Definitely Against Policy, page 6
He rubbed his chin. “That statement bugs me, Mary. I feel as if you’re penciling me into your calendar. Like you’re scheduling a fling as a reward for a job well done. And if I’m not willing, you’ll find some random man to do the deed.”
She chuckled. “Well, you are willing—and able—aren’t you?” When he didn’t laugh along, her face fell, and she stared at her plate. “Oh.” She stopped eating and shifted to face him. “That was crass. What I said. I’m sorry, Eli. I shouldn’t have presumed.”
He took her hands in his and chose his words with care. “I want to be with you, Mary. I vowed not to go down this path with you because we work together, but it feels so right I don’t want to stop. I also have certain conditions that must be met, and they depend on us, not on some external circumstance like whether I’ve met my sales targets.”
“Okay.”
She peered up at him, forehead furrowed, eyes solemn and contrite. Her lower lip quivered. A pang of guilt stabbed his gut for scolding her, however necessary.
He laced his fingers in hers to reassure her. “The first condition is that we don’t have sex. I’m not a boar servicing a sow. If we are to know each other intimately, unclothed, what we have together, what we do with each other, must be more than that. It must be sacred.” He paused to check that she was with him, and she nodded. “My second condition is exclusivity. No other men. Only me.”
Mary swallowed hard and nodded. Tears pooled in her eyes. He fumbled for his serviette and dabbed her tears with it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I spoke too harshly.”
She shook her head and smiled through her tears. “No, Eli.” She accepted the serviette from him, wiped her face, and blew her nose. “This is new for me. The way you’re speaking, the way you treat me, from your heart. I’ve never met anyone like you, ever before. I feel so…seen. Valued. You’re treating me as if I’m precious and I’m profoundly touched by that.”
“But you are precious, Mary. Can’t you see that?”
She shook her head. “Eli, what if I told you I wanted to, you know—‘know’ you today? What would you say?”
“I wouldn’t believe you. Your education is everything to you and you made a promise to yourself with the intention of keeping it. I would never violate that.”
“And if I hadn’t told you about the vow?”
“I can’t un-know it.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’d push the table aside and take you into my arms and roll around on the rug with you.”
“Can we still do that? With our clothes on?” asked Mary.
“Like fourteen-year-olds wrestling in the straw?”
“Yeah.”
Eli nudged the table away with his foot and kissed her again.
Chapter Five
“What do you think, Mama Klassen?” Dominic held up an ankle-length skirt. “Denim is such a practical fabric for the homestead, and you can add a pretty floral waistband whenever you’re with child.”
“That’s enough, Dominic,” Mary said crossly.
“Okay, Mrs. Klassen.”
“Stop calling me that! It is not, nor will it ever be, my name.”
“Right-e-o!”
“We’re wasting time. You told me you were going to help me, but all you do is make stupid jokes, and now the store’s about to close.”
“That’s not my fault.” Dominic mocked her in a goofy falsetto, “‘Just one more paper, one more ungrammatical failure of logic to mark, and then I’ll be ready, Dominic.’ That’s what you said, and that was at two o’clock! I put on my shopping shoes right after breakfast, girlfriend, so the blame for our tardiness is on you.”
“Whatever.” Mary shuffled through a discounted rack of blouses. “This one?”
“Salmon is not a power color,” Dominic said, shaking his head.
“How about this one?”
“It has sequins and flounces. You have neither the time nor skill to iron it. Plus, it’s ugly.”
“Okay…um…this one.”
“Yee-haw!” Dominic squealed. “A yoked shirt for line-dancin’ and varmint shootin’. You can embroider roses on the collar. Mr. Klassen will love it.”
Mary shifted hangers as if she were a panicked thief ransacking a closet. She’d left the laundry too long, and didn’t have anything to wear for the evening ahead or for work the next day. Dominic would nix anything pink, frilly, or fancy, and rightly so. Ditto odd designs and patterns. There. A plain black cotton shirt. “Is this a ‘yes’?”
“Mary. Please. You’re not an undertaker or a waitress. You can’t wear a black shirt with black trousers. Or navy or brown trousers, either.”
