The Kissing Game (10 page)

“If I tell you, you’ll have to do something for
me,” he bargains.

“Okay.”

“Tell me why you kissed me.”  The dim light of
the lamppost hits his face. His voice makes me feel as if thousands of horses ride
through my chest. I hadn’t prepared for this question. I thought we’d somehow
silently agreed never to speak of it again. I scramble, trying to think of
something to say, but I’m scourged on the shore of no answers.

“
You
kissed
me
,” I retort,
although the preposterousness of my suggestion is perched on my nose.

“No, Caroline,
you
kissed
me
. Now
I know you’d had a little too much to drink, but that kiss came out of nowhere.
I just thought, in light of the situation,” he pauses to point at our hospital
surroundings. “I thought you’d like to fess up. That way, when my father wakes
up, I can give him the full version of what happened.”

“You were going to tell him?” I try not to
sound shocked.

“Of course,” he replies. “My dad and I talk
freely. I tell him most everything. He’s my best friend.”

I hadn’t expected Mr. Spencer would find out.
“I think you were a little tipsy yourself. Maybe you don’t remember the
incident very well.” I clear my throat.

“I remember it very well,” Robert articulates.
“Aside from constantly worrying about my dad, I haven’t thought about much else.”
He eyes me determinedly. The light of the lamp leaves his face and the shadows
flicker there again, never hampering his beauty. I wonder how much he’s figured
out. Does he suspect? I can feel my face paling. There’s a cloud of dust
whirling in my brain. What do I say?

“Caroline, it’s been a long day,” he says,
pressing fingers against his temple. “I’ve been up since midnight last night. I
haven’t slept, but even if I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t be able to get
certain thoughts out of my head. Like, for instance, why would my assistant,
who despises me, although utterly diligent and dedicated to her job,” he
concedes, “suddenly decide to kiss me? I can’t make sense of it. I’ve turned it
over various ways in my brain, and I just can’t figure it out. I’m logical
person, you know, so things I can’t understand tend to preoccupy my thoughts,
until I figure them out.”

Feeling skewered, I watch his face. I may be
about to have a full-on panic attack.  As if frustrated by my lack of answers,
he continues.

“I’ve come up with several options.” He looks
darkly at me. “The first one is that you were drunk and felt an abstract,
disconnected attraction and acted on it.” He looks at me and waits but I don’t speak,
so he looks at his hands. “The other option is that perhaps you wanted to harm
me in some way.”

Where did all the oxygen go? I somehow avoid
grasping my chest although the urge is strong. I shake my head. “Why would I do
that?” A question with a question. Good plan.

“Or maybe, between all your contemplating about
my villainous nature, you’ve come to the less-wild brained conclusion that you
know me well enough to know I don’t possess ragged claws or a reptilian tail. You
know who I really am, and you’ve grown accustomed to the natural flights of my
disposition as I’ve grown accustomed to yours. Maybe when you wake up in the
morning, I’m your first cursing thought. And when you go through your day, whether
at home or at the office, you’re aware of me like a fever. And you fret about
whether I’m fretting. And at night you wonder what the walls of my house hear. Perhaps,
in the midst of all this, you figured that the next reasonable step was to take
hold of me in an elevator, twist your fingers in my hair, and kiss me.”

As he awaits my reply, his body looks relaxed
but his eyes don’t. I’m certain swords linger behind them, capable of looting
out the weakness of the feeble and poking around inside to find answers. My hands
shake. The couple in the apartment have removed themselves from the window and
the light is out. I wish they’d return.

“Am I making you nervous?” Robert asks.

“No.”

 “Caroline,” Robert states, leaning over the
table, his face as serious as a starched shirt. “If I had something to tell you,
I’d say it. I wouldn’t hide behind foregone conclusions and wild fears. I’d tell
you.”

A lawyer moved is an ocean troubled: tense,
bereft of negotiation. The worst part of all this is my brain can’t put it all
together. It’s like earthworms in there, a mealbin of winding little confused bodies.
I can’t quite fathom what Robert’s conveying to me exactly, whether he’s asking
me questions, accusing me of something, or telling me how he feels.

“I don’t have anything to tell you,” I say,
hearing the vibration of my cell phone in my backpack, which lies on the ground
near my feet. The sensation is a mild electric shock. I yank it from my
backpack to find a text from Henry:

Too late. Call me ASAP.

