Chapter 2 of
Thursday, 6:22 PM:
Jeff turns around to see Nancy Atlanta Nancy
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- Chris Lamela
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K Street, Chapter 2
Thursday, 6:22 PM:
Jeff continued looking around him when he suddenly realized someone was speaking to him. He turned around to see
He stood stunned, as though he was witnessing an apparition standing
before him, suddenly a wash of warmth flowed over him, his drink sloshing in
his hand, Cuba Libre spilling onto his coat, dribbling down the leg of his
pants.
She looked down laughing sloshing her drink around her hands, splashing
onto the carpet, “Oh my god, look at us!” She steadied her drink looking down
at Jeff’s pants which by now had soaked up the brown liquid from his drink, “I
can see that neither of us has lost our debonair style!” She laughed.
She held out her right arm with her drink, leaning forward still
laughing putting her left arm around Jeff.
He still had not said a word.
“Hello!” she said giving him a
light hug, holding onto him.
His face was blank, his brain raced desperately trying to connect a
million neurons together in a frivolous effort to understand that it was really
Nancy
She finally composed herself, stepping back facing him. “Aren’t you
going to say hello?”
“It’s you.”
“Yes, it’s me. And it’s you!” She held up her right hand watching her
drink drip from her wrist, then looking at him more earnestly. “And yes, it’s
us.”
She walked around him a few steps returning with napkins, she wiped her
hand, looked around seeing an unoccupied table along the wall. Without a word she
hooked his right arm, he shifted his drink to his other hand to keep from
spilling it again, leading him toward the table, pulling out two chairs next to
each other. “Come on, silly, sit down.” She sat looking up at him, he stood
staring vacantly down at her. She reached up pulling him into his chair.
He sat down turned toward her.
“It’s you. When did you…I mean…what are you…what are you doing here?”
“Probably the same thing you are, trying to meet people. But why…what
are you doing at a singles―” she looked down at his hand seeing no wedding
ring. “Oh, I see.”
He followed her eyes to his bare ring finger, looking back to her,
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
Jeff looked around the crowded room noisy with the mindless chatter of a
hundred people on the make, suddenly realizing that he just didn’t feel like
talking about it here.
He nodded. She reached out
taking his drink, stepped back to the bar coming back with refreshed drinks.
She handed him his drink motioning to the door, “Come on, let’s go find some
place quieter.”
After another second of wonderment at this scene around him, her in
front of him, he stood up. They snaked their way through the crowd to the
opened double-doors pushing their way, right through the throng, soon down the
hall finding a couch along the corridor with only a few people walking by
occasionally.
She motioned to the couch, they
sat down, sitting quietly for what to Jeff felt like twenty minutes.
“Are you okay?” she leaned down to look up into his eyes.
“Yeah, just surprised to see you, that’s all.” He took a big gulp of his
drink, coughed a bit taking another small sip. “What are you doing here?”
“Do you really want to know?”
He nodded, turning to her.
“You won’t be mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
He shook his head wondering at her trying to choose her words so carefully.
“Because I know I made a mistake. I wanted to apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“The letter.”
He shook his head slowly turning away from her, “Yeah, the letter. That
damned letter.”
“Oh please don’t tell me…” her voice trailed off.
Jeff didn’t reply, he suddenly turned distant; she could feel him
pulling away from her like watching him at the back window of a train speeding
away, suddenly terrified that his face would turn into just a dot in the
distance.
Then be gone.
Gone forever.
“Oh, god, please Jeff, please tell me she didn’t read my letter!”
He looked at his watch standing slowly, his face turned away.
“It was nice to see you again,
but I need to go,” he started to step away, the coldness of his voice washed over
her, a giant bucket of ice water pouring over her head.
She pulled at his hand in a desperate grip, “Oh god, please don’t tell
me. Jeff.” He pulled away from her, walking slowly away, “Jeff! Jeff! Please
Jeff, look at me, I’m sorry, please Jeff, I’m so sorry!”
He heard her sobbing, walking away passing the hallway with cheerful
voices emanating in their tone of tense frivolity, walking to the elevator
pushing the button glancing down the hall seeing her leaned forward, heaving in
tears, hands cupped over her face.
Jeff got up to his room, flopped onto the
bed. He had fantasized a thousand times about this moment.
What his first words would be.
Her first words to him.
How he would kiss her again.
Their making love again.
When the moment came with her in front of him he suddenly felt like a
helium balloon that kids poke a pin into, the balloon withers to a flap of
flaccid plastic, the kids inhaling the helium talking in cartoon voices. But
there were no cartoon voices here. No joy at all.
