I just wanted to call someone to make it all better. I knew that she couldn’t actually change the outcome, but she could maybe put it in perspective, or let me know that I don’t have to tie my worth to my job. After all, she was there, she saw my worth with or without the job, and then she became my worth. How bad of a guy could I be if she saw something she liked, I often thought people would say. She would coo in her own special day, and then she would be stern because she knew I would wallow if I had the chance. By the end of the phone call I would be ready to attack the afternoon; I would get past this hiccup and move on to another opportunity, another chance to prove myself. She would even spur me to get two to make up for one. When I got home, she would see in my face whether or not her pep talk worked, whether I managed to get another account to make up for the one that I blew, whether I was riding high off of new conquest. If I was, she would have some celebration in her head, something planned so that we could lament the end of one, but even more so exult the new. If I hadn’t, if the punches had landed instead of rolled off, she would have a revised version of the speech she gave in the morning, taken a little time with it and tweaked the words for an in person version of her daytime consoling. She would have a movie ready that was too faced paced and zany to leave myself time in my own thoughts, or maybe a game of Risk all set up so we could feign world domination while the real thing dominated us. I know I would feel better as soon as I forgot myself and managed to sneak a joke out, something that made her laugh. I could lose 10 deals but as soon as I made her laugh it would be all forgotten; I just sold the best product of all, because it helped me as much as her. Her, drinking white wine while I sipped on a 7 rocks, I would look across the table while she screwed up her face, trying valiantly to defend the Ukraine against the westward rush of my invading Asian hordes, hoping to see 6s and sticking her tongue out at me when her 3s beat my 2s. We would retire to the balcony for a break, the drinks settling back down upon us like so much smoke exhaled into the night sky. The deck chairs weren’t made for two, but you could fool us as she curled up on my lap, head on my shoulder and softly whispering, “It’s ok”. We would still make rent, but we would have to delay buying a new couch for a month or two. I would take her to bed, lay her down and tuck her in, then wonder back out into the living room. The game would be easy to put away, but I tried my hand at a few more rolls, conquering Europe before carefully dividing the different colored army men, red for me gray for her, although I never understood why. I would polish off my drink; and then hers too while I walked back out on the balcony to look up at the few stars visible in the city. The smoke would escape my lips like the commission I threw away on a stupid clerical error, and I would think about how tough going back into work tomorrow would be, some eyes filled with pity and others anger at the mix up that cost us quota and a new office TV. None of it would matter though; she would call at lunch to see how I was doing.
There was no one to call though. I haven’t found her yet. Maybe for lack of trying, maybe for lack of me, but I had to sit on the failure all by myself. I couldn’t face the afternoon, and hid behind updating applications and sneaking a read at a few basketball columns. Every time I looked at my call list, I saw failure staring back at me, each one taking on the look of the hundreds of ways I could screw it up. When I get home I will have nothing but a drink to myself, and I will have it straight up, I never managed to get around to buying ice cube trays. The deck chair designed for one will hold what it was built for, and I could not bring myself to think, “It’s ok”. And when I got in tomorrow, the pity and the anger would hurt the same. None of it will matter though, because at lunch, there will be no call.
