Close Encounters (16 page)

“No, I'm OK, thanks. Thank you…for the coffee.”

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?” Bob asked, watching his wife exit.

“Actually, I was in the neighborhood, and I knew you hadn't been feeling well, so I thought I'd stop in and see how you were doing,” David explained, taking a sip of the coffee.

“My, that's so very gracious of you,” Bob smirked, shifting his volumous body in the chair. “Do you personally visit every associate who's feeling a little under the weather?”

“Well, like I said, I was in the area and…”

“Who put you up to this?”

“No one put me up to this.” David forced a chuckle. “I'm sorry that you seem to have taken my visit out of context.”

“I don't know about you, David, but not many people I know get a personal visit from the vice president of technology solutions to inquire about their health.”

“Bob, I'm not here as part of any company directive. I came of my own volition. So, how are you doing?”

“I haven't gotten the tests back from the doctor yet, but I'll let you know that I talked to HR before I went out sick, and I'm fully apprised of my rights regarding disability leave and FMLA.”

“I hope you don't mind my being so forward, but what do your doctors…think is wrong?”

“I'd prefer not to say.”

“OK—I was just curious—I didn't realize it was…I thought maybe you had the flu or something.”

“Well, if you thought I just had the flu, why did you come see me?”

“Look, Bob.” David set his coffee cup down and sighed. “I don't know what you're driving at here, but maybe you can clue me in?”

“Look, David, I'm no dummy. I've been around the block a few times, particularly with this company. I was in management back in the Eighties when the company decided that hiring newly minted MBAs who knew nothing about the company would be a smarter long-term plan than hiring from within. I was in management back in the Nineties when my department was downsized and my longtime customers treated like second-class citizens so that the newly minted MBAs could spend aggressively in the tech bubble, which burst soon after. Of course, my customers are still with the company after twenty years, but who cares about them? They're part of the old economy, right, the old way of doing things. Just like Bob Fuller.”

“Surely you can't be implying that I…”

“So I find it particularly fitting that the whiz kid on his way up gets sent over by corporate to let the old guy know his days are numbered now that he's sick.”

“Bob,” David laughed incredulously. That Bob thought corporate cared that much about him to make such a show tickled him. “There is no conspiracy theory. And if there is, and that's a big if, I'm not in on it.”

“Don't.” Bob shook his head. “I was once a young Turk like yourself—I know how it works. Each year my raises have gotten smaller and smaller—I barely make the standard of living now. Each year my budget has been disappearing, along with my staff and customer base. It's not like I don't have ideas. For years I've tried to get my opinions heard. Then, I saw the writing on the wall, and said to hell with it. I'm coming to work, doing my job, and keeping my mouth shut. It's like the company wants to erase me. You may have lofty ambitions now, David, but I'd watch your back. There will always be younger ones, ready to come in and take your job.”

With that, Bob raised his hand and pointed at him as if to lecture. David could see that Bob's hand was not only fuzzy, but his arm was as well, almost up to the elbow.

“I am not going to retire early,” he said angrily, the flab on his arm and the give on his cuff flagging in unison. “I happen to love my job and my coworkers. I will be back at work in a couple of days. You're going to have to try harder than this to get me out.”

David did not answer, instead concentrating on his hands so that the coffee would not teeter out of the mug. A nervous energy surged through him, and he feared he might cry, or laugh, or scream, or something equally out of character.

“I'm sorry you're sick Bob,” David heard himself saying. “But like I said, I didn't come here on behalf of the company. In fact, if you plan to file any sort of complaints with HR regarding how you feel the company may or may not be treating you, please leave my visit out of it. Like I said, I just stopped by to see how you were. I'm sorry that this idea was a bad one in your opinion, but I hope you feel better.”

With that, he stood up and extended his hand to Bob. Bob extended his missing appendage. It was solid in David's hand, but very cold.

“Bob, do you feel like you have the flu?” David asked weakly. “Or have you had any problems with this arm?” “What do you mean?”

“I mean…the grip…it doesn't feel as strong. Do you have any weakness here?”

“No, there's nothing wrong with my arm.” Bob clenched a fist and raised it in the air. “See?”

“Yes, indeed. Well, I won't trouble you any longer.” David stood up. “Hope to see you at work soon, Bob.”

“Tomorrow, if I can,” he answered, but did not get up to see David to the door. “Give my best to Bruce.”

When David got home, Sara was not there. He wasn't particularly hungry; in fact, he felt rather nauseated, so he went upstairs. In the bedroom, he took off his clothes carefully, piece by piece, as if to find that the shape and volume supporting the fabrics had suddenly disappeared. He walked over to the floor-length mirror by the doorway and examined his body, looking for patches of reduced visibility on his skin. He looked carefully at his hands, noted their color and firmness. He looked into his eyes, then turned around to make sure the room was the same as it had always been. He lay down on the bed and felt the cool sheets on his lower back, buttocks, and calves. He would have to visit the old woman tonight; there was no other way. He had to see her; lest he do something or go crazy tonight. His body screamed a vibrant anxiety, but he did not move. He wondered whether the bed would swallow him, and he half hoped it would. “David, wake up.”

Sara stood by the bed, her arms crossed, her small, unremarkably pretty features ablaze with confusion and anger.

“David, what are you doing naked on the bed?”

“I was…feeling feverish. Maybe it has something to do with my vision…”

“David, are you having an affair?” She walked to the other side of the room and faced away. He sat up and laid his hands in his lap.

“No, Sara, of course not. Why would you think something like that?”

“What am I supposed to think? For months and months you've been emotionally unavailable to me, and now you're going out for jogs at night, going to the doctor, stopping places after work. I catch you naked on the bed.” She turned to face him again. “So what is it then, David, if you're not having an affair?”

