Sputterpub's Blog

Lesley has always been gay, but Sam, who describes herself as bisexual, had only been with one other woman before Lesley. And she’s been with men ever since they broke up: three different relationships in ten months. Lesley now considers Sam a tourist.

Among other things. It has been nearly a year, but she continues to think of Sam when she rises in the morning and before she goes to sleep at night. She fantasizes about Sam’s clean blonde hair; she agonizes about the sweet spot where her long neck meets the angle of her shoulders. Her mind cycles through nouns: bitch, beloved, fool, friend, freak. She still can’t believe that Sam would throw away all their potential, their shared planned cat-cozy home and bicoastal future, and offer up no explanation other than exasperation.

When pushed, Sam resisted using words about it. She kept saying sentences were useless, and that only time would provide the perspective they both needed to understand. But Lesley was gently relentless. She left voicemail invitations to coffee and e-mail notes about talk. She forwarded jokes and sent candy. She even had me intercede. Finally Sam agreed to meet at the Starbucks closest to her apartment.

She told Lesley she couldn’t handle the way Lesley never directly answered any question. She said that because Lesley never said what she wanted, the full burden of their emotional relationship fell on Sam. Lesley listened intently (I can imagine her, leaning forward above the table and drumming the fingers of her right hand on her denim-clad knee). She said she could change and she probably sat back with that look of uncertainty in her eyes. Then Sam told her not to bother; it wouldn’t matter. She just didn’t love Lesley any more. That was eight months ago.

Lesley told me all that, but she said she isn’t accepting it. As passive as she can be, she insists that she and Sam just need more time.

She saw Sam yesterday. We took a walk today and she told me about it.

She’d been having a shitty day. She spoke to her sister in the morning and learned that her brother Ben was back in rehab. Then she accidentally broke her favorite coffee mug while talking to Ellie on the phone, which experience made their regular Saturday chat even less satisfying than usual for Lesley. Finally, when she started to make the chowder she’d agreed to bring to the book group pot luck, she found she was missing two vital ingredients, and she had to venture out, in the rain, to Safeway on a weekend afternoon.

She says she should have known she was headed for no fun. She’d certainly had enough karmic clues.

She rounded the aisle to the baking goods and was shocked to see Sam. The love of her life was about 30 feet ahead of her and coming her way, but she was with someone. Lesley turned and made for the adjacent aisle before Sam recognized her, but she took the vision with her like it was etched in her brain. Sam in jeans and a V-necked shirt, hair down, pushing a cart with a tall, dark-haired man, twining her arm in his and looking full up at him the way Lesley remembered.

It became Lesley’s mission to get out of that store without being noticed. She fetched the needed items like a gumshoe on someone’s tail and she selected the checkout line farthest from the area where she’d seen Sam. Her one break all day was that the line moved quickly.

She admits she was nervous and agitated when she got to the cashier. Her total came to $5.61 and she handed over a ten without thinking. Then she realized she’d reduce the currency in her pocket if she gave the cashier a single, and the cashier exhibited a little attitude about having to re-address the change drawer. Maybe the cashier wasn’t having a good day either. The fact is, instead of putting the five dollar bill and the change in Lesley’s hand, she laid the currency on the counter between them and dropped the coins – 3 dimes, a nickel, and 4 pennies – on and around the bill.

Lesley has well-trimmed nails. It was difficult for her to pry those coins off the smooth surface. She says she doesn’t know what came over her. She was conscious but it was almost like a momentary blackout. She picked up the coins with her right hand and the bill with her left, and then she hurled the change at the cashier.

She grabbed her bag and stomped out of the Safeway. The cashier voiced a “Hey!” behind her but did nothing else. Lesley was quite upset going home.

That was her report. I couldn’t not do anything. Once again, there was a necessary task before me and no one else around to do it. And maybe I’m the appropriate choice anyway. Lesley’s issues go back to the accident, and since my older brother Bill was the driver, I certainly understand all that. And of course I know Sam. I introduced them. Sam and I were together in college and for three years after. I can speak with authority about her. Gently.

I’d like to be gentle, approachable, sweet. But I can’t help myself: I’m always aware of how precious my existence is, and freshly determined to make the most of it, and I’m often the only person present who seems to even see the tasks lying on the floor before us like tackle for the horses, and who must therefore hoist the leather to my shoulders with a resigned familiar sigh, and saddle the steed, and ride.

