I mean, you … you’re great.”

  “No. It was weird. It was bad.”

  “It was nice,” he says.

  “No, it was like …”

  “Doing math,” he says.

  “Like going to the dentist.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “No. It was. It was,” she says. “I think I stopped paying attention at some point.”

  “Maybe it’s because we’re too good of friends,” he says.

  “Maybe.”

  And Birdie is sitting up, pulling on her pink see-through underwear, and then her jeans, and then she is finishing clasping her bra. And he starts getting dressed too, and she looks over at him and says, “I knew it was probably going to be bad but I didn’t stop you. It’s a problem I have. I’m only good in bed with Gus.”

  “It’s okay. It’s no big deal.”

  “Do you want to watch a movie or something? Have you ever seen Freaks? It’s by the guy who did Dracula.”

  “No, I haven’t seen it. But I should probably get home. I’ve got this thing I’m working on,” he lies. “I think I need to finish it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just … this project. It’s nothing, but I just want to get it done.”

 
; “Okay. Sure. Well,” and she doesn’t say anything else.

  And then he pulls his winter coat on, even though his pants aren’t buttoned. And he thinks of how he will probably never be back in this apartment again, and how weird things will be with Birdie from now on, and he doesn’t know why but he decides to shake her hand very formally.

  “Okay. We should never do this again,” he says.

  “Agreed,” she answers, and then they do not look at each other, both of their faces going red.

  AND AFTERWARD.

  He grabs his blue ten-speed from beside the front door of Birdie’s apartment and walks out into the cold before he even has his pants properly buttoned. So what? His shoes are unlaced and he almost kills himself trying to get down the stairs, but at least he’s not feeling as embarrassed as he was. And he decides he’s going to go home. He’s going to go home and really try to finish something.

  BECAUSE THERE IS HIS SCREENPLAY AND ALSO HIS BAND.

  His band is called The Royal We and it is an avant-garde instrumental group, which plays covers of television theme songs, music from advertisements, and melodies from black-and-white-era cartoons. He plays oboe in the band, and Kate plays keyboard, and his only other friend Eric plays trombone, although they have not practiced in more than four months. Their last show was a tremendous failure with only twelve people attending. But he could always try to come up with some new ideas for the band. And then there is also the screenplay he has been working on for a few years now, tentatively titled The Crystals, which deals with a city where the people and buildings are all turning into crystals, which is sort of an abstract horror movie, or at least this is what he’s recently decided, but maybe it’s really about love, because whenever someone who is a crystal touches someone who isn’t, they automatically become a crystal too, and sometimes these crystal people—as they’re walking around, trying to go about their lives—sometimes they end up breaking apart. And so there are parts of crystal people lying all around. And as he’s riding on his bicycle that night, he gets a new idea for the screenplay: What if the crystals made weird sounds when they broke apart? What if they flashed and made weird sounds, and the city became louder and louder the more broken crystals there were? And what if the hero, Robert, what if he was trying to find his girlfriend Veronica and he kept getting lost in the city because buildings he recognized kept turning into crystals and people were trying to turn him into a crystal too, and the sound of everything just kept getting louder and louder? And why is this city so loud? Is Berlin as loud as this? And hell, what does Berlin look like at night? What is Elise doing right now? What time is it in Germany? All these questions but the city doesn’t seem to answer. And when he gets back to the apartment, he doesn’t do shit but stare at the telephone, trying to will a call from Elise that he knows isn’t coming.

  US AND ALL OUR FRIENDS ARE SO MESSED UP.

  And the following day Jack is asked by his friend Eric to help him move, even though it’s snowing like crazy. Eric has a large black beard he’s a little too proud of. He and Kate, his longtime girlfriend, play music with Jack in their amateurish band, although Eric’s day job is as an English teacher at a small high school. A few years ago he used to wear a pair of black leather pants around. And now. Now he teaches Shakespeare. All these changes, all these people changing. Recently, Eric got in trouble at school for standing on the desk, trying to reenact the scene from Dead Poets Society. Dumb. He was trying to inspire these kids, but it was still a pretty stupid thing to do. And now he and Kate are moving. Jack doesn’t even know where to. And Jack shows up at their apartment and sees Eric’s old-model Volvo parked out front, already loaded up. And there are boxes in the hallway on the second floor, and Jack knocks on the open door, and Kate is sitting on the couch, sobbing. And Jack asks, “What’s wrong? Aren’t you guys ready?” and Eric is standing there, folding his hand into his beard. And he’s shaking his head. And he says, “She didn’t know.”

  “She didn’t know what?”

  “That I was moving out.”

  “You’re moving out?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I thought you were both moving.”

  “No.”

  “Wait a minute. You just told her?”

  And Eric nods, still with his hand in his beard. And Kate is still crying and then she stands and says, “Get out of here, you stupid assholes,” and then they do.