The harder she tried, the quicker Dominic shook his head, taking obvious pleasure in doing so. Mary sighed. “Maybe we should forget it for today.”
“This!” Dominic pulled a gunmetal blue satin shirt from the rack and held it up to her chest. “It flatters your skin tone, and you can wear it to work or après-work. Though not to the ladies’ prayer circle, mind.”
Mary ran her fingers over the fabric, so luxurious and silky in her hands, and checked the price tag. “Only twenty-three fifty. But I’d have to have it dry cleaned.”
“My dear, even coin-op machines have a delicate cycle. Buy it. Really. You simply must.”
Mary hesitated as twenty-three fifty transformed into a whopping twenty-three fifty in her mind.
Dominic turned her around and marched her to the fitting room. “Put it on, and then we’ll pay for it and meet your dreamboat. Eli can be the arbiter on whether or not you’ve found a bargain.”
****
Eli had never been kissed on the hand before, let alone by a cologne-doused man in a pinstriped suit with a carnation stuck in his jacket lapel. Dominic had seized his extended hand, knelt on one knee, and pressed his lips to Eli’s skin. Before Eli could react, Dominic performed a balletic maneuver, and was back on his feet again.
“Enchanté,” murmured Dominic, bowing gracefully.
Disarmed by shock, Eli burst out laughing. “You must be Dominic. The man behind the invitation.”
“Mary thought we should meet, and she graciously allowed me to borrow her phone.”
A pink-faced Mary shook her head. “He stole my phone.”
Dominic stood back on his heel and appraised Eli from head to toe. “He is everything you said and more, my dear.”
At once, Eli understood viscerally the expression ‘undressed with his eyes.’ Helplessly turning to Mary for rescue, he kissed her cheek, still cold from outdoors. Mary squeezed his arm, as if to signal that they were in the same boat—that, yes, Dominic was outrageous but he, Eli, could hold her hand and enjoy the ride.
“You’ve nabbed a table most excellent in this over-peopled public house,” Dominic pronounced as he hung his jacket on a hook.
Eli offered Mary the corner chair and seated himself. “I got here early and managed to grab it as the darts league was leaving.”
Early enough to have polished off a pint of ale while he calculated his commission on the sale of two units and shifted funds into his ETFs and Bitcoin account. He’d had a profitable day, and he was in a celebratory mood. People chatted in congenial clusters, a blues song thumped low from the jukebox, and Mary was radiant. And Dominic? Eli decided he liked him.
A few moments later, Eli’s tab included a martini for Dominic, a pint of cider for Mary, and another ale for himself. The evening commenced with a toast to the health of the trio assembled.
****
It was past two when Eli staggered through the door, and now he lay naked in bed, having woken abruptly with a prodromal hangover. He swept his hand over the bedside table to check the time, but his phone wasn’t there. Probably in his jacket, which formed part of the boozy, sweaty heap of clothing by his bed. He turned his pillow over to cool his neck and waited for the bed to stop revolving.
As he lay still, his scattered memories coalesced into semi-coherence. A sense of dread washed up from his belly. He should’ve called it a night after the second drink. Instead, he’d have to face Mary knowing that he’d taken to the dance floor with all the finesse of a spastic giraffe and confessed to “comforting” Claudia when Stephen was in rehab. Dominic had ordered shots when they were already flying high and instigated a game of his own invention that he’d named “Inappropriate.” But in the end, Eli was responsible for his own conduct and Mary might, very reasonably, reject him. If she remembered anything herself. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Where was his phone? And his wallet?
He sat up, waited for his stomach to settle, then bent to locate the items. Thank God, they were there. Time: 4:37. At least he didn’t have a headache—yet. He stepped over his clothes and went to the kitchen for a couple of preemptive Advil tablets and a large glass of water. Sleep was hopeless now.
Eli gazed through the kitchen window over the urban expanse to the north of the building. Millions of lights twinkled under a starless hazy-ink sky. The view from the seventeenth floor was of a world upside-down, the mirror image of a rural night of black fields under a starry firmament. Skin cool with boozy perspiration, Eli shivered. In this very moment, in every neighborhood, some people were drunk, and other people were cleaning up after them. People were committing sins, and other people were weeping for them. Most people simply slept. As should he.