He looked at her soft brown eyes and knew that, if someone asked him a month ago to describe them, he couldn't. Now, he could see the rich light brown that they were, with small flecks of gold. He hadn't fallen in love with Sara because she was different than the rest; he fell in love with her because she was like all the rest, only better. She had the delicate features of a sorority girl but her eyes crinkled when she laughed, a rich, melodic, full laugh. Whereas some girls laughed as easily as they breathed, Sara's laugh was genuine.

“Well?” She probed him again. “I guess you can't think of a lie?”

“No, it's not that…I mean, there's no affair, no lie to think of. I was just thinking I hadn't really looked at you lately, really looked…and looking reminded me of the reasons why I love you.”

“Well, David, I could have told you that.” She turned to leave. “You never look at me anymore.”

“I have to go.” He stood up and fumbled for his shorts.

“What, you're going to see her?”

“Who?”

“I don't know—you tell me.”

“Do you want to come with me?” he asked. “Then you can see.”

“See what? What is going on with you?”

“I don't know.” He shook his head. “I think I'm going crazy. I'm seeing things that aren't there…I mean, I'm not seeing things that should be there…I'd just like some answers.”

“The doctor didn't say anything…your eyes were OK?”

“Yes. He said they were fine—he said it could be stress, you know, the blurriness.”

“Well, that makes sense.” She nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed, a somewhat conciliatory gesture. “You're always on your laptop. And you never get enough sleep.”

“Yes, but it's not blurriness.”

“Well, then what is it? Did you tell him exactly what it was?”

“I tried. I just…don't think he understood.”

“Well, I don't understand either, so I think I understand where he's coming from. Try explaining it to me again.”

“It's just that certain objects or parts of objects are blurry.”

“Maybe it's some kind of floater or something?”

“No, because it's always the same objects that are blurry.”

“What kinds of objects?”

He sighed and pulled on a pair of workout pants. “Well, I don't know—like maybe someone's hand or something.”

“Does it happen at the same sight line? Maybe there's a weakness in that area of your vision.”

“I think the ophthalmologist would have noticed.” He finished dressing and fetched his jogging shoes. “But I saw this woman a couple of weeks ago, when I was having this vision trouble, and she was..blurry also. If she looks OK tonight, then my problem will be resolved.”

“Who is this woman?”

“Someone I saw get off the bus. An older woman. She asked me to help with her groceries and I did.”

“And if it's not OK?”

“I don't know. But I can't think about that now.”

“Can you see my hands?” She held them out for him.

“Yes.”

“Then you don't need to see this woman.” With that, she left the bedroom.

Outside he jogged quickly to the park. The detail tonight was astounding. Again he noticed the incredible sizes and shapes of the trees and their leaves, along with the infinite numbers of pebbles in the asphalt, swimming against an uneven darkness, managing to stand out only once in a awhile before becoming lost among the million others.

He did not care particularly for the details of his and Sara's life, so long as they followed along a path of success and hard-earned ease. They discarded their hand-me down furniture last year and bought new, matching sets for each room from Ethan Allen. They owned carefully time-tested designs of dinnerware, stemware, flatware, barware, table linens, bowls, platters, pots, and pans. Their electronic equipment—cameras, computers, large-screen TV, home theater system—were two years old or less. They spent their vacations in the urban professional resorts—Cancun, Key West, St. Martin, the Outer Banks, Maine—and frequented generically unique bars and chain restaurants on Friday night with their friends, places where the girls wore black with their long blond or auburn hair pulled back, while the guys wore chinos, casual Friday denim button-down shirts, and baseball caps of Midwestern colleges that boasted good basketball or football programs. These details were easily obtainable and showed a certain growth and maturity through acquisition and status.

It was the unexpected details that David was unsure of—spiritual growth, doubt, disappointment, grief. These were the areas in which one could not update the accessories so easily, and it was precisely these areas in which Sara and David had managed to avoid thus far. And now, some ancient immigrant and self-important office blowhard were playing him like a marionette. He had to see her and dispel the notion that his life was not his own and to do it in such a way that Sara never realized there was a serious breach in the first place. And even if she already did, she would forgive him these past few weeks, he was sure. She, just as much as he, was interested in keeping their boat from listing too far one way or another. She needed him to be, well, David, just as he needed himself to be.

He reached the little apartment and knocked, ripe with anticipation.

“Come. We go shopping,” the shrunken woman declared, dressed in a heavy, formless shawl and gloves. She tied a clear plastic babushka on her head and handed David a collapsable shopping cart. They walked side by side to the market without speaking, David walking slowly and out of sync so as to not get too far ahead of her. They passed the Mexican neighborhood, full of brightly colored restaurants and small children playing in the narrow alleys, to the antique neighborhood, where middle-market peddlers were moving furniture back inside for the evening. They reached the market, which was at rest after the apex of the morning and afternoon business. The white and black tiles of the floor were smudged with watery shoe prints and diluted, pinkish blood, and the smells of fish, meat, and coffee intermingled with the hot air that was unevenly distributed from the vents above them.

“Smelts today for you.” A vendor pointed to his ice-filled display case. “Half price.”

She looked at the leftover cuts, offered for cheap sale after a day of going unsold. She pointed to a stock bone and some pork chops. The smudge of man, full of soft perspiration and a day's worth of stubble, carefully wrapped the items while the woman fumbled for a few bills from her change purse. David took the waxed packages from the vendor's outstretched hands, and they moved on, taking time to study the inventory of some of the other stands, a bakery where the woman indicated for him to buy coffee cakes, a Polish butcher who sold mainly kielbasa and sausage, a raw bar popular with tourists, a coffee counter. David bought a coffee and handed it to the woman. They walked back to her apartment, breathing in the quiet, mild night, drinking in the stars dusted across the sky.