Slightly Single by Wendy Markham
The thing is, nobody in the mailroom likes Jake. Probably because he treats everyone in the mailroom like they’re invisible. Or maybe because I’ve overheard him telling racist jokes—and chances are, they have, too.
It occurs to me now, as I think back to that day, that Myron might have noticed that the last name on the package label was the same as Jake’s.
Meaning, Myron might have figured out that Jake was using the company mailroom to send personal mail to his family.
That wouldn’t go over big with Myron. I mean, he makes a fraction of Jake’s salary, and I happen to know he pays child support to his ex-girlfriend, too.
But I’m not about to tell Jake that Myron might have sabotaged his package of chocolates. For one thing, I have no proof. For another, I can’t really blame the guy…even if I’m the one who’s getting blamed in his place.
“I remember taking it to the mailroom,” I tell Jake, because he’s waiting for a reply.
“Did you hand it to someone there, or did you just leave it?”
“I handed it to someone.”
Here comes the inevitable. “Who was it?”
“I have no idea,” I lie. “It was a long time ago.”
“Then how can you be sure you brought it down? Can the package be lost on your desk or in your cubicle?”
“I doubt it.”
“Can you check?”
“Sure.” I shrug, and look at my watch. “First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll—”
“Check now,” Jake says curtly, then adds, in a gentler tone, “Okay?”
What can I say?
“Okay.”
I spend the next fifteen minutes going through the piles of stuff in my cube, looking through my desk and even my file cabinet. I do it because I have no choice. Jake keeps poking his head in, asking, “Find anything yet?”
Finally, I go back to his office and tell him there’s no sign of the package.
He’s pissed.
Maybe not at me—but it sure seems that way. I’m almost tempted to tell him he should talk to Myron about the chocolates, but I don’t.
Finally, I’m on my way to meet Buckley.
I walk across town. It’s another muggy night, the heat of the day trapped in the concrete, radiating back at me as I trudge along the sidewalk. I’m shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers’ sweaty bodies, my hair sticky on my neck and forehead. I’m not really prone to sweating, except on my head. It’s embarrassing. The slightest sign of humidity, and I look like somebody turned a fire hose on me from the neck up.
When I get to the restaurant, which is on the same block as mine and Will’s favorite sushi place, I see that it’s your typical Tex-Mex neighborhood hangout. Happy hour frozen drink specials, complimentary chips and salsa, white votive candles, colored Christmas lights strung above the bar. There’s a jukebox, and right now it’s playing Steely Dan.
The place is hopping. Half of the people jammed into the bar area look like they’ve just come from office jobs, the other half like they’re on their way to the theater. Buckley’s sitting at the far end where it’s less crowded, drinking a foamy white drink in a stemmed glass with pineapple chunks and maraschino cherries on a plastic skewer. An ultra-attractive female in a red summer suit with long, curly, dry black hair is perched on the stool by his side, sipping a similar drink.
In fact, I think they’re together until Buckley has to ask her what her name is again as he’s introducing me.
“Sonja, that’s right,” he says. “And this is my friend Tracey. Who’s late.”
“Sorry. I got hung up at work when I thought I was on my way out.” I wipe a trickle of sweat from my temple and put my big black bag on the floor between their stools, wishing Sonja would take her cue and leave.
She is so not taking her cue that she takes off her jacket to reveal the naughty little black top she’d concealed under her suit.
I hate her.
“What do you want to drink, Tracey?” Buckley asks, dragging his gaze away from Sonja reaching to drape her jacket on the back of her seat.
“What are you having?” I shove my damp hair away from my face, wishing they’d turn up the air conditioning. It’s cool in here, but I need an arctic blast. Or a blow dryer.
“We’re having something the bartender suggested,” Buckley tells me, offering me his straw for a taste.
“We don’t know what they’re called,” Sonja says with a giggle, “but they’re wicked strong.”
“Wicked strong,” Buckley agrees, then turns to Sonja and asks, “Where are you from? Boston?”
“How did you know?”
“I have wicked good ESP,” he says, and she cracks up as though that’s the most hilarious thing she’s ever heard.
“We’d better go easy on these cocktails,” she tells Buckley. “I’m getting giddy.”
As I take a sip of Buckley’s rummy, tropical-tasting drink, I can’t help noticing that Sonja’s pretty eager to make herself and Buckley, whom she’s just met, into a We. And even though I happen to be half of another We—the Will and Tracey We—I feel jealousy bubbling up inside of me.
“So you guys just met now, at the bar?” I ask—mostly to remind them that they’re virtual strangers.
“Yeah. Sonja is waiting for someone, too,” Buckley tells me, raising a hand to summon the bartender.
“Really?” Presumably, it’s her boyfriend. Or at least her date.
She nods and says, lest Buckley assume the same thing I did, “Just my roommate. She’s new in town and she’s always after me to go out, so I finally gave in. Figures that now she’s the one who’s late. I knew I could’ve had time to go to the gym first.”
Of course she goes to the gym.
I picture her, skinny and sweaty, working out in a skimpy leotard. I glance at Buckley’s face and notice that he seems to be picturing the same thing.
