Year of the Chick (23 page)

I spun back around to face my monitor, and noticed that Amy had e-mailed. It was another invitation for lunch, for myself, Amy and…Eleanor. This routine had been going on for weeks, but Eleanor and I were still in the midst of our silent battle.

Nobody tries to arrange me with their Indian friends, NOBODY!

Like usual I declined the request and suggested a one-on-one coffee instead, leaving poor Amy right where she was: helplessly caught in the middle.

***

I began my ritual walk through the aisles of “Erotica,” trying all the time to stay at peace. The end of summer had resulted in even less traffic in these risqué bookstore aisles, making this spot ideal for conversations in early autumn. Funnily enough it was September twenty-third, and only our second chat of the entire month.

But I’m NOT here to focus on the negative!

I stared at my cell phone clock.

He was already a minute late.

I grasped the phone tighter, like somehow the extra squeeze would be enough to make it vibrate.

When he was five minutes late, a pit began to form in my stomach.

At eight minutes late, I’d bent the front cover of “Alicia’s Escape.” I stuffed the damaged book of sexy tales in the corner of the bottom shelf.

At eleven minutes late I wasn’t really sure what to do. He’d never been more than two minutes late for a call. Was it time to feel worried? What if he was dead? There was always the chance he had died, but how would I know? This macabre concept was the scariest part of our overseas relationship.

Fear of his potential death made me wonder if perhaps I should call him instead.

But if he’s still alive, won’t that seem too obsessive? Wait…what if he’s avoiding me on purpose?

I gasped at the thought. It was only one e-mail which he hadn’t replied to. And it hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours.

Relax, woman!

Unless he was trying to avoid the touchy subject of his visit.

No. He would never do that.

Thirteen minutes late.

The fifteen-minute rule was in place for our phone conversations, with now only two minutes left. Neither of us had ever mentioned such a rule, but when twelve-thirty hit (and I watched as it did), I turned and headed straight for the exit.

I pulled my denim jacket closed and crossed my arms, making my way through the strong autumn wind in the direction of the office. The phone remained tightly clutched in my hand, which meant I wasn’t really sure about the time on the digital clock.

And I didn’t want to know.

I returned to my desk at a half an hour late.

Had he e-mailed?

No.

My lunch was waiting in the fridge, but the simple thought of food repulsed me.

I twirled my hair in hyper-fast rotations, trying to understand or make excuses for this crisis. I suddenly remembered how I’d stood him up once for a scheduled call. But I was very apologetic, almost sickeningly so.

Which meant of course he would show me the same consideration in return.

Which also meant I couldn’t cave.

 
DO…NOT…WRITE!

I opened up a spreadsheet I’d been avoiding all last week, using it now to distract myself from writing him an e-mail.

The spreadsheet plan worked until two o’ clock, when Amy called me up for the coffee break I’d totally forgotten. That too was a good distraction, until I remembered that anything I told her would funnel back to Eleanor eventually. And so I became self-conscious of my words, because for Eleanor to know that James might have stood me up?

No, I’d die before I’d prove her right.

He’ll explain, and everything will be just fine.

By four o’ clock all distractions had failed, so I started to type a new e-mail.

------------------------------------

Hey James, how come you never called today?

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NO!

I deleted the e-mail and locked my computer for the day.

Going home early.

At twenty past five I was sitting in my car, a half an hour earlier than usual.

I started to wonder…was there a sub-conscious reason for why I’d left early? Hadn’t I just bought myself some time for a call? Before my pride could scream out
“No bitch, no!”
I was already entering the pin for the phone card, and coming up next was his twenty-digit number.

“RING.”

Was this a bonehead move?

“RING.”

What if he’d actually died?

“CLICK.”

“James Caldwell.”

A sudden wave of fear washed over me.

I’m a psycho!

“Hello, anyone there?” he said.

Oh God.

“Yes, sorry. It’s me Romi.”

Silence hung in the air.

Crap!

“Hello. I wasn’t expecting you. Is everything okay?”

You weren’t expecting me?! Well I was expecting YOU five hours ago!

He clearly wasn’t dead or in any mortal danger, so I decided to be more direct.

“I’m just fine, but I was starting to worry about you. Because you didn’t call this afternoon...”

I closed my eyes and hoped for a big apology.

“Ah yes, I’m sorry I didn’t e-mail you in time,” he said. “Something came up.”

THAT’S IT? What’s “something” anyway? A whore?

The blood started rushing to my face, with my heart now pounding in my ears. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“Hello?” he said.

I cleared my throat and began. “I’m here. But I’m having some trouble working this out.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Working out what exactly?”

Oh sure, play dumb.

“Working out how five hours passed from our scheduled call, but you couldn’t even acknowledge it? That doesn’t seem like you. I was worried that something might have happened.”

“Look I said I was sorry.”

Suddenly I could see what he was doing. He was letting me get upset with as few of his words as possible. That way it was easier to label me “emotional.”

Smart plan, wrong girl.

“Please don’t jerk me around,” I said.