It’s not so much that I want the work. I just understand that it needs to be done, and there’s no one else stepping up to do it.

My big question is: do the others see it and pretend they don’t, like when people cut into a line and act like others aren’t there? Or is the invitation to action really invisible to them?

“I’m so co-dependent,” my friend Lesley said sheepishly, confessing as if she understood the term. But she was referring to her custom of calling Ellie regularly, just to check on her. Lesley is the middle child in a large addictive family, and she has long habits of making excuses for her parents’ drinking and her siblings’ food and drugs. She is used to being accommodating and considerate. She’s a cream puff. But she resents it all a little. It’s gotten to where, whenever she gets no joy from doing something for another, she thinks it’s because of a failure in herself. She calls her old friend Ellie once a week but she gets no pleasure from the conversation. So she terms her act of calling “co-dependent.”

Lesley needs to be more selfish. She’s chronically depressed now, and variously medicated. But the world at large, the big audience, finds her attractive.

Her shoulders curve a little when she walks. It isn’t bad posture; it’s almost graceful, receptive. She’s pretty and she smiles often. She is quick to laugh at any joke and she tends to murmur at any narrative. Recently I’ve become aware that I wait for those responses when I make a pun or read her a story.

I worry a little that she might explode. She apologizes for the weather and the traffic. She makes the hotel bed before the chambermaid can get into the room. She bakes cookies and presents them to acquaintances on plates from Pier 1.

But she exhibits little criticisms of everyone. She smiles at strangers and then badmouths them, slightly, and she lavishes consideration on friends but afterwards makes cutting remarks, severely expressed. The strength of her criticism seems proportional to the depth of her love. I’ve seen her make hand gestures, middle finger upthrust or index finger aimed at a gagging tongue, while she’s sugar-sweet on the phone. I’ve watched her caress a visiting in-law and then, a second after departure, complain about the visit and the visitor.

Of course I wonder how deeply Lesley despises me when I leave the room. Who wouldn’t?

She lost a sibling when she was six. Her two-year old brother Will was run over in the next-door driveway. I can still see the harsh headline: “Neighborhood Nightmare – Teenager Accidentally Kills Toddler.” Both families, always friends, were thoroughly devastated (I know – I was there), but Will’s twin Benny was stricken, and in all the attention to him Lesley was overlooked. She suffered especially, because her busy mother had chased her out of the house when she complained of boredom, with a casual and careless assignment to look after the twins. Lesley hadn’t taken the command seriously, and her mother never regarded or remembered it, but afterward Lesley began to slump under the weight of her secret shameful responsibility. It didn’t matter how much we talked. She grew up fearful. She always follows rules.

And to hear her describe it, she and Sam were made for each other.

They met when they were 38. They have the same birthday – September 6th – and that was only one of the many qualities they shared. They both love to read, walk, and drink wine with dinner. They each hate jaywalking and littering, and like cats. They agree that astrology is worth study. It fascinated them that they share a passion for two mismatched vacation spots: Cape Cod and Disneyland.

Physically, though, they’re opposites. Although they are roughly the same five and a half foot height, Sam is slim and Lesley is solid. Lesley wears her dark hair cut short and blow-dried straight. Sam has long, classic, high-maintenance streaked blonde ropes down her back. Lesley is stooped and sedentary while Sam strides with obvious athleticism. Lesley’s face is naked; her nails are short and always clean. Sam is made up if she’s awake, and manicured every week.

Erica watches his mouth as it makes words. She’s still sleepy, and she feels like sinking toward it. “Actually, I don’t eat breakfast. I hope to leave the candy untouched until after lunch.” She considers. “But thanks for the invitation. Maybe we can make it lunch sometime?”

Hank smiles into her eyes. He wonders why he’s asking. He is attracted to Erica but she seems hyper like his mother and type A like his ex. He has been single for awhile now and he thinks he needs a softer woman than the one in front of him.

Erica feels a moment of awkwardness. She looks away from him as he asks, “How about one day next week?”

An elevator door opens and a crowd ahead of them pours into it. They’ll get on the next one. Hank wants to draw her closer to him, but continues, “I don’t have my calendar. Let’s stop at my office and negotiate.”

