My try at the novel writing thing.
Chapter One
Being Nothing, Observed
So, it’s my first day at this office, my khaki pants and white button up are clean and starched, and everything around me is clean and starched. There is no carpet on the floors, only cold tile and as the waiting room fades into the hallways and offices, it eventually becomes cold wood. There is a faint stench to this place, lemony, piney, I can’t tell, but it burns my nose and my eyes.
They have provided pens and paper clips and a stapler, but I am pulling my own things out of a very small cardboard box: a small picture of my family on vacation some odd five years ago, a bobble-head Jesus my aunt brought me back from Israel, and a Dilbert-a-day calendar I got as a congratulations for getting this job. My girlfriend got it for me. It’s a good gift for someone just starting a job in an office.
I sell things in this office. People, mainly, but also stocks and bonds and CD’s. I’m nobody important. I don’t know anything about financial advisement, my degree is in microbiology, but for some reason they wanted me here. Whoever “they” may be. It’s a good job. Great pay, good hours, decent people. I should be grateful. I mean, I am grateful. I just…you know, stocks and bonds don’t have anything to do with microbiology. I suppose you could connect the two if you had time, and, looking at the clock and realizing that only two minutes has passed since I hit my little Jesus and watched his head rock back and forth, I have time.
In microbiology everything is so tiny you can’t see it with the naked eye. You have to use huge microscopes to see everything. I guess that’s why I like it. No matter what you think you know, or how much you think you have accomplished, you can always look one level deeper, just a fraction of an inch closer and find worlds that you didn’t know existed. Well, until I got a call from an old Accounting teacher of mine, I didn’t realize this world existed. There, I’ve connected them. That wasn’t that hard at all.
An office really is like a world of its own, though. A lot like a science lab is. Everyone’s working separately, but as a whole, working together, for the greater good. Like our country, I suppose. There are the secretaries up front, Jenna, Leah, Samantha, Candace, and some other lady whose name I can never remember. She’s Asian but her name is something like Paula, and this confuses me, because when I look at her I think her name should be Pi Ling or Tan Min, but it’s not. She’s old and wrinkly, and maybe this is another reason I can’t remember her name. Jenna is blonde and tan with killer legs, Leah is really skinny with a long nose and brown bangs that fall in her face, but she has a sort of natural elegance to her that makes her stand out to me anyway. Samantha is probably my favorite because she’s just so normal. She’s medium height, medium weight, has light brown hair and light brown eyes. Her smile is pretty but not because it’s perfectly straight or perfectly white but because she means it when she smiles. Candace is beautiful in a conventional sort of way: a bow mouth and small waist, long legs and big brown eyes.
I don’t have any problem remembering their names.
But, as another part of this world, there are the brokers and the boss-man and the boss-man’s man and his personal secretary and her personal secretary and a congenial kitchen in the center of it all. The Nucleus, I call it, where all the electrons and protons and neutrons come together for a cup of coffee or a glass of water or a piece of Susanne the Stockbroker’s birthday cake that Marla the boss-man’s man’s wife made. All these funny and not so funny people working together separately in this tiny little office from nine to five every day, their days shifting in and out of their lives and mine like the ocean tide.
There is a polite but unnecessary knock at my opened door. It is the boss man’s man.
“Damon,” he says in a slow, serious voice. “You have a call on line six. We’ve been trying to call you, but it looks like your phone is off the hook.” I nod, but when it registers what he says to me my eyes glance down at my black phone marked “Damon” with masking tape and a Sharpie.
“Right. Sorry, sir.” I wonder briefly why he came in here himself instead of sending a secretary. This disappoints me a little. I hope he isn’t always the one to be sent in here. Or Paula Ming.
I pick up the phone. “Damon Pace,” I say in a very clear, very sure voice. I’m not sure where it comes from.
“Damon, baby, it’s me.”
It’s my girlfriend.
