Sometime Soon (21 page)

I recalled what I was doing this
time last year. I’d been painting my living room and bedroom. Alex, the guy I
was seeing at the time, had helped me, though he mostly just sat around,
leaving the actual painting to me. But we had fun, dragging the project out far
longer than required.

I tried to remember what happened
to Alex. It was nothing monumental. I wasn’t really head over heels in love
with him, despite wanting to be. Eventually, he told me that I was a hard person
to feel close to, and the next I knew he was seeing someone else. I wonder if I
truly am hard to feel close to or if he had simply found someone else he wanted
to feel even closer to. I suspect it was a combination of the two.

Since neither Laura nor I inherited
the cooking gene from my mother, I pick up Chinese food on the way home. Tiger
and I go through our usual routine when I come through the door. He is even
more starved for attention than usual because he was home alone for so much of
yesterday. I discard my sweater, my only concession to fall so far, my shorts
and flip-flops are still my wardrobe fixture, and I open the sliding door at
the back of the living room to let in the fresh air and to occupy Tiger while I
organize the plates and silverware for dinner. Tiger can sit for hours in front
of the screen door, his eyes and ears focused like lasers on some object that
is usually invisible to me.

Laura arrives straight from work,
wearing the blouse and slacks that are her uniform. She has them in all kinds
of mix and match colors. “Do I smell Chinese?” she asks coming through the
door, dropping her briefcase in the entryway.

“Sesame chicken and Mongolian
beef,”

After some bustling around, finding
serving spoons and trading food cartons, we’re finally settled in with at least
a few bites of food in our stomachs. Tiger chooses that moment to hop up on the
table and sniff at my plate. He’s a very picky eater when it comes to human
food, but he does like to stick his twitchy pink nose into everything first
before he makes up his mind about it.

Laura points her fork at him. “He’d
better not come over here and do that to my plate.”

“But he loves you,” I tell her
innocently.

 “He can love me from a
distance.”

When Tiger makes a move toward
Laura’s side of the table, I put down my silverware and lift him down to the
ground, gently nudging him back toward the slider.

“Okay,” Laura begins, “Now what
were we saying earlier about Katie and Mike? He told her he was in Chicago, but
really he had packed a bag and gone to New York?”

I laugh, snort really. “No, you’re
all mixed up.”

“That’s what you told me,” she
complains.

As we finish our dinners, I
untangle the story and relate the details of my previous evening to Laura.

“Wow, you had your first fight on
your second date,” she says in awe. “That must be some kind of record.”

“It might have been our third date
actually, but it was our first and last fight,” I reply, surveying the empty
food cartons and the brown-colored remnants of sauce now congealing on our plates.

“Do you think he could have gotten
confused, saying New York instead of Chicago?”

I shrug.

“You wouldn’t call him? To clear
the air maybe?”

“How can I? I still don’t know if
he was lying to me or not? Maybe Chicago is just the tip of the iceberg. Maybe
he’s lied about lots of things. Maybe he doesn’t even have his own startup
business?”

Laura offers me a skeptical scowl.
“How exactly did you ask him about the discrepancy?”

“I just asked him where he was last
week when we were heading out to our cars.”

“Did you ask him in an accusing
tone?
I replay the scene in my head trying hard not to visibly cringe. I’ve already
played it over and over again, changing my tone, changing my words, changing
his reaction, all for the purpose of a better outcome, to the point where I can
barely recall what actually occurred anymore. “I don’t think I was accusing,
just clarifying.”

“Explain clarifying.”

“Look Laura, I pointed out to him
that in his message he said he was in New York, while at dinner he said he was
in Chicago. I probably didn’t hide the fact that it occurred to me he might be
lying. I don’t know why he would lie. What difference does it make to me where
he was?”

“Unless his web of lies is so
tangled, he gets confused himself,” she suggests, either playing along or
mocking me now.

“Exactly,” I nod.

“Give me a break,” she laughs.

