Chapter Nine
Ten years, seven months, and three days ago
It had been five days since Helen and Tyler’s date. Five days since she’d taken him into her bed. Five days of silence from
him.
Last night, she’d fallen asleep crying. This morning, she’d woken up and thought, I need to sell this mattress and get a new one. Then she told herself to stop being so dramatic. Her mattress was just a mattress, not a temple to some man who hadn’t called
her. People had one-night stands all the time. She’d simply joined a popular club. It was nothing. He was nothing. She was
nothing. And it was time to get ready for a nothing day at her nothing job.
So Helen put on her makeup and put on her clothes and put on an attitude of I’m fine, and she left her apartment without eating breakfast because the ache in her throat made it hard to swallow.
She was about to start up the concrete stairs to her office building when she saw him through the glass of the front doors into the lobby.
He was at the elevator bay, standing nice and straight as if the world hadn’t tilted on its axis for him the way it had for her.
He was wearing charcoal fitted trousers and a black leather bomber jacket that was nice enough for work but edgy enough that she couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t look like someone who’d been up all night crying.
She froze on the steps.
Tyler turned his head and looked right at her.
Or so it seemed. With the sunlight reflecting on the glass, it was possible he couldn’t clearly see outside.
At least that’s what Helen told herself as she spun away and walked down the sidewalk, pausing in front of the neighboring
building, out of his sight now. She had taken off so quickly, in motion before her mind had a chance to tell herself how stupid
it would look if he could indeed see her flee.
It couldn’t be much warmer than fifty degrees outside, but her skin prickled with nervous heat. She removed her coat and let
at least two minutes pass. Tyler had to be in the elevator by now. If for some reason, she saw him later and he said he’d
seen her, she’d say she had spotted a coworker and went back to greet them. She’d lie and say she hadn’t even noticed him
through the doors.
But they’d looked right at each other.
No, not really though. Through glass across the expanse of a lobby didn’t really count, did it?
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.
As Helen ascended the concrete stairs once again, the lobby came into view and there was Tyler, in the same spot, staring
out at the street. Her heart tripped.
As she entered the building, she kept her coat folded over her arm and clutched her bag in front of her. She was glad she’d
chosen a red blouse that morning. Red projected confidence!
Helen smiled brightly. “Hello!”
“Hey,” Tyler said, not as brightly but still politely. He was studying her face closely.
“How are you?” she asked. This was going well.
“Fine. Why’d you run away?” This was not going well at all.
She laughed. “Run away?” She took one moment to pretend she didn’t understand and then another moment to pretend she was slowly comprehending his comment. “Oh. I saw a friend outside. Had to say hello.”
“Okay.” He didn’t believe her.
He reached out to touch the elevator call button on the wall. When Helen had seen him through the glass doors, he’d clearly
already been waiting for the elevator, which meant he’d let an elevator come and go. He’d waited for her.
“It’s nice outside today,” Helen said. “Warm.” God, the weather?
“Yeah,” Tyler agreed in an even voice. “The weatherman said partly cloudy with a high of sixty-one and a low of forty-four.”
She looked at him sharply, but he was staring at the closed elevator doors. Was he being serious or sarcastic? What the hell
did he mean, reciting the forecast like that?
Helen cleared her throat. “We’ve been lucky to not have rain lately.”
Ding! The elevator opened.
They stepped inside. He pressed the buttons for floors four and seven, and the doors closed heavily. The silence enveloped
them as she felt the weightless rise to floor two, then three.
Finally, Tyler turned to her. “Do you want to grab lunch together?” His voice was normal now, his eyes warm . . . maybe even
hopeful? No trace of formality. No weather forecasting. Just a genuine invitation.
“Oh.” Helen was surprised. This was not what she expected. “I have a lunch meeting today. I can’t.” It was true. A client
was coming at noon.
As the elevator stopped at floor four, he nodded and said, “Have a good day, Helen.” His tone was polite again.
Tyler stepped off the elevator.
As the doors closed, she wished she could reach out and grab the back of his leather jacket, but the moment had come and gone
so quickly.
Helen had a difficult time focusing on the conversation with the client during lunch.
This was nothing new though. It wasn’t unusual for her to be sitting in a meeting talking with enthusiasm about how to increase sales for some piece of tech junk that nobody really needed in their lives, all the while thinking, What’s the point of all this anyway?
