The Girl He Used to Know (Page 7)
“Clearly, he’s in good hands.” Sue glanced at her watch and squeezed my arm. “I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
I spent the rest of my shift cleaning cages, helping to administer medicine, and giving attention to any animal that needed it. Before I left for the day, I returned to Charlie’s cage to say good-bye. I thought about how much I would miss him when it came time to let him go, and I wondered for just a moment if I would ever feel as attached to a person as I was to the animals.
And I wondered how much it would hurt if I was ever the one they had to let go.
9
Annika
CHICAGO
AUGUST 2001
“I’m going to eat lunch,” my coworker Audrey says. She and I share the small office that houses our desks and computers and a couple of file cabinets. There have been several times when she’s walked into the room and caught me staring off into space. She jokes about how I need to stop slacking off, but it doesn’t sound like she’s teasing when she says it. And I’m not slacking off. Staring into space is how I clear my mind so I can work through whatever problem I’m trying to solve.
“Okay,” I say, because Audrey hates it when I don’t acknowledge her statements. It’s just that I’m not sure what she wants me to say. I didn’t announce that I was going to eat lunch when I took my peanut butter sandwich out of my bag the way I do every single day. It’s lunchtime. Eating is what we do.
As soon as Audrey leaves, I pull a piece of paper from my desk drawer. On it I’ve written everything I’m going to say when I call Jonathan, and all I have to do is read it out loud. I’ve thought long and hard about what Tina said, and I want Jonathan to know that I understand where he’s coming from but that I’d like for us to spend some more time together. Jonathan was so many things to me, but he was also my friend, and I don’t have very many of those.
I’m relieved when I get his voice mail, because that will make this so much easier, but just before the beep, Audrey walks back into our office. I don’t want her to see me reading from a script, so I shove the paper under my desk blotter and wing it.
“Hey, Jonathan. It’s Annika. Again. I just, um … thought you might be interested in doing something on Saturday.” My throat feels dry and I take a fast sip of water, dribbling it down my chin in the process. “The weather’s supposed to be nice so maybe we could pick up some lunch and take it to the park. If you’re busy or you don’t want to, that’s okay too. I want you to know I understand where you’re coming from. I just thought I would ask. Okay, bye.”
I disconnect the call and gasp for air.
“Was that a personal call?” Audrey asks.
“It was nothing,” I say. I need a minute to regulate my breathing and vent the adrenaline racing through my bloodstream from one stupid phone call.
“It didn’t seem like nothing. Who is Jonathan?” I don’t report to Audrey, but she’s been here three years longer than I have and acts like she’s entitled to know all of my business, professional or otherwise.
“He’s just someone I used to know.”
She leans against the edge of my desk. “Like an old boyfriend?”
“This is my lunch hour.” Why didn’t I say that before? And can’t she see the sandwich on my desk?
“What are you talking about?” she asks in a bitchy voice, the one she uses when she thinks I’ve said something particularly strange.
“I just meant … when you first came in and asked if it was a personal call. This is my lunch hour.” I shut my eyes and rub my temples.
“Are you getting sick or something?” She talks to me like I’m a toddler. Her voice is always very loud, so it feels like she’s yelling at me.
“I’m just getting a headache.”
“Will you be able to finish out the day? I can’t cover for you this afternoon like I had to last week when you were gone. I had to stay late that night.”
“I’m sorry,” I sputter.
“It was a lot of extra work.”
“I won’t need you to cover for me. I’ll take something for my headache.” Audrey stares at me, making no move to leave. I pull out my desk drawer and shake a couple of pain relief capsules into my hand. I choke a little when I try to swallow them because I didn’t take a big enough drink from my water bottle.
Audrey sighs and reaches into her desk drawer for some crackers. “I’m sure my soup is cold now,” she says as she leaves the room again, and though I had nothing to do with it, it somehow feels like my fault.
When Audrey returns, I slip into the break room to make a cup of tea and I see my coworker Stacy. She always has a smile for me and her voice is very calming. When Stacy burns her finger on the meal she takes out of the microwave, I tell her I’m sorry and give her a little side hug.
“Oh,” she says. “Hi, Annika. Just give me a second to put this down.” She sets the meal on the counter. “What was that for?” Her voice doesn’t sound as calm as it usually does. It’s higher pitched now.
“I feel bad that you burned your finger.”
“You’re always so sweet, but I’ll be fine. Thanks, Annika.” She grabs her lunch and leaves the room in a hurry. She must be late for a meeting or something.
It isn’t until the end of the day when I’m shutting down my computer to go home that I remember the only reason Audrey had to cover for me last week was because of an off-site meeting I attended at the request of our boss.
* * *
My headache never really went away and I’m completely worn out when I get home from work. I’m fostering a mother cat and her five kittens, and they’re currently in a cardboard box under my bed. I spend an hour lying on the floor next to it listening to their calming little meows as my headache finally fades away. For dinner, I pour a bowl of cereal, and when I finish eating, I put on my pajamas and crawl into bed with a book, even though it’s only eight thirty.
The phone rings an hour later. I don’t have caller ID because not very many people call me, and I usually let my answering machine screen the ones that do so I have time to decide if I want to talk to them. It drives my mother absolutely nuts. It drives Janice nuts, too, so she always yells, “Pick up the phone, Annika. I know you’re there and I know you want to talk to me.”
I want to hold out so the answering machine can do its thing, but then I remember that it might be Jonathan, and I snatch the handset with only seconds to spare.
“Hello?”
It is him, and I’m flooded with happiness. Plus, I’ve always found the sound of Jonathan’s voice to be very soothing. He never speaks too loud and there’s something comforting about the way he strings his words together. To me, they sound like a melody. Audrey sounds like a foghorn whenever she blows into the room, and the way she strings her words together does not sound melodious. It sounds like screaming death metal.
“I didn’t wake you, did I?” he asks.
It’s only nine thirty, but if there’s one person who’s familiar with my sleep patterns, it’s him.
“No. You didn’t wake me. I’m reading in bed.”
“I can get together on Saturday,” he says.
“That’s great!” I say it way too loud.
“Yeah, well. It’s just lunch, right?”
“That’s what I said in my message. I said it was lunch.”
“Yeah, I know. What I meant was … never mind. Lunch is fine. Lunch will be great. Do you want me to pick you up at home?”
“I’ll be at the Children’s Theatre Saturday morning. Can you pick me up there? Around noon.”
“Sure.”
“Okay. I’ll see you then.”
“Good night,” he says.
“Good night.”
We hang up, but I don’t go back to my book right away. I spend the next half hour thinking about Jonathan, replaying the highlights of our relationship like a “best of” reel, and when I wake up the next morning, he’s the first person I think about.
10
Annika
THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
1991
The sound of footsteps echoed loudly on the sidewalk, and I turned around in time to see Jonathan sprinting toward me. When I left, he’d been talking to Eric and a few of the other players, and I assumed he would be going to dinner with everyone. We had played each other again, and I’d managed to win this time. Jonathan must not have minded too much, because he said, “I like playing with you, Annika.”
A warm feeling had spread through me, because no one but Eric had ever said that to me before, and I didn’t remember it having an effect on me the way it did when Jonathan said it. It was becoming easier for me to talk to him without clamming up or stammering my reply. I’d just needed a little time to ease into it, the way I always did with new people.
“Hey,” he said when he caught up to me. “You forgot your book.” He thrust out his hand and I spotted my dog-eared copy of Sense and Sensibility nestled in his large palm.
“Thanks.”
“It’s getting dark. You should always try to walk home with someone.”