Peggy
Lee took Graham’s arm. “Shall we?” she
said in a faux-formal falsetto.
“Let’s,”
Graham responded in his best baritone.
One of his knees buckled just slightly as she gently squeezed his
forearm. The two beers at dinner had
taken a bit of the edge off his nerves, but he was still feeling very much out
of his element.
He took a deep
breath and led her across the cafeteria.
He was reminded of a scene from Carrie, an old movie about a
homely, high school girl who gets invited to her prom by the most popular boy
in her class. She is ecstatic, but then
it turns out to be an ugly, mean-spirited practical joke (with very dark
repercussions). Graham hated Carrie. Was Peggy Lee toying with him?
They had spent
dinner talking about different types of oceanic heating elements, the jet
stream, onshore wind currents, and reservoir management. He now wanted to talk about something
personal, but didn’t know where to start.
Instead, they walked in silence until they reached the storage room
door. He hoped his silence communicated
confidence – not the anxiety that was causing his palms to sweat. “After you,” he said, holding the door open.
“You
are quite the gentleman. Now, what were
you just thinking about?”
“That’s
a funny question.”
“It’s
my favorite – it often elicits amazing responses.”
“Well,
if you must know . . . in a way, I was thinking about how I didn’t want you to
know what I was thinking,” Graham said as they crossed the storage room.
“Hmm
. . . interesting . . . very interesting and very honest. Of course, now you really have to tell me what
you were thinking.”
“I
know,” Graham replied with a smile. “I
should have just lied and said something like the weather, tomorrow’s schedule,
or something else – like ‘work stuff,’ that’s always a good one.”
“So?”
“I
was just thinking about an old film I watched when I was a teenager. It’s about human longings, attractions . . . betrayals.” Graham could feel his cheeks glowing red. “I don’t presume to know you at all, but I
get the sense that you are in the crowd of people for whom life has always been
easy . . . well, not easy, exactly, but not really
difficult.”
They
stopped in front of the walk-in fridge. Peggy
Lee crossed her arms and looked down at the floor for a moment. “In the last several years or so, that’s
pretty much been the case. I usually get
what I want. I’m Ms. Peggy Lee Swenson of
Our Modern World after all. But when I was growing up, things were
different. My childhood was no bowl of
cherries.”
“Really? How so?
If you don’t mind me asking.”
Graham reached for the fridge door.
He had decided a few steps back that he would not prop the door open
with the lettuce box. He did not want to
explain that to her right now? Instead,
he would just leave the door cracked open, and they would grab the beer and get
out. He felt pretty sure that he could
do that.
“Well,
my father was a soldier like you. He
left us when I was fourteen. We moved to
Georgia
to be near family. The Collapse had hit
everyone pretty hard of course, though for us in the South, the droughts were
not as severe at that time. My aunt managed
to take us in, helping us the best she could.
My mother tried to take care of my brother and me, but she was
heartbroken and did not fare very well without my dad around. She would disappear for weeks at a time and
then come back sick and exhausted. Then
she would sleep for days.” Peggy Lee
followed Graham into the fridge, reached back, and then firmly closed the heavy
door. The latch clicked
definitively. Graham felt sick. She looked at him closely. “You ok?” she asked.
“Yeah, go on,” he
said. Just pretend that the lettuce box
is in place, he told himself. No need to
panic.
“So, as you could
guess,” Peggy Lee continued, “I had to cook and clean and help around the house
as much as I could. My older brother was
angry all the time, so he pretty much ignored us. I worked as a waitress every day after
school. I told everyone at school that I
was saving up for college, but really I was coming up with our share of the
rent at the end of each month. I didn’t
blame my mother or my brother, still don’t, but those times were difficult for me.
“At the same time,
those years of hard work made me who I am.
I began copy editing on a local website when I went off to college. Then, I got my degree and my first job. I buckled down, took on extra assignments,
and eventually worked my way to the top.
Nobody gave me anything along the way that I did not fully deserve.”
They
were standing in the back of the walk-in fridge. Graham was starting to feel really
closed-in. He discretely rubbed the scar
under his eye and prayed for calm. Keep
it together for just a few seconds, he told himself. He grabbed a six-pack of beer from the
shelf. He felt her eyes on him. Could she see how worked up he was? His chest was tightening. Blood was thumping in his temples. He wanted to say something sympathetic about
what she had just divulged. He wanted to
respond. But he couldn’t even catch his
breath. His fingers began to shake as he
took the clipboard and quickly signed out the second six-pack of beer.
“Are
you sure you’re okay?” Peggy Lee asked,
taking hold of his arm. “Are you having
a heart attack or something?”
“No,
no, let’s just get out of here.” Graham
clutched the beer to his chest and then hurried Peggy Lee back towards the
door. He could not breathe. If the door didn’t open, he would collapse
right there in front of her. He hated
this weakness of his – all his weaknesses, for that matter. When they got to the door, he reached ahead
of Peggy Lee to push the handle down. It
immediately clicked free and swung open.
Graham lunged forward past Peggy Lee, lost his balance, and fell headlong
onto the storage room floor. The
six-pack skidded out from under him. A
lone beer escaped and rolled across the floor, coming to rest under a shelving
unit stacked with jarred green beans.
Peggy Lee had easily stepped aside.
“Jesus,
Graham,” she said as she knelt beside him.
He
rolled onto his back, closed his eyes, and rested the back of his head against
the hard, cold floor.
“Just
stay there a moment and catch your breath,” she said calmly.
He mumbled, “Yeah,
right, no, yes, I am fine, no problem.
Just a moment.” He did not want
to open his eyes and face her. He reached
up and touched his scar again and started to calm down. Would she tell Ian about this? Was she going to highlight him in her story
and tell the world that he was a claustrophobic freak? What a disaster . . . and it had all been
going so well.
“Okay,
that’s enough,” Graham said quietly, opening his eyes. “I am sorry about that. Did I hurt you?”
“Of
course not. You didn’t even touch
me. But are you okay? What happened in there?”
“I’m
claustrophobic. I really should have
told you that before you closed the door. I’m sorry.
I feel absolutely foolish.”
Graham shifted his weight up onto his elbows. Peggy Lee was close. He thought he could smell the faintest
suggestion of lemons. She wiped a fleck
of dirt off of his cheek.
“You’re
not foolish. You just haven’t had guests
out here in a long while, that’s my guess.
You are used to doing things your own way. I understand.
We are all creatures of habit. I
should be apologizing. I am sorry for
pulling the door closed. It’s silly to risk
getting locked in there, now that I think about it. I should have left it open. Now, let’s go have another beer or two and
relax. The night is still young.”
She
rose and offered Graham a helping hand.
Graham took it sheepishly. She
then crossed to the shelf against the wall and dropped to her knees. She reached back and retrieved the loose beer
bottle. She stood and straightened her
shirt and pants with her free hand.
Graham took the bottle and replaced it in the six-pack holder. “Thank you,” he said.
“No
problemo.” Her tone was warm, and – it
seemed to him – positively intimate.
Graham momentarily smiled to himself as they turned toward the door; at
least he was not covered in pig’s blood and setting the gym on fire.