Authors: Cora Brent
Brian didn’t wait long before approaching me the following morning. I scarcely had time to stow my purse in my desk before he pounced as if he’d been lurking around the corner.
“Hey you,” he said, smiling and approaching me with quiet caution.
I had taken casual notice that Tami was not at the front desk, although I wouldn’t have cared much either way. Apparently she had not returned since Friday.
I stared back at him stonily
.
Brian
drummed his knuckles on my desk, leaning forward and talking in a low voice. “I thought about driving out there to see you this weekend, but I ah, didn’t want to intrude.”
“It’s
better that you didn’t.”
His ha
zel eyes regarded me carefully. “You free for lunch?”
“What difference does it make?”
Brian was visibly surprised by my cold response. But I wasn’t trying to be coy. I was no longer in the throes of a strong urge to make tire tracks over Brian Hannity’s face, but I didn’t particularly want to talk to him either. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and realized that frizzy-haired Carol from Accounting, she of the abused spreadsheets, was spying on the other side of the wall.
Brian decided on a different tactic, taking my limp hand in his smooth one and examining my palm. “I’
m sorry, okay?” He sighed. “You know, I’ve done a lot of thinking this weekend and it’s really time for me to stop screwing around. My folks want to see me get serious and I think it would be good for me to make a commitment. I like you, Angela, and at the end of the day you’re the sort of girl I could bring home.”
As he concluded
his self-involved little speech Brian grinned at me beatifically, as if he’d just recited the romantic equivalent of The Gettysburg Address. He nodded with encouragement, as if he knew it was just what I’d always wanted to hear from a guy just like him.
I withdrew my hand from his sweaty grasp. “That’s nice Brian. But
see, unfortunately you’re not the sort of guy
I
could bring home. So fuck off.”
And with that I swiveled in my chair and turned on my monitor. I heard snickering nearby and realized we’d had quite an audience. Brian lingered for
a moment, then muttered something obscene under his breath and stalked away.
I couldn’t concentrate. I stared at the screen until the green numbers melted together and started to fade into the black background. Bert
Heinman, a balding forty year old who had the same position as I did and took it not at all seriously, sauntered by with a wink.
“You’re better off,” he said as he dropped a folder on my desk filled with a stack of data. I knew it wasn’t a romantic overture; Bert had been married for twenty years one of the most beautiful women I’
d ever seen up close. But I appreciated his words.
“I know,” I said. I stood up slightly and motioned to some noise coming from Cranston’
s office. A man was shouting in an Eliza Doolittle pre-makeover accent. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that.” Bert crossed his arms, laughing. “
That is the future dinner theater rendition of
Hamlet
. Apparently it’s the cherry on Cranston’s sundae, the pinnacle of his aspirations which will surely bring all the motion picture bigwigs crawling out of the woodwork.”
I tapped a few keys, trying to unfreeze my screen. “
Good for him, I guess.”
Bert leaned over and pressed a few keys simultaneously, freeing up the screen. He smiled at me. “Well,” he said, “we’ve all got dreams, don’t we?”
My fist clenched involuntarily. “Yes,” I agreed. “We do.”
I made it through the last few days of the week going through the motions. I stared at my unhappy fac
e in the bathroom mirror and consoled myself that things would improve. They had to. Food would stop tasting like sawdust. The light would stop hurting my eyes. I would stop being randomly struck by the memory of his body and his smile.
“Come
out with me,” Lanie begged as we packed up on Friday evening.
“Nah,” I sighed. “I’
m just so tired.”
“Hell you are.” She took my elbow firmly. “You’re goin
g to sit at home and remember what his dick felt like and other sad thoughts before you roll over into your pillow of tears.”
“No,” I argued. “I’m
going to watch
Peyton Place
on VHS, consume a tub of Breyer’s ice cream and
then
roll over into my pillow of tears.”
She squeezed my arm. “You could call him.”
“No, I can’t.”
Lanie
walked me to my car and gave me one final brief hug. “Angie. It gets better.”
I stared at the phone for perhaps an hour before dialing Information and getting the number of a certain bar in Cross Point Village, Massachusetts.
I closed my eyes as a series of clicks made the connection and then the other end began ringing. After four rings, the receiver was picked up.
“The Cave. Hello?” It was ten pm on a Friday night a
nd the bar was evidently packed. I heard the muffled din of the patrons and over that The Beach Boys were belting out of the old jukebox. “Hello, anyone there?”
I felt nauseous as I forced myself to speak. “Marco.”
“Nope, it’s Damien. Who’s this?” A woman cackled close by.
I was becoming lightheaded. “Hi Damien. It’s Angie. Angie Durant.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Either Damien was struggling to remember who the hell I was or else Marco had told him a thing or two. “Angie,” he eventually said and his voice had grown warmer. “Yeah, I remember you. I’m just up here for the weekend with the reopening and all. Anyway, Marco had to make a supply run. We’re having a bit of a crisis.”
“Oh,”
I squeaked out in a small voice, not really caring about the bar’s supply.
Damien’s voice grew closer as if he were cupping the receiver to drown out the noise
of the unruly crowd. “Hey Angie, I know he’ll want to talk to you. Let me grab a pen here. Shannon, toss me that pen. What’s your number?”
I could tell from his voice that
Marco had told him about me all right. “No Damien, that’s okay. You see, I don’t have a phone.” I hung up before Marco’s brother could say anything else. I rested my head against the cool refrigerator and listened to its steady hum.
