Arnie Violet knew what it meant to have guts. The problem was he didn’t have any himself. Uncomfortable situations left him almost paralyzed while he’d eke out a few words that would hang in the air as abandoned bits of sentences. So, when Rachel challenged him at the Friday staff meeting, the outcome was predetermined.
“Arnie, that’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve heard,” she said, swiveling in her chair. Her dark eyes fixed on him, predator on prey. He detected the hint of a smirk.
Arnie gulped—not a big gulp—just a little one. He couldn’t help it. It was a learned response, but he was better now at gulping on a smaller, less visible scale than he used to. He hoped no one had noticed.
Rachel’s gaze remained locked. His last boyfriend would stare at him the same way, unblinking, with eyes just slightly squinted. Don’t look away, Arnie would say to himself. But, of course, he always did. This was one reason why at the age of thirty he found himself still single. Boyfriends steamrolled him into submission with a mere questioning glance or the simple phrase, We need to talk. All the while they would criticize him for not sticking up for himself. His longest relationship lasted fifty-three days.
Here, in the meeting room, with four other people witnessing the confrontation, he let his inner voice tell him: Don’t look away. Don’t look away. But only a few seconds ticked off before he lowered his vision to his laptop screen, pretending that something in his meeting notes might save him. Was Rachel right? Did he just offer a silly and ridiculous idea? Why did he have to come to these staff meetings with everyone else around? Maybe he should have passed when it was his turn. He gulped again. The white walls of the conference room seemed to close in. Had the air conditioning clicked off? His throat went dry.
“I, well, I thought, uh, maybe . . .”
“That maybe what?” Rachel said. “That the client would go for something like that?”
Rachel was five years his senior at the company and had recently been named head designer, which gave her a certain amount of clout within the firm. She wasn’t his supervisor, but she had the ear of their boss. With her Jennifer Lopez complexion, talent in design, and take-no-prisoners ambition, she was a tiger in coral-colored lipstick.
“Bright Ideas is the company name for a reason,” she continued. “Bright Ideas.”
As Rachel said this, he imagined the tiger morphing into the Medusa with yellow-eyed snakes writhing about her head, hissing—and if he looked at her, he would turn to stone.
Why does she hate me?
Arnie finally looked up. From the other side of the table, Harold’s eyes shifted from Rachel to Arnie. Harold was the company owner and the most senior person in the room. He had founded the Boulder agency twenty years prior, having started with just one other person. Now it was an established firm with six different designers and ad people along with support staff. With distinguished gray hair giving him the air of accumulated wisdom, he had considerable experience with managing disagreements.
“Rachel, I think Arnie is on the right track. There’s something to his proposal.” He turned to Arnie. “Why don’t you bring it by my office on Monday? We can polish it.”
Arnie nodded. “Thanks.”
He knew that what Harold probably meant was that quietly, in the confines of a private office, his boss would tell him the idea wouldn’t really fly. Then Arnie could say it was okay and that it was just an idea anyway. He appreciated Harold for that—for knowing how not to make someone look like an ass in public.
He avoided looking at Rachel again. But her breathing beat like a slow drum in the background—and he imagined hot breath on his neck, the jaws of the tiger ready to clamp down, and then snap!
Gulp.
Harold mercifully ended the meeting, and everyone filed out. While Arnie packed up his things, he caught a glimpse of one of the framed motivational posters on the wall. In it, the silhouette of a man dangled from a jutting rock as he scaled a cliff, the sun setting in the distance. His climb was clearly powered by muscled arms and legs, and he was positioned to pull himself up onto the crag. The caption read, Believe in yourself. Alone in the room, Arnie sighed.
“Easier said than done,” he muttered.
Then he trudged back to his cubicle where he could work by himself. The others had left for the day, and he enjoyed the solitude—no chatter, no questions about weekend plans. He kept his desk neat, free of photos and knickknacks, the only exception being a coffee cup that Harold had given him when he joined the company. Emblazoned on it was the phrase, Welcome to the Team! He reached for it absentmindedly and ran his finger around the rim, thinking about the day he’d been hired, and what Harold had said.
“I have a feeling about you, Arnie. I really do.”
