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Chapter Two – Shovels and Reveries
The raindrops lit on my hot skin, tiny crystals, igniting my nerve ends like a thousand licking tongues. I was running in the backyard naked, whole and free, delighting in Michael’s shock. I held his gaze, certain that the cool rain mating with my body is creating ethereal puffs of steam rising from my skin, before disappearing, like magic.
He stared, lips slightly parted in expectation, and blossoming smile. He belonged to me then—the entirety of him—past, present and future, his flesh, his libido, and more importantly, his completely captivated mind. I could have done anything to him, had anything from him. But I only wanted to keep him looking at me like that. He saw me then, in a way that I had never even seen myself.
We had been making love all morning. The rain, relentless, yet rhythmic, a tapping score that complimented our swaying and moving against each other, with each other. The backyard’s wilderness, like a church, called to me. I ran through the already parted sliding glass door, leaving everything behind, even Michael’s fragrant body. I had never done anything so spontaneous, since darting through the sweet smelling, sun-warmed laundry, hanging on the clothes line outside, when I was a small child.
I laughed, seducing both of us, with the wholly pleasurable moment. When I ran back in the bedroom, he grabbed at my wet and slippery skin, as if it were a lifeline, and the Eichler’s glass walls, stood sentry, cocooning us, while the rain slid seductively down their outside shell.
The memory hurts me, searing me like an effective, but slow-moving fire. The tiled shower walls are frigid, as I slide down to the floor, my back held up, my trembling legs folding toward the pithy drain. It had been raining when Michael’s blood spattered the window shield. I began to sob. There was snot, slimy and thick in my hands, and on my face, and I did not care. I wanted Michael back.
When I finally dressed and left the house, my brittle shell was back in place. At my office, I was grateful that there was no one scheduled to meet with me this morning. My desk chair had been warmed by the sun, a small comfort, in an otherwise brutal place.
“Knock, knock, I have something you want,” led a sing-song voice.
Jeremy’s face was teeming with self-satisfaction and a bright smile. He held out what I knew was a hot latte, as he walked into my office.
“Good morning, but the latte won’t get you any favors today Jeremy,” I chastised, “not a quicker background process for your Director hire, or a pushed-backed deadline for your department’s review due dates.”
“What?! After all I do for you Hailey?”
I stood up and Jeremy came too close, as always. He had no appropriate physical boundaries with me, but I did not mind. I could smell the shampoo on his hair. He reached out for my shoulder. It was totally innocent, and I blamed it on his South-American upbringing. We were friends—a rarity in the workplace.
“Lunch at 1:00?”
“Only if you get out now, so I can get something done,” I said, and mockingly waved my hands as if shooing him away.
“But leave the latte!”
His hesitation was something more than our usual jostling and meaningless flirting. He was married. I was with Michael. No, I wasn’t with Michael. Michael was dead. I would never. Be with Michael. Again. Remember? Suddenly I wanted to cry. It had been almost a year, and still, suddenly, I wanted to cry. But I wouldn’t. I was proper that way. Good at ‘code-switching.’
Jeremy was attentive, since Michael died, in the way that you are vigilant and careful around a thing that is broken and that you feel sorry for.
Email to Jeremy --- no --- text to Jeremy:
“Can’t make lunch today. H.”
Fuck you, it didn’t say.
Incoming Email: Maria Valasquez, Scared Heart Cemetery:
“Dear Ms. Hutton,
I have not received your completed instructions regarding the engraving of the headstone for Mr. Michael Hampton. It has been months, since we spoke; I have called you numerous times at your office and left several voice mails. I appreciate that you are busy, but I would like to complete this for you and see the appropriate details in place. Please call me as soon as possible, so that we can resolve this outstanding issue.”
Issue?
Busy?
Resolve?
F-u-c-k y-o-u t-o-o, I type, then backspace. I know self-pity is idolatry.