The weather was uncommonly wet and dreary for July but I didn’
t mind. In fact I scarcely noticed. I went to work on the days I was expected to be at work. There, I dutifully performed the tasks required of me and retreated to Beacon Hill at the end of the day. I was tired and lethargic, often crawling into bed shortly after the evening news. I even lied to myself, blaming the gloomy sky and humid air.
My dreams were vivid and intense. Sometimes I was a child being pursued through streets which were so heavy with an odd mist I could not discern exactly where I was. I would pause from the chase and my eyes would dart around in a panic, knowing my surroundings should be glaringly
familiar but yet I was unable to recognize the disguised shapes. Sometimes I was trapped in the empty, echoing hallways of Cross Point Village High as I searched in vain for a door, a way out. But the dreams of Marco were the most jarring. As real as any true memory, I would awaken with a gasp, my hand between my legs, trying to soothe the crushing ache.
My mother phoned several times and our conversations were short and pleasant and carefully devoid of any mention of Marco. I was grateful for that. My father and I hadn’t spoken since the morning of our awkward goodbye at the curb. After three weeks he phoned early on a Sunday morning. I hadn’t even found my way out of
bed yet. Actually the ringing phone interrupted a truly terrifying nightmare. I was standing in the middle of my father’s rose garden, my hands full of pernicious weeds, when the black soil began to give way under my feet. As I began to sink into the dirt I screamed. Marco emerged casually from the side door of my house and I reached for him.
“Help me!”
He looked exactly as he had the day of the block party. He grinned at me. “Your father’s right, Angela. Roses are difficult to grow.” Then he turned on the garden hose and aimed the nozzle at me, laughing as the water puddled around me and I sank deeper. A scream ripped out of my throat.
At the sound of the first ring I lurched blindly out of bed, groping out
of the bedroom and grabbing for the phone in the narrow hallway.
“Angela,” came my father’s usual mild voice. “I hope I didn’t wake you, kid.”
I sat down on the floor, my heart still thrashing around in my chest as I tried to blink away the vivid horror of the dream. “No, Dad. I was just enjoying a quiet morning.” I coughed, looking out the window at the lightly falling rain. “Too wet to go anywhere.”
Alan Durant seemed to be engaged in a rare struggle for words. I imagined him pacing in the hallway with the old rotary phone receiver to his ear, the long black cord tangled in his hand. “Some rain we’ve been getting,” he finally managed to say.
“Some rain,” I agreed.
“Did you know this is the wettest summer since 1892? Farmer
’s Almanac predicted it but no one listens to the old timers anymore.”
“Yeah, wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age.” It was a petty dig. I knew it, but I couldn’t shake off my grumpiness. On top of that my stomach was rolling around in a rather unsettling way.
My father ignored the crack. “Hell of a storm rolled through here the other night. Lost the biggest limb of the old maple tree.”
“Our maple tree?”
“Yes.”
“Is the tree going to have to come down?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t look good. I’ll be damn sorry to see that lady go. Your mother and I planted her the week we moved in you know.”
“I know.” The thought of losing the maple tree caused a wave of sadness to wash over me. Funny, because I hadn’t really thought too much about that tree. It was simply there. The touchstone in various neighborhood games, the backdrop of a hundred front yard photos, the place wher
e I discovered caterpillar dens. I’d tried to run a nail through it when I was ten and figured I’d find maple syrup if I could pierce a few inches. The idea of the Durant front yard without the wide maple tree was upsetting.
My father cleared his throat. “
The rain stopped for a few hours yesterday afternoon. Marco was over here.”
At the mention of his name my eyes automatically closed and my stomach turned a complete flip. “
Oh yeah? You guys buddies now?”
“It wasn’t like that. He has a chainsaw and he’
s young. I had half a tree in my yard and I’m old.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what my dad was abo
ut, bringing Marco up. I sat on the floor, my knees pulled up to my chest, saying nothing.
“Angela, we should talk.”
“We are talking, Dad.”
“You and I were always close, Angie. Now there’s this thing between us and I don’t know how to fix it. Would it help if I said I was sorry
again? Would it help if I told you that you were always my shining star, the one piece of success I could point to and say ah, yes…all these other troubles; the store, the town, your brother, become smaller pills of bitterness when I consider the proud, independent young woman I raised. But my pain is my problem. You’ve got to find your own way.”
The floor was cold and I shivered. “I have, Dad.”
“Really? Are you happy, Angela?”
It was the same question I’d asked Krista the day of the block party. But I’d only meant it in a glib, backbiting way. I remembered arguing with Marco when he’d called me ‘one unhappy chick’.
“You said your pain is your problem, Dad. Well, I’ve got to manage mine too. I mean really, what the hell have I got to complain about? I’m an educated, prosperous member of society who has been given every opportunity to excel. I have a bright future and I’ll figure things out. You don’t need to worry about me or moon over the grudge you believe I’m nursing.”
A sigh on the other end of the state.
“He kept waiting for me to say something about you.”
I didn’t need to ask who. “And did you?”
“No.”
“He’ll get o
ver it. Shit, he probably already has. I mean, it’s Marco freaking Bendetti for god’s sake.”
“People change, Angela.”
Now I was getting angry. “So first you were appalled that he dared to come anywhere near me. Now you’re lecturing me on what a changed man he is. What is it you expect me to do at the end of this conversation?”
His voice was miserable. “I don’t know.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. “I didn’t leave because of you, Dad. You weren’t right about everything, but you were right about a few things. I don’t want to be Krista or Tom Hennessy or any of the other bewildered people still wandering around Cross Point.”