Man at Work

by Elaine Fox

  As soon as she’d paused to answer Marty, Truman had left without her, without even a good-bye.

  Seeing him again had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. She kept remembering what Trish had said, that maybe she had misunderstood Truman as completely as he’d misunderstood her. For some reason this theory alarmed her. If it was true, she was every bit as at fault for their confrontation as Truman was. Which meant there was a good chance she was just as stupid and blind as he’d accused her of being.

  But if what Trish said wasn’t true, and she was right about Truman? Then it meant there wasn’t any way things could ever work out between them. The lesser of the two evils was hard to determine.

  The day after the deposition she’d spent a morose Thanksgiving with her family. The aunts, uncles, and cousins were all at her mother’s house this year, so Marcy had gone early and stayed late to help. For the most part they’d laid off their dating questions, though she wasn’t sure whether or not that was because they now believed she was a lesbian. In any case, she was profoundly glad not to have to answer any questions about the men in her life because she was doing all she humanly could to keep from thinking about Truman.

  Not that it was doing any good.

  Now, a week after Thanksgiving, she’d pondered the intricacies of their argument so many times and in so many variations she could barely remember what had actually happened. She’d also shuffled together their circumstances, their occupations, their personalities, and their mutual desires so much that she’d only come up with more confusion.

  For the last week she’d both hoped and feared he would pop up again either at her door or on the street so she’d have a chance to talk to him. About what, or why he would seek her out, she wasn’t sure. She just didn’t want to believe that their confrontation at the Rock ’n’ Roll holiday party two weeks ago had been the end of it all.

  But he hadn’t popped up. She’d kept an eye out for him on her lunch hours, answered every call in her office, and kept up with her messages both at work and at home, but she hadn’t heard from him. She’d even hit *69 on her phone to see if he’d called without leaving a message. But no dice. He hadn’t called, and he was not coming back.

  She could, of course, go to see him—and Folly, whom she missed terribly—but the thought of returning to that apartment and possibly finding him with the lovely blonde Heather was so intimidating she wouldn’t consider it.

  She comforted herself with the knowledge that she’d see him at the trial in two weeks. Maybe by then she’d have figured out what was going on, and what she could say. Or maybe not.

  Marcy pulled up in front of the homeless shelter that Friday night and put the car into park.

  The last time she’d spoken to Calvin he’d gotten several calls about catering jobs. It helped that they were well into the start of the holiday season. Everyone, it seemed, was having a party, and Calvin’s confidence had been so boosted by the Downey, Finley & Salem affair that he was ready to take them all on.

  She walked into the kitchen of the shelter having followed an aromatic trail of garlic.

  “Marcy P.!” Calvin boomed upon seeing her.

  She smiled and marveled again at how much more alive he looked now than even just a few weeks ago. While she could flatter herself that finding him work had given him back his spark, she suspected that the largest part of his renewal came from the lovely Sheila, with whom he’d had several dates since the party. She’d even postponed her Thanksgiving trip to Tuscany just, Marcy was sure, to spend more time with Calvin.

  “Not to rain on your sunshiny face, Mr. Deeds,” Marcy said, once she’d scrubbed up and donned an apron to begin slicing mushrooms, “but have you told Sheila the truth about yourself yet?”

  Calvin turned away to the sink to wash a knife that was barely dirty and said, “Well, now, the timing hasn’t really been right…”

  “Calvin,” she scolded, “the woman is a dear. She’s not going to think any less of you because you fell on some hard times. Give her a chance.”

  Calvin shook his head and got out his cleaver. He was chopping up chicken a local grocery store had donated that day to make chicken tetrazzini for the residents of the shelter.

  “Yes, she is a dear. But there are some extenuating circumstances. I really don’t think she’d approve of me living…well, where I live.” He gestured vaguely around himself with the knife.

  “What circumstances?” Marcy asked.

