The Kissing Game Page 3

  “Yes,” I say. “I put them in your office, on top of the filing cabinet.”

  “Boxed?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Robert contorts his brows at me. Does he feel weird yet?

  I sip.

  The two interns observe our interaction, the looks on their faces suggesting they think Robert keeps me locked in a mud-walled dungeon, only letting me out for work or events. I smile at them the way a school teacher smiles at students. They smile weakly back. Together we are an advertisement for awkwardness. Peripherally, I watch Robert gulp down the last few swigs of his piña colada, and I’m reminded of those sacred moments at church when people drink the sacrament, the supposed blood of Jesus. Sweet redemption. I can only pray that Robert gets tottered enough to find me more attractive than a clay pot.

  Robert clasps his hands loosely in his lap and seems to take pleasure watching the lawyers and staff grazing at other tables.

  “Robert,” I begin sheepishly. Phase one of my plan. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind walking me down to the BART station over on Market Street on our way out? I’m worried about walking alone so late at night.”

  Robert looks at me as if I’m a headless child.

  “Walk you?” he echoes, scrunching his pretty face.

  The interns hold still like ice, waiting for what happens next. Robert’s eyes look dark blue and mottled, cranky stone.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s going to be late, and dark. I’m your assistant, so I would really appreciate it, if you could. I don’t want to get robbed, or stabbed, or pillaged,” I say. My chest feels electric.

  His eyebrows are suddenly crazed hats to his lovely eyes. It takes him about a week to answer. “I suppose so,” he replies. And then we sit there silently like enemies who’ve just signed a treaty.

  I sip.

  “But why can’t you walk with Todd?” Robert asks all of a sudden. The crazed hats are still there.

  “Todd and Henry are leaving together later, and I need to catch the last bus from my station.”

  Does Robert suspect? Has he sewn together my gestures and actions tonight and realized what’s up? Did his drink taste funny?

  Thankfully, the Chairman begins his expected pilgrimage toward the small podium that stands like a little steeple at the far end of the banquet hall. He approaches in the same manner I would imagine Humpty Dumpty approaching the wall. He, too, is somewhat bald and round. Across the room, I see Henry who stops talking to the good-looking intern and pays attention to his boss at the podium. For a minute, the Chairman stands silently watching the churning crowd. Then he shifts to one side and addresses us in a faraway voice.

  For at least thirty minutes, we listen to him blab about the firm, lawyers, and interns. Swirling toilet water is more exiting. While listening, I feel any remnant of life inside me draining, as if everyone present is being silently dismantled and carted away limb by limb. See, this is the problem with partners. Their minions have showered them with so much fake accolades that common sense has winnowed away. He is ignorant to the fact his audience is about two blinks away from unconsciousness.

  Robert yawns.

  Someone sneezes.

  Far off, I hear someone cough. The sound echoes like a distant avalanche.

  Perhaps from sitting in the same position for so long, my arms feel like wax. I cross my legs and scoot in my seat. Then I look up. The ceiling overhead is suddenly a furling mass that exhales thinly in the yellow light. The chandeliers are now crystal trees kicking yellow through their flickering leaves. The room has lost its balance. It feels shapeless.

  “You okay, Caroline?” one of the interns asks me. I don’t know which one. Robert turns his head toward me. Through a thin veil of glassy haze, I observe Robert leaning forward to grab my arm. Why is he grabbing my arm?—is all I can think. In the process of reacting so quickly, however, Robert knocks his empty plate into his piña colada glass. It clanks loudly. Several heads turn.

  But why are Robert’s reflexes are so good when he should be a swell of frayed consciousness right now? I feel Robert pulling me into an upright position. I hadn’t realized I was off-kilter. The good news is that Robert has apparently found me less revolting than a clay pot. The plan just might be working.

  A woman wearing tall red heels walks by, escaping no doubt. I briefly envy her as the Chairman drones through a steady stream of pointless steam out of the orifice in his face. When he’s done, it feels as though I’ve aged ten years. He lays down his pen, which he never used the whole time he was talking as far as I can tell. Then he waits for the fireworks of applause. Several interns stand clapping, ready to throw hats in the air if they had some. The rest of us clap like the dead.

