Starting from Square Two (20 page)

G
ert must have been a party to at least three conversations during college about how studies had shown that women's menstrual cycles converged when they lived together. She'd gotten a little tired of that conversation.

But now, she was beginning to wonder if friends' bosses' cycles converged, too. Because she, Hallie and Erika were all dealing with insane bosses that week.

Hallie had gotten hollered at for forgetting to order food for a business meeting. Erika hadn't noticed that in a facebook she had designed, a guy's name had been spelled “Thodore.” Missy was stomping around the office, waiting to snap about something.

Gert kept her mouth shut. She didn't want to give her an excuse to yell at her.

Finally, Missy dumped a batch of surveys on her desk for her to analyze.

“I need these done by tomorrow morning,” Missy said. “First thing.”

Gert had been depressed that day already. Todd had called before lunch and postponed their date until the following day be
cause of work. Now the surveys meant staying until at least eight. After Todd had canceled, Gert had planned to just head home after work, sink into the couch and watch mindless TV.

“Don't look at me like that,” Missy said.

Gert hadn't been looking at her like anything. She turned her head away so that Missy wouldn't see her face. She didn't want to cry.

Missy stood there a second, then went back to her office. Gert heard the door slam.

Was this what always being loyal and working hard got her? Even when Missy wasn't angry at Gert, she never thanked her or told her she'd done a good job.

Gert took a deep breath and stared out at the buildings of the city.

Missy stomped back over to Gert's desk. Gert tensed up again.

“I'll be back by three,” Missy snapped. “Make sure you get through half the pile.”

Then she left.

Gert waited until the elevator doors had been closed for a few minutes. She got up, strode briskly through the hall and went into the bathroom. She shut the stall door and sat on the toilet. She tried to breathe so she wouldn't cry.

Missy means nothing,
she told herself.
It's not personal.

Gert needed to be reminded that she was a good person, that her hard work mattered. That
she
mattered.

The bathroom door opened.

“Who's in theaahh?” a voice said.

“Dawn,” Gert said, “go away.”

Dawn giggled and closed the door.

Gert calmed herself down, went back to her desk and called Todd's cell phone. She got his voicemail.

“Missy's on the warpath,” she said. “I could use some cheering up.”

When she hung up, she felt a little better. She rubbed her eyes, did a few surveys, and thought she'd steal forty-five minutes for lunch.

 

She sat in the back corner of the gourmet pizza place, the one that charged four dollars a slice. The slice she had chosen for that day had black olives, extra cheese and fresh mushrooms. She was a fan of any place that used fresh mushrooms. Neither she nor Marc could ever tolerate those rubbery canned ones. Mush
ruins,
he had called them.

From the back corner, she had a prime view of the other people in the pizzeria. Three businessmen were lunching near the door with female colleagues who were dressed much more nicely. A young woman was sitting across from a man, fiddling with her Palm Pilot as he talked to her. Next to the refrigerator full of bottled fruit juices, a heavyset guy in a gray suit was diagramming something on a napkin for two younger guys.

Gert touched her cell phone, making sure it was on.

She became conscious of the fact that everyone else in the pizzeria was with a group. Some were talking and laughing, some were businesslike, but they were all with someone.

She felt like she was hogging a table. There were people standing near the counter, looking for a place to sit. A guy and a girl up front were staring at her as they talked.

She suddenly didn't want to be there. She ate quickly and got up to leave.

 

Maybe if she stopped thinking about Todd, he'd call.

She kept on going through the surveys. They had proposed names for products and asked people to rate them on a scale of one to five. All of the names for medicines seemed to have an “X” and end in “N.”

Gert thought of a few new ones. She jotted them down on a clean piece of paper, then turned the letters into bubble letters, with shadows.

By three, Missy hadn't returned. Gert had gotten through half of the surveys. Still, every once in a while, her mind would drift for a few minutes, and she'd have to snap herself back.

Todd hadn't returned her call. He had never waited this long to call her back before.

She moved through more surveys. She thought of more names for products. Most of these probably had been computer generated, she thought. Still, it might be fun to suggest some.

That's what I should be doing,
she thought.
Creating. Pitching. Not tabulating.

An hour passed, then two. She straightened out her pile.

Todd should have been able to tell from her voice how upset she was, right?

She decided she'd gotten too dependent on him. Why had she done that?

She checked her voicemail at home. There was one message, but it turned out to be an automated voice trying to sell her a vacation. They seemed to be replacing telemarketers.

She really wanted to hear Todd's voice.

At six, she left. Missy had come and gone. Gert had an hour's worth of surveys to finish, but she took them home with her. She couldn't stand sitting at her desk for a minute more. Her back was starting to hurt.

It was dark outside. As she made her way through the crowds to the subway, everyone was hurrying—probably to dinner dates and their significant others, their foot rubs and warm baths.

 

It wasn't until eight-thirty, when Gert was recovering in front of a TV full of bad sitcoms, that Todd called.

“What's up?” he said.

“Oh,” Gert said. “I had a lousy day—”

“Good. It's hard to hear you. We're about to go through a tunnel.”

He sounded emotionless. When he could talk again, he said work was crazy and he had to get off quickly.

Gert felt fear creeping into her voice. She calmed herself and spoke evenly.

“I'll still see you tomorrow, right?” she said.

“Right,” Todd said. “I'll see you.”

He didn't sound excited. But he probably couldn't talk anyway.

“See you,” he said again. Then he hung up.

She sat there, stunned. She realized they hadn't decided on a time. But he could still call her tomorrow with one. Still, she thought of calling him back to ask, just so she'd feel better.

She couldn't let herself.

She remembered what Hallie had said.

When the women were the ones doing the chasing, there was a problem.