  “Well now, I don’t know all the details, but she’s alluded to something that makes me think she wouldn’t like someone who has to live as poorly as I do. You heard her, Marcy, she’s got a house in Tuscany, for goodness’ sake. She wouldn’t understand having to live someplace like this.”

  “You never know. I think she might. But Calvin, if she’s that pompous about it, would you really want her?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that she’s pompous. Not in the least. She gives lots of money to charity. She seems to care a great deal about the under privileged. But I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want to be courted by one of them. She’s just so extremely wealthy, you see. A very classy lady. She deserves to be with…I don’t know…with royalty.”

  Marcy thought about this a second. “But that could be all the better. She’s probably secure enough to feel she doesn’t need a man who can support her.”

  Calvin shook his head again.

  “What?” she said, throwing up her hands. “Why are you so negative about this?”

  He sighed. “Because she’s got this son,” he said. “She loves him dearly but she’s angry with him too. She said he left home and is now living in…well, in severely reduced circumstances.”

  “You mean he’s a runaway?”

  “No. He’s a grown son, an adult, who apparently had a very bright future. But he decided to give it all up and live with the poor.”

  He paused.

  “What, like the Peace Corps?” Marcy asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Is he a drug addict or something? Did he mess up his life and she can’t help him?”

  “No, no. I’m sorry. I’m not explaining this very well.” He cleared his throat. “As I said, I don’t know all the details, but I definitely got the impression this was some sort of choice he made. Like an experiment. He chose to give up his privileged life to see if he could make it as a…a common person. Or something. Whatever it is, she’s horrified by it. She says he’s living like a vagrant and she can’t even stand to think about him.” He gave her a tortured look. “Marcy, who could be living more like a vagrant than myself? How can I tell her about this place”—he gestured around himself with the cleaver—“knowing how she feels about it? I can’t tell her the truth, I just can’t.”

  Marcy was silent a long moment. “Calvin, your circumstances are totally different. No one could fault you for doing all you’ve done. It was for Pen! Surely any woman would be impressed by that, not horrified.”

  Calvin was shaking his head again.

  “Then think of it this way,” Marcy continued. “What the son is doing sounds admirable. If she’s as rich as you say, he’s obviously given up the easy life for a taste of what the rest of the world experiences. What an intelligent, compassionate mother she must have been to have raised a son like that.”

  Calvin’s eyes brightened with her words. “Yes!” he exclaimed, putting the knife down on the counter and turning to face her. “Marcy, that’s it exactly! She’s been thinking of herself as having failed him somehow, when really it’s just the opposite. She’s been berating herself for nothing, the dear lady.”

  Marcy smiled. “And that same dear lady, that intelligent, compassionate woman, will understand when you tell her what you went through too, Calvin. Don’t underestimate her. It’ll only hurt both of you.”

  Calvin was shaking his head again, but this time it was different. This time he looked as if he was thinking he’d have never believed he could feel better about the situation.<
br />
  “Marcy, girl, I don’t know how to thank you,” he said, taking up his cleaver again. “I’m to see Sheila again tomorrow. I’ll try talking to her some more about this. She’s so worried about the boy. I don’t think she’s looking at it as the noble venture it really is.”

  “Of course it’s noble,” Marcy said, feeling it.

  Who but someone noble would give up all that security? Not that he’d really given it up, of course. Having a wealthy mother to turn to was a far different thing than leading a purely hardscrabble life, but still. How many people would even think to give up wealth in order to walk a mile in a poor person’s shoes?

  “I think the son must have a great deal of character to do something like that,” she continued. “And besides, she hasn’t disowned him or anything, has she?”

  “No, no, of course not. She’s just worried sick about him. And afraid she did something to drive him away.”

  “Well, there you go,” Marcy said. “There’s not a doubt in my mind that this woman has her head on her shoulders. She’s not the kind of woman who’s so shallow that a man’s circumstances are going to stand in the way of a relationship that’s meant to be.”

  Calvin smiled and gleefully chopped the leg off a chicken.

