Office Girl (18 page)

Jack backs away from the window. “Yeah, that's kind of weird.”

“Are you scared?” she asks, laughing.

“No. A little.” And then, “I guess.”

“I used to be really scared of heights. When I was kid,” Odile admits.

“You were?”

“Just a little. Now it really doesn't bother me.”

Jack looks down and feels his legs are still wobbly. “I never liked heights.”

“What else are you afraid of?” she asks.

“Just heights, I guess.”

“When I was a kid, I used to be afraid of everything. Now the only thing I'm scared of is if people like me or not.”

“Yeah,” he says.

“It's weird. Sometimes I think there's something seriously wrong with my brain. I want everyone to like me, even if I don't like them. Like my roommate and people at school. Even my family. I have this weird thing about being liked by everyone. I don't want anyone to think I'm a bad person, or mean. So I do things I end up regretting. Like I loaned this money to my roommate and I know she's never going to pay me back. I don't even care about the money. It's the fact that I gave it to her, you know? And I don't know why I did it. I just wish I didn't care if people liked me or not.”

And Jack nods, smiling, the two of them still leaning against the open window.

“When I was eighteen or nineteen,” she continues, “I had this boyfriend in art school, and he was my first serious boyfriend ever. Brandon. He was so nice and I ended up cheating on him. It was weird. I didn't want to, but I did. The first chance I got, I cheated on him. I don't know why. I mean, it was like, I met somebody, this guy at this party, and he wasn't anything special, but he seemed nice, and immediately I felt like I had to get him to like me. So I cheated on this really nice guy for no reason. I don't know. I think it's a pretty serious character flaw, you know? To do things like that. I think it's one of the reasons I want to leave. Because I'm tired of trying to get people to like me.”

And Jack nods again.

“I feel like I'm at the point where I need to decide who I'm going to be,” Odile says. “I don't feel good about anything I've done so far. I think that's why I want to go to New York. Because it's easier than having to figure all these things out here.”

And she looks at him and smiles and says, “Okay. Wow. I think I'm going to shut up now.”

And he nods and they are walking down the flights of stairs and she is a few steps below him and he can see over the top of her white hat and she is still moving and then she has stopped to stare at a pair of icicles that have formed and they are standing in the stairwell beside each other and then he just says it.

“I did something pretty dumb when I was eighteen.”

And she is turning, looking up at him, and she asks, “Yeah?” and he says: “Yeah. I was away at school, on the East Coast, in Massachusetts. It was only a few days since the semester had started but it was the first time in my life I was away from home, from my parents and my sister and people I knew, and all the trees looked different, you know, and I knew they were the same but they still looked different because I didn't recognize anything, I kept getting lost everywhere. I mean, every time I left my room and went outside, I'd get lost, and everyone seemed so happy, they were all happy to be at college, because this was real life to them, and it was finally starting, you know, but it didn't feel like it was starting for me, because even after a week I was having a hard time keeping up with the classes. My roommate, he was this guy, and he knew a lot of people, so there were always these people in my room, coming over to visit, people I had never met before, guys and girls, and I never had any time alone, I never had any time to be alone in the room, you know, and so it kind of got to me, and I'd just go out walking so I could be alone. Then I'd start to feel better and I'd think I was going to make it, and I'd try to go to my classes, but I didn't know any of the people there or my teachers and I started going out less and less, and because I had the top bunk I would just lay there while people came and hung out in our room and partied and did coke, and then one night I was lying there and my roommate came in, and he had this girl with him, and he had done that before, have a girl with me there, and they were like going at it, and I was lying above them and I could hear them kissing and the girl even asked,
What about your roommate?
and my roommate said,
He's not here, he must be gone for the night,
and then they went back to kissing, and I don't think they even knew I was there, I think maybe they were drunk, but that's what made me so mad, you know, they didn't even know I was there, and so then I climbed down and the girl said something and I went to the bathroom, one of those big common ones, and someone had left their shaving kit there, and I found a plastic razor and tried to cut my wrist, but all I ended up doing was getting a razor burn because it was a safety razor and I couldn't figure out how to get the blade out, and so then I decided I would try to freeze to death and I walked outside in my pajamas and it was November but it had snowed already and there was snow and leaves everywhere and I thought this is as good as it's going to get for me and then I laid down in the snow and it was already five or six in the morning and then a security guard came and tried to get me to stand up and I told him I didn't want to, that I was trying to kill myself, so he had to carry me into the back of his patrol car and bring me to the hospital and then the school called my parents and I've been dealing with it ever since. I mean, this was all … I dropped out of that school and then went to art school after that. Then things got better for me. But. What I mean is, I'm not a bad person. I just get depressed. We talked about it before but now I'm telling you. I do get depressed, and I don't know why, but it's only for a couple days at a time and then after that I'm usually pretty good, pretty great actually. It's weird. I just can't be around people all the time because it makes me sad to be around them sometimes. I think maybe that's why my wife left. If that makes any sense. I can tell by the way you're looking at me that it doesn't. But it does. It's an actual medical condition. I'm on medication for it. Are you looking at me funny or are you just looking at me?” he asks.