 I shove the phone back into my bag. Before I
can begin to think about what to do first, Robert asks, “What’s the matter?”

And there I am sitting at the table with him,
but really, I’m floating down a raging river, a rafter without a raft, a
parachutist without a parachute, a pilot on empty with no landing strip in sight.
And there are too many things I want to do, like ask Robert what the hell he
was saying just then. Maybe confess to Robert while his face turns blood red
and explodes with rage? Rush away to call Henry, hold Mr. Spender’s hand
upstairs?

“I’ve gotta take care of an emergency,” I say
because I can only do one thing at a time, and the biggest problem must be
resolved first. “When your dad wakes up, tell him I came to see him, will you?”
I ask.

Robert looks sideways at me as I leave. I’m
moving so fast I almost don’t hear him quietly call my name.

“A grandes males, grandes remedies.”

Big troubles call for big remedies.

Outside the hospital on the sidewalk, I yank
out my cell phone while cars pass through the intersection looking eager for a
place to park. The street is full of amber lights from the Victorian apartments
nearby. The air is suddenly cold, and I shiver without a jacket. Henry answers
on the first ring.

“Caroline, I’m sorry. I can’t get the video
now.  If you had told me yesterday, then yes, I could have. But it came in the
mail today, and my boss asked me to have his mail hand-delivered to his house.
It’s
at his house right now
… Caroline … Caroline… you there?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” I hover near the storm drain,
which emits heat from somewhere. I sit down on the curb nearby, two parked cars
on either side of me, blocking my view of the street. I set my backpack down on
the curb and rest my head in my hand.

“I’m sorry, Caroline,” Henry repeats.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Was it one of the firm manila envelopes?”

“Yeah,” I answer, my voice weighing a thousand
pounds in my stomach.

“That was the one then. I’d recognize your
handwriting anywhere,” Henry says.

“Oh god,” I say. “Is there nothing you can do?”

“I don’t think so. It’s at his house.”

We’re silent for several long seconds while I
hear ambulance sirens approaching.

“T’s okay,” I finally say.

When we hang up, I stand to head home, but
pause at the emergency room entrance, where the ambulance wails as it parks.
Two paramedics jump out, helping a young woman who seems to be in cardiac
arrest. One man pumps her chest by hand while the other pushes the gurney into
the hospital. After standing there watching the scene unfold, I walk
zombie-like toward the bus stop. I make the long journey home: two different
buses and a train ride.

When I arrive at my building, I barely notice
the dim lights inside Ted’s apartment. Instead, my mind focuses on the problem,
the problem that I created, the creation that plagues my brain and has turned
into a genuine migraine. With legs that feel like tankers, I ascend the steps
to my apartment, enter, and slam the door behind me. I throw my bag on the
couch and begin stripping down, not even bothering to put my clothes in the
hamper. I just head straight for the shower.

On certain nights, I wish I had a cat, a furry
little sympathetic creature that would feel sorry for me after a horrible day.
A creature that would purr and remind me that love exists, if only in the
feline form. But I’ve created my own house of hell here. I deserve the bruised
state of my brain.

With the hot spray of water blasting from my
showerhead, I step in and squat down into a sitting position in my tub, letting
the water hit my head, my face. I close my eyes and think about death. Not in
that woe-is-me way, but in that wouldn’t-a-permanent-vacation-from-life-be-nice
way. I don’t want to cry. I’d rather have an addiction to ease the guilt,
something really heavy, like heroin or crack or bath salts. But I don’t know
the first thing about how to find these drugs, nor do I think they would ultimately
help improve my situation, so I opt for crying like a cow sucking its tongue
instead. In fact, I sob like a cow. For Robert, for Robert’s dad, for myself because
I wish my dad were still alive to tell me what to do. I wallow in the tub until
I can’t cry anymore, which isn’t very long because I don’t have the patience
for too many tears.

When I’m done, I consider how I’m going to
handle things at work tomorrow. What will I say? What will I do?

