Matt Cowper - The Clerk

“Emily. Enough of this shit. You wanted to talk. So talk.”

Emily walked over and sat down beside him, folding her hands across her lap. Up close, in this light, she looked even healthier than she had outside — and just as glowingly defiant.

“OK, I’ll talk,” she said brightly. “I ran away with a boy, an old flame. You know the story: that one guy returns to your life, and you thought it was done years ago, but it isn’t.”

“Who the hell is this old flame?”

“Thomas, can you not?”

“Can I not what? Curse? Emily, you’ve deserted your family. Dan went crazy, acted like I’ve never seen him act before, and mom and dad are still in Raleigh, sitting around and waiting for you to turn up…”

“Really? Dan, the definition of calm, went crazy?” She seemed thrilled at the idea. “Well, he acted crazy the night I left, but I figured it was just something that happened in the heat of the moment. And I don’t know why mom and dad haven’t gone home yet. I told everyone I was fine.”

“Emily, have you seriously lost your mind? You disappear, and you expect everyone to just go ‘Ho-hum, guess I’ll go back to my normal routine and wait for her to come back?’”

“Well, that’s what you did, didn’t you?”

She had him there. He had returned to his normal routine, though he checked his phone and e-mail constantly, and he believed he’d worried about as much as was expected of him.

“So what?” Thomas said defensively. “I have to work. Should I have stayed in Raleigh and sat around twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to turn up?”

“I wanted you to do whatever you felt was best.”

“I… alright, you’re just dragging me around in circles.”

“ You’re the one who gets angry every time I say two words.”

“Fine. OK. I’ll listen, as neutrally as I possibly can. Go on.”

Emily smiled and crossed her legs.

“You remember Brett Hickman?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah. Your first boyfriend? I mentioned him at Christmas?”

“Yes, that’s right. You did.”

“So he’s the one? The boy you ran away with?”

“Yes.”

“But… how does that work? He broke up with you decades ago.” Thomas could see a teenage Emily on her bed, seemingly done with life, despite Thomas’s encouragement and sympathy, however forced.

But his sister had surfaced from her fog, and it seemed like the chapter on Brett Hickman was closed for good. It was just an over-dramatic breakup with a first boyfriend, something that happened to every girl.

But now he was back, more than twenty years later…

“Yes, he did dump me,” Emily replied, “but that doesn’t matter anymore.”

“If you say so.”

“I do,” Emily said. “You know, I think you’d like him.”

“Why on earth would I like him? I don’t like him now, I didn’t like him back then. Ponytail, dressed like a punk, a bully…”

“No, he wasn’t a bully. He was just… hard.”

“In more ways than one, I guess.”

Emily laughed and squirmed in her seat. Thomas regretted his quip, and hoped to God she wasn’t going to go into too much detail about the sex they were obviously having, which was sure to be entrancing, wild, hot, and all the other words people threw out. If she did, he may already have to renege on his agreement to keep his anger in check.

“Yes, he was excellent,” Emily said sultrily, “and he still is.” Thomas waited, but thankfully this was all the detail she wished to give at the moment.

“So where is this Hickman guy at now?” Thomas asked.

“He’s around.”

“Oh sure,” Thomas said sarcastically. “He’s around.”

“Yes, well, I suppose you want to know how he came back into my life?” Emily said eagerly. Thomas tried to object, but she was off and running before he could form his words. “Well, I was in the gym one day, doing squats with Becka, my trainer, and I feel this presence behind me. Literally, I got goosebumps. I’m not lying. And it was him : Brett Hickman. Still had his ponytail, still as ripped as he was in high school — well, he wasn’t all that toned back then, but anyway — still with that grin that just gets inside your heart and twists it.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. He was in workout clothes, had a sleeveless t-shirt on, and I tell you, those biceps looked like they’d been carved out of marble…”

“How wonderful,” Thomas said acidly. He thought they’d bypassed Emily’s lustful thoughts.

“OK, OK. You don’t want to hear me gush over his physical attributes.” She paused, apparently wanting to gush over those attributes mentally for a few seconds before continuing. After a beat, she shook her head happily, chuckled, and resumed her narrative. “Anyway, we got to talking, or he talked and I stammered out some stuff. Said he had just moved to the area, and had been looking for a gym, since he was pretty hardcore into weightlifting and fitness and all that. Said it was his first time there, and lo and behold, I just happened to be there too. Not that I believed him. Sounded a bit melodramatic to me…”

“What’s he do for a living?”

“He’s sort of semi-retired. He did some stuff in Silicon Valley and made a lot of money. He helped develop some note-taking app for smartphones, for example. Now he mostly spends his money and has fun, though he’s sort of a venture capitalist, too.”

“Sort of. He’s sort of this, sort of that.”

“Yeah, is that a problem?” Emily asked haughtily. “What, you want me to print out a résumé for you?”

“That would actually be helpful. I mean, do you have proof of all this?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking that. You think he’s a con man, don’t you?”

“Well, do you have proof or not?”

“Yes, I do, actually. I’ve looked him up. There’s this thing called the Internet? And he’s shown me his investment portfolio. Very impressive.”

So he’d shown her his portfolio, too? Way to set the hook, Brett. Thomas sighed. He was tired of sighing, but it looked like he’d be doing it many more times tonight. “So this guy shows up, he’s a stud, has lots of money, and you go for it.”

“No, Thomas, I did not go for it, at least at first. We had coffee a few times, and he was clearly interested, but I kept him at bay. But then Dan…” She scrunched up her face at the memory of her husband’s slight, and clutched at her kneecaps as if she wanted to rip them off and throw them at something.

“What about Dan?” Thomas asked.

“He forgot our anniversary,” Emily said. The guillotine sliced downwards, and Dan’s head was lopped off. Blood spurted out of his neck-hole, and the body twitched once before giving up the ghost.

Thomas didn’t remember when their anniversary was either. He actually had it written down on a Master List of birthdays, anniversaries, and other important events that was posted on his refrigerator, but it would be silly to walk all the way to the kitchen to find out.

“When was it?” he asked.

“You don’t know either?” She blew up like a pufferfish, but before she could make use of her spines, Thomas squished her back down again.

“Oh, stop acting wounded,” he said. “I’m not married to you — thank God for that! I have it written down, but I can’t be expected to remember it off the top of my head. You know, not everything revolves around you.”

“Well… fine. It’s on September 21st, and this was our fifteenth anniversary. And he forgot.”

September? That recently? Yes, he remembered now: he’d sent them something, a cheap bauble of some sort. No, it had been a gift card to Outback Steakhouse. He knew Dan salivated over their Bloomin’ Onion.