She waits for me to unlock and open the front door of my duplex, then give her the all-clear sign after I turn on the living room light. Sliding off the shoes that allowed me to at least reach the shoulders of most of the male partygoers, I return to my normal height and vantage point and marvel at how quickly I’m back to this bland life of mine. A thirty-minute drive. That’s all it took.
“Nothing’s changed at all,” I say to the man who welcomes me home each night.
Matt Damon says nothing in reply, merely continues his focused study into the sight of his rifle in the second of three framed Bourne posters that fit in a perfect line in my entryway.
Despite how it may have felt for those few minutes in Jet Knox’s arms, it was an illusion, a departure from the norm, like two people acting in a movie scene.
“That’s a wrap,” I say, shuffling down the hall to bed.
Two
Colin, the Ex-Pat
Vocations fall into the same category as soul mates, maternal instincts, and runners’ highs: I’m sure they exist for some people, but not for me. There simply doesn’t seem to be anything out there in the world I feel called to do. I spend forty hours of my life each week helping people find jobs, and yet, I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.
I’m not alone there, though. Many of my clients are serial applicants. In some cases, they’re not satisfied with their placements—ever. Sometimes, it’s the other way around. You’d be surprised how many people truly are unemployable.
In the case of my favorite recurring client and friend, Colin Bennett, well… let’s just say Colin has a short attention span.
“I’m quite keen to be in and out of whatever you’ve got by Christmas,” the Brit ex-pat tells me now, leaning forward in his chair across the desk from me with his elbows on his knees.
I flip through the binder of temporary positions, tearing out the expired postings I come across. This is the fourth time I’ve seen Colin on the other side of my desk in as many months. Qualified—overly so, in most cases—he’s not at all interested in a nine-to-five job that could lead to something permanent. I love the guy, but he’s seriously fickle.
Colin hasn’t always had issues with commitmentphobia, though. Just ever since I’ve known him. Which maybe means I’m spreading this disease to those around me, now that I think of it.
“It would be easier to be between jobs over the holidays, when I leave for my duty visit to Mum and Dad’s, than to have to muck around with asking for time off.”
“Oooh, that’s right! You’re off to the motherland soon, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.”
“How much are you dreading it?”
“Eh. It won’t be too awful, I suppose. It’s been a while since I’ve been back, and I have the air miles, so I couldn’t say no, could I? Mum’s been banging on about my coming home since Emily passed, and I’ve been putting her off, for one reason or another. I simply ran out of reasons after three years of stalling.”
I look up and smile sympathetically.
He was newly bereaved when he first came to The Career Center to seek employment, so I never knew his wife. They met and fell in love online, when he was still living in London and serving on Her Majesty’s police force. He chucked his pension and his entire life as he knew it to cross the Atlantic to be with his “one and only forever love.” Even an unromantic person like me inwardly swoons at that notion.
Colin’s experience in English law enforcement didn’t translate over here, but that didn’t matter. He took a job in the warehouse of the print shop where Emily was a graphic artist. Only one thing could separate them. And it did, after Emily unsuccessfully battled a particularly vicious and efficient form of cancer. Colin couldn’t stand to work at the shop anymore, so he came here to find another job.
“Any job. I don’t care at this point,” he’d said. “It doesn’t cost much to merely exist.”
Since then, I’ve found him countless temporary placements. I’ve also watched him heal and return to some semblance of the fun-loving and adventurous guy he must have been to leave everything and move to the States to marry Emily, but he’s still not particularly interested in routines or permanence.
Now he rubs his face. “Mum has this picture of me as the grieving widower, you know? And I do miss Emily. Still. Every day. But Mum thinks I walk around with a hankie pressed to my eyes, and I know that worries her. The thing is, though, if I don’t act that way around her, she’ll harangue me about that, as well. There’s no winning with her. It’s going to be a miserable visit, but the first time ‘home’ has to happen at some point, and the sooner she sees I’m okay, the better. Until now, though, I haven’t been able to show her I’m okay. Not convincingly.” He stares down at his hand, fingering the wedding band he still wears. “Ah, blimey. I’m waffling. Sorry.” He waves me back to my work, seemingly anxious for me to stop looking at him.
“It’s okay,” I’m quick to reassure him.
“Perhaps I should cut back on the coffee.” The left side of his mouth lifts in a nervous grimace.
Suspecting he’d like a moment to try to recover his stiff upper lip, I return to the binder. “Jobs, right?”
His shoulders lower. “Yes. Perhaps something in retail? Surely places are hiring temporary seasonal help, now that it’s December, and with Christmas coming up and all. I’d still prefer mornings and early afternoons. As much as I enjoyed sweating my balls off on that landscaping crew back in August, something a bit less physical may be in order.” He shoots me an adorable smile as I flip faster.
“Let’s see…