“The fact is, if he’d made an
honest mistake, why did he get so mad at me? He should have realized it wasn’t
unreasonable for me to question him. It doesn’t matter anyway. He knows I
wasn’t happy when he forgot about our last date. Now I’ve accused him of lying,
too. It’s done. There’s no point talking about it anymore.”

Laura nods at me. “He probably
thinks you’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

I frown at her as I stand up to clear
the dishes.

“Just saying.”

We work together to finish
clearing. Then Laura leans against the counter, watching me, while I load the
dishwasher. “I think you let past experiences jade you. You expect every guy to
be a jerk sooner or later.”

I don’t respond to this. It’s
something I’ve thought of myself.

“Speaking of jerks, do you think
Mike is gone for good?” she asks.

“I have no idea, but I hate him for
putting Katie through this.”

“Some people make their beds.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say. I know what you and Jonathan think.
Actually, she admitted to me that she was fooling herself about the state of
things with him. I still don’t get it. She’s beautiful and smart. She could be
with anyone.”

Laura catches my eye and stares
pointedly.

“What?”

She just continues staring.

“You have Mongolian beef on your
chin,” I tell her.

Her hand flies up to her face.
“Where?” She spins around and goes to check in the bathroom mirror. “By the
way, have you heard from David yet?” She asks this casually when she returns,
wiping her chin with a tissue, as though she isn’t stepping into a minefield.

“No,” I reply flatly. Then, I
remember.

“What?”

“I might have, actually. I got a
message last night from a number I didn’t recognize. I forgot to listen to it.”

“Oh, that could be him. Why don’t
you check?”

I turn impatient eyes on her. “I
will. Later.”

“Fine. Anyway, I was thinking.”

I close the dishwasher and listen.

“Blind dates can be so awkward,”
she continues, worrying the collar of her blouse as she speaks. “Maybe the four
of us could go out together this weekend?”

I shake my head and laugh.

“What?”

“I don’t even get twenty-four hours
notice?”
            “For what?
To mope and worry. David is a great guy, and someone is going to snap him up if
you don’t.”

“Then why haven’t they already?”

This stumps her.

“I need a dating vacation,” I
state, wiping at the counter with a dishcloth.

“You don’t need a dating vacation.
You need to date better guys and stop finding fault with everyone.”

“I’m not finding faults that aren’t
there. Would you overlook the things I’ve told you?”

“Not the way you describe them. You
do seem to be having some seriously bad luck lately.”

I put the cloth down and move into the
living room where I then pick up Tiger as a self-defense measure and cradle him
in front of me.

“This isn’t a big deal, Andy.”
Laura follows and stands before me now, but not as close as she might be if I
wasn’t using Tiger as a feline shield. “You’re making too much of this. We’ll
go out, have some drinks, eat some dinner, and you’ll see if you and David hit
it off. He’s a nice guy. I can guarantee that if you go out with him we won’t
be having discussions about how bad the bad thing he did was.”

My eyes dart from Tiger to Laura
and back again. “Fine,” I say.

Laura blinks at me. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Her posture relaxes. “Geez Andy,
you’re a lot of work.”

I could get mad about at that
comment, but I decide to let it go. In fact, to prove that I can be less
reticent, I go to my cell phone and listen to my message. It is from David
Rose. He introduces himself and tells me he’s gotten my number from Laura. His
voice sounds very young, almost pubescent in the message. I turn to Laura. “You
can tell him that I got his message, and I’ll see him this weekend in
accordance with your plans,” I instruct her. “That is, if he hasn’t been
snapped up yet.”

“You’re not going to call him
back?”

“What if the conversation doesn’t
go well? Can I cancel?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Fine.
I’ll call him.”

I smile with satisfaction, although
I’m not sure why. If this isn’t a complete disaster, it’s likely to be at least
somewhat unpleasant.