You don’t really need to know what we said to each other, because we didn’t really say anything to each other anyway. She gushed a little over how cute my “office voice” is, but I argue that it’s not. It’s not. It feels awkward on my tongue and in my mouth. It’s separate from who I am altogether. I don’t know anything about stocks or bonds or CD’s. I know about bacteria. If you want to talk to me about bacteria, I can talk to you, but if you want help putting money in the bank, I suggest someone who knows their stuff better like Susanne. Susanne’s a smart lady. I’ve spoken to her probably more than anyone else so far, simply because she’s the friend of my old Accounting teacher who got me this job. I would recommend Susanne over anyone. When I get my first call, I do. And for my second and for my third. The calls keep coming in with questions that I just can’t answer, and so I transfer them all to Susanne.
The last call of the day comes at 4:46 p.m., fourteen minutes before close, and Susanne is with someone when I transfer the call.
“Damon,” she says in an affably impatient voice. “I’m with a client right now, could you please take the call?”
So, I take it. We talk about stocks and bonds and CDs and I figure that I learned more in Economy than I thought I had. I answer the lady’s questions and eventually transfer her back up to Jenna, who opens an account for her. After nearly seven hours at this desk, I have finally accomplished something. The clock hands are at five and two and some I thump my plastic Jesus in the face and grab my keys out of my drawer.
Nearly running over the smooth wooden floors, I wave a brisk goodbye to the secretaries, sending a blindingly charming smile to Samantha and run out the door. As I drove home, I think a lot about the day and my new job and all this money I’m getting paid to transfer calls to who I think the best broker is (which, at the moment is Susanne.) It’s nearly November and so the sun is already sinking low behind the horizon.
I’m glad for it to be this time of year, though, just because I like the lukewarm feeling in the air. Not too hot, not too cold. This is a sin, I’ve been told, to straddle the fence, or to support fence straddlers. But I think this semi-warm weather is pleasant. The ground is littered with a carpet of auburn leaves and the sun hides behind gray clouds. It’s a barrier, I think, between summer and winter, the onslaught of the extremities. I don’t miss summer when it’s gone, and I don’t rejoice at the leaving of winter, I’m just glad to be falling into a more mellow season, muted colors and wind that feels exactly the same as the air around me.
I try to reflect on this day of new and exciting things, but I find myself thinking more about the blurring of sunset with twilight and the shadows of prostitutes and drug dealers on the side of the road instead. It’s easier for me to focus on what I can see and hear as opposed to what I’m feeling or have felt. Maybe because I am a man, and according to every girlfriend I’ve ever had and every woman I’ve ever known, I have a problem getting in touch with my emotional side, but it’s just because I’m a stupid boy. “Man,” I would have to correct them. At twenty three I am not a boy. At eighteen I was a boy, even though I still thought this correction was necessary.
Pulling into my driveway I see Alyssa’s car there, parked in my spot on the left, as usual. “Ugh,” I say, but instantly feel guilty. I’ve told her again and again, though, I like to park on the left. She doesn’t understand this because the door is on the right side of the garage. I grew up parking on the left side, though, and so that’s where I like to park. When I pull up the long driveway, I angle my car so I can park in the left parking spot. I wish she understood this.
But I had forgotten that I was even supposed to see her today. I don’t remember talking about it on the phone earlier. Maybe we weren’t. Maybe she’s just shown up so we can hang out together, or better yet, maybe she’s been thinking and we need to take a break. Or break up. Instantly a shockwave of guilt runs through me, and just as instantly I am over it.
When I open the door and step into the kitchen, I don’t smell anything. She hasn’t cooked for me, which is good because it means I don’t have to be romantic tonight, but then again I’m starving. I go straight to the refrigerator and pull out some leftover soup from yesterday. I throw it on the stove and turn the eye to high and then step into the living room. She is sitting on the couch, her legs crossed primly, her high heels still on her feet. I wave at her, barely smiling and go into my room to change. I think briefly the big smile I gave Samantha when I left, and I wonder why I can smile honestly and widely at a secretary, but not at my drop dead gorgeous girlfriend. I think maybe because something about the way the plain brunette secretary smiles back and has a hint of blush to her cheek gives me a feeling of power, knowing that I could send such a thrill through her.
She comes in and stands in the doorway as I change. I kind of ignore her, mainly because it’s making me a little uncomfortable her just standing there watching me. It’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked, but eyes are much less scrutinizing in the heat of the moment.
