Office Girl (23 page)

SO IN THE OFFICE THAT MONDAY.

Things are still really fractured, really weird. He thinks about saying something to Odile but he doesn't. He pays attention to the phone, types an order with the yellowed keyboard, hangs up the phone, and then answers it again. It goes like this hour after hour until Odile, brushing her bangs with her fingertips, finally leans back and says, “I put my brother on the bus yesterday.”

“You did?”

“He wasn't too happy about it.”

“I bet.”

“He said he liked meeting you, though. He said he thought you were pretty nice.”

Jack nods, not saying a word.

“So,” she says, sighing, “I'm leaving in like five days.”

“Wow,” he responds, trying to speak without interest or heat.

“On Saturday. It's weird.”

“It is.”

“I'm not even packed yet. I was going to try to have a garage sale sometime, but I don't know. I might just end up throwing a lot of stuff out.”

“Did you tell Gomez yet?”

“No. I guess I have to tell him. I was afraid if I told him before now, he'd fire me. I mean, I plan on working all the way to Friday. I need all the money I can get.”

“So you're not going to tell him until Friday?”

“That's the plan. Do you think he's going to be pissed?”

“Probably.”

“What can I do? I guess I can just add him to the list of people who are mad at me.”

Jack smiles softly, against his better judgment. “I'm not mad at you.”

“You're not?”

“Maybe,” he says.

She smiles at him. “So.”

“So.”

“I was thinking.”

“Yeah?”

“I know this is kind of weird but I was thinking of doing something to that professor I had. The bad one. From the gallery. Before I leave on Saturday. You know, like one last act by the great Alphonse F.”

“Really?”

“Really. It'd be great if you wanted to come,” she says.

“When?”

“I dunno. Tomorrow afternoon. I was thinking of maybe doing something to his car. I figured out where he parks. I was thinking of maybe decorating it. Or gluing stuff to it.”

“What were you going to glue to it?”

“I dunno. Household items maybe. I haven't really figured it out. Do you want to come?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Do you want me to?” he asks.

“I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want you to,” she says, and it looks like she's blushing.

“I guess so. I mean, I will, if you want me to.”

And she nods, tucking a strand of her dark hair behind her ear. “Okay. We begin our attack tomorrow afternoon at one p.m.”

And Jack nods too, watching her perform her vanishing act again.

ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON AT ONE P.M.

Together they lock their bicycles up off of Madison, and Odile lugs two huge paper grocery bags with her, and they sneak into the parking garage, walking row by row by row until they find the professor's car, the teal Subaru, there on the fourth level. Odile has her green hood up and Jack is in his blue hat. And they stare at the car for a moment, standing beside each other in the near dark, the smell of snow and salt melting along the concrete floor, before Odile finally opens up one of the paper bags. They are filled with bunches and bunches of bananas, some bright yellow, some green, some already gone black.

“Bananas?” he asks.

“Bananas. They were on sale so I got like a hundred of them. I thought, because they're really kind of phallic, and also, pretty much the funniest fruit in the world …”

“What are we supposed to do with them?”

“I don't know. Put them on his car. Like smash them into his windshield or something. Here,” and she hands him two bunches, one green and one yellow.

Jack stares down at the bananas and frowns, looking at the second paper bag near Odile's feet. “So what's in the other bag?”

“Some frozen dog shit I found in front of my apartment.”

“You brought dog shit? Really?”

“I don't know. Why not?”

“I don't know. That seems a little harsh.”

“It's not harsh.”

“Well, what about our masks?”

“Oh. Right,” and she digs into the pocket of her parka and finds the two ski masks, handing the red one to Jack. He takes it in his hand and looks at it, but does not put it on. Odile already has the black mask over her face, and is smooshing bananas all over the rear windshield.

“Come on,” she says. “Let's hurry. He gets out of class at two.”

Jack nods but doesn't move. He stands there and watches as Odile heaps the bananas all over the roof and hood of the car. She begins unpeeling a few, smashing them against the cruddy glass of the front windshield.

