Stupid, Impossible Dave
“Hey, Sam…”
“Sorry, not now, I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll drop by later, I promise,” I say, shooting off between the desks. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m not feeling particularly comfortable and I know that everyone is dying of curiosity to find out whether I’m actually going to go and set off on a different career path now that I’ve become a bit of a celebrity. Yes, I know, I didn’t win, but even second place has given me a small army of supporters: at home the phone has started ringing so much that my mother is seriously thinking about having the line disconnected and going back to using telegrams. I can’t really blame her, but I’m hoping that all the attention the contest has generated will soon die down and they will all forget about me.
I pass by Nicholas and get to my cubicle. I’ve brought an old box to put my things in, but I don’t know if it’s big enough. I haven’t got the faintest idea of how much stuff there is on all these shelves. I’d imagined that this was going to be my desk for a long time – it never occurred to me that it might all disappear from one moment to the next.
Feeling a bit sad and as though there’s a small millstone sitting in my stomach, I sit down for the last time in my chair, turn on my computer and delete all my personal documents. I open the drawers and empty them. Photos. Diaries. That’s it, nothing left. Three years to build it, a quarter of an hour to destroy it: a short but intense career.
“Okay, I guess I can go now,” I murmur, checking the empty shelves for one last time. I don’t want to risk bumping into Dave by accident, I just want to get out of here as soon as possible. I pick up the box, leave the keys to my filing cabinet next to the keyboard and go back to the hallway, saying goodbye for the last time to the people I pass.
“Oh, hey, Jane,” I say when I encounter her near the elevator.
“Sam, how nice to see you,” she greets me cheerfully. “We really miss you around here.”
“I miss you guys too.”
“Before you leave, there are those two documents to sign. I sent you an email about them?”
“Ah, sure… yes, I read it. Agatha has them, right?”
“No, I’m sorry. Dave took them. You’ll find them in his office.”
“What?” I say, squinting at her. “Look, you couldn’t go and get them for me, could you? I don’t want to see him,” I confess.
“Don’t worry.” She moves closer, a conspiratorial expression on her face. “He won’t be back before one. Meeting with the top brass. Important stuff. Looks like there are going to be changes,” she says. “And I don’t know if Margaret’s going to get that raise she was hoping for so much.”
“Come on, she deserves it.”
“Yeah, well, Dave doesn’t feel the same way. It looks as though… oh, there’s that Ralph from accounting. He’s always sticking that nose of his in other people’s business. I just can’t stand people like that. Well, I still have to deliver these,” she says, gesturing to a yellow envelope. “Listen, Sam – don’t disappear.”
“No, don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll still manage to meet up occasionally,” I say before turning round to go and pick up those damn forms before Dave gets back.
But when I enter his office, I find him right there, in the last place in the world where I would have wanted to meet him. He is sitting on a corner of the desk, holding yesterday’s edition in his hands. I don’t know what he’s reading but he must be very focused because he only notices me, with my box in my arms and guilty expression on my face, when I whisper, “Sorry, I didn’t think you were in here.”
He looks up, raises an eyebrow and studies me. He doesn’t look particularly happy to see me. “What is it? Already sick of the spotlight?” he asks sarcastically.
“I just came by to pick up my stuff.”
“Are you looking for it in here?”
“No, actually it was Jane who told me… I was looking for the documents, the ones I have to sign. Aren’t they in here?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“Good. I’ll go and ask Agatha then, she must have got it wrong.”
“Fine,” he says, turning the pages of the newspaper noisily. My instinct tells me to let him cool down and I’m walking back out of his office when I suddenly change my mind, go back in and slam the box down on the table with all my might. “Do you know what I think?” I ask him, almost making him fall off the desk with shock. “I think you’re a real asshole, Dave.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. Because this was your last chance to tell me that you care about me, but you’re too proud to do it and you’d rather let me leave you than admit that you made a mistake.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says defensively.
“Ah, really? Then what was that message yesterday in the personal ads?”
“It was pretty clear, wasn’t it?” he says, pretending not to understand.
“Why did you write it?”
“Because you’re so absurdly stubborn and I hoped that it might be enough to stop you from doing something stupid,” he explains with an indignant expression on his face.
“Ah, that’s why?”
“Yeah, that’s why.”
“That’s the only reason?”
“What other reason would there be?”
“You said that I was your Sam, though,” I remind him.
