New Life (3 page)

“When I was in law school, I used to
waitress,” I said. “I know I wouldn’t want to do that again. Too
stressful. But your job seems kind of, I don’t know, peaceful.
Nobody yelling orders at you. No urgent deadlines to meet.”

I bit my tongue. Could I sound more
condescending? I’d basically just pointed out that his job was so
undemanding any idiot could do it.

One corner of his mouth quirked. “So you want
to switch jobs for the day, like a Disney movie?” He walked around
my desk and sat in my chair.

“That didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean to
sound so…” I exhaled an irritated breath. “You see? This is exactly
what happened to me in court. I got flustered and started babbling.
All the facts I knew flew out of my head, and I had to keep
referring to my notes. It was awful.”

He swung the chair gently from side to side.
“What kind of case?”

“I can’t talk about specifics, but suffice to
say it was a pretty simple one to argue, which is why it was
assigned to me for my first time in court. And still I managed to
blow it.” I sank down in the chair on the other side of the desk.
It was strange to look at my desk from this angle. “But as Jules
says, everybody’s allowed to screw up once in a while so long as
they don’t make a habit of it. I’m moving on.”

Jason picked up a pen from my desk and
started clicking it. I noticed his movements were slow and
deliberate. I thought about movies I’d seen in which people in
rehab worked to reclaim the simplest motor skills, usually in an
inspiring montage set to music. How awful it would be to lose
everything in one life-changing moment.

Then, because I apparently couldn’t think of
any other subject to talk about besides work, I asked, “How long
have you had this job?”

Click. “Awhile.” Click. “I don’t remember.”
Click. “I lose track of time.”

“So do I. Can’t believe I’ve been here almost
six months already.” I fished for something not job related to talk
about and then wondered why I was having this conversation with the
janitor, who probably had things he was supposed to be doing. “I
suppose I should get going and let you get to work.”

There was a brief rap on the door, and Cindy
stuck her head in. “Anna, you’re still here.”

“Uh, yeah.” I bolted up from the chair as if
my butt had been burned.

Her gaze shot between me and Jason. Back to
me. Back to Jason. It was almost comical, but not.

“I was just showing him the stuck drawer in
the, uh, file cabinet.”

Back to Jason. Back to me. “Okay. So, some of
us are going to Flamenco’s for drinks. Wanna come?”

“Sure. I’ll be right there.”

“Great.” Back to Jason. “If you have time,
could you clean the window in my office? I know windows probably
aren’t part of your job, but there’s a big puddle of bird crap on
the glass, and who knows when they’ll get a window washer in to
take care of it.”

Jason dropped the pen on my desk and rose.
“Sure. Which office?”

“Two doors down on the right.”

“I’ll take care of it.” He moved from behind
my desk and toward the door. Cindy stepped aside as he walked past
and gave me what-the-hell? eyes behind his back.

I shrugged. I was second-guessing that drink
at Flamenco’s. Cindy was not going to drop this without questioning
me, and I had no intention of explaining anything. Hell, I couldn’t
even find a good explanation for myself.

Chapter Three

That night, as I scrubbed bird poo off a
windowpane, the nip of ammonia stinging my nose, I felt pretty
good. I’d hoped to catch a glimpse of Anna and maybe exchange
hellos. Having an entire conversation exceeded my expectations.

I had a hard time focusing on work, though,
and jerked from an Anna-induced trance about five minutes later,
still rubbing the same pane of glass. This was exactly why I was
stuck doing an undemanding job. Sometimes I had trouble keeping on
task. Give me the pressure of working in a fast-food joint and I
was liable to lose my shit. I was sure as hell never going to take
over the family business as my dad had once envisioned.

My dad liked to point out that there’s honor
in any work so long as you do it to the best of your ability. I
once told him maybe I should work in the porn industry since it was
something I had an affinity for. He wasn’t amused.

With the pane sparkling, I closed the window
and returned to my regular routine. It should’ve been like
breathing, I’d done it so many times, but that evening I had to
refer to the laminated sheet on my cart a few times in order to
remember all the tasks on my list.