And there she reaches up and puts the rounded shape of her pink mitten to his lip. And then they almost kiss but then they don't. They can't. Too much has been said maybe. He doesn't really know.

“Let's go to my place,” she says, and he is blushing and nodding his head and his forehead has broken out with sweat and somehow they are once again riding down the street, the bicycle wheels spinning beneath them.

ANOTHER ACT OF ART TERRORISM.

Together they hurry up the front stairs of Odile's apartment building, both of them dragging their bicycles up the steps, and they are almost silent, as if they know something interesting is about to happen, and the key is in the lock, and the door is opened, and the two of them step inside, and Isobel, Odile's roommate, is sitting on the sofa watching TV, and she makes a brief declaration: “The president was acquitted,” and both Odile and Jack pause there, staring at the screen, and Odile asks, “What?” and Isobel says, “The president was acquitted for getting a blowjob and lying about it. He's not impeached anymore,” and Odile asks, “When?” and Isobel says, “I think on Friday maybe,” and Odile says, “Really?” and Isobel says, “Yeah, I just watched an episode of
20/20
,” and Odile says, “Wow. Well, it serves those assholes right. We should do something to commemorate the occasion,” and Isobel tilts her head in such a way that defines the narrowness of her face, something a model would know how to do, Jack thinks, and then she says, “Like what?” and Odile says, “I don't know. Let's just go do something,” and Isobel says, “Thanks but no thanks,” and Odile asks, “What about you?” and Jack shrugs, but Odile grabs his hand anyway and they rush back down the stairs, out into the street. And it is a quiet Sunday night and the city feels empty but this does not stop Odile.

Hand in hand, they run to the corner, and then another block, right out in the middle of Division Street, and Odile runs up to a car stopped at the stoplight and begins pounding on the window and Jack stands there wondering what he should do, and Odile is yelling happily at the people sitting in their cars, waiting for the light to turn green, and then she is unbuttoning her coat, and shouting, “Whoo-hoo, woo-hoo, U.S.A., U.S.A.!” and she begins flashing the traffic as it blurs past, holding her shirt over her pink bra with both hands, and Jack cannot help but gawk, and cars start to honk their horns, and some of them even slow down, and Jack tries to get her to pull her shirt back down, but she isn't interested. She only laughs and runs off, half a block down to another stoplight, and here, tapping on car windows, is where she actually unbuttons her jeans and puts her rear on someone's window, and cars are beeping, some of them annoyed, some in applause, and Jack can see the daintily stitched hem of the girl's pink panties riding up above the unbuttoned waist of her pants, and then he runs over and pulls her out of the street, and she laughs and pushes his arm away, and there is something like a small, wild animal in her, and she tries to untuck Jack's shirt and get his pants down, and she says, “Don't be such a tightass,” and he says, “I'm not a tightass, I just don't know what you're doing,” and she says, “We're celebrating the right to be stupid, which is probably the most important right we have in this country. We're staging an impromptu performance piece,” and she lifts up her shirt again, flashing her pink bra at a passing car, and Jack grabs her wrist and says, “Stop,” and she says, “No,” and he says, “Stop it,” and he has his hand on her jacket and someone is honking and she flashes them with a hostile, feral grin, and then runs over and pushes her bra against the passenger-side window of a dirty-looking Buick, and Jack grabs her by the shoulder and says, “Odile, just stop,” and the moment she turns is when he decides to finally kiss her, and it is soft and hard at exactly the same time, and she lets herself be kissed, but does not kiss back at first, not until she bites down on his lip a little, and then he has her hand in his hand and is marching her off somewhere and she says, “Where are we going?”

