Say When (5 page)

A
t work, he leaned back in his chair for a moment to rest his eyes and promptly fell asleep. Evelyn woke him up when she came into his office. “Here’s the—Oh! I’m sorry! I was just bringing you the files you asked for. I didn’t mean to—”

He held up his hand, stopped her. “It’s all right. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Do you ever have those nights?”

Evelyn nodded solemnly. Griffin saw the cars in the parking lot outside his window reflected in her bifocals. She was inordinately dependable, never missed a day. She wore mostly pink or gray polyester outfits that were a tribute to modesty. When Ellen once suggested he give her a popular perfume for Christmas, he’d ended up regretting having done so. Evelyn had blushed and looked down, thanking him profusely. She’d rewrapped the gift to take it home. From then on, he’d given her coffee assortments, gift certificates to bookstores and theater complexes. He often wondered how old she was, but didn’t feel he could ask her. “Somewhere between fifty and one hundred,” he’d told Ellen.

“What do you do when you can’t sleep, Evelyn?” he asked now.

She all but pointed to herself, unaccustomed as she was to being asked a personal question by her boss. Then she said, “Well, I read the Bible. The good parts.”

“Uh huh. And what are they?”

Drawing herself up with a kind of dignity, she said, “Some of the passages are so like poetry, and they just make me feel better, Mr. Griffin.”

Ah. He’d offended her. He hadn’t meant to.

“You like poetry, Evelyn?” He tried for a certain sincerity and apparently found it, for Evelyn answered him readily.

“I do!”

“Mary Oliver, people like her?” Griffin asked, thinking,
Please don’t ask me anything about her.

“Oh, yes, Mary Oliver is wonderful, of course. But there are so many! Why, go to any bookstore, find the poetry section, pull any book down, and you’re sure to find
some
thing that…” She smiled. “You know, my favorite book of poetry is one I found at a garage sale. Ten cents for the most lovely collection. Poems about hummingbirds, and voodoo queens, and the streets in New York City. All in one place! I’d be happy to lend it to you, if…” She trailed off, unsure of herself now.

“I’d love to take a look,” Griffin said. “Maybe you could bring it in to work sometime.”

“Tomorrow!”

Griffin forced a smile, then picked up the files she’d brought in.

“Would you like me to hold your calls, Mr. Griffin?”

“Not necessary,” he said. “Nap time’s over.”

He reviewed the papers he’d been given, made a few calls, spent a good forty minutes answering e-mail. Then he picked up the picture of Ellen, sat back in his chair and looked at it. Her forehead was slightly damaged from him tearing the paper—an erratic line moved from her hairline down to one eyebrow. He’d expected to be overwhelmed by pain looking at the photograph, but the truth was, he felt nothing. He remembered when his mother had called to tell him about needing a mastectomy. Her voice had been soothing, calm, and Griffin remembered thinking,
How can she talk? How can she be telling me all this and not be beside herself?
Now he understood. After a while, pain simply stopped. It was as though your mind was able to create a firewall beyond which it would not let you venture. You had to have a break from your anguish, or you’d go crazy. It was the psychological equivalent to fainting when physical pain became overbearing.

He tried to look at the picture as though he’d never met Ellen. She wasn’t so hot. A certain asymmetry of the eyes. Smile crooked. But endearing, nonetheless, with absolutely perfect teeth. And her legs (not shown), they were pretty damn good. And her breasts…His hands began to shake. The thing about the firewall is that it dissolved sometimes, and the pain came back, just like that. Anytime. Anywhere. He stood up against its force, strode out past Evelyn’s desk. “Lunch,” he said, and she nodded without comment. It was 10:37.

