Soundtrack to a Train Wreck (9/28/08 Sunday)

Well, it happened.

The day began an hour or so before daylight, when I awoke gently chiding myself for negative thoughts. I no longer had to beat down those thoughts; I had tamed them and could amuse myself with their occasional presence, like pets. But there seemed nothing to do about the giddiness of anticipation. Breakfast disappeared from my stomach the moment it disappeared from my bowl. A banana and yogurt did the same. As I ate I listened to music:

Beating of Hearts
Wonderland
Love on a Farmboy's Wages
Great Fire
When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty
Mayor of Simpleton
I Don't Mind
Everybody's Happy Nowadays
Why Can't I Touch It?

I went to the grocery store. I ate. I went to Agee's for a part, bought some bike shoes, too. Ate. Showered. Still that hole in my gut. Listened to more music:

The Thrill of It All
All I Want Is You
Out of the Blue
A Really Good Time
No Matter What
Burning with Optimism's Flames
Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)

Packed the change of clothes and left, later than I had wanted to, a mile up the road before realizing I'd forgotten the belt. Did not turn around.

Adrenaline pushed me hard for a while, and my mind's monologue distracted me from the effort. After I turned onto MacArthur I released the handlebars and tried to relax my arms and shoulders. But as I rolled onto the sidewalk in front of the shop I saw Julie's car in the lot. I tried to shrug it off. The physical action was a lie to the emotional. She was at the counter when I walked in, dressed very casually, in jeans and blue-gray t-shirt with off-white collar. A pang of alarm twisted my gut over the inference to her attitude toward this meeting. Still, I had a line: As I came aside her I leaned over close and said, low, "Pretend you didn't see me." I heard a chuckle as I continued to the restroom.

I muttered as I dressed, my humor ebbing as I staunched the ride's sweat with paper towels. Because I was hot I forewent the t-shirt, but even with the shirt I felt ridiculously overdressed. Who was there to impress at this point, but with the pathetic transparency of my effort to impress? When I emerged Julie was still at the counter. I said, "What are you getting?"

"Oh, I've paid for it already." I was irked by her inference, but didn't try to clear up the misunderstanding. She was handed two cups and walked away. I ordered an iced spiced chai and walked to the table she'd chosen, at the end of the counter. She sat facing me, back to the wall. I hung my satchel full of sweaty bike clothes on the back of the facing chair and said, "Are you early or am I late?"

"I think I got here a few minutes early."

"That wasn't part of the plan," I said with mock (I hope) ruefulness. She asked how long it had taken me, how far I'd come. I estimated nine miles and forty-five minutes. It was already the kind of conversation I didn't want. I paid for my chai and overtipped. I never put money in a tip jar; thirty percent makes up for a least a couple omissions.

Julie had gotten the same drink (the other cup was ice water), and that sustained the chitchat for a couple seconds. The first few minutes were spent dancing against the silence. Julie contributed more than I did, as I was girding for my proclamation. I stroked the condensation on my clear plastic cup with pincers of the thumb and middle finger of my left hand.

"Julie," I said, watching those fingers reach the table. I raised my gaze to her eyes. "At the risk of embarrassing at least one of us, I have to tell you that, the reason I asked you out is because you fascinate me, and I want to get to know you better, in a way that I can't at work."

Julie blushed deeply, but for a moment--an endless, ominous moment--the expectant smile did not waver, the eyes did not blink, the head did not turn. I was seeing the shadow of the hammer over my head. Finally, she turned to her left and dipped her head. Her smile widened, her eyes nearly disappearing behind the still-red cheeks. I grasped for uplift from that image but saw in it the sand under the icing.

"Gosh, Dion,I don't know what to say." But then she looked at me. Her tongue darted to moisten her lips. She said, "Dion, you're a really great guy"--Oh, please! Not the "great guy" line!--"but I really don't think this can go any farther than this." She may have added "I'm sorry," but she needn't have, given the look of pity on her face. I don't know what she may have said because I was reeling. I never took my eyes from hers, but the thudding of my heart was shaking my vision.

I said, "Okay." I pursed my lips, shrugged shoulders and eyebrows, and looked away. Water welled on the far side of my left eye. What was that? I didn't feel like crying, though in a fleeting welter of self-pity I gazed into and across a black chasm of loneliness stretching to the end of my days. But I wasn't going to jump in just yet. I looked out the plate-glass window at nothing.

Julie said, "I hate having to say that."

"It's how you feel," I said, without conviction or eye contact, staring now at the ziploc bags of loose tea hanging from the slat stand beside us.

Quietly, as if to herself, or to the stand in line with her vision, with a flattered wonder she said, "I don't know what you could find so fascinating about me."

If I'd ever actually tried to pinpoint that for my own edification, I couldn't have expressed it now to the least degree. Instead, my mind did what my face didn't dare, and smirked--a cruel, self-pitying smirk--thinking, "Would it do me any good to tell you?" I looked at her.

