Interrupted (The Progress Series) (3 page)

“Oh! Yes, Samuel. Hi. Sorry, I’m in kind of a rush. I can’t stay and chat. But, I work here, so stop by again soon and we can catch up. Okay?”

“Sounds good. You look great, by the way,” he said as Charlie waved and disappeared out the front door.

*

Charlie drove to Jesse’s house as fast as she could. His car wasn’t in the driveway, so she drove to the trails where he would often ride his bike. His car wasn’t there, either. She racked her brain for an answer to where he’d be. She drove by restaurants, bars, gas stations and random places he had mentioned in casual conversation. He was nowhere. She had tried Lily’s number, but no one picked up and voicemail never came. She had considered looking up Bree’s address, but she couldn’t remember her last name. Hours had passed and she was still as eager to find him as she was when she began her search.

Where are you? It’s almost midnight.

I’ll drive by his house one more time to see if he’s come home by now.

He still wasn’t home. Charlie tried his phone and it had been disconnected. She figured The Crimson must have gotten him a phone for his new position, but she didn’t have the number. The only other thing she thought to do was camp out in his driveway until he came home, but she didn’t want him to think she was creepy. Defeated, she started the drive home.

Unless…no. He couldn’t be there.

She stepped on the gas in a last attempt at finding her Jess. For the five minute travel, her heart raced and her fingers trembled. If he was there, surely he had feelings for her. Perhaps they could still make it work.

She arrived at the parking lot and pulled her vehicle into one of the twelve vacant spots. His car wasn’t there. This was it. She had been to every other place she could think of. She got out of her car, sat on the trunk and lit a cigarette. It was cold and she couldn’t distinguish between her exhaled smoke and her warm breath. Exhaustion was starting to set in from the emotional ups and downs of the past two weeks.

Finishing her cigarette, she flicked it away. It landed in a fresh footprint where the path usually sat, but it was covered in two inches of ice and melting, crunchy snow. Curious, she followed the prints to toward the pond. Along the way she saw shattered beer bottles and a cigarette butt.

Was he here?

In their usual spot there was an impression in the snow where someone had sat down. Whoever it was had been drinking and smoking. There were eleven cigarette butts in all and four beer bottles, but only one set of footprints.

It could have been him. But if he wanted to talk to you, all he had to do was call. He doesn’t want you.

*

He doesn’t want you.

With little determination, Charlie went to work the next morning. She didn’t have the drive she needed now that Jess was gone. He had made the day go quicker, the atmosphere complex, and she was always anticipating his arrival. It was almost noon; surely his plane had already taken off.

Mechanically, she got through the day—taking orders, carrying out food, getting refills. She couldn’t wait to get into the bar after her shift and drink herself silly.

“Charlie!”

Jess! I knew it. I knew this wasn’t the end.

A small smile rose to her face as she turned. “Samuel.” She tried not to look disappointed as she walked to the front to greet him.

“I’m so sorry about last night, I was in a hurry. But I’m glad you’re back today. How have you been?” she asked, trying to show genuine enthusiasm.

“Good,” he said nervously.

“So you decided you needed to have Crimson pizza twice in two days? You must really like it here,” she said skeptically.

“Well, I was hoping you’d be here today, actually.”

“Oh yeah? Why is that?”

“I was hoping we could go out sometime.”

Your timing is horrible.
“Go out…like as in, casual coffee or…” She gestured for him to finish her sentence.

“Sure, we could go out for coffee if you wanted. Or, we could grab a beer and some wings somewhere.”

Oh, no. Is this a date?

“Sure, when?” she said, trying to keep it all casual.

“Saturday night? Eight o’clock?”

“I work Saturday, but I’m an early cut so I
should
be able to make it by eight. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you if I’m going to be late.”

They exchanged phone numbers and Samuel left with his pizza and a wide smile.

*

Charlie wasn’t comfortable with all of the attention she was getting with her new body. She had been approached several times at The Crimson from drunkards in the bar but she always told them one of the two lines she had stashed for those occasions: One, she’d say she was a lesbian (most men backed off once they heard that word); or two, she had her period. If line one didn’t work, line two surely did.

It was all so perverse. No one had ever shown interest in her when she was overweight, but now that she was thin, men gawked and women saw her as competition. She hated the staring, the attempt to make eye contact from across the bar. She gagged at the cheesy one-liners and the guys that just licked their lips while staring at her breasts. She felt like everywhere she went was merely foreplay.

She wasn’t sure what Samuel meant. Was this a
date
-date? Being with Ryan for a few weeks hadn’t gotten her accustomed to being asked out. This was way too complicated of a thing for her to be enduring at the moment; she had been in the clutches of Jess all day.

She had two days until Saturday, so she decided to put it in the back of her mind and just concentrate on each minute in front of the next. Once she was cut that afternoon, she sat in the bar and enjoyed her free beer. On her way home she stopped at the liquor store with the twenty bucks she made in tips and bought a case of beer and a pack of smokes.

Without the coordination to remove her clothes beforehand, she crashed into bed that night fully clothed. Her head was spinning too much to focus on a single thought. It made the heavy pressure in her chest feel lighter and the tension in her shoulders ease.

*

Dreaming she was in a plane, she looked out the window at the tarmac below, waving with a dreadful feeling in her gut. There was a carnival on the ground; rows of clowns, midgets and stilt walkers were waving their goodbyes to her. When she could no longer see them, she reached into her purse to find her music when a man’s voice said, “Are you going to eat that?” As she turned to look at his face, the scene changed. She was now at her park. She was ripping the legs off of live frogs and eating them raw. She turned to the man sitting in the chair next to her as she realized what she was doing. She threw the bloody frog in the snow and turned to him. “No,” she said. She woke with Jess’s face fading away into the dark and her heart visibly beating from her chest. Her pillow was soaked with sweat and it took several minutes for her breathing to return to normal.

