Authors: Karina Gioertz
“You really want me to say something?” D. asked.
“Yes!”
“Ok...how about this: Seven years ago this girl walks into the bar looking for a job. You beg me to hire her even though she has no experience, and I do. Then, you rearrange every schedule I write, so you can work with her until I finally give in and just schedule you together from the start. But that isn't enough for you, so you make up some stupid story about a girlfriend kicking you out, just so she takes you in at her house, when we both know that you bought that townhouse a year before you even met her.”
“Hey, that has turned out be a great rental property!” It was beside the point, but Noah still felt it was worth the interruption. D. rolled his eyes and continued.
“You're missing the point. You spent six years living right down the hall from this girl and not once did you make a move. In fact, you did the opposite, it's like you were trying to set a record or something hooking up with as many girls as possible! And now you're mad because she's leaving? Has it ever occurred to you, that you might be the reason?”
Noah’s expression was now completely blank.
“What are you talking about?” he asked D., looking at him as though the thought had never once crossed his mind.
“Ask anyone that knows you, the two of you have a connection. Maybe she just got tired of waiting for you to grow up and settle down.” D. had picked up his pen and started twirling it around in his fingers, finally bringing it to a stop, directly pointed at Noah.
“You're wrong,” Noah shook his head.
“How can you be so sure? Have you ever told her how you feel?” D. was still using a tone that suggested he was talking to an idiot. Something Noah was starting to take offense to.
“Yes,” Noah declared, thinking back to the night he had told me and followed it up with that disastrous kiss.
“You have?” For the first time during this conversation, D. looked surprised.
Noah stood up and began pacing the room.
“Yes. I told her I was in love with her and I kissed her...and she pushed me away,” he answered, all the while looking down at the carpet as he moved back and forth across the room.
“What? When was this?” D. was finding this new turn in events very hard to believe. For a moment Noah stopped to face him.
“You know, that night I knocked out her date.”
“The night you knocked out her date...” D. snorted. Then shaking his head at Noah, he continued, “The same night you sat here and got totally wasted! Tell me Noah, did you tell her before or after you drank your body weight in whiskey?”
Feeling suddenly ashamed and foolish, Noah walked back over to the couch and sunk back into the cushions. “After...” he mumbled quietly, now too aware that it was the wrong answer.
D. was still shaking his head. Since Noah couldn’t tell if it was more out of anger or disappointment, he kept his head down and feigned an intense focus on his own two hands as D. tossed the pen he was still holding, off to the side and said, “No wonder she pushed you away. I can't believe you man! You waste all that time waiting for some magical, perfect moment and then you blow it! For someone who thinks he knows a lot about women, you really are clueless!”
Not sure who it was he was angry with right at that moment, himself or D., Noah sat straight up and glared at his boss.
“What difference does it make now?” Noah demanded. Knowing full well what D.’s answer would be, he continued ranting to avoid having to hear it.
“I told her, she knows, and she's leaving anyway...it's probably better this way, I wouldn't have been any good for her. I would have hurt her, and she deserves better than that.”
D. remained quiet for a moment, the silent disappointment still pouring out of his eyes at Noah. Then he sighed loudly and said, “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. Hope it helps you sleep at night.”
Having nothing left to respond, Noah leaned forward once more and buried his face in his hands. It was the closest he could get to shutting out the world and the changes in it he would now have to live with. For a while D. rocked back and forth in his chair with his eyes still carefully locked on Noah. Torn between words of comfort and words of criticism, he chose neither. Instead, he retrieved his pen from the far corner of his desk and returned to the work he had been doing before Noah had entered the office.
Of course, I didn’t know about any of this at the time, nor would I find out for months to come. It wasn’t until much
, later over drinks with Lisa, that she told me all about how D. had let it slip one night that Noah had had some sort of a meltdown in his office. Naturally, she had demanded a play by play of the entire thing, which she happily recounted for me.