“Fine. I think I know mine well enough. I certainly know what I’m doing next.”

“Candy?”

“Not hardly. It’s the time of year when we have to evaluate our two clerical employees. I and my two so-called partners attempted that yesterday. One review did not go well. That’s one out of two, so I’m not feeling like any sort of effective manager. I just learned that the employee was ‘sent home’ today, due to emotional stress/illness. As usual, I’m having to handle this alone. The women I call partners only act that way around bonuses.” Erica stops speaking. She doesn’t want to complain. She’s surprised at how willing she apparently is, to speak critically to an almost-stranger about people to whom she should owe, well, discretion if not much else.

Their elevator arrives. They and half a dozen others ride up one floor. Hank guides Erica to the right down the hall and into an exterior office. “You remind me how glad I am to work without employees. On the other hand, I could use a colleague now, when I’m under pressure to produce. Welcome to my place.” He extends his arms out to either side and glances at her.

His office is one large room with a view over Sansome Street. His desk faces the door, but he has a credenza between his chair and the windows; the papers scattered on it show he works in that direction. A large appointment calendar is open on the credenza.

He looks at the calendar. She aims her eyes out the window. He speaks softly as he turns the pages. “Can we make it next Wednesday?”

She takes a step closer to him. “I think that works for me. I can let you know if it doesn’t.”

“Here.” He reaches into a pocket for his card case. “Call me if we need to renegotiate.” Their fingertips touch with the passing of the card. They’re both aware of the touch.

She looks up into his face for a moment. Sometimes, when she leans out over an open window high up, she feels the impulse not to jump but to allow herself to fall. It’s a resistible but surprisingly strong idea. Right now, she feels a similar strong but resistible urge to fall toward his face and kiss his mouth.

“Okay,” she exhales. “I should get back to work. If nothing else, the chocolate calls.”

Hank smiles at her. “Good luck. I’ll see you next week.” She’s at the door, nodding back at him when he adds, “Oh, Erica. What type of chocolate do you like best?”

“Toffee-ettes,” she answers without a pause.

Hank sits for a minute after the door closes. He checks his phone messages: Margo insists on a callback about Tom’s latest misdemeanor and Betsy, who ought to see by now that their little relationship isn’t going anywhere, is still nagging about a weekend opera date. “Oh hell,” Hank mutters. “Chocolate calls,” and he resumes his interrupted quest for a mocha.

One floor below, Hank has just finished drying his hands. He drops a damp paper towel into the opening below the dispenser as he turns toward the door.

In all 5th and 6th floor bathrooms, sirens are whooping. The sound comes from a small red box high on the wall of each room. The same box starts to flash bright lights left and right. Before the voice comes over the PA system, Hank has left the 5th floor men’s and Erica has figured that she better get out of the 6th floor ladies.’ She’s about to enter her office when out of the door file Fran, Linda, and then Beth. Beth makes sure the door is locked behind her, announces that she’s the office fire warden, and directs the others to take the stairs to the 4th floor. Erica hears her ask Fran, “So you sent Evelyn home?”

Erica feels disoriented. She wants her coffee, but it’s locked in the place she’s leaving. She doesn’t understand what happened to Evelyn; is she ill or once again too stressed?

It’s slow going down the stairs. There’s an obese gentlemen with a cane below them, and the gap ahead of him grows as the tenants behind him clump together. Fran tries to lower her normally loud speaking voice. “What about him? What do we do about someone like him if there really is a fire?”

No one answers. As they emerge into the 4th floor hallway, Erica asks Fran about Evelyn, but only hears “…really upset about the talk yesterday” before they’re involved in the chaotic sign-in process, and the even more disorganized wait for an elevator. The stairs in the building are locked from the inside except on the ground. The locking is for fire safety but it means that if one enters the stairwell anywhere, one can only use it to get to the lobby. This situation creates obnoxiousness for tenants above 4, since floors 2, 3 and 4 are used by a large law firm whose employees are forever taking the elevator from one of those floors to another. Now it also means that all of floors 5 and 6 have to wait for elevators to stop on 4 and ferry them one or two stories. No elevator car can take more than 10 people; the aftermath of the fire drill is taking much more time than the drill itself.