  “He’s a pollywog, isn’t he?” I say. I don’t know why. I don’t even know what a pollywog is. A frog? A pond? Not sure. Robert tilts his head at me. The two interns have entirely given up their attention to this table. Instead, their bodies are positioned toward the exit sign, ready to spring. All they need is an excuse. A fire. An earthquake. Gunshots perhaps.

  The Chairman bends his head to shake some intern’s hand. Yes, I think, he’s a promising politician just one baby-kiss away from the presidency. Henry and Todd look a hundred miles away. I don’t even think they could see me if I waved right now.

  “Caroline.” I turn to look at Robert. He dusts off his pants, as if they’re dirty, but they’re not. They’re never dirty. He looks as if he’s ready to lunge himself. “Caroline?” he leans into me and whispers this time. “Are you alright? Do you feel ill?” Why does his voice sound like it’s traveling through a water-filled cylinder?

  For some reason, the room has changed. The tables are thirty miles apart. Sparks from the chandeliers spin through the air. I’m a solitary encampment that has shrunk into my chair. And now, the table in front of me is a round tile ascending like a balloon. I feel Robert’s hand grab my shoulder. Then his other hand comes around me, his fingers hooking into my armpit.

  “Brandon, William, help me, quietly,” he yell whispers to the interns sitting across from us. Why is he so urgent? There’s a flurry of suits around me swiftly. Ah yes, I think. Those are the interns’ names. Brandon and William. I had totally forgotten.

  “Don’t make a scene,” Robert growls at them. Such a familiar growl too; it’s almost comforting. “Just help me get her out the exit doors over there.” Robert tosses his head, gesturing to the right of us, where just a few feet away is an exit door. I feel Robert’s breath on my cheek, his arm like a wall of rope-muscle holding me up.

  I realize I’m standing and walking, but my feet feel like boots and the air grows long and skinny around me. A couple faces at a nearby banquet table watch us as we exit, as if we’re the most exciting event of the evening. I’m sure we are. A food-server person wearing black and white hustles to open the exit door for us. The two interns walk tightly around Robert and me, mostly shielding our departure from view.

  Next thing I know, all four of us are standing the interior courtyard of the lobby, which seems to have tumbleweed rolling through it compared to the room we just escaped from. The two interns are now shipman waiting for their captain’s next command. “You can go now,” Robert scolds them rather than thanking them. Briefly I feel pity for them as they nod and fold themselves back through the door we came out of.

  And now it’s just me and my boss standing there. He’s holding my purse.

  “Caroline, how much did you drink to night?” Robert asks me. I feel his knuckles under my arm.

  “Drink?” I reply. “I just had some piña colada, like you did.” I point at him.

  He mumble-grunts, pulling me along. We are gliding now toward the elevators. The fountain nearby swishes water through green fronds, giving the appearance that the plants are vomiting upwards. The place smells sparkly and feels windy. Big glass walls flank the elevators. I remind myself that I’m going to have to make my move soon, while we’re in the elevator. The security cameras must capture
the evidence. For some reason, I’m not afraid.

  “Did you drink anything before you got here tonight?” His face is close enough to mine that a strand of my long red hair sticks to the stubble of his cheek. He presses the button. Then he swats my hair off his face.

  “No,” I answer.

  The elevator dings, and the doors swing open. I can feel Robert hitching his arm under me as he pulls me inside. I must weigh a ton the way he’s toiling, but I feel feathery. With curiosity, I watch as he presses the “G” button for the garage. The elevator’s dark wood walls make Robert’s face look like that of a pretty demon god. Oh mister, I think. I’ve never been this close to his curly lashes.

  “You have nice lashes,” I confess in a gust. I’m not sure why.

  There’s a measured second before the elevator wobbles in a downward direction. Robert looks down for some reason, so I do too. His legs remind me of race horses’, the way the muscles tense in the thighs.

  “Uh-huh,” is all he says, as if he’s heard that statement a billion times. He really hates me. Really, really hates me. Good thing I had a little alcohol. Elixir of confidence.

