Checked Again (15 page)

Hmm…perhaps
if I don’t play, he’ll just think I was too busy to check my game. But…he has
my schedule memorized…he won’t buy that I couldn’t find a second to play.

Hmm…

SAD.
SAD. SAD.

Maybe
he didn’t mean anything by it. Maybe it was just a word. And if that was the
case, is the case, I can just play any word I want right now.

But
if that’s not the case…well, then playing the word “nerds” (which is currently
up and ready to go on my virtual shelf) wouldn’t be the best plan.

{Jann
Arden comes in, blaring the refrain to
“Insensitive
.
”
}

I
continue to stare at the screen, my eyes now only seeing a blur of letters. I
vaguely hear the chef on the television as she preheats the oven for some sort
of breaded chicken.

Blurred
letters. Blurred cooking instructions. Blurred thoughts.

{Jann
Arden disappears. Robin Thicke and a slew of undressed women take over with
“Blurred Lines
.
”
}

Wait.
Wait. WAIT.

I
see it.

D-E-N-S.
Four little letters on my virtual shelf that might have just solved my problem.
Without counting, I shove the letters into the slots on the board, slots right
beside his word.

And
there it is.

S-A-D-D-E-N-S.

I’m
not breaking off communication. I’m not being insensitive to his word choice if
there was some deeper meaning behind it. And if he didn’t intend any deeper
meaning, I’ve simply used a commonly accepted Scrabble (or, Words with Friends)
technique of adding to an opponent’s word.

Pretty
ingenious.

Well,
it’ll be pretty ingenious if I actually click to submit the word.

But
if I do that, am I admitting that I’m also sad? That I’m hurt? That it saddens
me that he left me? That it saddens me that everything is over between the two
of us? That I have nothing in my life to look forward to now…that I’m back to
spending most of my time by myself, stuck in my head?

Clearly,
submitting this word means admitting that I’m pathetic.

But
he already knows that. More than anyone.

Okay.
Here goes.

One.
Two. Three. One One. Two Two. Three Three. One One One. Two Two Two. Three
Three Three.

OOONNNEEE.
TTTWWW—

CALLIE!

I
push my finger down on my phone’s screen. Click. Word submitted.

Squeezing
my eyes shut, I flip onto my side and bury my head into my pillow. I know I
should get up to plug in my phone, but I can’t make myself do it. If I plug it
in, it will have to sit on my dresser. That might be too far away. If he plays
his turn and the game alerts me, I might not hear it. It might not wake me up.

I
do have an outlet right beside my bed, but I can’t use that. If I plug in my
charger there, I’ll have a cord just hanging out in the middle of the floor. If
I wake up suddenly, I’m sure I’ll trip over the cord and crash into the corner
of my dresser and get a concussion or something.

Plus,
if I get out of bed to unplug my charger from the outlet behind my dresser,
then I’ll probably just end up starting my night routine over again. And then
I’ll never get any sleep (if I’m going to get any sleep tonight anyway).

Resigned
to the fact that my phone will not be fully charged tomorrow morning, I place
it down on the pillow beside me.

I
keep my eyes closed and I tell myself to sleep, but it doesn’t happen. I don’t
hear white noise. I hear the chef on television as she breads and bakes her
chicken…as she goes on to make some sort of seafood…and as the next two chefs
after her cook their own meals.

My
phone never beeps. My eyes remain closed.

But
I don’t sleep. I. Don’t. Sleep.

Chapter
11

an
appointment…yet again

6:30
A.M. WHEN MY ALARM RINGS, my eyes open. I see my phone on the pillow beside me,
and I quickly realize how futile all of my phone worrying was last night.

I
didn’t need to have the phone near me to hear a game notification, because a
game notification never came. And I didn’t need to worry about not waking up to
the sound of a beep…or about waking up suddenly and tripping over a phone
charging wire…or about losing sleep because of needing to redo my routine. None
of that was worth worrying about, none of that matters, because I never fell
asleep.

And
now…now that it’s time to get up, I’m not even tired. Just nervous. And achy.
Stomach-achy. Mind-achy. Having trouble swallowing-achy.

I’m
going to see him again. Soon. And alone.

{Damien
Rice calmly sings his song. His calmness does nothing to soothe my crazy, shaky
stomach, though. I think it makes it worse.}

I
fling myself out of bed, plug in my phone, and head to my computer.

And
I have no new messages.

I
don’t have long to sit and dwell on that right now, though. Not if I’m going to
be ready in time to leave the house for class…ready to write poems about, I
don’t know, probably hearts and ponies and freaking teddy bears or something.

I
stand up and get myself moving, hoping the busyness of my routine will somehow
calm my all over the place stomach.

