Andy's been gone for four days now, and Erin is handling the separation much better. She seems happy with the emails and calls she gets and says, "it's not like he's dying, so why should I be sad? He's coming back soon."
I like her brave face. When you can see she misses him sorely, but smile anyway-yeah, that's beautiful. And incredibly endearing. I have her face almost memorized by now.
She's been eating lunch alone, though. She refuses to sit with Pam or Meredith or Phyllis or even Toby. She just sits there, staring at the door, eating, as if by watching hard enough, she can bring him back. It breaks my heart, but it's very sweet. She and I have lunch at the same time, but I don't know if it's fair to her to ask to sit with her-she obviously wants to be alone. It's just that I no longer want to sit with Clark, and she seems so small when she sits alone. I want to her put her back together after anyone breaks her.
I bring my cheese sandwich in my favorite brown paper bag-I've been using the same one all week. Just as a bored-out-of-my-mind experiment. Will it survive? I lean over and say, "Hey, Erin."
She looks up, just a little, and meets my eyes. "Hi."
"Can I sit with you? I don't want to be by myself. I'm scared that the ghosts will come out of the walls and torture me."
She smiles-a small one, but a smile!-and says, "okay."
I sit down and pull out my sandwich. "Is that cheese?" she asks me.
"Yes…" I raise my eyebrow at her.
"I have peanut butter." Is all she responds with.
"Does it have jelly?" I ask her, leaning over toward her sandwich to check.
"Hey!" She laughs, pulling her food away from me. "That's confidential."
I reach for the sandwich and she laughs louder as she tilts her chair backwards. "Tell me!" I demand, jokingly, and she pushes me back. Her chair almost topples but I grab the arm and pull her towards me, grabbing her sandwich as I do so.
For a moment her face is right up close to mine, and I can't breathe; I can smell her hair-suspiciously like honeysuckle-and see all the flecks of blue and green in her hazel eyes, but I look at the sandwich as distraction as she reaches around me, giggling, trying to retrieve her lunch as her poppy-red hair tickles my face.
"Grape. I knew it," I brag, as I toss her sandwich back onto her bag. Then I realize my sandwich is gone and look up, just in time to see her take a huge bite of it.
"Hey!" I grab it back and she laughs with a full mouth. She swallows and slaps my arm. I grin at her and she makes a face with cheese sticking through her teeth, still giggling.
I take a bite of my sandwich and gently nudge her leg with my foot, making her kick back, and I cry out in fake pain, making her laugh harder. "Don't hurt yourself," I say to her, laughing myself, because God damn she's so beautiful I want to die. Why do I have to be shoved into that little "friend" corner of her heart? Why do I have to be left behind, like I always have?
She says, through giggles, "cheese sandwiches are for babies. And yours is disgusting."
I gasp in mock horror. "How DARE you? Cheese sandwiches are a huge part of American culture. They served these at the Constitutional Convention. Bet you there wasn't any peanut butter there."
She giggles and flicks some jelly at me. That's how we spend the rest of lunch, eating and laughing with her flicking bits of jelly at me.
I guess she'll never know this particular lunch is all that gets me through the next few days.