He lay wondering what had just happened, wishing he could go back to the
airport, somehow make it back to his vacant life, disappear back into the black
hole of loneliness that had consumed him the last six months. This bitterness
was not him. He already knew that the letter wasn’t Nancy Atlanta Atlanta
Tears welled in Jeff’s eyes, a trickle flowed down his cheek, dripped
into his ear, he lay there. The sudden desperate loneliness was an enormous weight
that was suddenly laid upon his chest until he gasped for air feeling like he
would be crushed into the bed, through the floor, falling until he was spinning
in space, hands and legs outstretched with faces, voices flying past, his wife,
his children, his mother, father…faces, voices calling but not one voice calling
to him.
There was a tap on his door. So light that it was barely perceptible. He
raised his head turning toward the door. There it was again.
He stood walking to the door, speaking through it, “I know you’re there.
But I really can’t talk right now.”
“I don’t need to talk,” he heard Nancy
“What do you want? Haven’t you taken enough from me?” Jeff instantly
regretted saying that. “Oh, Nancy
“It’s me that needs to say I’m sorry,” she whispered. He could hear what
sounded like her sitting down next to the door, her voice coming from lower
outside. He kneeled down to hear her, sat down next to the door.
“I know why you wrote that,” he said laying his head against the door.
“When I first got it…oh, god, when I first got it…” He sighed so loud she could
hear it through the door, a tiny tap of hope touched her heart. “It was
precious to me. I read that…god, I don’t know…a hundred times.” He chuckled. “I
actually masturbated a couple times reading it.”
He could hear her small laugh through the door. “I hid it someplace
nobody would find it. Nobody,” listening through the door to hear her breathing
if only he could. “But of course she…”
Scratching at the door, he tried to send her a signal. Some kind of
signal.
“She said that I had become distant. That she felt like there was somebody
else in the room when we were alone together.” He thought, looking for words.
“And there was for the longest time. I know that it was wrong, but I would
fantasize that it was you when we were making love.” He sighed again. “That was
a big mistake.”
“Why, what happened?”
He wanted so badly to open the door, to take Nancy
“Oh, no, you didn’t.”
“Well, at least she had a name to put to the third person in the room
with us.”
“Oh, Jeff, I’m so sorry.”
“While I was on a trip she tore every single corner of the house apart.”
He paused remembering, “Man she would have torn the floorboards out. Yeah,
floorboards, I swear.” Shaking his head feeling tears building. “When I came
home there were two notes for me. The other one was yours.”
“Oh honey, oh, Jeff.”
The word honey sent a jolt spinning
around Jeff’s body, shooting from the back of his head swirling around his like
a maypole ribbon ending between his thighs.
They sat. Separated by a hotel room door. Their heads only an inch
apart, separated by corrugated wood in a nice off-white finish. Their hearts
lay equidistant across that barrier.
He heard the sound of the elevator ding down the hallway, soon two men’s
voices could be heard approaching. Their voices quieted, walking past Nancy Nancy
Jeff could hear a shuffling sound against the door. He imagined that Nancy
“You know,” he said softly, “I have fantasized about the moment we met
again. You know I’ve been in DC a few times since I saw you last. A couple
times I drove through Georgetown
“You probably wouldn’t have seen me, I’ve been gone a lot.”
They sat for minutes, each trying desperately to hear anything from the
other side of the door.
They sat in silence. For all the tranquility of the moment his body felt
sucked out of the room again, he felt dizzy from the feeling of falling through
space, slowly materializing again, sitting leaning against the door, their
heads leaning on exactly opposite sides of the door, their hands touching except
for the separation of an inch of wood between them.
“So mister Jeff, what do we do now?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t be tonight.” He ached to open the door. He
could feel the electricity flowing between them, like that time when they were
in the car driving around Atlanta
His heart ached.
It ached that his family had abandoned him.
His heart ached that this woman that he had so quickly fallen in love
with in Atlanta
“I know,” she whispered. “I know it can’t be tonight.” He could hear sniffing,
she fought back tears, unsuccessfully, he could almost hear the trickle of
tears down her face.
Jeff heard her get up from the door, he stayed seated head leaning
against the door, hand still up, as though he could reach through the door to pull
her through.
She stood with her forehead against the door. He could hear her
breathing, felt the soft warmness of her tears on his face.
She pulled back, stood straight, turned toward the elevator, walked
away. Jeff heard the ding of the elevator, thought he could hear the doors
open. The doors close.
“Good
night,” he whispered through the door.
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K STREET!
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