Lisa wasn’t the only one who filled me in on some of the things that went on when I wasn’t around. Turned out, there were more such surprises in store for me. Mostly they arrived via Gabe, who given enough sugar and time could gab and gossip better than most girls, but I digress…
Boxes
Another week
had passed since my run-in with Noah at the bar. He had handled the news pretty much the way I had expected, by ignoring me whenever possible, all the while continuing on as though everything was normal. As Jason, Gabe and I began to pack up every last piece of the lives we had built in this house over the last few years, Noah’s belongings remained untouched. Even after Jason completely cleared out and officially moved in with Tara, Noah remained unfazed. I had begun to wonder if I needed to have a repeat of the conversation we had already had, but decided against it, after seeing Noah sitting on the kitchen counter eating his cereal out of a coffee mug, one of the few items still left unpacked. Clearly he knew what was happening around him. Pretending it wasn’t happening was only going to take him so far and he had long passed the point of being able to maintain complete and utter denial. Whether he liked it or not, life was changing and he was going to have to bend to its will eventually.
I was knee-deep in boxes and packing paper trying to pack up my bedroom. After making my way through the entire house, I had saved this room for last, not because I thought it would be easiest, but because I had dreaded it the most. The core of my being existed in this room. Every material thing that had touched me over the course of my life, was carefully placed amongst my collection of treasures. Starting with the baby booties Grandma Pearl had knitted for me, when I was just an infant. They were white with purple dots; a color she loved and would later become my favorite as well. My mother had given them to me when Pearl passed and I had saved them, in the hope that one day I would pass on a little of the person I held so dear, to the next generation.
Amongst the random selection of stuffed animals that I had received as gifts from boyfriends over the years on occasions varying from Valentine’s Day to a day at the fair, sat a small doll, perched on an even smaller swing. With her dainty face and delicate dress she looked particularly frail, but her looks were deceiving. This tiny doll had traveled long and far to get to me. My father had brought her home to me, following one of his worldly business trips. That had been nearly twenty years ago. Still she sat there, her black hair shiny and her complexion the same pale cream color it had been the day I first held her in my hands. Why she had become so significant to me, I couldn’t even say for sure, and yet I drew comfort from the sight of her, the consistency with which she greeted me day after day, promising that beauty remains even as the years go by, if you just remember to look for it.
There was more. So much more. Boxes filled to the top with old photographs dating to far before the time I came to be, filled with faces of people I never got to see, but whose stories I heard time and time again from my Great Aunt Nora. She had been the family’s secret keeper, knowing every last detail about those that came before us and how we came to be here today. When she passed, I thought it had been the end of all of those glorious stories and the heirlooms that went with them. Losing her had been sad in more ways than one, as I was left to believe that the family was left without someone to cherish the past the way she had, without someone to watch over the pieces of life that had survived beyond breath and beating heart. It wasn’t until I began to pack and was forced to look clearly at my surroundings, that I realized that the position hadn’t been eliminated, that in fact, the title had fallen to me. Tears began to roll down my cheeks, as I felt a combination of pride and pain rise through my chest and into my throat.
More than once, I had to stop and take breaks. Sometimes to catch my breath and rest, sometimes to cry and remember, and other times, to reflect and laugh. Having been completely unaware of the severe hording disorder I had clearly been suffering from, I hadn’t been prepared for all of the side trips down memory lane I would be bound for, once I started sorting through all of my belongings.
Amongst them, old report cards and ratty old school books covered in doodles and notes written by my thirteen year old self. Diaries and birthday cards, yearbooks and a small stack of love poems I had received from a boy, when I was only sixteen and not fully ready to appreciate the fact that I wouldn’t likely find another man who was so keen on expressing his deepest emotions in actual words.
