Starting From Square Two. Caren Lissner

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СКАЧАТЬ The Who, which also had a memory attached. They’d gone to see the movie Quadrophenia together. Gert was unimpressed with the movie, but loved the music. Marc was constantly trying to get Gert, and everyone else, into his favorite bands. It was adorable.

      Gert hadn’t realized until he was gone just how many different things she had liked about him, nor how much his very existence had become part of her constitution. She wasn’t the type to constantly blather on about her boyfriend or husband, but she had always had Marc in the back of her mind, no matter where she was. Now, whenever something reminded her of him, she’d remember what happened and her stomach would drop. She wondered if people who were part of a couple had any idea what a privilege it was to get to spend their lives with the person they loved. Of course, they knew on one level, but did they really know?

      Erika whined about wanting to sit on an end stool, so Hallie reluctantly offered her one. But instantly, the seat on the other side got taken—by a girl who’d just come in with her boyfriend. What nerve. At least the girl wouldn’t be competing with them for the guys hanging out by the dartboard.

      Gert picked up the drink menu and looked at it. Wine was eight dollars a glass. It seemed ridiculous for her to spend that much money. Especially now that she was living on a single income.

      She looked around the bar and felt sick. Was this the world she’d been left to—squandering money on booze, dressing half-naked, shouting over music, strategizing about where to sit?

      Gert felt angry. Angry about everything that had happened. Angry at herself.

      Gert knew that thinking about this at the bar didn’t make her look very approachable. But she couldn’t help it. Obviously she wasn’t ready to go out yet. Her initial instincts had been right: a year and a half wasn’t long enough. She was too tired, too angry, too sad. Maybe next year.

      Then she thought of something.

      She could pretend she was back in college, hanging out with friends just like freshman year. She didn’t have to be worrying about who was by the dartboard. She could sing along with Roger Daltrey. She could make fun of Erika’s ponytail. She didn’t have to be looking for a man like her friends were. She didn’t want one, anyway.

      No worrying, plotting or planning.

      Gert craned her neck over the bar and forced a smile. “So,” she said to Hallie, “did you fire that girl at work?”

      “No.” Hallie shook her head. “I will, though.”

      Hallie was the office manager at a management consulting firm, and her twenty-three-year-old assistant spent half the day calling guys, Instant Messaging guys, checking to see if she had e-mail from guys, and scribbling ratings on the posters of guys she kept on her cubicle wall. On Brad Pitt’s arm, the girl had written, “HOT.” On Ben Affleck, she’d written, “yumie” (and yes, spelled it wrong). On Josh Hartnett, she’d written, “Cute!!!” Then, on Robert Downey, Jr., she’d written a simple “OK.”

      “You can’t fire her,” Erika said. “She makes you feel better about your own life.”

      “I know,” Hallie said. “I may be twenty-nine and single, but at least I’ve never put Tiger Beat posters on my walls. And now she keeps disappearing every day between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m., and she thinks we don’t notice. I don’t know where she goes.”

      “Do you have any idea?” Gert asked.

      “No,” Hallie said. “My boss is going to have me follow her.”

      Gert sensed someone sitting next to her. She felt the brush against her shoulder before she even looked. Two men were sitting down. They weren’t looking her way, though. They were talking to each other. She snuck a peek. They were both wearing leather bomber jackets. They were average-looking and clean-cut.

      “Fresh meat at three o’clock,” Erika said.

      Hallie took a quick look at the guys, then went back to Erika. “They’re short, though,” she reported.

      “Did I ever tell you that Ben’s bitch wife is an inch taller than he is?” Erika said. “I can’t imagine what happens when she wears heels. The two of them must look like a circus act.”

      “Maybe she doesn’t wear heels,” Gert said.

      “Don’t be funny,” Erika said.

      Gert heard the guy to her right say to the bartender, “Just a cranberry juice.” The bartender looked at him strangely before going to get the juice.

      The guy noticed Gert looking at him. “I’m all for girly drinks,” he said, smiling.

      “Oh,” Gert said. “This may shock you, but so am I.”

      “What kind?”

      “All kinds, as long as there’s citrus fruit involved.”

      “It prevents scurvy,” the guy’s friend said.

      “Health is always important when ordering alcoholic beverages,” Gert said.

      “So I should order one for you, then,” the first guy said.

      Gert said, “You could.”

      Erika whispered to Hallie, “Hook-up at stage right.” Gert ignored her. The guys both seemed nice.

      “Cranberry juice is…” Gert started, but then she stopped. What she’d thought of was that it was good for urinary tract infections. But that was not appropriate dating conversation. Damn—she was going to have to start thinking like that now. With Marc, of course, she could have said anything. She could have gone to the bathroom in front of him, although she preferred not to.

      It was back to square one on everything. Well, at least she was older now. Square two, then.

      “Cranberry juice is…good for you,” Gert finished.

      “It’s good for urinary infections,” the first guy said.

      Erika leaned over Gert’s seat and said to him, “Are you a doctor?”

      The guy looked at her for a second.

      “No,” he said, laughing. Erika shrugged and went back to her drink.

      “Anyway, there’s a reason I can’t drink,” the guy added.

      “What is it?” Gert asked.

      “He’s on the extra board,” his friend said.

      Gert looked at them blankly.

      “That means I’m on call for work,” the first guy said. “But even when I’m not on call, I’m never allowed to drink.”

      “Are you a cop?”

      “Nope.”

      “Guess what he does,” the guy’s friend said. “Guess. No one can ever guess it.”

      “Gert,” Hallie called from two stools down. “Do you want a drink?”

      Hallie СКАЧАТЬ