“We could get married.”
“Oh, now there’s a proposal for you.” Jenna turned and showed Andrew her back. “That’s not exactly how I dreamed of this moment. Just so you know.”
“C’mon. What do you want me to say? They said only spouses. No girlfriends. I don’t have a choice.”
“Bullshit. You have a choice,” Jenna replied, her back still to Andrew. “You could say no.”
“And not go?” Andrew stepped around Jenna to face her. She turned her back to him again. In the glimpse he got of her face, he saw her tears.
Waterworks. Christ.
“I can’t believe you would say that. This internship is the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I am going to Japan for a year. If you want to get married, I will marry you so you can go.”
Jenna spun back to face him, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. “And what about my life? What about my career? Not to mention what the hell I’m supposed to do in Japan for a year. I don’t even want to go. Did you know that?”
“No. I didn’t, actually.”
“Ya wanna know why you didn’t know that? Because you never asked me!”
She fled to the bathroom and slammed the door. Andrew could hear her breaking down into full-on sobbing.
“Fuck,” he said aloud.
He took a deep breath, walked to the bathroom and knocked lightly.
“Jenna? Honey, it’s ok. We’ll figure this out. May I come in?”
(Click)
I guess that’s a no.
Narita Airport came into view. Fourteen hours in the air sucked. There’s just no other way to put it. Andrew had watched three movies, got drunk and sobered up twice and thought about Jenna through it all. They broke up. After a year and a half together, it was over.
As he sat, stuffed into his seat on the airliner, downing drink after drink, he ran through a litany of memories of her. Great memories. Walking, hand in hand, barefoot in the white sand along the shore of Lake Michigan; over the lake, a watercolor sunset so beautiful that van Gogh would had trouble matching its beauty on canvas. Winter Sunday mornings, sitting on the floor next to each other, in front of the couch, each with a laptop on the coffee table as they silently reveled in each other’s company.
When the Jack Daniels was at full effect, he’d come to a conclusion.
Fuck her.
He de-planed at Narita a free man, free from the bonds of a woman he loved, that refused to support him or the things that were most important to him. After going through Customs and Immigration, he saw a beautiful, young Japanese woman holding a sign with the name of the internship program on it.
Smiling broadly, he stepped up and said, “Are you looking for me?”
The girl looked at the floor in deference and said with a heavy Japanese accent, “Can you please tell me your name?”
And so began a three month affair with Mika san. She left him when her father finally told her that she had to break up with this American ass before she brought any more dishonor on their family.
Fuck her too.
During the course of his internship he’d also date two girls from the program, one from St. Louis and another from Atlanta. Both dumped him after a few weeks.
And fuck both of them while we’re at it.
After returning to the States, he went on a fast track at work. He was one of the corporate young guns, destined to take over the company someday. He bought a five bedroom house, an Escalade and married himself a trophy wife. Three years later, on the day he was to take off for a Christmas break, he got a phone call.
“Yeah, Bob, what do you need?”
“Hey, Andrew, can you come down here to my office for a minute?”
Andrew looked at his Rolex. “Uh, yeah I guess so.”
He stepped into his boss’s office, laptop in tow. He took a seat and popped it open. “Can you make this quick?” he asked pecking away. “I’ve got courtside tickets for the Cavs tonight so I need to get out of here.”
With a deep sigh, Bob said, “You’ll make your game. Um well. This is…Andrew? ANDREW!”
“Hm? Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“Andrew, I need you to close the laptop, please. I’m serious. As a matter of fact, may I have it?”
Andrew looked up. “What? You want my laptop?”
“You can close out whatever you have open. I don’t care about that,” Bob said, his arm outstretched.
“Okay. Well good, ’cause I was just putting a couple hundred bucks on this game.”
Andrew passed the laptop to his boss. “And can I see your phone too?”
“My phone? What’s going on here?”
“Just give it to me please.”
With a deep frown, Andrew reached into the inside pocked of his suit and passed his phone to his boss.
“There. Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”
Bob took a deep breath. “Well, these things are never easy, so I’m going to stop beating around the bush. We’re going to have to let you go.”
“You’re firing me? What the fuck, Bob? You can’t fire me. I haven’t even had a warning.”
“Um, actually I can and I have here.” He pointed to a stack of papers on his desk. “Your last three PDR’s. They all clearly show that your work has been rated as substandard.”
“Oh, c’mon, everybody knows those PDR’s are bullshit. No one pays any attention to them. Jim filled those out and he’s just a dick who doesn’t like me.”
“I’m afraid they’re not bullshit and your accounts are the worst performing in the entire company. You’ve driven away more clients than you’ve brought in and this argument, like your employment here, is over. And don’t worry about your severance package. It’s quite equitable. More than you deserve.”
Six months later, the house, the Escalade, the wife and most of the severance package were gone. He had to move into a cheap downtown apartment. He spent a lot of time in that little apartment drunk and in tears.
How did I become such an asshole? I wasn’t always one, was I? God, how did anyone stand me?
As he roamed aimlessly down the street one day, like he did most days, he passed a coffee shop. He must have walked past the place a hundred times and never noticed it was there. But it wasn’t just the shop that he noticed. There was a sign in the window that read “Business for Sale”. Andrew had just enough severance money left to buy the place.
A year later, he was behind the bar, washing up some cups when he heard a customer say, “Excuse me, I’ll have a white mocha please, tall.”
He looked up from his dishes. “Sure, I’ll just — Jenna?”
She furrowed her brow. “Yes. I’m Jenna. Do I know you?”
Andrew smiled wide. “Jenna. It’s me, Andrew.”
A wave of recognition came over her face. She covered her mouth with both hands. “Oh my gosh! Andrew? Is it really you?”
“In the flesh.”
She looked him up and down, nodding. “I must say the ponytail and beard suit you.”
He touched his ponytail. “Oh, well, yeah. If you’re gonna own a coffee shop, you gotta look the part.”
As he made the mocha, he said, “Um, are you with anyone? May I join you for just a moment?”
“No, I’m alone and yes, you may.”
He stepped out from behind the bar, carrying her mocha and a cup of coffee for himself. She took a seat at a table. Andrew set the drinks down, turned a chair around and sat. “Listen, I don’t want to take up a lot of your time. I just wanted to apologize.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yeah, I was a major asshole with you and, um, pretty much everybody. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but it took losing a six figure job, a million dollar house and a wife before I finally came to my senses. So I traded in my suit for a flannel shirt and jeans.”
With a warm smile, she said, “It’s okay, Andrew. We were so young.”
Andrew stared into his coffee for a moment. Looking up he said, “May I ask, uh, are you, um, I mean I don’t see a ring, are you…?”
“Married? No. Divorced.”
“Okay, cool. Oh, sorry, that was callous. I meant…um, it’s just good that, you know, you’re divorced…no… uh…”
“Why, Andrew James Savard, are you stammering while trying to talk to a girl? How long has that been going on?”
With an awkward smile, he said, “Please don’t rub it in. It’s definitely a new development. I uh, I kinda lost my game.”
“Well, I think I like this new and improved Andrew with the ponytail, the beard, the flannel shirt and the stammering.”
He looked up from his coffee again. “Really?”
“Really,” she replied, beaming.
“Enough to go out on a date with me?” He put his hands over his face. “Oh, God, that was too quick. I’m so sorry. It’s okay if you say no. I would totally get it. You don’t have to go out with me…”
“Andrew!”
“Huh?”
“Stop it. I’d be happy to go out with you.”
“You would?”
“Yeah. I would.”
