Office Girl (9 page)

“Oh.” Jack nods and looks down at the girl's silver shoes. She's petite and her feet are very small.

Someone dressed as Big Ben and someone dressed as a chapel, complete with steeple, are now making out right beside the refrigerator. The girl Leigh seems bothered by this.

“Are you still in that band?” she asks. “I think I saw you play one time.”

“No, not really. I mean, I was. I still play the oboe, on my own.”

“Oh. I thought it was pretty bad. But at least it was interesting.”

“Thanks. I'm kinda … I'm kinda focusing on other things now. I'm doing some abstract art. And a couple sound installations. And I'm working on a screenplay. And a couple other things too.”

“Are you still in school?”

“No. Not anymore,” he says. “I mean, I graduated like four years ago. It's taken me some time to figure out what I want to do.”

“I have no idea what I'm doing either,” the girl says. “Everything seems so … obvious.”

And Jack nods.

“Are you working?” she asks. “Do you have a job?”

“Not right now. I had a job. I'm basically trying to work as little as I can so I can do other things.”

“That's what I want to do,” the girl says.

“What about you? Are you …”

“I work at an insurance company.”

“Okay,” Jack says. “What's that like?”

The girl looks at him, studying his face. She seems to be calculating something, adding something up. And then she says: “Do you want to get out of here?”

And here Jack smiles and then, instinctively, pats down the back of his hair.

“Really?” he asks.

“I don't know,” the girl says, unconvinced. “Why not?”

And on their bicycles together, they ride through the snow, Jack laughing at the sight of the girl in her outfit, her white legs covered in sheer tights, rising up and down. Someone honks at them, and then a bus swerves past, and Jack asks, “Why don't you take your costume off?” but Leigh says no. They pause at a red light a few blocks later and he looks over and sees the shape of the castle she is wearing and how red her cheeks are from the cold, and then he says: “You look really pretty.”

“What?”

“You look pretty.”

The girl rolls her eyes and smiles and says, “Thanks,” and then the light changes green.

“Do you want to go to my place?” the girl asks, and Jack nods, surprised.

“Really?”

“I live off of Wood. Plus my roommate's not home. I could show you my little brother's notebooks.”

“Your what?”

“His notebooks. From high school. He used to write his speeches in them. He was on the debate team. My parents made him join. They're hilarious. His speeches. There's this one about
Star Trek
that's just ridiculous. I make everybody I know look at them.”

“Okay. If you want to.”

Then, as if she's still deciding, she finally blinks and says, “Okay.”

And they pedal off in the direction of the girl's apartment, only five or six blocks away.

And as they go, Jack stops at a light at Division and Ashland and the girl pauses beside him, both of them atop their bicycles. And the snow is still coming down and Jack reaches into his gray winter coat and takes out the silver tape recorder, and the girl asks, “What's that?” but Jack doesn't answer; he just holds the tape recorder up and hits play and record and the sound of the snow drifting down and floating through the air somehow seems to grow louder, and after ten seconds Jack holds the tape under his chin and says, “Snow, at the corner of Division,” and then he switches the tape player off.

The girl looks at him and smiles and Jack shoves the recorder back into his coat.

“What was that for?”

And Jack doesn't bother to try to explain.

A few moments after that, they are quietly climbing her rickety stairs, carrying their bicycles beside them. And then her key is in the door.

And then they are sitting on the girl's couch and she is showing him her brother's high school composition notebooks, and there is a blue one, and another one that is orange, with a rounded wire edge, and she flips to a specific entry and says, “Here, read this out loud,” and Jack asks, “Really?” and she says, “Yeah. I make everybody do it,” and he nods and sees the girl is probably a lot younger than he thought she was and he starts to read, “
The technology in the TV show
Star Trek
is not real; it's fake. But many scientists argue that what we see in the movies and on TV could one day be real. Why not? It happened with rockets. And also escalators …”
and here Jack stops reading and looks at the girl and she is laughing and saying, “Isn't that the funniest thing you ever heard?” and he is nodding but he doesn't think it's actually all that funny. It seems like something he might have written in high school or maybe even yesterday; but he doesn't say anything because they are kissing now and after a minute or two, he asks if he can use the bathroom, and it's then he decides he has to come up with a reason to leave. Because this girl is too young and dismissive. And all he can come up with is to fake a stomachache, and when he comes back out, he says, “I'm not feeling so hot,” and the girl asks, “What's wrong?” and he says, “I think I'm gonna take off. I don't want to get you sick,” and she says, “What is? What's the matter?” and he says he has a bad pancreas and holds his left side, even though he has no idea where his pancreas is, and the girl nods, and it's nice to see her look concerned, and then he lifts his blue ten-speed from beside the front door and hurries off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND THEN.

