Fourteen #3
Twisting his foot to loosen something up without making a scene Craig shrugged, “He really should stop lying down on the job, someone might fire him.” Then looking at the woman practicing CPR who seemed to be really enjoying the experience of the rescue breathing but couldn’t manage a solid chest compression, he added, “Or maybe he’ll get a raise. I can’t tell.”
The natural feel of this small exchange made me regret sitting in the back of the room all day.
I could have been next to Craig, or shared lunch, or something.
We both needed to be here after all. There was no harm in being separately in the same place at the same time.
And it’s rare to find someone you can share an honest laugh with.
“I bet I can save him. He doesn’t look like a lost cause,” I chuckled.
“You think?” Craig asked, and I wondered if we were still talking about Carl.
My palm was clammy and sticking to my note paper again. “I’d give it at least even money,” I conceded, not quite willing to say what both of us might have been thinking. Mr. Lambert was just on the other side of the room after all. Maybe being in the same place was too dangerous.
“Hey, I have these tickets,” he started. “It’s a dinner theater and they are serving steak, and the play is supposed to be a classic. I don’t know how you feel about steak.”
The tall woman changed places with the short woman and forgot to ask someone to call 911, as if she could save Carl all by herself.
Our lanky CPR pro mentioned the error, and exhaling a sigh I expected from a sophomore, the tall woman started the sequence over again.
It was so easy to make a mistake, and some mistakes are unfixable, they can cut right to the bone.
Even steak is easier to screw up than most people realize.
It can taste like water or shoe leather, but with some care it can be excellently flavorful and surprising. Sometimes it was worth the risk.
“I could go for a good steak.”
Craig shrugged, “Well, I don’t want to talk it up too much but I hear the food is as good as the show.”
“That might be a warning,” I smiled. He smiled back, but nervously looked away when our eyes met. “But it could be good,” I added. “Which play?”
Pulling a folded pamphlet from his back pocket he glanced around.
Oh, Mr. Lambert, don’t be watching, I pleaded.
The awkwardness and danger were too much for me and I grabbed the flier before Craig said anything else.
It was a classic. The school put on “Into the Woods” every couple of years.
I’d seen it before but it could be agonizingly good.
“I could see this,” I admitted.
Craig smiled like the sun, and I thought I saw shadows in the weathered lines of his face. “Great. I have tickets for this Saturday.”
Opening the pamphlet, I looked at the directions and schedule. Involuntarily, I glanced at Mr. Lambert who was currently on the floor working his own dummy. “Why don’t I meet you there?”
A gray cloud floated right across Craig’s sunny face. “Okay. We can do that. I can send you the ticket.”
Reaching out I took his hand. I did it before I thought about it.
His skin wasn’t rough but it was calloused.
Just as involuntarily he closed his hand around mine, a grasp that I clung to like I was falling off a cliff.
“No, no,” I lied. “I have a busy Saturday but really want to see the play. I don’t know where I’ll be beforehand.
It really will be much easier to meet you there.
You bring both tickets. Say about twenty minutes early just to be sure we meet up.
” Frankly driving back the thirty minutes from Liberty Lakes in the same car and the whole walk to the porch thing was too much.
Too close. I think he believed my lie because he smiled again though not as brightly.
“That will work,” he agreed. “You keep that so you know where to go.” He gestured to the pamphlet.
I slipped the paper in my back pocket before I took my turn with Carl.
It was more unnerving than I expected, but I didn’t forget to ask Lanky Guy to call 911.
What was unnerving is what came next. The proctor brought over the infant doll.
The bald creature was lifelike and dead enough to be creepy.
But that wasn’t the unnerving part. Watching Craig handle the infant with his careful sincerity, with the hand that had held mine, I wanted him to hold my child.
And I didn’t have a child. But I wanted one.
And I wanted it to be Craig’s. I was going absolutely batty.
We all passed. Even the tall forgetful woman.
I returned to my top row table and lingered long enough to let Craig exit the building without me anywhere near him.
That took a while. I even out waited Mr. Lambert.
I could hardly handle my own thoughts about the day let alone the school know-it-all’s impressions.
If he’d grasped a tenth of what had happened, I was sunk.
I finished the day with a mushroom omelet and a glass of red wine in my pajamas. There was all Sunday to catch up on work before Monday. Drifting off to sleep I wasn’t surprised to see Craig again, or steak. It was really good steak. If next Saturday was half as good as my dream I’d be satisfied.