Run Away Baby (2 page)

Abby’s first day at Lorbmeer, Messdiem & Miller, a receptionist named Danielle showed her to her office. It was an interior room without windows, and it appeared to be the resting place of unwanted furniture and decor. The desk was massive, made of dark wood with a slab of thick glass on the top of it. Old ticket stubs from sporting events were preserved beneath the glass. A variety of mismatched filing cabinets were lined along one wall. A midcentury painting of a sailboat hung beside an oil-painted meadow in a Baroque-style frame.

“I wasn’t expecting an office,” she told Danielle. There were still-damp furniture polish streaks on the credenza, and fresh vacuum zigzags on the cushy Turkish rug that took up half the room.

“It’s been vacant, so I guess they thought why not give it to you,” Danielle said as she picked up the furniture polish and dust cloth that were sitting by the door and set them out in the hallway, as if the mere sight of them might set off Abby.

“Is Clark around?”

“Mr. Lorbmeer is in Tallahassee. Do you need to speak with him?”

“No. I was going to thank him.”

Danielle gave Abby a blank look.

“For giving me this job,” she said.

“We need these to be folded,” Danielle said, placing a stack of papers on Abby’s desk, “and then they can go in envelopes like these, and when you’ve done all this I’ll show you how to use the postage machine.”

“Okay.”

“If you want any of this furniture out of here, or if you need me to order a different chair for you or something, let me know.”

“Okay,” said Abby.

“Open or closed?” Danielle asked, standing in the doorway with her hand on the doorknob.

“Open is fine.”

Danielle nodded, closing the door halfway despite what Abby had said. Abby looked around, listening to Danielle click-tapping away. In front of her was a folder. She opened it and read her welcome letter. It informed her, among other things, that she would be making $28 an hour. She had no idea if that was normal or not. It seemed like a lot to fold papers and stuff envelopes. She had another letter just like this, but printed onto regular copy paper, in her briefcase. She picked up the briefcase and pushed the sliding fasteners together. It unlatched itself and opened before her eyes like a magic trick. The briefcase was rich reddish brown leather and had her initials embossed on the front of it in uniform block letters, each the same size: ALG. She hated her initials. They made her think of algae and, of course, Papa Rottzy.

Once upon a time she had been ALT. Or ATL with the T being bigger, on the front of her Christmas sweater from third grade. Abigail L. Temperley. She had liked her initials back then. And she’d liked the way her future was a mystery, filled with hope and potential. That was a million years ago.

Randall had brought the briefcase home for her the evening she found out about her return to the working world. He’d carried it beneath his arm like an afterthought football. It had a yellow bow on it and a little card tucked beneath the ribbon that said
Congrats! You’ve earned it!
The card was signed inside with a scrawly
R
that she could tell Randall had actually taken the time to sign himself. When Krissa signed things for him the R leaned the same way, but it had the stilted look of something that has been traced. This monogrammed briefcase was the reason Krissa had asked her what her middle name was earlier that day.

Inside were the few things she’d brought from home to help her settle in. A little mirror to keep in her desk drawer so she could check her teeth if she ate something. A pack of gum. A small tube of hand lotion for gardeners, despite that she’d never gardened. And a silver framed photo of her and Randall having a grand old time in Fiji. She had brought this at his suggestion. They looked like movie stars. Randall like someone who would play a mobster or some aging psychopath. Abby like a regular movie star. It had been taken a year earlier.

She put away the mirror, gum, and lotion, and placed the picture on her desk. She was bored already, wondering what she was missing on
The View
. She began folding papers.

An hour into her day Danielle knocked on her door.

“Hi,” Abby said, glad for the interruption. “Come in.”

“Just seeing how you’re coming.”

“I’ve made a little dent in these papers,” she told Danielle.

“I see that. You can fold a few at a time, you know.”

“Maybe I’ll try that next time after I get the hang of it this way.”

“Or you could try it starting now,” said Danielle. “If you folded a stack of two, it would go twice as fast. If you folded a stack of three, it would be three times as fast.”

“Yeah, maybe. So… What exactly are these?” Abby asked, actually looking at one of the papers for the first time. Up until this point she’d been mindlessly folding.

“They’re invoices.” Danielle came over and took a look. “Uh oh. You’re going to have to redo these.”

“Why?”

“You need to fold them so the address is on the outside. It needs to match up with the little window on the envelope.”

“Oh no. You’re kidding,” Abby said. “Why didn’t you tell me that’s how it worked?”

“I didn’t realize I had to.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll start over. Can you do one for me so I can see how it’s supposed to look?”

Danielle looked at her like she had to be joking, and then slowly, deliberately, refolded one of Abby’s and stuck it in an envelope. “A sample for you,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Is there anything else you need help with?”

“Could you grab me a cup of coffee?” Abby asked.

“Sure thing,” Danielle said, disappearing and reappearing two efficient minutes later with a small tray holding a cup of coffee, sugar, cream, napkins, stir sticks, and a small insulated pot filled with another two or three cups worth.

Abby couldn’t bring herself to drink any. She was sure Danielle had spat in it.

“Why exactly am I working again?” Abby asked Randall that night over dinner. They were at Jacque’s, sitting at their usual table. It overlooked the water, and tonight, at Randall’s request, the sliding glass wall in front of them had been left open to allow the cool ocean air into the restaurant. Dinner at Jacque’s usually cost between $200 and $250, depending on how much Randall drank. By this point Abby didn’t even notice how special it was supposed to be.