He catches my eye and leaps off his stool, as though he’s just realized something. “Here, sit down, Tracey,” he offers.
“No, it’s okay,” I say, hoping he won’t believe me and sit down again. I feel like a third wheel, standing.
He doesn’t believe me. He’s gentleman enough to insist that I take his seat.
Why, I wonder, as I sit, doesn’t Sonja feel like a third wheel?
“So how long have you guys been friends?” she asks.
Oh. That’s why.
Because Buckley made a point of introducing me as his friend. Obviously, he did that because he wanted her to know that I’m not competition.
Which I’m not.
In fact, if I thought he thought there was any chance of something romantic happening between me and him, I wouldn’t even be here in the first place.
Which is why Sonja shouldn’t be irritating me every time she flashes that broad, white-toothed smile at Buckley, or touches his sleeve whenever he makes a funny joke—which he does regularly.
Because let’s face it, the guy is funny. I’m talking Seinfeld funny, with a super-dry sense of humor and a subtly hilarious way of making wry, dead-on observations about life and human nature.
Laughing at Buckley’s jokes puts me into such a good mood that as the night wears on and the liquor goes down easily, I’m starting to find Sonja a tiny bit more tolerable. I mean, basically, she has a right to be into Buckley. He’s fair game. And I have Will.
Besides, it occurs to me that she has no way of knowing that Buckley and I have kissed—not that I’m sure what that has to do with anything. But it seems relevant as I start to feel the effects of this fruity, frozen whatever-you-call-it.
I’ve drained my first drink, and Buckley and Sonja are halfway through their second, when Sonja’s roommate, Mae, shows up at last. She turns out to be a stunning Asian investment banker, and I’d be jealous of her, too, if she didn’t announce, practically upon meeting me and Buckley, that she has a fiancé back on the West Coast.
“Why are you here if he’s there?” Buckley asks her after ordering two more drinks—one fo
“Because I landed a job here first,” Mae says. “We plan to settle in New York. He’s finishing up his doctorate, and then he’ll be here.”
“But not until after Christmas,” Sonja tells us. “I keep telling her she’s nuts to be away from him for so many months. Long-distance relationships never work out.”
Is it my imagination, or does Buckley glance pointedly at me?
“Of course they work out,” I say—almost harshly, I guess, because Sonja blinks and Buckley mocks me, echoing my words with a feral snarl while pretending to wave claws in the air.
“Buckley!” I can’t help smiling, though.
“Don’t mind Tracey,” he tells the others. “Her boyfriend is away for a few months. Summer stock,” he adds in a whisper, with a sympathetic shake of his head, as though he’s just informed them that Will was a victim of some horrible natural disaster.
“Sorry,” Sonja says, pretending to be sheepish. I say pretending because I’m not convinced that there’s anything about her that isn’t fake, from her perfectly manicured long nails to her high, full boobs.
Looks like I’m back to hating her again.
“I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject, Tracey,” she says, all but patting me on the shoulder.
“It’s not a sore subject.”
“I just meant that I’ve never personally had any luck with a long-distance relationship, and I’ve never known anyone who has. That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible, though.”
“Of course it’s not impossible,” Mae says.
Her, I like.
“I totally trust Jay,” Mae goes on. “And he totally trusts me. Just because we have to be apart for a while doesn’t mean our relationship is at risk.”
“But you two are engaged,” Sonja points out. “And at least he’s not an actor—oh, Tracey, I’m sorry, there I go again. I just meant, from what I hear, it’s hard to have a stable relationship with someone who’s in show business. After all, actors have to kiss other people, and they tend to travel a lot, don’t they?”
“Some do.” I don’t believe her oops act for a second. She’s out to make me look like a fool in front of Buckley.
Okay, maybe she’s not that vicious.
Maybe it’s the rum that’s making me loathe her.
As I sip my second drink, which is going down very easily, I remember belatedly that I was so busy this afternoon that I never did get a chance to eat lunch. All I’ve had all day is the Raisin Bran with skim milk and a banana that I gobbled down before I left my apartment this morning.
Somebody orders another round, and before I take a sip of the fresh drink, I realize I’m slurring my words.
But just a little.
And nobody else seems to notice.
Sonja, who’s a production editor at some obscure publishing house, is telling Buckley she might be able to get him some copywriting work. And Mae is on her cell phone, talking to her faraway fiancé, who apparently calls her every night at this time.
I think about how I haven’t spoken to Will since before I went home last weekend. I got home early Monday night, thinking he’d call, but he didn’t. I worked a gallery opening for Milos last night, and there were no messages on my machine when I got home.
Why hasn’t he called me, dammit?
Why can’t I be confident, like Mae is, about our long-distance relationship lasting?
My head is swimming with boozy thoughts of Will. I check my watch. It’s almost ten. I wonder if he’s back at the cast house yet after this evening’s performance. What would happen if I called him there?
The question is strictly rhetorical, of course, because I don’t have a phone number where he can be reached.
