Coming clean - Fiction - Short Story

Literary Review, Summer, 2003 by Donna Baier Stein

What I could do is push through the revolving glass door of his tall, smoky glass building on DuPont Circle. I could walk past the card shop in the lobby where he bought me that silly little pink wind-up birthday cake eight years ago, the day he licked me down there even though I was having my period and no one had ever done that to me before. It's the same shop where, ten years ago, he bought me a Victorian heart and rose Valentine's Day card which I tucked inside the pages of my Bible until August when he performed one of his many disappearing acts and dumped me. Another year, another birthday card: this time with a picture of a trench-coated man standing under a cloud, rain falling on his head and these words inside: "My therapist says it only seems like the sun's always shining where I'm not standing. But this time I know it's true." Below that, in the neat angled printing I sometimes stare at to see if it holds some key: "That's certainly true of your marriage and mine."

Forget your opinions about whether or not I should give this man the time of day. For now, just know that he likes cards. And that this time, I'm not aiming for any Hallmark kind of greeting.

I walk through the lobby, my stacked-heel mules slapping on green marble.

Brass elevator doors slide open; I step inside. My right heel taps nervously on the carpet, but it's so thick there's no sound. I study my reflection in the mirrored walls. I've worn a dress that shows off my waist. I've got a good hair cut from a guy in New York who used to cut Mia Farrow's hair. He's Greek and writes poetry. He layers the hair, makes fancy moves with his scissors so it has body. I can tell that the man who stepped into the elevator behind me thinks I look good. But he's gone by the time we reach the 14th floor.

As soon as the door opens, I've entered a scene I've imagined dozens of times. The carpeted reception area, the crescent-shaped desk with the pretty headphoned receptionist behind it. I've even imagined the crystal vase of flowers and silver bowl of wrapped candies.

The scene's a little different than I expected though. How could it not be? The lighting is brighter, and there are windows that look out on a low-slung drugstore across the street. There's a brown leather couch and four chairs in a seating area off to the right.

I stop for a minute, breathing it all in.

The pretty receptionist lifts her face and repositions the mouthpiece. "Can I help you?" Her smile is framed in dark red.

"Yes." I try to match her wary warmth. "Thank you."

She waits as I step forward. Before that smile can fade, I say quickly, "I'm here to see Tom Siebert."

All wariness disappears. I'm not lost, I'm not selling anything. I'm here to see one of the upstanding lawyers in this upstanding firm where she makes more than she ever expected to make and flirts with men either too young or too old to worry about separating work and love.

She fingers one earring. Her nails match the red on her lips. "Is he expecting you?" she asks.

On some level, surely, I think to myself. "Yes."

"Then let me ring his secretary for you, Ms.--?"

I've spoken to Tom's secretary on the phone maybe a dozen times during the last twenty years. I know her voice well, and she must know mine. Those first years, I never left my name. When I reached forty, I started saying it. I know when she went into labor because Tom cancelled one of the infrequent rendezvous we'd planned. I've wondered if she is partly in love with him because I was Tom's secretary once and know how that felt.

She's never asked what I'm calling about. She'll simply say, "Can I give you his voice mail?"

Sometimes, worried about the aftermath of an argument, I'd want to ask, "Is he okay? Is he coming into the office?" Once he spent six months in bed with a depression. It happened after I moved out of town, after one of the many times we broke up. I moved without telling him but don't know how much, if anything, that had to do with what happened.

When I'd get Tom's voice mail, I wouldn't always leave a message. Sometimes, I'd just listen, phone pressed hard against my ear.

"Who can I say is here to see him?" The receptionist's fingers tap her headset. A pearl ring decorates her right hand.

While she speaks my name into the mouthpiece, her eyes are on a People magazine. I take the chance to look around. There are no footprints on the carpet, no trace of my path from the elevator. Other magazines fan out on a small table between the chairs: The Washingtonian, Forbes, Lawyers Weekly. The name of the law firm--Redatch, Mull and Keaveney--appears on the wall in sans serif gold letters.

I don't want to think about how Tom will feel when he learns that I'm here. In the lobby of his office. I would want so much for him to be glad, and maybe a part of him will be. But it will not be a big enough part, and I know that mostly he will be afraid and embarrassed. I can already hear the strained way his voice will come out from the top of his throat when he greets me.

When he steps through an opening in a curved wall of wood, I swallow. My eyes drink him in. The crisp smoothness of his white button-down shirt. The slightly inexpensive feel of his windowpane tie.