Paige did a sterling job of talking to me as little as possible over the next few days. Which set the perfect mood for starting my new job. I went into work heavy-hearted and exhausted having continuously lain awake each night, the air fizzing not with heat so much as tension, the silence between us deafening.
She hardly looked at me when I addressed her, and when she did her expression was devastating. Wounded, victimized, with more than a touch of anger seeping through to the surface, flickering in her eyes. Look what you've done to me, they seemed to accuse me of. Yet for all her distress, my guilty conscience seemed appeased. If she could act like this when I hadn't actually done anything, when the nearest I had been to betraying her was through an intonation that had been thrown my way, then she deserved to suffer. Shit, I didn't mean that. I didn't want her feeling any of those things. Feeling alone, depressed, angry at nothing, at the walls that housed her, at the fucking hand that feeds her…I was beginning to appreciate that perhaps I was having some issues.
But I bore it all with weary resignation. There didn't really seem a whole lot of alternative. I could take Jaime's smothering advice. Go lie on a couch and revisit my childhood. Some bald headed dude with letters after his name would scribble as I ranted and conclude that wow, my life had been a bit shit. Big fucking surprise. Or maybe I could just confide in my girlfriend again. Oh wait, she still thinks I'm having an affair with my ex-boss and won't even come near me. Oh yeah, and maybe I could talk to June, she's all clever and learned and whatnot. Although she was never hugely into talking with me. Except for work, issuing me directives. Or sometimes during sex, which was pretty much…. issuing me directives.
And so I'm walking down the stairs one morning, having snuck out of the apartment as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb her. Something compels me to check our mail, Paige usually does it, but I just feel curious this morning. And there's an envelope stamped Baruch College. It's a big brown envelope. I know what this means. My first instant emotion is one of happiness. She's done it, she's gotten in. I briefly picture her face as she opens it. But then the vision turns anxious. What if everything's changed beyond recognition now? What if she doesn't want to study here anymore? What if she's finally gone and figured me out?
I linger in the hall, in two minds as to what to do. But I'm tired of this stupid atmosphere and I've got some time to spare so I quickly return to the apartment, taking the stairs two at a time.
She's still asleep as I enter our room, looking beautifully distraught, hair spilling over the pillow, her lips slightly parted. I lean down over my side of the bed and briefly touch her shoulder. It's the most intimate contact we've shared all week.
"Hey, Paige," I say softly as she stirs. "Look what I found." I hold up the envelope with Baruch blazoned across it so there can be no mistake.
She hauls herself upright, brushing her hair out of her face and trying to focus on what's in front of her with a degree of puzzlement. She takes the envelope from me, registers the stamp on it and then tears it open.
She nods at its contents, smiling briefly, I can tell she's pleased, but she's not doing her usual carnival of celebration. "They've accepted me. Starting this fall."
I smile at this, inwardly proud for her and for me. That's my girlfriend, I can't help but think. They all want her, that's how brilliant she is. "That's so great," I try and sound as enthusiastic as reasonably possible.
"Is it?" she looks up at me, her tone rueful, yet with a hint of challenge.
"Of course. Isn't this what you wanted?"
"I thought it was," she murmurs. Uh oh. "What do you want?"
An audible sigh escapes my lips, exasperation caused not so much by her words but this situation we've gotten ourselves into.
"I want you to be happy." I offer, a little uncertain as to if this is the answer she's looking for. I crawl over to her and take her hand, it feels so warm from being tucked under her chin while she slept. "I want us to be happy," I elaborate.
She looks at me with more compassion. She rubs her thumb over my knuckles. "I want that too."
It's more of a ceasefire to proceedings then a total reversal of fortunes. But it's enough for us to share a brief, awkward kiss. She's hesitant to indulge me and I feel like it's more of a token effort. But still, we are making the effort. "I'm gonna be late, I better go," I say, rising from the bed. I get as far as the door before the idea hits me.