He’d smiled at Harold’s remark, trying to hide his concern of whether he could live up to his boss’s expectations. Now he wondered. He liked to think he did, but Rachel had a knack for undermining any budding confidence in him. He sighed and then began to organize the files on his laptop.
As closing time rolled around, Harold stopped by his desk.
“Hey, Arnie. I was wondering if you wanted to come by the house for dinner tonight. My brother and his son are coming up from Denver and I think you’d make a great addition to the table. I mean, if you don’t have other plans.”
Arnie pulled one side of his mouth up into a smile, even though he suspected this was a pity invite because of what happened at the afternoon meeting—and of course he had no plans on a Friday night. When was his last date? He couldn’t remember. Months ago. A terrible encounter with a guy he’d met at the gym who turned out to be a self-centered jerk who spent the entire time talking about himself. He ended the date by telling Arnie he didn’t think they were compatible, that Arnie wasn’t a strong enough personality for him. Of course he would say that. Arnie wasn’t strong enough for anyone, it seemed.
“Yeah. That would be nice,” Arnie said to Harold.
“Great. See you at six for cocktails first.”
Harold walked away, taking big strides and whistling as he marched toward the exit. Arnie turned back to his desk and packed up his things. On his way out, he said goodbye to the cleaning lady, Marisela, who always spoke to him in a combination of English and Spanish while smiling constantly. He followed the same exit that Harold took—although he didn’t whistle, and his gait was far from the deliberate, long strides of his boss.
* * * *
In his apartment, Arnie dropped his shoulder bag onto a kitchen stool and loosened his tie. He took in a deep breath, moved his head from side to side to remove the knot in his neck, and let his body relax as he stood at the counter. He enjoyed coming home at the end of the day, a refuge from the sometimes tense moments at work. His apartment was nothing special, but it was home: two bedrooms (one serving as a home office), one bath, and a decent galley kitchen where he’d prepare a meal while listening to classical music, a taste he’d acquired in college. He’d been saving money over the years and hoped to buy a small house before he turned forty—small because he figured it would be just for him. He calculated he had about five years before he could venture into becoming a homeowner.
Like many single guys his age—well, gay ones anyway—he’d relied on Pottery Barn and Williams and Sonoma to fashion a home. He appreciated a soft palette of soothing colors: grays, beiges, light blues. He had no fancy art, but a few framed posters and one Picasso print he’d found on eBay adorned the walls. He didn’t buy into the penchant of many gay men to hang pictures of nude or semi-nude guys in some pretense of admiring the male body. That all seemed cliché. And why surround yourself by physiques that were unattainable? Arnie did not boast any muscles and didn’t really care to. He was an average guy with an average build who measured five-foot-nine inches in stocking feet. Nothing special, nothing to boast about.
As he stood in the kitchen, he looked at the array of cookbooks he’d collected over the years—everything from Betty Crocker to specialty tomes on Italian and Chinese cuisine. Even though he rarely had people over for dinner, cooking was one of those leisure activities that provided a sense of relaxation if not fulfillment. He would don an apron, and then the pots and pans would come out, along with knives, cooking spoons, and whatever else was in order. Just the week before, he’d prepared a lobster and linguine dish, then stood back and smiled at its simple beauty.
“Fit for a magazine cover,” he’d said as he surveyed the buttery plate flecked with the green of freshly chopped parsley. He inhaled the aroma of garlic and seafood. Had he been like those people who post every meal on Facebook or Instagram, he would have snapped a photo and uploaded it. Arnie shied away from such public displays.
But cooking was not on Arnie’s agenda for this night. He checked the time on his phone. Normally he would have poured himself a glass of wine or even made a vodka martini after putting on Bach’s cello concertos. He would sit on the sofa with stocking feet propped on the cocktail table, close his eyes, and let the undulating tenor notes of a cello swirl around him like an invisible balm. On this occasion, he only had a half hour before he would need to leave, so he quickly showered and picked out something to wear that was different from his office attire. The afternoon and the encounter with Rachel had faded into the background as he anticipated a relaxing evening with his boss and his wife. Plus, he was going to meet Harold’s brother and nephew. Although Arnie was not one to go up and introduce himself to people, he did enjoy good company when it was around. Away from the workplace—and without the tension caused by Rachel’s presence—the evening at Harold’s should be fun.
What could go wrong?
