My American Unhappiness (18 page)

"Double-cap, low foam," I whisper.

Minn smiles and looks at the man, waiting. He looks up at the menu board.

"Double-cap, low foam," he says. "And a chocolate chip cookie, to go."

Minn makes the drink and packages up the cookie while I look at the CDs. She seems impressed, and she opens her mouth wide when the yellow-capped man walks out into the evening.

"Holy shit," she says, laughing.

"I missed the cookie," I say.

Then she lowers her voice. A white-haired man is typing away on a laptop, glowering in the corner. I stare at the man and he returns to his busy typing. He looks familiar, as if he could be the man from the bookstore. Or he could just be a random old man desperately trying to finish his memoir before his first stroke. It's hard to know, and either way, I don't care. I'm here to see Minn, Farnsworth and Morris and the federal auditors be damned.

"Seriously, how do you do that?" Minn says.

"Intuition. I'm never wrong," I say.

"Well, I'm glad you're here. You're a special customer."

"Am I?"

"Nobody else can guess drinks like you can. I'm so glad you came into my new store."

"I'm not sure if I am correctly guessing the customers' desire," I say, "or if, in the act of guessing, I subconsciously suggest to them what they would like to order."

"Either way," she says. "Fucking-ay."

It is an expression of hers I find most likable, just the right blend of the vulgar and the folksy.

The next customer comes in and poses a rather difficult dilemma: he is a tall, thin man with gray hair and white skin, a little on the emaciated side, which could mean one of two things—either he is a vegan who does yoga and takes frequent walks, or he is a wired workaholic who subsists almost entirely on caffeinated beverages and cigarettes and never goes outside.

I guess the former and whisper my guess: decaffeinated soy latte.

"Wow!" Minn says when the man orders exactly as I had predicted.

"Pardon?" the man says.

"Oh, nothing," Minn says.

Another lull in the evening's business, and I lean into the counter again.

"Do you have a minute today?" I say. "I want to ask you something."

But the window just sits there, open, letting in flies, and Minn does not go through it. So I start talking again, not ready to order my beverage and let the conversation end.

"So did you ask for a transfer?" I ask.

"I didn't ask for a transfer," Minn says. "They kind of made me transfer."

"Wallace told me you asked for a transfer."

"That's what they made me tell people," she whispers. "They don't like word to get out about
underperformers
." She has a great voice for whispering. Damn. "But it was a no-brainer, really. It was a big raise."

"Good," I say.

Minn leans in close over the counter and whispers, "Four extra bucks an hour, provided I start eee-fucking-mediately, and that's why I took it. I need that money. That's a huge raise."

"That is," I say.

"Are you okay?" she says.

This is the sort of question that can shift the relationship from one of service worker and customer to one of true friendship. I pause, grateful to have been asked, weighing the best response, and then I say, simply, "I'm a bit troubled."

"Umm," she says, a sort of low moan of concern, vaguely sexual in nature. "Look, I have a break in"—she looks up at the clock behind her—"sixteen minutes. Do you want to grab a bite with me? We can go to the Noodles next door."

"That would be lovely," I say, my heart twittering. "I'll go and get us a seat."

The restaurant is not full. Two families dine nearby, the parents looking exhausted in their now-rumpled business attire, the children hopped up on the unlimited refills of corn syrup-laden sodas and the rush of carbohydrates. In addition to the families, there are several single, solitary diners, all of them in their mid-thirties, all of them wearing nice but uninspired business attire. They are reading free newspapers and fiddling with BlackBerries and cell phones, eating from large white bowls that look vaguely Asian in their design, but undoubtedly American in their girth and depth. These are the sales reps away from home, killing time before they retire to their nonsmoking rooms at the Country Inn & Suites. These are the single software engineers who have worked too late again, who have not gone grocery shopping in weeks, and who simply want to eat something dense and heavy that will help them fall asleep on the couch moments after getting in the door of their drab apartments with the new carpet. These are the recently divorced marketing specialists and law clerks, still not used to living in solitude and silence, longing for more social engagements—book clubs, Ultimate Frisbee leagues, open mike nights—to fill their barren evenings. This is the collective pulse of unhappy America, right there in the Noodles at six forty-eight in suburban Madison, Wisconsin. These are the people that I don't want to become. Oh, I think they have beautiful souls, all of that aimless yearning, all of that buried itch—but I know that is where I am headed; if I am not married in time, my own canvas will be a vast tableau of loneliness and banality, and I am terrified.