10:02
a.m. Done. Dressed in a dark purple shift dress and matching pumps.

10:03
a.m. Check email again. Nothing. Again.

Nothing
even from my family members. They’ve really slowed down on their checking up
calls and messages. For now. Until Melanie and Mom get them all worked up about
this conference.

I
can’t think about that right now.

10:05
a.m. Check Words with Friends game. Nothing. Not my turn in any of my three
games.

10:06
a.m. Pick off my nail polish.

10:07
a.m. Paint my nails.

10:10
a.m. Nails are dry. Begin leaving-the-house checks.

10:49
a.m. Skip breakfast. My stomach can’t handle food right now.

Out
the door.

Door
closed. Handle twist. Handle twist. Handle twist.

10:59
(AND LIKE THIRTY SECONDS) A.M. I arrive at class just in time and sit in my
usual seat. Dr. Emery gets started moments later…and today’s subject is…birds.
Just like the ones I’m about to see lining the hallways of the Pierce Mental
Health office.

I
hate birds. I don’t want to write poems about them. To be honest, I don’t want
to write poems about anything else, though, either.

And
I don’t. I don’t write any poems over the next couple hours. I pretend to work,
but really I just write the word “bird” over and over again on my paper.

I
pick off my nail polish and stare at the pictures of cardinals and doves and
crows and larks that Dr. Emery has hung in the front of the room. I think of
other pictures of other birds in other places with other people…no…with another
person.

{And
Damien sings.}

Eventually,
classmates start to volunteer for the stupid “sharing” portion of class. I
stare at each classmate, each person that “shares” a poem, but I don’t hear any
of the words that are said.

{I
hear Damien.}

Finally,
mercifully, it ends. Well, class ends.

{Damien’s
song doesn’t.}

2:13
p.m. When I get home, I quickly spray my shoes and wash my hands. Before I get
the chance to run up to my computer to check my email, my house phone rings.

Annie
pops right into my mind.

He’s
going to cancel. He’s going to cancel. He’s going to cancel. Right now.

I
rush to the phone and take a second to check my caller ID.

And
it’s Melanie.

Not
Annie. Not a cancellation.

I
answer
.
“Hi, Mel. How are you?”
Please don’t want to talk about the
conference. Please don’t want to talk about the conference. Please—

“Well…I
think I’m about to be feeling great.” I can hear a big smile in her voice. This
can’t be conference-related.

I
find myself smiling back at Melanie through the phone. It’s not often that she
sounds excited. Normally, she sounds tired and overworked.

“What’s
going on, Mel?”

“Well…”
I’m pretty sure her smile is even bigger now. She even squeals a little at the
end of her word.

“You
are killing me here, Mel. What’s up?”

She
laughs a little and then starts talking fast, spilling a jumble of words into
the phone. “Well, Doug said it would be okay if I called you since he’s in
meetings at work all day and can’t be here. He didn’t want me to have to wait
longer just for him to be here because he knows that would’ve driven me crazy,
and I just have been drinking water all day and I really can’t wait any longer
to go—”

“Wait.”
I interrupt her ridiculously long sentence, my face breaking into an even
bigger smile. “Is it time for a pregnancy test?”

Melanie
squeals a little again. I wonder briefly how shocked her clients…or her
opposing counsel…would be if they could see (or hear) this side of the all
business, all professional Work Melanie.

I
don’t have time to wonder for long, because Melanie starts talking again. I
concentrate on her rushed words about dates, temperatures, and symptoms.

“…have
been really sore and I’ve just been famished and…and…will you do this with me?
Do you have time?”

I
smile again. Or still. “Of course.”

“Okay.
Well, I’m already in the bathroom, so I’m going to put the phone down and on
mute while I, well, you know.”

“All
right, Mel. I’ll wait.”

“Okay.”
She squeals once more.

“Good
luck. You’ve got this.”

Melanie
laughs and then disappears as, I guess, she pushes the mute button.

I
use my wait time to send up a few renditions of the Hail Mary for her…because
Mary would want Melanie to be pregnant. She would be hoping for the plus sign
or the double pink lines or the smiley face or whatever—

“You
there, Callie?” Melanie sounds nervous.

“Yep.”

“One
minute.”

One
long minute for her, I know. With no more than a second’s pause, I start the
first verse to this song from our favorite musical,
Sideshow.
“Who Will
Love Me as I Am?” Not really a baby-themed song (unless, I guess, we address
the fact that the baby Melanie might be having will most likely love her for
who she is), but it does the trick. Melanie joins in at “her” part (we’ve sung
this song so many times that, yes, she has “her” part), and we blast through
the refrain, the second verse, the refrain again, a key change, and an
obnoxiously loud ending. It takes at least two minutes. Probably three.