“I was trying to be nice,” he snaps, as though I’d accused him of multiple homicide.
“What for, if you didn’t care anyway?”
“Who said I…” he stammers, before going quiet. He clenches his jaw and stands there glaring at me, but he doesn’t say anything. When you try to get to the bottom of something, when you try and get past the surface, this is the only reaction that you ever get from Dave. With no exceptions. He sits there in his little bubble which nobody else is allowed to enter. And to avoid a scene, he goes round his desk and sits down in front of his PC. I suppose that’s supposed to tell me that the matter is closed.
“Ok, sorry”. I raise a hand. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up, but this is the last time I’m going to see you and… I don’t know what I was thinking. Whatever it was, it’s over now. Bye, Dave. Good luck,” I say, and pick up my box, all set to leave for once and for all. I don’t know if his reaction or the fact that he doesn’t even try to stop me is more hurtful – all I know is that I leave his office with my heart torn to pieces.
I walk past Albert. “Hey, Albert.” I walk past Nicholas: “Nice tie, is it new?” I walk past each one of them, cubicle by cubicle. Some of them nod to me, others force a smile, but they are all there with their ears straining and their eyes at the slits between the panels of their cubicles watching me leave. Everyone is waiting for the two elevator doors to close so they can start swapping coffee break gossip with the next cubicle.
I don’t really know where I find the courage to face that long walk. All I know is that when I pass Terry’s desk I feel the need to stop for a moment and catch my breath. “I’m going. Speak to you tonight?”
“Sure,” she nods, looking at me sadly. “I’ll miss you, do you know that?”
“Yes, but don’t worry – I’ll find a way to carry on being a pain in the ass,” I reassure her, and walk away, hoping that the bottom of the box will hold out at least until I get to the parking lot. But my footsteps come to a sudden stop when I hear Dave’s voice from behind me. It cuts through all the other noises around us – the printers, the voices – and seems not to care about attracting the curious looks of the whole office.
“I don’t care about you, Sam.”
I spin round in astonishment. What the hell’s the matter with him? Why did he need to say that in front of everybody? Wasn’t humiliating me in private good enough for him?
“Okay,” I murmur, trying to end the discussion for once and for all. “I’m going.” I turn round again and set off towards the door.
“Stop.” I turn round yet again, one eyebrow raised and on the verge of tears. I’m never going to see him again and this will be the last memory I’ll have of him?
“I don’t care about you,” he repeats, as if he was thinking aloud. He takes a few steps towards me, tapping a pen on his palm. He looks me straight in the eyes. He seems to have forgotten everything else, even the fact that we’re standing in the middle of the office.
“I think everyone has realised that,” I whisper, covering my flushed face with one hand. “Now, please, I…”
“Because I love you,” he interrupts me. And I suddenly go weak. Everything starts to spin. The tables, the walls, the lamps, everything. I try to concentrate on him, but he’s not that steady either and I have difficulty focusing.
“I love you,” he says, very quietly. He looks sad, infinitely sad. “And I want you to do all those things with me.”
“Things? Wh… what things?” I ask, trying fruitlessly to understand what he means. “Look, I don’t think this is really the place for—”
“Don’t you remember?” he asks in astonishment. “I’ve been thinking about it for days.” He takes a couple more steps forward until he’s standing right in front of me. “I want to walk through the park with you, hand in hand. Eat hot dogs dripping with ketchup at the—”
“Taylor Swift show?”
“Okay, maybe not the Taylor Swift show,” he says. Obviously there are some things he just can’t give in on. “And then I want to watch you while you cry your eyes out in front of the TV when there’s one of those tearjerkers that I hate on, and spoil the finale for you because I want to watch the game. And I swear I really would do it, Sam, I’d do it, amazingly, because I really hate love films, I’ve always hated them.” He takes my hand. “I don’t think we’ll ever argue because I’ve forgotten your birthday, though. I never forget a date. But I promise you I’ll give you a thousand other reasons to detest me and slam the door in my face. And I promise you that I will wait there every time for you to re-open it and maybe I won’t apologise, but I won’t let you send me away until you’ve forgiven me.” He takes my other hand too. “And I promise you, Sam, that’s only a tiny part of the things we are going to do together – because I want to do everything with you.”