As I worked my way through the past, I came closer and closer to the present. I had just placed the scrapbooks I had made to remember the trips Jason and I had taken in college, into an empty large box, when I stumbled onto an old cardboard coaster. It was brown and dingy, covered in beer stains and the logo was so faded, it was barely legible at this point. When I flipped it over, I saw a phone number and Noah’s name written on it in his jagged small letters. He had given it to me the same afternoon I went into D.’s bar to apply for a job. Noah had told me to call him if I needed any help convincing D. to hire me. Completely convinced that he gave out about a hundred coasters a night and didn’t likely have any actual interest in helping me get the job, I had dismissed the offer instantly. Still, I had kept the coaster. As I sat on the floor staring at it now resting between my thumb and index finger, I was mesmerized by the memory and couldn’t help wondering why after all these years, Noah and I were still in the exact same position we had been in the first time we had met. Him forging full speed ahead, without any idea of what he truly wanted, and me holding on to something I knew I would never truly have.
The light, which had shone in so brightly through my open window throughout most of the day, was beginning to fade. It wasn’t until Gabe opened my door and the light from the hall spilled in, that I realized how much my eyes had adjusted to the darkness that had already begun to settle all around me. Without saying anything, Gabe dropped a half-packed box from the living room onto my floor, grunted at the mound of boxes already stacked around my room forming a small replica of the Great Wall of China, and then turned around and walked right back out, shaking his head and graciously slapping the light switch on the wall, before pulling the door back shut behind him.
Blinded by the sudden shower of light, I squinted as I carefully maneuvered my way around the piles of stuff and scrambled to my feet. Once the black floaties disappeared from my vision and I could see again, I made my way over towards the door to see what was in the box that Gabe had so kindly added to my collection. At first glance, I recognized the stack of mail that I had been allowing to pile up on the kitchen counter. As I continued to dig deeper, I found some DVD’s Gabe had borrowed a few years back, the gym clothes I had washed that morning and forgot in the dryer, and a random array of cables. I had no clue what they went to and gathered that Gabe and Noah had concluded the same thing, before deciding to make them my problem. As I was trying to pull them out from underneath everything else in the box, I felt them snag on something that was buried way at the bottom. Tired of organizing and sorting out everything, I continued to yank at the cords until finally, with one big jerk, they came flying out of the box, bringing with them the very thing they had been stuck on. Surprised at the sight, I bent down and picked up the flat gift box that had landed on the floor after being yanked out of its hiding place. Holding it out in front of me, I looked at the carton containing the stationary that Noah had given me for my birthday. That seemed like a million years ago now. Slowly, I peeled open the top of the carton and pulled out a sheet of paper. It was beautiful. It was the perfect combination of elegant and artsy, exactly the type of paper I would have chosen for myself, had I been given a choice. Carefully, I let my hand glide across the front of the page, allowing the paper’s texture to dance along the palm of my hand. A smile formed on my lips, as I reached back into the slender box to retrieve a matching envelope, while stepping over piles of stuff and around filled boxes to reach my desk on the other side of the room. I took my seat and pulled a pen out of the drawer, an instant reminder that there was yet more to pack. Then, putting aside my mental “to-do” list, I put pen to paper and began to write.
I wrote page after page, pouring onto each of them all the feelings I had encountered throughout this particularly cleansing experience. Then, just as I had started to de-clutter my life, my head began to take on the same effect. All that had blurred my vision and clogged my thoughts, began to clear up and even as the light outside took shelter beyond the horizon, the light in my room seemed brighter than ever.
After a long while, I set down the pen. Without re-reading even a single word, I folded the pages up together and slid them into the empty envelope. Not finding it necessary to seal it, I reached for my pen once more and wrote the words “Grandma Pearl” on the front where one would normally have written the addressee’s information. Pressing the letter close to my chest, I stood from my chair and walked over to my closet, where I pulled an old hat box down from the top shelf. With the hat box in hand, I made my way to my bed, which was nearly completely covered with clothes, and sat on the very edge of the mattress. I pulled the lid up just as I had done a hundred times before and laid my letter on top of the many letters already being kept there for safe keeping. Then, I replaced the lid and put the whole thing into the nearest moving box it would fit into. With a new found determination, I reached for the tape dispenser and sealed the box, not allowing any more room for hesitation or delays of any kind.