When she notices Jack still hasn't moved, she looks over at him and frowns. “What? What's wrong?”

“Nothing. I don't know. I guess I don't feel like doing this.”

“Come on. It's fun. It's funny. We're striking a defining blow at artistic mediocrity. He's gonna shit his pants.”

“No,” Jack says, still holding the bananas. “I don't think I want to do this anymore. It's kind of mean.”

Odile pulls the black mask off her face. “This guy, you heard him at that gallery. He's everything you're against. He's just this cynical know-it-all …”

Jack pushes his glasses up against the bridge of his nose and says, “So?”

“So?” she shouts, getting red-faced. “What do you mean, so?”

“I don't know. I'm sorry but I think I'm going to go,” he says, handing her back the bunches of unripened bananas. He looks at her again, then down at the bananas, and then slowly he begins to walk away, heading down the angled concrete ramp.

“We're just too similar,” she calls out. “That's the problem.”

He stops and turns to face her. “We're not similar at all.”

“Either way,” she says.

“I just don't know why you're moving. Actually, I think it's pretty dumb.”

“I told you why. If I don't do it now, I never will. I'll just be some office drone ten years from now, wishing I had done something interesting at least once in my life.”

“I just don't get what you think is going to happen there. I don't understand it. What's there that's not here?”

“You wouldn't understand it. You don't like taking chances. You're kind of weak that way.”

“What? What are you talking about? I'm not weak.”

“You kind of are. You don't like to do anything on your own. And you don't ever finish anything. Like all those tapes in your apartment. I think you like the idea of being an artist more than you actually like making things.”

“What? What are you talking about?” He steps toward her.

“You don't do anything interesting on your own,” she says, shrugging beneath her green hood. “I'm just stating a fact.”

And Jack gets right in her face and says: “Well, at least I don't think I'm something I'm not.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You think you're some kind of genius but you work in a crummy little office just like everybody else. You're worse than all those people. At least they don't think they're something special. You. You're just some office drone and you don't even know it.”

Odile's eyes go wide. “Okay. Wow. I think we're done talking here.”

“Good,” he says.

“Good,” she repeats. And then: “I think I want my button back now.”

“What?”

“The button I made. I'd like it back right now.”

And Jack looks down and sees the small black
F
button on his coat. He grabs it, unpins it, and places it in her hand a little too roughly.

“Great,” he says, and then walks off, this time as quickly as he can.

At the bottom of the parking garage's steep incline, he finds his bicycle locked next to hers. They seem so happy together, and yet a few moments later, slipping the bike lock into his back pocket, they are soon parted. And then the sight of her green bicycle locked there alone seems particularly sad and ridiculous.

AND THAT NIGHT AT WORK.

The two of them do not talk in the break room before their shift because Odile doesn't show up on time, and when she does arrive it's almost an hour late and Gomez yells at her and it looks like she's going to cry or maybe quit right there but she doesn't. And the two of them, Odile and Jack, sit beside each other in their cubicles, answering their telephones, each waiting for the other to make the first move. But neither of them do. It's too weird at first and neither of them knows what to say. And so they say nothing. Which is a mistake. Because then it is almost ten p.m. before Odile finally concedes. And when she does, she pokes her face into his cubicle angrily.

“I'm not going to play these games with you!” she shouts, though careful of the volume of her voice.

“Okay,” he says. “Neither am I. I mean, I don't want to play any games.”

“Great. Wonderful,” and her head disappears back behind the cubicle wall again.

And he really wants to know what Odile is thinking and so, after a half hour, he leans over and says: “Listen. I'm sorry about what I said. But I really like you and I think it's kind of stupid that you're leaving. I mean … can we … I mean … will you just talk to me?”

But Odile doesn't answer. All he can see is the back of her head, the shape of her dark hair, the ridge of her left ear.

“Because right now it's really weird,” he continues. “Maybe we should … I mean, maybe you think it was all a mistake. Is that what you think?”

“No. Do you?”

“No. But I don't know why you're being so weird.”

“I'm not being weird,” she says.

“No, it's like you're purposefully trying to be mean or something.”

