How passive-aggressive would it be to forward to Sean the reminder email I sent him two days ago? Very, I imagine.
I sigh, text a quick Will do, and try not to grind my teeth over the fact that I’d love to give my input on the electrostatic sprayer issue. It’s actually closely related to my graduate work, but who am I kidding? Even if I were present, Sean would act like he always does: politely hum at my contributions, find a trivial reason to discard them, and fifteen minutes later paraphrase and restate them as his own ideas. Ted, my closest ally in the team, tells me not to take it too personally, because Sean’s a jerk to pretty much everyone. But I know I’m not imagining that his most egregious behavior is always directed at me (“I wonder why,” I muse to myself, stroking my woman-in-STEM chin). But Sean’s the team leader, so...
Did I say that I love my new EPA job? Maybe I lied. Or maybe I do love it, but I hate Sean more. Hard to tell.
I spend the day doing what work I can without access to classified information—i.e., very little. I briefly FaceTime with Sadie, but she’s on a deadline for some hippy-dippy eco-sustainable project (“I haven’t slept in thirty-eight hours. Please, tie an anvil to my neck and drop me in the Sargasso Sea.”), Hannah is unreachable (probably frolicking with the walruses on a slab of ice), and... That’s it. I don’t really have any other friends.
I should probably work on that.
By one p.m. I am mortally bored. I nap; I watch a YouTube video on the plate arrangement of the stegosaurus; I paint my nails a pretty red matte color; I write a half-assed post for my Bachelor blog on my expectations for the next season; I practice braiding my hair in a crown; I wonder whether I’m a workaholic, decide that I probably am.
I can’t remember the last time I was inside all day. I’ve always been a bit restless, a bit too antsy. Much too active, my parents would say as they tried to enroll me in every possible team sport to keep me busy. They aren’t bad people, but I doubt they wanted a kid, and I know for sure that they weren’t fans of whatever changes my arrival brought to their lifestyle. Probably the reason they were never huge fans. We talk maybe once or twice a year now—and I’m always the one who calls.
Oh well.
I lean my forehead against the chilly glass of the window, feeling an odd sense of isolation, as though I’m disconnected from the entire world, swaddled in a muffled white cocoon.
I should start dating again.
Should I start dating again?
Yeah. I should. Except that... men. No, thank you. I am well aware that #NotAllMen are condescending shitlets like Sean, and I’ve had my share of perfectly nice boyfriends who didn’t feel the need to Actually me when I tried to have a conversation. But even at their best, all my romantic relationships felt like work. In a way Sadie and Hannah and Helena never did. In a way actual work never did. And for what? Sex? Jury’s still out on whether I even care about that.
Maybe I should skip the dating and just visit Sadie in NYC as soon as the weather gets better. Yeah, I’ll do that. We’ll make a weekend out of it. Ice-skate. Get that frozen hot chocolate thing she’s been raving about, the one she insists is not just a rebranded milkshake. But in the meantime it’s still snowing, and I’m still stuck in here. Alone.
Well, not alone alone. Liam’s around. He came downstairs this morning, large hand brushing over the smooth wooden railing, looking... not quite disheveled. But he didn’t bother with his usual suit. The faded jeans and worn T-shirt made him seem younger, a more human version of his aloof, stern self. Or maybe it was the hair, dark as usual, but sticking up just a bit in the back. If we hated each other a tad less, I’d have reached up and fixed it for him. Instead I watched him step into the roomy entrance until it didn’t feel quite so roomy anymore. No high ceiling is that high when someone as tall as Liam stands under it, apparently. I stared at him half-mesmerized for a few moments—till I realized that he was staring right back. Oops. Then he looked out the window, sighed deeply, and headed back upstairs. Phone already on his ear as he gave calm, detailed instructions about a project that’s probably aimed at freeing the planet from the evil clutches of photosynthesizing plants.