I was starting on the second-story offices
when my cell phone rang. Mom. I didn’t want to talk to her, but
guilt won out, so I answered. She wasted no time getting down to
business.

“Jason, I wish you’d quit ignoring my texts.
You know I worry when you don’t check in.”

“Still here, Mom. Nothing new to say.”

“Did it ever occur to you maybe
I
have
things to say? Maybe I’d like to hear your voice once in a while
without having to hound you? Never mind. I called to remind you
about your dad’s birthday party. Write it down, and I’ll remind you
again on the day.”

“It’s already written down. You don’t need to
remind me. I’ll be there.” I’d be there gritting my teeth and
smiling no matter what. It was the least I could do.

“Also, Katie misses you. Even if you don’t
want to spend time with your father and me, you owe it to your
little sister to be there for her. You haven’t gone to any of her
soccer games. There’s one coming up on Sunday.”

Guilt upon guilt. “Okay. Text me the
information. I’ll make a game unless I’m at work—which I need to be
getting back to right now.”

There was a pause, and Mom continued in a sad
voice guaranteed to reduce me to lower than dirt. “Your father is
feeling pretty weird about turning fifty-five. It’s kind of a big
deal. Don’t blow off this party, Jason.”

Knowing my dad, I thought he’d probably
rather not make a big deal of it. The huge family-reunion event my
mom had planned was really more her thing. But all I said was, “I
won’t.”

“All I want is our family to be close again.
Is that so much to ask?”

“No.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. I’ll try
harder.”

I hung up thinking we were never that
close
.
But my mom believed the fantasy, and who was I to
deny it to her. She deserved a lot more than that from me after
what my accident had put her through.

I put on my rubber gloves, grabbed the toilet
bowl cleaner, and headed into the john. Too bad dealing with family
wasn’t as simple as scrubbing urinals. It was easy to be Zen when I
was alone and performing simple jobs, easy to give Anna advice
about finding her calm center. But come the day of my dad’s
birthday celebration, I knew my nerves would be fried and it would
be all I could do to deal with the crowd of relatives. No amount of
deep breathing or counting sheep was going to fix that.

****

“Seriously, what was that?” Cindy hammered me
again. “Tell me why the janitor was sitting in your chair.”

“It squeaks. I wanted to see if he could fix
it.”

“Bullshit. He wasn’t testing the chair for a
squeak. Looked like you guys were having a conversation and
that’s…weird.”

I stabbed the cherry in my drink with a
toothpick over and over. “Why would it be so weird to have a
conversation with the guy?”

“Oh my God, tell me you’re not into him. He’s
the
janitor
.”

“So what?” I looked at her. “We live in a
classless society.”

“Except we don’t. Not really. And anyway, the
guy’s got mental issues, doesn’t he? You can’t honestly be thinking
of tapping that.”

“I’m not tapping anything. You’re the one
inventing fantasy romances just to make the office less boring. I
was having a simple conversation. That’s it.”

But I wouldn’t be doing it again if Cindy was
going to spread rumors. She could never keep her mouth shut. She
was the one who’d outed Trent Park’s relationship with that lawyer
from a competing firm and nearly gotten him fired.

“Tell me about your sister’s wedding.” I
changed the subject to something I knew would distract Cindy for a
while.

“We have our fitting this weekend. Can I tell
you again how much I hate the dresses and how expensive they are?”
She showed me snaps on her phone of some particularly ugly
retro-seventies bridesmaid gowns, then started complaining about
her sister.

I made a mental note not to go for drinks
with Cindy again unless I knew for sure more people from work would
be there. She’d made it sound like a group hang, but nobody else
showed up, so I was trapped.

“Oh man.” I rubbed my stomach. “That drink is
not sitting right.”

“You need something to eat. Want to order
here or go someplace else for dinner?”

I shook my head. “I think I need to go
home.”

“Oh.” Cindy seemed disappointed for all of a
second, then got on her phone and began texting, lining up another
victim to listen to her bridesmaid rant.

“See you next week.” I slid off the stool and
headed out.