  And so here we are in the elevator alone. It’s so clichéd, isn’t it? If we were two people in a sappy romance book, this would be the moment when we’d kiss. I’d be cat-clawing his hair, and he’d be ruinously ravaging me. We’d be two sex-starved dunes of pheromones colliding into an explosion of elevator raunchiness. His hands would be pumicing the crests of my tiny breasts beneath my dress. My leg would be leeching around his backside. My eyes roll just thinking about it.

  Still, Robert stands close enough that I can smell the piña colada on his breath. Coconut, pineapple. I can feel his cupped fingers around me. But how do I take that lunge into the dark side with someone I hate so very much? How do I cross that irrevocable threshold from sanity to utter insanity? It feels like a mountain I’ll never be able to climb. Still, he’s touching me, so the Xanax must be working.

  So now I ask myself: What is the worst outcome? He could laugh at me, push me away, scold me. All possibilities. Even so, whatever happens between us in this elevator would be just one more sharp piece of glass in a pile of sharp pieces of glass. To rouse my confidence, I think of history books containing all those stories about liberated people, the pictures of women pleading for suffrage, migrant farm workers holding signs and marching in 100 degree heat for safer working conditions. Malcolm X. The Black Panther party—if only they all had red hair, pale skin, and freckles—and fought for liberation from tyrannical lawyers.

  Like Robin Hood, I turn myself toward the mountain beside me. Instinctively, Robert removes his hand from me and twists away. He looks as if a heavy bag has just been slung on his shoulder. His reaction should make me feel rejected, but I don’t. I feel fuzzy. Incubated. Ready to hatch. He looks at me as if I’m that headless child again. Instead of backing down, I stand there contemplating the two years of mistreatment, the late night speculation about my self-worth, the mutilated remains of my confidence, the constant fear that he’ll erupt about timesheets, misspelled words, perfume smells, misplaced documents. And the cow sucking its tongue.

  And then I’m there. Right there in front of him. Face to face, so close I feel him breathing on me dimly. I see the little stubble hairs on his chin. Close up, his beauty becomes apocryphal.

  Of course, I plunge--my lips in the abyss. Only the abyss feels warm, as if I’m in Mexico, lying on some beach near a wild jungle kissing a stranger. Next, I hear my purse drop from Robert’s hand. Then I feel both his hands on my back. Ah yes, instruments of the devil. And now he’s pulling me into him. Somehow I’ve passed through myself and stand at the boundary between hell and emancipation. His hands feel like icepacks on my back. He smells of nakedness. His lips are silvery affliction—the whipping before the freedom. He kisses with the sort of evil abandon that starts wars, overturns dictatorships, kills foreign powers. I’m not surprised. If I didn’t hate him so very much, I would say, without speculation, the kiss might be worthy of writing about in a book. He tilts his head now, his mouth still working while he rubs his cool palm up the skin on my back. I feel his panted knees on my bare thigh. He’s very tall, I think. It’s a good thing I’m in heels.

  In Robert’s mind, he probably considers himself a victor. An attractive man with yet another woman throwing herself at him. This exchange is likely a frequent occurrence for him, frequent enough to contribute to his gargantuan arrogance. Yet in my mind, I’m the victor. I’m the savage with the war-painted face. And he’s so close to the flames that I can smell his burning flesh and feel the security camera capturing us. I would dance around the fire and chant if I didn’t feel so pondering and indulgent at the moment. Presently my arms seem confused by the enormity of the situation as they wrap around Roberts neck. It feels so odd. My brain seems to ask itself—you realize you’re kissing your boss, right?

  And then the elevator doors fling open and the wind throws back my hair. The smell of concrete and rubber blasts in from the parking garage.

  With that abrupt change in atmosphere, Robert disengages himself from me as if someone has pressed the “stop” button on us. He shoves me away. His hands seem to say, “Don’t come any closer.” We’re instantly two strangers disconnected, studying each other, only I feel as though I’ve just dismounted a wild animal who for some reason is shimmering.