  “This is what happens when love goes wrong,” Eric says, carrying out a cardboard box of pornographic magazines into the hallway.

  And that’s all he says about that.

  AND A WEEK LATER.

  And then it’s Saturday night and Birdie calls and asks him if he wants to go to a party with her and he says okay, and she says it’s an Imaginary Building party, but he does not have a costume, but that’s okay too. Everyone is supposed to take a cardboard box and make a building out of it to wear but he can’t find any cardboard boxes except for the ones in the alley behind his apartment and they are all covered in snow, and so he has his gray winter coat on and he has decided to wear his banana shirt, and the banana is chasing a donut, and it’s a shirt he made four years ago in a silk screening class in art school and isn’t all that funny anymore. And Birdie is dressed as the Eiffel Tower and she looks pretty great and both of them are riding their bikes to the party. And at a stoplight, she turns to him and says, “I don’t know if we can be friends anymore.”

  “What?”

  “I told Gus what happened. He’s pretty pissed. He doesn’t want us hanging out anymore, alone, together, whatever.”

  “But why did you invite me to go to this party with you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Because. Because I like hanging out with you. And Gus isn’t here. It’s too hard going everywhere alone.”

  “So do you want to stop hanging out?”

  “No. But I probably should. I mean, maybe if you got a girlfriend. If you were dating someone, then all of us could hang out. It’s just weird right now because you’re not dating anyone.”

  “Right.”

  “You can still come to this party with me tonight. Parties are okay. I mean, anything with a lot of people.”

  “Like a parade.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Or a funeral.”

  “A funeral would be great.”

  “Great,” Jack says, wishing he had stayed home. But it’s Saturday night and he wants to be out, he wants to be out among the people.

  And then he is at the party and Birdie walks away to say hi to someone, and someone else he doesn’t know is standing on the sofa, dancing, dressed as an imaginary building, and other people are talking to each other in pairs and groups of three and four and someone has spilled their drink on the façade of their friend and everyone asks where Jack’s costume is, and someone is dressed as the Chrysler Building and someone else is dressed as the Eiffel Tower and from across the small apartment Birdie rolls her eyes and the music is loud and it’s a band Jack has never heard before and he has to hold one finger in his left ear to talk to anybody and he finds a guy he knows named Pat who’s dressed as the Brooklyn Bridge and who points in the direction of the tiny, white-tiled kitchen, and Jack makes his way through the improvised city and opens the refrigerator door and takes a beer and there beside the refrigerator he sees a girl he has met once or twice, named Leigh G, not Leigh M, and she is dressed as a beautiful silver castle and has sparkly makeup on her cheeks and false eyelashes and a tiara on top of her dark hair. And she smiles and seems to recognize him. And then she is whispering in his ear.

  “Could these people be trying any harder?” she asks.

  “At what?”

  “At everything.”

  “You’re the one dressed up as a castle,” Jack says, smiling widely.

  “I know, but it was just supposed to be a joke. I was trying to be ironic.”

  “Oh.” Jack nods and looks down at the girl’s silver shoes. She’s petite and her feet are very small.
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br />   Someone dressed as Big Ben and someone dressed as a chapel, complete with steeple, are now making out right beside the refrigerator. The girl Leigh seems bothered by this.

  “Are you still in that band?” she asks. “I think I saw you play one time.”

  “No, not really. I mean, I was. I still play the oboe, on my own.”

  “Oh. I thought it was pretty bad. But at least it was interesting.”

  “Thanks. I’m kinda … I’m kinda focusing on other things now. I’m doing some abstract art. And a couple sound installations. And I’m working on a screenplay. And a couple other things too.”

  “Are you still in school?”

  “No. Not anymore,” he says. “I mean, I graduated like four years ago. It’s taken me some time to figure out what I want to do.”

  “I have no idea what I’m doing either,” the girl says. “Everything seems so … obvious.”

  And Jack nods.

  “Are you working?” she asks. “Do you have a job?”

  “Not right now. I had a job. I’m basically trying to work as little as I can so I can do other things.”

  “That’s what I want to do,” the girl says.

  “What about you? Are you …”

  “I work at an insurance company.”

  “Okay,” Jack says. “What’s that like?”

  The girl looks at him, studying his face. She seems to be calculating something, adding something up. And then she says: “Do you want to get out of here?”

  And here Jack smiles and then, instinctively, pats down the back of his hair.

  “Really?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” the girl says, unconvinced. “Why not?”

  And on their bicycles together, they ride through the snow, Jack laughing at the sight of the girl in her outfit, her white legs covered in sheer tights, rising up and down. Someone honks at them, and then a bus swerves past, and Jack asks, “Why don’t you take your costume off?” but Leigh says no. They pause at a red light a few blocks later and he looks over and sees the shape of the castle she is wearing and how red her cheeks are from the cold, and then he says: “You look really pretty.”