He drove to the nearby shopping mall and parked in the very last row, a necessity even though Christmas was many weeks away. Every year, people vowed not to give into the mania, and every year they did anyway. Well, he didn’t mind. He needed the exercise. Maybe he’d join a gym and get into terrific shape. He turned off the ignition, started to slip his gloves on, and then stopped, looking at his wedding ring. Why was he still wearing it? Ellen had taken hers off. Not that this was unusual: Ellen took off her ring every night, and often forgot to put it on during the day. When Griffin had complained about this, she’d said, “Oh, don’t feel bad about that! I’m married to you whether I wear a ring or not. You know I don’t like wearing rings. They bother me.” It was true. Ellen liked other kinds of jewelry, but she’d never liked rings. Funny, then, that she’d had that big one on the other night. Maybe Mr. Camshaft had given it to her. Maybe he had handed her a beautifully wrapped little package and she’d opened it and said, “Ohhhh, it’s beautiful! But you know I can’t wear it.”

Now she could. And now Griffin took off his ring and threw it into the glove compartment. He remembered sitting next to a man on a plane, watching the guy store his wedding ring in a small compartment in his briefcase just before they landed. When the man saw Griffin watching him, he’d smiled, only a little embarrassed. “Might get lucky,” he said. Griffin had wondered, if he took off his ring, would he be approached by one of the hungry-looking women who frequented hotel bars? He had never tried it, had never taken off his ring, in fact, since the day Ellen had put it on his finger. He looked at the place on his finger where the ring had been: no evidence of anything ever having been there. Amazing, in its way.

He put on his gloves, started to close the glove compartment, and then stopped. Why leave the thing in there? Why let Zoe be searching for napkins or salt and find it and say, “Hey, Dad, what’s this doing in here?” Why not just throw the ring away, and then, if Zoe ever noticed it missing, say he’d lost it?

He took the ring, closed the glove compartment, and got out of the car, locked it. He imagined throwing the ring in some mall trash can, amid boxes from Cinnabon and paper cups half full of Coke, amid hamburger wrappings and dirty Kleenex. No. Beside him was an empty field, the snow melted from it, the grass brown and flattened. He flung the ring into the field, watched it land. Then he put his hands in his pockets and headed for the nearest entrance. Cold out here. It was fucking
cold
out here! Why hadn’t they moved to California, as Griffin had wanted to do, years ago? Because Ellen had wanted the seasons, that’s why. Because Ellen had found the changes in nature necessary, instructive. She’d rejoiced every time the first leaf turned, the first snow fell, the first lime green shoot came up in the garden. It was tiresome, her outsized joy at such commonplace events. Although Zoe liked it. Zoe liked
her.
Griffin couldn’t move to California with Zoe; Zoe loved her mother.

At a hot dog stand inside the mall, Griffin bought a chili dog, then sat on a bench to eat it. Music was playing: Elvis’s “Blue Christmas.” He watched shoppers pass by him with lists, mostly women, a lot of them pushing strollers with sleeping children. He saw a few older couples, men who looked as if they wished they were home, and women who looked determined to find everything they were looking for
today.
Against the wall by the bathrooms, he saw a teenage couple kissing. The boy had blue, stand-up hair and multiple piercings on his face. His pants had what seemed to be yard-wide bottoms and hung well below the waistband of his underwear. The girl had a long blond ponytail, glitter on her face, and wore skintight black pants and a pink, short-sleeved blouse that looked a few sizes too small for her. Their coats lay in a pile beside them, under a bag from Sam Goody. They’d bought music to kill by, no doubt. Rap songs about extreme disaffection and plans to exterminate 90 percent of the population. But they parted as Griffin passed by them and smiled so sweetly at him he could only smile back.

Outside of Sears, an attractive young blond woman sat at a large table, reading a paperback book—Carl Hiaasen, whom Griffin also liked and whom Ellen never read.
HELP SANTA
, a sign next to her said. He leaned against a store window a few yards away, watching her, finishing the mint chocolate chip ice cream cone he’d bought. Then he walked over to her, cleared his throat.

She looked up. My. She really was attractive. He smiled at her, and she discreetly checked his ring finger, then smiled back. Amazing, it was true. He hoped he looked all right. He couldn’t remember what he’d put on that morning, and he couldn’t check now. He hoped his cowlick was down.

“What is this?” he asked. “Something for charity?”

She shook her head. “No, I’m taking applications for people who want to play Santa. We start next week, and we still need a few more guys.”