The announcement is delivered by
email on Friday morning. The subject line is “Department News.” The ding tone,
signaling that a new email has arrived, sounds in Nate’s Inbox just seconds
after it sounds in mine. I scan the text for my name. At the bottom, following
the preliminary buttering up paragraphs about what a great job the department
and everyone in it are doing, are my name and another name I don’t recognize.
According to the key paragraph buried at the bottom, everything is wonderful,
but they’re changing it all anyway. This means that I and some guy named Jack
Hoffenmeyer from Napa Networks are now project leads on wireless security.

“Did you know about this?” Nate
asks.

I turn to find him half facing me,
his hand still resting on his mouse. His T-shirt says
I used to be a people
person...but people ruined that for me
.

I nod. “Rob told me the other day.
I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”

Nate turns back to his monitor and
scans the email again.

“The good news is, we’re being
reorganized rather than laid off,” I announce brightly.

Nate wears a confused expression.
“Does this mean that I work for you now?”

“No.” I shake my head vigorously.
“This only means that project work goes through me. Technically, we all still
work for Rob. I just have an extra job to do now, which I’m not getting paid
for, by the way. In fact, the details are pretty sketchy. I really don’t have
any idea what being a project lead entails yet.”  

He thinks about this. “No extra
pay, huh?”

I probably shouldn’t be talking
about pay, but I knew he would zero in on that once I said it. I guess I’m
trying to lessen the blow. I also understand that he won’t pat me on the back
and congratulate me. I’m playing this by ear, basing my responses on his
reactions. So far, my instincts are telling me that keeping Nate’s friendship
and camaraderie mean playing down my new position. Not because he’s a mean or
jealous person, but because he is a completely insecure one.

“So, you’re just kind of organizing
things for Rob?” he asks, a tinge of hopefulness in his voice.

“I guess you could say that,” I
answer carefully. He’s making me sound like a secretary now. I’ll happily stop
playing this down if he takes that theme too far.

Something seems to click in Nate’s
head, and his posture relaxes. “That probably means you’ll have to spend a lot
more time with Rob. Are you sure this isn’t some kind of punishment?”

I relax, too. “That hadn’t occurred
to me. I’d better keep current with
The Bachelor
. Watching it may become
a job requirement.”

He winces. “And when that ends
American
Idol
starts, and that show is on practically every night. Your life is
over.”

Nate is right. Rob moves on to
American
Idol
in the winter, justifying that obsession by claiming it’s the only show
he feels comfortable letting his kids watch with him. Of course, his
justification for
The Bachelor
is the entertainment value provided by
dozens of desperate single women. Let’s face it, who doesn’t want to witness
other people’s desperation?

As the day wears on, my Inbox fills
with congratulatory emails from my coworkers. Because everyone copies the
entire department on their congratulatory emails using the department alias
from the original email, everyone I work with, and many I don’t, receive these
emails. Once everyone jumps on that bandwagon, doing so because they don’t want
to be the only person not to send me a congratulatory email, it quickly becomes
an annoyance. Eventually it degrades into requests from the suffering
email-choked masses to stop copying the entire department when congratulating
me. Bottom line, my first accomplishment as project lead is to indirectly
irritate half the company.

“It’s all arranged. I got us a
reservation at Café Blue.”
I groan.

“This is going to be so much fun,”
Laura exclaims.

“Uh-huh,” I say, turning the
corner, nearly home. Laura’s excitement is amusing. She’s attempted to fix me
up many times with various single men she’s met through work or through
Jonathan, but for some reason it never comes to pass. Either the guy in
question turns out to be gay, or he takes my number but never uses it, or he
declines the offer entirely. She sounds absolutely giddy at her very first
success. Knowing her, she’s already imagining our new chummy foursome attending
the theater together, hanging out at each other’s homes on weekends, planning
Caribbean vacations.

 “We’ll all meet here at
seven-thirty for drinks, and then we can head to the restaurant.”

“Sounds good,” I answer. I’m now in
my driveway. “I’ve got to run.”

“What are you going to wear?” she
asks.

“I don’t know, a skirt I guess or
maybe pants if it’s cold.”