“Sam, it’s a cute idea but there’s no way. We agreed on the invitations because we wanted something monochrome. What did the stationery lady call it? ‘Traditional tones’?”
“Maybe we need to move beyond monochrome.” There’s too much weight to my words. I wanted to say it lightly, like with a question mark at the end. But it comes out like a declaration, which I guess is how I mean it. I really need some color in my life.
“Oh God, Sam. You’ve spent too much time this summer with your parents.” He laughs at this and goes back to his spaghetti.
I look down at my plate and try to manage the anger that’s creeping up. I don’t like his tone about my parents, and I actually want to spend more time out there, not less. “It was good for me, I think, being out there more than once this summer. It’s nice, how they sort of get loose. They’re happy.”
“They probably are, but it’s a little nuts. Like they’re kids.” He holds up the invitation for emphasis.
“They’re artists, not kids.” We’re quiet for a second. Jack eats his spaghetti and I watch. Finally I say, “When I was a kid in the summer I used to wake up in the morning and just follow the day wherever it took me. I didn’t wear shoes, ever. I just moved in and out of the ocean, making up games and digging in the sand.” There, that’s who I am.
Jack smiles at my memory. “Idyllic,” he says. “But you can’t keep doing that the rest of your life.” He gestures with his fork. “Our kids are going to take tennis lessons.”
Tennis lessons. There is absolutely nothing wrong with tennis lessons. I picture little children in clean white clothes with little white sneakers, double tied, learning to hit the ball within the confines of that rectangle. Over and over again. It feels like waltzing as I see it in my mind.
* * *
It’s ninety-five degrees outside, but I’m wearing a sweater in my cubicle. Everything feels unnatural. It’s the day after Labor Day and it feels like the first day back at school, everyone seated in straight lines and in hard shoes. Eleanor has a new assignment for me. I’m hoping it’s in Central Park.
“Come in,” she says, lowering her reading glasses. “How was the weekend?”
“Good.”
“Wedding plans coming along?”
“Sort of.”
“Good. Now, I have a new assignment for you once you’ve finished up that health care thing. It’s perfect because it can all be done from here, just you and the data.” Scold me, punish me, but do it once. I do not need her to keep bringing this up.
“What’s the assignment?”
“An insurance company wants to unload twenty percent of its sales force. They have sales data and time logs, you just need to identify who needs to go. They’d like to fire them on Friday, so maybe get started this afternoon.” Ah, the old Friday firing. She hands me a file.
“Are you cold in here?” I ask.
“No.”
It’s crazy that we’d have to open a window to warm up. Crazier still that the windows don’t open. I’m pacing the tiny space between the guest chairs and her desk.
“Are you sick?” Eleanor asks.
It’s a great question, really. I check in with my body. My chest feels tight and my lungs don’t seem to be able to take in a full breath. I try to remember the signs of a woman having a heart attack.
“I’m fine, I think. I just, I don’t know. I need some air.” I turn to leave.
“Fine, get some air, but we need this midday Friday,” she says. And I can’t quite imagine it, not one more minute of sitting in that cubicle making decisions about people I don’t know based on random criteria. Making a spreadsheet and sorting it high to low and then sending a wrecking ball into the bottom twenty percent’s lives, no questions asked. This isn’t who I want to be anymore, and it’s certainly not who I am. Before I know it, I am in bare feet with my good work shoes in my hands. My body has decided.
“Thank you, Eleanor, for everything you’ve done for me, but I really need to get out of here. I’m not coming back.”
* * *
I step out of the building with eyes closed because I want to feel the heat of the day on my skin. I changed into the flip-flops I kept in my desk for lunchtime pedicures and left my work shoes in their place. It’s a decision I’ll probably regret, but walking away from them right now feels great. I walk into the park, and the old oaks on the Poet’s Walk applaud me with their darkest green leaves. I am so relieved and joyful, as if I’ve just gotten some great news. I sit down on a bench to text Jack. I can’t quite get the words out: I quit my job. I should tell him in person tonight. I can’t text Wyatt. I don’t feel like engaging with my parents. I text Travis: I quit my job.
