Chapter 11
The sun hit Gary’s eyes. Somehow the brightness of the sun had come into the hotel apartment room. They hadn’t shut the blinds and even the tall buildings of San Francisco’s downtown business district couldn’t prevent the morning rays from coming in.
He looked at the spot next to him where Kalyn had laid. She was gone. He’d woken up late in the evening and realized that she was gone. It was a hit and run. She seemed like she enjoyed herself though so he’d texted her.
Gary rolled onto his side and smelled the pillow next to him. It still smelled of her. She had a fragrance. It contained luscious fruit accents. The perfume that she’d left behind had hints of apple and pink pepper. As he continued to inhale he took in the smells of rose, jasmine and peach creating a flirty nature. There was a warmth and creaminess to the smell that made him feel comfortable.
The scent stayed in his nose for a long time and he was lazy about getting up and out of bed. The margarita and manhattan lay unfinished in the front room and he poured them out regrettably. It wasn’t that he wanted to drink them but rather pouring them out was a concession. The night was over.
He checked his phone. He’d texted her twice last night. There was no reply to his latest text. He decided he wouldn’t worry about it. It had only been a few hours. He went into the bathroom and showered.
The hotel water poured down on him washing off his body. The rain shower head dropped water all over his body like it was his own personal rain cloud. The water wasn’t cold though like the rain of San Francisco. Instead the shower washed away his sleepiness and he felt pampered and relaxed.
When he got out of the shower he put on a bathrobe. He wondered if he should tell Joy what was going on. It wasn’t like him to stay out like this. He looked at his phone and there was no word from her. He put his clothes back on. He would have to change immediately when he got home. The clothes had Kalyn’s scent on them.
His car pulled out of the parking lot easily. The checkout was easy. He pulled out and drove home. His phone rang and he turned on the in car telephone system. It was Joy.
“Hey,” Joy said.
“Hey,” he replied. “What are you up to?”
“I’m off to the gym. Where are you?”
“I just got out of an early meeting.”
“You didn’t stay home last night,” Joy said.
“No. I ended up having a drink last night at the Redwood. One of the guys, Justin, you remember him? He was the copywriter at Twinkle, he hit me up for a drink after you’d gone to bed.”
“Oh yeah. I remember him. What happened?”
“We just got some drinks at the hotel bar. He complained about how Twinkle fell apart. Then he complained about how his latest start up had failed.”
“What was it called?”
“Goodbye,” Gary said. He’d pulled onto mission street and was turning left towards the Embarcadero. A man on a Segway rode past him. Joy didn’t seem upset that he hadn’t stayed. She hadn’t even asked him yet.
“That’s a stupid name,” Joy said.
“Yeah.”
“So you got too drunk to drive,” Joy said.
“Yeah. Justin kept complaining and I kept buying drinks to drown my sorrows that I had to listen to him.”
Joy laughed.
“How are you feeling,” Gary said. “You seemed pretty drunk yourself.”
“Yeah. I’m okay. I’m on my way to the gym. I wanted to see what was going on with you. You don’t often stay out of the house,” she said.
“I know. Sorry about that. I didn’t want to leave the car.”
“Makes sense. Well…”
“What’s up? Is there something else,” Gary said.
“No. No. It’s fine,” Joy said. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Okay bye.”
“Gary?”
“Yeah?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
The stereo came on when Joy hung up. The Animals “House of the Rising Sun,” began to play. Gary loved old music from the sixties. It reminded him of his childhood. It hadn’t been a blessed time in his life. His parents had divorced young, when he was a preteen. His mom had tried to pit him against his father. She’d told Gary that his mother had a new woman. That Gary would have a new mother who was better, who was younger, who was more fit. Gary had begun to cry as his mother kept listing all the ways in which the new mother would be better than his old one.
Gary had retreated during those years and focused on learning. He’d taught himself several computer languages. Learning Java and then Python followed by a slew of other languages had much more order than the life around him. The sentences made sense. There was a logic to them that didn’t occur with the language his parents were speaking.
His father had said nothing about the disarray and discord of his relationship with Gary’s mother. Years later he had asked his father what had happened.
“You are in love,” his father had said. The two had been sitting at the edge of Lake Tahoe. Gary had bought his father a place near the water. “And then one day you aren’t. You aren’t sure why you are still together. You aren’t sure why you aren’t apart. Then the daily annoyances come up. Your mother used to take hours getting ready. We’d constantly be late. It drove me nuts. We’d get into arguments about it. Relationships are about compromise and after a while we just couldn’t come to the middle anymore.”
