Lisa Owens - Not Working

I quell the urge to defend myself. “Okay. Yeah. When you put it like that. I’m sorry: that was not how things were meant to go.” I straighten out my legs, line my feet up side by side. “I promise I’ll never…I promise I’ll try to never do that again. But you still should have told me.” He shrugs. “What even is this Johns Hopkins thing, anyway?”

He sighs and rubs his head briskly so his hair stands on end. “It was a six-month residency for junior doctors to work in the neurosurgery department there.”

“Luke! That sounds amazing!” A tense smile. “So what — you applied and they picked you?”

“It’s irrelevant. I’m not going.”

“Luke.”

“Yes, I applied, but didn’t think I’d ever get it—”

“But you did. You were offered a place.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You turned it down because you were worried about me?”

“Yes.”

“Without even thinking to tell me. Well,” I say, “we need to fix this.”

“What do you mean?”

“This isn’t how we work. You don’t get to make big decisions for both of us on your own. If you thought I was in such a bad way, you should have told me and we could have talked about it.”

“You’ve had enough to worry about. I didn’t want you to feel like you were holding me back.”

I laugh grimly. “ How am I not? You’ve been so patient all this time while I’ve been stumbling around trying to sort out my life and career. Then an unmissable opportunity for yours comes along and you don’t take it because of me!”

“Yeah, well. I guess I love you.”

“I can’t believe you would do that for me. I can’t believe you care about me so much.” I thought I was all cried out, but feel perilously close to a fresh deluge.

“Claire, you’d do the same for me.” This pure, simple faith — in me, and my love — is like a steadying hand and somehow I regain control.

“You’re amazing. I know how much you must have wanted to take it, and how worried you must have been about me that you didn’t, and honestly I can’t really find the words to say how touched I am that you would make that sacrifice. But, Luke,” I continue, as gently as I can, “please tell me: how exactly does turning down an opportunity like this really help anyone?”

“Well, look, it’s done now. I’m sorry if you think I made a mistake, but I’ve already told them I’m not going, so we don’t need to have this conversation anymore.”

“No.”

He flinches: I know I’m speaking too loudly.

My voice is creaking with resolve. “You’re going to call them and tell them you are.”

“Claire.” Now he’s getting really annoyed: his hands have petrified into claws. “I can’t. I already…It’s unprofessional. They’ll think…It’s too late now to just turn around and say I’ve changed my mind.”

“I bet it isn’t.”

“Claire! Seriously. ”

“Okay! Okay.” Sensing his limit, I relent for the moment, palms out in surrender, sitting back in my chair.

He continues, calmer now that he thinks he’s won the battle. “It’s fine. Which is more than I can say for you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but, God, you look absolutely awful .”

I nod fervently. “Thank you for not thinking this is how I look normally.” I touch my cheek. “I cried so much yesterday I think I cured myself.”

“Of…your hangover?”

“No: cured like pork, from all the salt tears.”

“Ooh, I’m hungry, ” says Luke, clutching his stomach. “Is it dinnertime yet?”

In the Co-op, we discuss what to eat, huddled in the chill of the refrigerator aisle.

“It’s your special night,” I say. “Anything you want.”

Luke says, “I can’t decide. You choose.”

I reach for a pack of salmon fillets.

“Or pizza?” he says.

—

We each head off to gather various things and arrange to reconvene by Oils & Vinegars. When I get there, he’s stooping, hands on knees as he surveys the bottom shelf: scruffy sneakers, the soft cardigan that used to be his dad’s hanging slightly too big on his frame. Little boy, old man, Luke through the ages. I set down the basket, and thread my arms around his waist.

“Which one should I get?” he asks, pointing to the olive-oil selection. “Look, there are five, no, six different kinds.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just pick one,” I say, cheek pressed to his back. He does, and I steer us, still holding tight, toward the checkout line.

After we’ve eaten, we watch Don’t Tell the Bride . The groom has allocated half the wedding budget to a Dolly Parton tribute act and bucking-bronco hire.

“Uh-oh,” says Luke when the bride states to her bridesmaid in no uncertain terms that the one thing she categorically doesn’t want is for the wedding to have a Wild West theme.

“Where exactly is Baltimore,” I ask, “in relation to, say, New York?”

“Claire.”

“Yes or no.”

“It wasn’t a yes-or-no question,” says Luke.

“Is it close?”

“Ish. A three-hour drive.”

“So if, in theory, I knew someone who was doing a junior-doctor residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and if, in theory, I were to visit, would it be possible to spend the weekend with them in New York?”

“Claire…”

“I said in theory.”

“Stop it.”

I give him a little respite, then, feeling generous, a little more. The bride is trying on the wedding dress her fiancé’s chosen: a white lace and satin saloon-girl outfit, complete with feathered headpiece.

“I can’t believe it. I actually really love it!” she gushes. “Oh my God, it’s stunning!” It’s unclear whether the Wild West implication has properly sunk in. I mute the TV.

“Hey!” says Luke. “I want to hear what she says about the cowboy boots!”

I throw the remote across the room onto the armchair, out of reach. “You have to listen to me for a minute.” He stares mutinously at the screen. “Luke. I honestly, truly, completely, unequivocally, passionately think you should go. It has one of the best neurosurgery units in the whole world. It’s crazy of you to pass this up.”

“I already told you: it’s too late.”

“I bet it isn’t. I’m sure it isn’t. There’s always a way — you have to at least ask,” I say. “They already accepted you. The hard part is done. Just explain you had some personal matters, which have now been resolved. Is any of this getting through? Luke? Will you do that? Will you ask?”

He finally peels his gaze away from the TV and studies me: wary, but a little hopeful too.

“You really would be okay with me going?”

“One hundred percent. Do you promise you’ll ask?”

“I’ll ask.”

“Do you promise?”

“I do.”

—

At the wedding reception, the bride’s astride the bucking bronco, whirling an air lasso above her head and having the time of her life.

“Will you lie on me?” I ask.

Luke obliges, pressing the full weight and warmth of his body on mine.

“Don’t die, okay?”

“On the mean streets of Baltimore?”

“I meant ever, but now you say it, the crime rate over there isn’t ideal, is it? Don’t get mixed up with any drug lords.” I squeeze him so hard his bones crackle.

He raises head and shoulders up to look into my face, as though deliberating whether to speak. “You’re sure you wouldn’t mind that Fiona’s going too? I know you have a weird thing about her. Completely unfounded, obviously.”

“Please,” I say. “I’ve met her friends: I’m not worried. I really don’t think you’d last five minutes with someone who consorts with Totty and Clem .”