But let’s just say I call directory information, and I get the main number for the theater, and whoever answers gives me the number for the pay phone in the cast house.
Let’s just say that it’s not busy for a change—Will has told me it’s always busy so there’s no point in giving me the number—and somebody picks up and I ask for Will.
What will he say when he finds out that it’s me?
Will he be surprised?
Hell, yes.
Pleasantly surprised?
Sure.
Or maybe not.
It’s hard to say.
As Mae smooches kisses into her cell phone and Buckley writes down Sonja’s phone number on a cocktail napkin, I become fixated on my plan.
I have to call Will. I have to.
I drink more of my drink. This one is stronger. Less fruity.
I have to talk to him tonight. Now.
My heart is pounding.
I realize that I’m starting to have that same sensation I had the other night on the bus, and before that in my apartment.
This time it’s not as intense. But I’m afraid. What’s happening to me?
The jukebox is blasting an old Eagles song.
I look at Buckley.
He’s wrapped up in Sonja and whatever she’s saying.
Mae is laughing into her cell phone.
The bartender is pouring rum into a blender.
Did he put something in my drink?
I take another cautious sip.
It doesn’t taste toxic.
Just strong.
Everyone else’s drink came from the same batch, and nobody else looks like they’ve been poisoned, so it’s just me. It’s just that weird thing happening again.
I need to call Will.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell the others, grabbing my bag.
I start pushing my way blindly toward the far back corner of the restaurant, instinctively going for the rest rooms.
Please let there be a pay phone there. Please.
There is.
Please let me have a quarter. Quarters. I need lots of quarters. Please.
Luckily, I haven’t completely eliminated the clutter from my life. The bottom of my bag is filled with loose change. No wonder my shoulder is always aching, I think vaguely as I sort through the fistful of silver and copper, shove a quarter into the slot, and dial.
I fish a pen and a stray Big Red wrapper from the depths of my bag and scribble down the number for the Valley Playhouse.
Then, after feeding more change, dialing, and feeding additional change, the phone is ringing in my ear.
I lean against the wall, grateful that the small corridor outside the rest rooms is empty for the moment. There’s a swinging door separating the area from the blaring jukebox and drunken voices in the bar.
I’m a wreck.
The hand that isn’t pressing the receiver against my ear is trembling like crazy, and my heart is still racing. I feel like I can’t catch my breath.
It’s not just the booze, or the lack of food—although I’m sure that’s not helping the situation.
It’s something else. I’m terrified.
Am I having a heart attack?
There’s a tightness in my chest.
Oh, God.
Was it there before I thought about the heart attack?
I’m not sure.
I’m so focused on analyzing my physical symptoms and the growing intensity of my heart rate that I forget exactly what it is that I’m doing here until there’s a click in my ear and a male voice says, “Valley Playhouse, Edward speaking.”
It’s stammer time.
“I…um, I was wondering…is this…uh, is this the Valley Playhouse?” I finally blurt helplessly. I am a complete idiot, but I can’t help it.
“Yes, it is.” Edward is patient.
Encouraged, I manage to ask for the phone number for the cast house.
Instead of rattling it off, Edward says, “I see. And are you trying to get in touch with one of our cast members?”
Now who’s the idiot? Why else would I need the number?
“Yes, I am,” I tell him, and ask for Will.
How can my voice sound so calm when I’m frantic inside?
“Is
Yes, it’s an emergency.
I need Will.
I need him desperately.
I’m having a heart attack and I need to speak to him before I die.
“Yes, it is,” I say, on the verge of hysteria, praying Edward senses that I’m not faking the urgency in my voice.
“Please hang on,” he says promptly.
And I try.
I really do.
I try to hang on.
But I’m falling apart.
A cigarette will help me.
Open the bag.
Find the pack.
Good.
Find the lighter.
No lighter.
Shit.
Find matches.
Light a cigarette.
Inhale deeply.
It doesn’t help.
My heart is throbbing, and I’ve broken out in a cold sweat. It’s all I can do not to drop the phone and get the hell out of here.
Get the hell out of this rest room corridor, and this crowded bar, and this Will neighborhood, and this unfamiliar city, and this lonely life.
But no.
I can’t go.
Edward is going to get me a telephone number where I can reach Will. And if I can just speak to Will, everything is going to be okay.
I take another drag.
What if smoking is making the heart attack worse?
It doesn’t seem to be.
I have the same symptoms, but now I seem to be getting woozier, too. From the drinks. The alcohol is taking a stronger hold.
Is it just that? Maybe I’m just drunk.
No. What about my heart?
What if it’s a heart attack?
What if it’s not a heart attack?
Then what is it? What’s wrong with me?
Two women pass by on their way to the ladies’ room. One gives me a dirty look and whispers something to the other. At first I don’t realize why.
Then I see that I’m standing beneath a No Smoking sign.
Oh. So? So what?
I raise the cigarette to my lips and inhale again.
Drunken defiance.
They can’t stop me.
Then there’s a clatter in my ear, and Will’s breathless voice is on the line. “Hello? Hello? Mom? Is that you?”
Ecstasy.
It’s Will.
Confusion.