Gary’s father had stayed out by the lake late that night. Gary had left him in his solitude. After a few hours, he looked out. The moon was high above the lake and its reflection showed in the water. The bright light of the moon highlighted Gary’s father. Gary looked at his father and wondered if he would end up like him.
As Gary turned left onto the Embarcadero he wondered how much he was like his father. Things with Joy were just moving apart. They still talked. They didn’t fight but it was like his father had said, ‘And then one day you aren’t.’
There was ample parking on the street in front of the apartment but Gary parked the car inside the garage. It had cost a fair amount extra, several thousand dollars every month but the convenience and security of having his car protected mattered to Gary. He liked to take care of his things.
He went upstairs into the apartment. The bottle of champagne was still on the nightstand. It was still half full. It had turned sour though. He smelled it and then turned his head in disgust. Gary decided he would take a drink of it anyways. It was sour and flat and it tasted as if he’d ingested a thousand sour green apples. He walked into the bathroom and spat tried to spit out the liquid.
Brushing his teeth made the taste go away but it still lingered. He went back into the bedroom and took the bottle to the kitchen sink.
“How could something so expensive go bad so quick,” he said aloud. He watched as the urine colored wine drained into the sink. He tossed the bottle into the trash.
“Fuck recycling this shit,” he said.
His secretary hadn’t called him yet for the day which meant he had free time. There were always meetings. There was always something to do but he had a few hours to himself. He took off his clothes. He pulled his shirt to his nose. It still smelled of Kalyn. It was pleasant and then he threw it into the laundry bin. He changed into his workout clothes, some high end running shorts and a sweat absorbent t shirt.
Gary knew he needed to do something. He didn’t want to think about Joy. He didn’t want to think about Kalyn. He didn’t want to think about work. He didn’t want to think about anything.
His running shoes were by the door. He walked over to them and picked them up. They hadn’t seen as much wear on them as he would have liked. It had been a few years since he’d run the San Francisco marathon. He’d done it more to say that he’d done it than having an overwhelming desire to run that far. Joy was constantly working out and Gary felt he should have some fitness goals as well.
The first few miles had been fine. Even going into mile 18 he didn’t feel too bad. He’d trained with Justin for a few months. The two had met up every weekend for three months to go on long runs together. Justin had mapped out the runs and Gary had run along.
Mile 20 had been hard. His body had started to ache. He didn’t want to keep going anymore. It had infuriated him even more when the organizers had told him that it was just one more mile, that it was just a little more to go on mile 24. He’d crossed the line and wondered why the fuck he had just done that. It was too long and he was too sore.
He put his shoes on now and walked out the door. He wouldn’t run a marathon today but he would go for a run. He turned on his iPod and began to listen to music as he ran outside. He went to the Embarcadero and began to run along the wharf. The seals were on their pier, he could tell because tourists were gathered around the railing. The clock tower was hitting 10 o’clock when he ran by it. He passed by the large bow and arrow sculpture embedded into the lawn like meridian.
There was a plaque near to the sculpture. Gary walked over and read the information. The sculpture had been made of fiberglass and steel and placed in Rincon Park in 2002. Built to resemble Cupid’s bow and arrow draw, the piece was inspired by San Francisco’s reputation as a port of Eros, a place of love.
“Love’s trade-mark weapon naturally evokes the city’s permissive and romantic reputation, while formally its taut curve resonates wonderfully with the structure of the famous suspension bridge in the background,” the plaque read.
Gary turned around and looked at the Bay Bridge behind him. The bridge had a row of lights on it. Beside it the old bay bridge was still being taken down. The bridge had been a mainstay during his time in San Francisco. If he drove across it he could reach Kalyn but Joy was here on this side of the water.
He remembered when they’d found a crack in the new bridge. It was Labor Day weekend and the new bridge had closed because there was a major crack in an eye bar. Later a steel crossbeam and two steel tie rods snapped and fell to the upper deck. Three vehicles had been struck. Even the strongest of bridges could still fall apart Gary had thought at the time.
A seagull flew overhead and Gary watched it. It dived into the bay and then resurfaced. Gary had decisions to make. He had to figure out what he was doing with Kalyn. Was it just some sort of escape valve? Did he really care for her? What about Joy?
The ocean breeze blew. He took a deep inhale of the salty air. It was fresh and burned a little in his nostrils. He had to decide something so he started to run back up the Embarcadero.