It was a big fight, almost a physical fight. Afterward, we both said we were sorry, and we kissed and hugged and made up. She went into the kitchen to finish making dinner, and I stayed in the living room and watched the news. I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the couch. I hadn’t told her I loved her, I realized. We’d made up, but I hadn’t told her I loved her.
She hadn’t told me she loved me, either.
I thought about that. I did love her and I knew she loved me, but we never used those words. Or at least we hadn’t for quite some time. We’d said them at first, but strangely enough, though I’d told her that I loved her, I wasn’t sure at the time if I meant it. I’d said it, but the words had seemed hollow and cliched, almost false. The first time, it had been more of a hope than an admission, and I felt no different after than before. There’d been no surge of joy or relief, only a vague sense of unease, as though I had lied to her and was afraid I’d be found out. I’m not sure how she felt, but for me “love” was a transitional word, an acceptable way to escalate the relationship from boyfriend/girlfriend to live-in lovers. It had been necessary, and not necessarily true.
After we moved in together, I stopped saying it.
So did she.
But we did love each other. More than before. It was just that… it wasn’t the way we’d imagined it. We enjoyed each other’s company, we were comfortable together, but when I came home after work I didn’t rip off her clothes and throw her on the kitchen floor and rape her then and there. She didn’t greet me wearing nothing but a G-string and a smile. It wasn’t the intense passionate romance we’d been promised by books and movies and music and TV. It was nice. But it was not all-encompassing, not constantly exciting.
We didn’t even make wild passionate love after an argument, the way we were supposed to.
We made love that night, though, before going to sleep, and it was good. It was so good that I wanted to tell her that I loved her.
I wanted to.
But for some reason I didn’t.
Five
At work, my duties became more substantive. I don’t know why this was, whether my success with previous assignments had proved me capable of handling more difficult chores, or whether word came down from on high that I should be pulling my weight and earning my salary by doing real work. Whatever the reason, I was given first one press release to write, then another, and then a full overview for a set of previously written instructions for something called FIS, the File Inventory System.
Stewart made no comment when I turned in the first press release, a two-page piece of unabashed hype modeled after a press release of his own. I attempted to be a little less Madison Avenue in the second release, putting forth the positive attributes of the product in a more objective, journalistic manner. Again, no comment.
The overview was harder to write. I was supposed to describe what the File Inventory System accomplished and how it worked without getting bogged down in too much technical detail, and it took me nearly a week to finish it. When it was done, I made a copy on the Xerox machine and took it over to Stewart, who told me to leave it on his desk and get out of his office.
An hour later, he called.
I picked up the phone. “Hello. Documentation. Bob Jones speaking.”
“Jones, I have some things I want to add to your FIS overview. I’m going to mark up the copy you gave me and let you type in the additions.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I’ll look it over one more time after you’re finished. I have to approve it before we send it on to Mr. Banks.”
“All right. I’ll — ” I began.
The phone clicked as he hung up.
I sat there listening to the dial tone. Bastard, I thought. I replaced my handset in the cradle and looked down at the original copy of the overview on my desk. It was strange that he would even call to tell me something like that. It didn’t make sense. If he was going to correct my work, why didn’t he just do it and order me to type in his revisions? Why had he even called me with this song and dance? There was a reason for this, I knew, but I could not figure out what it was.
Derek was looking at me. “Watch your ass,” he said.
I was not sure if that was a threat or a warning — it was impossible to tell from the old man’s tone of voice. I wanted to ask him, but he had already turned away from me and was busily scribbling notes on a typed piece of paper.
That was Wednesday. When Thursday and Friday passed, then Monday, Tuesday, and the next Wednesday and I still hadn’t heard back from Stewart on the overview, I made a trip over to his office.
He was seated at his desk. His door was open, and he was reading a copy of
Nervously, I cleared my throat. “Did you, uh, have a chance to go over my work?”
He stared at me. “What?”
“The overview I wrote for the File Inventory System last week. You said you’d get back to me on it. You said you had some new things to add?”
“No, I didn’t.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I thought you said you had to okay it or approve it or something before it was sent to Mr. Banks.”
“What do you want? A pat on the back each time you complete a simple assignment? I’ll tell you right now, Jones, we don’t work that way around here. And if you think I’m going to allow you to just mope around while you wait for some sort of ego gratification, you’ve got another think coming. No one here gets medals for simply doing their jobs.”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it, then?” He stared at me, unblinking, waiting for an answer.
I didn’t know what to say. I felt flustered. I hadn’t expected him to flat-out deny what he’d told me, and I didn’t understand what was going on. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I guess I misunderstood what you said. I’d better get back to my desk.”
“I guess you’d better.”
It might’ve been my imagination, but I thought I heard him chuckling as I left.
When I returned, there was a note from Hope waiting on my desk, written on a sheet of her pink personalized stationery. I picked up the paper, read the message: “For Stacy’s birthday. Sign the card and pass it on to Derek. See you at the lunch!” Paper-clipped to the stationery was a birthday card that showed a group of goofy cartoon jungle animals waving their arms. “From the whole herd!” the front of the card said.
I opened the card and looked at the signatures. All of the programmers except Stacy had signed it, as had Hope, Virginia, and Lois. Each of the signees had also added a short personal note. I didn’t know Stacy at all, but I picked up my pen, wrote “Hope you have a great birthday!” and signed my name.
I handed the card to Derek. “What time is the lunch?” I asked.
He took the card from me. “What lunch?”
“Stacy’s birthday lunch, I guess.”
He shrugged, didn’t answer, signed the card, placed it in its envelope. Ignoring me, he walked out of the office, taking the card with him.
I wanted to say something to him, to tell him what an inconsiderate jerk he was, but as always, I did nothing.
Ten minutes later, my phone rang. I picked it up. It was Banks. He wanted me to come up to his office. I had not been to his office since the first day, and my initial thought was that I was about to be fired. I didn’t know why