She walked out into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

“Hey,” said a voice.

Charlie whipped her head around quickly and grabbed her chest. “Jesus Sabrina, you scared the shit out of me! What are you doing awake?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Bad dreams,” Sabrina said.

Charlie nodded. “My head is killing me. What time is it anyway?”

“Four o’clock,” Sabrina said, yawning.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you, I like your hair. Blonde suits you, it looks great with your hazel eyes,” Charlie said.

“I dyed it two weeks ago. It’s not too much?”

“Nah.”

“So Charlene…now that you’re skinny, I’m sure you’ve got some juicy boy stories. Let’s put on a chick flick, pop some popcorn and you can tell me all about this Jesse guy.”

Charlie dropped her shoulders and dipped her head downward. “There’s not much to say anymore. He’s gone. But, popcorn and a movie sound perfect.”

“Kid me all you want, sister. I know you well enough to see what’s going on. You’re being tormented by something. Plus, Dad told me.” Sabrina winked and turned to the cupboard to get their snack.

Sabrina had been in college for almost six years. Charlie’s older sister by two years, she had been attending school for architecture in
Fargo, four hours’ drive north. Sabrina was physically perfect: five foot six, slender, now blonde with vivid hazel-green eyes. Charlie had always envied her as a child and through their teen years because Sabrina always got the attention, the boyfriends, and the good grades. Charlie’s extreme opposite never fared well in school, and it only fueled more ridicule for Charlie in comparison to her older sister.

But Sabrina wasn’t tough like Charlie. Not traditional of the older sibling, Sabrina was less able to stand on her own two feet. She had more weaknesses that she would quickly submit to and she never missed an opportunity to cry. Her pride was less likely to get in her way, like Charlie’s always did.

“So, what did Dad tell you, exactly?” Charlie asked, sitting on the couch as Sabrina was returning from the kitchen.

“Not much. Just that Jesse was everything to you, and now never comes around anymore. Tell me, did he really spend the night in the driveway? Oh, and did Dad seriously bail him out of jail?”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “If you insist, I’ll tell you a summed up version of the story. But I don’t really want to get into all of it; it’s pretty depressing.”

“Oh no, depressing? So, how did he break up with you?” Sabrina asked.

“He didn’t. I mean, we were never a couple, or even dating. We were just friends.”

“Oh Charlie, you did it again? You know, some guys are just out of our league.”

“You’re right; he
was
out of my league.
Way
out.”

“So, what, you confessed your love for your buddy and he freaked out?”

“No, not at all. I…spent the night with him, and when he asked me to stay…well, I left him.”

Sabrina’s eyes opened so wide that Charlie thought they’d pop out of their sockets.

“
You
left
him
?”

“Yes—”

“Holy shit! What did you do that for? What does this guy look like? And why didn’t you tell me you weren’t a virgin anymore? It’s only been like six months since I’ve seen you, and when I return you’ve completely changed!”

Charlie huffed with a grin. “He’s one of the sexiest men I’ve ever met; built like…a machine. Perfect blue eyes that change with the colors he’s wearing, and the sexiest damn lips I’ve ever...” Charlie paused and felt the tingling up her arms as she pictured his face in her mind. “But he has some problems that I couldn’t help him with, and it was holding us back. He wasn’t ready for what I am ready for.”

“Then you wait! And you don’t just leave a man in his bed when he’s asking you to stay. That’s just mean, and dumb. If he’s
that
sexy it doesn’t matter what his problems are—you
make
it work.” Sabrina’s voice was louder than she intended.

“I couldn’t! I tried and failed. And…I respected him enough to not get us both in a deeper mess than we had already managed to create for ourselves. I didn’t see any other option at the time.”

“And now? Oh Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. So young. This makes me sad. You could have avoided all of this heartache. So here we are, at four o’clock in the morning and you can barely keep the tears from flowing. So, what happens now? Where is he?”

“Gone. He moved out of state. I’ll probably never see him again.”

“Well, it’s your fault. I don’t mean to be a bitch, but if he wanted you to stay that night, he wanted more than just a one-night stand. He probably left town because of you.”

*

Charlie dreaded having that morning off. It was more time to think and less time being distracted. She had to have a plan to keep her mind from being sidetracked.

After finishing the entire bowl of popcorn, she showered and exercised. She opted to play a CD other than
Progress
, because it only gave her a stomach ache.

I don’t think chick flicks are going to work; this morning was horrible. Just when I thought I didn’t have a single emotion left in me, I was sobbing like a baby. No, no chick flicks.  I could drink and smoke cigarettes… nope, that’s probably not going to work either; I’d be a hot mess. I could call Angie, but she’d just tell me ‘I told you so, Charlie.’ Oh, maybe I should draw! Time flies when I’m drawing! Bingo.

She took three pain killers due to the night prior and dug out her canvas paper to start sketching. Several times during the day, she considered looking at the clock, but never did. She decided to listen to her body and eat when it was hungry and smoke when it demanded one.

She was engrossed in her artwork. Her favorite sketches were female studies. The soft curves, the feminine facial features, and her past desire to be one of the beautiful people all made the efforts worth the time she spent on them.

That day, Charlie completed sixteen female nudes before her evening shift.