Minn has just walked into the restaurant and is looking from single diner to single diner until her eyes stop on me. She smiles.

We have to eat fast. She does not have a great deal of time and, in fact, has called an order in ahead so that it would be ready. She has taken the liberty of ordering for me—a giant bowl of macaroni and cheese—and she has ordered some whole-wheat Mediterranean pasta for herself.

The food is brought to our table by a slender young girl in a visor and knit shirt, and then Minn looks over the whole ensemble, which I admit looks quite pleasing, and she says, "I'm so sick of eating here. Fucking-ay."

"You come here often?" I ask.

"My apartment is just across the street."

"Then this transfer is a convenient one?"

"Well, yes. But I like to work downtown. I would live downtown if I could afford it, but I can't. So I like to at least work there."

"But you also ate at Noodles downtown," I said.

"I'm in a rut," she says.

"We all are," I say, "after the last eight years."

"I know, right? I'm so excited for the election, aren't you?"

"I try not to put hope in politicians," I say.

"I get that," she says.

"But Mr. Obama is hard to resist."

"I know. Right?"

"Right. I imagine. Have you ever considered a career in the public humanities?"

"No, can't say that I have, Zeke."

"I want to offer you a job," I say. I'm not sure why I say this now, but it occurs to me that my organization is ready for a change, and what better way to have somebody fall in love with you, swiftly, than to spend eight or nine hours a day together, working tirelessly and idealistically on a project that helps to build a better, more thoughtful world?

"At the humanities commission? Is that where you work?"

"The Great Midwestern Humanities Initiative. I'm the director."

"What do you do there?"

"It's complicated. But you seem so bright, and smart, and efficient. You provide excellent customer service, and, well, I just think you'd be very good at this."

"Seriously?" she says.

"Yes. I can start you at forty thousand. Plus benefits."

"That's it? This is a job offer?"

Her spine straightens and she sets down her fork, as if she is preparing to bolt for the front door.

"Fucking-ay," she says. Then she looks over my shoulder at the wall. "Wow. I'm sorry, but I have to go, Zeke. I'm already late. Can I think about this?"

"Sure," I say.

We stand. She juts her left hip out at me a little bit, hangs her thumbs from the waistband of her pants, exposing just a sliver of lovely pale midriff.

"You aren't just making all of this up in order to impress me, are you?"

"What? My God, no!"

"Because it sounds like a good job for me. But, but, it's also obvious that you're attracted to me."

"It is?" I say.

She leans in closer and whispers, "You have had a crush on me for three years, Zeke. I know when a customer has a crush on me. It's one of the only thrilling—and sometimes creepy—parts of my job."

I blush and sit down in my chair, my hand on my face.

"Has it really been that long?"

"I knew it!" she says, pointing at me with her fork so that a tiny piece of black olive hits me in the chest. She is smiling, excited.

"Hey. Do you want to get a drink tonight?" she says. "I get off at ten o'clock. We can talk about this job thing, if you're really serious."

"I am!"

"Meet me in the parking lot, here. Or is that too late for a meeting?"

I nod. "No, it's perfect. I often work late into the night."

"You know, you could just ask me out on a date," she says. "You don't need to hire me to spend time with me."

It strikes me as an incredibly confident thing to say, and it strikes me that Minn would be just the sort of woman who might, in fact, make a rapid decision to marry me and help me raise two adopted seven-year-old daughters.

I know I am ahead of myself, but there is significant joy in my heart. Minn almost skips out the door. Nothing is as uplifting as two people aflutter with the possibility of a new friendship. I struggle to keep my mind right there in the blissful moment. I try not to flood my mind with images of our first home, shopping at Target, her belly full and pregnant; later, a baby resting in her arms as I rub her shoulders. Slow down, Zeke. Slow down!