“It’s going to save us on our insurance,” Randall said. His mouth was full of lobster. Butter was dribbling down his chin.

“I did a terrible job today. Terrible. I’m an idiot.”

“Oh Sugartitties, it couldn’t have been that bad. Pass me a cheddar scone.”

She handed the whole basket of mini scones to Randall. He broke one in half and used it like a sponge to suck up the butter from his chin, and then he popped it into his mouth. The other half he crumbled in his hands and sprinkled like some seasoning powder over his baked potato. She watched this with no expression on her face.

“How’s everything here?” asked the waitress as she topped off their glasses of lemon water.

“Lovely,” said Abby.

Randall nodded.

“So,” Abby said, after their waitress had gone away, “the receptionist had me folding invoices and I didn’t even realize how they worked. Like, they have people’s addresses on them, and you have to match this little section of address up perfectly with the envelopes. They’re like a matching set, only you have to get them folded just
so,
or the address is too high or too low in the window and it doesn’t work right. You know what I mean, right?”

Randall nodded and took a big drink of his wine spritzer. His face was red and covered with beads of sweat. More and more often these days, dinner was becoming something like an aerobic workout for him. He’d grunt, pant, sweat, huff, puff. Abby often wondered if he might die sometime when they were eating. Right here, right at Jacque’s, at their table overlooking the sea. Klonk. She could picture it perfectly.

“Here you go,” she said, sliding a dish of butter over to him. Did he think it was strange that she ordered a side of butter and a side of sour cream with every dish she got, and then eventually passed it to him?

“You’re a smart girl,” Randall said. “You’ll get the hang of it.” This was Randall’s way: Only if she put herself down would he boost her up. Only if she had low, childish, non-threatening goals would he cheer her on. Of course she recognized that folding invoices and stuffing them in envelopes was pretty damn easy, but she was rusty at life.

“Do I have to stick with this?” she asked. “I’ve wanted a job for years. A real job. Something to do with my education. Now, it finally happens but it’s doing something I hate, that I’m terrible at it.”

He was too busy eating to answer her.

“Can’t I get a job doing something else?”

His mouth still full, he shook his head.

“Well then, do I have to go back there?”

He nodded.

“Why?” This would be her final act of disobedience. She knew him well enough to know that he was on the edge of getting angry.

He took a drink of water and set the glass back down on the table with force, but with enough restraint not to draw attention to them. “I’m not going to have those motherfuckers in the factory getting a better deal on insurance than we get. What kind of fool would that make me?”

The summer before she graduated from college, Abby was home with her family, preparing to go on vacation with them. Her sister Kaitlin had won a singing competition and the grand prize was an all-expenses paid trip for her and her family to the international finals in Copenhagen. The contest was only three days long, but their reward spanned a full week. In this extra time the Temperleys planned to cram in visits to three other countries.

“You know, you can ask him if he’d like to come with us,” Abby’s mother told her a couple of weeks before they were due to leave.

“I’m assuming you mean Derek.”

“Of course that’s who I mean.”

“Why would I want to invite him?”

“Well, you’d only ask him if you wanted to.”

“He couldn’t afford it.”

“We could pay his way. It’s not too late to buy him a ticket. I talked to your dad about this. He thought it’d be fine too.”

“We’re not together anymore. For real. It’s over,” Abby said.

Abby’s mother shrugged. “Never mind then. I was just putting the possibility out there, in case you were thinking you wanted him along.”

“We brought out the worst in each other.”

“The best and worst,” said her mom. “Love will do that to you. A bad relationship just brings out the worst.”

“How in the world are you an expert on love? Seriously, Mom.”

“Abby, don’t be rude.”

“If he and I are meant to be, we’ll get back together.”

“It won’t happen if neither of you are willing to back down. I didn’t expect you two to take it this far. It’s been a month.”

“Not quite. It won’t be a month until Sunday.”

“You wouldn’t know that if you didn’t still care about him.”

“Not true.”

“One of you has to give in eventually, or the window of opportunity will close.”

Abby laughed. “Listen to you.”

“I mean it. I think he was the one for you. You got lucky your first time around, and it makes you think that what you two have is normal. But it’s special. And rare.”

“What we
had
. I don’t want to brag, Mom, but lots of guys like me.”

“Well, don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

“As if I would ever say that. Your help is… endless. Like the universe. Like the brown tile in the family room.”

Kaitlin came into the kitchen then. “Listen to this part, and tell me if you like it better the first way I do it or the second.” She’d been singing the same line of
Hallelujah
over and over for weeks.

Abby excused herself and went to her room. She began packing for the trip. She didn’t call Derek.

Hallelujah
was stuck in her head now. The part about the kitchen chair. She sang it while she packed. At this time in her life, Abby was always singing. Like her sister, she got it from their mother.

That fall Abby’s mother called her at college to tell her Derek Johnson was in the local paper’s announcements section. He was engaged to someone named Shelly Riley.

“Do you know this girl?” asked her mother.

“No. Does it say how they met?”

“It doesn’t tell. Her family’s from up in Virginia Beach.”

“I heard he did some kind of environmental trip where he was studying fish or something like that. Maybe he met her through that,” said Abby.

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, Mom.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes! For real.”

“Okay. Well, sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

“I wouldn’t even call it that.”

And she meant it. Good for Derek Johnson. Good for Shelly Riley. They could study fish together. Look at plankton under microscopes. Whatever it was they did. Good for them.

She’d never been without love. It was impossible for her to imagine anything so bleak ever happening to her.