 

That night, Gert lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Something about the conversation had unnerved her. Todd had said he'd had to go twice. He hadn't sounded excited about seeing her. He didn't seem concerned at all that she'd had a lousy day. A few weeks earlier, he'd swept her off to dinner when she'd had a lousy day.

But she was probably imagining it. Why should she be unnerved by a short conversation? He was at work, for God's sake. They were still meeting tomorrow. She'd realize when she saw him how silly she was being.

Her lids shut, and she was too tired to think about it anymore.

 

In the morning, Missy popped in and out and seemed too preoccupied to say anything to Gert. Gert had nothing to do, so she kept occupied on her computer in order to look busy. She checked the Onion, Modern Humorist, and her e-mail. Hallie had forwarded something entitled, “Why tool boxes are like men.”

In the afternoon, Todd called and broke the date.

He said he'd finally gotten back home a few hours earlier. He'd tried to fall asleep, but couldn't. He had lain in bed for hours. Now he had to start work again at midnight. He
knew he needed to get some sleep first, so he'd be alert for the trip.

He didn't sound disappointed.

She certainly felt disappointed. She had to see him to make sure things were okay with them.

“You can come to my house to sleep,” she said.

Right away, she got a sinking feeling that she shouldn't have offered, especially when he was quiet for a second.

“Oh, I could,” Todd said. “It's just, it's easier for me to leave from here. I don't want to cause you any trouble.”

It's no trouble,
she thought.

“Okay,” she said. She thought for a second, and added, “I have work to do tonight, anyway.”

“That's good,” Todd said. He still didn't seem concerned. “Maybe we can see each other Saturday. Can we try for then?”

Try?
She hadn't seen him in almost a week.

“Oh, sure,” Gert said.

She closed her eyes. This was slipping away from her.

He said, “Okay. We'll talk then,” and got off.

He didn't say he was sorry for canceling at the last minute.

Maybe he wasn't sorry.

 

In college, on the ceiling of Gert and Hallie's dormroom, Hallie had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars. At first, Gert had found this strange, but she had come to like staring at them at night to fall asleep. She would look up and wonder what she'd do for a living someday, where she'd live, whom she'd marry. She would stare at them until they turned into white bursting supernovas.

Gert rolled onto her side.

Saturday. Saturday. They'd meet up Saturday.

Had Todd said, “We'll
try
to do it Saturday” or “We'll
definitely
do it Saturday”?

She knew he hadn't said “definitely.”

He was losing interest, maybe. Had she let him jump in too quickly?

Maybe Hallie and Erika were right. She should have played harder to get. She should have played games.

The rules Hallie and Erika had clung to hadn't been invented in a vacuum. Other people talked about “rules,” even though it was usually with great disdain—but there had to be some truth to them. You couldn't give a guy too much too soon—that was just a fact. They'd get bored. Why had Gert thought she'd be immune? Was she so great that these maxims would never have to apply to her?

What had gone wrong? Was it the confession about Marc? Or something else?

She tried to remember how she'd looked on her last date with Todd, what she'd been wearing and what she had said.

She should have been paying more attention to Todd, she thought. She had never really thought about how
he
might be viewing their relationship. And
was
it a relationship? It had been a little more than a month—but it was a good month.

She hadn't ever doubted for a minute that it was the start of something bigger.

I'm spoiled,
she told herself.
You have to do work to keep a guy interested. You can't get lazy.

She tried to replay her conversation with him of just a few hours ago. She almost wished she'd taped it; then she realized how irrational that was.

She rolled over and gazed at the clock radio. It was eleven. Eight hours until she'd have to get up again. She didn't think she'd fall asleep.

You were lucky,
she told herself.
Meeting someone like Todd isn't easy. You were very, very lucky.

There weren't a lot of guys who would have asked to see pictures of her husband and their wedding. There weren't many who would confuse Heckle and Jeckle with Jekyll and Hyde and laugh about it. There weren't many who would try to convince her that New Jersey was beautiful.

I love him,
she thought.

Okay, so she wasn't
in
love with him, and it wasn't exactly
the same way she'd loved Marc. But she knew she did love him, in some way, and it was definitely evolving. What was the likelihood she could feel that way about someone else?

She couldn't ever go back to those bars with Hallie and Erika, even if she'd only been once or twice. She couldn't become inured, accepting crumbs because she thought that was as good as it got. She couldn't pursue barfly party boys who oiled themselves up, tucked their shirts into belted pants and used “dude” as every part of speech.

And how could she go through telling the next guy that she was a twenty-nine-year-old widow? Or thirty? Or thirty-one?

You're getting carried away,
she thought.
If Todd didn't want to see me, he wouldn't have even mentioned Saturday, right?

Maybe he wanted to break up that day. Oh God. That was why he had kept postponing. He needed to give her the “We have to slow down” speech. And he was dreading it.

But he hadn't said anything negative about their relationship. Just that he was tired from work. Wasn't she overanalyzing? Being paranoid?

Still, there was one truth. No matter how close they'd gotten, no matter how happy she'd felt about him, there was absolutely no guarantee that he wouldn't break it off. He wasn't her fiancé. He wasn't her husband. He hadn't introduced her to his parents, or met hers. They hadn't stated any commitment. They'd casually mentioned going to his friend Howard's wedding that summer, and at some point they were supposed to take that train trip to the chocolate festival. But was that a guarantee?

This is too hard,
she thought.

I've done this already. I've been married.
Why was this uncertainty, this dating process, thrust upon her again?

Hallie had tried to tell her. Dating wasn't fun. It was work. Animals didn't do it. The modus operandi should be this: Find someone, grab them, dive down into your rabbit hole and don't come out.