Chapter 6
I opened the envelope Charlie had dropped on my desk. Inside was a note with a key taped to the back. The note said, The door is always open, waiting for you to come back to me.
Dammit! I ripped off the key and threw it across the room. It pinged and panged against some ugly and useless decor Wolfe’s designer had left in the corner.
My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up. It was a text from Meryl. Lunch? I’m feeling Thai Food.
My response: Please, Star of Siam, Illinois Avenue, 12:30
I beat Meryl to the restaurant and sat alone, waiting. My memories began to get the best of me as I sat and sifted through moments Charlie and I had spent together the past few years. Nervously, I drummed my fingers on the table. I felt as sick as I did at the moment I had first learned what had happened. Why the hell is it taking so long for her to bring me a glass of water? My heart dropped to my stomach when I pictured Charlie and me lying together on my suede couch, him asleep, his face angelic and peaceful, so incredibly beautiful, as always. I remember I had wanted to kiss him, but knew that I’d wake him if I did. He didn’t like it when I did that.
While I was gazing down at him so adoringly, I saw his phone light up on the coffee table. 3 a.m. Who could possibly be texting him at this drunken hour of the night? Of course, his psychotic ex-girlfriend! The one he’d dated when he was a freshman in college and who hated me so strongly that I wouldn’t be surprised if she spent her Saturday nights poking needles into a voodoo doll she’d made of me.
“Happy Belated Birthday Charlie” read her pathetic text. Furtively, I began scrolling through his messages. There were other texts from her, quite a lot of them. And quite a lot of texts from other women as well. I scrolled and scrolled and scrolled... It was like the numbers running down the walls in the Matrix, only it was a never-ending list of stripper names like Brandi, Alissa,Bambi, Natalia, Candy, Kaci, Stacey, Bethany, Tiffany... followed by stripper-like conversations such as “come on over” “Can I see your dorm room tonight?” “I rented us a movie” and “What’s taking so long?”
Wait. Your girlfriend freshman year in college? Really, Charlie? As if it wasn’t enough, competing with 5’10” models, let’s add in a few eighteen-year-olds! Hopefully they’re at least that old.
I felt my face getting hot and a sort of tunnel vision activating. I could hear the blood pumping through my ears. Disgusted at the sight of him, lying there with one lock of dirty-gold hair curled down over his forehead, I disentangled myself and slowly got up off the couch. I nearly lost my balance, but without any hesitation, I cocked my arm back as far as it would go, and harder than baseball hall-of-famer Nolan Ryan could throw a pitch, I chucked Charlie’s stupid iPhone at his stupid face.
He yelped, leaping off the couch in a panic, grabbing his forehead.
“What the hell?”
“Get out, Charlie,” I said. “Get out now!”
He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. In a way, I had.
“Get out Charlie, I read your texts.” I turned around, slowly walked up the spiral staircase and locked myself in my bedroom. I heard him follow me slowly up the stairs, one step at a time, open the front door, and SLAM! The waitress dropped a cup on the table causing the water to splash everywhere, “Water?” I snapped out of it and stared at the Asian girl thinking she’d be much prettier if she smiled more. My phone buzzed; it was Meryl:
“Hey, where are you?” I asked.
“Bobbie, something came up, I can’t make it I’m so sorry, explain later,” she offered in a rush.
“No problem, want me to drop anything off for you?”
“No, I’m okay. I have a surprise lunch with an author that’s just in town for the day. Are you okay?” she asked, sincerity in her voice.
“Yes, I’m fine. Charlie made a surprise visit to the office. I let him kiss me, like an idiot.”
“Oh no, you know what, I’m coming. I’ll cancel.”
“Meryl, no. I’ll be fine.” I begged.
“You sure?” her voice sounded worried. We said our goodbyes. I did not mind a moment alone: sometimes talking about my relationship made things worse. My mother always told me the more attention you give to something the more it grows, good or bad.
“Excuse me, can I get the Pad Khee Mao to go please?”
I walked out of the restaurant and decided to take my time getting back to work. I made my way out onto the street and took a left past the parking garage and the bus stop next to the restaurant. I never walked down this way, but like the rest of the city, the streets were neatly lined with young trees, and cars zipped by, narrowly missing pedestrians crossing the street. A crowd of tourists walked straight at me. I was about to get swallowed in the little sea of foreigners. Unlike the city’s residents, the foreigners looked terrified as vehicles careened past them at the corner.
I looked up to see something flipping around in the air. A flyer? Scrap paper? It hit the ground over my left shoulder; it was a $20 dollar bill! I stopped immediately and looked behind me to see from whose unlucky pocket this had fallen. I saw a woman with a purse and a man with his hands in his pockets. The man was crossing the street on a diagonal; the women kept walking forward. Why was everyone walking so fast? Was it just city life? By now two people had bumped into me since I’d stopped dead in my tracks mid-sidewalk. I was confused: was it his or was it hers or was it neither? All I know is that someone in a ten foot radius dropped twenty bucks on the ground. I turned and walked away leaving the twenty dollar bill on the ground for some other sweet soul to find. I looked back to see if anyone had picked it up and saw a man on his cell phone spot it. He actually went out of his way to walk around it like it was some steaming pile of dog doo-doo. I laughed and continued walking.
I came across an old used bookstore called After Words. I decided to go in because Meryl was always talking about books and authors. To be honest, I didn’t even really like to read fiction. Most books were too long, with boring characters and tedious story-lines. I always lost interest within the first thirty pages.
A woman wearing a beret greeted me. She was carrying on an impassioned conversation with the man behind the counter. Apparently she thought Anna Karenina was way better than A Tale of Two Cities.
“What’s your favorite book?” the woman turned and asked me.
“The Great Gatsby,” I said impulsively.
“Really?” she looked at me without smiling. “Why?”
“Because a) it’s a classic and b) it was the only book assigned in high school that I actually read—because it was the shortest. The rest of the books I looked up in SparkNotes.”
The woman rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Can I help you with something?” she said.
“Yeah, where’s your legal section located?” I asked.
“You looking for something like Contracts for Dummies?” she studied me.
“No, more like books for law students,” I affirmed.
“Aisle six,” she mumbled studying my wardrobe.
I walked over to the “Legal” section and skimmed through a few case books. The only things I ever read for pleasure were magazines, Calvin and Hobbs comic books, and majority, dissenting, and concurring opinions from Supreme Court cases. I spotted an old man behind the front desk. He looked like a scrawny version of Santa Claus.
“Excuse me. How much are these case books?” He looked up at me, startled, as if he never even saw me come in. I figured he was writing the next War and Peace behind that little desk of his, judging by the length of that beard.
“Fifteen dollars each,” he croaked.
“I’ll give you twenty for both of these,” I bargained, holding up a First Amendment and Due Process case book.
“Meh,” he nodded and waved me over. I smiled on the inside. I loved it when I got my way.
> “Case books, huh?” he asked insincerely. “Law student?”
“No, I was a political science undergraduate. I guess I just like to read justified arguments,” I said honestly.
“I was a law professor for years. You’re young. Go live your life. Law schools aren’t going anywhere,” he responded bitterly, seemingly ignoring my response. I wondered if he sensed that I had impulsively decided not to go to law school in my senior year of college. Today, his comments were reaffirming my decision.
“Twenty bucks,” he barked, “I misplaced twenty bucks today. That’s what happens with old age.”
I looked at him, puzzled, “Thanks,” I said and walked out.