She said, "It's just that I believe that there are two ways of getting to know someone: by working with them or by living with them. That doesn't mean we can't still hang out."

"But I'm not me at work," I protested, "especially around you." I'd looked away, but I heard a sound of amusement. I threw a hand past my face to dismiss my attitude. This was not a healthy direction. I looked briefly her way before resting on my cup. "Well," I said to her, "now that I've made everything awkward..." and laughed with an insincere self-deprecation.

But those five minutes stretched to nearly two hours, despite my taking every opportunity to break down this belief of hers. The logic just didn't work. I was becoming more determined to bring down her walls than to plead my case. Yet Julie seemed just as determined to keep the battlements intact, and she seemed much better drilled in her defensive maneuvers than I in my attack. Her prowess at deflection bordered on sleight of hand. I can't even give an example, it was so subtle. But I never let small talk get too good a hold on the proceedings. She came back from the restroom and told me there was a private room for reserve back there.

"Hm," I said. "About this theory of yours--not that I'm challenging you--"

"Yes, you are."

"Yes, I am," I admitted immediately, quietly thrilled that she would call me out on that. But I continued. This was becoming something of a chase through a maze: I'd lose her if her voice didn't betray her bearing. I had to keep her talking on this point; she'd have to lead me to her self eventually. "But how can you really get to know someone at work? It's such a contrived setting."

"True, but you see how people work together, their interaction with one another."

"But that's such a small part of anyone. No one is the same at work as they are outside it. Seems like a lot of extrapolating going on."

"Well, here's an example: Marion."

"What about her?"

"She was a control freak. Couldn't you tell?"

"Of course. From day one."

"You learned that from working with her."

"Sure, but that's easy. How does one get to know you at work?"

(Activate deflector.)

Later, I tried, "You strike me as very guarded."

She stared an instant before saying, "Guarded? I am guarded."

"How do I get past that? Do you ever let it down?"

"I don't know. There are things about me even my mother doesn't know."

Here I slipped, not asking for an example--not that she'd have given me one, but I might just have gotten a glimpse into the courtyard of the fortress. Instead, I said, "Well, there's plenty my parents don't know about me, too."

"I guess that's just who I am."

"Well, I accept that there are some things about ourselves that we have to accept, but is that really something you have to accept about yourself? Do you like being that way?"

"Well, not always." She turned her head and was quiet. I backed off, a little ashamed at having pushed in, then twisted the dagger.

During another challenge she said, regarding her previously stated affections toward me, "If I change my mind, I'll let you be the first to know."

"You know," I said, "I don't believe you would tell anyone, even me, if you changed your mind." I didn't smile. She didn't reply.

The time to part came. When Julie reached behind her for the purse slung over her chair and said, "Well," I said, "Oh, no," and she laughed. It was an awkward parting. I walked her to her car. She said, "See you bright and early Monday morning," and I inwardly lamented the speed at which she'd reverted to polite detachment. She'd started to slip into the car when she stopped and straightened. "Oh," she said, "I had a really good time." "I did, too," I replied,"except for a few details." It was meant as a playful dig to show I was okay with the "rejection," but I think it came off sounding like the first cork popped at my pity party. An exchange of good-byes and a "Have a safe ride home" from Julie and I went back to the restroom.

Initially, the ride home was marked with a pronounced absence of that gut-twisting stew of regret and self-doubt. I felt I'd done all I could, laid it all out on the table. But then I began seeing the missed opportunities to chip at her walls with a bigger chisel and heavier hammer. Then I reallized that this had very likely been my only shot at this, the only intense one-on-one that I might ever have with Julie. I didn't kid myself that she would even want to do this again, given the grilling and the likelihood of more of the same. I didn't miss her kneading her shoulder.

But the real sand in my craw was the implication of her statement about getting to know someone: What was it about me at work that she used to rule me out of her affections? It's a question I could never ask, not the least because I didn't want to know the answer. There is no pleading a case without loss of dignity, especially a case that can't be won, and if I can't retain respect I'll never get a second day in court.

So I was very angry when I got home. The rest of the weekend (it's now Monday morning) has seen a fluctuation of moods from that anger to acceptance to resolve. I'm not angry with Julie--I find myself incapable of that--in fact, maybe I'm no longer angry at all. I respect and accept Julie's feelings as her own and valid--to a point. My resolve is to continue challenging her theory, but in much subtler ways. You see, my fascination with Julie grew at least ten-fold Saturday afternoon, and I'm more determined than ever to get to know her, to swim that moat and smote those thick walls of hers to dust. Perhaps this is not fair to my heart, this new tortuous pursuit taken up on the heels of the last. Perhaps it's less my heart than my head that wants this. Most likely I don't care which is the case. Delusion or not, I want to believe it's my heart leading the way, and maybe by believing that I can learn to believe in my heart's ability to guide me safely to success. It's what I want.