“I live a few blocks from here,” and Odile says, “What about our bikes?” and he says, “We can get them on the way,” and she nods and says okay. And then they wander off in silence, both of them slightly starry-eyed.

BACK TO HIS APARTMENT.

But it does not happen the way it does in the movies, maybe because it is winter and they have to take off their hats and coats. Once their shoes and jackets are off, he sits there as Odile looks around the apartment, wide-eyed, taking in all the shoe boxes arranged in tall angular stacks everywhere, and she says, “This is pretty weird. What are all the shoe boxes for?” and Jack is looking at her, at her dark hair, at her soft mouth, at her long neck, and how she is walking around inspecting everything in her black-stockinged feet, and she points to a box and asks, “What's this one?” and then another, “And this one?” and Jack stands too, leaning beside her, reading the small labels he has made. “Birds,” he says, or, “Airplanes,” and she is squinting, looking at them all, and then he does not know why but he says, “I'd like to show you something. Sometime. Whenever.”

“Really? What?”

“It's supposed to be a secret, and … well, it's not finished yet but I'd like to show it to somebody. If you want to, I mean.”

“Okay.”

“It's not entirely ready but …”

“You're so gay.”

“Sorry. I'm just nervous. I've never showed it to anybody.”

“When you talk like that, it makes you sound like a virgin.”

“I'm not,” he says. And then once again, “I'm not.”

“Whatever. Are you going to show it to me or what?”

Jack smiles and asks Odile to please sit on the sofa. She folds her legs underneath her and does so.

“Okay, I'm almost ready. Like I said, it's not really finished yet but … Okay, this is it. Are you ready?”

Odile blinks. “I guess so.”

Jack gathers his tape recorders, four of them altogether. “Okay, it's probably better if you close your eyes.”

Odile smiles and then slowly closes her eyes. She tilts her chin up as she does this.

“Okay. Imagine you are stepping off a bus.”

Jack hits play on the first tape recorder and the noisy exhaust of a bus rises in the air.

“And as you're walking, you can hear the birds chirping and feel the sun shining.”

And here he hits play on the second tape recorder, the sound of a string of sparrows singing on a low telephone wire.

“Up ahead, there's a gigantic silver fountain, with statues of all kinds of fantastic mythical creatures on it. And a skyscraper in the shape of a castle is being built beside it.”

And here Jack hits play on a tape and the sound of a public fountain quickly rushes to life. He then hits fast forward, and then play again, and the rattletrap of construction shortly begins.

“To your left is the city zoo. What kind of animals would you like to visit there?”

“I dunno. The seals?”

“Anything but the seals.”

“Okay, the lion.”

“How about the tiger?”

“Okay. The tiger,” she says with a smile.

“The tiger. Okay,” he says, searching through his shoe boxes of sounds. He finds the one he is looking for, slips it inside the fourth tape recorder, and the noisy roar of a tiger rings out. “As you keep walking, you find yourself in the middle of a wonderful atrium. And there are some bumblebees darting about.”

Play and rewind.

“And there is also a lovely breeze blowing through the giant flowers.”