But he couldn’t. Not yet.
He donned a sweatshirt and boxers and went to the living room to find something distracting to read that didn’t require a screen. There was the pile of mail he’d left on the table several days earlier. Flyers, fast-food coupons, a mass-mailed offer from a competitor to appraise his condo no strings attached! And a letter addressed in even cursive from Mrs. Abraham Klassen of Eden Springs. Grandma.
He tore the flap from the envelope and withdrew the missive. A child’s drawing of a fat, pink pig wearing a jeweled necklace and crown fluttered from its fold.
Dear Eli,
In his infinite wisdom, The Lord has seen fit to bless us with sound health and we pray you are enjoying the same. Jacob’s Ezra is only a month old and already eleven pounds and smiling.
The sap is running early this year. We burnt one batch of syrup, but your mother will find a use for it, and we have plenty to sell. Today I started the tomatoes and pepper seeds and finished a blanket for Esther’s hope chest so I’m not idle, though fine work is becoming harder with my eyes as they are.
Rebekah said she’d thank you herself, but in case she didn’t, I’m happy to report that she loves the pastels you sent her. She’s very good at animals, especially horses, and I have a fine chestnut pony on my bedroom wall—though perhaps its eyelashes, mane, and tail are longer and more colorful than one would see on a live horse. I’ve stuck in a picture she drew of a piglet. Becky’s quite the little artist at age 8, isn’t she?! She misses her Uncle Eli. We all do.
Now–My Big News!! The Holley Eye Clinic has given me a date for my cataract surgery. May 8th at 9:10 a.m. I’ll arrive on the afternoon train on May 7th, and I don’t wish to impose, but if you would please send me a key to your condominium, you don’t have to find me at the station. Jacob will come with me–I can’t lift anything heavy after the surgery –and he knows his way around Toronto, having attended the Ambassadors for Christ conference a few years ago. I have a check-up to make sure my eyes are good on the 9th and then home, but no bending or lifting. Your poor mother will find me quite useless in the garden!!!
Do you need anything, Eli? I’ll bring your favorite elderberry jam and some gherkins and summer sausage. Don’t be shy. We’ve plenty of surplus, and before long we’ll be canning again so we can bring whatever you like.
My eyes are tired, so I’ll sign off for now. I’ll close by saying that it’s a blessing you live in the city with my surgery and all, but I pray every day that the Lord will lead you back to us.
Oceans of Love,
Grandma
Eli refolded the letter and tucked it into its envelope. Becky’s piglet would take place of pride on the fridge when he could muster the energy to tape it up. Though he’d mail a key so Grandma wouldn’t worry over her plan, he’d drive her to Toronto himself. If she’d packed her suitcase, he needn’t endure more than a meal in his childhood home. Jacob would be deprived of an excuse to escape from labor during the busiest month on the farm and it would spare Eli three days of Jacob’s interminable prayer for the younger, prodigal brother who was lost in the temptations of Gomorrah.
A sour brimstone of bile bubbled at the back of his throat and the first drumbeats of a headache thudded in his forehead. The poisons of the previous night coursed through his veins, leaving him as pathetic and limp as a grotty dishrag. His thoughts kept twisting back to the previous night.
He’d have to do serious damage control followed by some uncomfortably honest soul-searching.
The previous night he’d betrayed Claudia—and for what? To win Dominic’s ridiculous drinking game that, in reality, turned the winner into the loser through sordid confession. Dominic was the declared victor for his shocking accounts of a men-only club he frequented, but even in his alcoholic daze, Eli hadn’t missed the chill in Mary’s attitude after his own “contribution” to the game. Her body went rigid, and she wouldn’t meet his eye until she was too drunk to remember that she was disappointed in him.
He had to see her. Apologize. And do much, much better whether she accepted his apology or not.
The eastern sky glowed in an indigo light. In Eden Springs, birds—including the ancient, one-eyed rooster the girls named “Rufus”—would be waking and bragging to the world about it. Apart from a single, wayward pigeon that had flown onto the balcony, the condo was devoid of nonhuman life. Still, even here, dawn broke, a reminder that the earth had its own eternal rhythm, however colossal his screwup.