"Let's go out tonight, to celebrate," I blurt out, impulsively. Because obviously one dinner will solve everything.
In fairness, Paige looks both surprised and hesitant at this suggestion. "Really?" her forehead crinkles up with worry lines.
"Yeah, definitely. Anywhere you wanna go. You're not working tonight are you?"
"Well, no, but – a bunch of us were going to Greenwich Village, this band's playing at the Bitter End."
"Oh. You never said."
"Yeah, well…" she trials off, taking a sudden interest in inspecting her feet.
"Well, who's the band? Maybe I could, y'know, tag along?"
"Glorious Downfall."
"What?" I laugh at this and she smiles. "Never heard of them."
"No, but Dom's seen them play and he says they're really good. And I want to check out that club, isn't it famous or something?"
"Dom?" I inquire, catching a name she's never mentioned before.
"Yeah Dom. Dominic from work. You've heard me talk about him. Like, ten feet tall, covered in tattoos, muscely as hell…"
"I don't think so…"
"Well, anyways…" She shrugs, gives me a whatever look, I can come if I want.
oooOOOooo
The club is packed that night. Whoever these pseudo new folk, Americana , electro-acoustic, I'm-crying-into-my-cornflakes sons of bitches are, they've got everyone fooled. Everyone, but me. They are truly shit.
We're pretty much crowded in, shoulder-to-shoulder. Paige is busy chatting to her new friends, particularly that quarterback one, Dom. I thought maybe he'd be a metalhead or something, but he looks more like a jock. He keeps bending down while she whispers stuff into his ear. Yeah, it's crowded and loud as hell, and he's tall and everything… I'm just being paranoid. But when I glance over for the fiftieth time I notice he's managed to snake his arm around her waist. My head is already throbbing from all the bodies packing in around me, but I suddenly discover a few new blood vessels up there.
I clamber my way over to them, squeezing passed every Conversed kid on the planet who seem to be out tonight.
"Hey!" he gives a big stupid grin when I'm finally practically on top of them. "I was just congratulating your girl here, welcoming her to the dark side."
"What?" I'm shouting because of the indie crap that's now cranking out of the speakers. I have no idea what this dumbass is talking about.
"On getting acceptance. Transferring to Baruch. Can't wait to take you on the real campus tour." He's looking down at her with this blatantly slimey grin.
"You go there too?" My heart plummets. I'm torn between anger at the possibility that he's actually trying to flirt with my girlfriend in front of me and despair that she might be encouraging him.
I have to endure this for a few more seconds before a second realization hits me. It starts bubbling away in my stomach, giving me just enough time to run. Run, fall, crawl over sweaty bodies that litter my retreat. I skip the toilets and go for a fire exit, and then I'm kneeling down on refreshingly cold concrete, throwing up behind a dumpster.
oooOOOooo
She tries to get me to stay at home the next day. But I'm not sick and so there doesn't seem to be any point.
"Alex, why don't you just slow down. Take the day off, come on."
But I'm adamant about going in. I've only just started my new job, I reason, I can't just be pulling a sickie because I overheated at some club.
She lets me go reluctantly, and the fact that she is showing a degree of interest in my welfare is touching. Better than showing an interest in that keg-swilling fratboy.
I ride the subway in a state of morose reflection. There are bodies packed in, all looking as disinterested and grey as possible. Whatever happened to heartfelt communication, I think bitterly. Angry at them all for their combined introvertedness. Angry at myself for being one of them. Isn't that what life's about? Isn't that what most of our jobs are about? Supposedly we are communicating with each other more than ever before. Blame the internet, blame the satellites, whatever. What does communication even mean really? I mean, somebody makes a gesture towards someone with reference or intent. Big fucking deal. We're still just as wrapped up in ourselves as always. We just want more people to know about it.