“You haven’t seen me all day,” she says simply. Her voice is high pitched naturally, but it kind of squeaks when she’s annoyed. At first I thought this was cute, mainly because she was the first girl I’d slept with in a really long time. Now, though, it was kind of a grating sound and I was running the day through my head and the day before, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong until I came to the conclusion that I just didn’t care.
“I haven’t,” I reply, pulling my Duke Basketball shirt over my head. It’s worn and faded, but it’s my favorite shirt just because I’ve had it for so long. “I see you now,” I say and grin a little mischievously at her. I find that if I show the teensiest sign of guilt she’ll attack it like a piece of red meat and use it to tear me apart. For a split second, I think this has worked, then her eyes fall to the carpet and I hear her sniff. Please tell me she’s not crying, I think, and reach for a pair of socks to put on. She lifts her head back up, dry eyed, and walks back into the living room. I want to sort of groan and bang my head against the wall, but I refrain.
As I go back into the living room I study her very closely. The sun has set and the dim lights of the room do not do her tan skin or blue eyes justice. They do illuminate how incredibly bored she looks, though. She’s resting her head on her hand and tapping her heel on the edge of the couch. I still wonder why she hasn’t taken off her shoes.
“Where are you going?” I ask. I don’t know why this annoys me so, but it does. We’ve been dating for thirteen months and she still won’t take off her shoes in my living room?
“What do you mean?” She doesn’t sound as annoyed as I originally thought she was, and I’m kind of disappointed. Whatever it is in our relationship that needs to come to a head and end, it isn’t going to happen tonight. I’m relieved by this, simply because I don’t like confrontation and after thirteen months I am comfortable with Alyssa. I am comfortable with who we are together, which is nothing. I’m comfortable with this. Being nothing with someone is what makes me happy. I don’t have to challenge myself or challenge her when we are nothing together. I nod. She looks up at me funny.
“What?”
“You asked me where I was going.” Ah, so I did. Those high heels, why would she want to wear them in the first place?
“You haven’t taken your shoes off. Are you leaving in just a minute?”
She scrunches up her nose at me. “No.” I think she may reach to take them off, but she doesn’t. “Your soup’s burning.”
I eat it anyway, and straight out of the sauce pot, too. I’m too hungry to care what it tastes like and too lazy to fix myself some more.
***
“Good morning, Damon,” Samantha says to me. She smiles like she means it, and I truly believe she does. Jenna and Leah are giggling about something, and Candace and Paula Ting are typing away on their computers and answering their phones. You know, doing their jobs. I secretly hope that Samantha gets paid the most, because I’ve heard the boss-man say to them: “You want the client to be glad they are alive and here in our office.” Samantha’s smiles makes me glad I am alive and here in this office with her.
There’s a little bit of drama, I hear later from Jenna in the Nucleus, which explains the giggling that morning. Supposedly Susanne the Stockbroker and Michael the Mailman are seeing each other. I find this extremely odd, while Jenna finds this hilarious.
“You should see them together,” she tells me and lays a hand on my arm. This doesn’t go unnoticed by her or me, and she doesn’t remove it. I want her to, but I don’t do anything about it. I don’t even look at it. “He comes in with the mail, and when he has a package he tells us at the front desk,” she clears her throat and deepens her voice, “‘Tell Susanne her package is here.’” She simply dissolves into a fit of giggles, and removes her hand to clutch her side. I am amused, but mainly by how amused she is at this all.
“Susanne’s such an intelligent woman. I wouldn’t think a mailman would be her type.”
Jenna gets a funny look on her face and cocks an eyebrow. “Do you think you’re more her type?” I choke on the sip of coffee I just took.
“No,” I object, and shake my head. “That’s not what I meant at all. Not at all.” There is another fit of giggles just lying under the surface, I can tell. “Stop looking at me like that,” I demand, and the dam breaks and she’s gasping and choking again on her own laughter.
“I love new guys,” she says and running her hand down my arm one last time, she turns and leaves.
“Thank God,” I say to myself, draining my cup of coffee and setting it in the sink.
Today is not much different than yesterday. I take more calls than I did yesterday. It’s a little nerve wracking when someone gives you a figure like “$35,000,000” and asks you to help them open an account to put it in, or worse when they ask you what to do with it or how to use it. I don’t think I’ve told anyone something stupid, yet, but I’m sort of crossing my fingers on that one. It’s only been two days, and I’ve not had the time to see what I’ve done mature and take effect.
