Alix Ohlin - Signs and Wonders

I felt like I had to prepare this compassionate, sentimental woman for the unpleasant realities inside. “There might be some difficult decisions to make.”

She cocked her head at me, and I could tell she knew what I was implying, and that I’d offended her. “I’m sure that with your help we’ll be able to make some wonderful improvements to our organization,” she said smoothly. “Thank you for all your hard work.”

From beneath her desk, I heard a sickly meow.

Melissa paled. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? We’re not supposed to have animals here, but I really couldn’t leave Snickers alone.”

I stood up. “Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions.”

She shook my hand as the cat bellowed again. “Will do,” she said.

I’d grown used to spending part of every weekend with Adam, but Friday and Saturday passed and he didn’t call. Late that afternoon I tried his cell, but he didn’t answer. It seemed unlikely he’d already been told he was getting fired, but sometimes office grapevines work at the speed of light.

By Sunday night I was going out of my mind, unable to sit still, my skin itching. I caught myself thinking crazy things, like: The only thing that bothers me is that he didn’t even say good-bye. Or: I just want to kiss him one more time. My heart was rattling with upset, jumping around as if bent on escape. But there was no escaping this.

On Monday I headed to New Jersey. I greeted the bosses and set up my office and began arranging meetings. This place had no old college acquaintances to add intrigue to the assignment, which was fine by me. The day went by quickly, and so did the week, but the real me was somewhere else.

Apparently, things were over between Adam and me. I’d gotten the message but the crazy part of me, the heart-skipping, cage-rattling part, wanted a final conversation or, at the very least, one last glimpse. And so on Wednesday morning instead of taking the PATH train, I went to Midtown and sat in the park where we’d first had lunch. Looking at the building, I tried to invent an excuse for returning to the office. Maybe I’d left something there, a pen or some important folder. But I’d trained myself in efficiency, and never left anything behind.

At lunchtime, Adam came out of the building with Melissa. They went into the deli, then crossed the street to the park and unwrapped their sandwiches, balancing them awkwardly on their suited laps. They weren’t sitting especially close or touching each other or anything, but I could tell, just from seeing them, that they were sleeping together. So I guessed he’d keep his job.

I’m no spy, and I don’t do surveillance. “Hey, Melissa,” I said, walking up to them.

“Oh, hi, ” she said.

“Adam, could I talk to you for a second?”

“Of course.” He stood up and we walked a few feet away, into the shadow cast by some monstrous, ambiguously shaped steel sculpture. We met each other’s eyes — we were adults, we could do this — and his were so, so blue.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

He looked perplexed. He didn’t seem mad, or even uncomfortable. “For what?”

I’d prepared a little speech in my hours of waiting for him to appear. “Although I couldn’t have altered the facts of my report, I could have recused myself, or not gone out with you, or given you some advance notice of my findings, and I’m sorry that I didn’t do any of those things. It was inappropriate, and I apologize.”

He looked down and laughed, and when his blue eyes met mine again, he winked. In all the time we’d spent together, he’d never winked, and the distance it put between us cut me like a cold wind. “Sometimes,” he said, “we were very inappropriate.”

“Well—”

“Listen, I understand you feel bad, and that’s sweet, but you don’t have to worry.” He gestured vaguely behind him. “I’m not getting fired but Melissa’s taking the spirit of your suggestions to heart and ICS will be the better for it.”

“I never realized that you were so concerned about the company’s welfare.”

He stepped closer, and his voice softened. “I think you were the one getting concerned. A little too invested. I just figured it was best not to get even more, you know, when it wasn’t going to be what you wanted.”

Understanding came over me in waves. “This isn’t about my saying your job should be eliminated? It’s because I said I love you?”

“I told you — when we first saw each other again — that I don’t do that anymore. I leave first, always. You can’t say I wasn’t honest.”

“So this was, like, your revenge?”

“No, Jan,” he said softly, and I’ll swear there was real caring in his voice. “It’s just who I am now.”

It wasn’t something you could argue with, so I nodded and left. I’d like to say I didn’t cry on the subway, but I did. And back in my apartment, I curled up under a blanket on my couch. I asked myself what I was thinking, scolded myself for getting involved with him and for acting like a crush-struck teenager, told myself that I’d survived a divorce and surely I’d survive this, commanded myself to grow up, and when I was done saying all this to myself I thought: Oh, great, another failure.

The difference between being a teenager and an adult is, I guess, that the next day, I took the PATH train out to New Jersey and got on with it. The days were okay but at night I could feel my heart pacing like a restless and unhappy animal. It was probably the first time I’d felt lonely in years. Usually I was comfortable spending time alone, but I’d made a space for Adam in my life and my body; now that he was gone, I felt hollow.

This is the only teenage thing I did: I went to a bar in Hoboken where Das Boot was playing. This time the place was crowded and a fake French band was playing. Next up was a fake Japanese band. Fake bands were all the rage. I couldn’t find any napkins at the bar, and my ears were ringing. I didn’t see Adam anywhere, and should have gone home, but instead I stayed and drank Red Stripe with people ten, maybe twenty years younger. At one point, gesturing to the bartender, I knocked over a bottle sitting in front of the girl next to me, who was very pretty and had silver piercings dotted all along her eyebrows. When I apologized, she put her hand on my shoulder and said sweetly, “I think it’s great you still get out.”

By the time Das Boot came on, the crowd had shifted and was now almost all women. Adam was a heartthrob. He came onstage bare chested and his hair was tied up in tiny pigtails all over his head. A kind of collective sigh blew through the audience. A line from an old, nonfake band went through my head: Baby you’re adorable. Handle me with care.

His smile swept across the room and then he started to sing, or fake-sing, or whatever it was that he did, and all those girls loved it. Loved him. He didn’t know I was there. My heart gave a sickly meow, and I went home.

It was past one by the time I got back to my apartment. I felt as alone as I’ve ever felt in my entire life. I called my husband, just to hear a familiar voice.

“I’m dating someone,” he said. “FYI.”

“That’s great,” I told him, sincerely. “I want you to be happy.”

“What about you?”

“I was, but it didn’t work out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Or at least it will be.”

We talked for a few more minutes, exchanging news, and then we hung up.

What happened afterward? If I were to assess my life like a corporate organization, examining its climate and function, I would summarize my findings as follows. I never saw Adam again. In the days to come, I cried and cried and cried, like the heartsick teenager who still lived inside me. I cried so much that I grew comfortable with it, and with the pain that gave rise to it. I knew that night, without a doubt, that I loved Adam. And I still, in certain moods and lights, loved my husband, a love that was like a ghost of itself. There was no future for either of these loves, but it wasn’t the same thing, I thought, as failure. Because of this: I no longer felt like a showroom car, static and shining with lack of use. Because of this: I was a person whose heart could still move.