When I reached my car, I sat in it for a
while, changing radio stations and figuring out what I wanted to do
with the rest of my evening. Not so long ago, it would’ve been a
no-brainer. For that reason alone, I missed Tim. Having an
automatic plus one for any event, a dinner or movie companion as
needed, even if Tim often bugged the crap out of me, was easier
than being alone. Probably that was why I’d stayed with him as long
as I had, trying to change my pattern of brief flings. Over the
past weeks, I’d had to relearn how to be a content single. Some
nights were harder than others.

The gym, I decided. That was what I needed to
flush the toxic week from my system and rouse endorphins to dispel
my gloom. Unfortunately, I had to go home for my gym bag, and the
moment I collapsed on the couch, I knew I wasn’t going out again. I
cracked a beer and settled in to solve a cold case in some
made-for-TV movie. I was able to stop thinking about work and
concentrate completely on solving the case—way before the TV
detective, I might add.

A bag of microwave popcorn later, I was
engrossed in a cheesy “based on true events” movie about a guy
who’d been beaten nearly to death and how he’d recovered. As I
watched the actor pretend to learn to walk, talk, and feed himself
again while losing his friends and girlfriend, I couldn’t stop
thinking about Jason. Was this truly what it had been like for him,
rebuilding his life from scratch?

Jason’s dry sense of humor and seeming lack
of bitterness about his situation impressed me. He was different
from everybody I knew, particularly my ambitious and impatient
ex-boyfriend. Jason had a stillness about him, a sense of depth and
thoughtfulness that intrigued me more than I cared to admit. I
wanted learn more about the man he’d been before the accident and
the person he’d become, but it wasn’t as if our paths naturally
crossed. Setting an official “date” might give him the wrong
impression, so how could I casually bump into him? That was harder
to solve than the cold case in that movie.

Chapter Four

“Have you been keeping up on your bills? It’s
very important you make your payments. You don’t want your
electricity or water shut off. I can help you get organized, or set
up automatic payments from your account. That might be best.”

That was my dad.

“Have you been going to your group? It’s very
important you keep trying to make connections with people. Being
alone too much isn’t healthy. Do you have any new friends?”

That was my mom.

“Keep copies of everything. That’s going to
be important come tax season.” Dad.

“Are you eating right? You can’t survive on
frozen dinners or Chinese carryout. You have to have fresh fruits
and vegetables. And it’s important you keep up with your physical
therapy. Are you doing the exercises Dr. Gorman gave you?” Mom.

“I hope you’re remembering to lock up. Be
very careful walking in your neighborhood. It’s not that safe.”
Dad.

“You still have the pepper spray I bought
you?” Mom.

“If you need money, I can write you a check.”
Dad.

Me: “No, thanks. I don’t need anything.
You’ve already helped me more than enough.” I pointed at Katie
charging past on the field. “Look. I think she’s setting up to make
a goal.”

My parents’ spotlight finally turned away
from me, and I relaxed on the hard wooden bleacher as best I could
with my aching hip. I reminded myself that it was normal for
parents to be concerned about their children even under regular
circumstances. It was hard for them to let go and trust that a
twenty-four-year-old knew what he was doing. But every time they
started grilling me with questions, doubting me with their tone,
undermining me with their comments, I fought to hold back a surge
of resentment.

Dr. Gorman had given me techniques for
controlling the spurts of emotion I’d experienced since the
accident. Sudden sorrow or anger were symptoms of my brain injury.
I’d learned to mostly control crying jags in public places or
red-faced shouting rages, but when I was around my parents, the
tension grew inside me like a spring coiling tighter and tighter.
All I could do was bite back my anger and press it down.

Katie’s team made a goal, and everyone jumped
up to cheer. I rubbed my hip and leaned toward Mom. “I’ve got to
walk a little bit.”

“Your leg hurting? I’ll come with you.”

“No. You watch Katie.” I made my way down the
bleachers to the packed dirt with tufts of sad brown grass
struggling to grow in it. The soccer fields were just as I
remembered from when I used to play back in middle school. I had a
lot of holes in my memory, but one fall afternoon was shining
clear. I remembered running across that field, heart pumping, legs
burning, ball flying in front of me as if directed by my very will.
Racing toward the net, kicking, scoring—the memory was a small
treasure.