To sell more useless stuff to consumers?
Sometimes, when she heard herself say words like authenticity and synergy and brand identity, she wanted to dump her caramel macchiato on her own face.
Nothing about this corporate world felt authentic, but today was
more excruciating than usual, because her mind kept drifting back to Tyler. Luckily, the two other members from her team were
there to carry most of the chatter. Helen pushed her chicken Cobb salad around on her plate and chimed in with appropriate
responses occasionally.
Tyler still wanted her. Helen had no doubt. She’d felt it in the awkward silence between them in the elevator, and she’d seen
it on his face when she’d turned down his lunch invitation. Mostly, though, she’d just sensed it in the way that a woman just
knows.
But wanting someone and respecting someone were two different things. She wasn’t about to date someone who would fail to keep
his word. Friday morning, he’d told her he’d call her that day. It was Wednesday now. That was unacceptable. And if they hadn’t
happened to run into each other by the elevator this morning, then what? There probably wouldn’t have been a lunch invitation.
Clearly, Tyler was a man of convenience, someone who took things that were in front of him when it was easy but not when it
required effort.
And yet, she needed to see him. Even though all she was probably going to do was tell him that he’d blown it with her. Still,
she’d rather speak her mind now and be done with the whole torrid affair than spend the rest of her days avoiding him in the
lobby.
Two hours later, Helen entered Coleman Geyer with a manila envelope in her hand. She smiled at the receptionist and lifted the envelope. “Just dropping this off with someone,” Helen said without pausing in her stride.
The receptionist nodded and her eyes returned to the desk computer. You could go almost anywhere if you acted like you belonged.
Helen had no idea where Tyler’s desk was, so she walked down the halls briskly, clutching the envelope. Any time an employee
noticed her, she nodded in a way that invited no inquiry. I’m here on business! See, I have an envelope!
Finally, she came upon Tyler’s desk. His back was to her, and he held the phone to his ear. An inner cubicle, not the most
private place to have this conversation. There were two people at nearby cubicles within earshot.
Helen stopped at the edge of the half wall that delineated Tyler’s cubicle from the one next to it. He sensed her presence
and spun his desk chair slightly to see who it was. His lips parted faintly in surprise.
She smiled nervously, though she hoped it looked cool and casual as she leaned against the half wall. He continued listening
to the person on the other end of the line, never taking his eyes off Helen. She glanced around as if admiring the office
space: Nice place here—the generic wall art, the fake plants, the garish overhead lighting, love it!
It felt like an eternity of waiting, though it was probably less than a minute before she heard Tyler say, “Hey, can I call
you back in a bit?”
As he hung up, she turned back to him. His hands were clasped in his lap, the body language of someone patiently waiting for
the other person to speak first. The sleeves of his button-down shirt were folded partly up his forearms, and she swallowed.
She knew what the skin there felt like.
Helen said, “I need to see Daphne.”
In the elevator ride down from floor seven, she had come up with that opener, thinking it would be clever, but it sounded
stupid instead. Tyler didn’t laugh. He just looked at her for a long moment, then stood.
“Sure, follow me,” he said.
So she did, uncertain if this was going to be another game. That hadn’t been her intention, and she didn’t want to playact with him. But he didn’t attempt to say anything funny as he led her down the hall to a wooden door. He simply opened it and gestured for her to go ahead.
She stepped inside a large supply closet. It smelled like paper and, strangely, pencil lead. Who used pencils these days,
other than architects maybe? Then Helen realized she was standing next to an old wall-mounted pencil sharpener, a relic of
a past time. It looked like the type that had been at her elementary school, and loneliness swept over her. Growing up to
be a woman hadn’t turned out to be as much fun as she’d imagined it would be as a little girl.
Tyler closed the door quietly behind them and regarded her with a neutral expression. “Okay. What’s up, Helen?”
“What’s up?” Helen repeated. This man had a lot of nerve.
“Is there a problem?”
“Yes.” She tossed the useless manila envelope on the shelf next to her. “You.”
A crease formed between his eyebrows. “Okay. What did I do?”
“Are you serious?”
His face softened a little. “Yes. I’m not a mind reader, so just tell me.” He rested his hand on her shoulder and it seemed