Once in the bedroom, I look at myself in the mirror with my now slightly disheveled hair and the red wraparound sweater I’d been so excited about wearing earlier. I had such high hopes at the start of the evening.
I take off the sweater and hold it to my nose, but it carries no scent of him. If he wore cologne it might have lingered, but his clean scent does not.
eighteen
There is no greeting from Joan the next morning when I arrive at work. It appears that I’ve beaten her into the office. The reception desk is empty when I walk past it just after seven. I tossed and turned restlessly last night, finally giving up and jumping into the shower around five. Now back in the familiar environment of my office, a place where I like to believe I am successful and in control, I feel less out of sorts as I sip my coffee and get down to work.
Laura calls me at the office that afternoon. I start to tell her, in hushed tones, about Katie’s situation, and I relay cryptic details of my date with Ryan before she becomes frustrated with her inability to hear me and invites herself over to my place tonight for a chat. Jonathan is likely working late again, and she’s on her own anyway.
On my way home from the office, I exchange the Hyundai for my repaired Honda. My first encounter with Ryan has now been erased. I turn up the radio and open the windows to distract myself. The air has a chill to it tonight as it filters into the car. For the first time this season, the breeze smells of fall with a crisp, fresh feel to it, punctuated by a hint of musky wood smoke from a fireplace. Living in Massachusetts, each season has a distinct texture. Memories are often tangled up with white winter snow or brilliant fall foliage.
I recalled what I was doing this time last year. I’d been painting my living room and bedroom. Alex, the guy I was seeing at the time, had helped me, though he mostly just sat around, leaving the actual painting to me. But we had fun, dragging the project out far longer than required.
I tried to remember what happened to Alex. It was nothing monumental. I wasn’t really head over heels in love with him, despite wanting to be. Eventually, he told me that I was a hard person to feel close to, and the next I knew he was seeing someone else. I wonder if I truly am hard to feel close to or if he had simply found someone else he wanted to feel even closer to. I suspect it was a combination of the two.
Since neither Laura nor I inherited the cooking gene from my mother, I pick up Chinese food on the way home. Tiger and I go through our usual routine when I come through the door. He is even more starved for attention than usual because he was home alone for so much of yesterday. I discard my sweater, my only concession to fall so far, my shorts and flip-flops are still my wardrobe fixture, and I open the sliding door at the back of the living room to let in the fresh air and to occupy Tiger while I organize the plates and silverware for dinner. Tiger can sit for hours in front of the screen door, his eyes and ears focused like lasers on some object that is usually invisible to me.
Laura arrives straight from work, wearing the blouse and slacks that are her uniform. She has them in all kinds of mix and match colors. “Do I smell Chinese?” she asks coming through the door, dropping her briefcase in the entryway.
“Sesame chicken and Mongolian beef,”
After some bustling around, finding serving spoons and trading food cartons, we’re finally settled in with at least a few bites of food in our stomachs. Tiger chooses that moment to hop up on the table and sniff at my plate. He’s a very picky eater when it comes to human food, but he does like to stick his twitchy pink nose into everything first before he makes up his mind about it.
Laura points her fork at him. “He’d better not come over here and do that to my plate.”
“But he loves you,” I tell her innocently.
“He can love me from a distance.”
When Tiger makes a move toward Laura’s side of the table, I put down