Page 57 - Vol. V #6

and their unsightly scars but he would remain forever a blank, free for her to paint
of scenarios that could play out. During her youth
playing tennis, her coach said this meant she what she wanted.” could see the whole court. Sometimes, she rea-
empty, a large monolith that could only be taken apart piecemeal through phone calls home, maybe brunch with Rachel and some extra hours in the lab.
She held her phone in her hand as if the answers would materialize there.
As she took the elevator up to the fifth floor and the still early-morning-silent hallways, she as- sured herself that she didn’t need to be validated by her partnerships. But when her world shrank to the same seven lab techs, her vulture-necked advisor, her few friends who were largely mar- ried or in serious relationships and might as well be married—every interaction was amplified, every failure more pronounced.
It wasn’t that Abby hadn’t had relationships be- fore—there was the college boyfriend; the Belgian chef in culinary school whose passion for cooking belied an inability to warm to other passions in his life; and a handful of others she’d met on- line—it was that this seemed to burn brighter in her mind. Vertigo, she reminded herself, he’d list- ed that as his favorite film, also one of hers. They could talk about the surrealist elements, or maybe the setting itself—Abby had always wanted to do a tour of the filming locations in the area but had never had a partner to explore with.
Finally, five steps from the door to her lab, she sent back a reply: “Friday works. What did you
Before moving to the Bay Area and pursuing the PhD, Abby had friends and work and New York’s humming nest of distractions to keep her from obsessing. Now she had hours commuting be- tween Oakland and her university’s San Francisco
have in mind?”
~
The Ex-Whatever hadn’t texted when he said he campus. Then there were the equally daunting would. It was two days later, a Wednesday, and nights where she’d only see the occasional jogger early afternoon. Abby fiddled with her phone, in her neighborhood.
the lack of a response whittling down her expec-
tations little by little until she knew, sometime soon, she just wouldn’t care. But today she was simply bored, waiting for her advisor to be done talking to a colleague about some sort of email issue.
Sometimes she’d join them and run the same paths around Lake Merritt, but every head- lamp and blinker was always an old man, a satellite instead of a star.
The Ex-Whatever’s silence was both surprising and not. Abby could imagine the conversation she’d have over drinks with sympathetic friends: “Guy’s flake.” “Same thing happened to me.” “It
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happens all the time. Move on.” “What a dick.”
“Others would reveal their jagged edges
Still, it was only two days later, by what her phone said. There was still time for a Friday date. And what if something had happened to him? she considered. This drew from a place in her that she couldn’t quite explain: She wasn’t particularly cre- ative, but had always been able to see the range
soned, the ball took a bounce that you wouldn’t expect. She tried to prepare for those moments.
She set an alarm for 2:11 p.m. on Sunday. A ran- dom time, but her text was supposed to appear