have their own resources? Am I supposed to hold their hands?
I do the best I can with each fire as it arises, but my own work time has completely disappeared. Completing my assignments requires extra hours every day. I even find myself doing the work of some of the others because it’s just easier than chasing after them to do it. How has Rob handled these people in the past? Are they taking advantage of me, or do they behave this way with him? The next time I run into him, I’ll have to ask.
In a fairly immature move, rather than call David back, I get his email address from Laura and I contact him that way. When he receives my email, he replies right away, seemingly happy with this form of communication, as well. We spend the latter part of the week exchanging emails, making our plans for Friday night. Per his suggestion, we decide on a movie. I don’t know if he’s trying to impress me, but he suggests a French film playing at a small independent theater downtown. I haven’t heard of the film and I don’t prefer to read my movies, but I don’t want to shoot down his plans either. So, I easily agree. He also suggests a late dinner afterwards at a place a friend has recommended to him. He has thought the evening out carefully, and I can’t help but be flattered and impressed by that. Then, the last email he sends on Thursday, ironing out the time, changes my mind.
He intends to take the train into the city and wants to meet me at the theater. He is not going to pick me up. I recalled him telling me that he preferred not to drive when possible, but this is supposed to be a date. I call Laura to gripe about it.
“Well, he really doesn’t know his away around Boston very well.” She reasons, obviously disapproving, but not wanting to berate the guy she has hand chosen for me. “You could take the T, too. It’s a short walk from your house. Or you could park at the T stop.”
“That stop doesn’t have any parking. I won’t be back until after midnight. I don’t want to walk half a mile home by myself at that time of night.”
“No, you shouldn’t do that.” She agrees. “Well, I guess you’ll have to drive into the city and pay for parking. It’s not that big a deal. I’m sure once he gets his bearings, he’ll drive more.”
“We’ve lived here all our lives and we still don’t have our bearings. You just say a prayer and hope the road you took last time is still there. That’s how it works around here.”
The Big Dig, the biggest public works program of its kind when it was taking place, has spent over a decade routing and rerouting the roads of Boston to supposedly make driving through the city easier and to accommodate the growing volume of traffic. Boston, a city whose roads were an unplanned system of paved-over cow paths, has always been a hard place to navigate by car, but at least we natives knew where we were going. Now, no one does.
“Just make the best of it, Andy. Try to have fun.”
“If you hadn’t fixed me up with David, would you be so judicial about this development?”
“I think so,” she says. “We’re just too judgmental in general when it comes to this stuff.”
“So the guy shouldn’t always pay?” I ask.
“No,” she replies quickly. “You know what I mean. Just go out on Friday and have a good time. Don’t over think things. Okay?”
“Okay.” I hang up and glance at my schedule for Friday. In order to get home in time to change my clothes and feed Tiger and then drive into the city for a seven-thirty movie, I’m going to have to leave the office fairly early, and I can hardly afford to this week.
I’m a tense, disgruntled mess when I finally pull into a parking garage around the corner from the theater. Escaping the office had been nearly impossible with both Anand and Ken emailing me constantly from their desks ten feet away. Finally, I got up and walked over to them. Their surprise at seeing me standing there was amusing, but the in-person visit hadn’t really helped.
When I got home I threw some food in Tiger’s bowl, threw on a long skirt with boots, kept my black sweater on, touched up my makeup, fixed