The Throwaway Year (11 page)

“Lol! Well who is on the other side of that phone?”

“My answering machine at home.”

Hayden laughed out loud and when Abdullah looked at her curiously, she straightened her face and then dialed her home phone number.

“Okay…
you’re a bad influence. I’m doing it now too.”
Hayden pretended to be making a sales call as she discreetly texted into her phone, which was sitting on her lap beneath the desk.

“
You’re terrible at being sneaky Hayden. You actually have to sound as if someone is responding to you and not like you’re just leaving an extremely long message on an answering machine. Now, back to my question. Eating, car, why?”

“Because I used to be the cleaning lady here, remember?
I know how dirty this place is.”

“You can eat at your desk, you know.
You have the neatest desk in the entire building. Your desk is even neater than the empty desks!”

“Are you mocking me Brian Fox?”

“No… I have a motive.”

Hayden peeked up at him but Brian was playing his role very well and was telling his customer that he would gladly hold while he got the person in charge of advertising.

“What is it?”

“I see the bag in your garbage from Boston Market sometimes.
So when you go there, you could bring me a brisket dinner.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. You might have noticed that I don’t leave until its quitting time. I’m pretty tired of bag lunches. A hot meal would be nice every once in a while. I’d cook something and bring leftovers but…  Well, Abdullah’s lunch doesn’t taste as good mixed with my own.”

Hayden smiled.
“Yeah, that’s not a problem. I can do that.”

~***~

The next day, Hayden brought Brian his brisket dinner and he insisted on paying for both his and hers. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and she finally accepted but stated if he tried doing that each time then she wouldn’t bring him anything else. He grudgingly accepted her conditions and then carried his meal into the canteen. When he returned he appeared a lot happier.

Hayden began bringing him dinner each evening from whichever restaurant she visited on her way in.
She would quickly scarf down her meal while driving or she’d finish up while parked. Brian seemed grateful for whatever he was brought and after he repaid her, he would carry it into the canteen.

After
this went on for about two weeks, Hayden came in fifteen minutes earlier than usual.  She was carrying two dinners this time – hers and his.  From that point on, she had dinner with Brian each evening just as she had breaks and lunch with Dani during the day.

~***~

Hayden and Dani were preparing to stretch their legs at last break by taking a walk around the building. It was hot, but the humidity was tolerable. Hayden’s cell phone rumbled and she retrieved it while Dani looked at her in curiosity.

“You got a new man, Hade?”

“What? No. This is my friend Brian.”

“The heroin addict?”

Hayden regretted ever revealing Brian’s story to Dani. She certainly hadn’t told it with any intentions of Dani using that information to categorize him.

“Ex
-heroin addict.”

“Hmph…  So w
hat’s he got to say?”

“Well
, we share positive affirmations. He just sent me one.” Hayden read it aloud. “’I am kindly welcoming, vulnerably open and spontaneously giving. I have a limitless capacity boundary-breaking heart for the collective sharing.’” Hayden was smiling until Dani stared at her in disbelief.

“Are you serious?
He should just send you a text saying, ‘Hey Hayden lets have wild monkey sex!’”

“What?
Okay, you are sick. There is nothing sexual about that affirmation.”

“It has a hidden meaning,” Dani advised as they stepped into the elevator. “Read it again.”

Hayden did.

“See? That part about limitless capacity, heart for collecting and sharing.
Sharing
. Girl that man wants to share himself with you!”

Hayden moved to her sent file and read another affirmation to her friend as they stepped out of the elevator into the lobby.

“’I am my own unique self; special, creative and wonderful.’” She tilted her brow up at her friend. “I sent that to him yesterday. Does that mean that I want to bump uglies with the man? No!”

Dani gave her a half smile.
“Okay. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you find a dozen roses on your desk one evening.”

Hayden rolled her eyes.

~***~

When Hayden arrived at work that evening
, she was carrying veggie chili from a local deli for herself and a double BLT and chips for Brian. She headed straight for the canteen where Brian had just finished cleaning one of the tables with disinfectant cleaner that Hayden had told him was in the cabinet. He’d bought her one of those expensive bottled waters that didn’t seem any different than the stuff that came out of the tap for free. Yet since she didn’t trust the water fountains here since the time she’d seen a man spitting his chewing tobacco into it, she didn’t make too much of a fuss.

“What’s up Hayden?”

“Hey Brian.” She put their dinners on the table. “You leave any sales for me to make?”

“One or two.”
He sat down and opened his bag with its huge sandwich. “Mmmm. This looks good. Thanks, I’m starving.”

“No problem.”

She dipped her plastic spoon into her hot chili. It was delicious even if it was the middle of summer and their city was in the midst of a heat wave.

“Did you run today?” h
e asked and then took a bite of the sandwich.

“Yep.
And I didn’t stop once.”

“How long?”

“40 minutes.”

“Wow.”

“Well it was just on the treadmill,” she responded sheepishly.

“Hayden!
Why do you do that?”

Her eyes widened at his sharp words.
He put his sandwich down on the wrinkled wax paper and leaned forward. His grey eyes seemed to darken.

“Just take it.”