Some people never know their parents. Some people never get to talk to them, maybe they're always out working, maybe their out hustling, maybe, I don't know, they're disabled in some way and can't have regular conversations.
But she always talked to me. It's just a shame, most of the time her mind was somewhere else, usually swimming round the bottom of a beer can or something. But she liked to try and appear as intelligible as possible, even when she was slurring her words or repeating herself. And sometimes it was embarrassing. And sometimes I burned internally with anger, with the unfairness of it all, that my own mother couldn't keep it together for her own kid's first school play or PTA meeting or thirteenth birthday. But the anger never lasted long. Because she needed me. When she couldn't coordinate her movements, get herself into bed. Or when one of those useless bastards had got a rage on and decided to slap her about.
It always reaffirmed her position in my life. She'd cry sometimes, if I was icing her lip after another drunken fight with Chad, "Lexi, you're so good to me. Look at you, my beautiful daughter." She'd hold her hand to my cheek, a miserable smile forming on her burnt-out face, her eyes dancing around where she supposed my own to be. And she'd continue with her drunken rambling because I know she felt ashamed in that instance, for what she'd reduced herself to, for what she'd reduced me to. But I never felt angry with her in those moments. She was too helpless, beyond my anger, past pity, yoking the unconditional love that our shared genes had summoned.
"You're my baby girl. What would I do without you?"
But the last time I'd seen her hadn't been like that. I was leaving for New York. Maybe she didn't want me to go. Maybe, by that stage, things had broken down irreparably with Chad. But of course, she couldn't communicate any of that with me. So she just got rip-roaringly hammered, told me I was abandoning her and blew me a kiss before passing out. And all the shame, all the embarrassment, all the hurt flew with me 500 miles to New York. But I was never there for the reconciliation, the drunken mother, beseeching forgiveness, that always turned it around. I left her in a blaze of fury. And then she left me with nothing more.
I'm sleepwalking through my day now. My feet can only just about hold me upright. It doesn't look good to my new employers, they're shuffling their files around, tightening their shoulders, and eyeing me occasionally for signs of life.
"Alex," Robyn Turner appears at my desk, all bespeckled and important-looking. "I have a meeting at three. I need 20 copies of each of these reports." She dumps them on my desk before I have a chance to tell her that's not really my job anymore.
Whatever. It gets me away from people for a while. The copy room I use is at the far end of the floor, small, windowless and insular. Being in there, dissolving into my own brain stew right now, feels almost comforting.
I mindlessly feed report after report into the copier as it hums and flashes away. But a presence disturbs me from my isolation, I can almost feel her, smell her even, before I turn to see her standing framed in the doorway, clutching a huge lever-arch file to her chest.
"Hi…June," I greet her uncertainly. At that moment I feel like I could almost fall asleep standing up.
"Alex," she nods, not looking quite as composed as she usually does. "How's the new job going?"
"Yeah, it's good."
We stare at each other in silence for one beat, two…
"How are you Alex? You look a bit…tired."
I shrug my shoulders and look away, hearing the door close to the small room, and knowing on which side of it she'll be.
She's behind me now, close enough that I can feel her breath tickling the back of my neck. I don't turn around, but she extends her arms, reaching them around me and leaning against the copier.
"Your mother," I begin, "How did she die?"
"She had breast cancer."
"I'm sorry," I glance back at her over my shoulder.
"Why?"
"Because…isn't that what I'm supposed to say?" I have to turn around then, encircled by her. She shakes her head softly.
"Alex," she tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. Just like she used to do, before wiping my face. Just like Paige used to do, before kissing me.
"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to."
The way she says it, offers it so softly, so reassuringly, I have to bite my lip to keep from cracking up.
But she let's me hold her, and hangs back on to me like I need her to. Without the urgency of those past encounters. Without the thrill or terror of someone catching us. Without expecting anymore in return. Without any other words being uttered.
The copier drones gently on for those few silent minutes. Where at last I establish some heartfelt communication.