“I'm not. It's just … It's just really complicated. I really like you, but—” and then she doesn't finish her sentence. “Shit. Gomez is watching.”

And Jack looks up and Gomez is standing in the conference room with a half-eaten enchilada, some of it dotting his white shirt, staring at them with a suspicious look.

“If it's that big of a problem … we can just forget it. It's like no big deal. I mean … we were just having fun. It's not like it has to mean anything. We can just totally forget it,” Jack says, hoping she will immediately, definitively say no. No. No.

But she doesn't.

And he can't see her face; it's obscured by the gray cubicle wall and she's saying in a soft, hurt tone, “Okay. Whatever. If that's what you want.”

“What?”

“We'll just, you know, forget all about it. That's great.”

And she won't look at him.

And Jack is nodding, not believing what either of them is saying. And his face feels hot and he coughs a little and says, “Okay. Great.”

“Great. Your problem is my problem,” she says, still not looking at him.

“Okay. Cool.”

“I don't think I'm special. I want you to know that,” Odile says sharply. “I don't think I'm better than everybody else.”

And he nods and his face is really red. He does not know what to say and so he keeps nodding his head and then he watches her face disappear behind the cubicle wall one more time. And then it's like that the rest of the night. Moment after moment, hour after hour, absolutely quiet, even in the elevator going down.

ON HIS BICYCLE THEN.

And then they are unlocking their bicycles and still not talking. And she is taking off into the snow without saying a word. And Jack does not know what to do and so he follows her at a distance. And she is in her gray skirt and black tights riding her bike toward her apartment and he is thinking of what he can say to her now. And a few moments later her bicycle slips in the snow and she crashes into a parked car and so she begins shouting. He feels embarrassed seeing her shout like that and also guilty having seen it and he knows he is somehow to blame for the way she is standing there in the street screaming. And so he pauses. And then turns away as quickly as he can.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND SO RETURNING TO HIS APARTMENT THAT NIGHT AT TWO A.M.

Jack sits on the bed, staring at the dirty sheets, at the subtle indentation of Odile's body, the shape her face once made on the pillow, taking in the scent of her hair, the odor of her body, her toothpaste, her sweat, the particular smell of her clothes still on everything—the sofa cushions, in his mouth, on his face, his fingers, his hands. And he gets up and then stands in the short hall that leads to the parlor and stares at the boxes and boxes of cassette tapes, shoe boxes everywhere stacked tall, filling every corner, placed along every wall, from the front door to the bathroom, and then he pulls his shoes on and begins carrying them out in stacks as high as eight or nine, balancing them against his arms, carrying them out of the apartment and down the hall right over to the trash chute. And he opens the grimy trash chute door, and one by one he slides them through. He does it without thinking, not mad or sad or angry, only feeling like something is finally over, because something
is
over, and Odile has already heard it, and there is no one else in the world he can imagine wanting to share this with, and so it is finally finished, and after he has shoved each box down the chute, all four hundred and some odd minicassettes disappearing through the black square opening, he walks back inside his apartment, opens the bedroom closet, and finds the three gift-wrapped boxes, Elise's Christmas presents, sitting there on the top shelf. He scratches his nose and then grabs the three red and silver boxes, each tied with a bow, and marches down the hallway again. He opens the trash chute one more time and feeds each of them in—a hair dryer, a box set of CDs, a book by a German writer she loves—and then closes the metal door with a bang. And then he rubs his hands on the knees of his pants and walks back inside his place. He stands there for a full minute, looking at the walls, the floors, the doorways, now uncrowded, now completely bare, years of sunlight on the south-facing wall having etched the outlines of some of the stacks of boxes along the north-facing wall, so that there's still a silhouette, a shadow of an imaginary skyline, and he stands there and looks around and sighs, feeling happy with himself for the moment. And then Jack stares at his answering machine sitting there on the small card table and thinks about recording over Elise's voice message. But he doesn't do that just yet. He will, but not yet. And after that he walks over to his desk and picks up the pencil and goes to work on his screenplay.