But did you not see the giddiness with which she leapt from the table? Did you not hear the joy in her voice when she pointed a fork at me and shouted:
I knew it?

Minn Koltes, neighborhood barista, is now a prospect. I'm so excited, I almost forget about the engagement ring she wears on her finger.

I spend the rest of the evening watching Minn go about her work as I sit in the corner of the Starbucks and read the
New York Times.
As I read about the health care crisis, the devalued dollar, the continuing drop in employment rates, it is easy for me to forget about my unsettling visit from Farnsworth and Morris, as well as the confusing encounter I had afterward, at the bookstore with Joseph and Mack. Reading about the general woes of the world has always helped me forget about my specific, personal ones. Every so often, I look up from my newspaper, sip on my Americano, and catch Minn's eyes as she efficiently mans the Starbucks drive-through. When our eyes meet, she smiles, a warm and wide smile that I can only describe as hungry.

At the strip mall in Fitchburg, I have twenty minutes or so to kill while Minn closes down Starbucks for the night, putting the deposit bag into the safe and cleaning the restrooms. While she does this, I wander up and down the sidewalk of the strip mall—actually it's called New Prairie Lifestyle Center, and it houses the Starbucks, several "upscale" fast-food eateries, a boutique fitness center for women, a stationery store, a store called The Faithful Gardener (which sells gardening supplies and inspirational books), and Colonel J. D. Fitch's South Side Brew Pub, a vast warehouselike cavern at the end of the center. I decide that I might be well served by a quick vodka tonic—a personality drink, if you will—and start walking toward the large neon beer signs that are ablaze in Colonel Fitch's floor-to-ceiling windows.

In the center window of Colonel J. D. Fitch's, at a high table surrounded by five high stools, a group of middle-aged professionals is sharing a large deluxe platter of nachos. They drink pints of beer and I pause for a moment to consider the nachos; they look good, and I am suddenly hungry and think that it might be fun to take Minn somewhere loud and open like this suburban fern bar. We could sit back in a corner booth and make smug comments about the earnestness of the place, the absurdity of the wait staff, the mundane music, and the questionable fashion sense at work among the bar's patrons.

Apparently, I have stared at the nachos in the window a little too long, I suppose, thinking of hunger and of Minn, because when I turn my attention to the five people dining in said window seat, I realize that they are looking at me without really looking.

There are two men and three women at the table. The two men are looking at me now. The women sort of seem oblivious to me, all of them laughing, weighted by too much hair, too much makeup, tank tops with the zealous sparkle and flesh-baring cuts more suited to sixteen-year-olds. The men are both in their forties and are wearing the sort of wrinkled dress shirts and loosened ties that speak of a long, hard day doing something not at all meaningful. Neither of them will break eye contact with me. The taller of the two offers me a smile, while the shorter, darker, stockier of the two is glaring at me, holding his beer in one hand, his other hand spread out wide on the table before him. It takes me a minute to place the men, because, truth be told, they look like just about every other single man in the bar. But then it dawns on me like an anvil. This is Farnsworth and Morris, the two men from the federal government who stopped by my office earlier in the afternoon. I had not recognized them in this innocuous and insipid context. How did I miss them?

I decide that I must confront these people. I have to find out exactly what is going on here; it will do me no good to sit back and wonder what I am up against. Have they followed me here?

Still, just as I harden, become a web of tensed and sinewy muscles pumped full of adrenaline, someone touches my arm. Minn! Oh, Minn. The warmth from her fingertips seems to push through the pores of my skin; my racing heart slows. I can smell her—the sweetness of coffee, lotion, antibacterial cleaning products used at closing time at Starbucks—and I decide that no confrontation is worth it. Nothing should risk what I may be about to begin with this lovely, dark-haired barista, whom I have admired from afar for a long, long time.

We walk away from the window of the bar.

"Do you want to have a drink?" I ask.

"You don't want to go in there, do you?" Minn says.