  But Marcy stood frozen, hand raised and ready to slice another mushroom, her heart in her throat.

  Sheila may not be shallow, she thought suddenly, her cheeks burning despite the fact that no one else could hear her thoughts. But she was.

  She, Marcy Paglinowski, was so shallow and money conscious that she had let a man’s circumstances stand in the way of a relationship that was…was it meant to be?

  Or was it meant to be over?

  She swallowed hard and laid her palms flat on the cutting board. Should she have let Truman get away?

  Or could it be that he was the best thing that had ever happened to her?

  17

  Saturday, December 7

  WORD-A-DAY!

  VACUITIES: n., empty spaces; and perhaps, as a result of confusion, empty heads, hearts, habitations…

  Marcy popped the cork on the bottle of wine that Trish had brought—their second—and poured some into each of their glasses.

  “I wish I had some tarot cards. You don’t have any tarot cards, do you?” Trish asked as Marcy brought the new bottle and full glasses back into the living room.

  They were drinking red wine on Marcy’s white couch and she didn’t give a damn. In fact, she didn’t care about the carpet either. Or the throw pillows or that stupid, ugly painting hanging over the couch that she’d only bought because it was supposed to be a good investment and the colors went so perfectly with her furniture.

  “Do you know?” Marcy said, making an effort not to slur her words. She wasn’t exactly drunk—they’d eaten a prodigious amount of penne pasta with sausage from the Italian place down the street in addition to that first bottle of wine—but she wasn’t exactly sober, either. “That I bought that painting because I thought it would make me look sophisticated?”

  “What painting? Where?” Trish bent her head back and tried to look at the wall behind her, upside-down.

  Marcy giggled. Apparently she wasn’t the only one feeling the effects of that first bottle.

  “That one,” she said, pointing. “That hideously ugly thing that cost me a friggin’ fortune.”

  Trish swiveled on her butt and looked at the canvas. “Ew, God, that is ugly. I’ve got one almost just like it.” She bent close to the corner and squinted her eyes at the signature. “Only I think mine’s by somebody different. Rowsher, or something. They’re good investments.”

  “I know!” Marcy raised her glass to her friend. “Thank you. So it’s not just me living with ugly art for the sake of the future.”

  “Oh no. I don’t know anyone who likes stuff like this.” She flung a hand back toward the painting. “I’ve got a Powell in my bedroom, though, that I adore. It’s a huge, flowery thing that you can practically smell, it’s so vibrant.”

  “A Powell, huh? I should look for one of those next. Maybe trade that thing in.” Marcy sipped her wine. “I should get rid of this furniture, too.”

  “Really?” Trish asked, leaning toward the last sliver of tiramisu residing in its open plastic box. “Why?”

  Marcy regarded the furniture resentfully. “I hate it. Really, it was all that interior designer’s idea. I can’t even have a dog here.”

  Trish made a face. “A dog? What would you want with a dog?”

  Marcy allowed herself to drift into a little reverie about Folly. “Dogs are great. Really. You’d love Folly. She’s so funny. Always smiling.”

  “Hm,” Trish said skeptically.

  Marcy sighed and brought her focus back to the furniture. “I hate all this white. The whole room is sterile. My whole life is sterile.”

  “Oh now…” Trish leaned back and popped a bite of tiramasu into her mouth, then licked her fingers. “You had sex just, what, a month ago?”

  Marcy scoffed. “Try a month and a half.” She brooded for a second on how much had happened since then. How much misunderstanding and argument and, finally, how much nothing had happened since then.

  She hadn’t seen Truman since the deposition. Hadn’t even heard from him. He’d given up on her. And she…well, she couldn’t give up on him. No matter how much she tried. And she was trying.

  The fact was, she missed him.

  “Has it been that long?” Trish asked. “God, it seems like only yesterday.”

  “No, yesterday was when you had sex,” Marcy said, grimacing. “Bitch.”