I’m speechless. Incredulous. Unable to accept the idea that this is actually happening. Even the others are silent. They are all there waiting for an answer. The box drops from my hands to the floor. I hope I didn’t break anything.
“Will you tell me what has changed since yesterday?” I ask him, as I feel my eyes filling up with tears.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing has changed because I felt exactly the same way yesterday, and the day before that, and a week ago… And I think I started thinking it just after I realised that if I didn’t do something, you would find someone else to do them with,” he admits.
“And so why didn’t you tell me?” I ask angrily, shoving him. It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to sleep properly. That I’ve spent all my time crying in secret in the bathroom, in the shower, for fear that someone will notice. “Would you mind telling me why you didn’t say anything?” I rebuke him again, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
“Because for once…” he stops, looking embarrassed, but decides to continue. “Because for once in my life I was afraid that the only person I really cared about would reject me.” It’s an admission that clearly costs him a lot, because he doesn’t know where to look.
“Dave…” I want to say something, but I can’t hold back the tears and I can’t speak. I try holding my breath, squeezing my eyes and biting my lip, but there’s no way to stop them.
“Sam, please don’t cry.” He takes me in his arms. “Punch me, call me names, ask me whatever you want, but please don’t cry. I’d do anything to make you stay,” he murmurs, putting his hands in my hair to force me to look him in the face.
If I were smart, I’d leave now. I’d turn round and I’d walk right out that door, because it can’t always be him who decides. First he dumps me, then he takes me back, them he dumps me again, and each time, every damn time that I decide to forget about him and get on with my life, he does something that brings me right back to square one. I try so hard to convince myself that this isn’t the right thing to do, because… because I know how it will end. And I’ll feel terrible again, and he…
“Sam, don’t leave me,” he begs, clutching my face in his hands. “Sam… Sam, please.” And I’m done for.
“I want you to stop acting like a caveman every time you get angry just because I don’t let you get your way,” I murmur between sobs.
“Okay,” he agrees quickly, incredulously. “Okay, we can work on that.”
“I want you to talk to me, Dave. I don’t want to have to guess what’s going through your head when you get angry over nothing, or when you lock yourself up in your office without speaking to me. I want to know what it’s like to hear it from you, in person!”
“Okay, I promise I will,” he says, nodding. He looks into my eyes and his lips are a hairsbreadth away from mine, and both of us are dying to kiss each other. I stay like that in his arms and slowly start breathing again. The tears stop and my heart stops pounding.
“And Mr Onky goes,” I say. “I don’t know what it is and why you have it, but I don’t want to see it ever again.” Don’t hate me, but I’ve always felt an instinctive dislike for that horrible statuette.
“Do you know what I’ll do? I’ll destroy it, I’ll smash it into a thousand pieces, I’ll burn it and throw away the ashes. So what are you going to do – are you going to stay?” he asks impatiently, hugging me. “Are you going to stay, Sam?”
“Yes,” I say, and as soon as I open my mouth, I find myself suddenly two feet off the ground in his arms, his lips on mine.
“Dave… Dave, everybody’s looking,” I say. There’s a quiet murmuring which promises months of secret gossip meetings in the photocopier room.
“Okay, okay,” he says, trying to control himself and regain a little aplomb. “Okay, back to work, everyone, there’s nothing to see here,” he says despotically to pre-empt any possible comments from the rest of the office, but his eyes are glowing. “Ms Preston,” he says to me in a formal tone.
“Yes, Mr Callaghan,” I answer, putting both hands behind my back.
He struggles not to smile but he can’t manage it, and a corner of his mouth curves up very, very sexily. “I would like you to follow me into my office so I can show you your new contract.” He invites me to follow him, pointing me the way.
“Am I hired again?”
“Exactly.”
“Can I have a raise?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I protest. “Didn’t you say that I was a good journalist?”
“Exactly.”
“So don’t I deserve a little advance?” I say, trying to take unfair advantage of the situation.
“No, otherwise I won’t have anyone to give my backlog of work to. Now get into my office before I change my mind and move you to obits with Nicholas.”
“But…”
“Step to it.”
“But…”
“I said now!”
“You dictator,” and the rest of the conversation takes place behind the door of his office, which coincidentally remains locked for a couple of hours without anyone daring to knock until I go back to my desk with my box in my hands, my hair messy and on my face a silly, euphoric smile which just won’t go away. Exactly like the one that appears on Dave’s lips when he is sure no one can see us.