The days fall in and out and I kind of forget what I’m doing here. I just come in and sit down and take the phone and talk on it for seven straight hours. I’m getting paid crazy amounts of money to do this, and I guess that’s why I’m here. I come home, and sometimes Alyssa is there, but most of the time she’s not. We see each other sometimes, and she calls me nearly everyday, just to talk, and I’m sort of glad for this. Coming home to a small but empty house is sort of lonely, especially after nearly fourteen months of having someone with you. It just seems, though, that she’s always doing something else, or I’m tired, or I don’t want to spend any money on her and this always pisses her off.
I appreciate seeing her more than I used to, though. For this I should be thankful. I should be.
After three weeks at the office I finally get up the nerve to ask Samantha Paula Ting’s real name. We are in the Nucleus and she’s doing something very pretty with her tuna sandwich, and I’m scanning the Wall Street Journal (I miss the pictures), and I look up at her. She feels my gaze, I suppose, and meets it. I’m slightly taken aback by her boldness, but also intensely attracted to it.
“The older secretary, the Asian one, what is her name?”
She nearly chokes on her bite of sandwich.
“She’s not Asian, she’s from Nepal, for one thing,” she says. It’s not smart or mocking, just a firm, if slightly amused statement. “And her name is Pamela.”
Ha! I think. I was close.
She laughs a little and takes a sip of her sweet tea.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I’m shaking my head and trying not to laugh, and she’s trying not to laugh, and we both end up being unsuccessful. I really want to ask her out and I know she sort of expects me to, but there is this nagging voice in the back of my head, and I think it’s Alyssa’s. But there she is looking up at me and she wants me to say something, and so I look into her eyes, brown with long lashes and smile lines at her temples. “You have pretty eyes,” I tell her and I really expect her to giggle and say thank you and tell me I am one gorgeous hunk of man, but she doesn’t. She loses the smile that I admire so much in a flat second, and her eyebrows scrunch up.
“Damon,” she says, and her voice is sort of condescending. My face starts to burn, but I will it away. “I transfer calls from your girlfriend everyday. We talk sometimes.” She stops there, and rubs her forehead with her index finger and thumb. She has long, thin typing fingers.
“God,” I say, shaking my head. I am so embarrassed. But I was looking in her eyes and she was smiling and…ugh. “I’m sorry.” There’s not much I can say to keep her from looking at me like that, and so I don’t. I don’t try to excuse my way out of things, because after twenty-three years, I have learned that this does not work.
She doesn’t say anything else, but balls up the paper her sandwich was wrapped in, and raises her eyebrows at me. She walks out the door and flicks her wrist in a half wave goodbye. Mortified is a mild word. She left without a “Call me when you break up with your girlfriend,” or “You know, it’s okay, Damon, really.” Her last words to me were, “We talk sometimes.”
For some reason, this cuts me deeper than anything she could have said, because I think about what they could be talking about. Alyssa and I have been together for nearly fourteen months, we have a lot of memories together. They could have talked about that time that we took a canoe out onto the lake at the state park, and neither one of us had canoed before and it took us an hour to get back to the dock. Or maybe she’s told her about the first time I told her I loved her. One morning I woke up and she wasn’t next to me and for some reason I was worried, but I went in the kitchen and she handed me a cup of coffee, straight black because even though she can’t remember to park on the right side of the garage, she remembers that I like my coffee black, and I just took the cup and without even thinking I took a sip and said, “I love you.”
It was quiet for a split second, and she just said simply, “I love you, too,” and turned around and poured herself a glass of milk. That was probably the most profound thing that had happened to me in a long time, and thinking back on it reminds me of why I’m with her. Just earlier I was wondering. I’m with her because we have these memories, and while making more memories doesn’t thrill me to my toes, I have these. She has these. We have these together. I’m comfortable having these memories. I’m comfortable being nothing.
So, this is a very, very rough draft. Scan it for grammatical errors, but mainly I would like subject material critique and how this works as a FIRST chapter. It's going to be in there no matter what, but you know, give me stylistic critiques, opinions on the plot or lack thereof, etc.