Michael was cocooned in his silver ‘space ship,’ as he liked to call it. The only thing he loved more than me, he had teased. It was shiny, precisioned, finely tuned and ultimately, lovely.
“Like my Hailey, but with less maintenance,” he repeated often.
The leather seats smelled like him-- crisp, clean, and like Michael, they could be warm and giving, even misleading, and there were some cracks from age. I told him I was jealous, but I had a sweet love for that car.
That day, the silver space ship and Michael, twisted together, rolled through a dusty, rusty guardrail and down a steep hill, at the same time that I heard the buzz from a text he was sending. There was only the full moon, and maybe some wildlife to witness the loud thuds, bangs and rolls, the twist of metal and loud crack of bones, the muffled rip of skin and inaudible whoosh of air, forced out of his pink fresh, healthy lungs as they jammed against the leather covered steering wheel that crushed his ribs, like a shiny, new nutcracker.
“Love, I’ll be home soon, I have me, tacos, and reasons you can’t say no anymore. Love u.”
Two hours from the time of the text, I knew he was gone. Michael never disappointed me.
Bella, the dog, appeared in the doorway of my office, cocking her minute Yorkshire terrier head, as if to say, I know what you have been thinking about, her brown eyes swelled with arrogance. This is a workplace, Bella, go away, I thought. She sniffed at my door, and carpet and then pranced away. Some staff member would come to me before the day was over, and tell me she defecated in the cubicles somewhere.
Bella was John’s girlfriend’s dog, and when she was away and John did not want to be bothered, he left Bella in his office, or in the building, sometime unattended an entire weekend, if he was ‘busy.’ Of course, no pets were allowed in our tower, but building management could look the other way if someone was paid. We were after all, the darlings of the tech world, and everybody, all media and marketing, Forbes and Fast Company said so. And locked in the office, Bella would have had a million dollar view of San Francisco and the bay, if nothing else.
Note to file, mental file, of course: John, Bella has to go. Like red panties, and exercise room shower sex with staff, and open toe shoe fetishes. I could handle it.
The raindrops lit on my hot skin, tiny crystals, igniting my nerve ends like a thousand licking tongues. I was running in the backyard naked, whole and free, delighting in Michael’s shock. I held his gaze, certain that the cool rain mating with my body is creating ethereal puffs of steam rising from my skin, before disappearing, like magic.
He stared, lips slightly parted in expectation, and blossoming smile. He belonged to me then—the entirety of him—past, present and future, his flesh, his libido, and more importantly, his completely captivated mind. I could have done anything to him, had anything from him. But I only wanted to keep him looking at me like that. He saw me then, in a way that I had never even seen myself.
We had been making love all morning. The rain, relentless, yet rhythmic, a tapping score that complimented our swaying and moving against each other, with each other. The backyard’s wilderness, like a church, called to me. I ran through the already parted sliding glass door, leaving everything behind, even Michael’s fragrant body. I had never done anything so spontaneous, since darting through the sweet smelling, sun-warmed laundry, hanging on the clothes line outside, when I was a small child.
I laughed, seducing both of us, with the wholly pleasurable moment. When I ran back in the bedroom, he grabbed at my wet and slippery skin, as if it were a lifeline, and the Eichler’s glass walls, stood sentry, cocooning us, while the rain slid seductively down their outside shell.
The memory hurts me, searing me like an effective, but slow-moving fire. The tiled shower walls are frigid, as I slide down to the floor, my back held up, my trembling legs folding toward the pithy drain. It had been raining when Michael’s blood spattered the window shield. I began to sob. There was snot, slimy and thick in my hands, and on my face, and I did not care. I wanted Michael back.
When I finally dressed and left the house, my brittle shell was back in place. At my office, I was grateful that there was no one scheduled to meet with me this morning. My desk chair had been warmed by the sun, a small comfort, in an otherwise brutal place.
“Knock, knock, I have something you want,” led a sing-song voice.