We
both laugh for a bit as we stop singing. Then it’s quiet.

“It’s
time,” I tell her, for once (and really only once out of maybe like three times
in my twenty-four years) feeling like the more in control sister.

“I
know,” she whispers. “I’m going to look. Should we count first?”

Duh.

“Yes,”
I answer. “One. Two. Three. LOOK.”

There
is a pause of silence. And then—

Then
Melanie squeals again, much louder than before. And I think I hear her
practical ballet flats jumping up and down on the bathroom floor.

She
breathes heavily into the phone, exclaiming, “It says pregnant!”

Oh—no
pink lines or smiley faces or—

CALLIE!

“YAY,”
I cheer, squealing a little bit myself. “This is so exciting.”

It
really is exciting. Soon there will be another little Abby kind of figure
running around—I can’t think of anything better to add to this world.

We
squeal a little more. Like cliché young school girls. It actually feels kind of
good. Kind of tension-relieving. Maybe squealy, giggly, jumpy girls are on to
something.

Eventually,
the squealing stops. We talk about sonograms and due dates and genders and
names. Then we decide to hang up so Melanie can text Doug (he must’ve promised
that he’d secretly check his phone at 2:59 p.m., right in the middle of his
2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. meetings).

“Thanks
for doing this with me, Callie.”

“Of
course.”

“Hey—I
want to talk to you later about your confer—”

I
interrupt. “Mel—you’d better go. It’s already two fifty-seven.”

“Okay,
Callie. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Sounds
good. Bye, Mel.”

I
hang up, all mixed up with emotions. So happy for Melanie. Elated for her. Also
pretty relieved that we didn’t have time to talk about the conference. And
nervous about the conference. Maybe a little in denial about the fact that it’s
only two days away.

And
nervous about my appointment. Maybe a little in denial about the fact that it’s
only an hour away…

I
walk upstairs, check my email (nothing there), and paint my nails. After they
dry, I begin my leaving-the-house preparations, my thirty-three checks. I try
to focus even more than normal on each air vent, faucet, light switch…trying to
trick my stomach, my head, my body—trying to trick all of them into relaxing a
little.

It
doesn’t work.

My
stomach hops around, my head pounds, and my body shakes.

{And
Damien sings.}

3:44
p.m. Done.

I
make my hands grab my coat and purse, and then I drag my body out of the door.

3:56
P.M. I’M HERE. BACK IN the Pierce Mental Health parking lot.
His
parking
lot.

3:56
and about three seconds p.m. Looking through my rearview mirror, I see the
office door opening. Then…then I see him.

Dark
gray pants. Deep green shirt. Matching tie. Head pointed exactly in my
direction. Eyes…can’t tell just yet…

Can
he see me looking at him through the mirror? Does he—

Wait.

He’s
moving this way. Slowly. Cautiously. One hand in his pocket. The other running
(nervously?) through his hair.

I
lower my eyes before he definitely notices that I’m watching him in my mirror. My
legs become heavy. My body is glued to my seat. My stomach stops jumping and
just freezes, shuts down. I—

I
hear knocking on my window. And see the top of his pants, the green shirt
tucked in at his waist—the middle of his body—out of the corner of my eye.

Other
parts of me start to shut down. My breathing stops. My ability to swallow
vanishes.

I
can’t move my head to look at him…to see him. I can’t.

I
sit…for I don’t know how long…I can’t even bring myself to do some counts of
three.

{Dam—}

My
door is making a noise. It’s opening.

I
don’t move. I stare at my steering wheel.

I
can feel a slight breeze. The door is completely open. And he’s in the opening.

I
am all of a sudden very aware of the fact that I’m still wearing my seatbelt. I
think it’s getting tighter somehow…cutting into my neck and chest…holding me in
place.

I
don’t move. I can’t move.

Somehow,
I manage to take a breath. I inhale slowly, and I’m quickly caught up in the
smell of his cologne. The smell of him.

The
smell that faintly lingers on my pajamas. The smell of—

A
hand appears in front of me, inches in front of my chin.

His
hand.

{Damien
starts his song over.}

It
looks like it would be so easy…so easy to just reach out and put my hand in
his, to let him pull me out of the car and into his office.

It
looks easy. But it’s not.

Because
I can’t move.

Because
I can’t give him my hand.

Because
I can’t let myself give him my hand.

Because
he left me.

And—

“Callie.”
A quiet, deep whisper. So hushed that maybe it was only a breeze of the wind.

I
don’t move.

“Callie.”
Louder this time. Definitely not the wind.

I
have to do something. I can’t just sit here.

One.
Two. Three.