Uh…  “Take it?”

“The
compliment I just gave you.”

She looked at him
, unsure of how to respond. Then she finally spoke honestly.  “I don’t like compliments.”

Brian sat back in his chair and studied her.
“What happened to you Hayden? Why the affirmations and the exercise
and
two jobs? Why do you have absolutely nothing more than that in your life? You know-”

Hayden abruptly stood up and walked out the room.
She heard Brian’s chair scrape back as he got up to follow her, but she quickened her steps and walked into the ladies room. With hands that trembled in anger she turned on the water to splash her warm face and the door opened. Brian came in, but he held up his hands to let her know that he meant no harm.

“Hayden, I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to push, okay? It’s just; I know that you know all about what happened to me and the trouble I got into. And I know that you’re struggling with something, but you don’t open up at all.

“
I mean, we talk every single day about making each day better but you never…” He paused. “But I don’t have any right to push. I’m sorry.”

Hayden glanced at the water as it ran down the dark drain and then she turned it off.
She looked at him, speaking calmly despite the thundering of her heart against her ribcage. She was mad at Brian and at herself for being mad about it.

“It’s not a big deal.
But it’s
personal
. I’ve never asked you about getting high or your relationship with your dad because that’s personal too.”

He looked away and nodded and then backed out of the ladies room.

When Hayden returned to her desk, her chili, bottled water and purse were sitting on her desk. Brian was sitting at his desk typing on his computer. He didn’t look at her.

Brian got called into his father’s office
again and was still in there when Hayden left for the evening.

Why did this bother her so much?
She didn’t do anything wrong… did she? Hayden drove home in deep thought, feeling guilty and sad, but not sure why. Once home, she gathered the mail from her mailbox and stacked it neatly on the side table for sorting this weekend. She then prepared for her shower and afterwards climbed into bed.

Well,
you did make Brian think that you were honest, but you’re a liar, aren’t you?

What?
She considered that strange thought.  She had lied?  Then Hayden realized that she had discovered what was bothering her.

For months
, she had strived to be honest with herself and by doing that she had reacted to people with honesty, particularly Brian when she apologized to him for judging him. Also when she shared aspirations and became a support system for him—one that he obviously was starving for.  Damn…

I know you’re struggling with something but you don’t open up…

He had been waiting for her to trust in their friendship and to open up to him; instead she’d told him that he had no right to expect that.  Hayden tossed in her bed until she sat up. Dammit! She reached for her cell phone.

“In April
, my life was going as it always did. Until the morning that my boyfriend of six years told me that he had found someone else and was leaving me.”

Hayden pressed send and the message was transported to Brian Fox’s phone.
  However, she didn’t wait for a response. She simply began texting more.

“I realized that I had been very clueless with no idea that the man I was with didn’t want me anymore until the very second he told me.
How long did he see me – this woman that he no longer loved, before he couldn’t take it anymore?”

She looked at the phone and it’s blank response screen.
She took a deep breath.
Honesty…

“I began to see the
me
that I figured he must see. It was ugly. I was ugly and I had to find something more than that inside of me.”

She squeezed her eyes close
d and pressed send.  Then her cell phone suddenly rang shrilly, scaring her. She let it ring again before she answered, her eyes still closed in embarrassment.

“Me too,” Brian said immediately.
“When I thought about what I’d done to my dad, I saw someone ugly, someone that I didn’t want to be, but I didn’t know how to get away from that guy. The only way was to become something better... but not just for my dad, Hayden. For myself.”

Hayden was nodding her head.
  “Yes! My friend thinks deep down that it’s to get revenge on my ex, or so that I can find someone else. That is so far from the truth. All I want is to not be disgusted by the person that I am.”

“You’
re doing what it takes to make that happen. We both are. There’s no messing up. I lose everything if I mess up.”

Hayden understood that so deeply.
“If I mess up, then I’m not capable of being anything better. And I’m not going to be a walking mistake waiting to happen.”

“Me
neither,” Brian responded quietly.

After a moment of quiet
, Hayden spoke again. “It’s hard.”

“Yes
, it is. And that’s why we will value it all the more when we finally make it.”

She stared ahead as if seeing her friend, the person that shared so much of her same pain.
It was as if the words he spoke were her own. She almost hadn’t opened up to him, and if that had happened, then she wouldn’t be feeling this relief in her soul now.

They talked for a while before Brian told her to go to sleep.

“Yeah, I better.”

“Sweet dreams Hayden.”

She smiled. “You too Brian.”

~***~

They were gearing up for a new monthly bonus contest. Brian hadn’t won the last one; it had been a man from a different team.  Instead of a thousand bucks, this month’s prize was a gas card good for one fill-up a week for the next year.

That was something that would come in handy
, even though her commissions had been rolling in and Hayden was quickly paying off credit card after credit card with them.  She got out of her car carrying two turkey specials from The Cracker Barrel. She noticed Marcus quickly climb out of his car when he saw her hands were filled. She was grateful because she had become paranoid about being the only person coming in at this shift even though it was still light out at 6:00 P.M. Yet she had noticed that each and every night there was a strange car parked there with a man sitting in it doing nothing.