They were due to meet at In-Spire at nine—if Mary showed up. One more Advil to top up, a glass of water, and then, if possible, a shred of sleep.
****
Mary awoke in the same clothes she’d worn last night. Mouth furry, stomach somersaulting, head pounding. Even breathing hurt. Gradually her senses sharpened, and she was relieved to discover that she was alone in her bed. As she wiped the night from her eyes, her memories vacillated between crystal clarity and cloudy obscurity, as if she were peering through a windshield with its wipers swishing back and forth in sleet. Dominic snored in the next room and thank God for that, as she was in no shape to withstand a replay of her debauchery.
She was due at the sales office at nine. Sunlight spilled around the edges of the blinds. It was well and truly Sunday morning. Oh God! So late! According to the clock radio, 8:47, which meant it was only 8:42—a miniscule mercy of five minutes, but she’d take it.
Gingerly rising from a tangle of sheets, she located her phone on the desk where she always left it, thank the gods for habit. She tapped a message to Eli. —Hey. I’m running late. Be there in about 45 mins.—” For some reason, the sight of his name brought acid to her tongue.
She shed her clothes and showered away the toxic perspiration and stale odor of Saturday night, toweled off, and returned to her room to cobble together an outfit. As she rummaged through her drawer for a clean bra and underwear, the phrase “Dress like Claudia” popped into her head. A goddam push-up bra? Oh no.
Oh no, oh no, oh no. “Inappropriate.” That’d been the game. Mary collapsed onto the bed and blocked her eyes with one arm. The evil genius, who claimed status of best friend, slept in placid contentment in the next room while her memories bounced like spiked bingo balls inside her skull. Dominic had ordered a round of tequila and they’d spilled their guts, depravities and all. After several go-arounds of mild revelation—lies on a resume, smoking weed at a funeral, soaping church windows—the final round went off the rails in spectacular fashion.
Dominic confessed to wearing a saddle and bridle get-up at the Peacock Club and being mounted by several men. Big hairy deal, though Eli looked as if he’d choked on a tequila worm. She admitted to having sex with the father of a child she babysat in her senior year of high school. But Eli’s revelation— that took the cake. He’d mercy-fucked Claudia and bragged about it.
Nearly nine. Mary got up and put on her underwear, a vintage Pearl Jam T-shirt, and a pair of faded jeans. Today she wouldn’t dress like Claudia. She’d defend her.
Chapter Six
Eli brewed a pot of coffee, bracing, strong, and medicinal. Yesterday he’d accepted delivery of some display panels with images of the In-Spire concept as well as a scale model of the project in its future form. At the center of a broad plank stood a miniature condo tower topped with a garden of cotton-swab trees and surrounded by a neighborhood of matchboxes and ridged plaster streets, all to meticulous scale. The very thought of its maker bent in concentration over the mat-sized streetscape made his brain swell. He’d need Mary’s help to install this masterpiece of commercially motivated sculpture on the unassembled table that accompanied it.
He poured himself a mug of coffee, held it under his nose like smelling salts, and slurped to cool the liquid before it reached his tongue. Still, it burnt like molten tar in his mouth. Through the front door window, he spotted Mary searching through her rucksack for her keys.
Steady. Deep breath. Give nothing away and let her do the talking. If he were lucky, she wouldn’t remember anything. He opened the unlocked door for her.
A jean jacket and black T-shirt, ponytail, no makeup. Mary could pass for a teenager despite her twenty-six years and a rough night. She wasn’t dressed for work. Was she about to quit? Please, God, no. If it came to that, he’d deal—an unearned cut of yesterday’s sales to buy him a chance of apology and redemption. What the hell? Forgiveness couldn’t be bought. He’d shut the fuck up and listen.
“Coffee?” Eli asked in greeting.
Mary nodded without looking at him. The silent treatment. Heart pounding in his sick chest, he went to the kitchenette and poured her a mug. Black, like his. They were alike, yet worlds apart. Worlds to explore and he’d wrecked it. Eli returned and handed the steaming mug to her. She blew on it and took a careful sip.