Only a few moments later, Jack is pausing at a stoplight, recording the sound of the traffic light making its alterations overhead—the noise of the different colors switching from one to the next, a specific, mechanical sound—and when the light turns green, he rides off again. Before he can stop himself, he sees a smallmodel foreign car turning in front of him, and although he knows what's going to happen, this realization is about one second too late. The red foreign car hits the rear tire of Jack's bicycle with the corner of its front bumper and Jack flies over his handlebars and lands on his back, and there he lies, groaning, watching his blue ten-speed ride off without him. And then his left eyetooth begins to throb. And he looks up and sees a girl, somewhere in her twenties, her eyes brown, her hair blond, wearing a green coat and red sweater, mouth agape, standing above him asking, “Oh, my, God, Are you okay? Are you okay?” and he sits up, his back and elbow sore, his eyetooth throbbing, and tries to straighten his glasses. He gets himself to his feet and stumbles around a little, the girl reaching out to catch him, but Jack backs away, murmuring, “Don't. I'm okay. I'm okay.” And on wobbly legs, Jack finds his tape recorder, still clutched in his hand, and it's okay, it's not broken, and he holds it up to his mouth and says, “This is the sound of me getting hit by a car,” and records a few seconds of that before limping off, saying “Ouch” each time his left foot comes down.

AND THAT NIGHT THERE IS AN ANGRY MESSAGE FROM HIS LANDLORD.

Taped to his door.
Where is The Rent? Is It missing? Is it in The Mail? Did you Forget to Pay
?
Do Not screw Me,
it says.
I have BAD Friends
. And this is exactly the kind of thing Elise used to take care of and so he finds out how much money he has in his checking account and sees, apparently, he's going to need a job again.

And so he looks in the want-ads the next day and finds a job listing that says:
Night-owl? Having trouble sleeping? Make big cash working at Muzak Situations, Madison Ave. Great Temporary Work
. And he faxes them a resume from the local copy shop but doesn't hear anything back that day. And still he can't sleep. And the screenplay is not going well and so he realizes he has to do something. And so he calls his stepdad, David, who is a highly regarded psychiatrist. And his stepfather calls him back and asks him what's been going on.

“Nothing. I'm just. I've been having a hard time sleeping. I haven't slept in a couple of weeks.”

“Are you taking the same dose of Lexapro?”

“I am.”

“Hmmm. Do you want me to prescribe you some Ambien or something?”

“No. I think I'll try and rough it out.”

“How are other things?”

“Pretty good. Except I hurt my tooth last night. I mean, I really hurt it.”

“What happened?”

“I fell off my bike.”

“You fell off?”

“Someone hit me.”

“You should get someone to look at it. You shouldn't mess around with your teeth, Jack. When's the last time you went to the dentist?”

“I don't know. Maybe a couple years. Four or five.”

“Why don't you go see Ray?” Ray being Jack's second stepfather.

“I don't know. I haven't talked to him in a long time.”

“He's very good. And you wouldn't have to pay him anything.”

“I really don't talk to him anymore. I mean, my mom … They're divorced now.”

“I'm sure he'd take a look at it.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“Okay.”

“How's your mother doing? I heard she got remarried again.”

“She did.”

“Yikes. Fourth time's a charm?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Well, call my receptionist and let's schedule lunch together sometime. I haven't seen you in a while. We need to catch up.”

“Sounds good,” and Jack hangs up the phone and wonders what he is so afraid of. Why doesn't he want to talk with his stepfather about what's going on? And then he holds his hand to the side of his mouth just above his sore tooth and groans out loud.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A DENTAL APPOINTMENT.

Off he goes to his second stepfather's dental office on Monday and looks at the lobby directory which lists Ray's practice on the third floor. Jack takes the stairs because the elevator is out of order and he carefully opens the glass door and enters the office. The waiting room is beige. The magazines on the dark wood table all have to do with golf. Jack takes off his gloves and hat and signs his name at the front desk. The receptionist, a radically beautiful young woman with long white-blond hair, holds a black phone to her ear and smiles.

“I'm here to see Dr. Ray,” Jack says. “My last name is Blevins.”

“I'll see if he's available. Please have a seat.”

Jack takes a seat, directly across from a good-looking girl in a dark turtleneck, who is flipping through a glossy magazine. The girl is maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years old. Jack watches her for a moment. She nods at him and smiles a curt little smile, which is just enough as she has the most darling dimples he has ever seen.