  They both laughed.

  “Oh yeah,” Trish said, with a satisfied smile. “That was me.”

  “So you think I should contact him? Really?” Marcy asked, going back to a conversation they’d had earlier, over the pasta, when Marcy was still restrained enough to put a strong face on the emotional bewilderment Truman’s absence had produced in her.

  “Of course. Look at you, you’re miserable. And listen to you, you keep coming back to this like you’re trying to convince yourself it’s all right. That’s why we should have some tarot cards. I’m sure there’s even a special card for someone like him…in some blue-collar deck in which the King of Wands wears a tool belt.”

  Marcy laughed. “I’m sorry. Do I go on about him? I just…I guess I just…well, I miss him.”

  Trish smiled. “There, now. Was that so hard? To admit that you like a man who doesn’t have a 401k?”

  “Hey, I was only trying to follow your advice, Miss Three Ps.”

  Trish held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, but you should have known that I’m a money-grubbing status seeker, or whatever it was he called you. Just look at who I’m dating. The friggin’ poster boy of status seeking.”

  “Oh yeah. You’re such a fool, dating a great-looking, fabulously wealthy, nice guy like Palmer Roe.”

  Trish frowned for a second. “Hey, what’s your guy’s name, anyway? I keep forgetting to ask. I was trying to tell Palmer about him the other day and realized I’ve been calling him ‘the construction worker’ since all this began.”

  “What were you telling Palmer?” Marcy asked, alarmed for no reason she could articulate. “That I’ve been dumped by a guy in a hardhat?”

  “Just that you liked a guy with kind of a chip on his shoulder about wealth, or lawyers, or imported cars, or something.”

  Marcy sighed. “His name’s Truman,” she said, feeling the word on her tongue like forbidden fruit. “Truman Fleming.”

  “Truman Fleming…” Trish mused. “That sounds familiar. You must have told me before.”

  Marcy shrugged. “I don’t know. Believe it or not, I’ve been trying not to talk about him. Not much, anyway. I’ve been trying to forget him, since he’s obviously forgotten me.”

  Trish snorted. “I doubt that. I bet he’s pining away for you, too. He’d be a fool not to be. You just need to tell him how you feel. Tell him you’re sorry if y
ou misjudged him, but he misjudged you, too. I’m telling you. You should do this now because years from now, if you don’t, you’ll always wonder about him. That’s why I gave Palmer a chance, despite his womanizing past.”

  Marcy looked at her hopefully. “And you don’t regret that, do you? I mean, you guys are doing great, right?”

  Trish laughed and obviously tried to look cynical but couldn’t pull it off. “Yeah, we’re doing great. He’s…he’s amazing.”

  Marcy felt a lump in her throat. She’d have felt the same way about Truman, except that she’d been so wrapped up in convincing herself how wrong he was for her. Why had she spent so much time worried about the future, as if he’d asked her to spend the next forty years supporting him instead of simply asking her back to his apartment? Or hers. Or out for half-smokes, or to a pool hall…He’d even said he’d like to hike Sugarloaf with her…

  So many things had gotten in the way of her realizing how she felt about him, things that now felt so insignificant. The ache she felt without him was intolerable.

  “But if he thinks I misjudged him—or rather judged him to be inadequate…” She suddenly remembered him saying I know you think I’m not good enough for you and blushed with shame. Why hadn’t she said right then, the minute he’d said it, that it wasn’t true? That she’d never thought he wasn’t good enough, she’d just feared for his future. For their future.

  Which was stupid, because she had no desire to give up her career and she made enough for the both of them. So what if he turned out like her father and spent his days on the couch? As long as he was himself, the Truman she had come to—to love?

  How could she have been so stupid? She didn’t want to be without the guy.

  “Earth to Marcy,” Trish said, then giggled and took the last sip of wine from her glass. “You were saying?” She leaned forward for the bottle again but missed and sent it skittering across the glass-topped coffee table.