There was a pause.

“I’m not sure what to say to that, I mean look I have a life and job to take care of as well. So we missed a phone call. Is that the end of the world? Is that the size of it? All this touchiness because of one silly phone call?”

He was going to force it out of me, and I wasn’t going to fight it. But I turned up the air conditioner a little before I said it.

Take a deep breath.

“What I mean is…are you avoiding me? Are you even coming to visit or have you cancelled? Because it’s almost October.”

He sighed into the phone.
A sigh?
“Okay…you have to understand something. The trip was never a sure thing and I said that up front. So please don’t say ‘cancelled’ like I’m ruining promised plans. I brought it up in July for goodness sake. And I don’t believe I ever reinforced the idea.”

Oh…my…god. He’s ditching me.

It was taking all my energy to continue breathing evenly.

“So you’re not coming to visit in October?”

I closed my eyes and braced for it. The dreaded information I didn’t want to hear.

“I wish you wouldn’t say it like that,” he said.

Why was everything quickly turning into my fault?

I didn’t say anything but I was getting close to tears.

“Listen Roms, I said I wanted to visit because I did, that’s it. Why all the weird and different behaviour now?”

WHAT?

“No James, YOU’VE been acting different!” My voice was sounding whiny now, but I didn’t even care. “To me you seem more distant, like your interest in me has faded. Maybe now I’m just another one of your writing projects.”

Once I said it out loud I was truly starting to believe it.

“Roms you know I like you. But…sometimes I feel like you think I’m going to save you from your life.”

I traced my finger around the steering wheel, concentrating hard to keep the tears away. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Well for the first few months,” he began, “you always made me laugh. There was really no comparison to that. But lately it seems that every other topic with you is ‘arranged marriage’ this or that. I’m not trying to belittle your culture, but sometimes you make me feel like I’m an answer to your problem. And that makes me wonder if you’re being realistic about our contact.”

As he finished up the last of his words, the immediate emotions set in: offended, shocked, and belittled.

“Look, I might get carried away sometimes with the topics that bug me, but that’s because these topics bug me! I mean why do we e-mail every day, if we can’t tell each other how we feel? Or maybe it’s just YOU who never says how he feels. Or maybe you never feel the need to vent. Maybe your life is perfect.”

“What do you know about my life?”

Okay, wrong button…back it up!

 
“I don’t know a lot, evidently, but I simply thought the progression of our contact was to meet. Was it wrong of me to think that?”

I wiped away the tears that had formed from these honest words. It was starting to feel like a losing battle.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” he said. “But you have to pay attention to our lives. How different they are, the distance between us. Who knows if we’ll ever meet? That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it, but you have to accept the possibility that…maybe we won’t.”

It was the worst he could have possibly said.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself to salvage this disaster of a chat. “James, we’ve been in touch almost every day for five months. This is not merely something that pen pals do. And suddenly you’re so distant. You just don’t sound like yourself.”

“But that’s the point Roms; what am I supposed to sound like to you? What is your expectation of how I should be, when you haven’t even met me?”

“Why are you saying these things? You sound like a stranger right now.”

“You seem upset. Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk.”

Now I was getting angry.
Stop treating me like I’m a mental patient!

 
“Listen,” I said with my teeth fully clenched. “All I’m saying is there has to be some forward movement here…or it’s pretty unhealthy to continue.”

Did I really just say that?

“Continue what? We haven’t started anything.”

He did not just say that, did he? DID HE?

“But…” I started. I couldn’t finish as he interrupted quickly.

“I’m sorry but I can’t make promises to someone I haven’t met. In fact I never make promises period, not for a long time now. I wouldn’t want you doing anything you think is unhealthy. So if this contact doesn’t work for you, maybe it needs to stop.”

And then, after five great months of communication, the longest silence deafened us with crippling force.

“I have to go now,” he said. “It’s getting late.”

“Okay.” I couldn’t say anything else.
      

It didn’t matter anyway. He had already hung up.

I gave myself ten minutes to cry it all out. Ten good minutes for some raw emotion, and then I’d go home and walk through the door like nothing had happened.

The emotionless cardboard cut-out Indian daughter…

Chapter Nineteen

That night when I arrived home, I went through the motions as required.
Greet the parents, feed the cat, make a salad, set the table.

No one had a clue that my heart was on the edge of being crushed to smithereens. The hardest part was trying to eat a full dinner. Food seemed irrelevant tonight, and I didn’t want to let it in. My mother suspected I was ill, which was perfect since it gave me an excuse to leave the table.

So I went to my room and fell asleep by nine o’ clock.

No phone calls, no e-mails, no nothing.

***

I didn’t even wait for my alarm the next morning. It was five a.m. and I was up, already switching on my laptop.

Having eaten little the day before, and now tasting nothing but morning breath, my stomach was on the brink of releasing something liquefied (and possibly chunky).

Then I saw his name in my inbox.

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Hello Romi.

Last night’s conversation seemed intense. I hope you’re feeling a bit better, you seemed a bit tightly wound.