I haven’t seen him since, but I heard him. Laughter here. Barefooted steps there. Creaking wood and the beep of the microwave. Our rooms are one and a half hallways away. I know he has a home office, but I’ve never been in there—a bit of a tacit Do-not-go-to-the-West-Wing, Beauty and the Beast situation. I’ve considered snooping around when he was gone, but what if he put live traps around? I picture him coming home, finding me wailing, my ankle tangled in a snare. He’d probably leave me there to starve.
Plus, he doesn’t go out much. There are that couple of friends of his who come over to do surprisingly nerdy stuff (which reminds me a bit too much of me, Sadie, and Hannah making brownies for a Parks and Rec marathon—which in turn is vaguely painful—so I pretend it doesn’t happen). His workdays seem to be sixteen hours long, even when I’m not being a petty gremlin about signing his mail, but that’s about it. I wonder if he dates. I wonder if he sneaks a different girl into the house every night and tells her Shh, be quiet. My squatting ginger roommate will key my record player if we’re too loud. I wonder if I’m simply failing to notice the masked orgies he has in the kitchen every weekend while I’m tucked under my granny quilt, carefully composing my blog posts.
I wonder why I wonder.
When I pad downstairs for dinner, the house is dark and silent. And cold. Honestly, how is Liam not freezing? Is it the seventy pounds of muscles? Does he coat himself in baby-seal fat? I shake my head as I raise the thermostat and heat up more food than I need to eat (but, crucially: not more food than I can eat).
There are a few living/sitting/front/lounge/whatnot rooms on the first floor, but my favorite is the one connected to the kitchen. It has a large, comfortable couch that probably cost more than my graduate education, a soft area rug I like to stealthily caress when I’m home alone, and the pièce de résistance: a giant TV. I move my (many) food containers to the walnut coffee table and let myself plop down on the couch.
For reasons I don’t understand, Liam pays for cable television and for about fifteen different streaming services that I’ve never seen him use. I’m in no way above exploiting FGP Corp’s blood money, so I find a rerun of a season twelve episode of The Bachelorette. Not my favorite, for reasons I explained at length on my blog (don’t judge me), but decent. I settle in.
Ten minutes later, an idiot with an obvious tanning-bed addiction is fist-fighting an idiot who clearly snorts protein powder, all under a delighted girl’s eyes—i.e., the premise of the show. But I realize that not all noises come from the TV. When I mute it, I can hear another argument. From upstairs. In Liam’s voice.
It’s not loud enough to make out the gist of it, but I do manage to eavesdrop the occasional words. Wrong. Unethical. Opposed, maybe? Quite a few firm Nos, but that’s about it. After a brief moment, the sounds are muffled again. Another minute, and a door slams; feet quickly make their way down the steps.
Crap.
I consider quickly switching to a Lars von Trier movie, but Liam arrives before I can fool him into thinking that I’m an intellectual. I look up from my egg roll and he’s there, in the slice of kitchen I can see from the couch, looking like... murder.
That is: more than usual.
My first instinct is to flatten myself against the couch, keep watching my trashy show and eating my excellent food. But he turns, our eyes meet, and I have no choice but to hesitantly wave at him. He answers with a curt nod, and... he looks broody and dark, like he just had a terrible ten minutes, perhaps a terrible day. Even worse, he looks like he’s ready to take it out on the first person he’ll find in his path—which, given the weather conditions, is regrettably going to be me. He looks like he needs a distraction, and a very stupid idea pops into my head.
Don’t do it, Mara. Don’t do it. You’re gonna regret it.
But Liam is visibly clenching his teeth. The way he’s staring into the open fridge suggests that he’d like to strangle each and every jar of tartar sauce (for unknowable reasons, he owns three). Maybe the ketchup, too. The line of his overbroad shoulders is so tense I could use it as a bubble level, and—
Ah. Screw it.
“So.” I clear my throat. “I ordered way more food than I need.” I resist the urge to cover my discomfort with nervous laughter. He can probably smell it, my abject terror. “Would you, um, like some?”