Travis: Nervous breakdown?
Me: The opposite
* * *
Jack comes back from Tuesday night tennis and doesn’t notice that I’ve made dinner until after his shower. “What’s all this?” He kisses me and grabs a spear of asparagus off the baking sheet.
“I’m celebrating, I think.”
“What? Did you send out the invitations? I thought that was tomorrow night.”
That was actually tonight, I think. I totally forgot. “I quit my job.”
He puts down the end of his asparagus. “Wait. Why?”
“I hate it. I mean it was tolerable when I got to go to different companies and sort of engage with people, but now that I’m stuck in my cubicle with reams of paper, I just can’t handle it.”
He walks out of the kitchen and starts pacing in the living room, like he needs more space to process this. I have a horrible feeling that I’ve made a mistake, that I’ve pulled the rug out from under myself. “Lots of people hate their jobs sometimes, Sam. I just had a full day of adult acne. I didn’t quit.”
I’m not sure what I was thinking. I was so excited walking by the Fresh Market and picking up food for dinner. I think I sort of thought he might be excited that I was getting out of a rut.
“I felt like I couldn’t breathe,” I say.
“Then you go home sick. Or you take a walk. You don’t quit. And maybe we could have talked about this.”
“Let’s talk about it now.” I sit down on the couch and wait for him to sit next to me. “I think maybe that whole flash mob thing was a cry for help, or even the last gasp of the real me because she was about to disappear forever. I can’t spend the rest of my life keeping strangers in line.”
Jack puts his arms around me and I fall into his hug. This is what I was hoping for, that Jack would understand and want me to do whatever I need to do to be happy.
“Okay,” he says. “It’s going to be okay. Eleanor has invested a lot of time in you. I say you just call her tonight and come clean. You’ve been under a lot of stress with the wedding, but of course you want to keep your job.”
I pull out of the hug. “Did you hear what I said? I’m not going back to that job.”
He takes my hands. “Of course you are. You’re good at it. You’re well paid. You’ll probably hate your next job too sometimes, that’s what work is.”
I do not communicate with Jack. I don’t know why I’m just realizing this now. I toss my words over to him and they hit a wall and slide to the ground. There’s no give-and-take, no discussion. “I tried to tell you I want to teach art.”
“Well that’s irrational.”
“What’s irrational about teaching?”
He’s exasperated and lets out a dramatic breath. “You don’t have a degree in education, you have no experience, you’ll make less money than you’re making now. Want more?”
I am strangely emboldened by his rigidity. Like I want to throw more ideas at him and watch them bounce off, just to prove how rigid he is. “Is there anything that you’d support me doing that is outside of the scope of your life plan?”
“It’s our life plan, Sam. Two kids three years apart, starting in three years. All the stuff we’ve been over.”
“What about three kids, two years apart?”
“That’s too many kids,” he says, like it’s a fact he just read in the Encyclopedia of Family Planning. “It’s too much tuition.”
“Plus all those tennis lessons,” I say.
He relaxes. “Yes, exactly.”
I’m relaxed too. I’ve loosened my grip on this thing I’ve been holding on to and I’m so close to letting it go. I consider tossing him one more, maybe asking what he thinks about a chocolate wedding cake, but I know. I’ve known for a long time. Jack has no idea who I am, and I don’t think he wants to know.
Jack is leaning back on the couch, satisfied that he’s made his point and that I’m going to fall in line. Falling in line has been my signature move my whole adult life. I want to lean over and mess up his hair. I want to replace all of this furniture with—I don’t know what; I’ve never even picked out furniture. I run my hand over the gray tweed of the sofa, and I look up at his handsome face. This isn’t his fault. He’s been up-front about who he is and what he wants from the very first day. I’m the one who’s been lying and withholding herself.
I take off my ring and hand it to him. “I can’t do this, Jack.”
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