I exit the shower, throw my clothes in the
hamper, and don my fluffy pink robe and blue slippers. I have no answers, but I
hear a knock on the door. With dripping wet hair and puffy eyes, I open it to
find Ted standing there looking ridiculously manicured. He’s obviously spent
the day outside because his skin looks freshly golden, in a way that makes his
serial killer eyes fetching. I imagine his studying can often be done outdoors
on nice days. His hair looks freshly barbered, his face cleanly shaven.

 “Hey.” He smiles. Then his brows twitch.
“What’s wrong?” He leans on my door jam. He likes to lean on stuff. This makes
me wonder if Ted Bundy liked to lean on stuff, too. I’m growing so accustomed
to seeing Ted leaning on things that I almost feel as though we live in one big
house together. Ted Bundy and me.

“Come in,” I invite him. I haven’t even brushed
my wet hair, and my pink robe is hideous, but in my current state, I don’t
care. “Want some tea?” I ask him.

To be clear, I hate tea, but I keep hoping that
someday I’ll find the right tea, make the right brew, and suddenly it’ll be
that magical drink that all of England and China are obsessed with. Meanwhile I
have a cupboard full of bags.

Ted closes the door behind himself. It’s past
10 PM on my oven clock. Opening the cupboard, I let the boxes of tea fall out,
grabbing the purple one as it falls. Then I fill up the kettle with water.

“I heard your door slam, thought I’d stop by
and say hello,” Ted stands there, his hands on the hips of his jeans. He looks
as if he might fix my kitchen sink or unclog my drain. If he could only plumber
my problems away.

“Just an unpleasant day, sorry, didn’t mean to
slam it so hard.” I sit down at my kitchen table. “Have a seat.”

Ted sits. The chair leg wobbles underneath him.
It’s an old white linoleum table with matching chairs, a decrepit creature
snatched straight from the 1950s. It would be cool retro if it weren’t so shabby.

“Tell me about it,” Ted offers. And there he
sits, all tanned and good-looking, and I suddenly understand why all those
ladies fawned over the serial killer Ted Bundy even after he was convicted for bludgeoning
women to death.

“I can’t,” I reply. “If I do, I might cry.”

Ted’s face approaches sympathy. Behind him, my
purple couch looks pathetic, the shag brown carpet pathetic, the dingy white
walls so very pathetic.

Ted reaches his hand across the table and
touches the elbow of my pink robe. “Ah, who cares if you cry? It wouldn’t be
the first time someone cried in front of me. I’m sure I can handle it. Tell me,
what’s the worried face about?” The dim light over the table makes his brown
hair glisten. His arms look warm, blankets that damsels could crawl into.

“Oh, I don’t know. Have you ever just done
something so stupid, something you wish you could undo, but you can’t, and
thinking about it makes you wonder what the hell you’ve been doing your whole
life, makes you evaluate all the things you’ve ever done until you feel like green
fuzz that grows on cheese?” I gesture with my hands and smile, but a hot tear
sweats down my face.

“Hey,” Ted mutters, scooting his chair over to
me and yanking me into a hug. The gesture feels unnecessarily forceful, and my
face tucks into him. His arms
are
like a blanket. And he smells perfumed
and scrubbed. I return the hug, my hands on his lower back, which feels particularly
muscled.

When Ted releases me, his hand rests on my own.
“Whatever you’ve done, I’m sure you’re blowing it out of proportion.” Serial
killer to the rescue.

“No, it’s horrible.”  The kettle whistles and I
stand and turn it off. I put two tea bags into two mugs and pour the hot water
into the mugs. I sniffle and wipe the tear off my cheek before returning to the
table. I hand Ted a mug and he takes it.  “You want sugar?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “You’re about the most
harmless person I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine what you’ve done that’s all
that horrible.” He sips his tea and then scowls. 

“What I’ve done is so bad,” I begin, “that I
can’t even talk about it. That’s how bad it is.” I sip the tea. Watery grass
with a hint of jasmine. “I’m going to get someone fired, for sure, but it’s
more monumental than that.”

“Who?” Ted asks.

“My boss.” I stare at my disgusting tea.

Ted gazes around my tiny kitchen and then back
toward my bedroom before looking back at me. “Uh, isn’t your boss a jerk?”

“Certainly, I mean, yeah, he can be. But I’ve
intentionally
hurt him, and I tried to fix the problem, but I can’t fix it. The worst part is
that he’ll know what I’ve done. He’ll know I’ve hurt him intentionally. He’ll
figure it out.”

