Now I live in a run-down one-bedroom apartment three blocks from my new job. I rent it for its proximity to this office and because it has nice security measures for its price point—which is low. I could almost afford to live here on the pittance of an hourly wage I’m making now. The furniture is all cheaply rented.
My Malaysian employer thinks I’m caring for a dying relative. I now have less than fifty days for this little adventure. If I stay longer, I’ll lose my job. And I like my job. I like my life. I like my condo in Kuala Lumpur. I want to get back to it—but not until I’ve finished this.
I like Minneapolis too, but I’ll be happy to leave. There are too many memories of Meg here. Or should I want to stay so I can remember her and pretend I might run into her at any moment? I don’t know how grief works. I have no idea what I should expect or even what I should want.
Regardless, my kind doesn’t worry much about the future. If I lose my job, I can sell the place in Malaysia and move to New York. I’ve always loved Manhattan. Instead of depending on Meg’s vibrancy to keep me human, maybe I could rely on the crazed heartbeat of that city. Melodramas playing out on every street and on every floor of every building. It might be good for me to be surrounded by that kind of emotion.
Kuala Lumpur is like that, but I don’t speak enough Malay to truly sink into it. Minneapolis is fine during the summer but too empty during winter. And I have too much ice on the inside to live with the dark and cold.
Today I don’t run into Steven in the break room, and I’m concerned that I haven’t snagged his interest. When he joins a supervisor at a desk two rows from mine, I take off my cardigan and toy absently with the button at my dress’s neckline. Unfasten, fasten. Unfasten, fasten. I let my fingertips rest against my bare skin. I drag them lower. When I look up, he’s watching, and I gulp and smile and drop my face in shame.
A few moments later I glance through my lashes. He winks. I let him see me giggle.
All in all, it’s a decent show. I hope it works.
I work until 5:30, then go home to my dingy apartment, which shares a wall with the apartment of a single dad who has custody three nights a week. Sometimes I like hearing the squeals and laughter of his kids, but tonight they’re excited about going to the store to pick out Halloween costumes, and I hate them for their happiness and for my memories.
For our sophomore Halloween at the U, Meg made me dress up, the first time I’d bothered since I was ten. She went as a sexy nurse. I was a sexy teacher. The whole point of college costumes was the sexy, of course, and it worked. That night I got laid, and she met a boy who became her boyfriend. Kevin, I think. He was fine for a college boy, and I liked him. It only lasted three months, though.
Meg always fell hard and fast, and I was good at giving her the space for that. That was my role in her love life: to be there waiting when it all fell apart. To help her understand the logic of getting over it and moving on when she couldn’t see past her torrent of tears.
Her role in my love life was to encourage me to give each guy a chance. He’s nice! He likes you! He’s so cute! Most of my college dating was just to humor her. To try it her way for a little while. I liked the physical closeness, the sex, but I could never get to the part where you opened up to the other person.
Why would I? People cause pain. Even good people hurt those they love. We all do it because we can’t help it. Most of us aren’t evil; we’re just stupid and flawed and not careful with others. Meg thought the hurt was worth the goodness that came with it. Most people do. It’s what keeps them going.
What keeps me going? I don’t know. Small pleasures, I guess. Coffee. Chocolate. Competition. Silk dresses. A hot bath on a cold day. Winning. The satisfaction of shaping my life into exactly what I want.
Oh, and right now, my hatred for the muffled chatter of tiny children outside my door. I close my eyes and imagine they are Meg’s children instead of a stranger’s.
She wanted kids. She wanted a husband and a white picket fence and a swing set in the yard, and I wanted it all for her. She would have been an amazing mother, overflowing with love and attentiveness. She would have decorated for every holiday. She would have baked cookies and not cared how messy her kids got with the sprinkles and icing.
And she would never have disappeared for three days at a time to hit up the Choctaw casinos with her friends. She’d never have left her daughter home alone with strep throat and such a high fever that she hallucinated exotic animals. She’d never have let strange men rent a room.
Imagining Meg’s love for the children she won’t have fills me up with bittersweet yearning. It swells so tight in me that I briefly wonder if I could manage that kind of love myself. Maybe I could have a child and love it the way I loved Meg.
But no. Meg’s childhood had been filled with motherly affection, so she’d been able to accept my cool logic as a soothing balm. But children can’t thrive on calmness and remove. They need love too. Hugs and giggles and unfettered warmth. If that had ever been inside me, it isn’t now. I’m empty.
But not empty. I’m filled with sorrow. As the children pass my door on their way out of the building, I cover my face with my hands and squeeze my eyes tightly shut, unwilling to share vulnerability with even my bare walls.
I need Meg, and she’ll never be here again.
CHAPTER 5
On Monday, Steven finds me in the break room once more. He can’t very well come by my desk to chat. It’s in the middle of an open room full of desks and low cubicles, and health insurance administration is boring work. If he lingers, his interest will be noticed by the whole floor.
This works well for me. He’s forced to time his approach carefully. He has to plan ahead. This makes me seem more desirable than I really am.
I pretend not to notice him standing in the doorway. Frankly, I’m deeply absorbed in my book and resent having to jump back into real life. Or unreal life. Whatever this is. But when he clears his throat, I look up and smile at the sight of him. “Oh, hi!”
“Hey, Jane. I was thinking we could grab a sandwich. I figure you’re not familiar with the neighborhood, and my favorite place is just one block over. Gordo’s. Have you tried it yet?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I gesture toward the whirring microwave. “I already started cooking my lunch.”
He checks the box on the counter. Spaghetti with low-fat meat sauce. “Sunk cost,” he says. “Throw it in the trash and I’ll buy you something better.”
I laugh and shake my head. “I couldn’t. But thank you.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
Glancing down, I feign shyness, but I’m really calculating whether he’d be more interested in a yes or a no. I should probably keep up the chase, but I’ve been a little bored with all the planning. And I don’t want to bruise his ego this early in the game. Decision made, I risk a yes, but I spice it with obvious hesitation.
“It’s probably not a good idea . . .”
He smiles because he knows I’m giving in despite my gut instinct. “Nah, it’s a great idea.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. Tomorrow?”
“Okay. All right. Tomorrow.”
He stands taller, his chest puffing out before he inclines his head toward my book. “What are you reading?” I hold it up, showing him the name of a famous thriller author. Steven grimaces. “Genre fiction?”
“My favorite.”
“I only read nonfiction.” He wants me to feel self-conscious, but the truth is that a man like Steven doesn’t want to immerse himself in someone else’s world. It gives the author too much power. It makes Steven feel small.
I ignore all that and pretend I don’t register the implied insult in his disapproval. “Nonfiction? What kind?”
“US history, mostly. Civil war stuff.”
“Oh, cool. I watched that Ken Burns documentary.”