New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 28

At work the next morning Bree said: “The same shirt?”

He nodded. She would be the only one to notice, and they answered their calls and went about their business without further comment until their cigarette break when she said: “Well do tell, Robert,” and he found himself telling her nearly everything, or as close to nearly everything as he could fit into two cigarettes.

When he was done she asked: “So are you going to see her again?”

He did not know. She had left for work before him that morning, but had awoken him while she was getting ready and offered him a cup of coffee. She had been sunny and cheerful and asked how his head was. And she had said: “We should do this again some time, Robert. Though maybe without the wine,” and he had agreed, but they had not made any plans. She did not give him her phone number, though he had access to it easily enough. She did not ask for his phone number, and he did not, in fact, own a phone. When she left she waved goodbye and told him to lock the door on his way out.

“You should see her again,” Bree said.

“Maybe.”

“You should.”

“Maybe I will.”

“And how is your head?”

“Not good.”

Then back upstairs to work. In the afternoon the manager had a new symbol and color combination that he brought everyone to the board to introduce.

“Say for instance Robert here,” he began and went on from there showing how the symbol and color could be used to compare call volume to call time to repeated calls from the same customer and problem resolution time. It did not seem to Robert any different than any of the other symbols and colors, but he listened and tolerated as always, even when the manager finished by saying: “Of course I have yet to find a way of tracking and comparing call volumes to the frequency of hangovers.” And everyone but Bree laughed, and even the laughter of everyone else was mostly polite because they did not know he had a hangover. He did not tell them he had a hangover at the coffeemaker or water cooler. He did not come in late for work that day saying that a hangover had prevented him from getting there on time. In fact, he had only told Bree.

After the workers returned to their desks, Robert saw Bree go into the manager’s office. She closed the door. He closed the blinds. From his place in the back of the room, Robert could not hear the noises of their conversation or activities. He was grateful for this much, and tried to bury himself in his work, but glanced up every few minutes at the office door to see if anyone would emerge and what state they would emerge in.

Fifteen minutes later she came out. Was she flushed or disheveled? He could not tell. Her hair seemed in place as much as it ever was. It was possible that her face was a little darker, but he could not be certain. She came back to her desk and he looked away but before he had looked away completely she had smiled at him in a way that struck him as vaguely apologetic. She sat down. Her phone rang and she answered the call. He glanced at her briefly but could figure out nothing from her manner.

And what was he trying to figure out exactly and why did it matter? It was her life. It was the manager’s marriage. He was only the guy who sat next to her at work and chatted with her on cigarette breaks and on the train home from work.

But her liked her. He liked her in a way that was nearly innocent, aside from still stealing glimpses of her legs or using the image and idea of her in masturbatory scenes played out in his bed. She had been nice to him and he had felt a comfort with her that he had not known with the other coworkers. She called him by his first name and he called her by hers. It was painful for him to imagine her in the arms of the manager, and more painful still to imagine her bent over some piece of office furniture with her skirt hiked up past the thunderbolt cloud in the small of her back and the manager behind her, grinning, sweating, grunting, the tie his wife had given him for father’s day flapping against his thrusting torso to the rhythm of his wrong and sordid deed.

Bree caught him looking at her and smiled.

And at the end of the day the manager called him in to his office.

Robert sat in one of the two armchairs that faced the manager’s desk. The manager sat behind his desk. He was on the phone — he had received the call just after asking Robert to come to his office. It was an important call and he had to take it, but Robert could have a seat and wait.

Robert waited and looked at the edge of the desk. Could she have? Right here? With him? There were no signs — no telltale smudges in the shape of her breasts on the shiny veneer surface of the desk. Everything was neat and orderly. They could have used the wall. Or maybe the floor.

But no scent either. No smell of sweat or sex or the air freshener he might have used to cover it. He was talking on the phone still. An important call. It seemed to be about golf.

Finally he hung up and said: “Robert, sorry to keep you waiting.” He straightened his chair, straightened his tie, moved two pencils from one side of his desk to the other.

Robert assured him that everything was fine and left the office.