After a while we all started to become less comfortable with each other in the mornings. We took care to dress before coming down for breakfast. I tried not to watch Peter’s every move. I tried not to yearn for him. I failed.
Later Peter told me that he couldn’t get me out of his head. He said the blindfold had meant that he was never sure when it was me and when it was Helen he was with. He felt like he should have been able to tell. He felt like he wanted to experience the difference.
One evening, Helen went to fix us some drinks. While she was out of the room Peter and I accidentally looked into each other’s eyes. We’d each been trying to sneak a quick look at the other. We were still looking at each other when Helen came back. We broke contact guiltily. Helen just stood there. No one spoke.
I wanted to leave or to apologize. I felt as if she had walked in on us fucking.
Helen handed us both a drink. Then she said, “It’s OK. Really. I’ll sleep in the other room tonight.”
Peter started to rise from his chair to protest. Helen stopped him with a glance that I couldn’t read but which brought him to a complete halt. Then she was gone. She took my room.
I was standing too now, staring at the closed door between Helen and us.
Peter and I turned towards each other. I was uncertain. I wanted Peter. Really wanted him. He was so close and so alive that I thought sparks might jump the small gap between us.
I reached up and stroked the side of his face. He was very still. I kissed him.
It was as I had imagined it. Soft lips. Warm. Accepting. Except that it felt wrong. It felt like betrayal.
Peter didn’t kiss me back but he didn’t resist. I know that if I had continued he would have let me. To please me. To please Helen. But I stopped.
Still we didn’t speak. I took Peter by the hand and led him, quietly, into my room. Helen was curled up in a ball facing the wall. She didn’t hear us come in. I said her name. She turned and looked at both of us. There were tears in her eyes. I held Peter’s hand out to her. She jumped up off the bed and hugged him. When I left, they were kissing fiercely, as if they were sucking in oxygen after almost drowning. I went for a drive. They were in their room when I came back and everything was quiet.
The next morning I declared my intent to look for a job. Here I am, five weeks later, ready to move to one.
“B. Are you in there, B? Come out, come out, wherever you are.” It is Mark’s voice calling from the garden. He sounds drunk. I rush out. The last time he and Peter met there was trouble. I expect to see Peter dragging Mark away, but it is Helen, little Helen, who is blocking Mark’s path.
“B. Please, B.”
I put my hand on Helen’s shoulder and she lets me step in front of her. She continues to glare at Mark.
“B, I’m drunk. I’m sorry I’m drunk but I’ve got something important to say to you.”
Mark looks ill. His clothes are dirty and his complexion is pale. I wonder how long he has been drunk this time.
He staggers towards me, reaching for me. I stay still and he stops short.
“I know you’re going away. The lawyer told me. I want to tell you… to say… to let you know that I love you, B. I’ve always loved you.”
He is crying now. He looks lost. I assume his nympho intern has left him. He looks like he wants me to take him in my arms as I have so many times before.
Everybody at the party is looking at us. I step forward so that I can speak directly into Mark’s ear. His arms fold about me as I say, “I know you love me, Mark. I love you. But it will never be enough, will it?”
His face turns towards me. He seems suddenly sober. I wait for the tantrum or the insult. Instead he says quietly, “Good luck in your new job, B,” and walks, a little too precisely, towards his car. Helen sends Peter after him to drive him home.
The party doesn’t last long. Mark has taken the edge off it. By the time Peter gets back people are already leaving. It’s getting dark earlier already. Summer is over and fall, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, is here.
The last of the guests leaves just before sunset. I stand and watch the slow ignition of the sky. Peter and Helen come and stand on either side of me. I take their hands.
I don’t know who Barbara will become in Chicago. I hope Barbara the Bold, ready to make her own future. But right here and right now, she feels like Barbara the Blessed.
Halloween
“You can’t do this to me, Anthea.”
Mark is more pathetic than fierce. The smell of alcohol preceded him into my office. He looks slightly jaundiced. His cheeks and chin sport small islands of stubble that managed to evade his razor this morning. I’m surprised he can keep his hand steady enough to shave.
“I’m not doing it to you, Mark,” I say. “You’re doing it to yourself. You’ve lost it. Look at yourself. How long can you last between drinks now, Mark? An hour? Two, if you really try? I’m giving you a simple choice: either dry out or ship out.”
For a moment I think he’s going to tell me to fuck off. I almost wish he would.
When we first met, before his long-suffering wife finally left him, he was a maverick. He always had a comeback ready. I liked him. He reminded me of Davey, my younger brother. Or at least how Davey would have been if he hadn’t wrapped himself around a tree riding that motorcycle of his.
I’ve never found it easy to talk to men. Somehow it always turned into a conflict: the strong ones saw me as a challenge, someone to put down either by bedding or ridiculing; the weak ones were afraid of me and their fear made me despise them and despise myself for feeling that way. I built a shell around myself. I out-manned them; being tougher than the strong and ruthlessly removing the weak.
I thought Mark was the exception, that for once I could drop the macho crap and make a friend. I liked the way he smiled and he was easy to talk to. Then, one evening, when we were working late, Mark pushed his fingers between my legs. I wanted to kill him. I felt betrayed. Stupid really, he wasn’t to know that he reminded me of my dead brother.
Mark works for me now. I should probably have fired him, but I always hoped that he’d pull himself together and be the guy I wanted him to be. Now he’s sitting on the other side of my desk with nothing to say. Oh shit. He’s crying. Not big sobs. More like his eyes are leaking.
Part of me wants to hug him and help him, but most of me just wants to slap him. How could he fuck up his life like this?
Of course, I can’t do either of these things. I’m the boss, Anthea the Hun they call me: strong, logical, unemotional.
I look at my watch. Mark is my last chore before I head home. It’s Halloween tonight and I have things to prepare. I let my eyes rest on the picture of Drazen and his daughter that I keep on my desk. The picture is supposed to remind me of home, give me a smile in the middle of the day; increasingly it just reminds me that I spend too many hours at work and most of them are wasted on cleaning up the messes other people make. Time to clear up my last mess of the day.
“I’m going to leave these details with you, Mark. If you want to keep your job then I will get a phone call from the clinic on Monday saying that you’ve checked in. If you want to continue to drown yourself in booze, then just clear your desk and don’t come back. This is your last chance, Mark. Choose wisely.”
Why do I always sound so pompous when I’m doing something unpleasant?
Even though it’s my office, I get up to leave. I want to be home. I want to be somewhere where I don’t have to be in charge and where I can let people love me. Mark starts to cry properly as I leave. I pretend not to hear him and keep moving.