In the press of people, Erica is separated from her employees. She gazes around a sea of somewhat familiar faces, and smiles when she spots Hank. At 6½ feet, he’s hard to miss. Erica likes large men and notices them. Hank seems strong, silent. Even though she’s been fooled twice before into mistaking silence for strength, she might have it in her to be foolish again.

Hank has just decided to continue down for his mocha when he sees Erica. He pauses.

Their acquaintance consists of miscellaneous lobby and elevator chats. Small incidents that are mutually gratifying. Each recognizes a spark of humor and personality in the other. They’re favorite strangers.

He smiles at her with his big face. They manage a couple of steps toward one other. When they’re close enough he says, “Fancy finding you here.”

“I had no idea ‘fire alarm test’ meant ‘fire drill!’ If I had, I would have brought my coffee. Hell, I would have brought the pound of See’s candy too. Here I am, caught without breakfast.”

“Maybe we should take an elevator down instead of up. Breakfast?”

Hank has been in his office since 7:30. Now that he lives on Telegraph Hill, he can walk to work in 20 minutes. Now that Tom’s away in college, he has morning responsibilities to no one but himself. Now that Margo has remarried, he rarely has to waste a morning getting hassled about his past inadequacies or current failings. When he wakes early thinking about a project, like today, he’s free to leave his bed, exercise, walk to work. He’s put in almost two and a half hours this morning, and he’s ready for a mocha.

At the same moment, Erica is carrying another pound of candy to the office. She can’t get her co-workers to dance, laugh, or exercise at all, and any one who’s getting sex isn’t getting it in the office, so chocolate is the only remedy they have for stress.

The box in the white bag contains a selected assortment. She picked dark and light bordeaux for Linda, California brittle for Beth, peanut butter squares for Fran, cashew brittle for Evelyn, and toffee-ettes for herself. Most of the candies nest in brown pleated paper, but the toffee-ettes crowd together in white cups; they stand out like twins in bassinets above a floor of rich brown.

Erica carries the package flat on her upright palm as if it’s a small tray. She jaywalks across Sutter and Sansome, looking right for cars and left toward the display on her building. Above the entrance to the ground-floor bank is a message in programmed bulbs. It offers some interest-bearing short-term account to the public, about which Erica never attends. She’s watching for the time and temperature, which always follow “CERTIFICATES/COMPOUND MONTHLY/MEMBER FDIC.” It tells her that in another six minutes it will be 10 am. It considers the temperature to be 68°. Across the street and a block north, the marquee above the Bank of the Orient agrees about the time, but reports 62°. As usual, Erica figures the outside temperature is halfway between the two digital opinions.

Four floors up, Hank stands and stretches. He looks at his Braun coffeemaker and confirms his desire for a specialty drink. He leaves his jacket hanging behind the door as he heads out. He stops first in the men’s room.

With the candy on her left hand and her double cappuccino in her right, Erica opens the building door by pushing a hip against the square handicapped-access button. It makes the far right door move outward toward her. She proceeds to the elevator area, and there reads the marker-on-mapboard sign that someone has placed on an easel. “General Fire Alarm Test Today,” says the first line, with “10 am, Floors 5 and 6” under it. Just then, Linda joins her with the day’s mail, and a familiar female face from their 6th floor steps up to wait with them
.
“Maybe we should just stay here till it’s over,” says the blonde woman whose name neither Linda nor Erica know. She’s referring to the fact that it’s now 9:55. Erica used to avoid these building drills, until lectured one day by a frustrated fireman – she’d blushed then to learn that if there were a fire and she didn’t know how to check in, she’d put first responders in danger while they searched for her in the office she had secretly abandoned. So when an elevator arrives she steps aboard, and the other women accompany her.

Erica’s normal morning procedure includes a stop in the ladies’ room before entering the office. She’s accustomed to positioning her very dry cappuccino at the end of the pull-down shelf in the stall; she has to be careful, for her coffee barely weighs enough to hold the shelf down. But she doesn’t usually have candy with her when she arrives. And she doesn’t usually have Linda. She enters the office instead, puts down her case, her coffee, the candy, her coat, and then visits the bathroom. She’s in an indelicate position when the fire alarm trips.