  Robert picks up my purse from the elevator floor and points it at me like a weapon. Then he holds the elevator door open with his other hand so it won’t close. “Caroline,” he says calmly. His voice is a tree. A breathless, angry tree. “Can you walk?”

  “Of course I can walk.” Stupid question.

  I walk, more like slog, out of the elevator toward the massive underground cave that is the parking garage. I feel a hand tap my shoulder. “This way,” he says. I turn and follow him. Almost candle-lit, the orange lights in the garage spread glow out of corners and crevices. Immense concrete legs coming from forty floors above meet the earth down here, their strength reigned in below our feet. The cool air inside the garage holds its breath while my heels clack and echo. Around us, cars are parked on a downhill grade, which makes me feel billowing. To catch my balance, I stop but then feel Robert’s arm hooking around me, this time around my waist. I see we’re cruising toward his brand new black BMW. This makes me frown. There should be a law that only nice people get to drive nice cars. Bad people should have to drive beat-up Yugos. But the world isn’t fair.

  He opens the door for me, and I slip inside. The seats are leather pillows. The door clicks expensively shut. Robert then walks around, gets in, hands me my purse, and starts the engine. It’s a racehorse of the topmost quality.

  “You drive a real piece of junk, don’t you?” I say.

  Although he says nothing, his face casts conflicting shadows at me while he backs out of the parking spot. As he drives out of the garage toward Market Street, the darkness doesn’t hamper his good looks. The shadows cross his face, giving him a fabled quality. He also looks as if the car was just made for him this morning, the seat designed for his body, the steering wheel for his hands. The interior consists of finely polished black leather and shiny parts spliced together. I would have expected music in his car—heavy metal, classical, something extreme. Instead silence. Just knives and pistols in his eyes. I’m about to ask him if he should be driving in his condition, but then I think he seems fine. I, on the other hand, I feel too long-legged and candle-like to speak. My teeth also feel soft.

  Still, in the back of my mind, fire erupts. I begin to worry slightly whether I should be worrying. He just sits there driving, tall and fiery, his smoldering knuckles locked onto the steering wheel. I wonder what is going to happen tomorrow at work. What is he going to say to me? Will he yell? Yelling is always a possibility with Robert. Will I cry like a cow? Also possible. Then again, haven’t I been his casualty long enough? Yet why does my flesh feel so outrageous?

  When his car turns onto Market St
reet, he asks me in a voice that reminds me of butcher paper, “Where do you live?”

  You can just drop me off at the bus stop, I almost say, but I mumble my address instead.

  Then I tuck my head into the cushy spot of the passenger seat and partially evacuate my body. The sound of the engine whitewashes my brain as we fly through the glittering streets of San Francisco at night.

  Chapter 3

  “Cada loco con su tema.”

  Each madman on his high horse.

  Robert pulls his BMW up to my eight-unit timeworn apartment complex and parallel parks without effort. In my part of town, his car feels exotic and out of place. Silent and empty, the streets of my neighborhood look wholly depopulated, as if all the people have been murdered or killed by a plague. It can’t be much past 10:00 p.m., but the poor apparently get up early. Even though I have no idea where Robert lives, I imagine his street at this hour. It would be lit up with golden lights that cauterize the night. Right now only a moth-light is on inside Ted’s apartment. Through the sliding-glass doors of the ground-floor, I can see Ted crouching over a thick book at his kitchen table.

  Having exited the car, Robert walks around to open my door. After he commandeers me, he holds my elbow steady while we hoof-clop along the walkway toward the stairs. All the while I’m grappling with the wounded state of my brain. Why do I feel so strange? Did the bartender put more alcohol in my drink than bartenders usually do? Am I such a lightweight that one drink is the same as a barrel-full to my system? I don’t drink often, so perhaps.

  As Robert walks me up the stairs, he seems to have severed himself from the present moment. He’s silent, yet I can see a vein pulsating in his temple. Watching him makes me stumble. He has to step backwards on the stairs to keep us both from tumbling.

  “Watch where you’re going!” he grumbles. I wonder if the dose of Xanax I gave him is wearing off. He must feel more himself now. He must be fully contemplating the terrible nature of his situation. Victory is sweet indeed.