Jeremy’s face was teeming with self-satisfaction and a bright smile. He held out what I knew was a hot latte, as he walked into my office.
“Good morning, but the latte won’t get you any favors today Jeremy,” I chastised, “not a quicker background process for your Director hire, or a pushed-backed deadline for your department’s review due dates.”
“What?! After all I do for you Hailey?”
I stood up and Jeremy came too close, as always. He had no appropriate physical boundaries with me, but I did not mind. I could smell the shampoo on his hair. He reached out for my shoulder. It was totally innocent, and I blamed it on his South-American upbringing. We were friends—a rarity in the workplace.
“Lunch at 1:00?”
“Only if you get out now, so I can get something done,” I said, and mockingly waved my hands as if shooing him away.
“But leave the latte!”
His hesitation was something more than our usual jostling and meaningless flirting. He was married. I was with Michael. No, I wasn’t with Michael. Michael was dead. I would never. Be with Michael. Again. Remember? Suddenly I wanted to cry. It had been almost a year, and still, suddenly, I wanted to cry. But I wouldn’t. I was proper that way. Good at ‘code-switching.’
Jeremy was attentive, since Michael died, in the way that you are vigilant and careful around a thing that is broken and that you feel sorry for.
Email to Jeremy --- no --- text to Jeremy:
“Can’t make lunch today. H.”
Fuck you, it didn’t say.
Incoming Email: Maria Valasquez, Scared Heart Cemetery:
“Dear Ms. Hutton,
I have not received your completed instructions regarding the engraving of the headstone for Mr. Michael Hampton. It has been months, since we spoke; I have called you numerous times at your office and left several voice mails. I appreciate that you are busy, but I would like to complete this for you and see the appropriate details in place. Please call me as soon as possible, so that we can resolve this outstanding issue.”
Issue?
Busy?
Resolve?
F-u-c-k y-o-u t-o-o, I type, then backspace. I know self-pity is idolatry.
Michael was cocooned in his silver ‘space ship,’ as he liked to call it. The only thing he loved more than me, he had teased. It was shiny, precisioned, finely tuned and ultimately, lovely.
“Like my Hailey, but with less maintenance,” he repeated often.
The leather seats smelled like him-- crisp, clean, and like Michael, they could be warm and giving, even misleading, and there were some cracks from age. I told him I was jealous, but I had a sweet love for that car.
That day, the silver space ship and Michael, twisted together, rolled through a dusty, rusty guardrail and down a steep hill, at the same time that I heard the buzz from a text he was sending. There was only the full moon, and maybe some wildlife to witness the loud thuds, bangs and rolls, the twist of metal and loud crack of bones, the muffled rip of skin and inaudible whoosh of air, forced out of his pink fresh, healthy lungs as they jammed against the leather covered steering wheel that crushed his ribs, like a shiny, new nutcracker.
“Love, I’ll be home soon, I have me, tacos, and reasons you can’t say no anymore. Love u.”
Two hours from the time of the text, I knew he was gone. Michael never disappointed me.
Bella, the dog, appeared in the doorway of my office, cocking her minute Yorkshire terrier head, as if to say, I know what you have been thinking about, her brown eyes swelled with arrogance. This is a workplace, Bella, go away, I thought. She sniffed at my door, and carpet and then pranced away. Some staff member would come to me before the day was over, and tell me she defecated in the cubicles somewhere.
Bella was John’s girlfriend’s dog, and when she was away and John did not want to be bothered, he left Bella in his office, or in the building, sometime unattended an entire weekend, if he was ‘busy.’ Of course, no pets were allowed in our tower, but building management could look the other way if someone was paid. We were after all, the darlings of the tech world, and everybody, all media and marketing, Forbes and Fast Company said so. And locked in the office, Bella would have had a million dollar view of San Francisco and the bay, if nothing else.
Note to file, mental file, of course: John, Bella has to go. Like red panties, and exercise room shower sex with staff, and open toe shoe fetishes. I could handle it.