“I’m sure he’ll handle it. He seems like a big
boy, capable of handling a little pain.”

“I suppose so.” Feeling a slight breeze on my
thigh, I notice my robe has fallen open. Ted’s eyes flicker over my skin and
then down at his cup. I stand, and the weight of the day feels like hands
closing my eyes. “Look, I’m gonna be facing the tribunal tomorrow.  I should
get to bed, but thanks for coming over. I never tell you how much I appreciate
having you as a neighbor. You’re more like a friend than a neighbor.”

“A friend?” Ted scrunches his face at me.

“Yeah, a friend. Friends are important.
Everyone needs friends.”

Ted exhales and rises. I follow him to my door.

“A friend?” he re-asserts turning around.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

He opens my door and pauses. “Then, as your
friend, your very good friend, I’ll say goodnight.” He leans down and kisses me
on the cheek, ceremoniously, but I can sense the pandemonium in the whites of his
eyes as he edges out onto the landing and shuts the door.

I’m too exhausted to contemplate Ted, so I hit the
lights and make my way to my bedroom, where I fling myself onto my bed, close my
eyes, and pray to die in my sleep—one of those painless deaths where people
find me the next day and scratch their heads.
She looked so healthy
,
they’ll say.
I can’t imagine how she could’ve died.
They’ll have to
perform an autopsy and months later the doctor will determine I died from a yet
undiagnosed disease, something like guilto-phlanadosis, a condition that causes
people to die in their sleep.

Unfortunately, the next morning, I awake to the
sound of my alarm. The sky outside my window looks ancient grey like the middle
ages.

I ready myself for work, choosing a red shirt
to wear along with grey pants. Red seems a fitting color today. My hair is a
wavy mess, but using a brush, I tame the curls. One must look nice on the day
of reckoning.

As I’m about to head out the door, I
contemplate calling in sick, but decide against doing so. All villains must
face their villainy, right?

On my way into the office, I wonder if Robert
will be there or at the hospital again today. Since he didn’t call me this
morning, I’m guessing he’ll be at the office. The thought makes me feel cobbled
ice in my stomach. Even though the commute to work usually gives me enough time
to contemplate the blinding agony of eight hours of drudgery, today I barely
have a chance to contemplate my predicament before I arrive at my stop downtown.

Soon, I step off the elevator and trudge to my
desk, halfway expecting to see Robert burning at the stake outside his door, a
group of chanting, clapping employees throwing flowers in the air and dancing
to music. Instead, I see Robert’s light on, as it often is on cloudy days like
these. As I round the corner to my cubicle, I spot his elbow through his
partially open door while he sits at his desk. At the sight, I feel as if I
might have to wheeze and croak, but I glide towards my desk.
It’s just a
normal workday. A normal workday.

“Caroline,” Robert beckons before I can even
put my bag down. He’s not using the intercom. The sharp sound of his voice
causes me to jump, and all hope of a normal day vanishes. I put my bag in my
drawer and tread the few paces to Robert’s desk.

As I stand before him, he types on his laptop,
fingers heralding keys. Looking at him makes me wonder again whether time will
ever make him ugly or whether his beauty will remain intact like stone. Before,
I might have thought his beauty would be unfair. Now, it almost suits him. His
dark brown hair looks recently combed, his eyelashes thick and curly as if they
were pressed on moments ago with a glue stick.  

He abruptly closes his laptop without looking
at me and says, “Shut the door, will you?”

I shut the door and make three tentative paces
back to the front of his desk. It really is like standing before a firing
squad.

“Sit down,” he orders pointing to the chair.
When I sit, he rises, walks around to the front of his desk, and leans on it,
his butt barely sitting on the edge, his legs straight yet angled in front of
him. He towers over me, giving me an unfortunate eye-level view of his midsection.
My eyes dart from his blindingly white shirt to his multicolored tie to his
face. It’s hard to look away from his face, or his pants, which are tailored to
fit him.

“How’s your dad?” I ask, looking up.

“He’s better. He’s awake, talking and eating, moving
around a little. His speech is a little slurred, but that’s to be expected.” Robert
crosses his arms in front of him and seems to hem his words. I sense a speech
or a reprimand coming. The muscles in my body tense automatically.