Why They Run the Way They Do (12 page)

“I'm sorry, too,” I say.

“You have to be my date,” I tell Tommy the next night, during
Animal ER
. “You owe me big and I'm not going alone.”

“Sure,” he says. “I'll be your date. I'd love to be your date. Is Fatty going to be there?”

“He's not fat,” I say. “Just because you weigh seventy pounds doesn't mean everyone else is fat.”

“Ouch,” Tommy says, because on TV a golden retriever is having a fishhook removed from his floppy ear. He changes the channel:
$100,000 Pyramid
, the real one, with Dick Clark.

“Yes!” we say, in unison.

“Is the wife coming?” he asks.

“Probably. I don't see why she wouldn't.”

“What's her name again?”

“I don't know,” I say, which is a lie. Her name is Carol. But I prefer to refer to her in my deliberate detached way as “the wife,” the missus,” or “the old ball and chain.”

“I've never been to a company picnic before,” Tommy says.

“Are you packing?”

“For the picnic? Too soon, I think.”

“You're funny.”

“I'm packing a little,” he says. “You could come help, you know. We could hang out at my place.”

We rarely hung out at his apartment. It smelled a little, I thought, like aftershave.

“I have more channels.”

“This is true,” he says. “I only have a hundred and five. We'd never be able to find anything to watch.”

“New Mexico,” I say. “Have you ever even been to New Mexico? Have you ever even been
through
New Mexico?”

“I've been to Arizona.”

“I can't believe he's making you go. Of all the selfish—”

“He's not making me go,” Tommy says. “It's exciting, okay? Going someplace new, starting over. I might even get a job myself. I'm ready for a change.”

“Since when? Since last week? Since he
told
you you were ready for a change?”

“Lauren—” he says harshly. He starts to say something, then thinks better of it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says.

We leave it at that. And I realize, as I turn back toward the TV, that I am all about
leaving it at that
. If I could
leave it at that
forever, if I could get away with never having another conversation of substance, with anybody, I might just take it and run.

Dear Family,

Today a dentist came to look at our teeth. He said mine were second best and all he did was give me a toothbrush. Some other kids had to have some teeth pulled and Jorge was one of them and his cheek swole up and everyone laughed at him. But I didn't. The dentist was a tall American man with a beard and one of the girls asked if he was Santa Claus. Then later somebody said that the dentist might adopt one of us so we all tried to guess who it would be. I think it will be the girl who asked if he was Santa Claus.

Thank you,

Mariela

“Poor Jorge,” Donald says. It's the night before the company picnic and we are sitting on the middle of the foldout eating Chinese food from stained boxes. “Nobody's ever going to pick poor Jorge.”

“I don't think anyone's going to pick any of them. After they're babies, nobody wants them.”

“You never know,” he says. “They might get lucky.”

“Maybe I'll go get her.”

“Who?”

“Mariela.”

“Oh,” he chuckles. “Right.”

Of course I'm not even remotely serious, but as soon as he says “right” the whole thing racks into focus and makes more sense than any thought I've had in years.

“So what would you do?” I ask. “What would you do if I just showed up one day with her? Just one morning I come in to work and she's tagging along behind.”

“Lauren,” he says. “Come on. Cut it out.”

“You started it,” I say. “You're the one writing the checks. So what do you say? Let's go get her. We'll bring her back. She can live here in the office and we'll raise her. Two nights a week we'll order in pizza, rent some movies. The rest of the time she can just hang out around the building waiting for us to show up.”

He looks weary. I know what he is thinking. Someone probably told him this would happen—one of the other lawyers, or his psychiatrist—that at some point the receptionist would get needy, go a little crazy, even, that at some point his joyride was going to end and the stakes were going to get higher and he was going to have to get rid of her somehow.

“I love you,” he says. “Do you understand that? This isn't just like . . . a thing. I'm not like other people who do this. You know that, don't you?”

“I know,” I say. “You're like . . . like you who does this.”

“Tell me what to do,” he says. “I need someone to tell me what to do.”

“That's the most pathetic thing I've heard in my entire life,” Tommy says. “Jesus Christ, what a big baby.”

We are on our way to the picnic. The sun is blazing in the sky. My feet are up on the dashboard and I realize I shaved only my left leg this morning. The end is near, I think. But what the hell? First you stop shaving your right calf, soon your fingernails grow ragged, eventually you stop brushing your teeth. Even the simplest matters of personal hygiene fall by the way. Next thing you know the health department is knocking on your door, and there you are on your couch, all alone, covered in bags of Doritos. And you, not even quite thirty. What happened to you?

“You're a little pathetic too,” I tell Tommy. “Don't forget that. We're all a little pathetic.”

“Exactly,” he says. “Everybody gets to be a
littl
e pathetic. But you can't have more than your share, or there's not enough to go around. You can't be a hog about it.”

The wife is adorable, cute as a shiny little button in that pushing fifty kind of way; her brown hair is bobbed, her makeup tastefully applied, her blouse bright and sleeveless, her walking shorts khaki and slimming. I can't think of a single bad thing to say about her, watching the two of them standing by the barbecue pits, standing close enough that their matching shorts brush against each other. Owning not a single outfit that falls between what I wear to work and what I wear in front of the television, I am grossly overdressed, despite my one stubbly leg.

“I should have worn my sweat pants,” I say, trying to not allow my eyes to linger on the wife.

“You're making a statement,” Tommy says. “You're telling the world that no occasion is too casual for heels. Soon women all over America will be playing softball in two-inch pumps.”

I look at the schedule of events posted by the picnic tables, hoping that the awards ceremony is early on the agenda, that we can eat a quick burger and I can collect my prize (framed certificate, coffee mug) and be headed home inside of an hour. To my dismay I see that the ceremony comes last, after food, volleyball, and . . .

“Races!” Tommy says. “I didn't know there were
races
!”

I refuse the potato sack and egg-on-a-spoon, but after considerable badgering I agree to be Tommy's partner in the three-legged race, despite the fact that even with the heels kicked off my skirt promises to slow us down. Just before the starting gun—a teenager popping a Baggie—Donald and the missus hustle up to the starting line, all giggles and flushed faces. We are on one end of the line of competitors; they are on the other. Between us are three other couples who tumble into heaps barely out of the gate. Tommy drags me along; I feel like deadweight, and see Donald out of the corner of my eye, grimacing, trying to catch me. I believe in this moment he has forgotten who I am, so intent he looks upon winning the race. Tommy hurls himself through the blue-streamer finish line and drags me with him. We high-five and bounce off each other. We make complete fools of ourselves, long after it is appropriate. The wife comes over to congratulate us, and Donald comes panting along behind her, a slightly panicked look on his face.

“Congratulations,” the wife says. “You're quite a pair.”

“This is Lauren,” Tommy says.

“Oh, the famous Lauren!” she says. “Congratulations on your award.”

“Yes, congratulations!” Donald exclaims. He shouts it so loud his wife winces and gives him a look. “We're all very proud,” he says at a normal level.

“Is this your husband?” the wife—Carol—asks.

“No,” I say. “This is just Tommy.”

In the car I completely dissolve. One moment we're sitting calmly at a red light and the next moment I'm blubbering.

“I can't believe you're actually going to leave me. I can't believe you're actually—”

“I'm not leaving you. For God's—”

“You stupid shit . . . mother . . . damn . . . freaking—”

“Good one,” he says.

“Shut up,” I say. “Don't you dare make me laugh, you—”

A horn blares behind us. The light has turned green. Tommy guns the engine and the car jolts into the intersection, shudders, chokes, and dies.