“So, what do you do? Sit in one of those eight-foot chairs and give away candy canes? And get your picture taken every twenty seconds?”

“It’s reindeer antlers we’re handing out this year—and candy canes, too, of course. But yes, you sit in a chair and be Santa. A lot of people find it very rewarding. Of course, you have to really like children.”

“I really like children.”

“Uh huh.”

“So…maybe I’d be interested. How much do you have to work?”

“We ask for a minimum of four hours a week. Most people work a little more than that, especially as it gets closer to Christmas.” She tossed her hair back. Flirting? She wore large diamond studs. A soft gray sweater, probably cashmere.

“Well, I could definitely do four hours a week. Probably more.” What the hell. This would give him something to do on the nights he “went out.” And Zoe would get a big charge out of Griffin being a Santa. Only last year she’d stopped believing, with much regret, Griffin thought. Zoe used to write to Santa all year long, “just to keep in touch,” she’d said. She could help educate Griffin about all the latest toys—though baseball and boy toys were her major obsession, she occasionally played with more feminine things—she certainly liked her cotton candy maker. This could be a good “father-daughter” project, note absence of “mother.”

“Tell you what,” the woman said, handing him an application. “Why don’t you fill this out? No obligation.” Nice woman, Griffin thought. Just a nice way about her. And she liked him, he could tell. He could ask her out right now—ask her to go to dinner with him. Some time.

He filled out the brief application, requesting the 6–10 slot on weekdays. “Oh, good,” the woman said, when she saw the hours he’d asked for. “Not many people want that time.” She put his application on the bottom of the pile. “Someone will call you after the background check. I hope you’ll decide to give it a try—it’s a lot of fun. I’m one of the photographers who takes your picture every twenty seconds, by the way—and I work the same hours you requested.”

“Good,” Griffin said, backing away, smiling. “I hope I’ll see you, then.”

He started toward the exit, remembering a quote he’d seen recently. Where was it? Some magazine, in some doctor’s office. What it had said was that once a firm decision was made, the universe would accommodate you in the direction you’d chosen. Some New Age crap. And yet.

Just before the exit was a Toys “R” Us. Griffin stood before the window, looking at all the things displayed there. Easy-Bake Ovens and plastic soldiers. Barbie dolls and baby dolls. PlayStations. LEGOs and microscopes. Large boxes of art supplies, complete with easels. It could be a lot of fun to be a Santa, to feel invested with such magical powers. He’d always wondered what kind of things kids said to Santa.

What the hell, he’d try it; he could always quit if it didn’t work out. Besides, he liked the looks of that woman. Why not take advantage of spending a little time with another woman, see how it felt? It might encourage him to start dating, and that might make him feel a whole lot better about what was happening with Ellen. He could date blondes; he was tired of brunettes. He could date easygoing, lighthearted women, who did not stand before windows staring out at nothing, who were not so thin-skinned as to weep for half a day over a baby bird fallen from a nest and killed by the cat. He’d find a really good woman, younger than Ellen, and when the time was right, he’d introduce her to Zoe.

And then he landed. He came back down to earth, and saw Zoe as she’d been at the breakfast table that morning when he and Ellen had carefully explained that they were going to be spending a lot of time apart, because they were going to be trying something new. They wanted to “grow.”

“What do you mean?” Zoe had giggled. “You’re already grown!” Worried, then, she’d asked, “Aren’t you?”

Ellen had looked briefly at Griffin, just the tiniest bit of anxiety in her face. Then she’d said, “Well, grow in a different way, honey. Grow in our minds and in our hearts and in our souls. Grow on the
in
side.”

Zoe had said nothing, and so, despite Ellen’s insistence that they keep this announcement very short and very simple, she’d continued talking. “We have been thinking that it’s not a good idea for people to spend so much time together all the time, even when they’re married. Remember last summer, when you played with Jack Franklin every single day and you guys got so tired of each other?”

Zoe shrugged. “I guess. Are you and Daddy tired of each other?”

“No,” Griffin said, quickly. “No. It’s not that. It’s…” He looked at Ellen.